Happy Robots Barely six months since Mood Taeg‘s sophomore album Anaphora, the pan-continental collective returns with an album of mixes that uncover the hidden corners and unexpected perspectives of some of those tracks. A few have been dealt with in house, while others have been loaned out and then returned with a little electronic surgery that renders them familiar yet different, certainly enough to justify this little outing.
Ramble My favourite Russian – Israeli – UK collective Staraya Derevnya are back with another slice of splintered luminosity influenced by the Saint Petersburg poet and artist Arthur Molev. “Scythian Nest” dives straight into a clink-clanked needling mélange of avant folk — an addictive jiver, hot-coal leaping in falsetto warbles and noisy rubs. An absurdist cabaret jigger-jagging the jovial on wizened limbs as the instrumentation plays a nomadic […]
Discus It has been a long time since the previous Army Of Briars release; sixteen years to be precise, but it does feel as though they have never been away. Coalescing around the quartet of Julie and Tim Cole, Martin Archer and lyricist Keith Jafrate, they ply their unique blend of folk, jazz and impressionist abstraction on Made From A Broken Star, leaving the worries of the day-to-day […]
Kranky Jacob Long‘s third release for Kranky as Earthen Sea finds him further cocooning the listener in his simple but effective web of shimmering soundscapes, soundscapes sent from a distant outpost their lazy beats laced with tingling textures. A rush and a sigh, a sense of plaintive motion, slowly rippling air and a feeling of inexorable forward motion. Sometimes submarine, the bubbles passing a smoky porthole, that gauzy […]
Cadabra Heavens above, this one comes so packed with goodness it’s hard to know where to start. Like a Whiskas Pure Delight fish selection, this burst of retro loveliness provides everything you and your cat need nutritionally for a healthy and happy life. From Twin Peaks dreamy moodiness to spaghetti Western Ennio Morricone twang, to soaring strings and a bass sound to make Klaus Johann Grobe faintly envious, […]
Diatribe Dutch violinist Diamanda La Berge Dramm has been playing since she was four, and although classically trained and a member of various ensembles, her first solo outing is a rather personal journey through avant-minimalist pop, taking lyrical cues from the work of European Poetry Festival founder Steven J Brown. Accompanying herself with sounds that are generated solely by Moog and violin, she manages to strip the backing […]
London 16 July 2022 Journey’s End is one of those rare “are we really in London” type of venues. A leafy relaxed, creatively crafted affair at odds with the industrialised ugliness of its surrounds, the gig itself taking place in what looked like a reclaimed school hall. UnicaZürn are first up, taking the lead from their new CDR (available on the night, and instantly acquired of course) the […]
Sofa The latest album from Norwegian tuba player Martin Taxt, as well as being a continuation of the work started on 2020’s First Room, comes on like the ultimate in minimalist sound as architecture. His microtonal tuba carries single tones as if they were the most precious of cargo, listening intently for shifts in pressure and additions of further textures. Assistance comes in the form of another tuba, […]
PRAH The fourth moon-related release from Yama Warashi finds Yoshino Shigihara‘s band shifting to the Moshi Moshi offshoot PRAH and further stretching their legs with a unique distillation of gently fuzzy psych and that dreamy Japanese vocalising that gives them such an exotic appeal. Over eight lengthy and quixotic tracks, the album leads the listener through gentle foothills and mountain glades to more extreme terrain, switchback paths and […]
Buried Treasure Recorded entirely within a closed-input / fedback set-up and two antique tape machines, Howlround‘s Trespass And Welfare involves no actual input at all – samples, synths, pedals all abandoned in order to chase the ghosts in the machine. Ghosts that for the opener “Sonicjob Horsfunk” are of the squelchy techno kind. A lovely relentless dry-ended-LFO-scooped headfuck raygunned into the cut-off choked distance.
Thanatosis Produktion The list of groups of which reedist Martin Küchen is part is almost as long as my arm. A serial collaborator, his choice of fellow travellers is hugely varied and the number contained within the groups can be anything over two, the Angles projects and Fire! Orchestra perhaps being the most prolific. Here though, he has chosen a rare moment of solitude, and using alto and […]
SPV It’s a strange feeling to be reviewing the last-ever Klaus Schulze album. Since 1981, I have been a follower of his work after after reading that he was connected to Tangerine Dream, who I was a massive fan of at the time. From that first listen I understood that Klaus’s music shared many elements with TD, but were very much distinctly Klaus as well. The album I […]
Post 3 Electro Knights is a recent collaborative affair from members of Leeds band Bushpilot, who were active back in the nineties; here they have chosen electronic music as their jumping off point, an experiment in synthesis that finds the three members happily exploring the far reaches of their chosen instruments, usefully listed on the back of these two sprawling EPs. Recorded back in 2019/2020, the music travels […]
Sedna Chronicles Sedna Chronicles is a travel guide to the occult, unusual and downright eerie. English Heretic’s Andy Sharp and The Hare & The Moon’s Grey Malkin attempt to channel the weird energies trapped within their favourite Scottish haunts, and to be honestly they do a great job, the accompanying fold-out guide enhancing the experience.
Out This is the final release in the UT back catalogue re-issue campaign and finds them arriving at perhaps their most fully realised iteration. A good number of the tracks here feature Charlie D on drums, leaving the opportunity for the trio to lend further texture to the already dense and at times claustrophobic sound. Interestingly though, installing Steve Albini in the engineer’s chair removed just a touch […]
Modulisme To celebrate the second anniversary of the Modulisme facility that Philippe Petit has established, he decided to forego the usual improvisation technique and attempt a series of compositions that would perhaps show another route for him and give some further impetus to the already exploratory process of a true world citizen.
Black Editions Masayuki Takayanagi is something of a legend in free circles, although tricky to place — nominally free jazz, but a great deal more aggressive than that. Also proximal to free improv, but again a fair amount more savage and, with the exception of maybe Derek Bailey, Takayanagi was more transparently immersed in some very heavy jazz techniques.
Thanatosis Produktion Linnéa Talp‘s first album under her own name is all about exploration of the ambient splendour of the pipe organ; but also in combination with her recent discovery of the Buchla synth. Not necessarily obvious bedfellows, her subtle and intricate use of them, along with gently administered contributions from some fellow luminants, produces a series of .