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Music

Annie A: The Wind That Had Not Touched Land (digital, A Colourful Storm, March 2025)

Now for something a little bit special. Annie A is a one-off collaboration. I confess that the only name I really recognize is Félicia Atkinson, who I finally got into with 2022’s Image Language. The other participants are the poet Christine Petrie, collage-based storytellers Time Is Away, and singer-songwriter Maxine Funke — all of whom […]

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Abul Mogard: Quiet Pieces (digital, Soft Echoes, May 2025)

Despite an initial attempt at scepticism, I have become a fully paid up member of the Abul Mogard fan club over the years. Still, I confess that I did briefly try to resist the charms of this record. Did I really (I asked myself) need another album of big vworgy buzzy analogue synth based ambient […]

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Music

Deaf Center: Reverie (digital, Miasmah, May 2025)

Can you believe that it’s been six years since Low Distance? I honestly cannot. And it’s been fourteen since Owl Splinters, which was something of a transformational record in the evolution of your humble blogger’s musical taste. Well, they’re back performing together, and it’s as richly, bewitchingly wonderful as ever. These two ~17 minute pieces […]

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Beatrice Dillon: Basho (digital, Portraits GRM, May 2025)

Dillon’s first solo album, Workaround, was a highlight of 2020, and was rightly hailed in all the right places as marking the arrival of a sparkling new talent. She doesn’t seem to have been super prolific since then, and I confess that some of the stuff she has released didn’t quite do it for me. […]

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Music

Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (digital, Houndstooth, April 2025)

The first time I heard this, I was blown away by the sheer technical bravado of it. Djrum (the ‘j’ is silent), aka DJ and producer Felix Manuel, starts with improvised-sounding piano which has a lightness and fluidity that is like dancing fireflies in musical form. He layers on synths, strings (cello is by Zosia […]

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Music

Loradeniz: SUN SHONE (digital, Music From Memory, March 2025)

This solo debut from Deniz Omeroglu (described as Istanbul-born, Amsterdam-based) is very much an album of two halves. Happily, she plays an absolute blinder in both. The first half was apparently composed spontaneously in the aftermath of a heartbreak, and consists of contemplative, woozy synth tracks. There are largely wordless vocals, of a sighing nature, […]

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Music

Eliane Radigue: Trilogie De La Mort (digital, Experimental Intermedia, 1998)

A rare back-catalogue purchase for me. Eliane Radigue is obviously someone I’ve listened to loads and loved, but I’ve never actually bought any of her work because of some vaguely-motivated feeling that I should prefer to shove my pennies in the direction of new releases. But I find myself coming back to this particular record […]

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Philip Jeck et al: rpm (digital, Touch, November 2024)

I don’t often buy compilation albums, and this is roughly speaking one — and, in fact, I nearly didn’t buy it. I listened to it when it came out last November, obviously, and at the time I passed it over. I think I rather sniffily opined that it didn’t cohere as an album. Coming back […]

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Unspecified Enemies: Romance In The Age Of Adaptive Feedback (digital, Numbers, March 2025)

I don’t know about you, but it’s been properly spring for a couple of weeks here. And the sun always puts me in the mood for a certain kind of bosh: something warm and melodic and gently propulsive. This record has been very much ticking that box for me this year. We have six tracks […]

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Music

VÍZ: Danse Des Larmes (digital, Heat Crimes, March 2025)

This is lush stuff from Réka Csiszér, who is described as a Hungarian Transylvanian vocalist, composer and performer. For the most part, it’s all vworgey synths and a bit of wordless chanting. Though it’s entirely beatless, the tone varies from the ethereal (at their floatiest, the vocals have a touch of Ligeti to them) to […]