January 22, 2017
New EP from the Blackest Ever Black label. This release created by some mysterious artist who dwells 'somewhere under London' consists of five dark, brooding visions that conjure the fading ecstasy of post-rave walks home at 5am. Highly recommended.
Order from Blackest Ever Black.
January 15, 2017
This week I had a chance to listen to the new William Basinski album, A Shadow In Time. It follows his usual style for faded electronics and uses a saxophone (to somewhat curious effect) on the David Bowie tribute track. If you have never heard Basinski before, I suggest checking out 'The Disintegration Loops' first. You'll definitely get a feel for his work with those albums.
The album is available from Friday on vinyl and compact disc. The vinyl features an exclusive mix.
January 10, 2017
Great EP of very solid tracks from this promising Belgian artist. You can pick up a copy at Boomkat.
Blinding first volley of ambient grime feels by Belgium’s Sky H1, crystallising one of 2016’s most striking entries with Motion for Bill Kouligas and Visionist's PAN X Codes imprint.
If you’ve had an ear to PAN's recent NTS shows or frequent the likes of Berlin’s Creamcake or London’s Bala Club, it’s possible that you’ve at least seen her name, if not been wowed by Air - a pensile, elegiac wonder rent in noctilucent chorals and arcing Autechrian pads - which heads and opens up the emotional floodgates of Sky H1’s debut EP.
With a vaporous construction inversely proportional to its emotional gravity, Air outlines a sense of melancholic catharsis mutual to music by Elysia Crampton, Visionist or Holy Other; expressing a struggle between states of melancholy and joy that stem from a personally turbulent period which perfuses the rest of the record.
Where many other producers are currently playing out hyper-violent beat-em-up scenarios, the more reserved Motion indulges a plangent lushness to aching affect; oscillating nervous percussion and agonised choral cadence in Hybrid with glassy soft and weightless chimes in Night/Fall/Dream imbued with the pink rawness of freshly picked scab skin, before she finds an impish sort of rave diva spirit in Tell Me, and the final couplet, Land and Think I Am beautifully nail a sort of R&B blessed with baroque posture and ambient aura.
It’s all inarguably up there with the best, most addictive new music we’ve heard in 2016, and hugely recommended if you know what’s good.
January 08, 2017
I enjoyed this new album but it's far from his best ambient work. Having lived with the iOS app edition for a few days, it quickly tires. The main problem with 'Reflection' is that the actual sounds Eno has chosen to program into the algorithm that produces what you hear are pretty uninspiring.
21st century Brian Eno has a very peculiar idea of what constitutes a beautiful sound. The actual textures and atmospherics don't do an awful lot for me and are, dare I say it, old-fashioned. They are the sort of sound he was producing back in his Koan period.
I appreciate that he's trying to let a machine dictate what happens but he could have given it better sounds to play with. While I applaud his desire to bring generative music to the fore, nothing on 'Reflection' even remotely comes close to the beautiful sounds on albums like 'Thursday Afternoon' (1985) and 'The Shutov Assembly' (1992).
Ironically, the instruments he used on Shutov Assembly (I'm guessing late 80s Korg Series, Roland D50 and Yamaha DX7 all treated and maniplulated) sound more modern and futuristic than the (largely) uninspiring sounds on 'Reflection'.
January 01, 2017
Brian Eno's new long-form ambient album is out today. There are a variety of formats including compact disc, vinyl and a quite expensive iOS app.
Digital downloads are available from Bleep.