Freq has been online in various forms since 1 April 1998; this iteration has been around as of 2010, with an archive of older material available.
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.
Following the brilliant Barbarian and the even better Weapons, comedian-turned-filmmaker Zach Cregger completes a horror hat-trick by stamping his directorial personality all over this tense and surprisingly imaginative reboot of the barely-mourned franchise based on a popular computer game.
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.
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...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.
...this hybrid set-up of past Piano Magic players from different eras of the group gels succinctly through three freshly-cut pieces across fifteen minutes. The comparative brevity suits them well, particularly when focusing proceedings even more tightly on the ensemble’s pop-noir smarts on the two bookend tracks fronted by Johnson.
It is an interesting spectacle, because although the crowd knows to look forward to two forty-five minute sets and a short intermission, what those two sets might entail is anyone's guess. The air of anticipation is further heightened by the lack of a support slot, so nothing interferes with the trio's planned or unplanned journeys.
The legendary jazz pianist gets the biopic treatment, albeit with far less crowd-pleasing flash and far more character-based introspection, very much in keeping with the playing style of the subject and the musical idiom in which he flourished.
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.
...complex comedy-drama about a film-maker struggling with problems both professional and personal, and all the while another film-maker is figuring out how to tell her story in a way that reflects his own equally difficult life.
..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.
Willem Dafoe is in quiet and self-effacing mode in this bittersweet comedy drama based on the Arthur Schnitzler novella about Ed, a long-retired poet rediscovered by a clique of young New York hipsters determined to lionise him until he re-enters their bohemian world by way of writing a memoir.
...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.