Once again there is an impromptu group consisting of Yonathan Avishai on piano, Itay Sher on guitar and Yoed Nir on cello to colour in the compositions, but it is the interplay between Peter and Yosef that makes the album such an intriguing listen. Peter has clearly done a lot of travelling (he is an American who lived in Denmark but is now based in Ireland), but easily merges into new environments which makes this album a surprisingly comfortable fit for him.
Album review
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I’ll admit that before this album crossed my desk I hadn’t heard of Bridget Hayden before, but I’m always willing to take a listen to anything new on the folk scene, particularly as that scene is currently experiencing something of a purple patch. Having said that, anyone who has heard of Bridget before will know that she is usually more associated with lo-fi noisy drones, reverb-heavy blues and feverish waves of doom-laden sound, so this album of traditional folk appears to be going off on something of a tangent.
For her latest adventure, the title pretty much says it all, dialling down the wilder proclivities for something more subdued; an album that allows the four players, Elin on saxes, Tobias Wiklund on cornet and trumpet, David Stackenäs on guitar and Mats Dimming on bass, plenty of low-key interaction that embraces the listener, warming the fireplace for a battened-down experience.
Whirring the hinge between this world and elsewhere, Téléplasmiste's Of Nature And Electricity’s’ compass points are plentiful -- exploratory. Gently coaxing themselves into the uncharted, a softly rounded trip into the infinite.
Capturing the atmospheric flavour of an ancient Cornish burial site, Slomo’s fifth album is a mid-winter’s dream, ditching the well-trodden refuge of dark ambience in favour of something less menacing, more nuanced.
For those feeling forswunk and seeking to switch-off over the mid-winter break, then musical products conceived by artists in hermetic bubbles seem suitably worthy of some eleventh-hour examination, at the end of a very hectic 2024. As the three below albums attest…
Such is the sheer abundance of output from the music world in recent times -- which feels particularly acute this year -- it can be quite hard not to miss key things, even from reliable sources. Yet, thankfully, two distinctly dissimilar albums from the trusty homestead of Gard Du Nord Records have been extracted from the review pile just in time for Freq coverage in 2024. Both remind us that the label’s quietly radical diversity remains a compelling force running in the background of the record-releasing business.
When it dropped in 1996, Zoon received a very mixed reception. It landed at a weird time, when the goth / industrial rock alliance had been forged but was still a somewhat uneasy one.On first hearing, I and many others were disappointed that what we were getting wasn’t more Fields Of The Nephilim, but what initially sounded like a softer, more introspective Ministry -- and really, what’s the point of a softer, more introspective Ministry?
Considering each of the six members plays at least two instruments, this is a surprisingly light affair; the bass sways and the guitar licks are textural delights and the slow, steady drums allow everything to slowly unfold. Vocals are dreamy in a Spacemen 3 kind of way; but sort of buried, as if frazzled by the bright lights.
This debut from French trio eat-girls is a bountiful beast as the dark-noted dirge-tastic drag of the opener ("On a Crooked Swing") testifies. The male / female coin-flip of vocals slinking over the tightly hooked half-lit gloom. The mournful and whispery Malaria-like creep of "Unison" snaking all seductive in the ear, that nocturnal prowl of guitar lobe mauling as lyrics overspill, tip noisily to retract beautifully back on this lush lullabied afterglow.
Skep Wax Carrying on from a richly productive 2023, Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey’s stealthily effective Skep Wax label set-up has this year continued to alternate between curating latter-day ventures from indie-pop veterans and nurturing newer talents. Whilst this has manifested in a slightly lower output in terms of records […]
Wanu is the solo nom de plume of Swiss bassist and composer Sébastien Pittet, but for this Magma project, he is assisted by Sébastien Guenot, who provides live drawings, and Mathias Durand who deals with multicasting and sound processing. Seb Pittet's background is in jazz, but this latest project moves far away from any kind of structure and into the realms of shadowy soundscape
Whilst many bands at certain operational levels come alive for evenings and weekends, it seems as if the members of Chicago power-trio Stomatopod need them more than most outside of their day jobs, to discharge emotionally and recharge electrically.With this second full-length album from the ensemble – following on from 2022’s sturdy six-song Steve Albini-cut Competing With Hindsight mini-LP – it feels like the post-nine-to-five uncorking is positively explosive.
Main man David Christian has been releasing bits and pieces since 2019's Fireraisers Forever, but now the admirable but shambolic London punk'n'soul, rock'n'roll band have not only had their BBC sessions reissued as part of Tapete's ongoing campaign, but have also had their 1999 album 'Tigertown Pictures' re-released for good measure and what entertaining listens both these albums are.
Considering that Niton's line-up consists of electric cello, synths and amplified objects, their sparse soundscapes leave plenty of space to accommodate poetry, percussion, saxophone, guitar and more and the guests range from solo performers to bands and hail from all parts of the globe. This truly is the most expansive and inclusive album and one that ranges like a giant across all styles and emotions.
In a noisy, over-stimulated world, The Necks' new album Bleed provides the perfect antidote -- an intimate homage to quietness and what can be done with the emptiness between.
Having first emerged thirty odd years ago in Leicester, as a lesser-known and more bucolic presence in the UK’s post-rock micro-boom, the longevity of Lazarus Clamp recently feels like it has followed the operational influence of chameleonic Chicago legends Eleventh Dream Day. Not in the sense that the band has had a major label dalliance to survive and evolve on from, but in the way that Michael Larkin and co. have latterly only come together to record when the songs, people, day-jobs, family commitments and logistics all allow -- which can take literally years.
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.
As a group, they share some aesthetics with the likes of Dinosaur Jr and Shellac: trios with a powerful post-hardcore sound; but where Daydream Three diverges from those groups is in Enzo's diverse vocal stylings, coming on at times like an Italian Ian Curtis, his doomy baritone outlining tales of loss and heartache and at others in a more forlorn manner, almost as if there were two vocalists.
It seems to be a sweet period for those lovers of '90s American dark guitar rock for not only have we had a new Jesus Lizard album after a twenty-six-year hiatus, but their near neighbours and Steve Albini collaborators Big'n have released their first long player in nearly three decades, and boy what a cracker it is.