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 as the sound brutally lunges at you, slams and screeches in slippery synchronicity. At one point it sounds […]
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.
Having sadly lost founder member Stuart Low in 2020, it fell to Ian Griffiths to organise a suitable tribute to his many years of musical service. This meant trawling through those part-finished recordings that Stuart had left and working on those with the assistance of previous members Gary McDermott and Ben Worth to produce a finale that would work as a legacy for Stuart and also for the group.
As a break from providing essential rhythmic momentum to the likes of Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and the Hedvig Mollestad Trio, A Tonic For The Troops is bassist Ellen Brekken's opportunity to step forward and take the reins. For their second album, saxman Magnus Bakken, pianist Espen Berg and drummer Magnus Sefaniassen Eide are back for a second outing with five exploratory pieces using the basis of post-bop as a springboard to other places.
With the assistance of Stefan Holker, these six pieces rise from slow, scattered silence, their scuffling vibrations barely rising above room tone. They feel out the room, touching and gauging; a textural experience to which the electronics add mystery, ever present yet shaded from full view.
The fourth release finds another collaboration between Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang following slowly on the heels of 2020's soft-focus Snow Catches On Her Eyelashes. Pleasingly, this is not just a retread of past glories; instead they have enlisted help to produce eight incredibly varied soundscapes taking in the usual gossamer guitar and electronics, but adding guest vocals, extra bass, percussion and even trumpet.
After the last outing of widescreen orchestral reinterpretations, the post-jazz trio Rymden has withdrawn once again to the comfort of their studio and produced a set of contemplative pieces that look at the natural world through the warm embrace of a thick coat and a stout pair of boots, evoking that solitary existence of the inland explorer.