For the last twenty-five years or so, Mark Beazley's Rothko has been an ever-evolving beast with a lot of this progression due to a number of carefully considered collaborations. This latest album involves old friend, Welsh composer Steve Parry. Steve's youthful memories of his mother playing the church organ invests a sepulchral air top his keyboard ruminations, but tempered with a metallic abstraction.
Album review
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This Precious Recordings-curated collection, from the long-gone Reading-birthed Saloon, comes with some weight of expectations attached, being the first LP-sized vinyl product generated from the label’s rooting around the BBC session vaults, after a remarkably reliable run of EP releases. However, such weight is quickly lifted from the first airings of these side-apiece audio chronicles of two visits to Maida Vale.
The intriguing collaboration between Jan, Erik and vocalist Sidsel Endresen on Punkt Live Remixes Volume 2 finds them sampling and remixing live pieces from the likes of Jon Hassell, 3 Trapped Tigers, Maja Ratke, Ensemble Modern and other luminaries, and with the addition of Sidsel's enigmatic vocalising, turning them into a series of diffuse, minimal atmospheres that give the listener pause to wonder quite how it has come about.
Visiting the international DIY electronica scene market these days never leaves pre-disposed listeners with a shortage of produce to choose from. However, with so many common core ingredients in abundance – such as vintage modular kit flavourings and conceptual protein – zooming in on those seemingly most able to refine their recipes, is a means to limit overstocking the synth pantry shelves. Enter then, four relatively divergent but loosely familial platters for a tasting session.
With just the two of them on an array of esoteric instruments including electric pencil sharpener, frog guiro, saxello and waterphone, they cover the most extraordinary textural ground and encompass works from the likes of Kandinsky, Pollock, Picasso and Monet. A clear labour of love, the pair bounced ideas backwards and forwards, editing down until twelve diverse and thought-provoking pieces emerged.
We know what No Title As Of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead refers to, but we also know that it doesn’t have to. Yes, it’s the response to that, but though there’s always been clear signifiers in Godspeed You! Black Emperor releases (including references to Palestine) and even clearer references in their actions, the music has often taken a less dogmatic approach, swapping 'mere' words for rhythmic sweep and crescendo, finding emotional aggregates and passion in the interleaving of string and guitar.
It is an intriguing proposition and one that veers over twelve diverse tracks from folk-inflected whimsy to stunning feats of acrobatic electrification. Star Quality starts out fairly simply with acoustic guitar and Eleanor's pure clarity, but with the interjection of a found voice that joins her in an unusual duet. "Willow Tree : A Dialogue" is the only piece with words and the found voice causes an electric bluster in the guitar, a sense of darkness developing as the vocals turns frantic and faintly upsetting.
A His Name Is Alive boxed set – Wow! — this is beyond incredible, especially so soon after the Silver Thread pre-group groundwork of Warren Defever’s formative years. Loads of unheard bonus material to salivate over too, enough to fill another three records in addition to the 4AD trio.
...he's certainly not occupying Low territory -- not in terms of timbre, arrangement. Chord progressions maybe. This record is something like an answer to the question "what if Alan Sparhawk got stoned and made a loop-based record with absolutely gratuitous use of vocal effects?"
Over six albums in the 1990s, The Jesus Lizard probably became the benchmark by which post-hardcore four-piece guitar bands were judged and more often than not, those being compared were found wanting. With a rhythm section described by Steve Albini as the best he had produced, a guitarist whose angularity and dissonance were second to none and an apparently unhinged and obfuscatory vocalist, they had it all. Choosing to bow out in 1998 with the under-appreciated Blue, they went on to various other projects so it was received with some surprise and a little trepidation when news arrived of a new album from the reconvened group.
Of all the posthumous records that shouldn't be posthumous. It's a particular cruelty that SOPHIE left us because my feeling is that, while she was definitely 'a name' in certain circles, she'd never quite broken through. The first EPs and that first album (Oil Of Every Pearl's Un-insides) were blinders but all too little. I'll take this record, but I'd rather she was still about.
The members of this singular quartet have played together in various permutations for the last twenty years, ever pushing the sound envelope; but here the angle is an acute one. Recording over one day, they based their improvisations on sounds that were generated by synthesisers programmed to listen to and respond to what the players were initially playing. An oddly circular conundrum that turns the idea of AI generation on its head and an intriguing proposition to say the least.
Sonic Cathedral Currently conducting year-long commemorations to recognise two full decades of its stoic existence, the indomitable Sonic Cathedral label is keeping us well-stocked with new releases from both returning shoegaze pioneers in new guises and their younger disciples. Enter then, the debut full-length from Simon Scott’s side-project, Three Quarter Skies, to represent the former contingent.
The first new music from Seefeel since 2010's self-titled LP is a really welcome return and although now down to a duo of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock with assistance from bassist Shigeru Ishihara on a couple of tracks, it sounds as though they have never been away.
The fact that the originals are included on the second disc allows the listener to sort of follow the process although Andrew's compositions really only share the lightness of mood and gentle air, choosing banjo as his favoured instrument over guitar. What we have is two thirty-minute selections that share some space but offer the listener an opportunity to take a breath, step back and allow the warm sounds to wash around you.
Electronic composers Heiko Maile and Julian Demarre have been working together on and off for the best part of thirty years, but mainly in the world of film scores. Finally the duo has decided to release Neostalgia, their ultimate paean to the classic era of electronic music. Uncovering rare Japanese keyboards from the seventies and dipping into ideas that fondly remember the Barrons and Tangerine Dream in equal measure, but also inject elements of tension, recalling the likes of S U R V I V E in the end result, some of which wouldn't be out of place on the Stranger Things soundtrack.
Zappi Diermaier did a good job with Daumenbruch and continues to play to his percussive strengths on this latest faust fragmentation for Bureau B.
It was plain to see from reading the poisoned blood of the lyrics that the overwhelming negatives of the HIV/AIDS epidemic were at the forefront, that misinformed scaremongery that condemned thousands to a lonely and socially shunned death. The same disease her brother (who this album is dedicated to) sadly succumbed to.