Delay 45 – Flux (Album Review)
Delay 45 are a jazz ensemble from Sydney, Australia. Just as that cosmopolitan city is set into its vast red continent, the group set traditional jazz elements; piano, trumpet, bass, and drums, into a vast experimental and improvisational landscape. Their latest work, Flux, explores themes of “notions of flow, movement, and shape.”Continue Reading
Monologues by Iván Muela (Album Review)
Monologues is the most recent album from London-based ambient producer Iván Muela. Released on the Rusted Tone tape label, the album sees the artist develop intense and brooding atmospheres over five tracks. Opener Whisper is a gentle introduction, heavily effected piano tones aimlessly but happily segueing into a tapestry of ambiences and foley. Howl seesContinue Reading
Laurie Shaw – The Great Southern (Album Review)
Liverpudlian-cum-Kerry man Laurie Shaw is a hard artist to keep up with. By the time you’ve got around to listening to his new album, another one has been released. Ostensibly his seventeenth solo album (his Breaking Tunes page claims over eighty albums have been created across various projects) The Great Southern finds the writer ‘”Continue Reading
Park Jiha – The Gleam (Album Review)
A stunning release from Korean multi-instrumentalist composer Park Jiha, The Gleam ruminates on the essence of light, that ubiquitous electromagnetic radiation that comes and goes as does the day and night. Performed entirely solo, the recordings feature instruments ranging from the glockenspiel to the saenghwang, a traditional Korean wind instrument. TheContinue Reading
Dday One – Mau Propria (Album Review)
There are many aspects of this album to appreciate, from the well-selected and chopped spoken world samples, to the eloquent sense of space created in the mix, Manu Propria is an enchanting listen from start to finish. After a pleasant opener, ‘Total Mosaic’ has a thoughtful drum and piano pattern playContinue Reading
Single Reviews: 16th February 2022: Zrangorn, Maruja, Box of Matches, My Twisted Heart
photo by Andreea Chiser Zrangorn – Black Berlin Black Berlin is the title track of the most recent EP from Ballina’s Zrangorn (Conor Hickey). From the moment the sinister synth starts, you know you’re in for a sepulchral listening experience. An industrial drum machine, atmospheric electric guitars, and Hickey’s disgruntledContinue Reading
Small Island Big Song by Small Island Big Song (Album Review)
An ambitious eighteen-track project recorded “in the field, from the grassroots up’” on various islands across the Pacific and Indian ocean, Small Island Big Song is a beguiling document of some of the world’s most criminally underappreciated musicians. Music producer Tim Cole and project manager BaoBao had a vision to document the mostContinue Reading
Repetitive Music Vol. 1 by Misha Panfilov (Album Review)
As twentieth-century composer Arnold Schoenberg said: “Intelligibility in music seems to be impossible without repetition.” and on Resistive Music Vol 1, Misha Panfilov has taken that maxim and run with it. Collaging a bouncy, gnarly synth with delayed piano lines, Panfilov takes Stratum fifteen minutes deep, bringing the listener through a trance-like state tillContinue Reading
Formations by Sunhaus (Album Review)
Sergiu Celibidache once described time as a ‘condition’ by which ‘the multitude of information contained in sound can be reduced to a unity.’ On Formations by Sunhaus, the tracks seemingly escape from the chains of tempo, smearing notes, and musical voices across a spectrum of electronics and glitches. Formations by Sunhaus IfContinue Reading
REVENGE by Ellery Twining (Album Review)
Rich Freitas has been behind the drum kit for seventeen years now. For bands like Low-beam and Slander, he has been patient in developing his own musical voice. His debut solo album, using the name Ellery Twinning, was recorded in a log cabin in his native Connecticut. These tracks certainly have a bucolic atmosphere;Continue Reading