Piano And Patterns, London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (February 13 2026)

On February 14, 2026February 14, 2026 By 429harrowroadIn Live reviewsLeave a comment

What happens if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing? What if there are two left hands and two right hands? What if both left hands don’t know what both right hands are doing?

I could go on subdividing this conundrum up a few more times, but I won’t. I won’t, because it’s irrelevant. Irrelevant because, having watched performances of Brahms’ Variations On A Theme By Robert Schumann, Schubert’s Variations On An Original Theme In A-flat Major and Leontovych’s Shchedryk by Ukrainian pianist brothers Alexei and Sasha Grynyuk – two pianists playing the same piano, together – what I witnessed was an example of complete harmonious synchronisation. Then again, the Grynyuk brothers are two esteemed, award-winning musicians, so nothing short of perfection should have been expected.

Watching their four hands frantically moving across the keys of the antique Steinway piano was a mesmerising display of dizzying dexterity. I watched Vanessa Wagner performing Philip Glass pieces at the Royal Albert Hall a few years ago and I was reminded of her lightning fast performance while watching the Grynyuk brothers as their hands raced at impossibly high speeds across the keys. It was like a display of kinetic energy; appropriate, given that the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences is located at the Royal Institute, where Michael Faraday conducted his pioneering experiments in energy.

It was also, occasionally, a little stressful to watch from a front-row seat that afforded a perfect view of those hands clustered at the centre of the keyboard. I watched, simultaneously in awe of what I could see, and strangely fearful that their hands might collide. It felt like there wasn’t enough space for their hands to co-exist at the instrument together. I anticipated moments of unintentional disharmony through some sort of mid-melodic crash, but, of course, there were none. See my previous comment about their award-winning status.

The two pieces were punctuated by a lecture by Professor Yang-Hui He, a Fellow at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences (and self-proclaimed failed musician), who posited that the true architect of harmony was Pythagoras. Exploring the mathematical theory that explains the note intervals of scales and different harmonic patterns used in Chinese / Japanese, Western and Indian scales, I’ll be completely honest that I wished I’d paid more attention in both my music and maths lessons. It was just as baffling, to a maths novice like me, as trying to untangle the four Grynyuk hands as they played, but it involved fractions, and nothing is more likely to induce educational PTSD in me than trying to fathom fractions all over again.

Self-evidently, this piece is a departure from the usual words placed here on Further. It illustrates that I know very little about musical (or indeed mathematical) theory. Bearing in mind that my two careers – in finance and music writing – rely on a degree of knowledge of both of these, that’s a fairly brave admission.

It also illustrates that I’m more than happy to be put in situations where I am materially outside of the comfort zone in which I tend to operate. It also refutes, to my mind, the notion that your appetite for musical exploration atrophies as you get older. I’ll continue to seek out enlightening, enlivening and mind-expanding musical experiences like these until my ears fully fail me.

With sincere thanks to Katya Gorbatiouk and Sarah Myers Cornaby for the invite.

Words: Mat Smith

Mariusz Szypura – Chopin Residue

On November 4, 2025 By 429harrowroadIn Album reviews, Installations, Live reviewsLeave a comment

Chopin Residue is a series of multi-media works by Polish artist and former indie rock musician Mariusz Szypura.

One part is a collection of ‘deconstructions’ of Chopin’s music, featuring the likes of Adrian Utley, Lee Ranaldo, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, John McEntire and many others. These pieces range from the ethereal, fleeting tones of ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 20’ (with Charlie Draper on ondes Martenot and Theremin) to the ferocious guitar-heavy ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 22’ with Ranaldo and saxophonist Zoh Amba, wherein strings emerge only to be battered down into submission. ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 4’, with Utley, drummer Joey Waronker and thereminist Carolyn Eyck sounds like it belongs on Utley’s first Portishead album, with its chunky jazz rhythms and shimmering, maudlin guitar and electronic textures.

On the deconstruction of ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 2’, Szypura presents Chopin’s mellifluous arpeggios as a snarling web of grubby synth sequences, offset by rigid drumming by John Stanier, feisty guitars from Sugar Yoshinaga and Draper’s electronics. ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 15’ features jangly guitar from Ranaldo, measured kitwork from Stanier, and an array of tuned percussion from Milosz Pękala, the sum of whose parts is a long, hazy, psychedelic piece framed by the tracest outlines of classical melodicism.

Another part of this collection is a series of ‘reworks’ by Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke, Matthew Herbert, Christine Ott and others, which you are encouraged to play simultaneously with the deconstructions, if you happen to own two turntables.

Herbert’s version of ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 22’ hitches sprinkles of Chopin’s piano to a dubby rhythm track, while Adrian Utley reimagines ‘Étude Op. 25 No. 12’ as a bouncy electronic wonderland complete with delicate, flute-like melodic gestures. Fennesz introduces skipping electronics and oscillating guitar to his version of ‘Berceuse Op. 57’, in the process turning the piece into a vibrant, unpredictable, becalming soundscape. Sean O’Hagan takes ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 4’ and renders it as skipping, fragmented leftfield electro, while Jim O’Rourke subjects ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 2’ to heavy reverb and phasing, the result of which sounds like an orchestra tuning up.

Christine Ott floods ‘Nocturne Op. 72 No. 1’ with layers of beatific ondes Martenot, an extension of her own prowess and practice as a solo artist and in the Snowdrops ensemble. Benoît Pioulard’s version of ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 9’ is constructed entirely from layers of sensitively-arranged drones and swirling cycles of guitar feedback, while Abul Mogard approaches ‘Prelude Op. 28 No. 15’ as an opportunity to offer up a web of edgy, modular synth drones and white noise textures, through which occasionally poke amorphous elements from the piece on the deconstructions disc.

The process of lathe-cutting the vinyl albums of deconstructions and reworks yielded a third part of the collection, in the form of large circular artworks constructed using the plastic residues from the lathe process. Pure white and of varying textures – from fluffy and whispy to brittle, razor sharp and angular – these pieces were installed in the Fridman Gallery on New York’s Bowery between November 2 and November 9 2025. On one level, these pieces may be a comment on wastefulness; in another sense, they are no different from either the deconstructed Chopin pieces or their reworks, for they are entirely new structures arising from something else.

The final element of the collection was a live event in the Fridman Gallery surrounded by the artworks. For this thirty-minute performance to effectively kick off the brief exhibition, Szypura was joined by Ranaldo, Amba and Stanier. The small stage was so cramped that Ranaldo had to climb over an amp to get into position, while Amba played on the floor in the front row of the audience. Animated videos of the artworks – another discrete element of the overall Chopin Residue project – bathed the shadowy forms of the players in soft light, as if to draw your attention away from their playing.

That was often hard to do with Ranaldo, who was here at his most intense and restless. He strikes his guitar with a drum-stick, bows the strings to produce squeals of feedback and taps the neck of the guitar against the gallery wall. Rarely did he ever settle into playing his guitar straight – that was Szypura’s job. At one point, his pressing of the guitar neck against the wall prompted one of Szypura’s circular artworks to vibrate in sympathy. It’s as if he is both unplaying the guitar and playing the artworks – and the building – simultaneously.

His guitar is loud, wild and freighted with heavy distortion. These are the moments where Stanier’s drumming becomes less rigid, more loose, and Amba’s saxophone takes on the wild intensity of an avenue full of angry New York cab drivers during rush-hour. To Ranaldo’s right, Szypura alternated between steady, rhythmic guitar playing and inchoate electronics.

A second movement begins with a quiet pulse and drones formed from the residues of the distortion from the first movement. As the piece progresses, it gathers intensity. Stanier’s drumming becomes increasingly firm, rejecting the tentative drum machine beat that opened the piece and guiding it toward a noisy, apocalyptic crescendo filled with layers of intense overlapping guitar work and terrifying sax dissonance.

“After one has played a vast quantity of notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art,” Chopin is quoted as saying. Szypura’s multi-faceted project is far from simple. It stands as an ambitious, engaging and complex enterprise, and one that illustrates how one source idea can result in many creative tributaries.

Chopin Residue is released November 28 by Black Element.

With thanks to Nico.

Words: Mat Smith

Shots: Divergion / Critical Objects / Soho Electronic / Nik Kershaw / Oasis

On October 25, 2025 By 429harrowroadIn Album reviews, Features, Live reviews, Single reviewsLeave a comment

DIVERGION – TRIGOMORPH

Chance processes are the foundational layer of this collaborative release between Shane Hope (The Last Ambient Hero) and Rob Reeves (Kaleida / Bob’s Bakery). Two old school friends who had drifted apart, they were reconnected after Hope sold a synth on eBay, only for it to be acquired by Reeves. That randomness fed into Trigomorph, where they would use stimuli similar to the Oblique Strategies cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers in the mid-1970s.

Personally, I’m very grateful that Hope and Reeves reconnected. This is a powerfully atmospheric collection of five individual tracks, each one presented as two distinct versions – one by each member – that take in field recorded conversations, landscape sounds, drones and haunting, elusive melodies. The first version of ‘Viroclast’ has a poignant nostalgia, with a snippet of conversation across a naturalistic sonic landscape capturing an exchange between two walkers about memories of lockdown. Its second incarnation has a rough, angst-filled edge, full of discordant pathways, wavering Orb-esque synth spirals and resonant bass, all of which drop away toward the end as an inquisitive piano melody arrives. Released July 21 2025.

https://divergion.bandcamp.com/album/trigomorph

CRITICAL OBJECTS – REWIND

This one is special. A collaboration between Jules Straw (Pinklogik) and the anonymous Veryan, I can only hope this is a taste of a much bigger project between two friends and talented electronic artists. Outwardly, ‘Rewind’ is a slice of oven-hot, crisp synth pop, using the metaphor of the venerable cassette as a vehicle for Straw singing about catharsis and moving on from some unspoken event.

While it may have all the requisite characteristics of classic electronic pop – insistent drum machines, one note melodies, a fragile and emotive vocal – there’s something else here, some powerful atmospheric layer that has a critical impact on the track’s mood. That effect is reminiscent of Veryan’s shimmering ambient music, and once you identify it you begin to understand how balanced this collaboration is. The single is rounded-out with a remix apiece by Pinklogik and Veryan, each one tilting ‘Rewind’ to their individual styles. More, please. Released September 5 2025.

SOHO ELECTRONIC, VARIOUS VENUES (SEPTEMBER 27 2025]

Soho Electronic is a new electronic music festival featuring 20 artists performing in four venues in and around London’s Soho area, spearheaded by a live performance by Mute founder Daniel Miller. The performances were all focused on the endlessly adaptable possibilities of modular synthesis, spanning everything from delicate ambience to otherworldly transmissions to jazz to punishing noise. The festival also saw a brilliant, noir performance from Agnes Haus, whose Inexorable Ascent album for Penelope Trappes’ Nite Hive imprint is astounding. I covered the festival for Electronic Sound with my friend Andy Sturmey, who I’ve been covering concerts with since 2012. Full report and photographs below.

https://www.electronicsound.co.uk/reviews/soho-electronic-festival-review/

NIK KERSHAW, THE STABLES, MILTON KEYNES (SEPTEMBER 28 2025)

‘Don’t meet your idols,’ is advice I’ve chosen never to follow. And so it is that I met Nik Kershaw at my local concert venue, the fantastic Stables in Milton Keynes, at the end of September. He was touring his Musings & Lyrics show in support of a new book, where he’d perform songs, tell wry stories and offer insights into his creative process. Human Racing, his debut album from 1984, was the first album I owned, and I probably wouldn’t be writing at all if it wasn’t for that pivotal moment, listening to that cassette on my shitty Sanyo player as a callow seven year-old. I made a point of telling him that. I’d spoken to Kershaw in 2021 for an Electronic Sound interview in 2021, but had never met this idol in person. A treasured memory.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE… OR NOT AT ALL? : INSURING CONCERTS

This article is, I admit, a bit niche. Precipitated by the occasion of Oasis announcing their reformation and tour a year ago, and prompted by the question of whether the Gallagher brothers would be insured for losses if they broke up on tour, I set about exploring the world of concert insurance. The article was written for the Insurance Museum, a charity “working to discover and share with all audiences, the incredible story of insurance, past, present and future”. I’m a member. I have a badge and everything. I’m happy to talk about why insurance matters all day long. Find out if an on-tour bust-up would be covered at the link below.

https://insurance.museum/definitely-maybe-or-not-at-all-insuring-concerts

Words: Mat Smith

drøne & Julia Mariko / Philip Marshall – Vox Interruptus

On October 6, 2023February 9, 2024 By 429harrowroadIn Album reviews, Live reviews1 Comment

Vox Interruptus took place at London’s Iklectic on 19 September. Its central focus was the not wholly unprecedented confluence of opera music with electronic sound, prompted by a collaboration between English Touring Opera and drøne (Mark Van Hoen and Mike Harding). A set by drøne, accompanied by the ethereal, haunting voice of soprano Julia Mariko, formed the centrepiece of the evening, and used sounds scraped from two English Touring Opera productions currently wending their way around the UK – Cinderella and The Coronation Of Poppea.

Mariko appears in the second half of this twenty-minute recording from that night. In the ten or so minutes that preceded her casually walking from a seat among the audience, Van Hoen and Harding delivered a suite of intricate, impenetrable and generally unplaceable sounds and loops, each one tinged with a metallic, purring static. These textures evoke the idea of opera, though it’s hard to define precisely why that is the case. Voices appeared occasionally, creating the impression of the two sound artists standing in the wings of a theatre, voyeuristically recording the sounds of the singers, but for me the sounds that Van Hoen and Harding developed felt like the mimetic approximation of breathing exercises before a performance.

I was there, and it was an utterly mesmerising, experience. Missing from this recording was an abrupt squall of heavy sound that arrived as Mariko finished singing. It was so sudden, loud and unexpected that I jumped out of my seat. It also seemed to surprise Mariko, who smiled briefly, breaking the otherwise earnest demeanour that had characterised her performance.

Noise, however, shouldn’t have been unexpected. As we entered the venue, we were confronted with extreme sonic turbulence, courtesy of The Tapeworm’s Philip Marshall manipulating a batch of found opera cassettes. His set-up was battery-operated and minimalist – a Walkman, a Korg handheld synth, a Bastl Bestie mixer – but the sound he produced was anything but. His set, twenty minutes of which are presented here as ‘Operattack’ was almost the inverse of the drøne set. Where theirs was relatively quiet and ruminative, their source voices suppressed into unrecognisable shapes, voices were omnipresent in Marshall’s performance: loud, bold, and brash; soaring moments of vocal power distorted into nauseating, terrifying shapes. Wilfully unpredictable, Marshall’s set showed vivid imagination and endless possibility.

Elsewhere on the bill at Vox Interruptus were sets from Dale Cornish, The Howling (extracts from whose latest album Incredible Night Creatures Of The Midway were used at a Paris Fashion Week show last month, no less) and JTM (Jonathan Thomas Miller).

Of these, I only caught the JTM performance. The foundation of his set was constructed from one recording of a single vocal sound made by Miller. This was manhandled ahead of time into myriad shapes and structures, over which he then built up live accompaniments with a SOMA Pipe synth. This was all about breath, but the sounds that he forced out of the Pipe reminded me of everything from whale song to the shimmering, ephemeral clouds of sound that Robert Fripp used to create in his solo performances.

This release, then, is only a partial document of that night at Iklectik. What is here, in the recordings of drøne and Marshall, acts as a vivid depiction of a clash of musical worlds, the elemental deconstruction of an established form, and a powerful sonic challenge to centuries of traditionalism.

Bravo.

Vox Interruptus was released September 28 and is available here.

Words: Mat Smith

Vanessa Wagner – Royal Albert Hall, London 24.10.2022

On October 25, 2022 By 429harrowroadIn Live reviewsLeave a comment

At the end of her performance in a small room near the roof of the Royal Albert Hall, Vanessa Wagner leaned back, shook her hands vigorously, and issued a smile and a sigh of relief.

What came before was nothing short of mesmerising. As Wagner tackled complex, undulating, restless pieces by Philip Glass and Harold Budd, her fingers appeared to dance on the keys, sometimes lightly, often with resolute firmness. Between pieces her hands would float gently above the keys, as if contemplating what should come next. They would then fall lightly to the keys and begin their signature dance once more.

It is easy to regard minimalism – the genre of classical music into which Wagner has been perhaps inconveniently placed – as sparse and empty, of the spaces between notes as much as the notes themselves. Watching Wagner play literally thousands and thousands of notes challenges this. There are spaces. There is sparseness. But there is also density and intensity here, vital, energetic passages which are dizzying to watch. Her fingers move as if possessed, delivering lightning fast arpeggios and improbable clusters of notes.

Wagner’s most recent album, Study Of The Invisible, from which tonight’s pieces were taken, used electronic compositions as its starting point, out of which Wagner produced amazingly intricate piano versions. Watching her perform a piece like Suzanne Ciani’s ‘Rain’, wherein she seemed to turn her piano into a stream of liquid, coruscating notes and textures, will stay with this writer forever. A truly transcendent and vital musician, and a truly memorable concert.

Thanks to Dean.

Words: Mat Smith

Seaming To / Leverton Fox – IKLECTIC, London 11.06.2022

On October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 By 429harrowroadIn Live reviewsLeave a comment

Seaming To is a London-born vocalist, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist whose most recent release, ‘Natural Process’, was released earlier this year by Lo Recordings. Her set saw her switch vocal stylings between sibilant sounds, anguished outbursts and warm jazz-like torch singing, while her musical accompaniment veered from gently pulsing synths to mounrful clarinet.

Leverton Fox – a trio of Isambard Khroustaliov, Tim Giles and Alex Bonney – release their new album In The Flicker later this week. Fully improvised, much of the recording was undertaken outside in the Sussex countryside, imbuing its pieces with a delicate, naturalistic sound. The trio approximated that external influence by deploying field recordings alongside a rich, undulating web of electronics, augmentted by Bonney’s pocket trumpet and Giles’ percussion.

IKLECTIC faces an uncertain future following a potentially catastrophic planning application that would see the venue, its neighbouring city farm and park replaced by yet more needless construction. It doesn’t have to be this way. Sign the change.org petition to give IKLECTIC the best chance of continuing its vital, exciting programming.

Thanks to Andrew Plummer and Oli Richards.

OUTLANDS – The Joyous Thing: Secret Flight / BodyVice

On January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 By 429harrowroadIn Live reviewsLeave a comment

Two polar opposite live performances forming part of The Joyous Thing, a weekend of events at Milton Keynes Gallery investigating the UK experimental music scene. The Joyous Thing is part of the nationwide OUTLANDS interdisciplinary project.

Secret Flight is a local MK electronic musician whose current concerns involve fusing reverb-drenched vocals to delicate synth melodies and minimalist rhythms. The result is dreamy, angelic, choir-like voices delivered with a gauzy, hypnotic warmth, only laced with an uncertain quality somewhere between intense rapture and crushing disappointment. Her last album, 2018’s My Forever Mirage is a brilliant and understated gem of an album. Listen to My Forever Mirage at Bandcamp.

BodyVice is the latest project from Natalie Sharp, best known for her audacious, confrontational performances as Lone Taxidermist and as a Gazelle Twin collaborator. For BodyVice, the subject matter is the intense and excruciating back pain that she suffers with, and finds her channelling her experience at the hands of doctors as they seek to identify the cause.

Beginning with a hospital gown-wearing male collaborator’s Irvine Welsh-style delivery of what initially sounds like a misty-eyed recollection of a Speedy J set at a Belgian rave – all intense beats of rising velocity and modulating electronics – it becomes apparent that he is, in fact, describing an MRI scan experience. What ensues is nothing short of unnerving – Sharp (with a collaborator and occasional flautist) rotating on turntables against a backdrop of howling, impenetrable noise to evoke the claustrophobia and unnatural experience of an MRI scan, all frantic, rising rhythms and industrial-strength walls of unending sound.

The performance then proceeds through angry lists of precautionary statements from a clipboard waiver, mesmerising sounds and non-melodies played on modified spinal chords (pun intended) designed by Tara Pattenden (Phantom Chips), guttural invocations worthy of Diamanda Galás and a thrilling coda of punishing, strobe-lit industrial techno as Sharp douses herself in fake blood while screaming.

According to Sharp, BodyVice is a reaction against the proliferation of stale, insipid electronic-musician-on-stage-with-MacBook performances. It is most definitely that. It is also uncomfortable, challenging and frequently terrifying; as a physical, visual and aural metaphor for Natalie Sharp’s chronic pain, it is forcibly and viscerally accurate.

January 25 2020. Thanks to Zoe and Simon. MK Gallery: mkgallery.org

Words and terrible photographs: Mat Smith

MONOCREO Label Night: Alessandro Cau / ELS / Jonny Hill

On September 29, 2019 By 429harrowroadIn Live reviewsLeave a comment

Eclectic Milton Keynes label MONOCREO’s label night at the town’s gallery performance space was timed to coincide with the release of Sardinian percussionist Alessandro Cau’s intricate and complex Brenti.

The product of over ten hours of playing, Brenti (‘stomach’ in Sardinian) found Cau working his way methodically around his drum kit, deploying metal bowls, fabric and other objects to skew and alter its sound, accompanied by occasional moments of modular synth from Miles Cooper Seaton and trombone from Federico Fenu. The result is four pieces ranging from quiet and meditative calm to skittish, manic playing, creating a thought-provoking rumination on Cau’s roots nevertheless filled with a sense of perpetual, unpredictable motion.

Accompanied sensitively by MONOCREO co-founder Jonny Hill on processed saxophone and clarinet, watching Cau assemble and dissemble his percussive palette while playing is utterly mesmerising, maintaining a sense of direction and purpose where other improvising percussionists might resort to aimless meandering. The dexterity and awareness of his sound sources is reflected in varied playing running from quiet, melodic passages full of sonorous harmonics to moments of thrilling, yet nuanced noise. At one point he pounds his cymbals into a sheer wall of beautiful metallic noise, occupying a sonic hinterland between an amplified rainstorm, a shrieking Jubilee Line train in the tunnel between Canary Wharf and Canada Water and the end of days. A final, emotive melodic refrain played gently on a collection of different-sized bowls stays with you long after its final echoes have faded into silence.

Elsewhere, Jonny Hill delivered an all-too-brief set of tender clarinet melodies that were slowly and progressively buried under a wall of gently-sculpted noise, full of everything from chiming tonalities, fluctuating distortion and clashing electrifying dissonance. During its most serene and strangely stirring moments, Hill’s set recalls the soundscape works of Robert Fripp: namely a richness of sound that is occasionally soothing and frequently confrontational, but always completely enveloping, finally fading out into a sequence of genteel, unadorned clarinet notes.

One half of sibling electronics duo Circuit Breaker, Edward Simpson’s solo performance as ELS opened with layered, ghostly voices and proceeded to evolve into an endlessly restless sequence of gestures that nodded squarely in the direction of vintage industrial music and the most devastating of dub rhythms. Though of an entirely different discipline, Simpson’s never-repeating rhythms and motifs echoed those of Alessandro Cau, even if the presentation was a nausea-inducing, nightmarishly-paced techno rather than an acoustic drum workout. Toward the end of Simpson’s set, you hear a brief snatch of vintage 303 vibrancy, ushering in a passage of Berghain-speed insistence that is ultimately overtaken by metallic-sounding arpeggios and a brilliant, threatening, prowling danger.

Brenti by Alessandro Cau was released September 20 2019 by MONOCREO. Find MONOCREO releases at Bandcamp.

Words and bad photography: Mat Smith

With sincere thanks to Simon.