Hedvig Mollestad on guitar, with Ellen Brekken on bass and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad on drums are a power trio in the old sense of the term with the riffs on opener "See See Bop" truly heavy and distorted. They ply a slow, boogie rhythm with an epic '70s production that brings to mind ZZ Top with that kind of Southern-fried sound, but blown through with noise.
album review
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Having delivered two top-drawer albums already this year from this side of the Atlantic – in the form of recorded outings provided by The Gentle Spring and Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires (see Freq reviews passim) – the indie-pop renaissance operations of Skep Wax now enter a creditable new co-release arrangement with the US-based Slumberland Records for two like-minded East Coast ensembles.
Finnish pianist Antti Lähdesmäki plays in a number of different groups. but for We Tend To Help Each Other Out Here, it is just him and his piano. Over thirteen diverse pieces, he allows his personality and the foibles of the instrument to insinuate their way into our consciousness.
Brussels-based composer Valerie Leclercq has been recording as Half Asleep for the best part of twenty years. Although essentially Valerie's brainchild, there is assistance from like-minded friends who allow her unique vision to be brought to fruition.
Having hooked-up as a low-key instrumental explorer super-duo of sorts in recent years — under the moniker of Whin – the Glasgow-based Martin John Henry (De Rosa, Jewel Scheme, Henry and Fleetwood) and Robert Dallas Gray (Life Without Buildings, Even Sisters) unpack themselves again for near-simultaneously dispensed solo albums via Gargleblast and through self-released arrangements respectively. Whilst both releases feature varying degrees of supportive intermingling from the pair, they plough determinedly divergent furrows.
Since the last Neurosis album back in 2016, Steve von Till has concentrated on his solo career, releasing seven solo albums, including this one, that continue to plumb the depths of Gothic-tinged Americana and explore his relationship with melody in ever increasing ways.
To a certain extent you know what to expect from a Loscil album, but somehow each outing is very different from the previous, the imagery specific to a set of ideas.
The constant state of evolution for Constellation Records is a wonderful thing. As they approach their thirtieth anniversary, the label continues to release essential albums from doyens of the Canadian underground that cover all musical styles. post-classical chamberHere we have two very different string-oriented releases that use the post-classical chamber genre as a starting point
Running to over an hour and spread over eight tracks, Henke allows the repetitive nature of the techno-oriented beats to run without boundaries, but the electronic details and evocative atmospheres are what make the album something which piques the curiosity.
With the addition of Marc Sarrazy on piano for one section and Loïc Schild on drums and metallophone for the other, the initial idea transformed into something more abstract and ritualistic; an ever-evolving widescreen sweep that sets various textures against a desert wind backdrop.
Bassist and composer Vilhelm Bromander has reconvened the players from 2023's In This Forever Unfolding Moment and they are now trading as The Unfolding Orchestra, taking the previous ideas and extending them, creating four very different long-form pieces that allow the talented musicians to play against one another and push themselves a little bit further than the last release. There are a few changes of personnel, but on the whole it is the same group and that familiarity gives them a greater sense of adventure, covering far more ground than before.
As we near the end of Glaciers, so the pieces grow sparser, a lugubrious atmosphere of impending doom is upset by the most incredible vibe shimmer and the two instruments as they circle one another collapse into one another’s arms, spent for now and drifting away, becoming more and more distant, leaving the listener with echoes of what came before
Precious Recordings pushes things even further with a back-to-back payload of early-summer releases. Featuring newbies and returnees delivering wares with a variety of provenances, here follows a breakdown of what the label now has vying for our shelf space.
The list of instruments on guitarist Geir Sundstol's sixth album for Hubro is as long as both my arms. This inventive selection of widescreen soundscapes utilises all manner of guitar-adjacent instruments and straddles an interesting space between Ry Cooder-esque introspection, Ennio Morricone-like sweeps and Eastern tonal influence.
The title is pretty hilarious and the album artwork of emojis disintegrating into a murky computer soup had me wondering what it would be like if each symbol that people use had a soundtrack. Would it be anything like this or the complete opposite? There is only one way to find out; so allow the tentacles of the Ancient Psychic Triple Hyper Octopus to slowly reel you in.
For those who have been following her lateral art-pop manoeuvrings as far back as 2009’s tentative Mind Raft EP, the freshly-dispensed Ready For Heaven should feel like a logical and satisfying refinement of the pathways that started taking proper shape on 2015’s The Expanding Flower Planet solo debut album and which have evolved over subsequent releases, whilst still being packed with invigoratingly fresh ingenuity.
Kranky The title of this meditative collaboration between guitarist Michael Grigoni and Mark Nelson trading as Pan American feels like a comment on the current state of the world order. Michael’s other role as assistant professor of religion gives an indication of the reflective nature of the pieces on offer here. Merging Mark’s guitar, mandolin and synths with Michael’s pedal steel, lap steel and dobro, they strike out […]
If you like hazy guitar improv, this is solid. Four lengthy crafted excursions dusted in a ghosting of late ’60s psychedelia and geologically pinned to a Neolithic underground burial complex in Malta.