Tag: Veryan

Critical Objects – Fractured In Grey

On By 429harrowroadIn Single reviewsLeave a comment

‘Fractured In Grey’ is the third single from Critical Objects, a pairing of anonymous sound artist Veryan and the not-anonymous Pinklogik (Jules Straw). The new track continues the duo’s exploration of electronic pop’s hinterlands established with the preceding singles, ‘Rewind’ and ‘Blossoming Ache’, thus time setting Straws’ introspective vocal to a crisp electro beat and a fat, melodic bassline that has overtones of wonky, pitch-bent acid house.

As ever with the Veryan-Pinklogikisches Freundschaft, it’s the details that matter. Beneath that fat bassline is a slowly-unfurling pointillistic melody which gently asserts itself as the track progresses. There are further textural details lurking in the dense reverb which occupies the background, giving Straws’ voice an uncertain, wavering depth. And once again, like ‘Rewind’ and ‘Blossoming Ache’, the dense news of the mix is an illusion. The layers are deceptively simple, leading to the wing lodging itself in your consciousness for hours after.

Like with their previous two singles, both Pinklogik and Veryan offer up their own individual mixes of the track. Pinklogik’s mix isolates the haunting, melodic fragility but hugely ratchets up the rhythm, giving ‘Fractured In Grey’ a sense of slick momentum. Elsewhere, Veryan deconstructs the track into a frozen, atmospheric wonderland of suppressed beats and fluttering, overlapping ambient melodies. That one track can yield two such different perspectives is the quiet power of this wonderful – and hopefully enduring – duo.

https://criticalobjects.bandcamp.com/album/fractured-in-grey

Fractured In Grey was released December 3 2025.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2025 Further.

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

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

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

On 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.

 

Agnes Haus (Photo: Andy Sturmey)

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

(c) 2025 Further.

Shots – Kemper Norton / Veryan / Wil Bolton / Runar Blesvik / the klingt.collective

On By 429harrowroadIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Kemper Norton - Tall Trees

KEMPER NORTON – TALL TREES (AND OTHER TALES) (Zona Watusa)

I absolutely love Kemper Norton. His music, very often inspired by Cornish folklore, mythological figures or its forgotten Industrial Age contribution, has a highly distinctive and wonderfully idiosyncratic originality. For Tall Trees (and other tales), he focuses his attention on his own personal history and mythology, celebrating a bunch of nightclubs that have closed their dance floors for good. “None of these places still exist, and some of the people have gone too,” he writes. “But not all of them.” This is club music as filtered the disjointed fog of memory, of too many nights out that you thought you’d remember forever but now can’t. That poignancy and nostalgia is all over Tall Trees, but it’s elusive, hidden beneath grids of dirty beats and lysergic energy. The eponymous opener is punishing and insistent, but it’s also ever-so-slightly wonky, as if the neatness of Kemper Norton’s grid itself is protesting against the uniformity of recollection. The two parts of ‘Victor Dragos’ carry a vital latency, with suggestions of rapid-fire hardcore beats subsumed under washes of amorphous, psychedelic texture and restless acid house pulses. A truly original work from one of electronic music’s most enigmatic of mavericks. Released 28 November 2024.

 https://kempernorton.bandcamp.com/album/tall-trees-and-other-tales

Veryan - Paper Hearts

VERYAN – PAPER HEARTS

Scotland-based electronic musician Veryan released her latest EP just before Christmas. Containing three tracks featuring prominent piano and breathy vocal textures, Paper Hearts has a sort of frozen quality to it, as if the pieces were created while looking across a frosty winterscape. The title track features an icicle-sharp countermelody and a sinewy arpeggio filled reminiscent of Higher Intelligence Agency’s Colourform album from thirty years ago (ah, the memories…). Veryan’s music has always carried a searching, inquisitive dimension, embodied here by the unfurling textures and refracted journey of ‘Gossamer’. The EP concludes with ‘Soft Lights Dance On Walls’, whose circular central piano motif leans into classical minimalism, while its shimmering electronic accompaniment is freighted with a powerfully contemplative energy. Released 23 December 2024.

https://veryan.bandcamp.com/album/paper-hearts-ep

Wil Bolton - South Of The Lake

WIL BOLTON – SOUTH OF THE LAKE (Quiet Details)

I’ve regularly written about Quiet Details releases here, and, on the strength of their first release of 2025, it seems like it will be another year of high quality, gently reflective albums. Wil Bolton’s contribution to the series was inspired by journeys around South Korea, featuring accumulated field recordings, instruments found and played on his journey, and electronic arrangements of extreme subtlety. In many ways, what Bolton has delivered with South Of The Lake is the very essence of what Quiet Details founder Alex Gold was seeking to achieve with this series. Pieces like the standout ‘Sun Tree Trail’ are deeply contemplative, evoking the Buddhist notion of being the still point in the turning world, wherein the listener is surrounded by bird calls, running water and a textural accompaniment of singing bowls and synths that rest lightly and comfortingly upon you. Last year, I spent some time at Lake Shrine in Los Angeles, not far from Pacific Palisades. It was a transcendent experience, and one of the most significant places I’ve ever had the privilege to visit. My only disappointment was the sound of cars whizzing down the mountain toward the Pacific Coast Highway, something that took some intense meditation to ignore completely. If I ever get to go back, South Of The Lake is what I would choose to listen to while there. Bolton’s album is a truly beautiful listening experience. Released 8 January 2025.

 https://quietdetails.bandcamp.com/album/south-of-the-lake

Runar Blesvik - All The Difference

RUNAR BLESVIK – ALL THE DIFFERENCE (Fluttery Records)

Runar Blesvik is a Norwegian pianist and composer whose work seeks to transcend the frontiers of modern classical music, a genre with some of the least defined of frontiers to begin with. Accompanied by strings from the Arcobaleno String Quartet, clarinettist Jussan Cluxnei and Blesvik’s own piano and electronic textures, All The Difference is a gently ruminative listening experience that subtly demonstrates the emotional power of his compositional sleight of hand. The album opens with the achingly minimalist ‘Finding’, wherein Blesvik’s piano is accompanied by sepia-tinted static, a powerfully restrained statement that might have been overburdened by layers of additional sounds or melodies in the hands of another composer. That’s not to say these pieces are all uniformly sparse – ‘One And The Other’ adds strings, rhythms and a beatific synth motif to create a soaring piece that rises quickly before falling back into comparative quietude. Across the remaining tracks, Blesvik pivots his classical vision toward jazzy levity, blissful Terry Riley circularity, gamelan chimes and ambient atmospherics, rendering All The Difference an impactful, exquisite listen, executed with extreme precision. Released 10 January 2025.

 https://runar-blesvik.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-difference

the klingt.collective - Variable Densities

THE KLINGT.COLLECTIVE – VARIABLE DENSITIES (Interstellar)

Viennese experimental unit the klingt.collective consists of Martin Brandlmayr (drums), Angélica Castelló (recorders and tapes), dieb13 (turntables), Klaus Filip (ppooll), Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet), Noid (cello), Billy Roisz (electronics and bass), Martin Siewert (guitars and electronics) and Oliver Stotz (guitars and electronics). Variable Densities was recorded at the densités festival in north-eastern France back in October 2023 and highlights just how seasoned these improvising musicians are. No mistaking, this is a large group, and the capacity for everyone to be playing over everyone else to assert dominance is high. Fortunately, that isn’t the case. There are moments of multitimbral, densely-layered intensity where necessary, but for the most part Variable Densities finds small sub-units working an idea to its conclusion before another sub-unit starts a new idea. This creates unexpected, unpredictable juxtapositions as different ideas coalesce, with electronics, tapes and turntables nestling up against strings, percussion, guitar and other traditional instruments. There’s a constant fluidity within these exchanges which means nothing hangs around for long or outstays its welcome. A diverse and compelling listening experience full of vitality, energy and impressive meshing together of disparate influences. Released 11 January 2025.

https://theklingtcollective.bandcamp.com/album/variable-densities

Words: Mat Smith

Veryan – One Universal Breath

On By 429harrowroadIn Album reviewsLeave a comment

One Universal Breath is (indirectly) a product of grief. In the wake of her father’s passing, Scottish electronic artist Veryan caught sight of a solitary practitioner of Tai Chi across from where she was sat in a Parisian park. That inspired her to take up the ancient Chinese martial art as a way of reaching an acceptance of death, and its inextricable link to life. That, in turn, inspired the twelve tracks that comprise Veryan’s contribution to the brilliant Quiet Details imprint, marking yet another high watermark in Veryan’s discography and QD’s faultless catalogue.

Given its genesis, One Universal Breath is naturally a deeply spiritual, contemplative collection. However, Veryan’s conceit is to avoid resorting to wispy ambience and New Age-isms, characteristics that might be expected for music intended to align the body and mind. These pieces are characterised by subtle rhythmic interjections that provide focus as well as momentum. Somewhat surprisingly, given how balanced these pieces are between forward propulsion and lightness, they originally grew out of beat-free, more ambient soundscapes; separate them from their rhythms and these pieces are vaguely Bladerunner-y and sci-fi soundtrack-friendly. The same pieces, inextricably linked; yin and yang; life and death.

Opener ‘Lift Hands’ sets the tone for the album, with a deep, bassy root beat that acts as a guide rope throughout the whole track. To that solid beat are added electro-symphonic swirls and a spiralling, ringing melody that spins and flutters like an inquisitive dragonfly. The effect is quietly euphoric and gently uplifting. ‘Diagonal Flying’ does something similar, only here there is the addition of a white noise sound that evokes the idea of air currents or waves crashing onto some faraway beach. A similar feeling emerges on ‘Grasp The Sparrow’s Tail’, which is delivered through a sense of latency, of something about to emerge from the calm. Here, Veryan presents a bass pattern that has a determinedly motorik dimension that reminds me of Nitzer Ebb’s ‘Join In The Chant’. That rhythmic shape is poised beneath resonant strings, while light percussion sounds begin to cluster and build with intentionality as the piece progresses.

‘Step Forward To The Seven Stars’ offers a suite of wavering tones which are imperfect yet strangely engaging. Those gently wonky sounds are joined by a slow motion break, while flute-like notes sketch the outline of hope and salvation. It represents one of the album’s sparsest and enveloping moments, but its linearity is complemented by unusual interventions that happen along the way. These create a sense of uncertainty, as if there is more than one path available. One of the best tracks here is ‘Needles At The Bottom Of The Sea’, which contains a delicate central melody that is freighted with the haunting quality that makes so much of Veryan’s music so engaging; simple, understated, yet devastating. It is one of the busiest tracks, the melody offset by a sequence which undulates and fluctuates like it’s trying to escape from something. ‘Needles At The Bottom Of The Sea’ is immediately powerful and resonant, caught in the interstitial space between hope and despair.

That’s not to suggest that this whole album leans into a sense of calm. Two tracks – ‘Part Wild Horses Mane’ and ‘Fair Lady Works The Shuttles’ – contain mysterious elliptical tones and a sort of creeping noir tension. That sense of foreboding, so different from tracks elsewhere, reminds me of Thomas Newman’s soundtrack to Less Than Zero, or what Nine Inch Nails might have sounded like if they’d recorded The Downward Spiral at a spiritual retreat instead of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski’s house in Benedict Canyon.

The album’s title track is the piece that unifies the whole album and its myriad dualities. On this piece, Veryan deploys crisp and unswerving beats with delicate melodic interfaces. There is a sense of motion yet stillness; of positivity yet reflectiveness; meditative yet danceable; soft yet firm. We find enveloping strings that wrap themselves comforting around you, and a pulsing bass line that rises and falls like the breath of the title. It embodies the premise of this entire album, being at once towering, yet welcoming, marking the conclusion of an utterly mesmerising achievement.

One Universal Breath by Veryan is released 21 August 2024 by Quiet Details.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2024 Further.