This record brings together slick, dubby techno beats and big fat sub-low bass noises. It doesn’t completely grip me throughout — it begs comparison with, say, Senking’s 2010 stonker Pong, but it lacks that record’s breadth of influences — but it is nevertheless a very satisfying listen. There’s just something pleasing about the forthright oomphiness of […]
Dance remixes of classical music can be an ugly thing. Just think what William Orbit did to poor Sammy Barber, my dears. We would expect something rather more subtle from Messrs Villalobos and Loderbauer, and subtlety is what we get in spades. This is a quiet, refined minimalism, never repetitive but with a structure which […]
I first encountered the French avant-garde “sound poet” Anne-James Chaton on Alva Noto’s unitxt: he features in the phenomenal opening track, apparently reading out all the serial numbers he can find in Carsten Nicolai’s wallet. This CD is essentially the logical continuation of that idea. The only (I think) sound here is Chaton’s voice, this […]
Another slice of sublime shuffling techno slides into the Tejada canon. If I wanted to be critical, I could point out that this doesn’t seem to break significant new ground compared to, say, 2008’s Where. And in terms of influences, I could reach back to the pop-minimal of the ’00s Kompakt (on which label he […]
People laugh at me when I describe A Winged Victory For The Sullen as a post-classical/ambient/drone supergroup. Not quite sure why. To be fair, the description is stretching the point somewhat: both pianist/composer Dustin O’Halloran and Stars Of The Lids’ Adam Wiltzie are pretty super, but two hardly makes a group; however, the record does […]
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Cyclo: id (CD, Raster Noton, March 2011)
Cyclo is Carsten Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda. Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) is obviously a firm favourite here. Ikeda, I’ve had my doubts about before, but this goes a long way to dismiss them. Because this is pretty damned great. It starts out with a high pitched squeal, into which glitchy clicks slice in a very physical […]
Norbury combines delicate piano and soaring cello, and does so in a charmingly melodic fashion. He shows no ambition to soar to the heights or plumb the depths, but the music is sincerely emotional. If I sound restrained in my praise, it’s because this is possibly a little restrained for my taste. Reviews have compared […]
Within seconds of starting, Tim Hecker has turned it up to 11. You should turn it up, too: this assault of awesomely crunchy drone demands to be played loudly. (I hope the neighbours don’t mind — if they do, they might be too scared to complain.) It roars, it pulses, it stutters. I kind of […]
I was pretty much sold on this compilation from the first three artists: Goldmund, Leyland Kirby, and Svarte Greiner are all favourites around these parts. The (previously unreleased) tracks are all as lovely as you’d expect. The downside is that lovely tracks is just what they are: call me an old rockist, but I find […]
Apologies for the modern-classical family tree stuff, but: Take the spiky cello of Erik Skodvin (aka Svarte Greiner), the delicate piano of Otto Totland (aka half of Nest), add some lo-fi drones, what sound like vocal choruses, and general production cleverness with assistance from Nils Frahm, and you get… something rather great. This album evokes […]
dogrando writes about some records 