Reverend Kristin Michael HayterSAVED!Perpetual Flame Ministries
SAVED! is manifestly a record of death-like unmooring and majestic rebirths: first and foremost, it is the album that marks the shedding of the LINGUA IGNOTA moniker, with which Reverend Hayter had carved a name for herself in the fucked-up music underground. This new record is evidently a watershed moment for Hayter, who has managed to slither out of herself and unburden her artistic persona of the lore and weight that had grown attached to LINGUA IGNOTA. But, most importantly, SAVED! is held together by a grand secessionist spirit, both on a thematic and sonic level. The impetus to just leave everything behind for good cuts through the whole thing.
JellyskinIn BrineWrong Speed
Jellyskin’s debut album is an electro-experimental, futurist elegy for all things aquatic. Across nine tracks, it flits between glacial goth pop (‘Marmalade’) and abrasive techno (‘Bringer Of Brine’), much like the variable nature of the ocean itself. Coastal imagery pervades, but not quite in the balmy, sunlit way you’d expect. Instead, it’s sullen blue-black and abyssal. Imagine, if you will, Broadcast doing a techno banger about a solitary whale and you’re halfway there.
Nicky WireIntimismSelf-Released
A sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes bolshy, sometimes beaten-down expression of realisation about ageing – an acceptance that your life has reached its terminal velocity – informs, infects, amuses and salves at various junctures on Intimism, Nicky Wire’s “low-key” solo album which follows up on 2006’s I Killed The Zeitgeist. The irony being that this is clearly a very well-executed, 12 years in the planning strategy against melancholy. Or, to be more precise, a strategy to integrate and accept melancholy afresh, to embrace it, as if it were an old friend, while writing and singing ruefully about how it intrudes remorselessly into every nook of his life like a blinding headache.
Colin StetsonWhen We Were That What Wept For The Sea52Hz
Colin Stetson leads us on a voyage of reminiscence and grief on When We Were That What Wept For The Sea, much like a marine adventure, full of suspended moments, foggy hazy shores, and battles against the stormy sea. Dark abysses open after airy and dilated moments; breathes, touches, and mechanical sounds counterpart abstract movements. The spoken lyrics of ‘The Lighthouse V’, which put the musical images into words and inspired the album’s title, follow a crescendo that rises until ‘The Lighthouse IV”s explosion, where all the tension and misery find their desperate shout.
One More GrainModern MusicSelf-Released
A fever-dream slice of very British avant-rock from the recently reinvigorated One More Grain, Modern Music is a scattered, joyous affair of weirdo tropes and colloquial, stern monologues. Strange in the same way lots of similar things are strange, the album throws up the classic ‘British man has a bit of a rant’ against a backdrop of jousting brass and off-kilter percussion, short trills of a clarinet, or other wind instrument adding colour if not structure. It’s a fairly beguiling sound world, borrowing from the songbook of madness, with the jazz-lite instrumentation sitting in contrast to the plethora of samples and drum machines that float around beside them.
House Of AllHouse Of AllTiny Global Productions
With just three days in the studio and no prior material to hand, House Of All – who, it must be noted, had never actually played together before – dug deep into lessons learned from the late Mark E. Smith to deliver under pressure. The result is an album that doesn’t sound like The Fall, but instead is quite obviously made from former members of that venerable institution. It’s there in Steve Hanley’s growling and rock solid bass-playing, as well as the double drumming and guitars that serrate while avoiding predictability. And of course Martin Bramah is no stranger to fronting bands, having led Blue Orchids for over 40 years, another band to rival The Fall’s own revolving door policy when it comes to band members.
NihiloxicaSource Of DenialCrammed Discs
With rising costs and precarious travel options, touring life has gotten tougher for all. It’s harder for people from countries like Uganda who work as part of a global outfit. Slow and intentionally convoluted immigration practices make it near-impossible for musicians to work freely across borders. Nihiloxica had a whole UK tour cancelled in 2022 because of visa issues, overseen by a profit-driven ‘service centre’ which manages queries for a growing number of countries. The process was debilitating for the band, and dehumanising for its members. In response, they made Source Of Denial, a tense and compelling suite of tracks which challenges the detached and evil immigration systems of Britain and beyond.
SynthfreqVol. 1Orange Milk
Synthfreq are Danielle and Crystal Morales, twins who are both severely hearing and visually impaired. Using techniques such as adding braille to the interfaces of their synths and honing in on sounds that they can either feel, or hear via listening aids, they create astounding synthesiser music. As they make clear, their music is heavily influenced by the 80s, but from that starting point they launch into vivid dream worlds rather than pastiche, from the pounding squelch funk of ‘Industrial World’ to the frosty moonwalk arpeggios of ‘Power Of Two’. Sitting somewhere between Jan Hammer, Patrick Cowley and Exit-era Tangerine Dream, Synthfreq’s magic comes from how close their squealing synth guitar solos and noodly electronic saxes get to being kitsch, and how elegantly they always evade that trap. They re-enchant the 80s prog-synth-disco tangent before your ears, opening it as a space for euphoria away from cinematic cliché and cheesiness.
Mozart EstatePop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern ShoppingCherry Red
Kudos to Lawrence for making a record that manages to take in almost every musical style ever to grace the charts in the 1970s, with a healthy amount of faux slap bass to boot. In case there’s any confusion, Mozart Estate is simply the updated name of Go-Kart Mozart, and if you were a fan of the latter, you’ll find much to appreciate here. Opener ‘I’m Gonna Wiggle’ comes on strong, as if the ghost of disco-era Marc Bolan joined pre-Britpop Pulp, gyrating through various London locales and complete with perfect Joey Ramone ‘oh yeah’s, while lead single ‘Relative Poverty’ begins as an overwrought piano ballad before bursting into a full-on jubilant showtune.
YforyYforyStatic Age
Based in Berlin, Yfory’s members are from Australia, Germany, Spain and Wales, and for vocalist Bryony Beynon (previously of Good Throb, Sceptres and several others) this is the first band where she sings in her birth language. Specifically, these four sharp, rattling post punk songs dart between Welsh and English, often within the same line and with unbothered linguistic impurity. Certainly, the niceties of Welsh serve a distinct lyrical purpose. ‘Ailgylchu’, the last and shortest track on the record, is a ‘list song’ of sorts which advocates or imagines various things being burnt, melted or drowned: “Llosgi … toddi … boddi.” ‘Baled Y Dolmen’, the longest, relates a road trip across Wales and mulls neolithic burial chambers: pensive and speak-singy, it reminds me a little of The Van Pelt.
SparksThe Girl Is Crying In Her LatteIsland
The 26th Sparks album is a sleeker and less cabaret-florid beast than many of their late-career efforts. It might be the best one they’ve released this side of the millennium, but the median quality of these records has been so high that it hardly seems worth taxing one’s grey matter over. Suffice to say that The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte moves from minimal electronics to orchestral maximalism, and elsewhere, with implausible levels of élan.
rabrotOf Darkness And LightPelagic
Of Darkness And Light closes with the one-two of ‘Swan Killer’ and ‘Love Under Will’. The former is a slinky, swampy, organ-led number complete with fried, reverb-soaked guitar. Of all the songs on the album, it most successfully merges the band’s grotty past with its present. The latter also leans heavily on electronic organ, but to more romantic ends. Were this album a Rocky Horror-style musical, ‘Love Under Will’ would be the show-stopper. Similarly, one gets the impression that the driving, symphonic, pop-industrial chug of ‘Madness’ might stand an outside chance at Eurovision. It feels almost perverse to write, but when this album is firing on all cylinders, it might be Årabrot at peak performance – the aural equivalent of biting into a chocolate skull full of strawberry goo.
TorporAbscissionHuman Worth
Recorded in rural Wales during a period of heavy personal turmoil, you can really feel the sense of isolation seeping out of TORPOR’s third album, certainly their starkest, darkest and most haunting to date. Their signature crushing grooves are sounding weightier than ever (captured expertly by Pet Brick’s Wayne Adams), but Abscission also pushes the post metal trio’s sound into both more aggressive, abrasive territory and eerie, ethereal ambience.
Flesh The DreamChoose MortalityMusic Information Centre Lithuania
The potency of this pairing of Shackleton and Heather Leigh was first displayed on 2019’s ‘The World Is A Stage / Reach The Endless Sea’ from Shackleton’s Tunes Of Negation project, but is signed, sealed and delivered on Choose Mortality, a woozy, sticky psychedelia that blooms with percussion and the snap of marching band drums. On ‘Ecstasy Before The Altar’, a slow, liquid pulse and stoned repetitions move like ink in water, sunk in a cloud of smoke that clears for a regimented snare to cut through. Effervescent and heady, every time I listen to this album I notice new layers: another vocal track sunk in the ooze; repeated words emerging from the syrup; the rat-tat-tat of a woodblock; a chime to collar you in the peak moments. After half a year with this record, I find its greatest success is in how it manages to be wholly located in esoteric psychedelia, without a single trace of old structures or vintage sounds. I have adored Shackleton and Heather Leigh for years and feel this collaboration was dreamed up for my pleasure by whatever doomsday simulation we’re in right now, so please send my thanks to whoever is at the controls.
SourdurentL’Herbe De DétourneMurailles Music
Sourdurent is an extension, in both name and personnel, of Ernest Bergez’s Sourdure project – itself one of the finest of France’s thriving alternative folk scene. Growing organically out of live performances, Sourdurent calls on the talents of Bégayer’s Loup Uberto, singer and multi-instrumentalist Elisa Trébouville, and bagpipe player and La Nòvia member Jacque Puech. As they strike up on opener ‘Franc De Bruch’, the initial impression is of a more streamlined – even trad – sound, relative to the wild invention and mood swings of 2021’s De Mòrt Viva, until you notice the chugging electronic rhythm underpinning the instrumental curlicues and rousing mass of voices. And, as with the Sourdure releases, the band throw a variety of sources into the pot, blending traditional music from Afghanistan, Tunisia and the Averyron department of southern France with original compositions in Occitan (a language not only particular to that region but also parts of Italy, Monaco and Catalonia), and judicious use of electronics.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs PigsLand Of SleeperRocket Recordings
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are a band unafraid to dip into the sizeable pool of rock music tropes, crafting a scuzzy, psych-infused sound that touches upon Sabbath and Motörhead with giddy abandonment. For the most part, Land Of Sleeper is a simple affair – brazenly, charmingly simple – with the holy triptych of guitar, bass and drums playing in near unison, oscillating between breakneck chugging riffs and half-speed, euphoric breakdowns. Yet beneath a well-executed sea of distortion lies perhaps a little more. The entire album seems to be rendered through a visceral wall of nostalgia, as if we are peering into a rock & roll fever dream – its parts borrowed, though familiar, strange, and abstract. The effect is no doubt caused in part by the production – much of the high-frequency clarity has been rolled off, leaving the instruments to merge together in a broad swamp that dampens the macho party vibes such Big Riffs often invoke.
Cassandra MillerTraveller Song / ThanksongBlack Truffle
It tells you something about the regard different formats are held in across different genres to learn that Traveller Song / Thanksong is Cassandra Miller’s first release on vinyl. This is a composer whose works have been ranked amongst the 20 greatest pieces of classical music this century, whose music has been performed and recorded by the Quator Bozzini and Apartment House, whose been commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, yet nary a note on wax until Oren Ambarchi’s peerless Black Truffle label put this one out in September. For some years now, Miller’s practice has frequently involved the very close transcription and re-orchestration of found materials: the cracked voice of Kurt Cobain on For Mira (2012), Italian folksinger Maria Carta on the spellbinding Duet For Cello And Orchestra (2015). Here we find Miller’s own voice, singing along to old Alan Lomax recordings or bits of Beethoven, then isolated and beautifully re-contextualised by piano, acoustic guitar and some keening string glissandi. It’s brittle and tender, and utterly bewitching.
Natalia BeylisMermaidsTouch Sensitive
On Mermaids, Natalia Beylis once again probes the sound of memories and the ephemera that keep them alive. The record came to fruition after Beylis discovered a CRB Elettronica Ancona – Model: Diamond 708 E electric keyboard while digging through the Leitrim recycling centre, and found an old image of her mother sitting with a couple of friends at the beach. The bubbling sound of the instrument and the watery landscape of the photograph led her to look underwater for sonic inspiration, but much of the album feels grounded on land, made of chirping birds, gravelly footsteps and dew-like glistening twinkles.
A.P.A.t.T. WeNine X Nine
a.P.A.t.T. are perhaps most spiritually akin to the kind of diverse genre collaging that John Zorn, Mr. Bungle or Secret Chiefs 3 engage in, without really sounding, apart from the odd occasion, like any of them. This is not so much attention deficit music as attention intensive music which rewards time spent with it, particularly for listeners whose taste remains relatively fluid. The recently departed Mark Stewart once said: “Taste is a form of censorship,” something a.P.A.t.T. appreciate and toy with the listener’s expectations accordingly. This can sometimes lead to a startling realisation that something potentially unpalatable has appeared on one’s plate, but can also result in eventual appreciation of new flavour combinations.
NonameSundialSelf-Released
Noname, the witty and adventurous Chicago rapper who emerged last decade alongside contemporaries such as Chance The Rapper and Saba, sets her sights on various targets on Sundial. Placed alongside call-outs of what she feels are the worst elements of modern-day identity politics across the record, the track ‘Namesake’ sees her cast aspersions on Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna for performing the Super Bowl Halftime Show (an event that she feels glorifies the US military), while ‘Hold Me Down’ pokes at Barack Obama (“First Black president, and he the one who bombed us”). In the wrong hands, these words could come off as mere attention-seeking hectoring, but Noname isn’t afraid to confront her own failings at frequent turns either. On ‘Namesake’, she criticises her decision to play the industry game by appearing at the “sanitised” Coachella festival earlier this year, while ‘Beauty Supply’ explores the ways in which she’s been indoctrinated into societal perceptions of Black beauty. Set against jazz and soul-inflected hip hop beats, Noname’s lyrics on Sundial capture the artist at her sharp and breezy best.
