With songs generally written by trumpeter Gabriel Alegria or sax player Laura Andrea Leguia, those instruments tend to be at the forefront, but they are only a part of a series of ever-evolving soundscapes which with the wonderfully sinuous Mario Cuba on bass and Hugo Alcazar on drums with Freddie Lobaton adding percussion really swing.
album review
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“Hey hey, my my, indie-pop can never die,” as Neil Young didn’t quite sing. From the boom years during the 1980s and into the 1990s, through a lower-profile but still fecund 2000s to 2010s and into the ongoing revival of the 2020s, the combination of independent-mindedness and a deep-seated love of melody, has sustained a cross-generational thread. The following three releases – one archival and two brand new – convincingly confirm this somewhat comforting sense of continuity and survivalism, whilst also capturing the internal diversity of it all.
Over the course of the next year, the band evolved a unique musical style: stripped-back and heavily focussed on rhythm, powered by new equipment including the crunchy Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal, and embellished with unusual instrumentation such as the banjo, which more than one observer has seen as being as integral to their unique style as was the jug to that of The 13th Floor Elevators.
Alone on piano, synth, harmonium, autoharp and drum machine, the album veers between three different recording sessions and switches from pensive echo-laden minimalism to deliberately mis-stepped but more elaborate pieces that show a unique approach to keyed instruments.
The eerie pull of Sky's otherworldly atmosphere was ignited by Eric Wetherell's soundtrack that for its time felt futuristic. Butterings of tensive harpsichord along with glockenspiel, timpani and cello that verged towards the experimental...
...deeply omnivorous plundering from whatever sources serve the band’s collectivist broken mirror reflections upon the world. A modus operandi that is also visually illustrated by a none-more-fitting front cover image.
The sounds of the animals and the environmental ambience of the place infuse the opening track and the curls of fiddle appear like breath from the reindeer's mouths as the light touch of snow across the landscape obscures the steaming bodies. Sounds scatter and sprawl against a circular vibes motif and a wider selection of creatures makes an understated appearance. You feel lost in the open spaces, the Hardanger fiddle's waver surprisingly gentle, its comfort in the forbidding landscape clear.
Dylan Eil Ton’s canvas is a beautifully charged one, texturally resplendent in the lowercase clamber of nature, the hissy brush of branch and canopy, the leafy scrunch of wondering feet. A satisfying minimalism conspiring with the knothole whirr of some aqualung and whispered disturbances on strung out heralds. Subtle magic pollinating in a sudden scattering of threadbare words to funnelling breath, or trembles of fluted exhale / intake suckling on a pebbling tide.
...this is a collection that casts a spell across any continental boundaries through its stunningly intimate yet deceptively intricate arrangements and desolate but dreamlike atmospherics.
f like me you loved Thighpaulsandra‘s debut or the panoramic nature of his Golden Communion album, I’m glad to report the big-band sound is back with a vengeance on this new offering. ... Acid And Ecstasy is another extravagant triumph that I’m going to be listening to for years to come.
The Universe Will Take Care Of You is genuinely an album that gives you something more with every listen and a must for everybody with a sense of musical adventure
An illuminated hum, ending on a previously unreleased lop-lop mash-up of bird song, a possible remix of "Strange Birds" that would never re-surface on their live radar ever again. Live One is a seriously essential disc that documents a strong re-birth for Coil that over the ensuing years would never falter.
This album has an exquisite touch and a warmth and generosity that only comes from familiarity and respect. From Bach To Ellington is a lovely collection that does find you hankering after the originals, just to compare, but is also a standalone delight.
Evocative, enigmatic and enthralling throughout, for a collection that took years to mature on Glen Johnson’s home studio hard drives this is far more than just a digital cupboard clearance exercise, which should certainly be recognised as one of his finest curatorial creations to date.
...there is a lot of space in the songs, but when you concentrate the variation in instruments and sensations is really quite broad and the combinations are endlessly inventive. In the final piece, a ghost escapes offering the clearest of words so far, and the pleasant guitar and abstract percussion offer a lullaby-like backing that makes the disembodied voice even stranger.
Renowned electronicist and collaborator Matthew Herbert has joined forces with drummer and vocalist Momoko to produce a warm and inviting collection of downtempo dancefloor-affiliated tunes that highlight the latter's inventive approach to percussion and her sensual, soothing voice.
For all the anarchic trappings that proceed Australia’s profanity-framed Tropical Fuck Storm, there is clearly a lot more craft and imagination at play when the enterprise is examined up-close, as this first full-length release for a new home at Fire Records attests. As the quartet’s fourth LP-sized outing in all, Fairyland Codex bares the hallmarks of finding a creative sweet spot, between swampy sleaziness and more imaginative intricacies.
Furrow uses the trio as a means to find a home for those pieces that are less about improvisation and more about the feel of a classic jazz format. But where this selection differs and what gives it its variety is that they are inspired by many sorts of other artistic media, be they poetry, film or books.