Constellation The cover image of the debut album by Montréal producer Kee Avil is certainly a disconcerting one. She sits at a desk in a sterile room with a paper mask of her own face over her actual face. It gives the sense of a twist of reality which runs through the ten tracks on Crease, merging abstract experimentation with sinuous rhythm and her own insinuating vocals.
Redenetic Daryl Robinson’s Mōshonsensu creation is all about the construction of elaborate soundworlds that whisk the listener away from the everyday and place them amid unknown machinery and mysterious animals, strange sounds emanating from abandoned structures, sand-borne decay and the solitude of the vast prairie.
Elevator Lady First of all, Brian Molko is still, twenty-some years after I ever first saw him, one of the most physically perfect humans I have ever seen. Does this matter in the scheme of things? Well, when you consider his strange voice, almost too nasal and sometimes too non-singeresque, the repetitive-on-purpose lyrics and the way he just eclipses everything else to do with his own profession, it […]
Discus This current project of the classically trained duo of pianist and poet Robert Mitchell and cellist Shirley Smart came about after conversations back in 2014. Their desire to merge the structure of classical with the freedom of improv led to this collaboration, in which Robert also wished to address his family’s history and their relationship to the Windrush scandal in a way that is accessible yet emotive.
Purple Trap Keiji Haino has rarely been one to avoid portentous titles and boy howdy has he stayed on-brand with My Lord Music I Most Humbly Beg Your Indulgence In The Hope That You Will Do Me The Honour Of Permitting This Seed Called Keiji Haino To Be Planted Within You. Away from Fushitsusha, Haino has a reputation for playing an extensive range of instruments — Shruti boxes, […]
Discus Martin Archer from Discus mentions that there are very few solo bass albums being released these days; but thankfully Michael Bardon, erstwhile member of Shatner’s Bassoon, has chosen to correct that. Over ten wildly varied pieces on The Gift Of Silence, he pushes both the bass and cello and our understanding of what sounds can be wrenched from them to their limits.
Bristol 10 March 2022 The acoustic charms of Stroud-based Maja Lena are first up, a songbird sweetness of voice attached to a fingerpicking deftness, that ’60s Yamaha neck dwarfing her fingers, her vocals skipping like wind-blown grass to gentle tonal shifts, then leaping unexpectedly in joyous abandon. The slumbering reflections of her Christmas-themed song reverbing to those silent quilted fields, the matted mulch of morning leaves.
Jazzland Since starting Jazzland twenty-five years ago, Bugge Wesseltoft has dipped in and out of collaborations and various artist projects with regularity, finding different modes of expression depending on the players involved. Here, shorn of any outside involvement apart from assistance from Håkon Kornstad on a couple of pieces, we find Bugge at the piano allowing his mind to wander, seeing where this freedom and time to ponder […]
Basin Rock The first solo album from erstwhile Phantom Band guitarist Duncan Marquiss treads a lovely line between the craggy, lonesome vistas of the highlands and the sweeping, metronomic pulse of middle Europe. Spread over seven long tracks, Wires Turned Sideways In Time moves between spare fingerpicked acoustic melancholy and heartbeat-riven synthscapes, managing to tie the two together in a warm bed of panoramic mystery.
Cooking Vinyl Back in the distant ’80s, Loop’s heavy sound was a breath of fresh air. A hazy comfort blanket surfing a scissored sustain that a few years later and three albums in simply imploded, its nucleus split straight down the middle and slung-shot out into various new distractions. As if success had become a catalyst for change, Robert Hampson ditched his guitar for the seriously cerebral electronics […]
Discus The latest release from pastoral improv troupe Orfeo 5 is tinged with a certain melancholy due to the passing of vocalist Ali Rigg. Main man Keith Jafrate, having chosen to review some pieces with which Ali had been involved back in 2007/2008, contacted Shaun Blezard and the sad circumstances came to light. These five older pieces were to be part of the collection of current work and […]
Rednetic This latest release by FMS-80 on the ever-intriguing Rednetic label spins through series of dizzying, pastoral soundscapes bobbing on a sea of loops that scatter like sunlight on turbulent waves. A riot of bells on opener “Beidaihe Loop” holds incredible vibrancy, the mantra-like simplicity of the rippling loops moving through “Esplanade View” like a static vista of a fresh day, that panorama across a sunlit harbour in […]
Shaytoon Following on from last year’s Maramar cassette, Aria Rostami returns with a further exploration of devious beat-driven electronica. This time around, Bolbol is a seven-track EP featuring mixes of the title track from Sote and Sepehr which ally curls of electronica and mysterious keyboard refrains with the kind of beats that sit as well on the dancefloor as on the sofa, and while the misty voices of […]
Trace It is always a pleasure to learn of new Rothko material and this return is even more welcome considering it has been over two years since the Refuge For Abandoned Souls album. This first post-lockdown release thankfully contains none of the confusion and despair that has dogged some performers in this liminal period and it feels, as ever, as if Mark Beazley is operating outside the usual […]
London 22 February 2022 OK, so what with Covid an’ all, I haven’t been to a gig in OVER TWO YEARS (Julian Cope at The Barbican, if you must know, and yes, he was ace, and yes, once again I got lost in the venue for ages because Barbican) so it’s with some trepidation that I venture into The Grace to break this ridiculous losing streak. And while I […]
Upset The Rhythm Japan’s Nicfit have been together since 2009, but this is their first full-length release besides a cassette comp of obscure singles. Upset The Rhythm have picked it up and it suits their oeuvre well with its cool, distant female vocals, post-punk, bass-heavy vibe and scrawling hypnotic guitar work. Whether they have taken their name from The Untouchables‘ one-minute punk flamethrower or from the better-known Sonic […]
Karlrecords Of course we’re all knee deep in re-issues of unheard electroacoustic works at this point in history, but Iannis Xenakis is something special-er than merely one of the bods who had a go at electronic means to produce music. A lot of composers went through periods of giving it a go and ultimately not finding their voice in it — while I’d personally say György Ligeti was […]
Spoonhunt Freewheeling improviser and collaborative double bass player Dominic Lash has an incredibly varied approach, not just to his instrument but to the way he structures the numerous outfits in which he plays. Recent releases on his own Spoonhunt label give a little indication as to his multifarious activities, and clearly to the warmth and keenness he engenders in his fellow players.