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.
Album review
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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.
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.
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.
The idea of a guitar band reproducing techno is an appealing one and having once experienced Nissenenmondai, that constant relentless repetition is irresistible. Drummer Seb Brun set up Parquet with a similar idea in mind and with Sparkles And Mud, their first long player, he and the group are off to a fine start.
Confounding confusionists Ni clearly take the long-form approach to album construction. An album every four years is about the score, but with results like this, it is well worth the wait. The simmering drone that opens Fol Naïs causing a slow build of tension is the only section of the running time that is not high on the volatility meter. Tendrils unfurl slowly until the scattershot kaleidoscope explodes and musical debris is blown far and wide.
Trace The latest Rothko release, initially a cassette through Jukebox Heart and now a download through Trace, finds Mark Beazley in an even more contemplative mood than last year’s Make Space Speak. Spread over six tracks and forty minutes, there is far less reliance on the bass as rhythmic instrument on Bury My Heart In The Mountains, with the addition of found sounds, some of which were recorded […]
Multi-instrumentalist Chlöe Herington has moved through the multi faceted likes of Chrome Hoof and Knifeworld before alighting at V Ä L V Ē, an opportunity for her, along with fellow Chrome Hoof alumnus Emma Sullivan, to explore more literary-minded and progressive ideas that don't necessarily fit into the various collaborations of which she is part.
Working around found sounds and interweaving the thoughtful sentiments of her fellow players, pianist Russ Lossing and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, so that it becomes a windswept and all-encompassing traipse across the city; taking in cafes, Métro stations, markets and more, enveloped by and embracing completely the quotidian city life that generates its own element of the soundtrack.
What's being reviewed here is two things: a book, Subcontinental Synthesis: Electronic Music at the National Institute of Design, India 1969–1972 , edited by Paul Purgas, and a record, The NID Tapes - Electronic Music From India 1969-72. The NID of the LP's title refers to the National Institute of Design, a home for electronic music within India of the late 1960s. The book is a more expansive look at electronic music in that era, and one is a taster for the other.
That heavy fug of distorted guitars will be familiar to any alternative fan of a certain age, but their way of weaving them together is warming and effective. With feet on pedals they push on as the vocals drawl and drip, melting into the lolloping '90s groove as stuttering solos burst out of the surf.