WRÆŻLIVØŚĆ – WRÆŻLIVØŚĆ

wræżlivøść is a Polish pianist and sound artist. His debut three-track release was recorded in Poland, Denmark and the US, and fuses classical piano with extreme sound processing. The result is an EP that is in constant flux, with moments of noise intersected by meditative piano – some of it recorded from his graduation concert at Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium in Aarhus in April of this year – and long, ambient drones pulled out of the myriad sound sources. It is at once chaotic and beautiful, its different textures and sequences being sliced together with rough and sudden cuts that make each track wonderfully unpredictable. The ten-minute ‘wræżlivøść II’ is a marvel, ranging from ear-splintering bursts of noise to dexterous notes, finally collapsing into quiet and soothing textures generated from rippling piano reverberations. Released 27 September 2024. Thanks to Phil Dodds for the recommendation.

https://wraezlivosc.bandcamp.com/album/wr-liv

SNOWDROPS – SINGING STONES (VOLUME. 1) (Gizeh)

Snowdrops are a duo of Christine Ott (ondes Martenot, xylophone, piano) and Mathieu Gabri (piano, keyboards, electric hurdy-gurdy, vibraphone) who make music that leans into the expansive realm of modern classical music. Their sound is, however, hard to pin down, offering a compelling symbiosis of electronics and classical reference points with an evenness that few operating in this genre are prepared to offer, instead favouring a light spraying of synths over relatively traditional playing. The centrepieces of this collection are ‘Crossing’ and ‘Arctic Passage’. Both are long and evolving pieces that the duo have performed for a few years. ‘Crossing’ begins and ends with delicate circular motifs, but at its height is a rousing, stentorian piece where electronic threads and resonant piano collide. ‘Arctic Passage’ is darker, containing drone-y electronic textures that sound like grim frozen winds across the tundra, and sprinkles of brittle melodies and ondes Martenot fluctuations. Elsewhere, the beguiling ‘Ligne de Mica’ is a deep listening exercise for ondes Martenot, analogue synth and Bartosz Szwarc’s accordion, its gentle interwoven undulations taking on a mysterious, unknowable quality where individual elements are barely distinguishable from the next. Another beautiful and engaging release from this remarkable duo. Released 25 October 2024.

https://snowdrops.bandcamp.com/album/singing-stones-volume-1

RUPERT LALLY – THE OWL SERVICE

The Owl Service is Rupert Lally’s seventh soundtrack to accompany a book. His first was for J.G. Ballard’s High Rise, and the intermittent series has taken in William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies and Frank Herbert’s Dune. This time he attaches his compositional nous to Alan Garner’s 1967 award-winning children’s book. At the risk of repeating myself, only with different words and different context (last time it was about film), Lally is an avid reader – and accomplished author – and he has a honed skill for creating music that plots narrative and its key events. Key to the 18 cues that comprise his score for The Owl Service are strings, arranged in such a way as to create a sort of maudlin, mysterious tension throughout the unfolding events. Key pieces like ‘A Night In The Woods’ eschew the strings for wispy synth textures and slowly-unfurling electronic melodies, but its moments such as ‘Ghost Images’ and ‘The Argument’, where strings and synths effortlessly intertwine themselves that stand out the most. A remarkable and carefully-considered score, and several worlds away from his subsequent album, Interzones, released through my Mortality Tables venture. Released 31 October 2024. Interzones by Rupert Lally & Friends was released 29 November through Mortality Tables.

https://rupertlally.bandcamp.com/album/the-owl-service-music-inspired-by-the-novel-from-alan-garner

DOGS VERSUS SHADOWS & NICHOLAS LANGLEY – SALT COAST (Strategic Tape Reserve)

I’ve had the pleasure of working with both Lee Thompson (Dogs Versus Shadows) and Nicholas Langley in different capacities this year. Even after getting to appreciate their methods and processes well because of that, Salt Coast is a surprise. Both know a thing about how to transform sounds almost to the point of being unrecognisable, but Salt Coast finds the pair creating a sort of impenetrable fogginess around noises, melodies and borrowed segments. ‘Marching Through The Radiation’ and ‘Crabtree’ are cases in point – what could be fairground melodies are subjected to such a blanket of echoes that any twee gentility they once possessed are returned as a murky, queasy cues for distressing scenes in a horror film. Probably involving clowns. I’m reluctant to suggest that the technique is analogous to degradation, which has become shorthand for the gauziness of memory; what Thompson and Langley do here is smother their inputs, not decay them. It’s both terrifying and beautiful in its own special way. Released 1 November 2024. Nicholas Langley collaborated with Mortality Tables on LF25 / Matthew’s Hand, part of the LIFEFILES series.

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/salt-coast

STEPHEN REESE – HYPERCATHETIC

Stephen Reese is a singer-songwriter from Toronto. A purveyor of smart rhythmic electronic pop, Reese is also a deft lyricist, able to dive deep into emotional themes but also unafraid of levity, metaphor and humour. He first invited me to listen to an early mix of his debut album back in 2022 as we bonded over our love of Erasure and the synth mastery of Vince Clarke, and its strange and beautiful cocktail of sounds and styles really grabbed me. ‘Bog Mound’ is one of many highlights, sounding as fragile, sparse and mysterious as tracks from Depeche Mode’s A Broken Frame, Reese offering a plaintive lyric that seems to be concerned with falling face-first into a muddy puddle. ‘Shatter Pattern’ is dark and edgy, Reese’s vocal containing a sort of dream-like ethereality while a sparse melody encircles a shuffling rhythm. ‘Bathysphere’, which opens the collection, features a submerged beat and clusters of sonar-like pulses, framing a lyric where he gives a small submarine a lonely, isolated personality. Intensely maudlin, stirring yet infused with wryness, it reminds me of Sparks and Reed & Caroline, sung with a quality that suggests Reese has a penchant for folk tunes. A brilliant debut. Released 23 November 2024.

https://stephenreese.bandcamp.com/album/hypercathectic

EVERYDAY DUST – OVERTONES (Dustopian Frequencies)

Overtones is a remarkable study of the resonant frequencies contained within a single 200-year-old handbell. The bell was struck, shaken and played with a bow to generate a series of tones and textures, all of which were then processed with techniques that owe a debt to the pioneers of musique concrète. Everyday Dust is something of a modern-day tapeloop aficionado, and his experience with these processes shows through here in the form of an evolving series of considered sequences or movements; the effect is one of slow evolution, rather than the restless jumping around that colours a lot of tape pieces. Heard as a single 30-minute piece, Overtones is simultaneously euphoric and elegiac, yet dark and ominous, qualities that make this immediately recognisable as the work of Everyday Dust. Released 29 November 2024.

https://everydaydust.bandcamp.com/album/overtones

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2024 Further.