2014 was pretty exciting for old-timey Aphex Twin fans such as your humble blogger, with the releases of both the Caustic Window LP and Syro. The former was recorded in 1994 and only saw the light of day due to a kickstarter campaign. We don’t actually know when the material for the latter dates from, though it […]
Author: dogrando
This album sets out to explore “the theme of Descent” and the “many myths in the shape of the hero going underground to pass a period of solitude”, for which purpose Donoso channelled “the sacred esoteric rituals of the Brazilian cult of Quimbanda”. Which is nice. If this were the dark ambient record it threatens […]
This is an improvised collaboration involving, seemingly, two guys, two guitars, and an awful lot of amps and effects and pedals to distort and loop and generally diffuse into a blissed-out haze. This is dense stuff, it kind of washes over you until your attention is caught by some flash of colour several layers deep […]
This is one of those records I love a little more every time I hear it. The opening is almost unbearably quiet, there’s something tiny rustling in there that you strain to hear. Of course, this is an obvious set-up so you jump when the big scary noises happen. It’s a move straight out of […]
I’ve had a few odd experiences listening to this record on headphones. Once, for example, travelling on the tube, I felt lifted out of time and space. This metal box we were in wasn’t a carriage hurtling down the Northern line, but some kind of pocket of stasis where position and movement had no meaning. […]
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Bvdub: Tanto (CD, Quietus, January 2015)
I think this might be the record where Brock Van Wey finally jumped the shark. But the thing is, I think it might also be kind of genius. I first encountered him with 2009’s White Clouds Drift On And On, a swirly synth ambient job which sounded exactly like it you’d expect from the name: […]
Right, then, time for my self-indulgent annual round-up. For the first few months, 2014 looked like being a lean year… but things picked up big-time, I got majorly obsessed with new discoveries several times over the winter, and it ended up being really tough to pick my top 5 albums. First noteworthy result is that, […]
Bit of a mixed bag this one. There are some up-tempo drum’n’bass jobs which range from good fun (Neutralize) to irksomely overblown (Hypervelocity, whose pretentious pseudoscience gets my goat). There are a couple of down-tempo almost trip-hop jobs which do nothing for me (Superimposed). There are some mid-tempo atmospheric filler jobs which are nicely produced […]
I recently made the case that Steve Gunn is best when he’s acoustic. I’d like to enter into evidence this little gem of a collaboration with Mike Gangloff (of Pelt and the Black Twig Pickers). The two share an interest in both Appalachian and Indian music, and on this record sees them spending a night […]
It was looking for a moment there like I wasn’t going to get a single 2014 release from the wonderful Raster-Noton. But only because I nearly forgot about this little gem from the summer. Which would be rubbish, because this is fab. It’s got that precision-engineered glitch we expect from the label, but it’s also […]
dogrando writes about some records 