Category: EP reviews

Shots: A.M. Boys / Cloud Canyons / Marco Avitabile / Critical Objects

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A.M. BOYS – PRESENT PHASE

The second album from the NYC duo of John Blonde and Chris Moore is an enigma. As an example of leftfield electronic pop it’s up there with the best. Not only that, but Blonde and Moore’s conscious decision to evenly split the album between vocal tracks and instrumental pieces is unlike anything else on the market today. That largely from the way these pieces were written through intuition – if Blonde didn’t feel lyrics flowing when they were working on a track, he wouldn’t force them, and it would stay a pure instrumental piece. That gives each of these pieces an intentionality and purpose, not a sense of incompleteness. ‘Yesterday Yes’ is a good example of a track that exudes a bold, epically-building firmness – exceptionally lyrical in its melodic motif, only without lyrics. Elsewhere, the sublime ‘Ocean Ocean’ documents Blonde’s feelings as he sat watching the waves and surfers on Surfrider Beach, bringing some California warmth to their East Coast starkness. ‘Wounded Wrestler’ might be a note of romantic longing to an injured college sportsman, but its noisy, rough-edged delivery gives off an edge of a lost Throbbing Gristle track recorded live in a dark and murky Manhattan club. I interviewed Blonde and Moore for Electronic Sound. You can find that interview here. Released May 16 2005.

https://amboys.bandcamp.com/album/present-phase

 

CLOUD CANYONS – ECSTASY / DISCIPLINE

Cloud Canyons are an Italian quartet of Stella Baraldi, Michelle Cristofori, Laura Storchi and Nicola Caleffi. This single follows their 2023 debut album Dreaming Of Horses Running In Circles, and contains two long tracks that showcase a singular approach to electronic music. ‘Ecstasy’ is a dreamy affair, all pulsing arpeggios drenched in soft reverb to create hazy, gauzy, etiolated textures. There is a hint of white noise at the music’s fringes, like the lonely sound of rain on an apartment window. Over these sounds we hear mantra-like vocals that alternate between euphoric and uncertain, like the clipped voices of a half-heard conversation. ‘Discipline’ isn’t, alas, a Throbbing Gristle cover, but it does bear some similarity to Billie Ray Martin’s version of ‘Persuasion’. Over a grid of ceaseless beats, Cloud Canyons deploy a menacing bass pattern, minimalist, pointillistic high-pitched sounds and a fragile melody, while repeated vocals are processed into echoing beds of sound. It is at once energetic and insistent, carrying a sense of urgency and vital dark energy. The two tracks couldn’t be more different, but, really. who needs conformity anyway? Released July 25 2025.

https://cloudcanyonsband.bandcamp.com/album/ecstasy-discipline

 

MORAY NEWLANDS – THE RED RED EARTH (Wormhole World)

I’ve been meaning to write about this album for a while, ever since I read the opening line of Moray Newlands’ email that accompanied this album: “I’ve been ruminating on the inevitability of death and how it will come to us all at some point.” I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking the same thoughts, and my Mortality Tables project (which Newlands has contributed to) is almost entirely occupied with our essential impermanence. With a title inspired by the soil to be found near his home on the east coast of Scotland, the 16 pieces presented here represent his unfolding thoughts d reflections. Taking in soft and introspective piano, field recordings, wobbly vocal sounds, church bells, discordant strings, delicate electronics, inquisitive textures and quotes from Sylvia Plath, these pieces are far from maudlin, miserable reflections of Newlands’ thoughts. Instead, they carry a sort of openness and acceptance. The exception is ‘An Incident Has Occurred’ and its counterpart, ‘Another Incident Has Occurred’, which underline a brief sense of panicked uncertainty. The plaintive ‘(Put Me In) The Red Red Earth’, which closes the first half, and a version of Philip Glass’ ‘Closing’, which concludes the album, will just about finish you off and usher you to your own burial spot under the title’s red, red earth. Released August 15 2025.

https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/the-red-red-earth

 

MARCO AVITABILE – A FEW MEANINGFUL THINGS (Colectivo Casa Amarela)

Marco Avitabile is an Italian guitarist. There’s also a house DJ with the same name, but I’m guessing these aren’t the same person. Avitabile’s technique came out of heavier rock, but he has now established himself as a improviser, usually adding effects and processing to lift his music into a more structured style. His latest album for the Lisbon Colectivo Casa Amarela label is one freighted with tension, specifically the different directions we are all pulled in during our lives between family, work and our myriad passions. That essence manifests itself here in playing that is never angry or fractious, but which gently oscillates, as if Avitabile is using his instrument to ask questions in an attempt to make sense of his world. Key track ‘Copenhagen’ is an eight-minute guitar symphony, framed by an initial cluster of heavy guitar crashes and reverb that evolve into a poignant, heart-wrenching melody accompanied by subtle, unobtrusive electronics. The piece has a journeying, evolving quality, moving from the troubled, anguished darkness of its opening moments toward something much more euphoric. Released August 31 2025.

https://casaamarela.bandcamp.com/album/a-few-meaningful-things

 

CRITICAL OBJECTS – BLOSSOMING ACHE

In the last of these round-ups, I covered ‘Rewind’, the debut single from Critical Objects – the duo of Pinklogik and Veryan – and politely asked for more electronic pop from these two wonderful artists. Well, I’m pleased to say that’s happened. ‘Blossoming Ache’ is the duo’s second track, built from a powerful bass hook and determined beats, set in place beneath a series of spiralling melodies that have a fleeting, ephemeral delicateness. Pinklogik’s vocals are haunting and plaintive, alternating between innocence and world-weary disappointment, like a mournful choir heard through the haze of memory. As with ‘Rewind’, both Veryan and Pinklogik provide their own individual remixes to round out the release, offering up polar opposite explorations of the track’s layers – with Pinklogik ratcheting up the rhythmic element and Veryan turning the piece into a sparkling blend of vocals and textures that will have the hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention. I won’t repeat the earlier plea for more music from this duo; Veryan has already tipped me off that more is on the way. Released October 31 2025.

https://criticalobjects.bandcamp.com/album/blossoming-ache

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further. 

Shots: Stichflamme Barnick / Nick Storring / Love Stereo / Alex Zethson & Johan Jutterström / Sean Armstrong / Xqui

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STICHFLAMME BARNICK – STICHFLAMME BARNICK (Superpolar Taïps)

Bring on the distortion: the pairing of Stichflamme Dormagen and Robin Barnick was recorded between 2022 and 2024 and finds the pair producing intensive blocks of sound that are subjected to punishing processing. ‘Dolce al Cucchiao’ is among the heaviest tracks here, sounding not unlike an outtake from Pat Metheny’s Zero Tolerance For Silence. Elsewhere, the comparative levity of the pan pipe melody that dominates ‘Montabaur 8’ is subsumed by a ceaseless bass oscillator sweep that, halfway through, threatens to swallow up the poor piper and his innocent, gleeful playing. Released November 15 2024.

https://superpolar.bandcamp.com/album/stichflamme-barnick

NICK STORRING – MIRANTE (We Are Busy Bodies)

For his ninth album, multi-instrumentalist Nick Storring looked to Brazil for inspiration. That impulse gives the seven tracks here a greater rhythmic quotient than his previous works, with layers of vibrant percussion offsetting the orchestral-leaning textures that have become the hallmark of his musical work. At times, these pieces are quiet and contemplative; at others they are noisy, impactful and direct. ‘Roxa’, a three-part suite-within-a-suite, is a case in point. ‘Roxa I’ starts with ephemeral textures and interjections of percussion before opening out to include a stalking blues guitar riff and clusters of tones arranged into a delicate, tentative melody. “Roxa II’ unfolds as a sonic journey, building slowly toward a crescendo of angular, discordant clashes between layers of tuned percussion. The symphonic ‘Roxa III’, which closes the album, begins with rich swells of languid strings before evolving into a series of fast-paced, joyous rhythms for percussion and assembled clapping hands. Released March 21 2025.

https://nickstorring.bandcamp.com/album/mirante

LOVE STEREO – TU MUNDO

I saw Love Stereo perform at the Whisky A Go-Go in LA last year. Their set followed the release of their first single, ‘Fool’, which I wrote about here. A trio of Jonathan Burkes (vocals, bass, synths), Diane Hernandez (drums) and Steve Abagon (guitars / synths), Love Stereo make music that fuses sensitive electronics with a sharp and incisive rock sound. ‘Tu Mundo’, their second single, opens with a heavy, techno-inflected bass line and kick drum pattern before evolving into a softer, more introspective number as Burkes’ fragile vocal drifts into view. As the track progresses, crashing waves of guitar collide with increasingly emphatic vocals, haunting synth tones and pounded drums, a far cry from the minimalist pulse that opened the song. Released 1 April 2025.

https://lovestereo.bandcamp.com/track/tu-mundo

 

ALEX ZETHSON / JOHAN JUTTERSTRÖM – IT COULD / IF I (Astral Spirits / Thanatosis Produktion)

It Could / If I pairs Alex Zethson (piano) and Johan Jutterström (saxophone). Comprising new arrangements of standards, their own pieces and interpretations of pieces by Pet Shop Boys and Leonard Cohen, the album provides a beatific insight into two players who have a symbiotic relationship going back to their teenage years. On their version of ‘If I Had You’ – recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Art Blakey – Jutterström offers a delicate, light accompaniment to Zethson’s minimal keyboard playing, while the version of Cohen’s ‘If I Didn’t Have You’, from You Want It Darker – his final album released during his lifetime – finds both of the players fluidly alternating their way through the song’s core melody, providing a poignant, heart-wrenchingly emotional close to an absorbing jazz suite. Released April 11 2025.

https://alexzethson.bandcamp.com/album/it-could-if-i

 

SEAN ARMSTRONG – VELVET EVER AFTER (Rehberge Records)

Dear Sean,

Many thanks for sending me your album, Velvet Ever After, on March 27 2025. It’s always nice to receive new music, and I’m always very grateful for this.

I also know how inordinately stressful it can be sending out something you’ve created into the aether and hoping for someone to give it a listen. I’ve been there. It takes a lot of self-confidence and resilience. I also know how it feels when someone you’ve sent it to doesn’t respond. I’ve also been there.

And so, with that in mind, I wanted to apologise. I saw your email come in, and I didn’t reply. That sucks. It’s common courtesy to at least acknowledge receipt of an email, from a DIY label like yours. Had I replied at the time, I would have said how much I liked the fact that Rehberge is named after your favourite park in Berlin (who does that?), and how much I loved the fact that it’s something you run with your partner, Rocky Lorelei. But I didn’t reply, and so I didn’t say any of that to you. I could come up with a plethora of excuses and reasons – too many emails, too many problems, too little time etc – but it still sucks that I never replied.

I didn’t just want to apologise for that. I also wanted to say how much I loved the album. I listened to Velvet Ever After after it had already been released, on what had been a really, really stressful day with my day job. It soothed me in a way that I really needed after the day I’d had. Your guitar playing has such a delicate, graceful quality, and I also love the songs like ‘The Whirlpool’ where Rocky adds pretty synth melodies alongside you. Your voice is also superb, and I found myself actually breathing – like actually breathing, with proper, deep breaths – while listening to songs like ‘My God’ and ‘The Library’, for the first time since I got to the office just after 0700.

I’m getting dreamy, sun-drenched West Coast tasting notes and a nice reminder of Real Estate, a band I realised I haven’t played for years, but now really want to listen to again. The instrumental pieces are also absolutely beautiful. ‘Valley Of Racing Shadows’ is stunning, as is ‘Concertina Sundae’.

So, like I said at the top: I’m so sorry for ignoring your email. However, I’m overjoyed that you sent it my way. Please add me to your mailing list with the email I’ve sent you separately, and I look forward to staying in touch.

All the best,

Mat

Released April 25 2025.

https://rehbergerecords.bandcamp.com/album/velvet-ever-after

 

XQUI – ALBION

I have discovered that I gravitate to anonymous characters. Perhaps it’s because I have such a ubiquitous, boring, pedestrian name that it feels like I am in good company with people who keep their identities hidden (while I hide in plain sight). This explains why I get on pretty well with Homer Flynn, the spokesperson for the ultimate anonymous act, The Residents. I’ve spoken with Xqui. We had a Zoom call. Like The Residents, he wore a mask, and it was fucking terrifying.

‘Terrifying’ isn’t a word you could levy at Xqui’s latest missive, the three-track Albion EP. The release continues a series of muses that began back in 2018 with the Britannia EP, and which continued the following year with the Revisited EP. Xqui began, er, revisiting his series of pieces all entitled ‘Britannia’ on 2023’s Nights That Went On Too Long, a release that I contributed spoken word to. His ‘Britannia’ variations lean into a fuzzy, hazy, ephemeral manipulation of what might well be a classic display of pomp and circumstance, snatched from a rowdy Proms performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Your ear latches on to familiar sounds – a swooning orchestral passage, a choir, a distinctive melody – before reverb and heavy processing obliterates that which you believe you recognise.

Is this a social comment on Britishness and our declining global relevance, or just another glorious example of Xqui’s idiosyncratic approach to sound art? Well, it’s actually derived from recordings made at a Lancashire ‘Coconutters’ event, a tradition that dates back some 150 years, and one which originated from the diaspora created through Cornish miners taking their skills – and their traditions – to far-flung places. You can read about that here.

The bit about Xqui’s unique sound art approach remains completely true, however.

Released April 26 2025.

https://xqui.bandcamp.com/album/albion-ep

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.

 

Perdurabo – Magnetar (Unpublished Works)

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Of all my musical adventures in 2024, one of the highlights was working with Perdurabo on the release of his debut album, Magnetar, concluding with a live Q&A at the event space at Shoreditch’s Strongroom. It is a great privilege to get to know an album from the inside out, and an even greater privilege to be able to ask its creator open questions about its genesis.

Perdurabo is the solo project of Davide Arneodo, a key member of Italian rock group Marlene Kuntz. Magnetar saw him (mostly) put down his guitar and create a suite of bold electronic tracks filled with complex textures and enormous, infectious melodies. The album saw him collaborating with a number of vocalists, including Miro Shot.

Miro Shot makes an appearance on ‘Grain Of Sand’, a pivotal track included on a new EP of extra tracks recorded during the Magnetar sessions. It is a strong indicator of Arneodo’s sound. For the first three minutes, the track is defined by rising tension. Miro Shot’s half-sung, half-spoken poetry rests on top of a largely uninterrupted drum pattern, upon which Arneodo adds swirling, minimal electronic sounds, loops and drones that create the suggestion of a storm cloud suddenly about to break. When it finally does break, Arneodo floods the track with a huge, elliptical melody that matches a rising anguish in both the vocal and the rhythm.

As ‘Grain Of Sand’ judders to a rapid conclusion, its tense, melodic atmospherics are taken up by ‘The New Element’, wherein a forlorn synth riff is juxtaposed with a forceful, determined drum pattern. There’s a sniff of industrial music to these tracks, poised as they are on the precipice between hope and despair.

The EP concludes with ‘Soak Up My Tears’, whose clipped piano notes and wafting strings act as the gateway to the track’s mournful, dejected emotional core. If you were to isolate those elements from a restless beat and a stabbing bass sequence, Arneodo could well be crafting a modern classical symphony here. That he decided to hitch those plaintive gestures to electronic structures filled with uncertainty is key to what makes his work as Perdurabo so compelling.

A second album is in the works. One can only hope that these pieces both conclude the Magnetar project and indicate where he intends to take this project next.

Magnetar (Unpublished Works) by Perdurabo was released March 7 2025 by Perdurabo World

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.

Fields We Found – rhythm structures 01

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This is the first in a series of releases from Fields We Found, the catalyst being a period of illness which prompted Alex Gold to focus in on the things that gave him joy, including the process of making music. The overall series is called resolve / relate.

The four tracks here are inspired by nostalgia for Gold’s halcyon nights spent clubbing at places like Fabric. Each has the relentless chugging rhythms of especially solid techno sets, offset by minimal interventions – a cluster of notes approximating a repeating melody, deep bass lines, oscillator sweeps, unfurling drones, tuned percussion – that add to a sense of forward momentum. The EP is rounded out with a remix of ‘rhythm structure 1.1’ by Brendan Moeller, who recently released an album on Gold’s Quiet Details imprint.

Each of these pieces are, however, draped with a sort of foggy impenetrability, like the club is choked with dry ice. The figures of fellow clobbers are reduced to mere shuffling outlines, while strobes and lights create jagged shapes as they try to cut through the haze. It approximates both the fallibility of memory, as filtered through our nostalgic recollections, and the vibrancy of a club situation where the only thing that matters is the trance-like state created by extreme repetition.

Gold’s practice is entirely live, improvising and recording direct to tape. This gives tracks like ‘rhythm structure 1.2’ a spontaneity, almost like he is helming a DJ set and constantly keeping an ear on each track’s energy. ‘rhythm structure 1.3’ is this writer’s personal favourite, opening with white noise-tinged sequences that whine discordantly, prefacing a delicate suite of notes that slowly emerge from the background and assert themselves as the unswerving focal point of the track. As they do so, a sense of extreme, swirling turbulence begins to become obvious down in the foundation layer – restless, unplaceable sounds; sibilant noise; tension; discordancy.

A powerful – yet restrained – signal of intent from Gold.

https://fieldswefound.bandcamp.com/album/rhythm-structures-01

rhythm structures by Fields We Found is released March 19 2025.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.

Allmanna Town – 1911

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Allmanna Town are a duo of Phil Dodds (Waxing Crescent) and Jonas Geiger Ohlin (The New Emphatic). There is, however, a third member of this duo – the Library of Congress C-1 cassette deck, used to manipulate sounds which are then edited and reconstructed using a variety of electronic tools.

Dodds and Ohlin’s first release together was ‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’, part of the LIFEFILES series through my own Mortality Tables project. The proposition with ‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’ was to use old cassettes I’d accumulated in the 1990s, which were then completely skewed through their intensive approach to re-augmentation.

‘1911’ consists of six short cuts (or ‘samples’ as they call them). There’s a digital edition, or you can shell out on a lathe-cut 7-inch which will have probably sold out by the time you’ve read this. On these pieces, you can really hear, first and foremost, the joint love this pair have for 1990s electro and techno. ‘Sample 28’ is a slow-motion electro-ambient piece that uses a crisp, sparse beat, while ‘Sample 04’ rides a neat 4/4 rhythm.

The trick is to listen to what’s going on behind these beats. The manipulation of tape sources leads to fluttering, unplaceable textures of unknown provenance. On ‘Sample 04’ the effect is to subsidise the regimentation of the the beats with a dreamy, floating motion. On ‘Sample 32’ – the longest track here, at 2’15” – beneath what could be a late-80s digital house piano loop and some sort of classical motif, we hear a web of chatter that sounds like a vocal warm-up from Hatsune Miku.

The whole thing lasts less than ten minutes, but it carries with it an intensity of imagination lacking in far longer releases. Expect great things from this inventive duo.

https://allmannatown.bandcamp.com/

‘1911’ by Allmanna Town is released March 14 2025.

‘LF24 / C.FXNOISE’ was released through Mortality Tables on October 4 2024. Available here.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.

Ten Years Of Third Kind: Portland Vows / Trium Circulorum / Fisty Kendal

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Brighton’s Third Kind are celebrating their tenth birthday in September 2023. To celebrate the occasion, the label released three new typically diverse gems, with further exciting projects expected to surface later in the year.

Portland Vows – Plastic Alice

Plastic Alice is the first of two new releases from Aberdeen-based modular electronic musician Bob Plant. Its seven delicate, ruminative tracks ponder the existential (post-existential?) philosophical question that bothers us all from time to time: what if I’m already dead and nothing is actually real? Plant describes this as “a soundtrack to that imagined disappearance”, and this collection has a very corporeal presence even if it can’t offer definitive reassurance that this isn’t all a freaky dream. Wafts of gentle, half-heard melodies and gauzy wisps of electronic texture cling to pieces like ‘A Friend Or Relative’, while a powerfully resonant searching quality emerges through the haunted strings of the dense (yet minimalistic) ‘Neurology’. The album concludes with the firm and resolute synth melodies and squalling strings of ‘Tangled Again’, carrying a weightiness, certainty and acceptance. Plant’s other Third Kind release is the similarly bewitching ‘Witches Of Hopsas Woods’, which will be released in September.

Plastic Alice by Portland Vows was released July 14.

Trium Circulorum – Uranium EP

Probably already long sold-out, Uranium is a follow-up to German drum ‘n’ bass producer Martin Hansel’s recent Third Kind release Boodoo Khan. Released as a lathe-cut three track single, Hensel offers up vibrant new mixes of two album tracks – ‘Uranium’ and ‘Enter Boodoo Khan’ – which both isolate the mysterious, ritualistic rhythmic energy of the original pieces but transform them into urgent, powerful and thrilling new shapes. Hansel got so immersed in the idea of reinterpreting his own work that he went on and remixed the whole of Boodoo Khan for a digital version of the physical release. The lathe-cut release is rounded out by a mix of ‘Uranium’ by labelmate Fisty Kendal, who reduces the sub bass and hopscotch beats of the original to a twitchy, nervous cut full of deep, shimmering synth work.

Uranium EP by Trium Circulorum was released July 21.

Fisty Kendal – Price Match!

Price Match! is a follow-up to one of the earliest Third Kind releases, and catches the wonderfully obtuse electronic producer Fisty Kendal (Stephen Cousins) in fine form. Unplaceable and restless, this precision-sharp collection switches seamlessly between the liquified electro shapes of ‘Coolin’ With The Renegades’, the semi-acoustic lo-fi techno of ‘Dead Crow Blues’ (a collaboration with Croydon’s Superman Revenge Squad) and the semi-cynical askance look at the ramifications of AI on the rapidfire pulsework of ‘Softmax ‘98’. The highlight here is the dreamy ‘You Know, For The Kids’, which skews its own sublimeness with humorously juxtaposed samples of interviews presented in such a way as to highlight the lonely love life of an electronic music-making nerd.

Price Match! by Fisty Kendal was released August 4 2023.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2023 Further.

Shots: Ian Williams, Polypores, Simon Dobson, Biel Blancafort, Yoshi Wada

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IAN WILLIAMS – ALL BECOMES DESERT (Slaughterback)

All Becomes Desert consists of five exhumed ambient improvisations that Beautiful Pea Green Boat founder Ian Williams recorded in the 1990s. Designed to evoke the wide expanses of desert landscapes, pieces like ‘Atacama’ and ‘Kalahari’ have an Eno-ish soothing dimension in their slowly-evolving progression, but there’s also a sense of mystery and wonder which, for this reviewer, speaks to the idea of landscapes being formed imperceptibly over millennia. The departure comes with ‘Outback’, constructed as a beat-free series of acidic sequences, which makes me feel like I’m on a helicopter ride over vast, undulating natural topographies. Important knowledge for synth nerds: Williams made these recordings on an old Roland Juno 106. Released March 2 2021. (MS)

https://ianwilliams.bandcamp.com/album/all-becomes-desert

POLYPORES – SHPONGOS (Behind The Sky)

You may not realise it, but the plants in your local park and garden are all talking to each other. Just beneath the surface lies a kind of underground internet, linking all their roots. This allows them to communicate and thrive in various ways. What’s responsible for these floral subterranean networks? Mushrooms. Or fungi, to be more precise and their long strands of unseen underground mycelia. The wondrous effectiveness of these connections and the beauty to which they contribute above the surface, forms the theme of Polypores’ latest release, Shpongos.

This is at least the 17th album in five years from prolific modular synth enthusiast Stephen James Buckley and Shpongos is a typically ambient, explorative composition. Given the mycological theme, there is clearly a nod to mushroom enthusiast Terrence McKenna. From initial simplistic drones, sounds gradually bubble up into complex, tightly-wound melodies. Tracks like ‘Sweet Rot’ and album closer ‘Exopheromones’ evoke spores drifting in the wind, ready to land and bring new life, where nature had given way to decay. Beautiful, in its own intricate way. Released April 26 2021. (CH)

https://polypores.bandcamp.com/album/shpongos

SIMON DOBSON – MDCNL (Lo Recordings)

Things I hear and feel when listening to ‘Pick Me Up-Down’, the opening piece on Cornish composer Simon Dobson’s second album: minimalist cycles that remind me of ‘In C’; widescreen vistas from the opening scenes of a nature documentary; emotional turbulence that oscillates between poignant sadness and joyous optimism; a sort of euphoric dissonance; a delicate synthesiser melody that reminds me of a specific cluster of notes on the soundtrack to the original Teen-Wolf. Such is the way that Dobson’s evocative compositions can spark vivid images and memories, lightly positioned as they are at the meeting place of soundtrack, modern classical music and ambient electronics. ‘Thread’ is among the most overtly electronic of the five long pieces presented here, its twelve-minute layering of slowly-evolving melodies and flute-like timbres being rooted in a sort of spiritual enlightenment and sci-fi wonder; the soaring, string-led chord change that appears out of nowhere at the three-minute mark is impossibly, relentlessly moving. Released May 7 2021. (MS)

https://lorecordings.bandcamp.com/album/mdcnl

BIEL BLANCAFORT – KENOMA (Modern Obscure Music)

Biel Blancafort is a Catalonian electronic music and his new EP for Barcelona’s Modern Obscure Music was inspired by a recurring dream of arriving at a remote, deserted island called Kenoma, named after the Greek word for ‘void’. The six pieces included here are rarely still and always restlessly moving forward, shrouded in atmospherics inching along the tightrope between uncertainty and beauty. On the title track I imagine Blancafort, alone, lying on a patch of barren beach watching storm clouds gathering and dissipating overhead in motion time lapse, the track speeding gently from fragile melodic passages to a delicate house rhythm. At the other end of the island, the gentle piano note clusters of ‘Llar’ fall somewhere between Music For Airports and Satie’s Gymnopédies. An arresting body of work, yet delivered with soothing subtlety. Released May 21 2021. (MS)

https://modernobscuremusic.bandcamp.com/album/kenoma

YOSHI WADA – THE APPOINTED CLOUD (Saltern)

A remastered, first-time vinyl pressing of recently-departed New York Fluxus composer and artist Yoshi Wada’s The Appointed Cloud from 1987. The Appointed Cloud was Wada’s first large-scale, interactive installation, featuring a custom-built pipe organ and other instruments controlled by computer, installed in the windowless, cathedral-like Great Hall of the New York Hall of Science in Queens. For the performance recorded on November 8 1987, Wada and other musicians played instruments – bagpipes, timpani, tam-tam – alongside the installation, which was controlled by software developed by La Monte Young acolyte David Rayna. The result was an hour-long set characterised by oscillating drones, skeletal tones and intense, frequently jarring sonic interplay, played at incredibly loud volume. The drones evoke the eternal hum of existence, while percussive crescendos for gong and timpani align Wada’s overtone-rich music with classical tradition. Deep listening rarely sounded so dramatic. Released May 21 2021. (MS)

https://yoshiwada.bandcamp.com/album/the-appointed-cloud

Words: Chris Hill & Mat Smith

(c) 2021 Further.

Pulselovers – Northern Minimalism 2

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SoYo: so much to answer for. The People’s Republic of South Yorkshire has given the world more than its fair share of electronic music delights over the years. Sheffield of course draws most of the plaudits, with the likes of Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Warp Records et al having laid down a rich and well documented musical heritage.  

But Mat Handley (Pulselovers) hails from Doncaster and his latest love letter to northern England’s electronic music scene Northern Minimalism 2 showcases influences not just from either side of the Pennines, but from Europe and across the Atlantic.  

The four-track release starts off close to home with the blocky techno beats of ‘Danum Shield’, track reminiscent of latter-day Black Dog caught in a good mood. Things then move into more cerebral territory with ‘Frames Of Reference’. Handley’s frames of reference doubtless include early-90s Warp records, and te juddering, pulsating bass that lopes along, underpinning this track could easily be a nod to LFO’s eponymous hit. 

We then head back in time and on to the smoke-filled dancefloors of the 70s and 80s with the electro funk of ‘Slope And Intercept’. But all too soon the lights come on and it’s time to head home – final track ‘Night Drive‘ sees us embark on a chilled-out, 3am journey out of the steel city, or possibly the motor city. Street lights twinkle and blur in passing as this stab of Detroit-style techno draws things to a close. 

Released on Do It Thissen Records (‘do it yourself’ for any southern readers), this EP will appeal to fans, not just of northern techno (if such a thing exists), but anyone with a penchant for northern minimalism; not northern miserabilism.  

https://youtu.be/Jxhwv3Z1aKU

Northern Minimalism 2 by Pulselovers is released by Do It Thissen Records on November 6 2020. doitthissenrecords.bandcamp.com 

Words: Chris Hill 

(c) Further. 

The Shiver Bones Group – Horror Too Horrible To Hear (2017 – 2019)

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With terrible regularity for the three years between 2017 and 2019, a murky troupe of Philadelphia-area artists known as The Shiver Bones Group released an annual Halloween Story Time record. Containing short stories narrated like macabre radio plays, backed with snatches of music, sound effects and all sorts of ghostly interventions, the Horror Too Horrible To Hear series came across like The Residents taking over the Night Vale podcast with typically warped readings of Edgar Allen Poe and M. R. James.

The Shiver Bones Group rose out of of a high school ‘zine called Sewage Waste Disposal Unit formed by three students – Michael LaLaLa, Matthew Kirscht and Bryan Michael. LaLaLa is an artist and purveyor of quirky electronic pop, while Kirscht has established himself as a collectible Halloween artist and illustrator for TOPPS’ enduring Garbage Pail Kids, whose gross characterisations can be imagined in the stories that The Shiver Bones Group released as Horror Too Horrible To Hear. Bryan Michael is a Poe enthusiast and one third of Philadelphia electronic music unit Alka, and was responsible for the FX and music on the three releases put out by the group, using a vintage 1984 E-Mu Emulator II. Other collaborators, each with the types of circumspect names one might find in the graveyard of The Haunted Mansion, drift in and out for each release like tortured wraiths.

Across the three releases you hear stories about killer ghost dogs, student-murdering ghoulish visitors, why you should never drape your arm over the bedside while sleeping, devil turkeys (yes, devil turkeys), rabid pumpkins containing chomping insectoid teeth and romantic dinners by patrons with restlessly haunted heads, each one backed with schlocky sounds and creepy fairground music for ice-cold crypts. These stories suggest vivid, terrifying imaginations filled with buckets of corn syrup blood and the most gruesomely illustrated, yet comedic, demons.

Sadly, a fourth Horror Too Horrible To Hear release was thwarted by LaLaLa, Kirscht and Michael being unable to convene to record a new instalment. For this year, you’ll just have to make do with Kirscht’s animated Bogey Wail short and his and LaLaLa’s in-demand Halloween postcards. Alka, meanwhile, have just dropped their new album Regarding The Auguries, a terrifying record that’s as horrible as these grim tales for reflecting back our realities rather than fiction.

Turn the lights down, light a jack-o’-lantern and settle into the sound of Horror Too Horrible To Hear at Bandcamp… if you dare.

Horror Too Horrible To Hear, Horrible Too Horrible To Hear Two and Horrible Three Horrible To Hear were released October 13 2017, October 13 2018 and October 17 2019 respectively. shiverbones.com shiverbones.bandcamp.com

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2020 Further.

Shots: Immy, Spacelab, Lagoss, John Frusciante, Snowdrops, Body/Negative, Paradise Cinema, Espen Eriksen Trio

On By 429harrowroadIn Album reviews, EP reviews, Single reviewsLeave a comment

Immy – In The Morning (2433392 Records DK) 

Immy is London-born, Falmouth-based singer-songwriter Imogen Leach. ‘In The Morning’ is her debut single, showcasing a lightness of touch and a haunting vocal intonation that prompts comparison with the work of First Aid Kit. Ostensibly a frustrated paean to the transiency and impermanence of one-night stands, ‘In The Morning’ concludes with a firmness and resolution, even as Imogen delivers the song with a quietly stirring grace and subtlety. Expect great things. Released September 28 2020. 

Spacelab – Kaleidomission (Wormhole World / HREA’M)

A joint release by the ever-dependable Wormhole World and HREA’M labels for Spacelab, a mysterious electronic project with absolutely no biographical backstory. Containing 36 short tracks, Kaleidomission is an exercise in plunderphonic dexterity, taking in freaky little segments of speech or birdsong culled from the ether, wonky loops of jazz drumming and ambient texture like ‘We Love Can’ and ‘Astral Dynamics’ that sound like they’re being broadcast from a broken AM transmitter in the overgrown grounds of Aleister Crowley’s house. The title of the standout skewed electronica of ‘Fucked Casio Melody’ requires no further explanation. Released October 16 2020. 

https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/kaleidomission

Lagoss – Imaginary Island Music, Vol. 1 : Canary Islands (Discrepant) 

Lagoss is a collaboration between Discrepant label head Gonçalo F. Cardoso and Tenerife-based electronica duo Tupperware. The 37 short tracks on Imaginary Island Music, Vol. 1 are like listening to Les Baxter or Martin Denny at a post-apocalyptic exotica club on a broken soundsystem. Swooning tropical lushness abounds here, but it’s skewed to the point of nauseating discordancy as vibraphones wobble and shimmer into dissonant sprawls and hip-hop / electro beats lurch awkwardly. If you listen closely to tracks like ‘Chipude’, you can hear the sound of waves lapping around a wrecked beach bar run by an old stoner dude in a Hawaiian shirt mixing Mai Tais for thirsty ghosts. Released October 9 2020. 

https://discrepant.bandcamp.com/album/imaginary-island-music-vol-1-canary-islands

John Frusciante – Maya (Timesig) 

For his first electronic album under his own name, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante (aka Trickfinger) delivers an energetic tribute to two vastly different things: his recently-departed feline companion Maya, present with him in the studio since RHCP’s Stadium Arcadium, and his hitherto unknown love of jungle and drum ‘n’ bass. A time machine back to the period 1991 – 1996, tracks like ‘Brand E’ and ‘Amethyblowl’ fizz with turbulent breakbeat edginess, while his instantly-recognisable awareness of melody offsets that rhythmic freneticism and intensity with stirring ambient colour. Released October 23 2020. 

https://johnfrusciante.bandcamp.com/album/maya

Snowdrops – Volutes (Injazero) 

Volutes is the debut album by French duo Christine Ott and Mathieu Gabry. With a title referring to the spiralling patterns evident in both architecture and nature, Volutes is a breathtaking masterpiece full of gentle, emotive twists. With a palette of sounds including piano, electronics and the expressive violin of Anne Irène-Kempf, moments such as ‘Trapezian Fields’ are freighted with an unpredictable, austere, haunted quality full of intricate detail. Ott’s work with Yann Tiersen can be heard in the mesmerising Ondes Martenot-led ‘Ultraviolet’, wherein layers of the instrument’s characteristic reedy alien sounds are encircled by Irène-Kempf’s savagely heart-wrenching violin as it plunges into minor key despair. Un album d’une beauté poignante. Released October 16 2020. 

https://snowdrops.bandcamp.com/album/volutes

Body/Negative – Fragments (Track Number Records) 

Fragments is the debut album from LA’s Body/Negative, the pseudonym of nonbinary multi-instrumentalist and producer Andy Schiaffino, and follows their Epoche EP from 2019. Beginning with an instrumental cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Figure 8’ that sounds like it’s being heard through the gauzy vestiges of sleep, Schiaffino has produced an ambient album full of unique personality and highly personal, almost diaristic reference points. Here you can just make out their classical musical roots poking through on pieces like ‘Catholic Guilt’, but they are presented like elusive memories appearing out of the haze of long-buried emotions, making the fifteen minutes of Fragments one of the most haunting and transcendent albums I’ve ever heard. Released October 23 2020. 

https://bodynegative.bandcamp.com/album/fragments

Paradise Cinema – Paradise Cinema (Gondwana Records) 

Paradise Cinema is a trio consisting of Portico Quartet multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie with percussionists Khadim Mbaye and Tons Sambe. Recorded while Wylie was on location in Dakar, Senegal, his vision for the album was prompted by the ceaseless rhythms he’d hear through the night and the faded aspirations and historical grandeur of the city. The timbres on pieces like ‘Liberté’ are immediately recognisable from Wylie’s day job with Portico Quartet, all shimmering ambience and considered, absorbing electronics, but it is their fusion with the Mbaye and Sambe’s percussive backbone that focusses the attention. ‘It Will Be Summer Soon’ is a restless, urgent highlight, sounding like rush-hour traffic on a hopeful Senegalese morning. Released October 9 2020.

https://paradise-cinema.bandcamp.com/album/paradise-cinema

Espen Eriksen Trio – End Of Summer (Rune Grammofon) 

Seven tracks of piano jazz from the versatile fingertips of Espen Eriksen, recorded in Oslo during lockdown after the trio of Eriksen, double bassist Lars Tormod Jenset and drummer Andreas Bye saw all of their shows cancel in quick succession. Released as the strangest of summers drew to a close and the dork Norwegian autumn commenced, pieces like ‘Transparent Darkness’ carry a ruminative, reflective quality in their melodic structures, while the Latin rhythms of the album’s title track carries a sense of quietly chilled optimism. There is also a sense of catharsis and energy in the pieces here, borne from the trio finally getting back together in the studio for a vibrant, socially-distanced session. Released September 25 2020. 

www.runegrammofon.com 

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2020 Further.