Category: Review

Categories
Ambient Beats Drone Experimental Minimal Review Synth

V.A – Partials III (Frequency Domain)

Frequency Domain 3/2/23

Frequency Domain making a welcome return to the fold in 2023 with a string of releases announced, starting with part 3 in their partials various artists series. Featuring familiar names to the labels as well as some new faces, the comp covers a range of styles, but keeping the F.D deepness we’ve come to love and expect.

“We said we’d never do another label comp (as it’s a lot of work), but we’re over the moon with how this one’s turned out. The third edition of our Partials series curates 18 new tracks over two sides of a C90 tape. There’s music from Frequency Domain artists Luke Sanger, Mücha, Jo Johnson, Apologist, Polypores, Datassette, Linnley, Plant43, Quiet Clapping and Matt Whitehead, plus label friends Loula Yorke, Fields We Found, Virusmoto, D1G and Golden Shields. The release also features a handful of collaborative projects between FD artists, appearing here as Trappist, Blue Lamps and Spiral Wrack. All proceeds from the compilation will support the work of UK NGO, the Refugee Council.”

Out Friday 3rd Feb via their bandcamp

Categories
Dub Minimal Review

International Sangman – Death Roads & Spirit Ways 2

Ish Records – 28/1/23

Chasing after the herbs like Druids, a peppery Anansi with a pink balayage hurried by carrying a bunch of loose cables and heavy bulky bags. Mumbling something to herself, we believe she said: “Music is my name. I’m a dreamer.”, we followed her about but soon after lost her path. Walking our way back, a few of these cables were scattered amongst bushes and the mossy forest ground, we found a small cardboard box containing 5 cassettes. Most of them seemed to be unused, but one read “Death Roads” on one side, and “Spirit Ways” on the other.

A somewhat divine and powerful revision of the dub sound, stripped down, full of space, hiss and dynamic depth. A beautiful shimmering with analog wash and broken textures. Dirty and deep, breathing smoke like breathing life. Dubient.

Play it loud. On big speakers. Inhale. Enjoy.

Out now on LP (limited screen print options) and digi via Ish Records

Categories
Ambient Field Recording Review

Sundheim – Glades of Flowering Stone

penname records – 27/1/23

Taking prompts from walks in the wild, Sundheim armed with an iphone and recording app, brings home quiet and considered blends of found sound and synthesised accompaniment. “Glades of Flowering Stone is a like a gentle forest bath, dissolving any tension and restoring balance.”

Out now on VHS, cassette and digi via bandcamp

Categories
Ambient Avant Garde Drone Experimental Minimal Review Synth

Shared System – 2 releases from Tony Rolando & Walker Farrell

Two releases using the Make Noise Shared System, from the company’s founder and head designer Tony Rolando, alongside long-time employee of said company, Walker Farrell.

Both unique takes on the instrument and goes without saying, it’s a treat to hear music created on the machine from people instrumental in its development!

Categories
Ambient Drone Review Synth

Espen Friberg – Sun Soon

‘Sun Soon’, the debut album of Espen Friberg, brings an inviting mix of field recordings with controlled and considered tones from a Serge modular. The recordings were taken around Leveld, a village in the municipality of Ål, between Oslo and Bergen.

Digital and vinyl on bandcamp now

Categories
Ambient Drone Live Review

SULK ROOMS – Empty Theatre (Live)

‘Empty Theatre’ is the final track from Sulk Rooms’ forthcoming album on Edinburgh’s Werra Foxma Records. Take a look at this live performance, and if you like what you hear the full album is available on October 28th.

Categories
Ambient Review

Ian Hawgood / Field We Found – Upward Eyes / Kindred

Handstitched – August ’22

Always nice to see a new label ping up on our radar. In this case ‘Handstitched’ bringing a beautiful DIY feel to this split release between Fields We Found and Ian Hawgood. 50 copies on mini CD-r and sage green cassette with hand-made packaging, tape O-cards and unique designs for each CD package. Very nice indeed!

Goes without saying, the two artists both bring carefully considered, slow moving compositions to the fore, balancing cloud-like chords with twinkling, glitchy textures.

Categories
Classics Dub-techno Review

Variant – Thru The Cosmos [Perseids]

The Perseids are a meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle. Peak visibility is between the 9th and 14th of August each year. The name is due to the point in the sky from which they appear to originate, from within the constellation of Perseus.

Variant, aka Stephen Hitchell, was one half of the pioneering Detroit Dub-Techno duo Echospace. This track is a slowly developing drone in the minor scale with noise and textures developed from their minimal techno origins.

If you are reading this close to the time of posting, there is a high chance of a spectacular light show in your skies this evening. Any time from nightfall with the peak from around midnight to 4am. So keep you head held high, maybe you’ll see them fly!

Categories
Classics Review Techno

Florence – The Vineyard

Stefan Robbers, aka Florence aka Terrace, was among the first European producers able to capture the soulful spirit found in productions coming out of Detroit. His music holds a special place for many. The title of this EP, the first on his own label, which he ran with Wladimir M, pays homage to this influence. The homage was taken further with the Alan Oldham-esque cartoon artwork on the label and, unusual for European releases at the time, plastic shrink rap giving the package the same look as an imported release. This was no one-sided idol worship though, but a two-way exchange of like minds, with their music being released on stateside labels and stateside artists being released on their label.

The female spoken word lyric, in style as well as content, draws heavily from Blake Baxter’s When We Used To Play. Melancholic references to frustrated sexual desire, either through the passage of time or lack of opportunities, grace both tracks. A similar feel is on the Terrace track Bewitched, this time the theme being more about unrequited love.

While having definite inspirational origins, Robbers developed his own peculiar vibe, a haunting sparseness that comes from living in the flatlands – in this case, the ones of the Netherlands.

For those not inclined to collect quarter-of-a-century old phonographic disks, a compilation of remastered Florence tracks was released in 2020.

Categories
Electro Industrial Review Techno

RLGN feat. Locked Club & Any Act – Drunken Master

Don’t Recordings – Release: 2/8/22

As someone born in the beige area between gen x and millennial, we had no internet until our later teens. Something to pass the time would be casually browsing my local video shop basement, sticky carpet and dank smells galore. All the new releases stayed upstairs, but the horror, soft porn, b-movies and kung fu vids were downstairs and rarely, if ever, seemed to get updated. Over time I got to know the plots and synopsis of many films, by reading the covers and staring at the pics, as I was way too young to actually rent them. Drunken Master was in the Kung Fu section and the images of inebriated Jackie Chan fighting on the back cover stuck in my head. Later on, I developed a musical obsession with Sly & Robbie (still do tbh) and loved the General Echo tune of the same name, which I think is a sort of loose homage to the film, toasting over the ‘My Woman’s Love’ riddim.

Now, 30 years later, another namecheck in the form of some amazingly gritty techno and electro courtesy of RGLN on Don’t Recordings. It’s got a call-to-arms urgency about it, along with some serious dry heave distortion, that manages to reside in the borderlands of industrial, new wave and techno.

It’s relation to the film I have no idea, I’ve still not actually seen it.

10 track album and super limited vinyl available at their bandcamp now.