Det Blaser En Vind Genom Varlden, Och Det Har Det Alltid Gjort (6:54)
Review: An experimental techno hexagram in LP form from Stockholm artist Evigt Morker. Without so much as a hint of context, the techno dark-shooter here drops his third LP for resident label Northern Electronics as a surprise, and the result is rather stunning. A bleary set of impressions, some tunes on this record clip the top edge of the mix, chinking our emotive armour. The effect is gastric, dehiscent, exuding bile: 'Hemilga Eldar' leaves us dumbstruck by its ambient eventidal winds and strangely sprawled drum shapes, while 'Sokaren Hittade' combines nyctophile cantos with electric twangs. The closer 'Det Blaser En Vind...' is a headland of humility, letting in much longer gusts of tuned air.
Review: Eyes of the Amaryllis is a collective that announced its arrival with a debut self-titled album back in 2021 on cassette tape. A year later they landed on Horn of Plenty with a second album which came on vinyl, and now they offer up a first 45rpm in the form of 'Lunchtime On Earth' on Swedish label I Dischi Del Barone. All four tracks are decidedly short and to the point and sit somewhere between post-rock and experimental with elements of lo-fi, folk and world & country. It's the title track that stands out with its doleful guitars, plenty of echo and drifting, wordless vocal sounds making for a beautifully melancholic vibe.
Review: Oren Ambarchi and Eric Thielemans' latest collaboration emerges from a recorded performance in Poitiers, France, in November 2023, showcasing their extraordinary duo chemistry. The single continuous performance, spanning over 45 minutes, encapsulates their shared language and willingness to push boundaries, blending meditative calm with unexpected melodic and rhythmic moments. 'Kind Regards' (Beginning) opens with Thielemans' entrancing tom patterns, which provide a steady undercurrent for Ambarchi's guitar, transformed into swirling tones by a Leslie speaker. As the music unfolds, it moves between introspective calm and more forceful bursts of energy, with Ambarchi's guitar eventually taking on an electric organ-like quality, echoing the soulful depth of Alice Coltrane. Later, 'Kind Regards' (Conclusion) takes on a more jazz-oriented direction, as Thielemans' delicate rhythmic shifts showcase his mastery of accents and cymbal work. Ambarchi counters this with jittery delayed tones, and a more active use of his fretboard, weaving through dissonant harmonics before concluding with a massive, yet detailed, climax of distorted guitar and crashing cymbals. The performance, free from any flashy tricks or filler, draws power from the deep intuition between the two musicians, and their shared commitment to exploring the limits of their instruments.
ELpH - "If It Wasn't Wolves, Then What Was It?" (2:56)
ELpH - "Static Electrician (Symphonic)" (4:52)
ELpH - "Track 9" (3:09)
ELpH - "Track 10" (1:26)
ELpH - "Track 11" (2:45)
ELpH - "Track 12" (10:46)
ELpH - "Track 13" (7:43)
ELpH - "Track 14" (2:57)
ELpH - "Track 15" (8:22)
ELpH - "Track 16" (9:11)
ELpH - "Gnomic Verses" (5:06)
ELpH - "Track 18" (11:21)
ELpH - "Track 19" (8:18)
Coil - "Glisten#2" (1:04)
ELpH - "Zwolf" (20:02)
Review: This 30th-anniversary reissue of a key experimental release is a journey into the darker realms of electronic music, showcasing the duo's exploration of ambient, industrial and glitch-inspired soundscapes. The release features a stark contrast between the rhythmic, almost club-ready track, infused with danceable energy and the more experimental, glitch-heavy compositions that delve into an unsettling, ritualistic atmosphere. The latter, considered one of the duo's most daring works, uses manipulated sounds, haunting textures and a pervasive sense of sonic unease to create a deep listening piece. The reissue compiles rare material, including previously unreleased tracks, alongside the duo's final appearance under this project. Fans of avant-garde electronic music will appreciate the unique blend of rhythmic elements and abstract textures. While some may prefer later works from the duo, this collection remains a fascinating piece for those drawn to experimental, atmospheric music that pushes the boundaries of sound and composition.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
Coil - "Protection" (6:53)
ELpH - "Glimpse" (3:30)
ELpH - "Crawling Spirit" (1:53)
ELpH - "PHILM #1 (Vox)" (9:14)
ELpH - "Static Electrician" (3:11)
ELpH - "Red Scratch" (3:19)
ELpH - "If It Wasn't Wolves, Then What Was It?" (2:56)
ELpH - "Static Electrician (Symphonic)" (4:52)
ELpH - "Track 9" (3:09)
ELpH - "Track 10" (1:26)
ELpH - "Track 11" (2:45)
ELpH - "Track 12" (10:46)
ELpH - "Track 13" (7:43)
ELpH - "Track 14" (2:57)
ELpH - "Track 15" (8:22)
ELpH - "Track 16" (9:11)
ELpH - "Gnomic Verses" (5:06)
ELpH - "Track 18" (11:21)
ELpH - "Track 19" (8:18)
Coil - "Glisten#2" (1:04)
ELpH - "Zwolf" (20:02)
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
This 30th-anniversary reissue of a key experimental release is a journey into the darker realms of electronic music, showcasing the duo's exploration of ambient, industrial and glitch-inspired soundscapes. The release features a stark contrast between the rhythmic, almost club-ready track, infused with danceable energy and the more experimental, glitch-heavy compositions that delve into an unsettling, ritualistic atmosphere. The latter, considered one of the duo's most daring works, uses manipulated sounds, haunting textures and a pervasive sense of sonic unease to create a deep listening piece. The reissue compiles rare material, including previously unreleased tracks, alongside the duo's final appearance under this project. Fans of avant-garde electronic music will appreciate the unique blend of rhythmic elements and abstract textures. While some may prefer later works from the duo, this collection remains a fascinating piece for those drawn to experimental, atmospheric music that pushes the boundaries of sound and composition.
Review: Jacob Long's fourth full-length LP for Kranky hears the artist otherwise known as Earthen Sea expand his repertoire to an almost full reimagining, taking to the now longstanding Earthen Sea moniker from the fresh incarnation as a "piano trio", rather than a solo production effort. Though we gather this might not genuinely be the case, all it took was a simple shift in self-imagining to fashion a completely different take on a still so far meditative sound. Here elements were chopped and resampled, then layered with bass, drums, percussion and additional keys; the result is a fusion of live band acoustics and downtempo loops, sculpted into nine smoke-and-mirror dubs of fractured jazz, soft-focus noir and trip hop dust.
Review: Wild Up continue their exploration of Julius Eastman's work with Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence, out June 21, 2024, via New Amsterdam Records. Opening with Our Father, a haunting duet performed by Davone Tines, the album delves deep into his spiritual side, blending choral elements with his signature avant-garde style. This release highlights Eastman's unique, mystically charged compositions, including The Holy Presence of Joan D'Arc, with cellist Seth Parker Woods' multi-tracked performance showcasing Wild Up's profound dedication to Eastman's powerful legacy.
Hollow Dream (feat Annie Barker & Joseph Shabason) (3:26)
Around The Fire (feat Nightlands) (2:51)
Corner Of The World (feat Nat Birchall & Thore Pfeiffer) (4:02)
Amazing (feat Nubo) (2:23)
Ancient Love (feat Jamael Dean, Nat Birchall & Sharananda) (3:50)
The Will Of The One (feat Jonas Knutsson, Laraaji & Oceananda) (4:27)
North Star (feat Green-House & Nubo) (3:08)
Understanding (feat Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) (4:07)
Review: The absorbing Crescendo album is the fruit of a collaboration between Swedish producers Emil Holmstrom and Peter Wikstrom of Ecovillage. They are joined by a talented ensemble of musicians who all share a passion for improvisation and experimentation. Recorded between 2019 and 2022 in Los Angeles and Umea in Sweden, the album explores a fusion of jazz and ambient and as it goes it aims to break new ground and challenge conventional ambient music. Featuring ten tracks, each of which offers a unique mood and style, Crescendo ranges from uplifting and energetic compositions to mellow and dreamy soundscapes. With vocals spanning soft whispers to powerful chants, the artists' creative vision and spirit is well reflected.
Review: Stockholm-based composer Isak Edberg's second release on XKatedral - arguably the finest contemporary classical label in the Swedish capital. This time round we're given two extended pieces, running towards 30-minutes each, both of which are instrumentals and focused largely on minimalist piano notes, meaning the use of space and emptiness is also prominent. The title track, which opens the package, sets the tone and pace well, with each key allowed to breathe, refrains hanging on by a thin echo fading into the deep expanse of nothingness that seems to sit behind the instrument itself. 'Vestiges' complements this perfectly, again ensuring there's plenty of what's not happening in between the staccato off-keys. Fully committing to a more experimental side of the new classical spectrum, it's one you'll want to keep revisiting again and again.
Review: Lo-fi, droning ambience from Turkish producer Ekin Uzeltuzenci aka. Ekin Fil here. 'Rosewood Untitled' is themed after the resistance of nature, drawing a hard line between concepts of the manmade and natural - by sonically presenting the latter as pure, slowly restless, and laden in a deep, almost unrecoverable texture. For Ekin, the inspiration behind the album came after witnessing huge forest fires in Turkey, which occurred at the same time as the COVID pandemic. What follows is a mournful reminiscence on fatal natural processes, through looping sonic envelopes and distant melodies.
Review: Like so many projects, Electric Taal Band has its roots in the pandemic. Specifically, when a box of Punjabi records was found for sale at the Bollywood Music Centre, on Gerrard Street East, in the Little India neighbourhood of Toronto. This inspired a deep dive into a spectrum and school of music that's largely been overlooked by Western ears, and a mission began to try and develop new variations on the era-spanning formula that ran through those random pieces of wax. Electric Taal Band proves how valid the endeavour was. Ten truly transportive tracks that invoke the heat and exoticism of the sub-continent through incredibly immersive, complex and - at times - experimental arrangements, achieved with the assistance of a vintage Radel telemeter and electric Tanpura. Two instruments originally design for practice purposes, here affording an unarguably unique sound you're unlikely to encounter anywhere else.
Review: New York-based musician James Emrick is well known for working with Kinetic Media and is a masterful sound designer who has scored several projects. This is his new full-length and one that finds him making use of an array of granular and feedback processes within Max/MSP environments "to arrive at an idiosyncratic form of computer music that feels wilfully opposed to operating within the sediments of the genre." It's a fancy concept but one that rings true when you tune in as this is music that sounds like little else - all granular, shimmering, like falling rain or shards of glass blowing in a breeze. It's complex by process but simple to fall deep into. It has a widescreen melodic allure that makes for a cathartic and uplifting record.
Review: Lawrence Englsh's new album was born out of a commission by curator Jonathan Wilson to create a sound environment for the Naala Badu building at the Art Gallery of NSW. It is a deeply atmospheric album that explores the relationship between sound and architecture and reflects the building's design, with its name meaning "seeing water" in the Gadigal language. The piece was crafted with a collaborative spirit by incorporating contributions from a diverse group of artists including Amby Downs, Claire Rousay and Jim O'Rourke. The resulting composition blends ambient textures and long-form sound prompts that capture the essence of place as an evolving, subjective experience. It's a work that highlights the porous nature of sound, and as a standalone work also succeeds in sinking you in deep.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information that you've provided to them or that they've collected from your use of their services.