A police car’s blue lights flows through the venues windows from outside. A random moment that dances the back wall to Phew's sleek slivers. Blurring fragments that compass a faint fœtal heart’s beat that’s reverbed to boom outwards, as subtle injections of Japanese leak on through pinched-in reversed glints.
Michael Rodham-Heaps
492 posts
Now, a lot of dance music leaves me a bit nonplussed, but Buried Treasure always seem to deliver, and by midnight, label honcho Alan Gubby smashed it straight into the fun zone with some roster rainbows.
This commercial swerve was quite a revelation at the time (for me at least) and I was kinda thankful the brooding angles of the next ‘Ordeal’ dirtied things back up again. Those screechy distortions that bat-wing into the melody are great, so is the solid kick of those drums.
Unearthing buried treasure is what this label’s all about, dipping into the hauntological hangover of years gone by, to resurrect or recreate their own interpretations. An ethos that seeps into this recent compilation, a tenth anniversary celebration that features a whole host of new, remixed, rare and unreleased material, giving the curious a decent taste of what floats their boat.
A darkened ambience of spiralling guitar that extends the experience, anchored by a pulsing undercut as chords dramatically feast, density dine in wavering cut-ins, solar-flare the imagined vastness.
Ueda’s metal prayer paddles aloft in rattling baptism, added to by seashells and firefly frets, her voice soaring on through, hands outstretched, as the keys and guitars jiver-jade a proggy reverie, her face clearly smiling from within the ricocheting richness of it all.
Taas Kerran, Äkkiä combines traditional Finnish folk musician Hannu Saha, who plays the kantele (a type of Finnish zither) with the electronic music duo Pakasteet. A relatively new(ish) improv group which consists of Circle founder and Pharaoh Overlord member Jussi Lehtisalo swapping his usual bass for synths, drum machine and prepared zither with film director and visual artist friend Mika Taanila accompanying him on tapes and synth.
An ambient introduction of birdsong and news snippets dusting a smokey melody, its chirruping curls of wordless vocal only hinting at the songworthy delights yet to come.
House Of Mythology Rosarium starts like you’re eavesdropping onto some fizzing broadcast, Daniel O’Sullivan‘s daughter Ivy imparting electrified words poetically bleeding into a cello’s resonate glide. Cocooning ellipicals lightly dusted in harp-like radials and shimmering sententials, as if you were starring at the sun’s spiking corona. Affecting shapes akin to Shellyan Orphan caught on sweeping vocals, wordless and levitating a , to which the strings hold a golden […]
Zam-Zam / La République des Granges Building on the spacey krautrock shivers of their 2018’s Pan And The Master Pipers LP, Zohastre‘s Abracadabra salivates like a mediævalised motorik. Vivid and laser-locked, this sci-fi verve enthusiastically contracts into a an insane neu-techno crowbar of a groove. A brightness that’s squeezed into the dagger dance of “Tarantella”, its folksy core valve-smurfed into a repetitive dazzle as that snare sonically snips […]
The intermittent strums of the first scarred in Gira’s vice-like vocal, a phonically physical experience that always feels like he’s at the coalface of emotion, mining some immaculate truth. The buttressing splashes of instrumentation between each sentence cut back to just words, then strung out on a symphonic hypnotic, shimmering into bleeding lines sung over in chorusing volatility.
A superb series of endeavours embracing classical and avant flavours, Ark Hive Of A Live is full of improvised sparks and juddering disposition, the enclosed write-up full of fascinating insight.
Pram’s musical elves were on fine form, injecting this fine summer’s evening with their own special brand of skewered cuteness. Everyone here loves it, each track resulting in massive applause.
It’s hard to believe both these albums — which first appeared as unearthed archive material as part of Faust‘s epic 1971-1974 boxed set in 2021 — stem from the early seventies; they feel so startlingly modern, totally out of touch (in the best way possible) with the music of the time.
A dreamy concoction penned in acoustic and electric guitar with some dazzling piano touchpoints, Mars Is A Ten's tracks seem to beam with an off-the-cuff straight to tape immediacy / intimacy that nestles in there; remains with you.
All their separate concerns coming together to create something new, each throwing fragments in the pot, searching for cohesion. Finding that all-important communal bite, Stratagems picks up from their last collaboration Facilitators, sees this enthusiasm bearing fresh fruit.
The world definitely needs more warding-off-evil’ songs, I’d say, the balance always seems to be frustrated stacked in the negatives’ favour after all; so I’m cranking the volume up on this one, and letting it do its worst.
Words that ignite on a slow see-sawing sorrow and symphonic scorch, atmospherically crash-landing into the pulsating syncopation of "À Notre Nuit", its keytoned circles and percussive stutter filling up the canvas in saffron-soaked strokes and feathering accents.