Crammed Discs In Crammed Discs‘s ongoing reactivation of their Made To Measure series, the reissue part continues with prodigious French composer Hector Zazou‘s extraordinary travelogue suite Geographies. Comprising nine pieces taking in all manner of styles and using a fine array of instrumentation and voices, it takes the listener on a journey through French provinces, the outer reaches of the Francophone nations and the wild countryside, all held […]
Mr Olivetti
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Thrill Jockey It is interesting that in the time between the release of 2020’s Summerlong and this year’s Earth Trip, there has been no new music from either Wooden Shjips or Moon Duo, giving the impression that the ease of recording the solo stuff as Rose City Band and the inherent themes of travel and escape are what is fuelling Ripley Johnson‘s creativity currently. Earth Trip follows on to […]
Constellation T Griffin‘s soundtrack for the rather fascinating-sounding film about the life and work of Mexican architect Luis Barragan covers a lot of ground across the thirteen intricate pieces that The Proposal comprises. Using a band that comprises drummer Jim White and Matan Roberts amongst others, he has produced a thought-provoking and diverse suite that takes in smokey jazz, found sounds and drones, but manages to imbue a […]
Warp It is not before time that Warp has chosen to compile the work that Seefeel produced for them. For me, Seefeel are one of the most important and overlooked bands of the nineties, managing to skirt around a number of genres without stepping directly into them, blazing a trail for a lot of artists who wanted to merge the burgeoning IDM sound with a guitar-based aesthetic.
Empty Birdcage The array of percussive instruments in the photograph on Steve Noble‘s Solo release shows the stripped-down aesthetic that he is working towards; a snare, some gongs, various cymbals and some sort of boards. The sounds that appear within are about as far from the busy funk workouts of Rip, Rig and Panic as it is possible to travel in the intervening years, with the forty-minute piece […]
Thrill Jockey Everyone’s favourite collaborating drummer Kid Millions has found a kind of solace in the arms of Mouse On Mars‘s arch experimentalist Jan St Werner. Perhaps solace isn’t quite the right word, as these glitchy, dusty scuffles are not particularly relaxing; but somehow have found an odd momentum. Recorded back in 2016/2017 for a handful of people and then tinkered with and added to in the intervening […]
Discus Martin Archer must have been busy over lockdown. Not only was he keeping an eye on the running of Discus, but he had time to be involved in a multitude of collaborative releases, two of which have dropped almost simultaneously and show two very different sides to his not inconsiderable capabilities.
Courier I was reading Bram Stoker‘s Lair Of The White Worm recently, and there is something about the slow creep of the latest Courier cassette that evokes the brooding, underground menace of that book. The ominous drone, the slow vibrations, a rustling movement of an inexplicable body. Aqueous groans sound through stagnant pools and the creek and scutter of smaller things vanish into the shadows of hidden caverns.
Intimate Inanimate The artwork for the latest collaboration between Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist is lovely, but has a kind of impenetrability that filters through to the sounds within. It is as if these undiscovered runic symbols had a diffuse and languorous soundtrack that had been beamed in from some hitherto uncharted land. Time Apart In The West is broken down into fourteen months, and that sense of […]
Joyful Noise Recordings You could suggest that after nearly forty years in the music industry that Lou Barlow has finally found himself in a position where he has various different directions in which to flex his musical muscles; Dinosaur Jr for his bass playing chops and meatier songwriting, Sebadoh for the more esoteric ideas and interplay with Jason Loewenstein, and his solo work for the more personal and […]
Opa-Loka It seems to me that Philippe Petit‘s mission in his artistic existence is to make us re-appraise the way that we listen to music, sound, noise, however you wish to describe it, and to try and rewrite the rules, using sounds and forms that are so outside of the general sound world that they feel like transmissions from another planet. It is as if he has tapped […]
Constellation I was really looking forward to seeing Fly Pan Am come to Bristol last year. On the strength of last year’s C’est Ca, it was bound to be a storming show — and then lockdown hit, so although we didn’t manage to see them, instead we have ended up with another album and what a beauty it is. Conceived as a musical narrative accompanying the acclaimed contemporary […]
(self-released) Drummer Jochen Rueckert uses his Wolff Parkinson White alias when he is in the mood for subverting the romantic notion of the soulful vocalist tugging the heartstrings of the listener. This he does by surrounding the singer in question with a barrage of sonic accompaniment that tests the strength of the singer’s ability to put across an emotion. Following on from last year’s collection Small Favours, which […]
The Leaf Label Fernando Corona has been pushing the boundaries of recorded sound as Murcof for some twenty years or so now and for this latest, he is reunited with The Leaf Label; a fitting home for his restless innovation. The work on this double album was started four years ago as pieces for the Geneva-based dance company Alias. The fact that it was produced for such a […]
Upset The Rhythm Finally, more from Kaputt in the form of this delightful clear blue 7″. Only two tracks, I know, but what a frantic mood they bring to the party; slightly sickly, Fursy sax, high-pitched keening guitar, double-tracked inquisitive conversational vocals. It all just jumps in there, grabs your hand and starts running.
À Tant Rêver du Roi Kong‘s sole album has taken thirteen years to finally be issued on vinyl, and its muscular insistence and discomfiting tension is great to have back in circulation. I can’t remember who suggested that the trio was the ultimate expression of the rock format, but these three certainly brought noise as well as the mania and the telepathic interconnection. It seems extraordinary that Snake […]
Archaeological / Dio Drone The latest collaboration from these two denizens of the underground is quite a change from their previous release due to its live format and it being the only current recording of them performing together. When the Archaeological folk requested their appearance at the eighth Dio Drone Festival, people were perhaps expecting them to tackle pieces from Darkening Ligne Claire, but instead a wildly unexpected […]
Upset The Rhythm For me, Upset The Rhythm are turning into a kind of post-modern 4AD or Too Pure, the sort of labels on which you could take a punt and pretty much guarantee that what you had purchased would be good. So far, UTR have had an excellent hit rate, always managing to find the kind of interesting, whimsical and unique acts that make the listener sit […]