Ren Schofield might be living in a new country (England) and releasing music on a new label (Alter), but no one need worry about those differing circumstances having any impact at all on the single-minded and relentless brutality of his work as Container. That said, Scramblers is (rightly) billed as a more "high-octane" incarnation of Schofield's punishing aesthetic, as it evolved directly out of his aggressive live performances. To some degree, such a statement is largely academic, as just about every Container album has felt like the techno equivalent of a runaway train, but it is true that this particular album offers virtually no breaks at all in the intensity of Container's splattering and pummeling rhythmic assaults. That is just fine by me, as Schofield's primal violence is consistently executed with surgical precision and visceral power, but more casual fans may find themselves wishing that Container would someday evolve further beyond the mercilessly one-dimensional onslaught of previous albums.
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It is a safe assumption to say that most folks who buy a ticket to a concert expect to hear a few songs from their favorite band's latest album; after all, this is how bands showcase their latest music, but also provide fans the chance to hear their earlier work. Anyone seeing Wire since the '00s can assume no such thing; entire tours have included nothing but their newest work, barely acknowledging the fact that they've been around since the '70s. Wire does what Wire wants. Thankfully, they're great at it. It's a testament that Wire can still sound like Wire, maintaining that certain "Wire" sound, and yet continuously reinvent themselves, creating memorable - and fresh — music after 40 years.
It has been roughly three years since Lawrence English last released a proper solo album (2017’s Cruel Optimism), though he has kept himself quite busy with collaborative work since then (most notably as half of HEXA). Nevertheless, I have always been quite fond of his solo work, so I was hoping that he had something ambitious in the pipeline and this latest release hits the mark in that regard. While I am not sure that I would necessarily characterize Lassitude as one of English's major releases, it is at least half brilliant and takes quite a different approach to drone than his usual fare. Part of that uniqueness lies in the fact that English focused entirely upon the pipe organ for this release, but Lassitude is perhaps even more significantly influenced by its inspirations, as one piece is inspired by Éliane Radigue and another by Phill Niblock.
Billed as a thematic successor to 2017's Toxic City Music, Evan Caminiti's latest release delves even deeper into the fragmented and deconstructionist dub experimentation of its predecessor. In a few important ways, however, Varispeed Hydra is a very different album. For one, it is conceptually inspired by rural sounds and the fragility of the natural environment rather than by dystopian urban environments. More significantly, Caminiti's music subverts traditional dub techno structures in an even more challenging way, often distilling the form down to just a few simple chords expanding and contracting in a disorienting state of suspended animation. Given that pointed lack of hooks, rhythm, or harmonic evolution, Varispeed Hydra is not the easiest Caminiti album to love, but he manages to make the paroxysms of that hyper-limited palette far more compelling than I would have expected.
This long-running Chicago slowcore trio has been uncharacteristically silent for the last five years, though vocalist Matt Christensen has been as tirelessly prolific as ever as a solo artist. Given that lengthy hiatus, it is not entirely surprising that the Zelienople that has resurfaced with Hold You Up is a somewhat different beast than the Zelienople of old. Admittedly, the band's usual fragility, languorous pacing, and pervading sense of melancholia have definitely not gone anywhere, but this latest release is considerably more driving and pop-minded than the fare I have grown to expect from the band. That said, I suppose I should put "driving" and "pop" in quotes, as the closest Hold You Up comes to the mainstream is an aesthetic indebtedness to Mark Hollis's solo work. Zelienople are still considerably more monochromatic and minimal than Hollis ever was though, so none of the band's distinctive character has been sacrificed—they have merely gotten a bit better at enhancing their vision with a greater emphasis on hooks and grooves. Needless to say, that evolution suits them well.
Opera is not exactly a style of music that has overlapped much with modern electronic and experimental genres. Perhaps it is the long-form nature, or the innately organic nature of works built heavily around the human voice, but either way, it has not been a major crossover style in my experience. As an outgrowth of her CyberSongs project, Barbara Ellison has decided to tackle this challenge. Using computer modeled speech and instrument samples, along with a healthy dose of processing and audio treatments, the final product is a diverse mix that clearly draws from operatic structures and elements, but results in something that transcends the style entirely.
Japanese guitarist Leo Takami's music will be very familiar to fans of Bill Frisell, with its pure, clean guitar tone, and meditative instrumentals. The whole album has a very open feel to it, as if it was recorded in a great hall, but in the style of a calm reverie you might imagine wafting into a hidden away temple for reflection. It also calls to mind Eyvind Kang and all smooth jazz pioneers who pair rock song structures with the strings and winds of chamber music arrangements.
It is fair to say that every Midwife release is a deeply personal one, as Madeline Johnston has never been one to mask her true feelings with ambiguously poetic language or aesthetic distance. This second full-length is an especially heavy one though, as it was composed as a sort of letter to Johnston's late friend Colin Ward (the two were roommates at Denver's beloved former DIY art space Rhinoceropolis). Fortunately, cathartically transforming dark emotions into powerful art has always been where Johnston shines the brightest and that remains as true as ever with Forever. In fact, she has arguably only gotten better, as Forever's lead single "Anyone Can Play Guitar" actually gave me chills the first time I heard it. Thankfully, the other five songs do not pack quite as much of an emotional gut punch, making this album considerably more well-suited for repeat listening than, say, Mount Eerie’s similarly inspired (and emotionally devastating) A Crow Looked at Me. There is certainly plenty of pain and anger to be found on Forever, but that darkness is beautifully mingled with warmth, hopefulness, and a characteristically unerring instinct for great songcraft.
I was legitimately blindsided by Clarice Jensen's wonderful 2018 debut (For This From That Will Be Filled), but it left me with absolutely no idea what to expect from her in the future, as it was an unusual collection consisting of a collaboration, an ambitious solo composition, and a piece composed by Michael Harrison. As such, it was hard to tell if Jensen was a brilliant cellist with great taste, an extremely promising composer, or both. With the spellbinding The Experience of Repetition as Death, Jensen definitively confirms that she is indeed both, as she ingeniously employs loops and effects to craft a beguiling, varied, and richly textured five-song suite inspired by personal tragedy, Freud, and Adrienne Rich. Though death is a definite and deliberate theme, Jensen transforms it into something sublime, transcendent, and achingly beautiful. Moreover, the album's mesmerizing centerpiece ("Holy Mother") completely decimates any preexisting conceptions I had regarding what one person can achieve with a cello.
This latest release from Félicia Atkinson is ostensibly a minor and somewhat transitional one, as it is a cassette intended as a sort of culminating document of a year spent traveling and performing. As with all recent Atkinson releases, however, the reality is far more complex, enigmatic, and deeply conceptual than anything that can be easily summarized in just one sentence. Partly inspired by the paintings of Helen Frankenthaler and partly intended as "a reassessed document of public performance with improvised studio interventions acting to break the linear stream of the live-on-stage temporality," Everything Evaporate is an intriguing and sophisticated release that seems to exist at the borderline of form and dreamlike abstraction. As such, it is not the optimal entry point for the curious (that would be 2019's The Flower and the Vessel), but deep listening reveals this release to be every bit as absorbing as the rest of Atkinson's recent hot streak.
