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| Photo by Ivan Mani |
Hannah Lev – Palm to Palm
experimental
London-based electronic producer Hannah Lev casts a woozy spell on “Palm to Palm,” a consummate single full of anxious synth swells, sharp hip-hop beats, and angelic vocals. Scratch that. The vocals are angelic, but like an angel that fell from the heavens and landed in a puddle of fermented fruits, drunk on the reality of our imperfect earth and disoriented by its gravity. Lev places mood paramount to explicit communication, and the effect of her stylistically chilled-out electronic experiments rests somewhere between hallucinatory and bewitching; like walking in an underground tunnel full of amazing graffiti but only catching glimpses of the beauty among the darkness, making it all the more impactful and mysterious.
Chihei Hatakeyama & Shun Ishiwaka – M6
experimental
From the upcoming album Magnificent Little Dudes, Volume 02, two of Japan’s most prominent experimental practitioners, the forward-thinking ambient musician Chihei Hatakeyama and renowned jazz drummer Shun Ishiwaka, join forces on “M6,” a nine-and-a-half-minute sonic palette of textural gorgeousness, replete with sporadic piano lines from Ishiwaka and cavernous synths from Hatakeyama. The merging of these two voices produces fine music that organically evolves towards its auditorily idealistic world while whisking the listener away on its fluffy cloud of nuanced electronic tinkering. Magnificent Little Dudes, Volume 2 releases October 18, 2024, via the London/Tokyo label Gearbox Records.
Pantaleimon – Coming Home
instrumental
From the recently released album Up With The Moon, Pantaleimon creates a droning and beguiling piece of folkish ambience on “Coming Home.” The UK artist, real name Andria Degens, has worked with a plethora of names across the experimental folk scene, Plinth and Directorsound being just two to name, and her recent album is an earthy and warm collection that takes in solo piano finesse, mystical Appalachian dulcimer, and space-bending acoustic and electric guitars. Played on an Indian harmonium, “Coming Home” has an abundant sound, marked by its flowing tones that stretch and reverberate around the stereo field with gentle oscillations. The music here rises and falls around a deceptively complex melody. It requires bravery to create music this stripped back, the cozy pleasures of which most certainly feel like “coming home.”
Yammerer – ESZ – Erth Station Zebra
garage rock
Liverpudlian five-piece Yammerer eschew traditional release formats on “ESZ – Erth Station Zebra,” a 45-minute epic piece of rock-centric jamming that is neither wholly a single nor an album. Divided into 6 parts, the song segues from motive bass lines and persistent drumming flavored with strange guitar ideas and blasé vocal yelps hidden deep in the mix. Guitar fans are sure to find numerous moments to appreciate, as the guitar work here touches on everything from scorching riffs to straightforward punk structures. But this piece does not rely on the sum of its parts, and the overall effect of such a long track is captivating, allowing the audience to forget about the passing of time outside the music’s parameterized world-building efforts. While Yammerer are in the midst of recording an album, this piece is a standalone production, culled from three separate recording sessions, and is a substantial and satisfying serving of psychedelic rock.
Andrew J Brooks – Kernel
experimental
Edinburgh-based saxophonist Andrew J Brooks’ experiment in atmospheric improvisation is wonderfully collected on “Kernel,” a recent single that merges the artist’s primary instrument with luxuriant ambient synthetics and stacked soundscapes. Brooks’ playing is both calm and chaotic. When he plays his notes softly, there’s nothing more soothing, but he does not perennially reach for the low-hanging fruit of beauty, and tests his audience and himself with complex expressions of frustration and unease, moving his ambient textures to more precarious places as his saxophone lines become more compounded with tension the more the piece progresses, culminating in a cathartically passionate climax where the saxophone is milked for all it’s worth, and the prettiness of the ambient tones falls away, leaving just the nexus—a highly-concentrated instrumental lament.