Back in 1996, when I was hoovering up half the output of Ninja Tune, there was an album that came out on their NTone imprint. It was called 15 Levels Of Magnification, and it was the debut album by someone called Neotropic. It was kind of a darkly atmospheric downtempo breaks record. I loved it […]
I was dead into Maria W Horn’s 2019 album Epistasis, which was a fantastic bit of minimalism with influences ranging from black metal to Arvo Pärt. Fellow Swede Sara Parkman is a folk musician who describes herself as a mix of “Vikings and Berghain”. You can imagine I was excited to hear this collaboration. Reader, […]
This record, from the Iranian-born, Toronto-based producer Rita Mikhael, packs a lot of power into its 27 minutes. There are a couple of ominous, atmospheric soundscapes here; the other four tracks are primarily slabs of dark, pounding, claustrophobic techno. One track has a kinds of breaksy sci-fi d’n’b feel. Elsewhere, there’s a strong gabber feel. […]
This record from D Tiffany (Canadian DJ and producer Sophie Sweetland) and Roza Terenzi (Australian DJ and producer Katie Campbell) takes us on an entertaining journey, from a kind of IDM-ish ambient techno, through a meaty section of rave-inflected trancy tech-house (did I ever mention that I’m crap at genres?), dipping briefly into something breaksier […]
Merzbow is one of those artists who is so bafflingly prolific that I never quite know where to start. And, let’s face it, it’s not the sort of thing you want to listen to 24/7. So while I do very much admire him, I’ve only really dipped my toe into his discography — and half […]
Anna Wall is a resident a Fabric, but you wouldn’t really know it from this album. It takes in a number of styles, but we’re a long way from any kind of a beat. There are shiny synth melodies like some kind of retro-futuristic sci-fi soundtrack; there’s vaguely Eno-esque electronic ambience (Murmurations has some lovely […]
I really liked Rousay’s aptly-named A Softer Focus. She put out a slightly baffling selection of limited-edition cassettes and collaborations in the twelve months after that release, but this seems to be her first major solo work — and it’s a cracker. The basic formula is similar: classical instrumentation, electronic ambience, rather domestic-sounding field recordings, […]
Two new producers for me: KMRU is Joseph Kamaru, a Kenyan sound artist who has previously mostly ambient and drone based around field recordings, now living in Berlin; Aho Ssan is Niamké Désiré, a French electronic musician and soundtrack composer of Ivorian and Ghanaian descent. Together, they have made three long tracks of pulsing, throbbing, […]
William Basinski needs no introduction here. Janek Schaefer is new to me, but he’s in the Guinness Book Of Records for inventing “the most versatile record player. Called the tri-phonic turntable, it can play three records at once through a built in mixer, play them forwards or backwards, and possesses a vari-speed which can play […]
This opens with a delicate melody played by Jonny Nash on piano and a plucky-sounding thing which turns out to be Dani Luca on cimbalom, and is soon joined by Ana Stamp singing a Romanian folk-song in a simple, intimate tone. And that, basically, is the album. Isn’t that enough for you, you monsters? Well, […]
dogrando writes about some records 