Trees Speak – TimeFold / Various – Undulating Waters 8 / Jilk – Soft In Shape And Meaning

While the gravitational pull and distraction of the festive season leads to a slowdown of new releases in most music scenes, in the expanded electronic sound universe, things carry on pretty much regardless 365 days a year. Hence the need to wrap a few things up again in a like-minded — but not limiting – bundle once more, just to keep up.

Firstly, some distance away from the usual locales, is the typographer-tormenting TimeFold (Soul Jazz), the sixth LP from Tucson titans Trees Speak. This latest outing from the multi-instrumentalist duo of Damian Diaz and Daniel Martin Diaz cleaves heavily into the cinematic and cosmic elements of the kosmische kaleidoscope.

Combining an array of synths with more live-played implements, the pair plough some deep-prowling furrows throughout. This finds them moving vigorously between Cosmic Ground’s Berlin School studies (the opening titular track); jazz-inflected art-rock (“Prodome”); Ennio Morricone-meets-Stereolab cross-fusions (“Emotion Engine”); pulsing John Carpenter sci-fi noir (“Phenomena”); synthetic symphonics à la Jean-Michael Jarre (“Cybernetics”); space-age rhythmscapes (“Synchroton”); and psych-rock churning (“Silicon Visions”).

With the majority of the seventeen pieces veering towards the short side, TimeFold fits to the spirit of nominative determinism, as a concertinaed-together collection of compressed set-pieces. This does give the record a somewhat dizzying feel overall. Although this might rob a few of the sharpest cuts of the in which space to roam more widely, it refreshingly encourages plenty of repeat plays to soak it all up properly. Stealthily compelling, in short.

Whilst Mat Handley has sought to maintain the Woodford Halse branch of his four-limbed label enterprise (see Freq reviews passim) as not just a place for his most diode-driven signings, there is little question that the latest multi-artist compilation from the imprint — Undulating Waters 8 – is the preserve of its electronically-minded creators. This is not to say that the fifteen-track selection lacks internal diversity, however.

Thus, there’s room for balmily melodic meandering (Apta’s “Jurema”); industrial-techno squelch (Panamint Manse’s “Pacifires”); ethereal ambience (Red Setter’s “The Great Indoors”); ear-shedding primitivism (Spykidelic’s “Windrush”); arpeggiated Wendy Carlos-meets-Tangerine Dream electro-classical (Maes Y Circles’ “Conf-I”); deep-house nocturnalism (Isis Moray’s “Breathing Under Water”); hauntological murk (The Heartwood Institute’s aptly anointed “Dystopian Warnings”); and pretty baroque burbling (Scholars Of The Peak’s “A Lost Past”).

Even though Undulating Waters 8 is not likely to win over many new converts to the world of Woodford Halse, for existing followers seeking a smattering of non-album nuggets from its established affiliates, as well as a few interest-piquing calling cards from lesser-known characters, it dependably fulfils its duties.

With Bristol collective Jilk having released no less than three albums across three different labels in 2023, the decision to self-release the eighty-minute, fifteen-song Soft In Shape And Meaning feels like a lateral attempt to provide this year’s body of material as one densely packed banquet, rather than in piecemeal portions.

This also means that the collection – initially dispensed digitally and as a half-pink / half-pistachio-green cassette with a CD version to follow – is an unfiltered representation of the membership-fluid band’s sonic spectrum. Layered with various blends of electronics, pianos, strings, bass, guitars, percussion and more, this is a labyrinthine affair for the Jilk faithful to get thoroughly lost inside.

Along the way, we’re spun through Sigur Rós-meets-Brian Eno sprawling (“101: A Fall Starts 1”); languid post-jazz wandering (“102: A Fall Starts 2” and “Cocoons”); Tortoise-meets-Four Tet jams (“103: A Fall Starts 3”); acres upon acres of oddly warming glitchtronica (“Shapes You Can’t Give Meaning”); and electro-edged chamber music (“Slow Motion”).

Whilst some harsher drum ‘n’ bass-adjacent passages — on tracks like “207. The Sequin Lounge Destroyed” — towards the end suggest that a tighter forty-five-or-so-minute suite might have been a slightly shrewder or more straightforward proposition, it’s hard to not be pulled back in for successive spins, given that different highlights spring forth on each airing, thanks to the multitude of elements in flux inside.

-Adrian-