experimental
Album Review: Thomas Fehlmann – Umdrehen (Edition DUR)
“Turning around” is Thomas Fehlmann’s new magic word. It allows him to approach constraints and difficult topics from a new perspective, turning them into something positive. “Umdrehen” is an exploration of sound, combining linguistic and artistic work practices. The album starts with “Bundy/Blessing,” disrupting Fehlmann’s ambient surface and introducing spatial music that leaves gaps for …
Album Review: Slow Knife – A Hymn Supreme
Todmorden experimentalists Slow Knife have returned with a second album, the fully improvised two track long player, A Hymn Supreme. Taking its lead more than likely (as well as half of its title) fromJohn Coltrane opus, it’s explores spiritual jazz, but alongside noise electronics and lyrically explores the ‘authenticity of spiritual transcendence’. Part 1 lies …
Track/Video : Justin Walter previews long awaited new album ‘Destroyer’ with the title track’s aching beauty.
Jazz trumpeter and electronic musician Justin Walter is an artist who obviously takes care. It’s been six years since his last for Kranky, the ethereally wonderfilled ‘Unseen Forces’ and before that his debut on the label, ‘Lullabies & Nightmares’ announced itself in 2014. So incoming news of his new album ‘Destroyer’, due 13th October through …
Premiere: Stream New Yorkers FORAGER’s essential debut album Pipedream Firewood
We’ve been lucky enough to live with this album for a little bit. If there’s one thing you need with New York trio FORAGER, it’s time – there’s an immediacy to their music that’s quite refreshing, but the added layers of complexity will take more than one listen to begin to reveal themselves. It also …
Album Review: Brin & Dustin Wong – Texture II : An intense connection of micro-beats and shifting loops with a free jazz spirit.
Imagining the outcome of this collaboration is in many ways a bit of a stretch. First there is guitarist Dustin Wong, in the past a key member of the under-valued Ponytail, who rode the first math-rock wave along with Battles, and more recently an explorer of interwoven guitar pieces, often long form, for Thrill Jockey. …
Track/Video: Soundway announce re-releasing the pre-ambient classic ‘Circus Underwater’ with groovy preview ‘The Surface of the water’.
This feels a bit like Light In The Attic territory but the wonderful Soundway Records have scooped a real lost gem here. They’ll be re-releasing the one and only self-titled album by Circus Underwater from 1984 and coming to shelves near you in newly mastered form on 15th September. It’s a record that’s long been …
Album Review: Jim Wallis – In Huge Gesturing Loops: moving ‘ambient country’ way beyond passive mood music.
Drumming and making ambient soundscapes is not a well populated intersection on the musician directory Venn diagram but Jim Wallis sits comfortably within that quirky enclave. Perhaps best known for his stick wielding in Modern Nature, Still Corners and Psychic Markers, he’s also a producer/mixer/engineer (recent credits include Bryde and Ellie James) plus one of …
Track/Video: Experimental duo J Foerster/N Kramer announce new album ‘Habitat II’ with the shimmering spread of ‘Souvenirs’.
The Berlin based experimental music partnership of percussionist Joda Foerster and composer Niklas Kramer are set to continue their exploration of pseudo site-specific music with the release of a new album ‘Habitat II’ on September 15th. It’s their second long form release for the irrepressible Leaving Records following 2021’s ‘Habitat’, the title connection hinting at …
Album Review: Fabiano Do Nascimento – Das Nuvens : New Fusion music for the heart and soul
If you know anything of guitarist/composer Fabiano do Nascimento’s significant back catalogue you will be expecting his new album ‘Das Nuvens‘ to be impressive. Each release from his debut ‘Dança Dos Tempos’ in 2015 onwards has shown: his accomplished instrumental touch, whether on seven, twelve or oktav guitar; his intuitive feel for classic Brazilian music, …
Track/Video: Electro-psych pioneers Teeth Of The Sea preview new album ‘Hive’ with the pulsating rush of ‘Megafragma’.
Techno doom, electro metal, dub psych, industrial prog, prog techno, doom psych, metal dub, doom prog disco…Teeth Of The Sea have been sending the genre-makers scrabbling at their combinations for a decade plus now. One reviewer once got so desperate to describe the band as ‘android kestrels’ …you know that sound? What’s more important is …