Discus Wandering trumpeter and member of the extended London Improvisers Orchestra, Charlotte Keeffe‘s first solo album finds her drawing together various facets of her abilities, ranging from her solo trumpet improvisation via her jazz quartet recordings through to the sprawling conduction of the pieces she has arranged for the LIO. What holds all these disparate pieces together is Charlotte’s shining love of the trumpet and the mysterious roads […]
Mr Olivetti
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Krysalisound The latest release from sound sculptor Wil Bolton takes the listener on a journey in seven distinct parts through a diffuse landscape populated by everyday sounds that are framed in such a way that everything around us appears languid and slightly unfamiliar; that intoxication that comes from an unknown country, the first visit holding smells and tastes and sounds that are unfamiliar. The movement is slow and […]
Discus Another sonic adventure from Discus finds Alex Ward‘s abilities on the various instruments used here being stretched to their limits. He plays everything here, and that covers guitar, bass, drums, woodwind, keyboards and various dizzying noisemakers. Not only is it an instrumental tour de force, but the musical styles that the album encompasses are varied in the extreme, bursting through: free jazz, metal, math rock and ambient […]
Kranky The latest Loscil release stems from an intriguing proposition; have a twenty-two-piece orchestra play a three-minute composition, press it onto acetate and sample the end result after a little abuse, and use that as the basis for ten long drifting pieces. In general, Clara is a sedate album, initially evoking the slow ebb and flow of waves on an empty beach, but a sea that over millennia […]
Glacial Movements John Sellekaers‘s latest series of drone sculptures are the sort of journey in which you can just close your eyes and allow them to transport you. The drones are deep and resonant, but with other lighter textures skirting the edges, pushing you off balance just a little. The ebb and flow is at times slow and rhythmic with pulses scattered, the rising and falling bringing to mind […]
Tenor-Vossa I suppose it is fair to say that what set Breathless apart from their contemporaries was the extraordinary voice of Dominic Appleton; it somehow managed to encapsulate a desolate longing, but never really strayed into melancholy. It was a voice that understood loneliness and did its best to rise above it. Having said that, the band managed to surround that voice with some of the most widespread […]
Jazzland The artwork for Maridalen‘s first album, photographs of beautiful but brooding Scandinavian vistas sit well with the pastoral gentleness of the music contained within. The three players — Anders Hefre on sax and clarinet; Jonas Kilmork Vemøy on trumpet and sparse percussion; and Andreas Rødland Haga on double bass — convened in the nineteenth century mission house of Maridalen Kirke and somehow the vibe of this old […]
Broken Folk The duo of Clair le Couteur and Carli Jefferson brings a much-needed sense of drama and intrigue to the world of folk and their love of the history of song and its function as a staple for our way of life is perfectly presented in Lunatraktors‘ second full-length album, The Missing Star. Taking , they weave sad and strident tales of humanity’s undoing and also its […]
arkLIVE There is something about the amount and variety of found voices that Invictus Hi-Fi uses here that sets a really mysterious and far-reaching mood on The Market Deities. Past and present voices of economists, sociologists, thinkers and robots abound, putting forth simple ideas or complex thoughts that feel as if there is some kind of multi-dimensional and rather esoteric conference taking place upon which some tasteful and […]
Crammed Discs Not only are Crammed Discs intent on a reissue series for their Made To Measure imprint, but there are still artists recording and releasing material in the series which they feel fits the criteria of artistic adventure. Although releases have been few and far between this millennium with the likes of Tuxedomoon (and various offshoots) plus Jozef van Wissem, Crammed are still searching for and securing […]
Crammed Discs In Crammed Discs‘s ongoing reactivation of their Made To Measure series, the reissue part continues with prodigious French composer Hector Zazou‘s extraordinary travelogue suite Geographies. Comprising nine pieces taking in all manner of styles and using a fine array of instrumentation and voices, it takes the listener on a journey through French provinces, the outer reaches of the Francophone nations and the wild countryside, all held […]
Thrill Jockey It is interesting that in the time between the release of 2020’s Summerlong and this year’s Earth Trip, there has been no new music from either Wooden Shjips or Moon Duo, giving the impression that the ease of recording the solo stuff as Rose City Band and the inherent themes of travel and escape are what is fuelling Ripley Johnson‘s creativity currently. Earth Trip follows on to […]
Constellation T Griffin‘s soundtrack for the rather fascinating-sounding film about the life and work of Mexican architect Luis Barragan covers a lot of ground across the thirteen intricate pieces that The Proposal comprises. Using a band that comprises drummer Jim White and Matan Roberts amongst others, he has produced a thought-provoking and diverse suite that takes in smokey jazz, found sounds and drones, but manages to imbue a […]
Warp It is not before time that Warp has chosen to compile the work that Seefeel produced for them. For me, Seefeel are one of the most important and overlooked bands of the nineties, managing to skirt around a number of genres without stepping directly into them, blazing a trail for a lot of artists who wanted to merge the burgeoning IDM sound with a guitar-based aesthetic.
Empty Birdcage The array of percussive instruments in the photograph on Steve Noble‘s Solo release shows the stripped-down aesthetic that he is working towards; a snare, some gongs, various cymbals and some sort of boards. The sounds that appear within are about as far from the busy funk workouts of Rip, Rig and Panic as it is possible to travel in the intervening years, with the forty-minute piece […]
Thrill Jockey Everyone’s favourite collaborating drummer Kid Millions has found a kind of solace in the arms of Mouse On Mars‘s arch experimentalist Jan St Werner. Perhaps solace isn’t quite the right word, as these glitchy, dusty scuffles are not particularly relaxing; but somehow have found an odd momentum. Recorded back in 2016/2017 for a handful of people and then tinkered with and added to in the intervening […]
Discus Martin Archer must have been busy over lockdown. Not only was he keeping an eye on the running of Discus, but he had time to be involved in a multitude of collaborative releases, two of which have dropped almost simultaneously and show two very different sides to his not inconsiderable capabilities.
Courier I was reading Bram Stoker‘s Lair Of The White Worm recently, and there is something about the slow creep of the latest Courier cassette that evokes the brooding, underground menace of that book. The ominous drone, the slow vibrations, a rustling movement of an inexplicable body. Aqueous groans sound through stagnant pools and the creek and scutter of smaller things vanish into the shadows of hidden caverns.