This record opens rather arrestingly with a song whose lyrics are more-or-less nonsense verse in Mandarin, sung to the tune of Nothing Compares 2 U, accompanied by little more than a synthesized celestial choir. The effect is rather surreal, but the significance is clear: Al Qadiri (who is Kuwaiti, born to Russian-educated parents in Senegal, […]
The opening track here couples a mournful modern classical style piano and cello with a big low-key sort of dub-techno beat and rumbling atmospherics. Just near the end a jazzy trumpet line seeps into the mix. It was pretty much inevitable that I was going to fall in love with this. The second track brings […]
At some point while I was listening to this, I found myself wondering: if Philip Glass wrote experimental synth pop, is this what it would sound like? Well, maybe so, maybe not. Anyway, it’s cracking good stuff. It’s mostly old-skool-sounding lo-fi synths (I couldn’t tell you whether they’re actually old analogue beasts or modern emulations). […]
This is a slightly strange record. From the very start, it plunges us deep into that bvdub world of swirling synth noises and droning strings, everything swathed in so much reverb that it feels oddly timeless, and for, yep, over two and a half hours, that’s where we’re going to stay. Somewhere deep in the […]
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Wen: Signals (CD, Keysound, March 2014)
First things first: This album has about the most fantastic, exciting production I’ve heard in ages. The beats clatter and stutter. The synths are choppy and fragmented, but melodic. The powerful bottom-end is taut and muscular, and deployed with restraint. For most of the record, vocals are sparsely used, and then in clipped, abruptly cut […]
Eric Thielemans has made a record using, it seems, almost entirely classical percussion instruments — but not in the way that you might expect. It’s light on the drums, preferring the softer sounds of xylophones, woodblocks, chimes, and I believe (though I wouldn’t swear to it) scraping noises made on the inside of a piano. […]
A friend walked in while I was playing the first track of this, and asked me whether it was Steve Reich. He has a point: the opening number is a pretty obvious tribute (although a synthy backing comes in towards the end which I don’t think he’d go for). Elsewhere on the record, we have: […]
Egyptrixx combines rattling beats with a rich, dark, meaty synths and a fine array of squelches and clangs. It’s the sort of music that demands to be described as cinematic, but as something I find can be a positive or a negative, and here it points to the reason I have reservations about this record: […]
This is the final (sob!) entry in this fantastic series by the fantastic Sub Rosa label, which has been enriching my life regularly since 2001. As always, the range of music is phenomenal, and while not everything will be to anyone’s taste, there’s always loads to keep me interested. One standout track here for me […]
From the first few notes, it’s obvious what this album is going to be like: delicate, intimate piano compositions, recorded with that close-miked sound which is Nils Frahm’s trademark. Handily, that’s a thing I really like, and it seems to have gone somewhat out of fashion, so this record — the debut solo album by […]
dogrando writes about some records 