Audio Obscura Neil Stringfellow‘s Audio Obscura has followed up 2020’s Love In The Time Of The Anthropocene with another expansive and hugely diverse litany of the destruction that has been caused since the time that our species has been on the earth. It is an affecting and far-reaching suite of […]
Mr Olivetti
740 posts
Injazero There is something kind of fitting about the title to Mike Lazarev‘s latest mini opus. It is a work of real compositional thought and love, but although it comprises ten tracks, it clocks in at a little over twenty minutes. You may think that it would only constitute sketches […]
Gizeh The brief spoken-word section, remote and benign, of the drifting opening track to Christine Ott‘s latest release, Time To Die, lends an air of tired truth to the doomy and distorted soundscape. Electronic sounds waver in the dust of a far-flung outpost, distant and interminable.
Ala Bianca The latest release from Sicilian percussionist Alfio Antico finds him staring out form the rural cover like a nineteenth century mesmerist, his gaze unyielding as he prepares to draw us in to his unique soundworld of sung-spoken folk tales set against the musical wealth of his players and […]
Discus For Treppenwitz‘s third musical adventure, the trio set up in a living room and pressed record to see what could be captured over the course of two days’ improvisation. That sense of intimacy and immediacy is perfectly captured on this document that finds them further blurring the boundaries that […]
Jazzland John Bishop‘s latest Tortusa release, Bre, finds him teaming up with a group of like-minded sonic explorers to prepare a series of fantastical, elemental soundscapes that act as ciphers for the extraordinary images on the cover. The sounds sweep from the speakers, appearing at once modern yet ageless, as […]
Niafunken Mirco Ballabene has studied double bass to the highest level and has used that grounding on his latest album to probe the links between the academic music of the twentieth century and more improvisational techniques. This melding of the two is what makes Right To Party tick and also what […]
Label Fandango Modern Hinterland trade in the kind of anthemic nineties-influenced indie pop-rock that I thought had gone out of fashion. The sort that bands like Morning Runner and Longwave used to ply, and I am pleased that people out there still feel there is mileage in it. Chris Hornsby […]
KrysaliSound The latest release on KrysaliSound finds two Italian artists, Pier Giorgio Storti and Nicola Fornasari, joining forces as That Which Is Not to produce The Basic Sharpness Of Emotions, a series of contemplative soundscapes on captured through the lonely environs of a distant forest. It has a rarefied feel […]
Fire (Europe) / Flying Nun (Australia and New Zealand) It is hard to believe that Martin Phillipps‘s Chills have been around in one iteration or another for the best part of forty years. Forming in 1980, it took them seven years to produce their debut album, having spent that time […]
Courier On another of Courier‘s delightful cassette releases, we find Cousin Sharky trading in “sub-dimensional bass street electronics”. Although this goes part way to describing the sound contained therin, there is something at times distant and ancient about some of the wide variety of moods and textures on offer on […]
Discus Serial collaborators Tony Oxley and Cecil Taylor had this 2002 show recorded, and Discus have released it as a showcase for the kind of joyful power of which the duo was capable of. That it is the overriding sensation that comes from Being Astral And All Registers: joy; at […]
Hummus Swiss fourpiece Convulsif certainly understand the power of tension. On Extinct, their third album, the opener “Buried Between One” had me checking the CD player to make sure it was s till working, such was the space between the resonant bass notes. When you leave it to play and […]
Trace Eternally keeping his unique flame alive and forever pushing the sound somewhere fresh, Rothko‘s Mark Beazley is an irregular collaborator, but always uses the opportunity to discover something unexpected. This is his first since 2016’s full length A Young Fist Curled Round A Cinder For A Wager, and here the […]
Courier Sound Courier Sound main-man Stuart Bowditch has chosen to wade into the “how far can we push twenty-three tracks in twenty-three minutes?” debate with his own retort to Alien and Eumig. Trading as USRNM, Stuart’s twenty-three minutes are wildly diverse and also stray furthest from the format of twenty-three […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]