Categories
Music

Annie A: The Wind That Had Not Touched Land (digital, A Colourful Storm, March 2025)

Now for something a little bit special. Annie A is a one-off collaboration. I confess that the only name I really recognize is Félicia Atkinson, who I finally got into with 2022’s Image Language. The other participants are the poet Christine Petrie, collage-based storytellers Time Is Away, and singer-songwriter Maxine Funke — all of whom […]

Categories
Music

Deaf Center: Reverie (digital, Miasmah, May 2025)

Can you believe that it’s been six years since Low Distance? I honestly cannot. And it’s been fourteen since Owl Splinters, which was something of a transformational record in the evolution of your humble blogger’s musical taste. Well, they’re back performing together, and it’s as richly, bewitchingly wonderful as ever. These two ~17 minute pieces […]

Categories
Music

Beatrice Dillon: Basho (digital, Portraits GRM, May 2025)

Dillon’s first solo album, Workaround, was a highlight of 2020, and was rightly hailed in all the right places as marking the arrival of a sparkling new talent. She doesn’t seem to have been super prolific since then, and I confess that some of the stuff she has released didn’t quite do it for me. […]

Categories
Music

Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (digital, Houndstooth, April 2025)

The first time I heard this, I was blown away by the sheer technical bravado of it. Djrum (the ‘j’ is silent), aka DJ and producer Felix Manuel, starts with improvised-sounding piano which has a lightness and fluidity that is like dancing fireflies in musical form. He layers on synths, strings (cello is by Zosia […]

Categories
Music

Loradeniz: SUN SHONE (digital, Music From Memory, March 2025)

This solo debut from Deniz Omeroglu (described as Istanbul-born, Amsterdam-based) is very much an album of two halves. Happily, she plays an absolute blinder in both. The first half was apparently composed spontaneously in the aftermath of a heartbreak, and consists of contemplative, woozy synth tracks. There are largely wordless vocals, of a sighing nature, […]

Categories
Music

Unspecified Enemies: Romance In The Age Of Adaptive Feedback (digital, Numbers, March 2025)

I don’t know about you, but it’s been properly spring for a couple of weeks here. And the sun always puts me in the mood for a certain kind of bosh: something warm and melodic and gently propulsive. This record has been very much ticking that box for me this year. We have six tracks […]

Categories
Music

VÍZ: Danse Des Larmes (digital, Heat Crimes, March 2025)

This is lush stuff from Réka Csiszér, who is described as a Hungarian Transylvanian vocalist, composer and performer. For the most part, it’s all vworgey synths and a bit of wordless chanting. Though it’s entirely beatless, the tone varies from the ethereal (at their floatiest, the vocals have a touch of Ligeti to them) to […]

Categories
Music

William Basinski + Richard Chartier: Aurora Terminalis (digital, Line, January 2025)

Yo yo yo, it’s another Basinski, this time in working with Richard Chartier, and blow me if it isn’t another flipping masterpiece. For the most part, this is a more classically minimal affair than the Basinski / Schaefer collab from a couple of years ago. The opening two minutes of this are the exception: they […]