experimental
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 …
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
Track: Hear Jim Stewart’s ‘Dead Sea’: the composer responds to a Paul Nash painting, taken from the forthcoming ‘Stills 01’ music and painting project
STILLS 01 is the first, beguiling three-track release from new imprint String and Tins Recordings that looks to marry the disciplines of music and fine art, insomuch as each piece of music recorded and issued in the series is a direct response to a painting in the collection of Tate Britain. The first in the …
Track: Birthday Ass – ‘Plubbage Bubbage’: flicking the Vs at punk and jazz and making them dance with abandon
PRIYA CARLBERG, singer and wayward guiding light behind the fun as hell and wonderfully weird punk-funk concoction of Birthday Ass, won’t be drawn on the meaning of the title of their latest single drop, “Plubbage Bubbage” which, if you “think it’s fun to say, roll it around your mouth now – best collocation of words …
Album Review: Luca Yupanqui – Sounds of the Unborn
The proportion of ‘firsts’ occurring in music (experimental or otherwise) would, in all likelihoood, greatly diminish over time. However, it may also be likely that other sources could blow open the doors to refreshingly exciting ways of creating music – which express emotion in similarly invigorating fashion. Technology, for example, is likely to be a …