January 27, 2019 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Higher: The Core 12″ EP
Shed’s newest alias appears on XL with some of his nuttiest rave deconstructions yet. “The Core” is an extremely difficult track which knocks the beat sideways, yet still ends up being a total anthem. “Stick 3” is more of a hardcore headrush, made all the more manic by stuck-in-the-machine stutters. Two “Submarine” tracks are separated by year, with “’99” being a little darker and tenser, and “’95” actually being the stranger and more complex of the two. Neither particularly sound like the years indicated by the titles, but it’s hard to imagine what year they could’ve come from.
January 27, 2019 at 1:14 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Precipitation: Earth/Sky tape
A different, refreshing take on ambient house. The “Earth” side has two lengthy tracks with fragile, somewhat shivering synths and minimal beats which set it in motion. Super misty, but not heavy and doesn’t soak you to the bone — this is precipitation, not a storm. Following the steady ambient techo vibes, the “Sky” side is strictly beatless, removing the sense of forward motion, but carrying the same feeling out into the stratosphere. You begin to miss the beats after a while, it does make you feel like you’re being taken far away from home.
January 27, 2019 at 12:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Catdog & frank angotti is dead: ADHD
Catdog’s tracks on this split range from the usual terror-mashcore (“Move Your Feet”) to somewhat subtler experiments like the Bowie-sampling “Unfocused”. “No Ones Going to Like It” is a footwork-gabber hybrid which samples an old Delta 9/Lenny Dee classic. frank angotti is dead starts out with noisy industrial techno but his other tracks are stranger, more abstract breakcore, with “Not Done Yet” being the most collage-like. The music is fun on its own, but the fact that Longmont Potion Castle designed the artwork puts this one over the edge. Available from
Bandcamp (free DL).
January 26, 2019 at 2:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Tomat Petrella: Kepler
Davide Tomat and Gianluca Petrella reach for the stars on this magnificent collaboration. Though partially coming from a jazz background, this is closer to advanced, haunting sound design, with Petrella’s trombone inventively weaved throughout Tomat’s wave-like textures and sporadic yet hard-hitting beats. “Proxima Centauri B” starts out somewhat like Lee Gamble’s inverted jungle flashbacks, never arriving at beats and clearing the way for solemn trombone playing. “Trappist 1 E” is more fractured and turbulent, recalling Roly Porter or the Haxan Cloak, harshly sputtering but briefly pausing for breath and ending up much calmer and resolved. “Hd 40307 G” is riddled with crackling which will make you think something’s wrong with the speakers. “Gliese 667 CC” is filled with doomy, semi-industrial beats. “Tau Ceti E” has sporadic clusters of beats (Second Woman-style) with the trombone gradually peering out over them. “Kepler 186 F” is a 10-minute epic which grows slow, trudging beats and phasing effects, to disorienting yet fascinating effect.
Kepler is a truly original album which makes you reconsider the idea of space music.
January 25, 2019 at 9:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Magela Herrera: Explicaciones
Magela Herrera is a Cuban composer/flautist based in Miami, and her first solo album is an absolute knockout. Her arrangements are complex and dynamic, yet it never feels like she’s stuffing too many notes onto the page. It all goes down easily, but not blandly smooth. She seamlessly blends Afro-Cuban, European jazz (she lived in Norway for a while) and fusion styles, and while all the songs are different, it’s all recognizable as her style. Likewise, the tunes are a mix of original compositions, childhood favorites, and standards, all of which fit together perfectly. She also sings on a few occasions, and her voice is just as stunning and gorgeous as her flute playing. “Danzon Para Papa” is the most traditional-sounding Cuban tune and there’s also a rendition of “Besame Mucho”. Cheers all around.
January 20, 2019 at 4:38 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kittin: Cosmos LP
Reverting to her preferred moniker, the artist usually referred to as Miss Kittin steps away from electro, not to mention the surface of this planet, on this album of outer-space ruminations. The whole album sounds like it was made on a satellite floating thousands of miles away from Earth, with Kittin staring at the pale blue dot and picking apart the very fabric of its existence. Much of it is weightless space ballads, but there’s also the crash-zap IDM of “Question Everything”, and other tracks have more aggressive yet forcefully rigid beats. Some of the lyrics are minimal, just reciting names (“Atoms” is self-explanatory, “Multiverse” is a recitation of stars, etc.), but even that seems like a powerful enough declaration of existence. And then “Last Day on Earth” asks “what you gonna do on your last day?” over soft-jungle synths, breaking from the harsh, factory-like clanging. The album ends with a song called “Utopia”, where Kittin laments “I don’t want to leave that place”, assuredly meaning her distant part of the universe. This album has far more in common with the scientific explorations of Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus, and related projects than the trendy, club-geared electroclash most people probably still associate Kittin with, and it’s a powerful, magnificent work.
January 1, 2019 at 1:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Shells: Another Time tape
Shelley Salant’s newest tape is a bit more ambient and weightless than her previous albums. Each side is listed as one piece, but there’s distinct movements within them, so they progress through different ideas. All of it feels like it’s levitating, and there’s a sort of glowing, slightly out-of-focus shimmer to it. It’s too far away to touch but it’s still easy to feel its presence from the distance. It seems to get a little rougher towards the end of the second side, and maybe a few other moments here and there. Still, there’s always something relaxing yet invigorating about what she does.
Float out to sea.
December 25, 2018 at 1:15 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Michele Mercure: Beside Herself
Beside Herself collects material from self-released cassettes, as well as film and theater scores, by Michele Mercure (once known as Michele Musser), whose LP
Eye Chant was reissued by Freedom To Spend last year. All home-recorded and mostly instrumental, these tracks are generally too light to be considered industrial, although there’s some inventive found-sound sample usage on tracks like “Beside Myself” and “An Accident Waiting To Happen” (which forges a rhythm out of car crash effects). Mercure describes her performances in the liner notes, explaining that she wants to leave the audience with an impression rather than just stand in front of a bank of synthesizers, so she incorporated things like films, masks, and audience participation. Her music does have a sort of theatrical bent to it; “Liberation Day” seems to serve as the theme for a sort of imaginary psychodrama. A few pieces feature fretless bass or guitar from guest musicians, giving them somewhat more of a human feel, but tracks like the curious “A Void Dance” are more stiff and robotic. Taking things into a stranger dimension is “Night Music”, which starts out with a looped switching sound suspensed in mid-air, then briefly gaining a playful synth melody later on. Following the swampy “Antigone”, this inventive collection ends with the brief, frozen epilogue “Antarctica”.
December 24, 2018 at 1:31 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Celer: I Wish You Could tape
Celer’s latest tape features two half-hour drones titled after Billie Holiday lyrics, and they both express sort of melancholy which can’t ever go away in a sympathetic, reassuring way. “Everywhere I Go You’re All That I See” is three descending notes repeating for all eternity, bathed in aural hot springs. “Wishes Would Be Grand If Only They Came True” is a bit more downcast and spacier, lending to more of a feeling of uncertainty. Still, it’s all immersive and quite therapeutic. Also of note is
Memory Repetitions, a 5 CD box set on Smalltown Supersound containing remastered material which previously appeared on Bandcamp.
December 23, 2018 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Air Liquide: This Is A Mind Trip 12″ EP
In probably the least acknowledged comeback of the year, Air Liquide released their first record since 2004 (and tbh, it’s been a lot longer since I’ve heard anything by this group). The A-side is far away from ambient or acid techno, it’s a slow, heavy, noisy psychedelic rock crusher with longtime collaborator Mary Applegate delivering spoken lyrics which aren’t unlike that “it’s the point of greatest intensity” speech that’s been sampled on a million tracks since the early ’90s. “Die Singende Saege” isn’t nearly as overpowering, it’s more like stumbling around a snowy forest. Finally, “Zeitgeber 3” is a spooky acid techno jam like the old days, but covered with the thick, haunting echo of the other tracks.
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