- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This may be Swiss pianist/composer Raphael Loher's first solo album, but he has crossed my path before with his Baumschule trio (featuring Julian Sartorius and Manuel Troller). I am much less familiar with Loher's other trio (KALI), but the importance is that he has spent time improvising with inspiring musicians and has accumulated some very intriguing compositional ideas along the way. Interestingly, Keemuun is itself a bit of an improvisatory collaboration with inspiring (if unwitting) musicians, as Loher often played along with albums by other artists while experimenting with his rapid-fire piano patterns (Beatrice Dillon's rhythmically adventurous Workaround was a particularly central touchstone). In fact, just about everything about this album's evolution feels like fertile grist for a "galaxy brain" meme: a prepared piano album…limited to only ten notes spanning two octaves…improvised against cutting edge techno rhythms…but with all of those foundational rhythms totally excised from the final recording. Needless to say, all of those factors make for a very cool album concept in theory, but I am pleased to report that Loher's brilliant execution has made this a killer album in reality as well.
The album consists of four numbered pieces, the first of which is considerably more subdued and minimal than the others (and shorter too). To my ears, the opener lies somewhere between bleary Morton Feldman-style dissonance and a dying, slightly out-of-tune music box performing its own elegy. It makes a perfectly fine (if understated) introduction, but I doubt I would be writing about Keemuun if it did not catch fire with the second piece and sustain that white-hot level of inspiration for the remainder of the album.
That second piece opens with a rapid arpeggio pattern that quickly begins unraveling into tendrils of new melody. It packs quite a mesmerizing effect, as it feels breathless, delirious, unpredictable, and endlessly spiraling. Then, around the five-minute mark, Loher downshifts his circular patterns into a plinking simmer that calls to mind a blurred and hallucinatory twist on gamelan. Notably, two of Loher's central themes for the album were "continuous movement of the left and right hands' and "a specific technique of piano preparation," so "II" marks the first explosive realization of that vision.
The third piece is yet another stunner in a similar vein, though its spiraling arpeggios have more of a "pulsing wave" dynamic. Loher proves to be something of a genius in the realm of dynamics in general, as his subtle changes in attack and emphasis give the piece the organically kinetic feel of shifting sand dunes. Moreover, Loher's piano preparation technique works some magic of its own, as his notes have a metallic physicality and leave a smeared and lingering haze of strange harmonies in their wake. The album winds to a close with another "Feldman meets broken music box"-style piece, but it has a much darker and more sinister tone this time around. Gradually the sense of menace subsides to reveal a deep sadness, but that sadness builds to a rhythmically sophisticated crescendo of broken-sounding interwoven melodies.
In its final moments, the piece (and the album) dissolve into a simple melancholy melody that leaves a ghostly afterimage hanging in the long spaces between the notes. It makes for a lovely and quiet comedown from the technical tour de force at the heart of the album. Obviously, one more tour de force would have been just fine by me, but this is a damn-near perfect album in all respects. Notably, the conception of this album coincided with an epiphany in which Loher became less interested in "confronting" audiences with his art and more interested in creating something "beautiful but strange." I honestly do not know how Loher could have possibly done a better job at realizing that objective, as Keemuun is quite a brilliant and moving statement.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
We seem to be in the midst of a long-overdue Delia Derbyshire renaissance at the moment due to the efforts of filmmaker Caroline Catz, Cosey Fanni Tutti, BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres, and others. Fittingly, this unusual and inspired album was commissioned back in 2018 as a score for Catz's similarly unconventional feature-length documentary. Sadly, it seems damn near impossible to see Catz's film at the moment (outside the UK, at least), but this soundtrack was released earlier this year to coincide with Cosey's own foray into telling Derbyshire's story (Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti). The book, film, and album were all inspired by research into Derbyshire's archive and the voluminous recordings and writings that became available after the visionary electronic artist's passing in 2001. Apparently, copyright issues are preventing much of Derbyshire's unearthed work from seeing an official release (there are some great unofficial ones like Inventions For Radio/The Dreams out there), but this album is a compelling consolation prize: using Derbyshire's notes on her compositions and techniques, Cosey has achieved a sort of posthumous homage/collaboration in which her own aesthetic is co-mingled with Derbyshire's singular and groundbreaking techniques and sounds.
While Delia Derbyshire is far from a household name, it is something of a miracle that she ever managed to be revered at all, as her musical career only spanned 15 years and took place at a time when neither women nor electronic music were taken particularly seriously. On top of that, she also had an eccentric personality, a tendency towards alcoholism, and an employer (the BBC) who did not consider her work to be "music" enough for her to be credited as a composer. Fortunately, she was both motivated and fucking brilliant, so she still managed to make a profound impact on the evolution of music despite those incredibly long odds. And it did not hurt that she was responsible for the Doctor Who theme, which made a sizable cultural dent of its own. It is hard to say whether or not there would have been a Throbbing Gristle had Derbyshire and her Radiophonic Workshop colleagues not forced weird electronic music into the mainstream, but I do think Derbyshire might have traumatized the general populace to a Gristle-y degree in the early '60s if her gear had been more portable. Obviously, bloody-minded persistence in the face of disrespect and hostility is a relatable theme for Cosey as well, so it is hard to think of another artist who could be more naturally suited for a project such as this. In short, Catz needed appropriately "Derbyshire" music for her film, but there were very few usable Derbyshire recordings available. Introduce Cosey Fanni Tutti, who immersed herself in the archive's collection (267 reel-to-reel tapes found in cereal boxes, I believe) and Derbyshire's notes and set about casting a Delia-esque spell in her own way on her own gear (though Delia's actual voice does make some appearances). As an aside, this is not Cosey's first homage to Derbyshire, as Carter Tutti's "Coolicon" took its name and inspiration from a metal lampshade that Delia regularly used to make sounds.
Interestingly, my initial impression of the album was that it captured the whole vibe of Derbyshire's known work quite well, but it had the (brooding) "ambient" feel that plagues a lot of soundtracks by design (good composers tend to focus on crafting and sustaining moods rather than on tearing the audience's focus away from the screen images). That said, the album does begin with a piece centered around Cosey's signature cornet that feels like an excerpt from a lost TG album devoted to soulful sax melodies for lovers (that immediately curdle, smear, and get enveloped in a black ooze of electronic drones, of course). I thought a few pieces stood out as especially good, but I did not fully appreciate Cosey's vision until I listened to the album on headphones at sufficient volume. That is when I realized that this album had some serious bite and that there was considerably more depth and nuance than I was previously aware of. Apparently, the difference between decent ambient music and a compelling electronic composition can sometimes be remedied with just a volume knob.
In any case, this album is a sustained plunge into a rabbit hole of retro-futurist psychedelia, cryptic voice fragments, and cool electronic sounds. It works nicely as an immersive whole, but several individual pieces come and go quite a bit quicker than they deserve. The one-minute lysergic cabaret of "Psychedelic Projections," for example, sounds like a would-be highlight from Love's Secret Domain. Elsewhere, I quite liked the psychotropic air raid nightmare of "Sirens" and the wonky Ghost Box-adjacent cosmic horror of "Four Bebe." That said, there are plenty of other wonderfully unique and warped moments strewn throughout the album, as my notes are filled with phrases like "a horse dissolves into extradimensional ghost dust," "a cold wind blows through an empty shack where something bad happened," "subterranean exotica by nightmare people," and "sounds like a creepy fairytale about a sneezing gnome." Anyone who can convincingly evoke even one of those scenes is probably deserving of my undying respect and Cosey manages to nail like ten of them here. This is an impressively alien album.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
When I first heard the thumping house/disco EP Was It Ever Real?, I had a very hard time believing that it could possibly be a teaser for something more substantial, as much of that EP felt like top-tier Soft Pink Truth that leaves very little room for improvement. If those songs did not make the cut for the full-length, I felt the album surely had to be either absolutely brilliant or absolutely wrong-headed with no possible middle ground. As it turns out, I was at least right about the "little room for improvement" bit, as Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? is not noticeably stronger than the preceding EP. Instead, it feels more like a lateral move, taking Drew Daniel's star-studded house party in a more kaleidoscopically arty and eccentric direction. Unsurprisingly, Deeper features roughly the same international cast of talented guests as the EP, but there are some noteworthy new additions as well, such as Nate Wooley, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner, and Jaime Stewart (Xiu Xiu). The result is a bit less "all killer, no filler" this time around, but the trade-off is that Deeper is an appropriately deeper and more immersive plunge into Daniel's psyche, touching upon everything from Barry White to George Bataille to krautrock while still managing to be functional, forward-thinking, and archly fun dance music.
The album kicks off in style with its first certified banger, "Deeper," which deceptively fades in with bleary drones before launching into a straight up classic disco groove with all the requisite hand claps and funky guitars. There is enough subtle dissonance to give it a somewhat delirious and unreal feeling right from the jump, but things do not get truly art-damaged until an unexpected church bell passage subsides. While the groove remains unswervingly propulsive for a bit longer, the insistent sexy thump is increasingly mingled with generous helpings of kitschy string stabs, tropical-sounding guitars, hazy flutes, and a host of other inspired psych touches before it all dissolves into smeary abstraction. I suppose the extended running time and ambient comedown preclude "Deeper" from being a hot single, but several of the pieces that immediately follow gamely rekindle the dancefloor fire. "La Joie Devant La Mort" is one of the album's more "perverse pop moments," as Jaime Stewart sings a George Bataille line about being in search of joy before death over an endearingly weird groove that calls to mind Coil's Love's Secret Domain album colliding with "A Fifth of Beethoven" and a chorus of tiny frogs. Wasner then takes the mic for the breezily sensuous "Wanna Know," which milks the album title's question for all its worth over a groove that could have been plucked from a Love Unlimited Orchestra album. The following "Trocadero" then pays homage to the "sleaze" disco subgenre synonymous with the titular SF club before "Mood Swing" ends the first half with a killer slow-building disco fusion of spiritual jazz, gurgling psychedelia, and Reich-ian piano patterns.
The second half is a bit more abstract and eclectic, as the 13-minute "Sunwash" is a chilled out bit of synthy Tangerine Dream-inspired spaciness. To some degree, It feels like it belongs on a completely different album than everything that came before it, but it makes a fine palate cleanser and it technically is on a different album vinyl-wise (Deeper is a double LP). The languorously dub-inflected "Joybreath" extends that post-club "morning after" vibe further, as Rose E Kross whispers and murmurs Bataille lines in French as twinkling piano and bleary sax and vibraphone melodies lazily wander through a fuzzy dreamscape. I imagine it evokes the feeling of waking up on a beach at sunrise after a hedonistic night of dancing and substance abuse, but my life is far too boring for me to be entirely certain of that. A couple of curious detours then follow, but the album ends on an incredibly strong note with a swooning cover of Willie Hutch's "Now That It's All Over" that feels half "psychotropic exotica bliss" and half "Love Boat" theme. It's a fittingly beautiful and poignant end to the album, as Daniel arguably sheds all of his ironic, sophisticated, and avant-garde tendencies for six minutes of pure naked joy (albeit pure naked joy repurposed from a blaxploitation classic). In any case, it is one hell of a cover as well as the perfect end to a thoroughly enjoyable album. And, of course, both Deeper and Was It Ever Real? have earned a permanent place in my heart for being primarily inspired by an anonymous woman's decades-old grievance with a club DJ.
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- Creaig Dunton
- Albums and Singles
On two distinct new albums, legendary composer Asmus Tietchens approaches different subject material with his current technique of recycling sounds beyond the point of any recognition. Schatten Ohne Licht (Shadow Without Light) is grounded in post-anthropological concepts influenced by scholar/writer Ulrich Horstmann's conceptualization of a planet devoid of biological life. Comparatively, Parallelen would seem focused on more theoretical mathematics and a greater sense of the abstract.
The opening title piece of Schatten Ohne Licht features Tietchens blending quiet tones with distant, low-end rumbles, with both the higher and lower frequencies layering and building throughout. Towards the half-way point he switches things around, using the same components but swapping around the arrangements, becoming a different sounding piece entirely. "Anthroporsaurus" follows a similar approach, pairing floating hints of melody with deep space pulsations and a machinery like chug, although the sum total of the parts is more delicate than anything else.
Later, "Es ist Endlich Still" (It's Finally Quiet) is a perfect example of the post-organic life themes of the album. High register crystalline sounds are joined with liquid, wet noise. Combining strange outbursts, flattened frequencies, and some occasional crackling, it sounds as empty and devoid of life as the title would insinuate. Closer "Kolosse" is an appropriately dramatic ending, all shimmering and looming space with chiming swells peppered throughout. As a whole it is more forceful and heavy compared to the other pieces on the disc, and results in a fitting climax for the album.
Comparatively, Parallelen comes across as a more purely sonic experiment as opposed to one grounded in a specific theme. The components are similar, such as the wobbling tones and occasionally shrill passages of the lead off piece "Parallele Ebene 1," but instead of conjuring desolate images of rocks and minerals, there is an almost vintage science fiction soundtrack feel, something Tietchens has used to great effect in the past. A sense of alien life and space also comes through extremely well for "Parallele 1" via guttural sounds and ringing pulsations that sound like nothing from Earth.
Tiectchens also toys with conventional music elements throughout this album, such as the fragments of backwards melody that drift through the murky, interlocking layers of abstract sound throughout "Parallele Ebene 2." Ghostly tones also inhabit "Paralelle 4" quite obviously, but the musicality is most prominent on the closing "Am Fluchtpunkt." The piece features what sounds like digital low bit rate detritus molded into almost music box like melodies, resulting in a strangely active, almost carnival like atmosphere that is far lighter (and dare I say almost fun) than what preceded it.
It would seem that Tietchens utilized similar strategies to create the sounds used on both Schatten Ohne Licht and Parallelen, but it is the different approach to theme and composition that makes for two distinct works. Both, however, are indicative of Tietchens' ever evolving style and imagination. Even well over 40 years since his first recorded work, he is consistently producing new and innovative works that never feel stuck in any sort of complacency, but instead is indicative of his never-ending creativity.
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- Creaig Dunton
- Albums and Singles
On their second album this trio continues the sound of their 2018's self-titled debut, expanding the dense, continually flowing sound showcased there even further. Across three instrumentals (and one shorter vocal based song), More Klementines effortlessly jump between expansive improvised passages with taut, motorik rhythmic sections, resulting in a perfect junction of two very different styles.
Dynamic shifts are something More Klementines accomplishes effortlessly. Right from the opening of "Hot Peace," Michael Kiefer propels the lengthy session with subtle, understated drumming and delicate chimes, while guitarist Jon Schlesinger and multiple instrumentalist Steubs weave in layered guitar and bass. Occasionally drifting towards jam band territory (but keeping things tastefully psychedelic and dissonant), the trio drift into an expansive, open passage about two thirds of the way through, eventually building back to a wall of guitar scrapes and scatter-shot drumming.
On the second long instrumental, "Who Remembers Light," the group comes in with a blend of chiming, echoing guitar mixed with some more forceful, flanged sounds. Muffled drums appear, and soon everything locks into a chaotic, complex mix of loose noise and structured melody. Evolving into a tense, robotic beat, the trio end up pulling everything apart into an abstract conclusion that reconstitutes into a swell of heavily effected guitars and erratic rhythms.
The two shorter songs are notably different, with the instrumental "Ascension" remaining somewhat consistent throughout, with pulsating electric and acoustic guitar and a beautiful bass tone. Compared to the longer pieces, this one stays a bit more down beat and restrained until its freakout conclusion, but even there the trio stay somewhat reserved. "Key of Caesar" is the most significant departure, not only clocking in at a succinct sub four minute duration, but also featuring straight ahead vocals from Schlesinger. Comparatively, it feels more directly rooted in early 1990s indie rock and is far more conventional sounding, even with its multilayered, complex guitar sound.
The free form nature of Who Remembers Light is immediately engaging, nicely balancing out harsher guitar sounds with melodic, cleaner tones throughout. The trio's penchant of alternating between structure and chaos, as well as dissonance and melody makes for a perfect dynamic, and even the two shorter pieces show that they can write a traditional song just as easily as they can improvise molten psychedelia.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This is my first encounter with this UK-based improv unit, but Fallout 4 is the latest installment of a series of live documents that began all the way back in 2001. The band/collective itself has existed since 1996, though it seems like there's been at least one decade-long hiatus and the ensemble's members have all been active in other projects ranging from prog to ambient to art pop (while Andrew Ostler has been busy building modular synth hardware, among other things). Notably, Darkroom has recently reactivated and released some new material, but the performance documented here dates back to 2012 and the aesthetic lies somewhere between slow-burning Tarentel-style post-rock and Tangerine Dream-inspired space ambient (though Can was apparently a significant inspiration as well). On a related note, the album was mastered by Jono Podmore, who played a significant role in yet another fine vault project (Can's The Lost Tapes). I suspect Podmore had a challenging task on his hands, as the band tellingly state that he was chosen both for "his ability to control sonic forces" and "to make sure it was finally done." While this album and the Fallout series in general capture the band in a more noirish and shadowy mood than usual, I can see why they were so keen to get these recordings out into the world even a decade late, as much of this album is spacey, slow-motion psych magic.
Expert Sleepers
At the time of the recording, Darkroom were pared down to just the core duo of Michael Bearpark (guitars) and Andrew Ostler (synths) and two of the album's three pieces are taken from the final date of the pair's 2012 tour. Amusingly, Bearpark and Ostler note that some of that performance happened "even after most of the audience had left," as they found themselves in an unusually inspired mood that night and were in no hurry to stop playing. The album's third piece is culled from other recordings from the tour, though it is not specified whether "Tuesday's Ghost" is from a different gig or a rehearsal tape. Regardless of where and when it was recorded, "Tuesday's Ghost" is one hell of a killer piece. It slowly fades into existence with hazy synth drones and a languorous bass pulse, which is a very common theme for the album, but the beauty lies in how the duo organically transform that gently spacey ambient into a hypnotic, immersive, and shoegaze-damaged epic. Each of album's three pieces gets to that place eventually, but "Tuesday's Ghost" captures the pair in especially fine form, transcending their usual fare with inspired touches like a warbling, supernatural-sounding loop; a quavering feedback howl; and a simmering, charmingly Latin-influenced beat (once it all properly catches fire, at least).
The other two pieces offer their own unique pleasures, however, even if the stylistic terrain is roughly the same. The opening "It's Clear From The Air" is the other big highlight, as it is a seething and shimmering slow-motion juggernaut of flickering guitar loops, pulsing chords, spacey electronics, and an unexpectedly sensuous drum pattern. Elsewhere, I can understand how a live audience would find the 25-minute "Quaag" to be something of an endurance test, but that extended duration is more of an asset than a liability for home listening. Granted, it does take a while to get truly rolling, but it feels like a wonderfully out-of-control train once the skittering and scattering drum pattern kicks in. Admittedly, the tense synth motif at the heart of the piece lays on the drama a bit too thick to quite qualify as another flawless triumph, but there are plenty of great moments around it. Bearpark and Ostler were (and maybe still are) quite a formidable improv team on a good night, so I am pleased that some recordings of the nights when they absolutely slayed will now delight some fresh ears. When they are at their best, Darkroom have hive mind-level chemistry and damn near singular talents for slow-building majesty, nuance, and lightness of touch. Beyond that, this is some of the best contemporary space music that I've encountered since Bremen's Second Launch.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This Chicago-based singer-songwriter is a bit of an enigma to me, as details about his discography are quite slim. As far as I can tell, however, 3am is his second solo album, which is noteworthy given that it has been 8 long years since Swan’s similarly excellent debut (I'll Be Around) surfaced. What he was up to during that hiatus is mostly unknown to me (aside from "drawing the night in around his private, unnerving vigil," of course), but one thing I do know is that he formed a duo with James Schimpl called Dead Bandit that released their debut on Quindi last year (the same label behind this album). In any case, 3am is one hell of an aptly titled album, as it very much has the feel of a hushed, late-night confessional via four-track. The overall aesthetic calls to mind the "desolate outsider folk" blurring of an insomniac Elliott Smith or Zelienople with the homespun intimacy of early Iron and Wine, yet the pervasive mood of late night sadness is beautifully balanced with cool production tricks and shades of more lively and eclectic influences like Suicide and Charlie Megira.
The album’s description insightfully notes that Swan’s aesthetic plays “on the natural distortion and delirium which occurs at the farthest end of the night,” which is an excellent way to explain how this album differs dramatically from ostensibly similar artists exploring the “after late night television pain” vein such as Russian Tsarlag or Matt Christensen. Swan has some darkness to exorcise, to be sure (check out “Hospice”), but 3am feels more like a batch of poignant and hook-filled gems that were handed off to the night itself for a “late night delirium” production overhaul. Obviously, that is not what actually happened, which makes Swan a bit of a visionary production-wise: he uses the same roughly instrumentation as everyone else, but those instruments are inevitably veiled in hiss, buried deep in the mix, or distorted by their lo-fi recording process (Swan apparently “drags the music through layer upon layer of tape fuzz” as part of his process). Significantly, he goes the opposite route with his vocals, as they sound close mic’d in a way where it feels like Swan is whispering directly into my ear. Rather than hiding himself in a fog of reverb and hiss, he expertly wields murk to weave a haunted and hallucinatory backdrop for his stark, emotionally direct songs. The album’s lead single “Puppeteers Tears” is an especially fine illustration of Swan’s inspired strain of ghostly Americana, as it feels like something from The Creek Drank the Cradle eerily enhanced with a haunting whistle loop, a buried organ motif, and a primitive drum machine groove.
As far as singles go, “Puppeteers Tears” was a strong choice, but the same could have been said for at least half of the remaining songs as well. The bleak subject matter of “Hospice” presumably excluded it from contention for the honor, but it is a similarly stellar piece, as Swan’s hushed and rhythmic half-sung/half-spoken vocals are backed by a smoldering groove featuring jangling jingle bells and a wobbly synth hook. Elsewhere, the darkly sensual “Swing” sounds like the best song Suicide never wrote, while the title piece sounds like a blearily hallucinatory minimal wave classic. “It Could Always Be Worse” is another skeletal would-be pop masterpiece, as it feels like an early synth pop hit that has been completely drained of blood. The remainder of the album is quite strong as well, if a little less substantial (there are several instrumentals and brief interludes). There is also an unexpectedly tender surprise in the form of “She’s My Sweet Summer Storm,” which somehow manages to feel like a sincere love song without dispelling the uneasy “fever dream” spell of the album. In fact, just about everything Swan attempted turns out wonderfully on 3am, as he manages to effortlessly evoke the ghosts of roughly five different artists I love without ever creeping into derivative “pastiche” territory. Hopefully it will not take another eight years for Swan’s next solo album, but quietly releasing an album or two like 3am would be enough to make him a cult hero in a sane and just world. If this album had been released in 1983 (or even 1993), I suspect collectors would be happily dropping hundreds of dollars for an original copy. Sadly, Swan probably missed his window for achieving indie immortality, but 3am is a hell of a lot better than many highly sought-after bedroom masterpieces that came before it.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
Keeping up with Andrew Chalk’s discography has always been an amusingly challenging endeavor, but the challenge has shifted from pouncing on limited edition physical releases to vigilantly ensuring that he does not quietly surface with a substantial new opus of some kind without my notice. The most recent substantial new opus is this one on Colin Potter’s ICR label, which is billed as Chalk’s “first new solo album in five years.” It certainly feels like a major statement to me, though the meaning of terms like “new” and “album” can be quite blurry and elusive given Chalk’s singularly minimalist approach to providing album details. In any case, The End Times was (perhaps prophetically) recorded earlier this year and marks a rare CD release after Chalk’s recent run of cassettes. Beyond that, further details are quite slim. That is just fine by me, as the only thing that actually matters is that Andrew Chalk is still making incredibly beautiful and distinctive music, as The End Times is a characteristically sublime and immersive dreamscape of tender melodies, elegantly shifting moods, and vividly detailed textures.
The opening “House of the Holy” provides an appropriately representative introduction to the album’s overall aesthetic, as a vaporous melody of blurred, lingering notes unfolds over a gently gurgling pulse. As the album unfolds, a few subtle new details emerge that set The End Times apart from some of Chalk’s other recent work, but the most prominent features throughout are the quivering, liquid-like character of the notes and the ephemeral brevity of the pieces. Rather than evolving and expanding, these 13 pieces instead feel like a series of enigmatic mirages that offer a fleeting and flickering glimpse of heaven before dissolving back into nothingness. Given all the gentle, blurred sounds and the tone of meditative reverie, it is deceptively easy to mistake The End Times for ambient music, yet it reveals itself to be considerably more than that for those willing to fully immerse themselves in Chalk’s slow-motion fantasia of beautiful details and small yet significant events. I view it as somewhat akin to looking through a rain-streaked window–it is easy to gaze through the glass and simply think “today is a wet and overcast day,” but it is also possible to appreciate how the individual droplets quiver and roll down the glass or how the streaks of water subtly bend and warp the appearance of the outside world. Albums like this are the reason why the genre term “lowercase” needed to exist, as Chalk’s compositions are incredibly rich, but the size of the reward is directly proportional to how closely one listens.
While Chalk’s vision admittedly tends to focus on the metaphorical trees, he does not entirely forget the metaphorical forest, so there are some more overt pleasures to be found as well. The most immediately gratifying is “Midsummar,” which feels like a bittersweetly melodic piano miniature transformed into quavering, viscous droplets of bliss, but it also features a bit of a gently hallucinatory Ghost Box/library music feel. Elsewhere, the shimmering, sad beauty of “The End Times” steals the show as the beating heart of the album, while “War Horns” uses a simple, ghostly melody as the canvas for a micro-scale fireworks display of Pole-esque hisses, clicks, and pops. “At Sunset” is yet another quiet stunner, as Chalk transforms a slow parade of frayed, swelling tones into something that feels like time lapse footage of the psychotropic bloom of an otherworldly flower. More than any other piece on the album, “At Sunset” illustrates the singular magic of a great Andrew Chalk piece, as he is without peer at sculpting compositions until nothing remains but a fleeting and fragile moment of simple poignant beauty.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
Few artists have consistently fascinated and perplexed me quite like Oren Ambarchi, as I absolutely loved his early solo guitar albums like Grapes From the Estate, then witnessed him spend the next 15 or 20 years exploring improvisatory and rhythmic-driven detours to continually intensifying and breathless acclaim. I imagine it feels somewhat akin to being a Velvet Underground fan encountering unanimous rapturous praise for their post-Cale albums–I get the appeal, but that would not be my personal go-to era if I wanted to illustrate that band's greatness. Then again, maybe my perspective on Ambarchi's evolution would shift dramatically if I just liked jazz fusion more. In any case, I can certainly understand the unusual trajectory from Oren's viewpoint, as few would pass up a chance to form a trio with Jim O'Rourke and Keiji Haino and jamming with talented friends over mutant krautrock/fusion grooves seems like a hell of a lot more fun than making slow-motion guitar magic by yourself (can't fault a guy for loving spontaneity and challenging new collaborations). Both spontaneity and inspiring guest performances abound on Shebang, as Ambarchi enlisted quite a killer (virtual) ensemble, resulting in one of my favorite of his albums in recent memory (2016's Hubris being the other serious contender).
The album is essentially a single 35-minute piece, but there are four numbered sections that segue seamlessly into one another. The first begins with a quirkily rhythmic and twinkling electric guitar motif that is soon joined by additional layers that bring unpredictably interwoven melodies and a stilted, oddly timed funkiness. It does not take long before the sheer intricacy and rhythmic sophistication of its various moving parts starts to feel dazzling and virtuosic, but the piece soon gets even better as it becomes more bass-heavy while bleary shades of psychedelia begin to bleed in. The second section announces itself when Joe Talia's skittering, shuffling drums emerge from a haze of feedback and shimmer. Curiously, all of the prominent themes from the first section fall away for a very stripped down palette of drums, subtle piano, rhythmic palm-muted guitar, and an occasional bass clarinet skwonk, but that downshift into simmering spaciousness nicely set the stage for me to be completely wrong-footed by the inspired appearance of BJ Cole's Hawaiian-sounding pedal steel.
While Ambarchi's primary influences for Shebang were ostensibly folks like Pat Metheny and Henry Kaiser, I would be hard pressed to think of any album at all that resembles the singular fusion/exotica/psych/broken funk stew conjured by his murderers' row of remote collaborators once the piece properly catches fire. Moreover, by the time the third section begins, I have absolutely no idea what Ambarchi himself is even playing, as it sounds like a live recording of a Keith Jarrett trio or something (albeit one with added spice from Jim O'Rourke's spacy synth intrusions). Shebang's final act then turns up the heat even more with Julia Reidy's viscerally jangling 12-string while Talia continues to unleash a quiet storm of absolutely killer drumming en route to a satisfyingly cathartic climax.
Notably, however, there is an unusual amount of restraint on display, which makes Shebang considerably more compelling and memorable than the standard "get some friends together for a wild improv session" trajectory–aside from its tight and exacting craftsmanship, the most striking feature of the album is how the piece seems to linger in a state of suspended animation even as it steadily intensifies. It reminds me of Terry Riley's In C, except instead of monomaniacally playing one note, Ambarchi's ensemble seems to endlessly riff around a single chord while stealthily ratcheting up the tension and complexity without ever granting the release of chord changes or a volcanic, howling crescendo. It is quite a tour de force, combining unique vision with absolutely brilliant execution.
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- Eve McGivern
- Albums and Singles
A noisy wall of sound is combined perfectly with atmospheric hooky tunes on this wonderful latest release from National Screen Service. I came across the 2017 release Hotels of the New Wave on Bandcamp, which caught my ears initially (however it is sadly seems no longer seems available from there). The project appears to have started in 2014 (Sea Level Trials can still be obtained from Bandcamp), and apart from being from somewhere in England, that's the extent of all I know of them (him? her?). To me it feels as if that mystery can genuinely make the music more engaging, allowing it to speak for itself while as listeners, we are free to engage the imagination. Released oddly (or tactfully) on the first Friday of October, A New Kind of Summer is a perfect warm summery album adaptable to other seasons.
With all music crafted without words, I imagine this album title hinting at being created during the first active summer following the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the moodier Hotels of the New Wave, A New Kind of Summer positively exudes a warm ambiance from the start with "Safe Dunes," but soon enough, we are greeted with familiar and friendly guitar layers before the music cascades into elegant noise. The beats are motorik, hook upon laden hook from the first song, and well into the following.
The title track's refrain has me both wistful for summers gone by and exhilarated for summers to come, and it is not often a song that has stuck both chords in me at once. Consider it a testament to the power of this music. A measured dose of driving bass in a few of the tracks keeps the album in motion. On "Low Winter Somewhere," that momentum is accented with bits of ambient drone that send the song into the ether before retaking the reins, dragging my ears back downwards through the atmosphere.
There is no more apparent clue to the mood National Screen Service achieves than the track title "The Sound of Your Childhood." The music threads melodies of exuberance and simplicity, even when joining together a myriad of instruments for that "wall of sound" experience, keeping melodies bright, familiar, and engaging, sprinkled with the bright bells, synth, and guitar and supported by a foundation of deep bass. The album just feels personal, and I almost can understand the persons behind the songs "Claudia Forever," "Katy," and "Jay." A New Kind of Summer is richly rewarding with an engaging soundscape that allows a safe and joyous escape.
Samples available here.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
I am a big fan of Adrian Sherwood's passion for luring the greatest luminaries in Jamaican music history into late-career collaborations, as it is hard to imagine a better deal than working with On-U Sound's murderers' row of killer musicians and having a contemporary dub visionary at the console. Midnight Rocker (released in April) was the first fruit of Sherwood's union with Horace Andy and (unsurprisingly) focuses primarily on Andy's legendary voice while putting a new spin on a few of the Jamaican tenor's signature jams (along with a nod to his more recent work with Massive Attack). Given the caliber of everyone involved, Rocker is a predictably likable album and an impressive return for Andy, but a big part of the fun with classic Jamaican music is the inevitable wave of dubs and variations that follow, so I connected much more deeply with the newly released companion album, Midnight Scorchers. Wisely, Andy's voice remains a central focus, so it is easy to recognize the hooks and melodies from the previous album in their new context, yet Sherwood allows himself to go a bit wild in the studio for a "sound system" take on the material. To my ears, the same songs are the strongest on both albums, but the weaker songs from Rocker benefit significantly from the more adventurous arrangements and production on Scorchers.
Midnight Rocker borrows its title from the opening line of Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm," which was the lead song on their 1991 debut Blue Lines. Notably, that album was the beginning of Andy's recurring involvement with that project, but "Safe From Harm" is a curious song to revisit, as Andy did not sing on the original and it has a darker, more dramatic tone than the rest of Midnight Rocker. Given how wildly successful that album was, I imagine its inclusion here was a savvy choice, but its killer bass and tambourine groove plays far more to Sherwood's strengths than the lyrics and tone do to Andy's. The album's other trips down memory lane are a handful of contemporized resurrections from Andy's own sprawling discography such as "This Must Be Hell, "Materialist," and "Mr. Bassie." Of that lot, "Mr. Bassie" fares the best, as it boasts a strong melodic hook and wades into increasingly dubby territory as it unfolds.
The strongest songs tend to be entirely new ones, however, and there is a great run in the middle of the album that elevates Rocker into something more satisfying than just a well-meaning nostalgia trip. That said, "Watch Over Them" still sounds like a breezy, newly unearthed classic from the early '80s due to its upbeat groove and prominent synth hook. My favorite pieces are "Today is Right Here" and "Try Love," as they strike the most perfect and organic blend of the two artists' formidable talents. In "Today is Right Here," a great vocal hook is matched with a stark bass-driven groove, smoky horns, and cool percussion flourishes executed with an admirable lightness of touch. Elsewhere, "Try Love" boasts one hell of a sinuous, disco-damaged groove that Sherwood manipulates brilliantly. I am tempted to say Midnight Rocker could have been a superior album if Sherwood had simply gone with a stripped-down palette of bass, drums, percussion, and Andy's voice, but I do dig some of the cello, brass, and guitar parts, so that would not be entirely fair (when they work, they work quite well). Fans more amenable to rampant harmonicas will probably enjoy Midnight Rocker more than I do, yet this uneven collection features enough flashes of greatness to be a worthy addition to the discography of everyone involved (including the late Style Scott, who somehow made it onto this album despite shedding his mortal coil in 2014).
By my count, Midnight Scorchers reprises eight songs from Rocker (with new and different titles), but also throws some welcome new elements into the mix along with a pair of new pieces and a completely different sequence. For me, the most crucial development is the involvement of cult dancehall hero Daddy Freddy on three songs, as his playful and chaotic presence almost always makes a song instantly feel like a killer party. On "Dirty Money Business," Sherwood keeps Andy's central vocal hook from "Easy Money," but devotes the verses to Freddy's fiery motor-mouthed toasting ("Mr. Andy buy a house with a satellite dish!") for a livelier and more entertaining twist. I also enjoyed the more prominent percussion and the unexpected splashes of spacy synth and Spanish guitar. It is a very "everything but the kitchen sink" piece, but the execution is absolutely stellar. Daddy Freddy's other big showcase lands on the new version of "Mr. Bassie," as "More Bassy" benefits greatly from having a feral-sounding man roaring about the urgent need to turn up the bass. Daddy Freddy also turns up on the new "Safe From Harm," but even he is not enough to save that song from its dour chorus, though I do prefer the new version due to its spacier tone and unexpectedly Egyptian-sounding harmonica hook.
Happily, Scorchers also features three more highlights despite Daddy Freddy being sidelined for the remainder. Unsurprisingly, two of those are new versions of highlights from Rocker. On the opening "Come After Midnight," Sherwood rekindles the smoldering groove of "Try Love," but does so with more aggressive dub interventions as well as some funkier wah-wah touches. Elsewhere, "Away With The Gun And Knife" is a version of "Watch Over Them" with enhanced dubbiness, some cool brass solos, and a more pleasantly laidback feel. Sadly, I don't believe "Today is Right Here" made the leap to Midnight Scorchers in any form (it must have been perfect already), but the consolation prize is that it was replaced by an absolutely smoking cover of "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" that is a strong candidate for the best goddamn song on the entire album. While Andy's presence is mostly reduced to the chorus hook, the rhythm section absolutely slays and cellist Ivan Hussey trades solos with the brass section while Sherwood's production ensures that everything is as sensuous and smoky as possible. I could take or leave the other new song ("Dub Guidance"), as it feels like a harmonica-crazy deep cut from a classic '70s dub album, but the new versions of other songs from Midnight Rocker tend to show some welcome innovations and improvements (such as the jabbering Mad Professor-style electronics and party horns on "Hell and Back"). Coupled with the more generous helping of highlights, that is enough to elevate Midnight Scorchers from "it is nice to see Horace Andy releasing new music" to "damn–this is a legitimately good and contemporarily relevant album."
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