Kranky This is a welcome repress for loscil‘s 2011 album coast/range/arc//. Inspired by the geography of the Cascadian Mountains, it was originally released on the aptly named Glacial Pace and was very much at home there, but the sort of slow motion grandeur in which the album revels definitely fits in with the Kranky aesthetic. The dramatic artwork showing ice capped mountain ranges and vast lakes is very […]
Album review
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Eastgate / Cupdisc In the past couple of years or so, Tangerine Dream, featuring Thorsten Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss and Hoshiko Yamane, have released five improvised albums dedicated to TD founder Edgar Froese. These have been primarily live recordings made in 2018 during the band’s tour and have had more in common soundwise with the classic 1970s era of Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann. These sessions have had […]
Discus The Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere‘s fifth outing finds it expanded to an eight-piece and the bulk of the new album’s material being improvised over two days at the end of 2019. Those initial sessions and the subsequent solitary fettling and studio production over 2020 have resulted in an extraordinary odyssey of sound that encompasses structureless, textural drift and gliding, plus all points in between.
Courier Sound The insert that comes with the latest beautifully presented cassette from Courier Sound (both the cassette and outer cover are plum coloured) describes the sounds contained therein as “trying to capture and reimagine the healing process through repetition and sonic imperfection”. The manner in which this is attempted is to unfold a series of slowly revolving drone-based soundscapes that seem to hover out of the speakers, undulating […]
Planet Mµ I got sort of lost at dubstep, or maybe 2step, or ponycore, or chiptune, or skelefunk, or, um, footwork… I never properly learned to differentiate jungle from drum’n’bass, or to understand the point in which that became drill or drizzle or whatever the Hell it became. The continuum became the ‘nuum and everyone blamed each other for continuing, for not innovating, for not finding the right […]
Hubro Back in 2006, improv trio Huntsville were plying their trade at a Quebec music festival where they came across Wilco and over a period of time developed a mutual appreciation society. After appearing with them on stage a couple of times over they years, 2010 found the three travellers in the Wilco’s Chicago loft with Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline to see what might come of a […]
Interchill The latest release from esoteric multi instrumentalists Evan Fraser and Vir McCoy takes the listener on a series of journeys through distant lands, the likes of which we are unlikely to experience ion the usual melee of music making. Playing such extraordinary instruments as the jimbush, the sintir, the djeli-ngoni and the guimbri, amongst others, the images that they evoke are of dusty, unspoiled vistas and spiritual […]
Rocket I liked Pharaoh Overlord’s last release, but this newbie is on a whole different level. They’ve turned down that motorik dial a touch, to let in a banquet of euphoric synth work wrapped in a barrage of skewed disco flavours. A groovesome cocktail easily demonstrated by “Path Eternal’”s Giorgio Moroder romp
(self-released) The vibes as an instrument is unique in my opinion in its ability to lift a mood and for its pure, haunting ring to linger in the mind. We were lucky enough to catch Harriet Riley when she was playing with the wonderful Bristol band Tezeta. The vibes added a fresh and shimmering aura to the band’s heady stew of latin groove and jazz skronk. Here, she […]
Burning World Much like Tigger, the funny old thing about genres is genres are funny old things. They don’t really mean that much in and of themselves. Like nicknames at school, you can have them thrust upon you without consent (just ask Andrew Eldritch if the Sisters Of Mercy are a goth band — sorry, mate, you don’t get to choose), and it doesn’t really matter anyway
Thrill Jockey There are a lot of solo piano artists around at the moment and a few of them have been covered in the reviews section on this fine website; but where things begin to turn interesting is in the realms of the improv piano player, where the rules are suspended temporarily and the playing is dictated by emotion and impression. Here we have two very different takes […]
Zona Watusa One of the many highlights of last year’s Delaware Road festival, the Somerset collective R.E.E.L. (Rapid Eye Electronics Ltd.) have got something here on Music For Psychedelic Duelling to graffiti over 2020’s gloom in the shape of two thirty-minute mutating stabs full of brawling pyrotechnics and toppling tautness.
Gench Thomas Dimuzio‘s presence in the alternative noise underground over the past thirty years or so is something that is hard to overlook. The ranks of artists with whom he has collaborated and the slew of labels on which his work has appeared are almost endless. The latest two releases from Thomas attempt to give a taster of just how varied and far-reaching his body of work is […]
Dais Moon’s milk was flowing strong with Coil’s transition from London to the Weston-lands. An eerie musicality crept over them on 1999’s Musick To Play In The Dark as future and past co-existed, the altar of white rainbows and unquiet skulls soaked up the coastal mists of their new shoreline residence, the tidal purr no doubt whispering new secrets into Jhon Balance‘s ear. A dark and immersive path, […]
Blang Bit of a history lesson for you. Way back in the Before Times, when people used to do things outside together and Carole Baskin didn’t get blamed for everything by everyone, there were things called “festivals”. Now, what a festival was was when people would come from far and wide to sit in the sun (or, more likely, drizzle) with a bottle of cheap cider and watch […]
Lulu’s Sonic Disc Club (Australasia and Asia) / Upset The Rhythm (Europe and Americas) A love of hazy voices, alliteration and simple melodies infuses the spirit of Sleeper And Snake‘s Fresco Shed. As members of Terry and alumni of the Australian underground, you might be forgiven for thinking you know what is coming.
Munster This is the first vinyl reissue of Tim Blake’s debut solo album in over forty years, and Munster has given Tim’s work the respect it deserves. The records are beautifully pressed on 180 gramme vinyl, and not only do you get the original album in all its glory, but also a second LP full of rarities from the same era; plus you get an insert with an […]
Kranky I think Ana Roxanne has really found their home on Kranky. This second album, expanding on last year’s ~~~, plays with the kind of delicate atmospheres and mysterious textures that are the label’s stock in trade. Ana choses a kind of gossamer fluidity and heavenly vocalising that washes over the listener like a dream, but it is a dream that requires thought and input from us. The […]