Review: Outlier experimental label Eating Music brings back more for us to chew on here in the form of a varied four tracker from various artists. It is Mindexxx that opens with 'Track 1' which layers up snaking synths and deeply buried dark bass that grows in intensity and washes over you like a Tsunami. Laughing Ears then cuts back to a tender mood with soft piano chords and slowly unfolding rhythms that are warm and lithe. Gooooose's 'The Dusk Of Digital Age' is a churchy affair with textured drones shot through with beams of synth light and Knopha's 'Off-Peak Season Tourists' layers up choral vocals and jumbled drum sounds into something hypnotic and escapist.
Review: For the fifth volume of The Encyclopedia of Civilizations, Abstrakce's collection of split LPs - in which selected artists offer insight into fascinating ancient cultures - hears them focus this time on the enigmatic Babylon, visited by two of the label's favourite electronic bands currently active. Berlin-based duo Driftmachine take us on a journey between the ancient cities of Akkad, Uruk and Ashur. Bringing together astonishing electronics with a superb and precise sound - floating somewhere between modular ambient, leftfield, abstract dub - every detail has been carefully crafted to produce a complex architecture. Unconventional tribal rhythms recall obscure rituals, while warm, dynamic pulses contract and expand, interacting on their journey along the sandy roads of the Mesopotamian basin. Afterwards, Glasgow-based project Komodo Kolektif delves into the Babylonian vision of magic through the figures of the Kassaptu (witches and wizards), and the use of Mandragora. A blend of both tribal primitivism and a futuristic vision is provided by their vast arsenal of vintage synths and effects units, Eastern metallophones and traditional hand percussion. This is deep, psychedelic electronics that capture the spirit of ancient Babylonian sacred ceremonies and their vision of the cosmos.
Charcoal Estates/Votes For Pinnochio/No Gateway (5:01)
X Marks The Spot (5:47)
No Show Tonight (5:19)
They Seek Her Here (6:06)
Platform (5:59)
No Show Tomorrow (4:37)
Review: The second solo releases from Edward Ka-Spel to appear on the Lumberton Trading Company label offers eight spectacularly original compositions from the outsider artist. These are tracks that bore their way into the heart and mind through startlingly personal moods and meanings. The atmosphere is often tense, and, when it's not, 'surreal' is the word that springs to mind - albeit more unusual hallucination than comical experiment. 'Platform 5' might be the best example of how unnerving things can get, the low, rumbling synth bassline underpinning spoken word, distant, almost inaudible harmonic refrain and eerie chorus. 'No Show Tomorrow' asks "what if they had a war and nobody showed up' to seemingly disconnected tones, notes and noises. 'They Seek Her Here' ups the tempo with a synth-wave-breaks trip through dystopian spaces.
Review: Belgian artist Kaboom Karavan is back on Miasmah Recordings with Fiasko! which embodies musical chaos-ecstatic, fun, yet deeply melancholic. It's an overwhelming experience where every sense is touched and the whole thing has been crafted for an underground rebellion against societal norms that reconnects with the inner child of black tie workers. In essence, Fiasko! is contemporary exotica created by a madman with boundless creativity and was made using a plethora of homemade instruments, including acoustic guitars, electronics, vocals by Bram Bosteels and Bart Maris contributing trumpet, tuba, and trombone, while Stefaan Smagghe adds violin and sarangi. A kaleidoscopic delight for sure.
Review: South African Warrick Sony is a ground breaking composer who was behind the Kalahari Surfers project which now gets a vital spotlight courtesy of Emotional Rescue. This compilation shows how effortlessly eclectic his sound was - from jive rhythms to jazz, tabla to political speeches and much more in between. A Hindu pacifist who was once conscripted into the South African Defense Force, he founded this group as a way out getting his ides out there, calling on other musicians as and when he needed them. It was the first radical white anti-apartheid pop in South Africa and as this vital collection shows it explored polyrhythms, slow motorik, dub sound collage and even a goofy cover of Nancy Sinatra.
Review: Optimo Music continue to dazzle with their increasing experimentation, this time welcoming Finnish producer and K-X-P frontman Kaukolampi to the fore. Exploring the concept of sound as a physical and spatial phenomenon, the LP explores Kaukolampi's idea of "the sphere": his metaphysical and/or musical analogy for being subject to an undetectable outside force, as if being manipulated by an unseen cult. Hypnotic, eerie grooves play out in a muted, time-crystalline fashion, all tracks evoking the feeling of being locked in spherical amber, unwitting.
Untitled (Or The Evening Redness In The West) (8:05)
Lilac Dune (2:13)
Amsterdam (3:24)
Reflected (live In Santa Ana) (8:24)
I Never Talk To Mirrors (0:26)
Phoebe (4:37)
Review: As fans of the Berlin-based live trio formed around producer and songwriter Edmund Kenny will know, Light West has been a long time coming - six releases and three years on the road, or thereabouts. Finally turning their attention to a longer project, there's a windswept, worldly feeling underpinning the full record, which calls upon myriad influences to realise the complete Kerala vision.
Invoking artists like Matthew Dear in terms of vocal delivery, not least on the Bolero-hued 'Amsterdam' and the laidback, hushed minimal tech-blues of 'Phoebe', from beginning to end we're given guitar driven house grooves, immersive ambient, chunky basement beats and darkroom, techno-infused rumbles. The overall result being a long form outing that the confirmed faithful will feel was well worth waiting for, and newbies will struggle not to fall in love with.
Review: Eli Keszler hears the New York percussionist and composer of the same name lord his soundworld over as yet unhaunted terrains. Rooted in dust residues of American abstraction, jazz noir, ancient melodic memory and crumbling industrial forms, the record unfolds as a footworking meditation on beauty and erosion, gawping at the anguishes and awes of the present moment. Keszler's metamorphic practice spans releases on PAN, Empty Editions, and ESP Disk, as well as collaborations with Oneohtrix Point Never, Rashad Becker and Laurel Halo. Icons emerges as a natural continuation of his previous, equally as unsettling LP Stadium from 2018, and this one emerges as its natural progression. The release coincides with a conversation between Keszler and filmmaker Adam Curtis, framing the album within a wider dialogue on sound, history and collapse.
Review: Khalab's new album Layers comes on his own Hyperjazz Records and signifies a culmination of sorts. His musical journey started back in 2015 with this first EP on Black Acre Records and has then evolved through Afro-future sounds like his Black Noise 2084 album through On The Corner Records in 2018. His development has continued at pace after that and this record shows how across a series of deeply musical and spiritual tracks full of rich layers, jazz freedom and electronic rhythms. Top shelf guests help elevate the record with multi-instrumentalist Tenderlonious jazz singer Alessia Obino and Burkinabe guitarist and kora player Gabin Dabire just some of those adding extra magic.
Review: Kiasmos is the duo of Icelandic composer olafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of their iconic debut album, it now gets reissued on a limited blue vinyl pressing of only 2000 copies. This album has been streamed over 100 million times on Spotify and is a cornerstone of experimental and ambient music that has inspired many artists around the world. Following the success of their recent album II, this anniversary release reminds us of the pair's beginnings when two friends were simply experimenting and creating music together in the studio. It has aged well and prices a great release from busy modern life into a world of supple rhythm and delicate, tender melody.
Review: After the success of their 2021 release 'The Bent Bow Must Wait to Be Released', musician, writer and filmmaker Sunik Kim is back with more brilliance. This time this second crucial album comes as two side-ing pieces that pair playful synth innovation with "a touch of slapstick humour, a la Henry Cow." It has been crafted using MIDI instrumentation and is about the art of fining beauty and order in chaos. Complex structures and regularly breaking rhythms intertwine with harsh clusters of keys and sweeping orchestral manoeuvres all making this as intense as it is rewarding.
Review: Jonathan Kirby's vision, outlined in his Safe To Disconnect series of albums, is to create psychedelectronic music using a range of vintage and digital instruments. Conjuring up an aesthetic somewhere between apocryphal library music, lounge-trance and retrofuture exotics, this follow-up to his 2021 album of the same name channels both smooth and hypnotic moments, and is thus a worthy addition to the catalogue of Swiss label Second Thoughts. Highlights include the tearful dreamcore of 'New Girl' and the out-of-time, arpeggiation-string combo on 'So Much In Love'.
Review: Christian Kleine returns in tip-top form to unearthing more pristine gems from his personal DAT archive for a second volume of Electronic Music From The Lost World. This one continues the journey of his effortless fusion of melodic warmth, intricate rhythms and punk influences while celebrating the lesser known edges of electronica. As always he carefully unearths previously unreleased experiments from his Berlin days where minimalist living fuelled maximal creativity. The album's visuals are rooted in Midori Hirano's Berlin photography and add an extra dimension to the cinematic unbroken beats and mournful rhythmic laments.
Broken & Beaten In 5/8 Time: Beaten (LP1: Down But Defiant Yet) (6:34)
What's It All For (10:34)
Broken & Beaten In 5/8 Time: Broken (7:29)
Mass Exodus (A Hymn) (11:40)
The Revolution Of Defiance: Anthem For A New Beginning/Slide Down To Power Off/What Failure Looks Like/& So We Rise Again (LP2: Acceptance Is Not Respect) (23:17)
Three Martyrs: Pressing, Stoning & Saltire - St Stephen (6:34)
Three Martyrs: Pressing, Stoning & Saltire - St Andrew (11:59)
Three Martyrs: Pressing, Stoning & Saltire - St Margaret (3:12)
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