New music on disc.
Northwest | IITempel Arts (CD/DL) Softly intro-ing, Wind opens the sophomore album from Northwest. Simply titled II, Mariuca García-Lomas’ throaty incantations parallel a wispy pedal organ. ‘Here comes the wind from the northwest…’ and the resolute invitation to, ‘let the rain fall on your head…’ The eerie, nearly arduous beauty of the second track Winterland […]
mpala garoo | Vaya AdelanteShimmering Mood Records (CD/DL) Dark aural movements comprise Vaya Adelante by mpala garoo. Compliments a la Shimmering Moods Records, the trio delivers an album whose titular meaning is drawn from a letter of William S. Burroughs to Ginsberg. Apparently, the beats were facing the identity crashing effects of mortality and Ayahuasca. […]
loscil | lifelikeFrond (CD/DL) Full of tenderly keyed minimalist melodies, the softly phrased tracks that fill Lifelike by Loscil explore flora, fauna, humanity and earthen structures. The similes evoke various contemplations, primarily of material subjects. From the onset, sweeping synths wash out understated electronic rhythms. There’s just enough beat to hinge the ambiences with subdued […]
Costis Drygianakis | The ApproachHxoi Kato Apo to Spiti (CD/DL) I read the accompanying text simultaneously to listening through The Approach by Costis Drygianakis. I can’t recommend experiencing this contemporary orchestra any other way. Created from January 2018 through January 2019, now presented in a limited pressing of 300 copies. The two-track (each over a […]
Chantal Dumas | Oscillations planétairesempreints DIGITALes (CD/DL) Out of Montreal’s electroacoustic/acousmatic spearhead in sound art, empeintes DIGITALes, comes Chantal Dumas’ debut, Oscillations planétaires [Planetary Oscillations]. With a press kit that reads like a science textbook, the album explores some of Earth’s more intimate phenomena. Some of these oscillations are familiar: quakes and geysers. Other naturally occurring […]
Reza Solatipour The GateEighth Tower Records (CD/CS/DL) Italy’s Raffaele Pezzella has slowly and methodically been making a name for himself in the experimental world. His labels Unexplained Sounds and its off-shoot, the more ambient focused Eighth Tower, have been issuing experimental fringe music, nearing cult like status in avant circles. Pezzella in recent years has […]
Still und Dunkel | AbandonedHallow Ground (LP/CD/DL) From the opening seconds of searing harsh noise rasp like a contact mic applied to a sheet of metal unto cat-claw-on-a-chalkboard effect, through electronic swells and resting in a spell of quick-clicking, Abandoned (English, ‘quiet and dark’) by Still und Dunkel rips through dynamic (d)evolutionary spaces. I should […]
leastupperbound | domestic tapes Vol.IISecret Press (CD/CS/DL) domestic tapes Vol.II by leastupperbound is now released ten years aged and remastered with an extra bonus track! Saleverio Rosi teams up with Czechian imprint Secret Press to bring forth the cool ambient stuff once delivered by Laverna and Discreetrecords. These tapes, arranged numerically simply one through seven […]
A duo of November releases show the strong and distinct presence by two interesting women who bring something new to the international experimental music circuit. The contributions herein addressed a diverse range from white-noise to trance-ambient and favor longer form tracks. Their spectrum runs from linear to repetitious in noteworthy serenity; electronic and highly processed […]
Gabriele Mitelli | The World Behind the SkinWeInsist! Records (CD/DL) The release contains two poetic prose premises (written by Nicola Di Croce and Rob Mazurek) however, the four track album The World Behind the Skin by Gabriele Mitelli remains shrouded in suspense, harsh-romanticism, even with hints of passive-aggression. The self-aware sonic abstractions take on a […]
Åyusp | Åyuspself-released (CD) The Sheffield (UK) duo isn’t shy about their shared kosmische influence. They (Graham McElearney and Paul Mills) have put together a cosmic joy-ride of uniquely blended stylings with the self-titled album, Åyusp [“Oy-usp”]. An overall concept isn’t readily exoteric. However, the October 7th release is made-up of five heady tracks which cumulatively […]
Kajsa Lindgren | Everyone Is HereWarm Winters Ltd (DL/CD/CS) In the (not necessarily) experimental music ambit, a recent surge of political correctness in regard to gender equality has generated mixed results. If on the one hand a few interesting talents were indeed brought to light, and old pioneers were rescued from unmerited anonymity (Else Marie Pade just […]
Here are two space-oriented experimental electro-ambient albums released in October. One follows in November. While each graft rhythmic beats and melodic undulations, the three conceptualize space very differently. Nonlin by Steve Hauschildt (released October 25) conveys a vacuum-effect at odds with nature’s patterned regenerations. Released October 13th, Collecting Space by QST (Frans de Waard) presents […]
Erik Levander | InåtForwind (CD/DL) Swede Erik Levender presents Inåt (translation: Inwards). Listeners have about thirty seconds to self-reflect before being pummeled with a devastating drop. The synth-tones like wire; meshed together to form uneasy quakes. High-pitched frequencies counter-weight luridly grim moments of de facto doom. The cover art (Katharina Ira Allenberg) suggests a stoney self-examination; the […]
Swans Leaving Meaning Young God Records (LP/CD/DL) Few bands have successfully navigated through such a long history of stylistic changes, personnel upheavals and emotional shifts as Swans. It helps that now after so many eras and bands and genres head Swan boss Michael Gira is officially christening what we have known for decades. That Swans […]
Seasons (pre-din) | Distortions of a CellForwind (CD/DL) If within the first few moments of Distortion of a Cell one is not enraptured by the rhythmic noise and pulsating mechanical beats, listeners may have neglected the grand contemplative noise that Seasons (pre-din) generates in this cathartic odyssey. The first three tracks evolve in a theme […]
Dans les arbres | VolatilSOFA (CD/DL) Volatile may refer to this single track album’s recording situation – live, a first for Dans les arbres. The prolifically touring quartet offers a recording set of fifty three minutes and change. Though the structured improv is airy, spacious and largely sparse, there isn’t a dull moment. Right away […]
PYUR | Oratorio For the UnderworldSubtext Recordings (CD/DL) Enter the PYUR (Sophie Schnell’s) ‘upside-down’ in Oratorio For the Underworld. If it seems pretentious to summon the ‘oratorio’ title (joining the most popular: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, and Haydn’s The Creation) there may be, for the listener, an apprehension of grandiose expectations. However, listeners are in for a contemporary dark-electro […]
Jon Rose & Alvin Curran | Café Grand AbyssRer Megacorp (CD/DL) Musicians operating in the realm of instant synthesis (this usually translates as “finest improvisers”) are defined by the ability to exploit the elusive qualities of information overload. What appears as a chaotic, and ultimately insufferable cacophony to idle ears and brains transmits instead a refreshing sensation […]
ESSi | Vital CreaturesRamp Local (LP/CD/DL) Brooklyn duo Essi’s debut album Vital Creatures is an impressive first offering. The duo consisting of virtuoso guitarist and vocalist Jessica Ackerley and drummer Rick Daniel escorts the listener through 14 tracks that confound genres. I am hard-pressed to categorize the music contained here, moods shift, tones weave in […]
Telefon Tel Aviv | Dreams Are Not EnoughGhostly International (DL/LP/CD) ‘Defiantly spaced-out post-wave…’ ‘Gravelly loops/samples.’ ‘Hydra; downtempo aesthetic.’ ‘Velvety and ghastly vox…’ etc. are some of my notes in reflection from listening to Dreams Are Not Enough. Even prior to the full-length release, the leader single track a younger version of myself has 22K+ streams […]
Gareth Davis + Duane Pitre | Nótt Midira (CD/DL) Not too long ago we had sung the virtues of clarinettist Gareth Davis while talking about Elliott Sharp’s Plastový Hrad. That bass clarinet is now thrown in a totally different context, one created by a continuous electronic drone. The engenderer of the latter – Duane Pitre […]
Tapes and Topographies | Ubiquitous CloudsSimulacra (CD/DL) On the rare full-moon Friday the 13th of September 2019 Tapes and Topographies released their lucky seventh album care of Simulacra Records. Long-diminishing echoes pulse to give the title track a radar-like current. Confident yet tender key strokes illuminate the soft drone as silvery lining. From the get-go, […]
Ghost in the Clocks | AnoiceRicco (LP, CD, DL) From Anoice (care of Ricco Records – Tokyo) comes the 5th installment of a cinematic instrumental post-rock saga of their own creation. Members of this super-group have since made worlds of their own as solo artists but ‘Ghost in the Clocks’ is announced as a follow-up […]
Sleepland | Out of HueSpekk (CD/DL) This is Kengo Yonemura as Sleepland who has been creating delicate ambient works infused with drone since 2013. This new release in the perfectly curated and long-running series from Spekk, is a generous addition to their balanced roster of works that soothe, and stretch the imaginative world of intersections […]
Visions | TemplesCyclic Law (CD/DL) The latest from Frederic Arbour, here aka Visions, is his latest disc, Temples. It is an atmospheric, almost gothic drone that emits through the air like microscopic droplets. Traces, which leads the charge builds adroitly in a dappled haze. Said to be a “hymn to lost civilisations” it finds its […]
øjeRum | Without Blood The Sun Darkens Cyclic Law (CD/DL) Paw Grabowski presents an incredible limbed (wings and arms) analog collage to contemplate over the course of Without Blood the Sun Darkens, under his moniker øjeRum. The run time, just under an hour, provides a cryptic expanse within which to lose the outside world – […]
Michael Donnelly | Why So Mute, Fond Lover?Front & Follow (CD/CS/DL) The opening passage sort of lurks restlessly. This is the new release from Michael Donnelly on Manchester’s innovative Front & Follow. Within Motions Are Man there are seemingly sections to this five minute track that follow only Donnelly’s unscripted rules. The listener will appreciate […]
Nathaniel Young | Accosting Form, Pure IntentMysteries of the Deep (LP/CD/DL) We are always excited to hear someone’s public debut, and this is the first-ever I’ve also been exposed to from Mysteries of the Deep. Nathaniel Young‘s Accosting Form, Pure Intent at first reminds me of the first time I heard either Jan Jelinek or […]
Llyn Y Cwn | Twll DuCold Spring (CD/DL) Aside from the monolithic legends posed by the title this is a 100% pure drone record worthy of your suspended attention. Benjamin Ian Powell’s (Llyn Y Cwn) sound and imagery are impeccably desolate, with this sensibility that a raging core is central and pulsating. This black hole […]
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