experimental
See: The acid prism of Plankton Wat’s ‘Modern Ruins’: a delicious psychedelic instrumental response to our fracturing world
DEWEY MAHOOD, the atmospheric psychedelic guitarist who released his twelfth album as Plankton Wat for Thrill Jockey, Future Times, in late February, has dropped the shroom-surreal video for one of that excellent album’s standout tracks, “Modern Ruins”, a track all garlanded about with echo and twang-shimmer and flutes – you can watch that below. The …
EP review: Francesca Ter-Berg – In Eynem: an exploratory cello EP that makes a deep connection
YOU MAY recognise the name Francesca Ter-Berg as the cello side of the leftfield folk classical improv duo Fran and Flora that turned heads a while ago, from Café Oto to Women’s Hour, with their electrifying rejuvenation of Eastern European traditional sounds. That vibrant partnership with violinist Flora Curzon released the impeccably imaginative Unfurl in …
Track: Masayoshi Fujita – ‘Bird Ambience’: the deft, spacious wonder of the marimba glimmers with delight
THE WONDERFUL Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita is all set to release a new album for Erased Tapes on May 28th which, if you like your experimental music powerfully layered, melodic, enrapturing in its nuance and depth, so should be a red-letter day in your diary. The album’s called Bird Ambience and Fujita has released …
See: The layered monochrome stylings of MICROCORPS’ ‘UVU’: a dark electronic language for a dark age
MICROCORPS, the new project of Alex Tucker, lurches us forward into a near-future dystopia part-flesh, part-microprocessor, and achieves eerie beauty; as you can hear below with the second track to be revealed from next week’s XMIT album, “UVU”, the steel grey visuals for which you can see below. The album takes us out deep and …
Track: Tomas Nordmark feat. Waterbaby – ‘Ghosts’: eerie, amniotic, ink-black choral electronica preludes his May album
LIVING these days in London, but hailing originally from the small Swedish coastal town of Västervik, some 280km further down the coast from Stockholm, Tomas Nordmark is a electronica producer and soundscaper with a very complex and organic musical vision. His interest in the sonic avant-garde was brooked by the 1960s’ art scene in New …
See: The solarised dazzle of Dragon Welding’s ‘Scorched Sea’: a furnace extrusion of white-hot instrumental guitar
THE WOLFHOUNDS’ Andy Golding, one of the most potent wielders (welders?) of a guitar in operation in these tarnished isles today, is releasing only his second solo album under his anagrammatic Dragon Welding moniker in May, in which he sets sail into the possibilities of instrumental guitar. It’s gonna be an excellent journey, that album, …
Track: Sabiwa – ‘鬼 / The Demon’: deeply expansive rescoring for the Japanese animation from Geist im Kino’s second ‘Imaginal Soundtracking’
IMAGINAL SOUNDTRACKING is one of those excellent conceptual series whereby a label creates a scheme for artists to work within, often lead to surprising and enveloping results. This particular schemata comes from Phantom Limb’s soundtrack imprint, Geist im Kino, and looks to “… reframe overlooked or forgotten works of cinema and to offer a new …
Premiere: The Beegles reveal first new single in four years, Dog; take a first listen, here
Out on April 9th on Zuccini Records in Australia and Not For Fun Records in the UK and Europe comes the new single from the Beegles – Dog, their first in four years since 2017’s Everybody Outside. It’s a slice of experimental almost performance poetry from the band, essentially the moniker of Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Ash …
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
See: Theo Alexander’s ‘Bright-Eyed Hunger’: London composer targets the dream state with his dazzling minimalism
LONDON pianist Theo Alexander likes to loop, to evoke the dreamstate, to explore the beauty of harmony and melody and repetition. He’s an album coming up on Toronto’s lovely Arts & Crafts imprint in late May that looks to seal his reputation as one of the most interesting people working in the minimalist end of …