Italian sound artist Massimo Toniutti brings his eclectic sensibility to our ongoing Guestmix series (every Saturday in 2020). We fell in love with Black Truffle’s re-release of Il Museo Selvatico and it has since become one of my favorite records. Toniutti’s been exploring sound since the early 80’s and his extensive tracklist will give you […]
Cut A Lonely Figure | In Sea, In Circles, In Concretepan y rosas discos (DL) The simplicity of chorus-effected guitar in the fading-in ripple that commences In Sea, In Circles, In Concrete by Cut A Lonely Figure after several measures is readily joined by a stereo-panning noise loop. The four note walk-down and pop of […]
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. […]
Follow Us + Feel Good. Our weekly podcast will only continue to expand in the new year with our sub-series: Guestmix, Origins + Label Spotlight. Tune in and turn on. Now on Twitter!
Laurisilva by Laura Agnusdei and Mare di Dirac’s Ophite Diagram were both recently released. This pair of Italo acoustic-electronic releases offer strategic sound art which incorporates wind instruments, mixed with electronic processing. Agnusdei collaborates with several contributing artists who play traditional instruments. Mare di Dirac employs the use of handmade instruments. While the theme of […]
Jen Kutler Disembodied Eyevee (LP/DL) Jen Kutler is a multidisciplinary artist and performer from upstate New York. She uses sounds and objects that are sexual or feminine in nature for sound sources and then modifies and transforms these sounds using outside means of electronics. For her past works she has used a modified dildo fashioned […]
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 […]
Overlay | TraceTone List (DL) Having recently become privy to (and enthused about) the rugby world cup currently underway in Japan, I also learned of the Haka dances that occasionally precede a match. This has nothing to do with Overlay’s Trace/Venn release on Tone List (October 29th) aside from the fact that there is an […]
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 […]
Swine | Blood MonthMuteant Sounds (DL) Terrific drawn out swells, like the wake of a slow-cruising barge or a very large school of marine life, epitomize Blood Month by Swine. Aquatic lurking hisses and gurgles form the eerie ambiances produced by the unique instrumentation within this album. One can recognize the sax (Tim Hill) presence […]
Ambient as an incredibly elusive genre, and can be a near infinite category, as it can encompass anything from electronics, through drone, to modern classical and even new age. In a way this wide range of musical possibilities is reflected through four October releases reviewed here. Very often, ambient is the realm of solo artists […]
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 […]
Ruins | Madea/Tide: Sound And Image Research Volume OneMusic From Memory (LP/DL) Italian new wave/avant synth duo Ruins (not to be confused with Japanese avant prog duo Ruins) 1984 album Marea / Tide: Sound And Image Research Volume 1 is one of those albums that has lingered on the shelves of certain elitist audiophiles, […]
Bureau Berlin| High-Time SeizureSounds et al (CD/DL) Modern music these days can practically come from anywhere, and not just the music capitals that New York, Los Angeles, London and say Berlin have become. That is particularly the case with musicians that want to experiment, combine and come up with something new and fresh. It is […]
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 […]
TRIPLE BILL: Included here are three September 2019 releases, all by female artists. All truly interesting, to say the least. But, then, there are different levels of ‘interesting’ and how the listener may interpret it. Floating Spectrum is actually Taiwan-born, Berlin based, Mei-Fang Liau, and A Point Between (Temporary Residence) is her debut album. Liau’s […]
Frode Haliti | Border WoodsHubro (CD/LP/DL) Norwegian Hubro label has established itself in recent times as a hub(ro) of some exciting experimental music coming mostly from Scandinavia. One of its specifics is particularly stretching the boundaries of folk music, or to be more precise, envisioning folk music in its true glory and incorporating, or giving […]
The Touchables | The Noise Is RestConradsound (LP/CD/DL) The term heavy in music has been picked up and appropriated by some rockers back in the late Sixties and has stuck with guitar-laden music until this day. By its definition, you are to succumb to the brunt of the charging loud sounds as enjoyment. Yet another […]
Stefano Pilia | In Girus Imus Nocte et Consumimur IgniDie Schachtel (LP/DL) Stefano Pilia is an Italian guitarist who has been active for many years in that gray area crossing electroacoustic experimentations, film scores and the most avantgarde outcomes of the Italian rock scene. He has collaborated with many artists in Italy and abroad, from […]
Reynols | Minecxio Emanations 1993-2018 Pica Disk (6xCD & DVD/DL) “Outstanding and far-out experimental exaggeration” Retrospective box sets are informative think-tanks! Lovely introductions or remembrance collections, bearing the task of showcasing the whereabouts of an artist, in an enlarged manner. Reynols, an Argentinian experimental band, hailing from Buenos Aires, formed in 1993 as Burt Reynols […]
Left Limbs | HexesBuzzhowl Records (DL/Cassette) Available now for digital download and/or on black cassette compliments of Buzzhowl Records is ‘Hexes’ – the second release by the Austin, Texas duo ‘Left Limbs.’ Raul Buitrago’s and Jacob Saheb’s forces combine for the live recording from September 1st 2018. The pair performed two supporting shows for the […]
Edgar Valcárcel | Electronic Compositions for the Andes (1967-2006) Buh Records (12″/DL) Edgar Valcárcel (1932-2010) was one of those rare Peruvian orchestral and chamber music composers from an era that also saw fellow avant garde craftsmen like César Bolaños, Leopoldo La Rosa, and Francisco Pulgar Vidal. Electronic Compositions for the Andes (1967-2006) is like a […]
Luca Forcucci | B(l)(e)(e)(n)dingsLFO Records (LP/DL) “Wonderful electro-traditional experimental music” An album that sounds like an electronic locomotive at its beginning, I must write about it. Luca Forcucci’s B(l)(e)(e)(n)dings is the outcome of the collaborative work between Swiss researcher, composer and artist Forcucci, Cara Stacey – a pianist, ethnomusicologist and player of several South African […]
Anne-F Jacques / Ryoko Akama / Takamitsu Ohta | The Magic City Hasana Editions (CS/DL) The trio of Anne-F Jacques, Ryoko Akama and Takamitsu Ohta bring something special this month, two lengthy compositions of pure minimal concrete music on location at The Magic City (Todmorden, UK), from the Bandung, Indonesia-based imprint Hasana Editions. They describe […]
Phew + Oren Ambarchi + Jim O’Rourke | Patience Soup Black Truffle Records (LP) “Completely irradiated experimental earmark” Whenever I stumble upon an album bearing heavy names, things are self-explanatory. I’m delighted to give a […]
Hans Castrup | Heterogeneous Cell InformationKarl Records (LP/DL) It’s hard to know quite what Hans Castrup was hoping to achieve, such is the multi-faceted and confusing canvas that is ‘Heterogeneous Cell Information’. There are some immediate and obvious reference points – the album flirts with musique concrete, or a contemporary subset there of; it alludes […]
Bardo Todol & Devid Ciampalini | El Origen Del Pensamiento MágicoIkuisuus (CS/DL) “Architectural musique concrete” Bardo Todol is an experimental music project hailing from Argentina and consisting -as I read- by either Pablo Picco with Nico Picco or Pablo Picco with Atilio Sanchez. Devid Ciampalini (Metzengerstein, Holy Hole) is an Italian musician and experimentalist, working […]
Åke Hodell | Verbal Brainwash and Other Works Fylkingen Records (3xCD/DL) “A life-manifesto split in pieces” Åke Björnsson Hodell (1919-2000) was a Swedish poet, author, text-sound composer, and visual artist. He was also trained as fighter pilot, but after a crash during a practice flight (1941) and few years of hospitalization, he became a dedicated anti-militarist; […]
Satoshi Takeishi | Fragments Clang (DL) With a running time of just over thirty-three minutes, this new one by Japanese multi-instrumentalist Satoshi Takeishi has truly stirred-up my weekend listening. Though he’s been recording with various collaborators since 2003, Fragments is only his third solo album over these many years – his previous were Dew Drops […]
Streifenjunko | Like Driving Sofa (LP/CD) The Norwegian duo Streifenjunko of Espen Reinertsen (saxophone) and Eivind Lønning (trumpet) have been working together since 2005 and are about to release (11/2) their latest effort, Like Driving. The album is made up of three full-size tracks, starting with Everything We Touch is Electric. They use their traditional […]
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