Masked, anonymous and attached to a dubious folk-horror backstory (concerning, among other things, Sweden’s apparently lively history of voodoo curses), Goat have long found their tone between the spookhouse camp of Ghost and the saturnine pagan nightmares of Comus. In Goat’s hands the two sound like natural bedfellows, but make no mistake, it’s a tricky tightrope to walk...
Album review
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The ‘Orchestra’ were originally part of Brian Eno’s Obscure Music label in the '70s, whose reason for existence was to introduce ‘rock’ fans to more avant-garde artists and modern classical composers such as Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. The Orchestra built up a large following though, and were involved in many different aspects of the arts including dance.
Echoing, cyclical drums pound out a remorseless beat, an emergence of sounds like a draught blowing something cold and portentous in your general direction, but just out of reach. Simmering guitar streaks, like intimations of an avalanche bring veiled threats, blocking out any sight of the sky.
Zam-Zam / La République des Granges Building on the spacey krautrock shivers of their 2018’s Pan And The Master Pipers LP, Zohastre‘s Abracadabra salivates like a mediævalised motorik. Vivid and laser-locked, this sci-fi verve enthusiastically contracts into a an insane neu-techno crowbar of a groove. A brightness that’s squeezed into the dagger dance of “Tarantella”, its folksy core valve-smurfed into a repetitive dazzle as that snare sonically snips […]
Pianist Stephen Grew has been testing the limits of the piano for the best part of four decades, alone and in collaboration and the extraordinary thing about this album is that he still finds so much ground to cover, revelling in the freedom of what he describes as the blank canvas of the piano. It must be quite thrilling to constantly be refreshed by the act of sitting in front of the keyboard awaiting a spark of intuition from which his personality then unfolds.
The intermittent strums of the first scarred in Gira’s vice-like vocal, a phonically physical experience that always feels like he’s at the coalface of emotion, mining some immaculate truth. The buttressing splashes of instrumentation between each sentence cut back to just words, then strung out on a symphonic hypnotic, shimmering into bleeding lines sung over in chorusing volatility.
Although recently released, this album compiles work that dates back to 2020 and perhaps because of that runs an absolute gamut of styles and sounds, constantly switching positions, leading the listener astray and dropping hints that don't always come to fruition and instead end up far from home.
A superb series of endeavours embracing classical and avant flavours, Ark Hive Of A Live is full of improvised sparks and juddering disposition, the enclosed write-up full of fascinating insight.
...Timo Kaukolampi has been concentrating on his solo efforts, with three albums released since 2020. Here, for his second Optimo release, a few select friends join him in the studio to layer reeds and voices over his sinister, minimalist soundscapes.
...two albums that Anthony has recorded over the years; his latest is A Painter’s Life and an earlier 2007 album, British Ballads. Reynolds plays a variety of different instruments on the albums and writes all of the songs. So lets take a trip to where the wild flowers grow and moss creeps over stones.
Although trading under Richard Jones' name, the six pieces chosen for this new trio's album are divided between the three players; Jones on piano, Joshua Cavanagh-Brierly on bass and Johnny Hunter on drums and it is this democratic approach that gives the album its appeal, no one player overwhelming the direction.
...these are arrangements bulbous with care and attention, but also with an ear towards appealing to a broader audience than his previous noisey business. For all the idiomatic guitar vocabulary, queasy bends and odd timekeeping, these are lovely wee miniatures of melodic blues numbers that you might want to stick on when you're driving with your Ma.
Still happily ensconced on Tapete, his fifth album for them emerges from the gloom with a stripped-down sound that, although still slow and steady, certainly has chinks of light filtering through the treetops.
All the way through the album, though the clarity of sound sparkles, the definition between the three players is just right and the overall mood transient, moving from the melancholy delicacy of opener "Little Abi" right on to the more mournful cello drone infused "En Stor Dag".
Friend of and brother to Townes Van Zandt, Roxy Gordon was a Texan-born outlaw poet who used the spoken word medium to highlight the contentious relationship between European settlers and native Americans. Working with other marginal Texan musicians, his dry as a bone drawl, ancient as the dusty earth from which he came is perfect for these cheaply produced but supremely moving and historically fascinating vignettes.
Containing four trumpeters and five trombonists as well as an array of sax, clarinet, percussion and electronics, it really does contain an army of noise makers ... feels a little like being poked in the chest as someone makes a strenuous point while travelling on a roller coaster.
Perhaps you have an AshNav bingo card. If you do, you can cross out "sounds '80s Miles Davis if he was a bit dirtier" and "I swear that was Tangerine Dream" with this release.
Guitarists Sylvain Chauveau and Joel Merah, along with percussionist Stephane Garin, conceived Ensemble 0 with a self-imposed rule that the instruments for all the pieces written for the trio should fit into a suitcase so that touring abroad would be a lot easier.