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. […]
Tag: year_2022
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 […]
Well, this is something delightfully strange. I’ve encountered Dimitris Papadatos as Jay Glass Dubs, and I found his work pleasant enough but it never quite grabbed me. This new alias is, to me, a much more distinctive and interesting proposition. The first of the two long tracks opens with a crash of percussion, a tinkling […]
This record kind of straddles the boundary between ambient and new age. But in a good way! I mean, a Laraaji-without-the-chanting way. I read that Moles’s main influence here is Indonesian Kulintang music. At any rate, it combines various chiming gong sounds with electronic pads and washes, and it’s all rather beautiful. The most urgent […]
Now this is something rather novel and entirely delightful. Whitney Johnson gives us two long tracks (eighteen minutes apiece). Although mostly strings, these take in drone, folk-ish fiddling (with the occasional digression into folk rock — a guitar and a flute sneak in at the end), and sawing classical minimalism, and are supplemented by other […]
dogrando writes about some records 