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.
Mr Olivetti
809 posts
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 […]
Discus It is impressive what Hervé Perez has managed to accomplish on this latest album. With great assistance from Alex Hegyesi, they play an astonishing number of instruments, some of which (psaltery, kokiroko, caval) I have no idea what they are. What they have managed though is to totally encapsulate the idea of a Garden Of Secrets by producing a series of themes that are accessible yet mysterious, […]
Geo Graham Dowdall has been operating under the Gagarin moniker for twenty-five years now and yet each release manages to bring something fresh to the electronica table. The Great North Wood has an impressive if slightly disturbing photograph of a forest on the cover; the sort of forest in which it would be easy to lose yourself, and that sense of the familiar as unknown encapsulates some of […]
Upset The Rhythm The opener from the latest Green Child album Shimmering Basset moves like a dream; the drunken, weaving synths and Raven Mahon‘s light, airy vocals are captivating. It is all synthy heaven and stuns of spectral guitar, as if the duo caught sight of an ’80s synth band through a fun house mirror and added some post-modern vibe to it.
Architects of Harmonic Rooms & Records Although Steffen Junghans has appended Basho to his last name out of a sign of respect for the legendary guitarist, it does not in any way detract from the unique direction of his own work. His latest album, the first in quite some time, is a delightful foray into the kind of impressionist guitar landscapes that his work is always hinting at, […]
Courier The latest release from the ever reliable Courier is a real trip down memory lane for people of a certain age. The cover image shows a handle from a slam-door carriage of vintage British Rail rolling stock, which perhaps goes some way to showing how Ciclismo has set out his stall. But with titles like “HST Exeter To Newton Abbot 1990” and “Class 37 Highland Sleeper 1992”, […]
Aagoo Nicholas Merz plies the same kind of widescreen, literate music for adventurers that shares some similarities with the likes of The Triffids and The Go-Betweens; a deep, resonant voice, seemingly full of wisdom, backed by a thoughtful band that frames the lyrics and leaves space for the listener’s imagination.
Thrill Jockey There is always an air of mystery surrounding the releases of Marc Richter‘s Black To Comm, and his latest album opens with the most disorientating stumble through memoirs and memories, faded and distressed. His ability to lead the listener gently around the ravages of a stricken mind is never greater than on Ooctye Oil and Stolen Androgens.
One Little Independent Henrik Lindstand‘s latest album centres entirely around the sweet tonality of his piano playing. There is a remoteness and a kind of solitude on Nordhem that is reflected in the kind of videos he chooses to release for each piece.
On-U Sound / Evergreen Recordings Denise Sherwood, daughter on On-U hero Adrian, has been simmering the tracks that appear on her debut album for the last seventeen years. Unsurprisingly, considering her pedigree and the family history, there are appearances here from the likes of Mark Stewart, members of Tackhead, as well as Filip Tavares; but thankfully, it never takes on the kind of overwhelming power of Tackhead. Instead, […]
Broken Folk For the follow up to their well regarded debut album, This Is Broken Folk, Lunatraktors have looked far and near for a set of traditional songs to bolster this EP, a little taster for the second album due for release in 2021. The first thing that you really notice on playing the EP is the extraordinary voice of Clair le Couteur.
We Are Busy Bodies Library Voices member and sound artist Michael Scott Dawson has turned an unexpected bout of vertigo into the impetus for this series of stunningly minimalist vignettes that use generative synth tones to form slow moving cascades of ambient sound.
KrysaliSound Paweł Pruski is a Polish ambient artist interested in the search for what lies between words, between moments and how to capture those elusive spaces in some sort of sound form. Over thirty-five minutes and six pieces on Between, various atmospheres are evoked, but each one feels as though the basis is a long, flat landscape, with hazy blue skies and the roll of purplish clouds far […]
Discus Martin Pyne spends a lot of his time preparing music for use in a dance studio environment, so during this recent period where everybody is shut up in their own little universes, he has found his mind wandering. Images of a lonely musician adrift in an empty theatre bereft of performers abound in this latest collection of lovely stripped back pieces that utilise percussion and vibes, with […]
Fire For some extraordinary reason, it has taken thirty years for Dons Savage to follow up the seminal early work of Dead Famous People with a full length album. Fire Records tracked her down and put her in the studio where it seems the years just dropped away. Her knack for perfect melody and succinct pop bite is now aligned with the sort of precise production and baroque […]
Lightning Archive Michael J Sheehy‘s first solo album in ten years is one of spectral, slow beauty; the creeping, acoustic melancholy hiding a new found zest for life that seems to put much distance between it and the more desperate and depraved output of Dream City Film Club and to a lesser extent Miraculous Mule. Here, buoyed by the recent birth of a child and the opportunity for […]
Jazzland Rymden, the post-jazz trio of Bugge Wesseltoft, Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström has released its second foray into the outer limits, hot on the heels of 2019’s Reflections And Odysseys, and it continues in a similar vein but pushes the explorations and interesting syntheses a little further abroad. As essentially a piano, bass and percussion trio, you could be forgiven for thinking that there is a limited […]