It is this evocation of distance and stretching of time that Sol.Hz manages so well, pushing us out of a recognisable orbit; yet it engages and moves in equal measure.
Monthly Archives: April 2026
24 posts
We definitely aren’t able to successfully sound like anyone else -- it would be nice if people saw us as our own thing that transcended some of the things we borrow from elsewhere. I think live we have our own thing -- whether or not we can capture that on record at some point remains to be seen. Double live album time!
As on 2023's Weejuns, six tracks are collated, but here things are a little more succinct although wildly diverse in approach and once again the three draw elusive patterns from one another.
...in summary: banging festival. I don't want to miss out on the important social stuff -- it was really heartening to see so many people as much interested in chatting to distant (and often online) pals as they were watching music. Largely the acts were new names on me (no surprise -- I don't follow this scene much) and all of them deserving of the larger stage.
It is a really human sound that they produce and an explosion of voices just adds to the joy. The flute is ragged and out of breath, as if being chased and is wildly skipping and scattering. The sax is more predatory, consuming the flute and turning the atmosphere; while the ascending organ and battering drums give an almost physical sense of being lifted.
It is cosmic and dusty, like a long road across a desert. It is windblown music, or rather music than rides into the storm until, disorientated and windblown, you find yourself in the eye. It feels like big country music.
...a pure delight and so wide-ranging, with Martin’s ability at arranging as well as writing for choir and group proven to be a natural progression; but with such adept musical assistance as given by the group, it fits like a hand in a glove.
I might be the only person that thinks the self-titled Smiths album is better than Hatful Of Hollow. I love that first LP.
...feels less like a moralising history lesson and more like a pained cry of remorse, whose cinematic language has the steely nerve to ask the hard questions and refuse to answer them for you.
...this recent 4AD culmination of their four Peel Sessions gives you an excellent band primer. The first four tracks airing months before their debut LP Fetisch was even released, barbed and gritty statements that thistle with a refreshing ferocity that guaranteed plenty of further investigation.
...scenes of desolate forest, urban strip malls, industrial zones, police brutality, stock market tickers and images of technical blueprints
...breathes new life in to fifty-year-old material that, even if the three original members were performing it today, they would no doubt change and explore new ways of playing the tracks rather than keep them as museum pieces, and improvisation and expansion was always one of the most important parts of Tangerine Dream.
...an album of languorous drifting beauty that follows the folds of rivers and the pale glint of sunlight on sleepy backwaters in a series of ten surprisingly diverse and meditative musical mantras.
There's a bit of a cultish collectorism about a lot of Japanese psych (certainly the record prices bear that out) but, annoyingly, the records are often outstanding.
...a tight, tight thing. Playing so close they are almost picking one another's pockets, their take on 'cubist jazz' fits the term perfectly; all hard angles and unexpected facets.
...a crowd-pleasing and at times genuinely wondrous mixture of scientific curiosity and human warmth, speaking a common language of optimism in the hope of rising above the din of a real world desperate to destroy itself.
...has once again gathered a reflective and expressive group around him to do justice to a suite of pieces reflecting on themes inspired by Marcus Clarke's 1874 convict adventure novel For The Term Of His Natural.
Always difficult to categorise, the seven tracks presented here show even more scope in their tribal noise attack, with Lisa's vocals particularly diverse ranging from half-expected spoken ruminations to more feral and freer wordless outbursts.