Category: Reviews

Review: Nick Schofield – Ambient Ensemble

If you’re Nick Schofield, how do you follow up your beautiful ambient album Glass Gallery? Do you create something similar and explore more themes of mediation and presence?

The answer is “Yes,” but you decide not to do it alone this time. On Ambient Emsemble, you get other musicians to join you. You bring in clarinets, violins, vocals, piano, and other folks who click with you right away to create another lovely record that can transport you out of whatever malaise you might be feeling (in my case, at the time of writing this, dealing with COVID).

“Meadow” is a bit of an introduction to the record, almost like a warm breeze coming over a hill. “On Air” makes you feel like you’re floating on it. The clarinet work makes you feel like a bird coasting on air currents. “Hazen” is chilled synthwave with a bit of a dramatic flair.

“Fine Tune” and “Joy Cry” are a bit hypnotizing. You tend to lose a sense of time and space when giving them a deep listen. “Bouquet” puts the orchestral elements at the front and lets them shine. “Mourning Doves” and “Resonant World” are a nice duo, as they almost float together instead of being two separate pieces. The strings on “Heartfelt” are like fog rolling over a mountain lake.

“Picture Perfect” was the lead single from Ambient Emsemble, and it was a good choice. It’s a bit upbeat and a great way to start a morning yoga routine or even just a cup of tea. The plucky strings and flirty flute on “Undertone” are delightful. “Key Bed” closes the album with soft keys and synths, almost like a lullaby.

Scholfield’s knack for transporting you to lovely places within and without is impressive, and this album is another good example of his talents.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Review: GOAT – Levitation Sessions

Praise be to the good folks at the Reverberation Appreciation Society for conjuring up another excellent Levitation Sessions live performance recording. Their track record on these sessions is exemplary, and this latest one, featuring Swedish psych-mystics GOAT, is no exception.

The opening track, “Tarot Will Teach You,” pretty much lets you know what you’re in for if you’ve never heard a GOAT record. Jangling, shaking, slithering hand percussion, Mellotron chords, tribal drums, guitars that sound like they’re coming from inside a temple carved into a cliff…It lets you float into a nice space before “Golden Dawn” drops fast funk and one of the singers is asking, “Are you ready to go?” She doesn’t care what your answer is, really, because she and the rest of the band are taking off and will leave you behind if necessary. “Under No Nation” is a great cut with a top-notch guitar solo about how easy it is to forget we are all citizens of the world, not just these little enclaves in which we find ourselves, and that global and local conflicts are worthless endeavors.

“Behind the Plank” is over seven minutes of psych-jazz jamming with killer saxophone work and percussion throughout it. “Do the Dance” makes you want to do exactly that with its pulse-raising beats and power guitar chords played at just the right time. “Fill My Mouth” is the naughtiest song GOAT has released so far, and this live version is raw and funky, and of course there’s a lot of flute in it.

“Lorcan” is nearly seven minutes of krautrock synths and hand percussion. “Queen of the Underground” is vintage GOAT, with heavy riffs, sultry double female vocals, slinky bass, and trance-inducing percussion. “Let It Burn” moves like a fire in a hidden forest clearing, or perhaps atop of cold mountain, with people dancing around it well into the night. The album ends with a tidbit of “Midnight Madness,” which, in the original streamed version of the session, is over seven minutes long. The two-and-a-half minute slice here is a great tease of psych-synth music, leaving all of us wanting more.

It’s always great to hear new stuff from GOAT, who can and have disappeared at will for long stretches of time, only to come back like they never left. Time isn’t linear for them, and their perception of space is probably beyond the senses of many. This live session might help you get there, too.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: For the Love of House (2006)

I picked up this delightful three-disc house music compilation at Reckless Records in London last year for a mere two pounds. As the cover reads, it’s forty-five tracks. You could just put any of these into a DJ set and walk away for a little while.

Each of the discs has plenty of outstanding tracks on it. Disc One, for example, has a lovely mix of Ron Hall and The Muthafunkaz‘ “The Way You Love Me” with Marc Evans on vocals. Paul Johnson‘s “Get Get Down” is a lot of fun. Kathy Brown‘s “Don’t Give Up” is pure house bliss, as is the ’98 mix of Maw‘s “To Be in Love.” Soulsearcher‘s “Can’t Get Enough” is a house classic and not to be missed.

Disco Two starts off with six straight bangers: Bob Sinclair‘s “I Feel for You,” Powerhouse‘s “What You Need,” A.T.F.C.‘s “Bad Habit,” Sandy Rivera‘s ” I Can’t Stop,” and Knee Deep‘s “Good for Da Hole” and “I”ll Be There For You.” Soul Rebels‘ “I’ll Be Good,” with the great Lisa Millet on vocals, is a for-sure floor-filler.

Disc Three gets thumping right away with Junior Jack‘s “Stupidisco.” “Believe” by Ministers De La Funk (with Jocelyn Brown on vocals) brings a bit of gospel flair to the mix, which is always welcome in house music. M‘s “So Fly” is killer, full of fun raps and retro video game bleeps backed with a solid dance beat. Timmy Vegas & Andy Daniell‘s “Disco Shit” is the shit. The early 90’s rave vibe of it is top-notch. Martin Solveig‘s “Rocking Music” gets your attention and doesn’t let go of it. Mood II Swing‘s “Can’t Get Away” is a good example of a house music staple – songs about how you sometimes can’t quit love that’s great in some ways but bad in others.

This compilation is well worth finding if you can.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Claudio Simonetti – Demons soundtrack (2023 reissue)

I picked this up the night I saw Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin play this score live to a screening of Demons (properly known as Demoni) in Chicago last year. The film is nuts, to put it mildly, and the score is a wild synthwave ride into dark places and crazy action sequences.

“Demon” starts us off with throbbing synth-bass to set the tone for what’s going to be a weird experience, and “Cruel Demon” is like a discovering a snake has slithered into the room and leads us into “Killing.” There’s plenty of that in the film, so it’s only appropriate that there’s a song called this. Heck, Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento, the creators of the film, could’ve just called it Killing. The song has neat orchestral synths mixed with electro-drums and metal guitar solos.

“The Evil One” is, appropriately, the creepiest tune on the entire soundtrack, with heartbeat beats and sinister synths to give you chills. “Out of Time” begins with violins and then switches to almost vaporwave sounds straight out of an early 1980s shopping mall. It’s wonderfully weird.

The Rustblade edition of the score is full of bonus tracks. The CD version is two discs. Disc One has two demo versions of the title track and one of “Killing,” a 2002 live version of “Demon,” a Simonetti Horror Project version of it from 1990, and, best of all the previously unreleased “Demon’s Lounge,” which, yes, is a lounge version of the title track. It’s amazing. I’d love a whole album of stuff like this from Simonetti.

Disc Two is all remixes by various artists, with only one by the Simonetti Horror Project. OHGR first remixes “Demons,” then Cervello Elettronico provides a cool industrial version of “Cruel Demon.” Simulakrum Lab gets you to to the dance floor with their remix of “Killing.” The Devil and The Universe remix “Threat” into something you’d hear while Jason Vorhees is pursuing you through a late night dance club.

:Bahntier// turns “The Evil One” into a full-out rave classic. Needle Sharing sees that and raises a drum and bass remix of “Out of Time.” Leæther Strip‘s remix of “Demons” adds more industrial throbs and grit to Simonetti’s original track. Chris Alexander gets creepy on his remix of “Killing,” and Creature from the Black goes all-out dance club mix on “Demon.” Dope Star Inc. slows things down on their remix of “Killing,” turning it into a stalking machine. Finally, the Simonetti Horror Project version of “Demon” pumps up the jams with hip hop beats and cool synth flairs to round out the second disc with a remix that is, I dare say, fun.

It’s a classic score for a wild horror film, and a must for fans of such stuff.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Melody Fields – 1991

I’m not sure if calling Melody Fields‘ 1991 album a “companion piece” to their 1901 album is correct. It feels more link a continuation of 1901, or perhaps a better world is a transformation of it, not unlike the flower on 1991‘s cover opening to reveal things previously hidden.

1991 also has plenty of guest collaborators, whereas 1901 was all Melody Fields all of the time. The opening track, “Hallelujah,” (a remix / re-edit / re-imagining of “Jesus” from 1901) is a spaced out team-up with Snake Bunker. “Blasphemy” is a wall of My Bloody Valentine-inspired sound – beautiful, loud, and somewhat intimidating. Psych-DJ Al Lover teams up with Melody Fields on “Jesus Lover,” bringing up the drum beats and bass to turn “Jesus” into a dance track.

“Dandelion” rolls along like a cool van painted with some kind of wild ancient warrior artwork on the side. You can envision warm wind whipping through your hair, perhaps with a dandelion tucked behind one ear, as you drive out to a coastal music festival. Human Language joins Melody Fields, appropriately on “Talking with Jesus.” They slow down “Jesus” almost to a crawl, turning it into a dark wave track that beckons you from behind a curtain at the back of a weird store is some forgotten rust belt town.

The bold guitars on “Diary of a Young Man” bring images of dusty ghost towns to mind…and then it suddenly hits you with vocals that could be from an actual ghost for all I know. Get your incense ready for “Bhagavana Najika Cha,” because it might lift you off the ground, and the closer, “Son of Man” (guest-starring fellow Swedish psych-giants GOAT), keeps you afloat until after the album is done.

It’s a neat record that shows off Melody Fields’ different music influences, loves, and talents. Where else are you going to hear a record that blends psychedelia, dark wave, and dance grooves?

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Melody Fields!]

Review: Dion Lunadon – Systems Edge

The cover of Dion Lunadon‘s new album, Systems Edge, shows him holding a chain above a guitar. My guess is that he was just about to flog that guitar within an inch of its life with it, because that kind of (yes, Stooges-influenced) raw power is all over the record.

Opening track “Secrets” has him already pounding out raggedy, roaring chords with it, and on “Nikki” it sounds like the bellows of a robotic lion. The thick bass notes punch up the rock even more. It’s a song about a fling that ends in tragedy for at least one person involved, and maybe pleasure for another. “Diamond Sea” has a groovy surf-rock line that runs through it.

“I Walk Away” is, somehow, heavier and darker than everything before it, and Lunadon’s vocals are like a werewolf belting out a tune during transformation. “Rocks On” reminds me of “Mongoloid-era” Devo tracks where you have all kinds of fuzz and some sort of something that feels like it can erupt into full-blown chaos at any moment.

The bass and drums on “Shockwave” hit you like the song’s namesake. “Grind Me Down” has a New York Dolls feel to it with its swagger and garage rock guitars. After the brief instrumental of “Straight Down the Middle,” we get the great dis track, “I Don’t Mind,” in which Lunadon writes off an ex-lover / friend because they only bring him bad luck and headaches. The album closes with the near-doom heavy-psych of “Room with No View,” which sounds like Lunadon is playing his guitar with a lit sparkler he got at a dusty roadside fireworks stand.

For me, the coolest thing about Systems Edge is that Lunadon made a pure rock record. It’s heavy garage rock, to be certain, but it’s nice to hear a rock record that embraces and flaunts the power of distorted, fuzzed, dangerous rock. We don’t have enough rock records that feel at least a bit threatening. Thankfully, Lunadon is here to snarl and growl and shake up the room.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dion!]

Review: King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – The Silver Cord

One of the best things about King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is that you never know what you’re going to get from album to album with them. It could be alt-folk, a psychedelic freakout, microtonal shredding, thrash metal, or, in the case of The Silver Cord – an album of synth music.

The album has the band diving headlong into their not-so-secret love of synthwave, EDM, rap, and krautrock, starting with the uplifting “Theia” – a song about how we are drifting on silver cords that attach us to ethereal planes we can’t describe but sometimes catch glimpses of now and then. It’s instantly catchy and uplifting, with all the synths and electronic beats rising us up to the natural follow-up of the title track – a beautiful track about birth, death, and rebirth. “Set” is about the wicked Egyptian god (and Egyptology and mythology is all over this record, which delights me to no end) and has a cool rave beat throughout it.

“Chang’e” has the band singing about a goddess of dreams and builds from almost an ambient track into a full-blown dance cut in perhaps the loveliest moment on the record. “Gilgamesh” brings techno-Viking beats to the classic tale of the eternal hero. “Swan Song” uses industrial beats to encourage us to cut the cords that bind us to our attachments and egos and “Go explore. Be untethered. Be unequalled. Grab the sword. Be emperor. Be yourself. Be an orb. Be your spirit. Don’t fear it.”

The closing track, “Extinction,” tackles one of KGATLW’s favorite topics – the destruction of the Earth by mankind’s idiocy and greed. There are hints of “Crumbling Castle” in the beats and lyrics (“Castles crumble with a groan.”) as well. The album ends on an encouraging note, however, as they sing, “I can see everything. I can be in the music.”

So can all of us.

As if The Silver Cord isn’t good enough, and a cool enough project from KGATLW, the band also released an extended version of the record in which they explore long-form synth-jams and add further lyrics to delve further into the album’s themes of death, reincarnation, the afterlife, and enlightenment. The shortest track on the extended version is the ten-minute and eighteen-second-long version of “Set.” The longest is the extended mix of “Theia,” which is just over twenty minutes. All the extended mixes are excellent, and some could be dropped into a DJ set without trouble.

This makes the second excellent album KGATLW have released this year, the first being the epic thrash metal album PetroDragonic Apocalypse: or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. To go from that to The Silver Cord is a stunning accomplishment that few other bands could pull off and make look easy.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Big Miz – Where I Belong EP

Hailing from Glasgow, Big Miz put in the work behind the decks at at local clubs to build not only his skills but a thriving EDM community there. His first EP for the HOMAGE label, Where I Belong, is a good introduction to his music.

The title track gets it off to a great start with shining beats and bass hits that make you move whether you want to or not. “Everything’s Fine” uses vocal samples to neat effects, and “The Feeling” is a song about getting back to the dance floors and the clubs after we all had to dance in our living rooms during the pandemic (“We gotta bring back that feeling. Yeah, you know the one I’m talking about. That feeling that’s been gone…for way too long.”). Its slick beats will make you want to rush out to the nearest club.

The EP ends with a nice remix of the title track by LUXE that brings up the lush but doesn’t skim on the thumps.

It’s a sharp EP, and every track is solid. Don’t skip it.

Keep your mind open.

[Your e-mail address belongs in the subscription box.]

[Thanks to Harbour Music Society.]

Review – Augustus Muller – Cellulosed Bodies

Diving further into his love / obsession with 1980s horror / thriller synthwave music, Boy Harsher‘s Augustus Muller teamed up with artist / kinky movie maker Vex Ashley of Four Chambers to create two films scores – one to a film that already existed and another to one that is new, and both of which explore the sexual relationship between humans and technology on the album Cellulosed Bodies.

The first half is a tribute to David Cronenberg‘s 1996 film Crash – in which the main characters are turned on by car crashes. Muller’s six-song “score” to the film (originally done by Howard Shore). “Fur and Metal” slowly takes us into this new, weird world of strange pleasures and soon we’re “Sharing a Smoke,” but how much of it is from a cigarette and how much is from burned wreckage along a dark road? Muller’s use of synths throughout the six tracks are at times haunting and other times throbbing like the pulse in your neck after something stressful and / or sensual. “Perverse Technology” is a perfect example of this, as somewhat creepy synths rise and fall like a lover’s chest taking deep breaths to maintain control while the beats mimic the twitchy brain impulses to seize pleasure now instead of making it last as long as possible. “Body as Machine” sums up the theme of the album’s first half (and Cronenberg’s film) in the title and in the grinding, pulsating synth-beats, and “Shattered Glass” ends the first half with something that isn’t quite afterglow, but more “after-shadow.”

The second half is Muller’s score to Ashley’s film Automaton – which, according to the liner notes, “…features a severe computer entity and trapped prey, succumbing to pleasure…” Reading that, and then hearing the ten tracks that follow, you think, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” The tracks featuring fewer beats, but more experimentation – again the theme of exploring new pleasures that at first might seem frightening – such as “Initialize,” “Next Subject,” and “Endoscopy.” “Examination” uses some subtle industrial clangs for beats, but they never overwhelm the track. “Acceptance” has the “trapped prey” accepting its pleasurable fate (or is the computer accepting it?). I’m guessing it’s the former, because the next track is “You Belong to the Machine” – which builds with a slow menace like a snake that’s been released into a dark room.

“Observation” sounds and feels like the evil / sexy computer is watching its prey / lover from a drone that rises and falls like a hawk drifting on warm wind. “Stretching / Invading” is about…well, I think you can guess. “Who Is in Control” can be taken in multiple ways. It’s the question in a BDSM relationship. On the surface, the computer in Ashley’s tale is in control, but what would it be without its lover? The computer needs the lover to achieve some kind of feeling. The second half of Cellulosed Bodies ends with “Subdue Yourself” – the only track with vocals (from dominatrix Miss Marilyn) – on a whispering aftercare note.

It’s a strange, lovely, sexy record, and one of the more intriguing releases of the year.

Keep your mind open.

NSFW!

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[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Ki Oni – A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life

Well, this is beautiful.

Ki Oni (Chuck Soo-Hoo) set out to create an ambient album about spirits transitioning from life to death, perhaps wandering the world for a while, and eventually floating into something we here on this side of the veil can’t quite yet fathom. He not only succeeded in doing it, he excelled at it with A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life.

It’s difficult to describe how gorgeous this album is. It’s at times lush and other times as subtle as a whisper. Nothing is rushed across its five tracks. The shortest one, opening track “An Infinite Dive,” is fifteen minutes and twelve seconds long. “Floating in a Stream of Consciousness” is perfectly titled, as it’s a collection of the sounds your brain is trying get you to hear as you remain in the eternal present, but you’re always too busy or worried to pause and observe all this amazing creation coexisting with you.

According to the press release I got for this album, “Reincarnation at the End of the World” has Soo-Hoo wondering, “With everything going on in the world –– and if reincarnation is real, where would a spirit go if the world ended suddenly? What would that sound like? Would it continue to float on this deteriorated earth until new life begins or would it float forever into the abyss?”

It’s an intriguing question, and my answer is that we’ll be free from worry wherever we are. Soo-Hoo’s synths, field recordings, and loops emulate a blissful ghost drifting here and there, no cares, no stress, no extraneous thoughts…just calm bliss.

“My Grandmother’s Garden” is a lovely tribute to Soo-Hoo’s late grandmother and the days he used to spend as a child swimming in her pool and eating food she’d grown. “To Wander Beyond the Aquatic Center” ends the record with a song perfect for the cover image of a true infinity pool stretching out into a misty pink sky as birds soar overhead. We should all hope to hear something this lovely as we go into sleep, whether for a night or forever.

This album, this leisurely swim, is something we all need from time to time. We need to immerse ourselves in the present and reconnect with the beauty that is right there calling to us and being enjoyed by those who have gone before and will greet us after we come up from our dive in the pool.

Keep your mind open.

[Dive into the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Mark at Clandestine Label Services.]