In Real Life One of the more fun things about musicians in their twenties, probably, is that they have admirable disregard for the norms of music because, well, why would you. This is listed as an album and is just north of twenty-five minutes long. But it is, of course, […]
Monthly archives: January 2024
20 posts
There is something strangely admirable about how big Mad Cats swings, its commitment to its own childish rambunctiousness; but ultimately it can’t string itself together beyond a funny idea and some well-done set pieces. There’s certainly an interesting film-maker in there, and there is evidence of it here; but equally there is one that is still finding their feet, still to nail the difficult execution of a particular brand of absurdity.
These pieces are Omri's improvisations and it was he who suggested to producer Gilad Ronen that a drum / piano duo would be the perfect way to flesh out his bowl full of ideas. Yosef and Gilad took it one step further, not only adding instrumentation but directing the sessions in a way that would draw the best from Omri, allowing him to focus purely on producing keyboard magic.
One of the major differences between the live and the home experience is that I'm now at an age where I'm not inclined to wind up the neighbours with excessive volume. So the home experience misses something of the blur of the shape of the room from the exceptional volume of the live version. I imagine part of the live effect is precisely that the tones find different refractions from the contours of a given room, generating cross tones and various Tartini effects.
Every couple of years or so brings a new Kreidler album and with it another slight change in direction. They seem to have spent the last thirty years keeping interested parties guessing, and perhaps beyond their obvious affinity with electronica, you can assume nothing about what each album may entail.
...n opportunity to fully liberate the bulky and some might say archaic device from its classic image and give it a whole new lease of life. His description of firing up the starting motor and hearing the Leslie speaker start to revolve is warming, and his obvious love and even hidden desire to put the organ through its paces is clear from the two adventurous improvisational pieces collected here.
The free-flowing chemistry between Finnish producer and audio engineer Antti Uusimäki (Uzu Noir) and Pharaoh Overlord’s Pekka Jääskeläinen (Ontelo) is great -- low-key and unscripted. Invisible Labyrinth's two sides seemingly to blur into one cohesive whole, each quietly teasing out the best in each other, bringing their undeniable lightness of touch to the listener.
Convening in Oslo, the trio has managed to produce something that sounds nothing like you might expect and over the course of five improvised and experimental compositions, leads you further and further away from any mainstream influence and into the realm of pure imagination.
Against the backdrop of a 2023 which brought a BFI retrospective, and what looks to be his late career masterpiece, EO, comes this release from Second Run of three of Polish auteur Jerzy Skolimowski’s key early works. They show a truly forward thinking director, whose work from this era remains relatively under-seen compared to his contemporaries, despite it containing some true classics of the European New Wave.
The music here thistles a composed and crafted ambience, eagerly pulling at its constraints. A flush of triggering sensibilities that are masterfully dark. Weaving energies tied to the spherical-shaped symphonics of the next track, "Mono No Aware". Sonics that seem to bounce off the stern-faced circles of samurai on the cover, spilling over in semaphore pulses and torn keystrokes.
The idea of swashbuckling Norwegians taking their belongings and, along with so many other nationalities, trying their luck in the land of the free, is what this album is about. What it does best is to pair a modern update of Norwegian folk music with mythic acoustic Americana; layering pedal steel with Hardanger fiddle and harmonium with guitar, finding a common ground as the incomers gradually settle.
...the composer had been working on a virtual reality experience with MR pioneers Tin Drum (a name maybe taken from an album by Japan?) which premiered in both Manchester and New York and had stunning reviews. Now it has a month long residency at the Roundhouse in London to what appears to be sell out performances (the one I attended was certainly sold out with people trying to get tickets).
Keith Jafrate, nominal head and writer of the endless serpent that is Uroboro, gathered together this exploratory quintet to give flesh to various ideas and coincidentally to act as guinea pig for a newly converted studio the Old Post Office in Todmorden run by some friends. There was a piano already in place and an eight-second reverb which Laura Cole pronounced usable, and off the group went for an initial live run out.
Founder member Changchang, with new drummer / vocalist and bassist Aoi Hama and Tetsuji Toyoda respectively, once again sought the experienced hands of Acid Mothers Temple’s Kawabata Makoto in the production chair, as they did with 2019’s excellent Turn on, Tune In, Freak Out. He also adds a bit of his signature acid-fried guitar to the album.
It has been a long, strange career for Eric Goulden. On the trail for the best part of fifty years, he is best known for the enduring universal smash "Whole Wide World", and although numerous groups have been configured and discontinued over the years, his solo output was relatively sparse until he and his partner, singer-songwriter Amy Rigby, moved to the US. Hidden away in upstate New York, they put an album every now and again and go on the road to drill it into the general public's consciousness.
Bristol 13 November 2023 Reimagining Suicide’s legacy they go, Lydia Lunch clutching her double microphones like a praying mantis — one’s all reverbed echo, the other sounds like pulled sellotape. Her vocals incoherently fall and flail around, gift-wrapped in Marc Hurtado‘s steely squall. His inky yells adding to the action […]
Moving from long-form kaleidoscopic compositions through live orchestrated sections to snippets composed for television, Electronic Works gives a fantastic overview of a composer who recognised that the very coldness of electronic music reflected the state of the world at that point but forged ahead anyway, constructing themes that still sound current fifty years later.
I’m pleasantly caught in the curling correspondence that Neil Mortimer and Mark Pilkington are brewing here, that syncopated-straight-jacket slowly loosening ,envelope-slipping and jangle-frosted. Its drifting contours are reborn in a looped simplification as strummed guitar falls on through, throwing a shoegazery sparkle into the mix.
For this latest album from prolific pianist Espen Berg (he is amongst other things a member of Tonic For The Troops, whose latest disc has not long been released), he has gathered together an ensemble of fellow Norwegian musicians with backgrounds in a wide variety of musical styles that gives this release an extraordinary breadth of vision.
This year has been huge in K-pop. South Korean pop culture is at a pivotal point where the new fourth generation of groups is making a definitive impact on the landscape.