Stitched together with lots of intricate instrumental details and vocal layers, The Counting Game generously reveals its shrewdly crafted strengths over successive spins, to make it one of Antietam’s most adventurous and most accessible go-to long-players.
album review
2637 posts
...thanks to the enthusiasm of Rothko's Mark Beazley, a collection of the poems has been given suitable soundscape backings and with that the opportunity to escape back into the vibrant, grimy streets from whence the initial inspiration sprung.
Asylum Variations shows no retread of the previous album, but a full-on evolution of what was laid down before, that familiar disaffected voice strung between the splashy synthesis and pedal-pawed bite.
...patience reveals the record’s genuinely rewarding virtues via the divergent matrices of its aforementioned arrangements, even if its significance in the wider canon will take a little while longer to determine, principally through ever-enthralling live presentations.
It is quite a brave thing to put together an eleven-piece ensemble for your first solo outing, but composer and accordionist Kirsten Symczycz has surrounded herself with a group of fine and sympathetic players that do great justice to her seven long and winding instrumental tales.
...the artists behind the three new long-form releases and one archival set below draw their strength from such sonic æther funnelling, both consciously and subliminally.
A groundbreaking entity which later fractured into its own versions of the original dream, never to be whole again, and now some fifty-plus years later, the scattered survivors have penned four independent albums that celebrate what each brings to the unfathomable sum of its parts.
Hopefully having garnered some interest from the Japanese psych-ly inclined hordes, Black Editions are here probably more about the business of shedding light on the weirder and less legendary pieces.
..is perhaps the most personal yet, using the extraordinary mix of soundtrack vibes, funky jazz groove and introspective piano to explore what it means to love in this current world climate.
Although more organically earthbound and less sonically expansive overall, this triumvirate of nascent offerings doesn’t simply dispense thin sketchy outlines for Weaver’s latter-day technicoloured presentations.
..reassuringly sustaining a reputation for molten brilliance in the live arena, it’s arguable that Prolapse’s creative stock has never been higher. Which makes another dive into the group’s historically healthy working relationship with BBC radio producers and DJs suitably enticing.
...these records, finally, are perhaps two sides of the Monk coin -- one a stretching and contortion of what was already there, one pinning Monk to the mast of improvised music and sailing off into the whorling void. Big up yourselves, everyone concerned.
An impressive set of tunes with real sonic depth, concluding with the soft plumage of “‘Concrete Conversation”‘s undulatory rhythmic with croaking robotics slowly frequency combed to silence.
Slow ‘n’ steady, lulling mirroring sounds -- then just when you think it’s grasping towards some om-like union, a repetitive carpet of agitated frets throws things splendidly off-piste, the canvas suddenly gripped in an overfed rebound and answering recoil.
...the whole is a -- dare I say -- pretty but disconcerting melange of electronic elements that veer between noise and rhythm. It's certainly not the kind of textural play of musique concrète or noise, but it's also not so sedate as to qualify as ambient music.
As a treatise on self discovery, the album works really well; the wide variety of songs, the welcoming closeness of the players and the willingness to attempt the road less travelled here and there makes for a pleasurable listening experience.
...arrives with the strong expectation of being another consistent concoction. Dutifully and rewardingly, Phelan and co. don’t abuse such presumptions with the honourable Hullabaloo.
The blustering guitar, dirty, squalling sax and tumble-drier drums really bring to mind a drive through a desert that is alive with discordant debris...