11 December 2022

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.

Kallista

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).

listen here

11 December 2022

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.

Cantaloupe

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.

listen here

20 November 2022

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.

Twin Lakes/Feeding Tube

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.

Listen Here.

06 November 2022

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.

Beacon Sound/Ruptured

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.

Listen here.

06 November 2022

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.

Students of Decay

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.

Listen here.

06 November 2022

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.

Cavendish House

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.]

Listen here.

06 November 2022

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.

Satanic Panic

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.

30 October 2022

Anthony D'Amico

Albums and Singles

I was caught completely off guard by this latest opus from Dalt, as much of it sounds more like a three-way collaboration between Astrud Gilberto, Perez Prado, and Walter Wanderley than anything resembling the warped and stark electronic pop mutations that the Colombian composer has become synonymous with. After my initial disbelief subsided, however, I quickly decided that ¡Ay! may very well be the strongest album of Dalt's career to date. I suspect Dalt herself would probably agree, as it would be fair to say that her vision remains as compelling and innovative as ever, but she has merely kicked her self-imposed artistic restraints to the curb and embraced the warmer, more sensuous, and melodic sounds that she grew up around. Or, as the album description colorfully puts it, "through the spiraling tendencies of time and topography, Lucrecia has arrived where she began." In any case, the end result is a wonderfully sultry and evocative collection of seductive vocals and tropical rhythms beautifully enhanced with a host of psychotropic and industrial-damaged touches. And she somehow makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world. I definitely did not expect Dalt to secretly be a tropical pop genius at all, which makes her previous albums all the more fascinating now that I know that they were made while pointedly suppressing some of her greatest strengths.

RVNG Intl.

The opening "No Tiempo" initially evokes a "late-night cable" fever dream vibe in which a Bela Lugosi vampire movie blurs into an organ-happy televangelist, but it quickly transforms into swaying tropical bliss once the flutes and the lazily sultry groove make the scene. It has the feel of a Wanderley/Gilberto collaboration that has been punched up (and sexed up) for contemporary ears by an intrepid DJ (though I was still startled by the brass finale). It is a great piece, but it is immediately eclipsed by the following "El Galatzó," which masterfully combines hushed, confessional-sounding vocals with bass strums, trilling flutes, cooing backing vox, swelling strings, industrial scrapes, strangled feedback, and killer hand-percussion to cast a sustained spell of noir-ish, cinematic seduction. While "El Galatzó" would be my personal pick for the album's reigning highlight, the album is not hurting for other hot contenders for that honor. In "Contenida," for example, a hallucinatory fog and a jazzy double bass motif cohere into some kind of humid and dubby bossa nova mindfuck, which then beautifully erupts in a viscerally clattering metal percussion frenzy. If the whole album sustained a similarly perfect balance of ambitious dub/industrial production brilliance and sultry songcraft, I would have no hesitation at all about proclaiming ¡Ay! to be the album of the year.

Instead of flogging that winning formula to death, however, Dalt opted to explore some alternate flavors of dubby, industrial-gnawed seduction with the remaining pieces. On "Atemporal," Dalt strikes gold again with a simmering groove, soulful horns, and a warbly Farfisa-sounding hook. Elsewhere, "Gena" returns to languorously noir moods, resembling a deconstructed Perez Prado cut enhanced with Thirlwell-esque blurts of artificial brass and a host of texturally delightful dub flourishes. Literally every single song on the album is compelling, however, as Dalt keeps finding new ways to surprise and delight me. Sometimes she plays things almost unrecognizably straight ("Bochinche"), while other pieces pack bracingly gnarled crescendos or psychotropic flurries of panning and echoing percussion. Other times, I am blindsided by arrangements so ambitious that I would have guessed that a major motion picture studio had lavished Dalt with money to assemble her own Xavier Cugat-esque all-star orchestra. Sadly, that probably did not happen, but Dalt did enlist an impressive batch of guest musicians to bring her dream to life nonetheless. Moreover, she managed to make this album in Berlin during a pandemic rather than from a seaside town in 1960s Brazil, Colombia, or Cuba, which makes her something of a master illusionist as well. The sole caveat with ¡Ay! is that a lot of Dalt's previously distinctive idiosyncrasies are present in more muted form than usual, which may disappoint fans of her more "outer limits" tendencies. To my ears, however, Dalt has actually transcended those tendencies in inspired fashion, as ¡Ay! feels more natural and less self-consciously arty than her previous work (and it does not hurt that it is absolutely packed with hooks as well).

Listen here.

30 October 2022

Duncan Edwards

Albums and Singles

This is Mikko Singh's best and most consistent record yet as Haleiwa. Both his first full length releases Pura Vida dude and Palm Trees Of The Subarctic were light and dreamy, while his third Cloud Formations accelerated Haleiwa onto another level, driven by good tunes and several great moments, not least the plunge through synthesizers into warm bass driven melody on the opener "HKI-97," and the digital blips of "Foggy" which (perhaps unconsciously) resembles Brian Wilson frantically transposing part of "California Girls" into morse code. That third record heralded a deeper sound, perhaps because Singh switched to analog cassette and reel-to-reel tape recording, and it also included more variety although for no clear reason. Hallway Waverider avoids that pitfall by finding a sweet spot and then showing little or no desire to move very far away.

Morr Music

Of course there is variety here, but it is subsumed beneath a definite creative vision; a vision which looks backwards. Dedicated to his mother who passed away in 2015, and inspired by his own earlier self spending winter months skateboarding in his bedroom while listening to music. The overall sound is of music for surfing, but surfing on air, memory, and metaphor, back to the halcyon days of carefreeness and family love. If there is any slight hint of original Dick Dale surf guitar twang (or even Psychocandy style surfing on polluted Glaswegian effluent) it has died peacefully and gone to heaven in a sonic envelope of featherlight fuzz.

There is a subtly brilliant motorik drive underlaying parts of the album, though, right from the anthemic first track "River Park/Sleeping Pill." This quality partly stems from the drumming, but also comes out of pulsing synthesizers, from lovely hollow bass-driven echoing melody lines, and enveloping production. All this naturally adds to the sense of continual movement going nowhere fast. If popular music, on a count of 1,2,3,4, often lurches forward in a linear fashion heading off: down the road, over the hillside, into the future, then by contrast Hallway Waverider seems to spin its wheels on the spot, staying close to zero or even shifting backwards into imaginary numbers, passing the square root of minus one on the way to nothing but itself.

I once had a weekly 2 hour radio slot (Tuesdays usually) and after some months realized that I was fond of choosing the show's final track and invariably prepared by picking that and then working backwards. Eventually I had so many final track possibilities stockpiled that any given show could consist of around 60% of these final tracks. If I were to do a show now, anything from Hallway Waverider would fit the final track bill, fading in and out as if it had already been playing and would continue to play long after it seemed to have disappeared out of earshot. The album is a consistently fine listen all the way through, as it floats through "A Bottomless Pit," picks up some static grit on "Watered Down," flips across into sublime Lynchian dream territory for "Hide Away," and arrives all too soon at the magnificent yearning final track "Hallway Waverider" itself. My only gripe is the absence of a lyric sheet, especially since from what I have seen the lyrics are entirely apt and a great addition.

"A road/Brings you forth/Levels up/Levels down/Back again/At square one/ Holding on/To Nothing."

"The sea/ You're riding in/ Will merge/ With the sky/ A slow/ Feeling calls/ You out/ Once again/ A low heaven/ Follows you/ Around/ Again."

Listen here.

30 October 2022

Anthony D'Amico

Albums and Singles

This may be Swiss pianist/composer Raphael Loher's first solo album, but he has crossed my path before with his Baumschule trio (featuring Julian Sartorius and Manuel Troller). I am much less familiar with Loher's other trio (KALI), but the importance is that he has spent time improvising with inspiring musicians and has accumulated some very intriguing compositional ideas along the way. Interestingly, Keemuun is itself a bit of an improvisatory collaboration with inspiring (if unwitting) musicians, as Loher often played along with albums by other artists while experimenting with his rapid-fire piano patterns (Beatrice Dillon's rhythmically adventurous Workaround was a particularly central touchstone). In fact, just about everything about this album's evolution feels like fertile grist for a "galaxy brain" meme: a prepared piano album…limited to only ten notes spanning two octaves…improvised against cutting edge techno rhythms…but with all of those foundational rhythms totally excised from the final recording. Needless to say, all of those factors make for a very cool album concept in theory, but I am pleased to report that Loher's brilliant execution has made this a killer album in reality as well.

three:four records

The album consists of four numbered pieces, the first of which is considerably more subdued and minimal than the others (and shorter too). To my ears, the opener lies somewhere between bleary Morton Feldman-style dissonance and a dying, slightly out-of-tune music box performing its own elegy. It makes a perfectly fine (if understated) introduction, but I doubt I would be writing about Keemuun if it did not catch fire with the second piece and sustain that white-hot level of inspiration for the remainder of the album.

That second piece opens with a rapid arpeggio pattern that quickly begins unraveling into tendrils of new melody. It packs quite a mesmerizing effect, as it feels breathless, delirious, unpredictable, and endlessly spiraling. Then, around the five-minute mark, Loher downshifts his circular patterns into a plinking simmer that calls to mind a blurred and hallucinatory twist on gamelan. Notably, two of Loher's central themes for the album were "continuous movement of the left and right hands' and "a specific technique of piano preparation," so "II" marks the first explosive realization of that vision.

The third piece is yet another stunner in a similar vein, though its spiraling arpeggios have more of a "pulsing wave" dynamic. Loher proves to be something of a genius in the realm of dynamics in general, as his subtle changes in attack and emphasis give the piece the organically kinetic feel of shifting sand dunes. Moreover, Loher's piano preparation technique works some magic of its own, as his notes have a metallic physicality and leave a smeared and lingering haze of strange harmonies in their wake. The album winds to a close with another "Feldman meets broken music box"-style piece, but it has a much darker and more sinister tone this time around. Gradually the sense of menace subsides to reveal a deep sadness, but that sadness builds to a rhythmically sophisticated crescendo of broken-sounding interwoven melodies.

In its final moments, the piece (and the album) dissolve into a simple melancholy melody that leaves a ghostly afterimage hanging in the long spaces between the notes. It makes for a lovely and quiet comedown from the technical tour de force at the heart of the album. Obviously, one more tour de force would have been just fine by me, but this is a damn-near perfect album in all respects. Notably, the conception of this album coincided with an epiphany in which Loher became less interested in "confronting" audiences with his art and more interested in creating something "beautiful but strange." I honestly do not know how Loher could have possibly done a better job at realizing that objective, as Keemuun is quite a brilliant and moving statement.

Listen here.