- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This latest release from this eternally innovative Stockholm-based composer is a durational tour de force that first began to take shape in empty Berlin concert halls in the early months of the pandemic. While I note with grim humor that the pandemic has itself become an endlessly shifting durational tour de force, Malone’s primary inspiration came instead from the ambient sense of unreality and distorted time that became pervasive as the fabric of normal daily life quickly unraveled. Like many other artists, Malone suddenly found herself with plenty of free time during that period of dread, isolation, and uncertainty, yet she was fortunate enough to get an invitation to record new music at Berlin’s Funkhaus and MONOM and even luckier still to have some extremely talented friends around with newly open schedules themselves. In short, the stars were in perfect alignment for one hell of an avant-drone dream team to form, as Malone (armed with 72 sine wave oscillators) tapped in like-minded souls Stephen O’Malley and Lucy Railton and the expected slow-burning dark sorcery ensued. Does Spring Hide Its Joy feels like an inspired twist on the longform drone majesty of artists like Éliane Radigue, as Malone employed just intonation to layer complex and otherworldly harmonies while her collaborators gamely helped ensure that the crescendos were visceral, gnarled and snarling enough to leave a deep impression.
I have no doubt at all that Kali Malone brought her usual compositional rigor to this “study in harmonics and non-linear composition with a heightened focus on just intonation and beating interference patterns,” but Does Spring Hide Its Joy is more open-ended than her usual fare and leaves some welcome room for spontaneity and improvisation. Malone envisioned the piece as a puzzle of sorts that is assembled from five-minute blocks approximating a ladder that the musicians can choose to ascend or descend. The total number of blocks is fluid as well. For example, the album versions of the piece are an hour long while the live version can sometimes stretch to 90 minutes (note: the CD includes three performances of the piece while the LP includes only two). On top of that inventive structure, Malone deliberately wrote the piece with her collaborators’ styles and techniques in mind, envisioning the composition as a “framework for subjective interpretation and non-hierarchical movement.” In practical terms, that means that this piece is essentially a drone fantasia of bowed strings, smoldering distortion, and shifting harmonies that occasionally blossoms into something more fiery and transcendent. This being a Kali Malone composition, however, the organically evolving harmonies and oscillations are invariably absorbing, sophisticated, and distinctive regardless of the shape the piece takes. Notably, this album is also a bit more earthy, psychotropic and texturally varied than previous Malone opuses. It feels akin to a ghostly ballet or hallucinatory tendrils of smoke, as the sustained tones of the three players languorously intertwine and dissipate in a dreamlike haze of lingering feedback, overtones, and harmonics.
Given the inherently fluidity of that compositional approach, the album’s two or three pieces are essentially variations upon the same theme and the differences between the individual discs or LPs are largely irrelevant. They each unfold differently, of course, but they are essentially the same elements combining at different times (somewhat akin to out-of-phase tape loops). That said, there is an unconventional arc of sorts, as the drones tend to boil over into churning and howling intensity with increased frequency as each part creeps into its second and third movements (though those delineations would be hard to notice without a numbered track list as a reference). That said, Does Spring Hide Its Joy feels more akin to watching slow-motion footage of a storm forming at sea than it does a planned composition, as terms like “beginning” or “end” lose all meaning: elemental forces simply gather and dissipate at their own pace and occasionally there are metaphorical flashes of lightning or masses of dark clouds. That fundamentally unpredictability makes for an impressively absorbing listening experience, as each new harmonic development could potentially be the early stages of a howling tempest.
Obviously, experiencing the slow-motion massing of Malone’s otherworldly harmonic clouds right from the beginning is the probably the best way to appreciate the eerie beauty of this album, but Spring is also the sort of piece in which I could drop into its shifting currents at nearly any point and find myself quickly entranced in medias res. That unusual feature did not elude Malone, unsurprisingly, as there is also an installation version of the piece that is coupled with video work from Nika Milano. I am sure I would absolutely love that, as it is doubly immersive to have a cool visual accompaniment while I dissolve into oceanic harmonic bliss, yet Spring is a mesmerizing experience as a stand-alone album too. As was the case with previous Malone classics like The Sacrificial Code, what I get out of this album depends largely upon what I put in: deep listening brings deep rewards. My gut feeling is that Spring is destined to topple that previous masterpiece as my personal favorite Malone album, as it is every bit as sophisticated as its predecessor yet has more bite and spontaneity. Then again, maybe I will conclude that I prefer the more focused and minimal pleasures of Malone by herself at a pipe organ. They both have their place, certainly (that place being “heavy rotation”). Regardless of where Spring ultimately lands in my personal Kali Malone canon, I have no hesitation at all about proclaiming this to be yet another brilliant and fascinating statement from an artist on quite an impressive hot steak.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This mammoth and category-defying opus is easily the most wildly ambitious debut in recent memory (if not ever) and also happens to be one of my absolute favorite albums of 2022. It was one hell of an enigma at first as well, as Stroom quietly released the album back in October with absolutely no background information provided at all. Given the absolutely bananas volume of material (4 ½ hours) and the consistently high level of quality, I expected that it would be revealed to be some sort of decade-spanning art project involving an all-star cast of sound art luminaries, but I turned out to be spectacularly wrong about most of that. As it turns out, Voice Actor is instead a recent collaboration between Noa Kurzweil (Supertalented) and Levi Lanser (Ludittes), neither of whom I had previously encountered. However, I was at least partially right about the “art project” bit, as Sent From My Telephone collects three years of pieces that the duo originally intended as a radio play (and there are plenty of guest collaborators involved as well). The heart of the project, however, is Kurzweil’s seductive voice and her enigmatic diaristic monologues, which makes Félicia Atkinson a close kindred spirit, yet Lanser’s varied and phantasmagoric backdrops elevate the project into a mesmerizing durational mindfuck that effortlessly blurs the lines between spoken word, plunderphonics, ambient drone, outsider R&B, psychedelia, and Hype Williams’ hypnagogic sound collage side.
The piece that immediately sucked me into the album was “Another Day,” which feels like an elegantly blurred and subtly hallucinatory channeling of a sexy French pop song before it dissolves into a mirage. In some ways, “Another Day” is far from a representative entry point into the album, as it is one of the more hook-driven and structured pieces, but it does capture the album’s sublime magic in a more general sense, as all of the best pieces resemble a decontextualized voice memo of casual, off-the-cuff beauty set to music. That sketchlike nature would probably feel a bit exasperating in lesser hands, but Lanser and Kurzweil transform their mosaic of elusive fragments into a moving and immersive tapestry of intimate and enigmatic moments. I have absolutely no idea if Kurzweil is simply talking about her daily life or playing a character, but experiencing 100+ ephemeral glimpses into that real or imagined life is quite a fascinating and oft-beautiful way to spend 4+ hours either way. I especially love how multilayered and malleable the listening experience can be, as it works as both an instantly gratifying surface experience (Kurzweil has a lovely voice and the underlying music is quite good) and as a non-linear Memento-esque narrative puzzle (What does it all mean? How do the pieces relate to each other? Where does each moment exist in space and time?). Adding to the enigmatic fun is the fact that the songs are presented in alphabetical order, so the arc is fundamentally jumbled and fragmented right from the start and lends itself nicely to endless shuffling and recontextualization.
Given the volume of material here, some pieces are inevitably much stronger than others, but that only adds to the charm for me: one man’s “too much filler” is another man’s shapeshifting durational mindbomb. That “deep plunge” approach sets the stage for plenty of surprises, as being immersed in an extended ambient daze nicely primed me to be completely blindsided by unexpected emotional bombshells, perfect pop songs, or amusingly leftfield samples. “Pelli” is a particularly striking example of the “emotional bombshell” side, as it begins as a hushed monologue over a woozy bed of drones and strangled feedback before unexpectedly blossoming into a haunting coda centered around police scanner recordings from the early moments of 9/11. My favorite of the poppier pieces is currently the looping and sensuous “Carefully,” but there are way too many highlights to list and my favorite pieces will likely be in a perpetual state of flux forever, as every listen reveals fresh details and emotional shadings that I’d previously missed. Also, focusing on any individual piece feels like missing the point, as the whole is such an absorbing and vividly realized wonderland of melodies, dream fragments, confessional monologues, pop songs erupting from radios, sublime reveries, foreign radio transmissions, and a host of blurred, stretched, hiss-soaked, or submerged sounds from city life. I can think of few (if any) other albums that evoke such a poignant and oft-gorgeous distillation of a life’s peaks and valleys. Nearly every emotional shade of life's rich pageant makes an appearance here: love, regret, ennui, anxiety, vulnerability, comedy, tragedy, sex, violence, hope, dread, and many compelling stops in-between. The voyeuristic and elliptical nature of the album is quite fascinating as well, as I feel a bit like a cab driver trying to piece together the events of a mysterious stranger’s life solely from snatches of overheard late night phone conversations. Even that analogy does the album a disservice though, as the experience feels far more like the flickering impressionist logic of a beautiful dream (albeit one with some dark passing shadows). If I were Voice Actor, I would be extremely tempted to ride off into the sunset now (or would have chosen to stay completely anonymous all along), as trying to come up with a worthy follow up to such a monster opening statement is definitely not an enviable position to be in. That said, being the people who already made Sent From My Telephone feels extremely damn enviable indeed. This album is a masterpiece.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
The French Standard In-Fi label has been one of my casual obsessions over the last few years and this second album from Omertà was my favorite release that surfaced from that milieu in 2022. From what I can tell as an outsider, there appears to be a loosely knit family of artists, psych enthusiasts, and avant-folk weirdos that convene periodically in varying configurations and occasionally an album will eventually surface documenting whatever magic transpired. Omertà unsurprisingly shares key members with other fitfully killer projects like France and Tanz Mein Herz, but this ensemble is an unique animal for a number of reasons. The most striking of those reasons are the breathy, sensuous vocals of Florence Giroud, who I believe is only active in this one project (as far as rock bands are concerned, at least). Giroud’s vocals aside, Omertà is also far more informed by eroticism, dream states, pop music, and chansons than the usual Standard In-Fi fare. To my ears, something compelling almost always seems to happen whenever Jeremie Sauvage & Mathieu Tilly assemble a group of like-minded artists, but Collection Particulière’s “Amour Fou” and “Moments in Love” are easily among the most beautifully distilled and haunting pieces that the label has released to date.
The album’s title translates as “private collection,” which is an allusion to the prolonged saga behind the striking and unusual cover image from Giroud’s younger days. Since the band that has existed at the nexus of art, sex, and dreams since its very beginning, Giroud had hoped to use an image from the same series for the band’s 2014 debut, but when she managed to track down the artist, she learned that a fire had destroyed his workshop and damaged the hard drive containing all the digital copies. The artist vowed to send some images when the data was recovered, but then he abruptly died instead. Later, Giroud was able to contact the artist’s daughter who was managing his archive, but she was only able to provide a photo of a single damaged piece, as the rest of the series had all found its way into private collections. In the original piece, Giroud’s torso was covered with a wax image of a playing card (“holding the ace of spades and the ace of hearts, Eros and Thanatos”), but the wax melted during the fire to become transparent. In keeping with that theme of serendipitous changes in plans, Omertà itself originally blossomed out of an opera that Giroud was working on back in 2013.
I am not sure if that opera ever surfaced in its intended form (Giroud is a sculptor as well, incidentally), but there is nothing remotely operatic about Omertà, as this latest opus feels like an inspired collision between Tortoise, Serge Gainsbourg’s work with Jane Birkin, and arty psychedelia. That marks an delightful evolution from the band’s more single-mindedly psych-focused debut album, as Omertà seem to have gotten very serious about distilling their vision into something more tight, focused, and pop-adjacent (albeit pop from another era). While I enjoy that previous album too, Collection Particulièr is on another level altogether, as Omertà definitely play to their strengths much more this time around and feel like a far more distinctive entity as a result. Unsurprisingly, the main strength is Giroud’s seductive vocals, but the band’s newly muscular rhythm section is another big improvement, as the band make extremely effective use of their two bassists (one laying down a meaty groove, the other taking a more melodic role). The strongest pieces tend to be the sexier ones (“Amour Fou” and “Moments in Love”), as Giroud is an undeniably charismatic, compelling, and sensuous vocalist, but the band’s overall vision is also extremely cool one due to the casual virtuosity of the musicians, the unusually minimalist arrangements, and the propulsive physicality of the grooves. I am normally the absolute last person on the planet who would say something like “I really dig that dude’s bass tone,” but the bass playing on Collection Particulièr has enough visceral heft and richness that it would still be a great album even if the guitar, organ, and synth vanished. Instead, however, Omertà use that simple yet killer bass and drum foundation to create a vacuum in which every cool spacy synth flourish, string scrape, or warm organ chord makes an impact. Granted, not every song quite hits the mark with a perfect bullseye, but even the lesser pieces are still quite enjoyable and the album’s highlights capture a band whose vision, execution, and control are truly on a plane all their own.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
The latest from this shapeshifting and anonymous southwestern psych duo marks both their return to Akuphone and the first proper follow up to 2020's landmark The Totemist. To some degree, Ak'Chamel revisit roughly the same distinctive stylistic terrain as their last LP, approximating some kind of otherworldly and psychotropic collision of Sun City Girls and Sublime Frequencies. That said, Ak'Chamel do sound a hell of a lot more like a mariachi band soundtracking a jungle puppet nightmare this time around and that festively macabre vibe suits them quite nicely. The band might see things a little differently themselves, as this album is billed as "a perfect soundtrack for the desertification of our world," but experiencing this lysergic Cannibal Holocaust-esque mindfuck is probably just the thing for helping someone appreciate the wide-open spaces and solitude of desert life. In keeping with that desert theme, there are plenty of prominent Middle Eastern melodies and instruments on the album, but Ak'Chamel is singularly adept at dissolving regional boundaries (and possibly dimensional ones as well) in their quest for deep, exotic, and oft-uncategorizable psychedelia.
The album opens in deceptively straightforward fashion, as the first minute of "The Great Saharan-Chihuahuan Assimilation" starts with a minor key Spanish guitar and hand percussion vamp. However, subtle signs of unreality gradually creep in (such as the eerie whistle of throat-singing) before the piece blossoms into a spacious and melodic interlude of Tex-Mex-style surf twang. The following "Clean Coal is a Porous Condom" is similarly musical (if unfamiliar), as Ak'Chamel sound like some kind of outernational supergroup trading Latin, Indian, and surf-inspired licks over a pleasantly lurching "locked groove"-style vamp. Both pieces are quite likable, but the album does not start to wade into the psychedelic deep end until the third piece (the colorfully titled "Amazonian Tribes Mimicking The Sound of Chainsaws With Their Mouths"). Unusually, it is a jaunty yet bittersweet accordion-driven piece at its heart, but the central motif is beautifully enhanced by layers of vivid psychotropic sounds (flutes, voices, ululating, eerie whines, pipe melodies), resulting in something that feels like a festive collision between The Wicker Man and a haunted street fair at the edge of the Amazon.
Happily, Ak'Chamel keep that phantasmagoric momentum going without interruption for the remainder of the album. In "Ossuary from the Sixth Extinction," a mournful banjo-like melody and tropical-sounding percussion lead into a harrowing rabbit hole of curdled pipe melodies, quivering strings, and an immersive mass of chants and howls. Elsewhere, the following "Soil Death Tape Decay II" begins life as dueling Middle Eastern-inspired oud solos over a bed of buzzing drones, but unexpectedly transforms into an obsessively looping melody that passes through various stages of tape destruction as voices wail and ululate around it. "Sheltering Inside a Camel" takes an even more sustained plunge into the hallucinatory (it is the longest piece on the album at nearly 11-minutes), as desert psychedelia, sinister puppet-like voices, throat singing, and a goddamn horn section collide in singularly disorienting fashion. The album then winds to a close with one last darkly hallucinatory gem, as "The Cabinet of the Atomic Priesthood" unexpected transforms from something resembling choir practice at a demonic cathedral into a sublime coda of slow, exhalation-like chords; flickering mindfuckery; and eerie pipe melodies that fade in and out of focus. Admittedly, Ak’Chamel do exceed my personal bombast tolerance at times (particularly in the closing piece), but they invariably wind up somewhere compelling and it a delight to find them in such melodic and focused form again. As with The Totemist before it, A Mournful Kingdom of Sand makes a rare and ideal entry point into this duo’s oft-prickly, bizarre, and enigmatic oeuvre and affirms once again that they are one of the most consistently fascinating and creative bands in the psych scene right now.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This latest album from Carla dal Forno is her first since relocating to a small town (Castlemaine) in her native Australia and that dramatic change in environment has understandably made quite an impact on her overall vibe (as the album description puts it, she "returns self-assured and firmly settled within the dense eucalypt bushlands"). Fortunately, it seems like the transformation was an entirely favorable one, as literally everything that made dal Forno's previous work so wonderful and distinctive (ghostly pop hooks, stark bass-driven post-punk grooves, tight songcraft) remains intact. Now, however, her bloodless pop songs are charmingly enhanced with an understated tropical feel as well. For the most part, Come Around is still light years away from anything like a conventional beach party, but songs like the title piece at least come close to approximating a hypnagogic one. Aside from that, dal Forno also displays some impressive creative evolution on the production side, as these nine songs are a feast of subtle dubwise and psych-inspired touches in the periphery. That said, the primary appeal of Come Around is still the same as ever, as dal Forno remains nearly unerring in churning out songs so strong that they truly do not need anything more than her voice, a cool bass line, and a simple drum machine groove to leave a deep impression.
The opening "Side By Side" is a damn-near perfect illustration of dal Forno's distinctive strain of indie pop magic, as crashing waves give way to a rubbery, laid-back bass line and a bittersweet, floating vocal melody. Lyrically, dal Forno still seems to be in the throes of heartache, but also comes across as very clear-eyed, confident, and sensuous. That turns out to be quite an effective combination, as these nine songs radiate deadpan cool and wry playfulness while still maintaining palpable human warmth and soulfulness at their core. That alone would be more than enough to carry this album (along with all the great hooks and bouncy slow-motion bass grooves), but dal Forno is also unusually inventive with beats, psychotropic production touches, and the assimilation of unexpected influences this time around. The album's stellar title piece is a prime example of the latter, as it feels like dal Forno seamlessly mashed together The Shangri-Las and Young Marble Giants to soundtrack a surf movie for ghosts.
The album's other big highlight is "Stay Awake," which combines a minimal tropical groove with a morosely funky bass line and spacey psychedelic smears. It is admittedly a bit more overtly melancholy than some of the other pop-minded cuts, but that darker tone is nicely balanced by the propulsive riff, seductive vocals, and Latin-inspired drum machine pattern. It captures how I imagine Joy Division might have sounded post-Ian Curtis if they had relocated to Havana and enlisted a femme fatale frontwoman instead of reinventing themselves as New Order (a missed opportunity, for sure). The more upbeat "Mind You're On" is another fine would-be single, as dal Forno adds finger snaps and bird-like warbles to the mix, as well as a wonderfully poignant final hook ("it's ok, ok, ok, you're on my mind"). The remaining five songs are characteristically solid (if divergent) for the most part as well, though they tend to be a bit less hook-focused (aside from "Slumber," a duet with Thomas Bush). Obviously, some more hot singles would have been welcome, but the occasional instrumental or buzzing descent into psychedelia work quite nicely from a sequencing standpoint, as Come Around is an absorbing and evocative whole. Admittedly, I still have yet to warm to the sleepily ethereal closer ("Caution"), but this is yet another excellent album from dal Forno and easily features some of her strongest songwriting to date (at least three instant classics, by my count).
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- Duncan Edwards
- Albums and Singles
As a teenage surfer Matt McBane became obsessed with the sea and the way in which the bathymetry of the ocean floor affects the way that waves break. His composition Bathymetry mirrors that relationship, with his bass synthesizer providing the platform to shape the more trebly waves of varied percussion played by Sandbox Percussion (a well-named and playful ensemble). On the surface, this album is slightly out of my, rather idiosyncratic, comfort zone. The accompanying videos were off-putting and (politeness dictates that I cannot write what I would cheerfully do with them) ping-pong balls overused. Despite this, my listening curiosity was piqued and held steady. Then halfway through the 40 minute duration, the track "Groundswell" completely won me over, and I rode a wave of enjoyment all the way to the end. Later on, afer repeated listens, it occurred to me that the same process happens on each track, as bursts of percussive grit, pops and scrapes away, to eventually leave the rewarding pearl.
For whatever reason, I found that the second half of Bathymetry has a greater emotional and melodic impact, perhaps due to the slower pace and less cluttered soundscape. This allows the synthesizer to be more prominent and the percussion more glassy and transparent (maybe hitting bottles and bowls, or using vibraphone, instead of dropping the aforementioned balls). I have heard nurses describe conversations with certain patients as like playing table tennis with someone who rarely tries to hit the ball back and I detect a similar movement, and progression, here. As intriguing the first twenty minutes or so is, from "Groundswell" onwards it's game on. The use of a traditional drum kit there, and also on "Refraction" comes as a refreshing surprise and the effect is propulsive, as if we've been lowered slowly down into the depths of the ocean which is intriguing, but now are off and zooming around exploring in a small submarine. At several points, including "Coda", we hear what could be an underwater bell or gong; very appropriate as similar to sounds punctuating Hendrix's extended aquatic-themed pieces "1983 A Merman I Should Turn To Be" and "Moon, Turn the Tides… Gently Gently Away." The feel of Bathymetry becomes rather like improvised ambient chamber music with overtones of both dub and Harry Partch, although his percussive bowls were called cloud chamber bowls and it's possibly a breach of some critical rule to mention his name and the word "ambient" in the same sentence.
This release also got me thinking about the idiosyncrasies of taste. One example: I have always trusted the sound of murky recordings from the early 20th century and associated the accompanying vinyl crackles and scratches with a kind of primal sophistication. Those sounds trigger (in me) a stamp of approval, to certify raw soulfulness, noble creativity, and unadorned reality, all of which should be loved. The flip side of this is my subconscious mistrust of (not all) slicker recordings, and knee-jerk caution when approaching music which seems "well-dressed'' in the sense of favoring a sophistication based upon greater clarity of production and technical ability. It's a definite bias and one which I have no intention of abandoning any time soon, despite exceptions which prove the rule, such as Bathymetry.
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- Creaig Dunton
- Albums and Singles
Prolific artists on their own, the duo of Eric Hardiman (guitar/bass/electronics) and Michael Kiefer (drums/keyboards) have still managed to put out their third album in four years as Spiral Wave Nomads. The spacey, psychedelic tinged guitar/bass/drum excursions are of course expected by now, but the inclusion of additional electronic instrumentation makes Magnetic Sky even greater.
With six songs spread across two sides of vinyl, the duo keeps their performances somewhat succinct, given the improvisational approach. Dynamic drumming and long guitar passages tend to be the focus, but there is so much more going on in the layers beneath. Both Kiefer and Hardiman contribute electronics/synths this time around, and the watery sounds that open “Dissolving into Shape” nicely flesh out the restrained drumming and commanding lead guitar. “Under a Magnetic Sky” is also bathed in soft electronics, covering the outstretched guitar, prominent bass, and taut drumming like a warm, fuzzy blanket. “Carrier Signals” features them leaning a bit more into jazz territory, punctuated with pseudo-Eastern melodies, unconventional drumming, and sitar-like drones.
The other side of the record leads off with “Pharoah’s Lament,” an appropriately mournful guitar lead stretching through effects laden 1960s guitar fuzz. Compared to the density of the first half, there is a more straightforward structure here, with the mix overall kept tastefully sparse. The remaining two performances see the duo going in the opposite direction, turning up the abstraction and dissonance. The chaotic opening to “Rogue Wave” makes the title seem especially appropriate, as twanging bent notes and scraped guitar strings fly off in every direction. It is not an especially dense or oppressive vibe, but certainly a nice bit of messiness. Album closer “Lurking Madness” leads off with bleak electronics as guitar and drums slowly fade in. It is comparably more anomalous in structure, but by no means formless, and the heavier use of electronics throughout certainly fit the “lurking” feel conjured by the title.
Three albums in, Spiral Wave Nomads continue to impress and expand: in this case the addition of electronics and synths is notable, although does not drastically change the dynamic and instead set the foundation for which Hardiman and Kiefer improvise. The duo never seemed to have any difficulty finding their voice, and so Magnetic Sky feels in line with the previous albums, but even more varied and complex, proving the two are adept at far more than improvisation alone.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
This is the first full-length collaboration between Sabra and Tabbal, but it is apparently also the sixth collaborative release between Portland's Beacon Sound and Lebanon's Ruptured Records (which was co-founded by Tabbal). While Tabbal's solo work has been a very enjoyable recent discovery for me, this is my first encounter with Julia Sabra, who is normally one-third of the excellent Beirut-based dreampop trio Postcards. The pair do have a history of working together, as Tabbal has co-produced several Postcards releases, but their creative union only began to take shape in the aftermath of Beirut's massive 2020 port explosion (which destroyed Sabra's home, badly injured her partner/bandmate Pascal Semerdjian, and displaced a whopping 300,000 people). Unsurprisingly, one of the primary themes of Snakeskin is the precarious concept of "home" and the "the disappearance of life as we know it" in a volatile and oft-violent world. Those are admittedly more urgent themes in Tabbal and Sabra's neck of the woods than some others (the album was also inspired by the 2021 Palestinian and the invasion of Armenia), but loss and uncertainty eventually come for us all and they make a universally poignant emotional core for an album. And, of course, great art can sometimes emerge from deeply felt tragedies and Tabbal and Sabra are a match made in heaven for that challenge, as Julia's sensuous, floating vocals are the perfect complement to Tabbal's gnarled and heaving soundscapes.
The first piece that Sabra and Tabbal wrote together was "Roots," which surfaced last year on Ruptured's The Drone Sessions Vol. 1 compilation. That piece is reprised here as the sublimely beautiful closer, which was a great idea as it is one of the strongest songs on the album. However, it also illustrates how this collaboration has evolved and transformed, as "Roots" has the feel of a dreamy, bittersweet synth masterpiece nicely enhanced with hazy, sensuous vocals. Execution-wise, it is damn hard to top, but the duo's more recent work feels like a creative breakthrough that is greater than the sum of its parts. Put more simply, the pair previously merged their two styles in an expected way to great effect, but then they started organically blurring into a single shared style and the results turned into something more memorable and transcendent. The first major highlight is "All The Birds," which calls to mind a collision between the murky, submerged dub of loscil and what I imagine a bossa nova album by Julee Cruise might have sounded like. As cool as all that sounds, however, the reality is even better due to the muscular, snaking synth undercurrent and surprise snare-roll groove.
As an aside, the Julee Cruise resemblance may be no coincidence at all, as one of Tabbal's earlier albums features an unambiguously Twin Peaks-inspired title.
Snakeskin's other immediately gratifying stunner is "In Our Garden," as ugly viscous synth sludge blossoms into an incredibly haunting vocal piece that grows steadily more compelling with psychotropic bird-like flickers and flutters, seismic crunches, and a delirious synth crescendo of swooning romantic grandeur shot through with deep sadness. That feat is immediately followed by my personal dark horse candidate for the album's centerpiece, "One By One." The thread that holds the piece together is Sabra's half-unsettling/half-mantric repetition of the title phrase, but the pair unleash one hell of a roiling and lysergically smeared maelstrom around it. Moreover, the production is absolutely dazzling, as it feels like an impossibly complex living tapestry of visceral textures and churning, heaving movement (and it somehow ends feeling akin to a hallucinatory bell ceremony in a lost mountain temple). Notably, there are only eight songs on the album, so Snakeskin would still be half-brilliant even if all the remaining songs sucked, but the other four songs are just a slightly lower tier of greatness, ranging from gnarled, feedback-ravaged ritualistic drone ("Snakeskin") to something resembling chopped, screwed, and deconstructed Crystal Castles ("Signs"). With eight songs and eight hits, this is a serious album-of-the-year contender.
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- Anthony D'Amico
- Albums and Singles
I was a bit later to the Angelo Harmsworth party than I would have liked, but the Berlin-based American composer has been fitfully releasing very distinctive blown-out "ambient" albums for about a decade now on an array of hip and discriminating small labels (Opal Tapes, Vaagner, enmossed, Psychic Liberation, etc.). Harmsworth's latest is his first for Students of Decay and marks a rare vinyl outing, as most of his previous physical releases have been limited to cassette. According to the label, Singe "may be the high water mark" of Harmsworth's career to date, which does feel like a completely plausible claim, but one that is very hard to confidently echo given how many killer Harmsworth pieces already exist. Even if Singe fails to conclusively eclipse all of Harmsworth's past triumphs, however, it does seem to be one of his most consistently strong releases and an ideal starting point for the curious. Notably, describing Harmsworth's vision as "ambient" or even "power ambient" feels cruelly reductionist, which is probably why he amusingly titled a 2020 release Fully Automated Luxury Ambient. That imaginary subgenre feels much closer to the mark, as the intensity and textural inventiveness that Angelo brings to these compositions shares far more common ground with artists like Tim Hecker or Fennesz (or collapsing power lines during a live volcano) than it does with anyone trafficking in droning, meditative loops.
Those craving the aforementioned "collapsing power lines" vibe will have a mercifully short wait, as the opening "Igniting the Periphery" calls to mind buzzing high tension wires swayed by a deep seismic shudder as the surrounding buildings collapse in slow motion. There are some other elements as well, like fragments of twinkling piano and warm waves of frayed drones, but the viscerally heaving, buzzing, and gnarled wreckage at the heart of the piece is the showstopper—everything else is just there to color the mood. That balance holds true for the rest of the album as well, as the Singe experience feels akin to wandering through six cataclysmic yet weirdly beautiful natural disasters. For example, the crackling and hissing "Frothed" evokes slow jets of magma breaking through a buckling, blasted landscape, while "Drip Motion" has the feel of a storm slowly forming and then slowly dissipating. In short, Harmsworth harnesses the proverbial "force of nature" and wields it beautifully. That said, "Drip Motion" is an album highlight for more conventionally musical reasons as well, as it resembles the burning and heaving wreckage of a killer Porter Ricks cut fading in and out of focus. "A Twofold Excess" then ends the album's first half with yet another gem, as it feels like slowed-down footage of a tornado ripping apart a sawmill before dissolving into a sublime coda of sputtering static, tender piano, and warbling, whimpering streaks of psychedelia.
Somehow, the weather forecast only gets crazier for the album's second half, though that is hardly surprising given that "Aporia" seems to not even be earthbound anymore, as Harmsworth conjures a buzzing and shuddering alien landscape of strangled static and quivering feedback. In addition to that, there are some elements that sound like field recordings of a welding crew on the Death Star along with a guest appearance by Felisha Ledesma. Sadly, Ledesma does not stick around very long (I'm a big fan of her Fringe album), but a human voice emerging from the howling industrial ruin was unexpected enough to leave an impression regardless. Elsewhere, "Reversing the Procession" calls to mind flickering ghosts in the burning, buckling hull of a sinking shop and probably marks the album's zenith as far as sheer churning physicality is concerned. The closing "Scope Neglect" may be the album's zenith beauty-wise though, calling to mind slow-motion footage of a burning spacecraft breaking apart as it falls to earth. Hell, I'll even throw in a dramatic sunset as a backdrop, as "Scope Neglect" is an absolutely gorgeous example of Harmsworth's vision of elemental power and blackened beauty. And Singe is one hell of an album. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of another artist who could have made an album in this vein without lapsing into unlistenable bombast or erring too much into the "noise" or "ambient" side of the delicate balance. In Harmsworth's hands, however, Singe feels like a series of vivid field recordings taken from the end of the world.
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- Duncan Edwards
- Albums and Singles
Dave Clarkson is a gem who has flown under my—far from infallible—radar for about 30 years. There are upwards of 40 releases emanating in his impressive catalog, from the Cavendish House studio, including many of these Guides which have focused on everything from beaches, caves, forests, and lighthouses, with tangents to rain, ghost stories and illness. That another of his albums, For Horselover Fat by Eye In The Sky has a bash at honoring the concerns and creativity of the astonishing Philip K. Dick is right up my alley.
I love everything about A Pocket Guide To Dreamland: the concept and how it sounds of course, but equally the perfect anorak-fetishistic packaging of the physical release with badges, a transparent orange cassette, postcards, and its cover label paying homage to Ordnance Survey maps above images depicting the almost psychedelic childlike thrill of a seaside funfair along with a gritty high rise apartment block tower. I almost expected some recreated cut-out coupons from The Eagle * comic for a day at Butlins Holiday Camp (Admit Family of 4 to unglamorous Skegness location).
The recording is topped and tailed by tracks featuring a wheezing fairground organ (aptly appalling and eerily comforting in equal measure), and it is an album of two halves. The first half could serve as a brash snapshot of these coastal locations in their heyday with the annual influx of pleasure-seeking holidaymakers frantically rushing to disappointment. The title of the brief opening piece, "Organ Donor," clues us to the field-recording aspect of Clarkson's methodology but "Rollercoaster Ghost" soon shows the range of his production techniques, blending clattering rhythms, unbridled screams, and the calm resolution which can only come from the plucked strings of an acoustic guitar. His choices always work, whether sources are untouched, blended together, or processed to the point of virtual obliteration.
On "Spectral Pier Ballroom," Clarkson patches together what sounds like demolition noise and the sound of crashing waves with three musical recordings of his late father and grandparents. A vivid sense is created of something being swept away, part the pathetic cruelty Pinky the pathetically cruel gangster from Brighton Rock and part the doomed unspoken romance of Mr Stevens and Miss Kenton from Remains of The Day, but brutal either way.
The second half of this excellent album starts with "Penny Arcade in the Rain," where he makes something great from thunder, coins dropping into greedy game machines, a breezy, sweeping tempo, and a few mocking caws from seagulls. From that point a softer wave of memory washes gently back and forth. "Tiny Lights (Magic in a Child's Eyes)" is well titled, a sound reminder of why parents dragged themselves annually to these towns in the first place.
Midway through the blissful "Coastal Ghost Towns," I had become an eight year old again, walking with our family friends along the seafront at night between Sutton-on-Sea and Mablethorpe, could literally feel my teeth crunching through the hard shell of a toffee apple and see my sister's mouth chasing the evaporating pink fluff of candy floss, while my father's irrepressibly exuberant voice somehow stands out over the waves crashing violently into the seawall.
[*The Eagle was also home to heroic Dan Dare and his alien nemesis The Mekon, the latter the inspiration for the group originally from Leeds.]
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- Eve McGivern
- Albums and Singles
As John Jagos sings "Save me from the grip of the modern age" early on in "Tangerine," the opening track of the latest from his alter-ego Brothertiger, three words spring to mind: sparkling, honest, and nostalgic. Indeed, the music hearkens back to the ilk of carefully crafted new wave sounds in the vein of ABC and Spandau Ballet, minus any flamboyance and serving up no pretentiousness. What remains is perfectly composed chill electronic pop, melody at the forefront. With sounds like summer wafting wistfully through headphones as I write, this is music perfect for road trips in the middle of nowhere, lounging on a beach recliner while the waves roll in, or simply snuggling under a blanket with the music present like a good friend.
Compiling tracks previously released as singles on his Bandcamp page, Brothertiger showcases the continued growth Jagos displays following stellar releases Paradise Lost and Out of Touch. The catchiness of Jagos' melodies belies the potent, often dark underpinnings of his art through his use of lyrics. Take "Be True" as an example, leading off like an anthem to struggling youth learning to find themselves: "Always be true, Ring true like a bell, Resonate through you, Elevate myself" but injecting caution into the manifesto in the chorus:
"I finally built the walls around me
Completely up surrounding
Finally built the walls around me
Completely up."
Jagos is unafraid to make forays into deeper topics like the dissolution of relationships ("Torn Open"), the desire to escape one's own life ("Wallow." "Summer Wave '98"), and in "Heaven," a disenchantment with faith:
"They say the word becomes the weapon
How do you recognize the pain in you?
I lost my way to heaven
A new state of mind that I fell into"
The love-be-damned "Torn Open" is wildly contrasting as guest Yvette Young sings her impassioned heart out with Jagos, the song sounding like an homage to eternal love, melodically bursting with joy and positive expectations. Listen closely to the lyrics, and it is anything but this: "Do you remember / Rain or shine / We'd be together every day / Now ever day I cry / Feeling I could die / Cuz the pain inside never goes away." Pristine, undistilled honest pop, but do "pop" singers coat their darkness in such bright and cheery trappings? Perfection never tripped me up so pleasantly.
Other songs like "Arizona" and "Dancer on the Water" have the same underlying thoughtful lyrics but are just as pleasant to take at face value. Jagos inserts what appear to be auto-biographical touches in nearly every track, but it's ok to sit back and enjoy the ride, watching the scenery as it rolls past.
The wonderful sounds of Brothertiger may be heard here.
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