Krysalisound The latest release from Krysalisound is the debut from Paolo Iannantuoni, trading as Nāda Mushin. A doyen of the Italian ambient scene, Paolo uses these meditative soundscapes as a means of exploring the dichotomy between movement and stasis; his guitar, electronics and field recordings conjuring up dreamlike states and the metaphysical act of travelling without moving.
Mr Olivetti
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Dronarivm Russian label Dronarivm has released the latest offering from Swedish sound sculptor Ingmar Wennerberg on a beautifully packaged cassette limited to forty-five copies. The images on Snufmumriko‘s Sekunder, Eoner‘s cover depict etchings of ancient flying machines and the drifting drone of opener “Kasta Loss”, emanating from the speakers like an elongated sigh
Modularfield Modularfield is continuing its exploration of contemporary German electronic music with a couple of vinyl releases, both in beautifully executed sleeves by label boss Markus Scholz and on lovely white vinyl. First up is Panic Girl‘s Cake On Jupiter, a perfect title for the solitary joy contained within.
Modularfield A squeal of metal and a wave of drone introduces Piksel‘s Places and throws you headlong into a dramatic situation with no time to prepare. Like the slow movement of enormous creatures, wings beating in subterranean isolation, things grind and shriek, and the oppressive drone pushes everything before it.
Upset The Rhythm Upset The Rhythm really seems to be cornering the market in literate if slightly eccentric indie pop these days. It takes me back to the halcyon days of C86 in the way that each new band that releases something on the label is bringing their own skewed vision of what passes for post-punk or indie guitar (for want of a better term). Carnage Hall from […]
Slowcraft / KrysaliSound James Murray set up Slowcraft Records back in 2011 to enable him to release his drifting passages of ambience, as well as highlighting other artists with a similar approach. His latest, Embrace Storms, numbered and limited to 150 copies and released in association with KrysaliSound, is a further variation on the theme of distance and dissolution.
Thrill Jockey Ryley Walker has been leading any interested parties a merry dance since his career started in earnest with 2015’s Primrose Green. I was talking to somebody who had taken a friend to see him this year at The Fleece in Bristol, expecting the pretty psych-folk of that album and ending up with the post-jazz extrusions of The Dave Matthews Band, which flies in the face of […]
Figureight After 2017’s EP Recôncavo was re-issued on Phantom Limb, people have obviously been awaiting a full-length album from Louisville-based JR Bohannon and here it is, a rare release on Shazad Ismaily‘s Figureight label. The rich musical history of Louisville in Kentucky, from Appalachian finger-picking to the post-rock vibes of the likes of Slint, are all filtered through in the DNA of JR’s music to create a hybrid that […]
Rocmusic It is great news that the first three R.O.C albums are finally back in print. It has been many years since the listening public received the unexpected assault on the senses that was the first, self-titled album. That juxtaposition of Karen Sheridan‘s angelic, dreamy vocals with Fred Browning‘s more bitter, vitriolic vocal attack, all couched in a series of dramatically diverse musical backdrops that all three band […]
Glacial Movements Algida Bellezza is Alessandro Tedeschi‘s seventh album for Glacial Movements and it is another release that fits perfectly into their oeuvre. Over five mistily submerged tracks, a bleak, monochrome landscape is evoked through the slow moving actions of Netherworld‘s electronic drones and mysterious unseen sounds that lurk in the flailing snow storms that envelope the fractured pieces on offer here.
Discus Considering how long and varied the careers of Alex Maguire, Martin Pyne and Mark Hewins have been, this is the first time that the three have played together, and Discus is the perfect home for their meeting of musical minds as MPH. The CVs of the three members include an incredible variety of musical styles that seems to have culminated in a freedom that is quintessentially pastoral, […]
Bureau B Kreidler have been going for twenty-five years now and are on their twelfth or thirteenth album, let alone all the other projects that the various members have. It is an impressive record, and even more so that each Kreidler album brings something a little different to the table. For the follow up to 2017’s European Song, they have pieced together and album of two halves; the […]
ADAADAT The continent-straddling meeting of musical minds that is Elephant House has reconvened after a couple of years’ rest to produce this ode to pan-cultural dream states that is Chollima.
Trace It still amazes me after twenty years or so how Mark Beazley can still make the bass guitar sound so different and vital across his various releases as Rothko. It feels like a personal crusade, a one-man (sometimes with help — Johny Brown, Michael Donnelly) to keep that cavernous echoing dream sound alive in the hearts of the listening public; and Rothko albums never fail to overwhelm, […]
Courier Sound Back in 2018, while creating sleeves for Graham Dunning‘s keg/Bulkhead release, Stuart Bowditch recorded the sounds of the Silhouette Cameo 3 plotter cutter and then offered it as basis for other artists to record a response. Now, if like me you have ever worked in an office and been surrounded by the rhythmic, mechanised sounds of copiers, printers, bursters, plotters and the like, you may have […]
Temporary Residence The recent collaboration between Date Palms‘ Marielle Jakobsons and Cali guitarist Chuck Johnson under the name Saariselka has yielded an album of exquisitely crafted and slow-moving beauty that employs steel guitar and the romantic thrum of Fender Rhodes to devastating effect.
(self-released) Meriheini Luoto‘s love for the forest and how the violin can be used to translate the mystery and wonder that it entails was used to excellent effect on 2017’s Metsänpeitto, which received much critical acclaim. Having been given the opportunity to perform it live, the idea was sown to produce a sequel and two years later, here it is.
Rockerill / Freaksville Josy And Pony have been gigging all across Europe since their first album dropped in 2017, and now they return with another fun-packed ride through the important matters of the day — but given their unique twist on ’60s French pop, ’90s indie and carefree hypnotic abandon. It is all topped off as ever with the mysteriously masked Josy’s winning French vocals, sometimes sultry, sometimes […]