Strange conglomerations of fluttery acoustic sounds, skittery electronic beats, seemingly-clashing cultural milieus…
Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals – A City Drowning. God’s Black Tears. ft. The Lil Black Oxen Émile Joseph Weeks, Nicolas Ratany [Phantom Limb/Bandcamp]
Tariq Ravelomanana is not your usual hip-hop producer. A longtime fan of experimental music, he blends any and all styles into his Infinity Knives project. This combined with Brian Ennals‘ unbridled political & personal raps makes for an unconstrained body of work akin to clipping., even if the artistic connection is tenuous. However, the stunning vocals from the male gospel choir “The Lil Black Oxen” on their new album’s title(ish) track does put my mind to “Long Way Away“. But Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals’ ambitions here are different, both musically and lyrically, taking in acoustic guitars and metal riffs, anti-colonial politics and mental health. And it’s an album worthy of its ambition – dive in!
SUMAC & Moor Mother – Scene 4 [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Last year, alongside their remarkable, heavy-as-fuck album The Healer was released, sludgey hardcore supergroup SUMAC released an EP called The Keeper’s Tongue with two remixes: recent Wire Magazine cover star, Pulitzer Prize-winner Raven Chacon, and the brilliant avant-garde hip-hop/free jazz genius Moor Mother. And what a combo the latter was! SUMAC leader Aaron Turner was singer & guitarist with two of my favourite post-metal bands, ISIS and Old Man Gloom (the latter not in past tense), but SUMAC feels like his purest vision, engineered with precision along with the rhythm section of Baptists drummer Nick Yacyshyn and bassist Brian Cook of hardcore legends Botch and post-metal legends Russian Circles. Turner also ran the greatest metal/experimental label in the world, Hydra Head, and now has a smaller – impeccably curated – operation with his wife Faith Coloccia called SIGE. After the incendiary impact of that Moor Mother remix, it still came as a surprise to discover that this full album collab was just around the corner. The Film is one large work split into tracks, with as much (disquieting) quiet as crashing noise. And who but Moor Mother could compete with Aaron Turner’s roar?
Katarina Gryvul – ZOVSIM NISKIL’KY [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
There’s classical music and folk mixed up in the avant-garde electronics and vocals of Ukrainian composer Katarina Gryvul‘s new album. SPOMYN is released on the great Subtext Recordings, fitting in with the likes of Pyur or even Sara Persico. Gryvul multi-tracks her vocals for that full Balkan-like women’s choir effect, albeit with constantly evolving effects on the vocals and bursts of electronic noise. The result is a melancholy, but also at times degraded and sinister sound.
Kuunatic – Disembodied Ternion [Glitterbeat/Bandcamp]
Wheels of Ömon, the second album from Japanese all-female psych rock trio Kuunatic, continues from where their first left off. Stentorian riffs and group vocals, and then echoes of traditional Japanese music…. Drummer Yuko Araki is a brilliant musician across many genres & instruments – she released a stunning noise/industrial album on Room40 in 2023. Bassist Shoko Yoshida previously made beautiful acid folk in the fragile DIY Japanese tradition while keyboardist Fumie Kikuchi is also a vinyl DJ. Just calling this acid rock is highly misleading – there’s so much to sink your teeth into, I think maybe even moreso on this second album.
Maurice Louca – El Taalab الثعلب [Simsara Records/Bandcamp]
Egyptian musician Maurice Louca is a bit of a polymath. The earliest recordings I’ve heard are experimental electronic, and he’s lent production to many artists, but he’s also a member of psych rock/free jazz group The Dwarfs of East Agouza, and Egyptian/Lebanese/Turkish experimental rock/jazz supergroup Karkhana among others. And Louca’s solo music has moved into similar territory, losing most of the electronic elements in the last couple of albums. On May 30th comes Barĩy (Fera) برٌِي, an album full of dancing rhythms, albeit acoustic. On the first single, violins and double bass chase synths and percussion around with chiming electric guitar somewhere in the mix, the repetitive folky phrases only opening up into beautiful diminished harmonies and lyrical melody just before the 3 minute mark.
While you’re here, I have to point you to the stunning Arabic indietronica album Lekhfa الإخفاء Louca made in 2017 with Egyptian singer Maryam Saleh and Palestinian singer & multi-instrumentalist Tamer Abu Ghazaleh.
Violeta García & Hora Lunga – i think i just died a lil bit [-OUS/Bandcamp]
On the 25th of April, Swiss label -OUS is releasing the debut duo album of Argentinian cellist Violeta García & Swiss musician Hora Lunga. Their shared background in composition, improvisation and sonic experimentation led to this transformative music, in which clattering rhythms and distorted noise drones can come from the cello, electronics or field recordings. I’m still digging into this, and finding more at every turn.
Laurent Pernice – ProvidenZad (ft. Alain Damasio) [Le label beige]
Laurent Pernice – Il y a les ombres (ft. Héloïse Brézillon) [Le label beige]
“There are shadows” is the new album from Laurent Pernice – Il y a les ombres in the original French – and as much as it’s about the darkness of shadows, it’s about the shadowy future that lies ahead. Pernice draws on his background in sample-based industrial music in the 1980s, incorporating many live instruments and many guests (his mate Jacques Barbéri plays “genetically modified sax”). But the future history aspect is enhanced on more than half the tracks with guest vocalists reading their own poetic works, including author Alain Damasio (well-known in the francophone world), Black Sifichi, experimental pop producer Judith Juillerat, and young poet, performer and sci-fi writer Héloïse Brézillon. It’s sumptuous and rich music, as is typical of Pernice – recommended even you don’t know any French.
Julien Mier – Scrap (ft. Daisuke Tanabe) [Lapsus/Bandcamp]
Sydney-based electronic producer Julien Mier – also known as Santpoort – has a new album under his own name coming out from the excellent Barcelona label Lapsus. Gradually sees Mier reflecting on not just being Dutch in Australia, but having a French background as well – I’m always jealously admiring of multi-lingual people! – and the album is structured around those three backgrounds. The first single features Japanese producer Daisuke Tanabe, whose own love of jungle breakbeats and sound design is echoed across this new work of Mier’s. It’s gonna be a doozy!
Briain – Only When You Look At It [Art-E-Fax/Bandcamp]
Barry O’Brien works as a sound engineer at Berlin clubs Ohm and Tresor, so you’d think he’d be making thudding techno, but his album Cognitive Dissonance leans more towards acid, electro, breakbeat and IDM. Released on breaks-centred Berlin label Art-E-Fax, it’s the kind of br(i)aindance that would’ve haunted the Rephlex label way back when, and wouldn’t be out of place on CPU Records. Always lovely to hear this kind of melodic electronica.
Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – supermatr1x [Bios Contrast Bandcamp]
The current issue of The Wire has an interview with Kolkata-based electronic producer Nilotpal Das, who is variously named as Bios Contrast, under his own name, as DJ Nilo… and frequently as “Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das“. He makes super-complex beats with dense sound design, which he’s dubbed brahmancore. The album SSAC42 is on its way, and “supermatr1x“, which popped up on his Bandcamp at the end of last year, is slated to appear on it.
Flower B – Big shitty life [Big Science/Bandcamp]
Lyon-based DJ & producer Flower B has just released his debut album on Lyon label Big Science, entitled Locked In. The French underground electronic music scene has always been strong, with a love of hardcore and breakcore as much as UK & US bass music (not to ignore the big club stuff which revolves around house, electro & disco music I guess). On this release, Flower B is definitely making heavy bass music with equal influences from industrial techno and ghetto house.
Hmr – Chronos [Straight Up Breakbeat/Bandcamp]
OK well here’s some proper drum’n’bass, from Finland’s Straight Up Breakbeat, and Hmr is a Finnish producer featured on the label’s Zero Five EP. All four tracks are well-produced jungle & d’n’b tracks. Hmr’s “Chronos” is decidedly Photek-like in its precision minimalism.
Hedchef – Inertia of the Real [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Out via Prague powerhouse YUKU is new EP Only Time Will Tell from Naarm/Melbourne’s Hedchef. Hedchef expresses his impatience with the ’90s/’00s sounds that are around at the moment, and I can see where he’s coming from, despite loving the way jungle, trip-hop and even folktronica are reincorporated into modern bass music & experimental approaches. In any case, on this EP we do hear precision rhythms in alien forms, held down by a solid low-end. Highly suited to their home on YUKU.
Obelisk – fakemink – LV Sandals (Obelisk remix) [Obelisk Bandcamp]
A couple of weeks back, FBi’s own Ryan O’Rourke – presenter of Mithril late on Thursday nights – released a couple of sneaky edits on his Bandcamp. The original LV Sandals, by EsDeeKid, fakemink & Rico Ace goes hard enough, but Obelisk beefs it up into industrial proportions.
Clay Teeth – Chapel Fire [Natural Sciences]
I’ve known Greg Stone since quite early days in FBi’s history, as lead singer of Sydney indietronic/postrockers Underlapper, and – full disclosure – our trio Haunts will finally be releasing something in the coming months. But a little while back, Greg was inspired by the tribal drum’n’bass championed by Samurai Music to try his hand at producing dark d’n’b himself, and he quickly became highly adept at it. This track is released on Manchester label Natural Science‘s eclectic, noisy compilation Flesh Renewed, but it will also feature on the upcoming album. Contra to what I’ve just said, this is more like techno than d’n’b.
Mitch Elliott – No Dream [Garden Seat/Bandcamp]
Originally from Newcastle, Mitch Elliott is now based in Eora/Sydney, where he makes noise music and experimental sounds. His latest release is out on Naarm’s Garden Seat, and was recorded live in Indonesia last year. It’s music that’s based around feedback and distortion, so no surprise that the recordings themselves are beset with “foul distortions”, as described by Elliott. But there’s a purity to distortion which can itself be penetrating, although soon enough the echoing bass tones in “No Dream” are ridden over with a squalling feedback melody.
Kettel – Conrector [Kettel Bandcamp]
The music of Dutch musician Reimer Eising comes from a different direction – since the early ’00s Kettel‘s always been an IDM & ambient project, with some neo-classical elements a few years in. But tonight’s track makes use of pulsating echoes that, well, echo Mitch Elliott’s. It’s one of the darker tracks on Kettel’s new album Dubio. Like his 2013 album ibb & obb, this is a video game soundtrack, for a game that combines puzzle solving with parkour. Never less than melodic, Kettel’s music here has a lush, nostalgic feel that eschews the precision of programmed music, and is more human for it.
Will Parker – Devine Blink [Difficult Art And Music/Bandcamp]
Red Lake, Black Mine, the new album by UK composer & audio-visual artist Will Parker, might initially sound like minimal glitch, but it was born out of walks around the post-industrial landscape of inland Cornwall, land that’s been transformed by mining, and poisoned by its toxic outlets. The work exists as an album – digital and on CD – and a performed version, but also an art book that doubles as graphic scores. The combination of concrète sounds, electronics and digital editing is quite ingenious and the mix is incredibly spacious. It’s a visceral listen.
Theresa Wong – Light in the Grotto [ROOM40/Bandcamp]
I’ve known of American cellist Theresa Wong for a long while, as a collaborator with Carla Kihlstedt (including a duo album on Tzadik), a collaborator with minimalist composer/instrument maker Ellen Fullman, and more. Her new album for ROOM40, Journey to the Cave of Guanyin, is a beautiful collection of pieces for solo cello – sometimes just the single instrument, sometimes multi-tracked – that are created to evoke a sense of peace and mental focus. Guanyin is a Chinese deity embodying infinite compassion, and these pieces are prayer-like in their minimalist repetition. The cello is down-tuned substantially from the typical A 440, and – when the instrument isn’t producing fluttery almost-percussive ricochets – the harmonies are in just intonation, which tunes the intervals to the harmonic series based on a particular fundamental, so that chords other than the tonic sound eerily “out of tune” to our ears, accustomed to equal temperament. Wong has put a lot of thought into these pieces, using technique honed over many years of composing, improvising and studying. The result is something bewitching and strange.
Matthias Kaiser & Reinhold Friedl – lamento [Tonkunst Manufactur/Bandcamp]
Acoustic instruments are fractured and transformed on the album ololuge from two German experimental musicians, violinist Matthias Kaiser and pianist Reinhold Friedl. Friedl directs the new music ensemble zeitkratzer, known for interpretations of early Kraftwerk, and work with Terre Thaemlitz, Keiji Haino and power electronics terrorists Whitehouse – generally all done acoustically. “Ololuge” is a word from ancient Greek meaning “ululation” – wailing, trilling… There are similar words in many languages. So from this concept, Kaiser and Friedl draw out unconventional sounds from both instruments, with prepared piano and harmonics, glissandi and extended techniques on the violin. Despite the distinct avant-garde nature of the work, the music is highly expressive – suitably for the subject matter – and “lamento” is a particularly emotive piece.
Pierre Bastien & Michel Banabila – Le Système Déraille [Pingipung/Bandcamp]
The first collaborative album between French mechanical instrument maker Pierre Bastien and fourth world electronic producer & composer Michel Banabila was a strange affair, lovely but perhaps a bit tentative. On their follow-up, Nuits Sans Nuit, it feels like they’ve found a singular voice together. First single “Le Système Déraille” has unconventionally-tuned ocarinas(?), muted trumpet, what sounds like a vinyl runout groove, and electronically stretched piano chords. The little melodies could be mechanically produced, but sound gradually more like they’re electronically sequenced. Looking forward to hearing the rest!
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson – Bone Bells [Pyroclastic Records/Bandcamp]
Two incredibly accomplished improvisers and performers of contemporary jazz and contemporary classical music getting together is quite something, and these two women are easily at the top of their game, Sylvie Courvoisier on piano and Mary Halvorson on electric guitar. For some reason electric guitar and acoustic piano seem like an ill-fitting combination to me, but Courvoisier & Halvorson prove it to be as natural as anything. This is their third collaboration, so I blame myself for not discovering the duo earlier. Courvoisier has played with many of those in the “Downtown NY” jazz scene, including her husband, also-legendary jazz violinist and John Zorn mainstay Mark Feldman, and his frequent partner-in-strings (and hero to me), cellist Erik Friedlander. Halvorson, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, is known as an innovator, technically explosive and incredibly sensitive, and has a characteristic way with the whammy bar – except remarkably it’s not: the pitch-bending effects are from swivelling the delay time (using an expression pedal) on a Line 6 DL4 delay unit! So, suffice to say this was always going to be mind-bending, beautiful and riotous – as it indeed is. Even if you’re a jazz aficionado, you should give this a go.
Alex Zethson & Johan Jutterström – If I (Tålamod) [thanatosis/Bandcamp]
Stockholm musicians Alex Zethson (piano) & Johan Jutterström (saxophone) have known each other since they were teens. Now Zethson runs the Thanatosis label, releasing jazz and free improv and sometimes drone/noise, and also collaborates widely. Zethson & Jutterström’s duo album If I Could / If I is a mixture of cleverly-chosen covers and beautiful originals by Jutterström. A few weeks ago I played their cover of John Lurie’s “It could have been very very beautiful” – and, in fact, it was! And they cover “It couldn’t happen here” from the Pet Shop Boys’ brilliant second album, in lovely wistful fashion. But Jutterström’s original compositions really are gorgeous, and the playing of the two musicians is exquisitely restrained (I try not to use “exquisite” too often, so please take it as the chef’s kiss that it needs to be).