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Album review: Cory Hanson – ‘Pale Horse Rider’: a psych-country triumph from Wand frontman

You might expect Pale Horse Rider to be a really good record; it's actually a great one. It's a record about LA written with all the perception and acuity of native. It takes the country-psych template and when it plays within it, it plays with grace and precision and blur; and when it shifts out beyond, it does with the dynamics of British exploratory rock. All points covered, no filler; perhaps its time to crown Cory the new Wolf King of LA. Buy.
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Album review: Christine Ott – ‘Time To Die’: French composer returns to Gizeh for a modern compositional masterclass

Without a doubt one of the most potent voices in modern composition today, Christine Ott is as happy to push right out into dark, even industrial-infused experimenta as she is to play a straight bat with absolute confidence in the deeper classical tradition and the wider avant-garde palette; she can do it all, if she chooses, and when she breathes the ondes Martenot into life; there really is no one to touch her
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Album review: Balmorhea – ‘The Wind’: Texas post-classical duo present a lovely set for Deutsche Grammophon

Balmorhea draw a line back in the tradition to the much-missed Louisville, KY outfit Rachel's, who opted to take an idea and use whichever instrumental mix they found brought out the best of what they wished to convey. And The Wind roams freely and with precision across a spectrum from formal classical through a more pastoral take on the form and all the way out to ambient experimentalism, spoken word, found sound, with a unity and cohesion. It's just a lovely, thoughtful record; complex in its simplicity
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Album review: Chihei Hatakeyama – ‘Late Spring’: a halcyon, beautiful ambient journey

Late Spring takes elements of IDM, shoegaze, and drone, and fashions them together in an impressionistic, delicious fog, with a pretty unique pastoralist feel, alive in nature. It's pretty much the only album I've ever heard that makes me reconsider such unassailable classics of the slow leftfield as Stars of the Lids' The Tired Sounds Of ... and Windy & Carl's Consciousness and made me think: whoah there guys, these records are a bit ... sharp-edged, right? Take it easy. Let it breathe. That halcyon. Late Spring is bloody, bloody beautiful.
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