Electronica
SEE: Jon Mueller – ‘Welcome’: glorious drone textures from Wisconsin
WISCONSIN musician? Sound artist? Explorer? Curator? – all of these things, Jon Mueller is always seeking new confluences of thought and sound. He may be best known to you as part of Volcano Choir, in which he lined up alongside Justin Vernon of Bon Iver to push out the boundaries of alt.rock into weirder, treated shapes, employing …
TRACK: IsoPHeX – ‘Doppelgänger’: haunting, propulsive ‘tronica from North Wales
CAE GWYN RECORDS is a little label out in Snowdonia which quietly goes about the business of releasing excellent tunes well-springing from the Welsh underground – which is what you want, really. Alongside label head honcho Dan Amor, and his beautifully blurry, chiming guitar essays, keeping that particularly Welsh psych-pop torch burning bright, Cae Gwyn …
TRACK: Maps – ‘Sleep Today’ (Go! Team remix): a grinsome tune to banish the winter blues
JAMES CHAPMAN, the South Midlands producer better known to lovers of a stonking good tune as Maps, has followed up his single from a month or so back, “Sleep Today”, with a Go! Team remix of that selfsame track. We adored the original when it dropped a month back, noting: “It’s a glorious pop rush, …
ALBUM REVIEW: Late Night Final – ‘A Wonderful Hope’: Public Service man takes an ambient diversion
Public Service Broadcasting’s J. Willgoose takes a glorious ambient diversion – pretty doesn’t cover it
ALBUM REVIEW: Dark Sparkler – ‘Are You With Me Or Against Me?’: fine modular retrotronica
If you’re a fan of a real exploration of retro synthesisers and the beauty they bring, like soundscapes with atmosphere and depth that stay edgy and have bags of ambience without, y’know, being ambient per se, Are You With Me Or Are You Against Me? could be just the album for you
EP REVIEW: Laura Groves – ‘A Private Road’: pristine and dreamy debut; socially distanced gig announced
A Private Road is a dreamscape, swirling elements of modern electronica, shoegaze, soul and folk into a set on which you really get a sense of Laura while she also remains wraithlike, a blur of whisper and talent at the core
ALBUM REVIEW: Various artists – ‘Ambient Layers’: a state of the art, 20-track journey on 7K!
Ambient Layers is quite a trip through the current state of the blissful/emotive sonic arts. There’s so much to burrow into here, experience deeply. Set it on repeat and let it guide you through a whole, amniotic diurnal cycle. It’s really very great.
TRACK: Bastian Benjamin – ‘Threshold’: bright, organic ‘tronica
EXPERIMENTAL audio-visual producer Bastian Benjamin, born and based in the small city of Deventer, in the Netherlands, some 100km east towards the German border, has just dropped the bright, organic, atmospheric sweep of “Threshold”, the final single he’s releasing ahead of his next album, Two Truths, which will be with us in the first week …
TRACKS: Erland Cooper – ‘Landform’: a digital companion to the Orkney trilogy
ORCADIAN soundscaper and composer Erland Cooper has today released one final digitally streamed companion piece to accompany his beautiful Orkney Triptych. Take a listen below. Its a seven-track, 35-minute ambient accompaniment to his most recent album, Hether Blether with the tracks entitled “Cairn I” to “Cairn VII”, for which he collaborated with artist, producer and …
TRACK: Late Night Final – ‘Thank You’: J. Willgoose steps out from his broadcasting role
YOU ALMOST certainly know J. Willgoose as one of the bespectacled whizzkids behind the ever brilliant Public Service Broadcasting. But now he’s decided to invest in a little extra-curricular activity away from his six-string anchorman role in the nation’s favourite broadcaster, and has announced a solo album for Play It Again Sam in the guise …