Most Loved and Enjoyed Highlighted Albums of 2024: Part One: A – L
December 10, 2024
Welcome to part one of the Monolith Cocktail’s most loved and favourite albums of 2024 lists.
Picked by Dominic Valvona and Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea.
Despite the tumult of problems that face artists and bands in the music industry, from a lack of general interest to the increasingly punitive costs of touring and playing live, the worrying trend of venue closures, the ever-encroaching domination of streaming against physical sales and exposure, and the onslaught of AI, people just can’t quit making music. And that’s all without listing the political, social and economic woes that continue to make life unbearable for most of us; the scandalous forces of austerity/cost-of-living crisis and post-Covid hangover threatening to constantly drag us under. We, as critics – though most of us have either been musicians or still are – really appreciate what you guys, the music makers, do in the face of such intense stresses.
In fact, as we have always tried to convey, we celebrate you all. And so (as I say every year) instead of those silly, factious and plain dumb numerical charts that our peers and rivals insist on continuing to print – how can you really suggest one album deserves their place above or below another; why does one entry get the 23rd spot and another the 22nd; unless it is a vote count, and even then, does it really come down to a popularity contest? –, the Monolith Cocktail has always chosen a much more diplomatic and democratic alphabetical order – something we (more or less) started in the first place.
The lists are broken up this year into two parts, A-L, and M-Z, and include those albums we’ve reviewed or featured on the site in some capacity, plus a smattering of those we just didn’t get the time to include. All entries are displayed thus: Artist (in alphabetical order) then the album title, label, who it was chosen by and a review link, if there is one. We also included quotes and summaries underneath.
Before we precede, we’d like to thank the following contributors to the site this year: Dominic Valvona, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Matt Oliver, Graham Domain, Mikey McDonald and Andrew C. Kidd, plus our Italian friends at Kalporz. Also, our gratitude and love for all our supporters during the year, and to those that have donated to https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail We really can’t have continued without it.
A_
A Journey Of Giraffes ‘Retro Porter’ (Somewherecold Records)
Chosen by Dominic Valvona/Review
“The sound of John Lane’s most prolific and artistically successful alias, A Journey Of Giraffes (no stranger to the blog, and often featured in our choice end of year features) is given almost unlimited time and space to unfurl on the ambitious opus-spanning Retro Porter album of ambient empirical suites.
An expansion upon Lane’s previous work – especially last year’s choice album entry, Empress Nouveau – each evolving sensory piece allows all the Baltimore composer’s signatures, motifs and serialism-like enquires to recollect memories of places and scenes, of the abstract, over the course of what sounds like a whole day.
Mirages, imaging’s, the sound of birds in the iron lattice gardens of an ostentatious arcade percent as described in late 19th century novella’s, sonorous pitches, the softened sound of a taiko drum at the Kabuki theatre, various hinges, dulcimer-like strokes all evaporate then solidify to create an ambient opus; a lifetimes work coalesced into one expansive, layered work of soundscape art and abstraction. Lane has allowed his mind to wander and explore organic and cerebral long form ideas like never before to produce, perhaps, his most accomplished unrestricted work yet.” DV
Annarella and Django ‘Jouer’ (We Are Busy Bodies/Sing A Song Fighter)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Born from the Senegalese imbued and inspired hub built around Sweden’s Wau Wau Collectif, another cross-cultural project that embraces that West African nation’s (and its neighbours) rich musical heritage. Fusing the roots, landscape and themes of Senegal with those of Europe, the partnership of Swedish flutist Annarella and the Malian born ngoni master Django absorbs the very atmosphere of that westernmost African republic, transposing and transforming age old traditions with a hybrid of contemporary musical effects and influences and guest list of diverse musicians and voices.
Django’s home environment and the outlier around it seeps into and materializes like a dreamy haze across all the album’s tracks, as evocations of the classical, of jazz and the blues mixes with the local stew of diverse languages. Tracks like ‘Degrees of Freedom’ are more mystical sounding, near cosmic, as the band saunter like gauze under the moon and across the desert’s sandy tides. Jouer, which translates from the French into “play”, is just that, a lovely stirring union of the playful that seamlessly entwines the two musician’s respective practices with sympathy, respect and the earthly concerns of our endangered societies and world. Hopefully this collaboration will continue and grow over the years; there’s not been a better one since Catrin Finch teamed up with Seckou Keita.” DV
Fran Ashcroft ‘Songs That Never Were’ (Think Like A Key)
Chosen by Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea/Review
“There is a uniqueness about this album; a trueness and soul you do not come across often much in these days of music to be played on phones. These are songs that could have been written anytime over the last 50 or so years, with some quite beautiful melodies and great lyrics; songs made for and by a music lover…already one on my end of the year best list.” BBS
B__
Donald Beaman ‘Fog On Mirror Glass’ (Royal Oakie)
Chosen by DV/Review
“The play and course of light, the recurring “phantom” and a beautiful subdued, nigh on elegiac poetry conjures up a simultaneous union of the beatific and longing on the latest solo effort from Donald Beaman.
Like a drifter’s songbook of subtle, intimate and home-recorded wanderings, metaphors and the like for yearned and plaintive romantic loss, fondness, the passing/measuring of time, and the urge to find comfort and solace, Fog On Mirror Glass uses memories of the weather, the way the light touched or dimmed at a given moment in time, and the smallest of witnessed movements/touches to evoke the right atmosphere of gossamer and sparsity.
In all, a most impressive and understated songbook of honest quality and performance, themed largely around the way light falls upon any given metaphor, analogy, phrase, description and texture. Unadorned, the feelings are left to pull and draw the listener into a most intimate world. Each play reveals more, as the album really begins to grow on you. A fine record indeed.” DV
Beauty Stab ‘Guide/Frisk’
Chosen by BBS/Review
“After a five plus year wait, we have the debut, and who knows, only album from the one time much tipped for big things Beauty Stab. An album filled with sex sleaze and glamour but with a healthy or unhealthy dose of darkness.
The sound and feel of eighties chart land I think has a big influence on Beauty Stab. They do share a name with ABC’s second album after all, and I can almost hear Martin Fry emote over the bass heavy synth pop funk of “Manic”.
“GUIDE/FRISK” is a wonderful and inventive crafted album that celebrates the joy and darkness and power that great pop music can bring to your life and really deserves to be heard by all.” BBS
Black Artist Group ‘For Peace And Liberty, In Paris December 1972’ (WEWANTSOUNDS)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Saved from obscurity and jazz lore, the previously believed “long-lost” recordings of the Black Artist Group’s radical free, avant-garde, spiritual and Afro jazz (with a side order hustle of funk) performance in Paris has been thankfully unearthed, dusted off and remastered in a project partnership between the band and the French Institut national de l’audiovisuel. Facilitating this operation are the reissue revivalist vinyl specialists WEWANTSOUNDS – regularly featured in my review columns over the years -, who’ve invited various connoisseur experts to provide liner notes, essays and photographic images to this package.
At times we’re talking Coltrane and Sun Ra, and at other times Roscoe Mitchell, Carlos Garnett and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. You can also pick up some Chick, a touch of Cymande, of Art Blakey, Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton. But to be specific, if you dig Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s ‘Safari’, Ornette Coleman’s ‘Lonely Woman’ and Don Cherry’s Organic Music Society then you’ll really need to part with the cash and have this on your shelf asap: not before blasting it out from your turntable.” DV
Black Diamond ‘Furniture Of The Mind Rearranging’ (We Jazz)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Transported back in time, and then propelled forward into the now via Chicago’s musical legacy, its rich heritage of innovators and scope in the world of jazz, Artie Black and Hunter Diamond’s dual saxophone and woodwind focused vehicle can trace a line from the Windy City’s smokestack bluesy outlines of the 50s through the icons Sun Ra, Roscoe Mitchell, Eddie Johnson, Lester Bowie, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Anthony Braxton and the hothouse of undeniable influence and talent, the Association For The Advancement Of Creative Musicians.
Across an ambitious double-album spread of both quartet and duo mode formations, those Black Diamonds don’t so much shine as smoulder and fizzle to a smoky and simmering resonance and metropolis backdrop encroached by wild jungles and fertile growth.” DV
Bloom De Wilde ‘The Circular Being’
Chosen by BBS/Review
“I love the muse and the music of Bloom de Wilde. It has a tender all-consuming innocence and hope that calmly plays Rock Paper Scissors with a wistful sadness and melancholy.
Bloom writes songs that offer hope against all the odds; songs that embrace the eccentrics and outsiders, all the underdogs in life. Maybe that is why I feel a connection to her music and at times find myself totally engrossed with her beautiful tapestry of pop, jazz, folk and psychedelia, which she has woven with great love and skill to make great art.
Bloom is a fine songwriter, which may sometimes be overlooked due to the wonderful eccentricities of her personality and is a quite an accomplished and original lyricist, as this fascinating eleven song album of love, hope and magic shows.” BBS
The Bordellos ‘Nobody’s Listening’ (Metal Postcard Records)
Chosen by DV/Review by Graham Domain
“This is another perfect ‘slice of life’ album from The Bordellos. If all they had was a pair of spoons and a cassette-recorder, they would still be driven to record these hazy snapshots of life, in the same way that L S Lowry splashed his canvas with the daily drudgery and drama of the northern working-class. Was anyone paying attention to Mr Lowry at the time? No! But today there are hotels, theatres and tree-lined streets named after him. (Even Bowie was one to acknowledge the match-stalk painters genius titling his best album Low)!” Graham Domain
boycalledcrow ‘Kullau (Mortality Tables)
Chosen by DV/Review
“A musical atmospheric hallucination and psychedelic dream-realism of a roadmap, the latest transduced-style album from Carl M Knott (aka a boycalledcrow) takes his recollections, memory card filled photo albums, samples and experiences of travelling through Northern India between 2005 and 2006 and turns them into near avant-garde transported passages of outsider art music.
Place names (that album title refers to the village, an ancient kingdom, of ‘Kullu’, which sits in the ‘snow-laden mountain’ province of Himachel Pradesh in the Western Himalayas), Buddhist self-transformation methods (the extremely tough self-observation process of “non-reaction” for the body and mind known as “Vipassana”), Hindu and Jainism yogis (the “Sadhu”, a religious ascetic, mendicant or any kind of holy person who has renounced the worldly life, choosing instead to dedicate themselves to achieving “moksha” – liberation – through meditation and the contemplation of God) and language (the localised distinctive Kullu dialect and syntax of “Kanashi”, currently under threat) are all used as vague reference points, markers in this hallucinatory grand tour.” DV
Brevity ‘Home Is Where Your Dog Is’ (Think Like A Key)
Chosen by BBS/Review
“The wonderfully named “Home Is Where your Dog Is” is the unreleased album, plus some demo recordings, by late the 60’s early 70’s Chicago rock band Brevity, a band who never actually got to release anything at the time but had interest and encouragement from both Island Records and Frank Zappa’s Bizarre/Straight Records. Truth be told, released here for the first time by Think Like A Key Records, it is indeed a bit of a lost and now found musical treasure.
“Home Is Where Your Dog Is” is one of those rare lost albums that actually deserves to be labelled a lost classic, and the added demos actually have an indie/post punk feel to them that reminded me strangely of very early Pulp in their more acoustic like days. Yes, one of my favourite albums I have had the pleasure to listen to this year: a true Gem of an album.” BBS
Charlie Butler ‘Wild Fictions’ (Cruel Nature Records)
Chosen by DV/Review originally by Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
“The music is all that you hoped it would be, for music without hope is hopeless and this is anything but that; it is the cream cake among lesser mortals.” BBS”
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Chris Corsano ‘The Key (Became the Important Thing [and Then Just Faded Away])’
(Drag City) – Chosen by DV
The prolific free-jazz, avant-garde and avant-hard drumming innovator Chris Corsano can be found as an instigator or willing foil across a multitude of experimental collaborations (recently on the MC appearing alongside Nels Cline, Darin Gray and Glenn Kotche as part of the We Jazz signed-off Saccata Quartet) but his soloist works are just as numerous and far reaching/influential. I lost count of appearances and album releases in 2024, but this constant rhythmic and non-rhythmic progressing album is my favourite, taken from back in June.
Literally letting rip with an apparatus of recognisable and often non-musical implements, Corsano fuses a noise and splash of ripping and tearing sounds with no wave Kraut-punk (think CAN, Faust), West African drumming, alternative jazz and jazz-prog-rock. Untethered, clever, and anarchistic in equal measures. DV
Alison Cotton ‘Engelchen’ (Rocket Recordings)
Chosen by DV/Review
“In the wake of the barbaric terrorism of Hamas on October 7th, and the ensuing destructive retaliation/ obliteration of Gaza by Israel since, there seems little room – let alone nuance and balance – on the debate; battle lines have been drawn and divisions sowed. And so, this inspired tale of ‘derring-do’ (originally performed live at the Seventeen Nineteen Holy Church in Sunderland) performance suite from the Sunderland composer Alison Cotton is a most timely reminder of dark history, but also of altruistic acts of kindness.
Scoring the story of the innocuous Cook sisters, Ida and Louise, and their incredibly brave rescue attempts to save the lives of twenty-nine Jews from occupied Europe during the build-up and eventual outbreak of WWII, Cotton ties in the modern plight of refugees escaping similar persecutions.
Less a morbid, dark soundtrack to the evils of the Nazi regime and Holocaust, Cotton instead conveys the enormity and the danger of the Cook’s enterprise through slow tidal movements, tones, intonations and changes in the atmosphere. Throughout it all a prevailing presence and emotional pull can be felt: The mood music of grief, the plaintive and sorrowful cumulating in a beautifully played series of arrangements and suites that are as sombre as they are beautiful and moving – reminding me in parts of Alex Stolze, Anne Müller, Simon McCorry and Aftab Darvishi.” DV
D____
Ëda Diaz ‘Suave Bruta’ (Airfono)
Chosen by DV/ Review
“A rarefied artist who manages to merge dream-realism with both the traditional and contemporary, Ëda Diaz occupies multiple realms of geography to produce sublime and club-lite Latin-European R&B pop music. Between spheres of influence, her French-Colombian heritage is bonded across an exotic soundboard of effects, precise cut electronica, and transformed repurposed old dances and song; the latter of which includes an electrified form of currulao, ‘wonky’ Colombian salsa, bolero, bullerengue, vallenato and ‘dembow’. I absolutely love this spellbinding, vulnerable and playful Latin-Euro vision.” DV
E_____
Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble ‘Open Me, A Higher Consciousness Of Sound And Spirit’ (Spiritmuse Records) – Chosen by DV/Review
“Originally hot-housed in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (the mid-1960s nonprofit organization instigated by Muhal Richard Abrams, Jodie Christian, Steve McCall and Phil Cohran in Chicago, which El’Zabar himself once chaired) incubator, El’Zabar’s percussive, drumming rhythms for the mind, body and soul channelled the windy city’s rich musical lineage of jazz, blues, R&B, soul, Godspell and what would become house and dance music.
Following on from last year’s Spirit Gather tribute to Don Cherry (which featured the worldly jazz icon’s eldest son David Ornette Cherry shortly before his death) this latest conscious and spiritual work channels that rich legacy whilst worshipping at the altar of those icons, progenitors and idols that came before; namely, in this instance, Miles Davis, Eugene McDaniels and McCoy Tyner.
El’Zabar’s once more heals, opens minds and elevates with another rhythmic dance of native tongues and groove spiritualism. The ancient roots of that infectious groove and the urgency of our modern times are bonded together to look back on a legacy that deserves celebrating. After fifty years of quality jazz exploration and collaboration, El’Zabar proves that there is still much to communicate and share as he and the EHE recast classics and original standards from the back catalogue.” DV
Empty House ‘Bluestone’ (Cruel Nature Records)
Chosen by DV/Review
“The megalithic period “cromlech” (frequently interchanged with and referred to a “dolmen” too) construction of large stone blocks that stands within the borders of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, in the village of Pentre Ifan, acts as a gateway to the imagination for the Blackpool-based musician Fred Laird, who goes under the moniker of Empty House.
Avalon mists descend across a communication with the landscape, whilst shriven archaic reenactments stir-up the hallucinatory and esoteric. Old vacuums of air blow through the spaces in between the stones as a haunted geology shrieks, howls, mourns and swirls. And a wispy passage of monastery choral voices carries on the wind as children giggle and the neolithic generator revs up vibrations and pulses from the afterlife. The Incredible String Band makes merry with Julian Cope; Steve Hillage joins Ash Ra Tempel; and Affenstunde period Popol Vuh invokes ghostly parallel histories with Xqui and Quimper on a tour of Ley lines. Atmospheres and scenes from a long history of settlement, of the spiritual, envelope the listener on a most subtle but rich field recording trip.” DV
Peter Evans ‘Extra’ (We Jazz)
Chosen by DV/Review
“A meeting of avant-garde minds to savour, the union of Peter Evans with Koma Saxo and Post Koma instigator and bassist Petter Eldh and New York downtown experimental rock and jazz drummer pioneer Jim Black is every bit as dynamic, explosive, torqued, moody, challenging and exciting as you’d imagine.
A crossroads of separate entangled influences and backgrounds, legacies, with all three practitioners in this Evans-fronted project and their CVs stretching back a few decades, the avant-garde rubs up against the blues, hard bop, atmospheric set scores, hip-hop style breaks, the electronic and classical. By using both the piccolo and flugelhorn on this album, some passages sound like Wynton Marsalis playing over Mozart, or Alison Balsom lending classical airs to an Alfa Mist production.
One of the best jazz albums you’ll hear all year, with a spot saved for the choice albums of the year lists, Extras is a thoroughly inventive and exciting dynamism of contemporary luminaries at the height of their skills and knowledge.” DV
F______
Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly ‘MESTIZX’ (International Anthem X Nonesuch)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Transformed and remoulded for a more progressive age the “MESTIZX” title of this partnership’s debut album takes the Spanish term for “mixed person” (namely, a union between those indigenous people in the Latin conquered territories of South America and the Spanish) away from its colonial roots and repurposes it on an album of dream realism duality.
With the multimedia performer and singer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti’s Bolivian and the jazz drummer Frank Rosaly’s Puerto Rican heritages, the pre-colonial history of South America is woven into a contemporary revision of magic, organic forms and ritual rhythms mixed with elements and a suffusion of Chicago post-rock, post-jazz and alternative Latin leftfield pop.
There’s much to admire in this world of the untamed and wild, with new perspectives, mixed histories and the largely melodious reverberations of the lost exercising a new language of ownership. Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly perfect and expand their organic explorations, bewitching messages and oracles on an intriguing, moving and dreamily trippy debut album.” DV
G_______
Michal Gutman ‘Never Coming Home’ (Cruel Nature Records)
Chosen by BBS/Review
““Never Coming Home” is a darkly beautiful album; an album of twisted musical discovery, with songs worthy to fall from the lips and the pen of the great Dory Previn; songs that pull you into a strange and beguiling solitude place, where you only have memories and fears and regrets for company. Musically stark and bewitching like an unused broken fairground ride: a bass guitar has never sounded so much like the faded remnants of an old lover’s final kiss. “Never Coming Home” is quite simply stunning.” BBS
Nino Gvilia ‘EP Number 1: Nicole’ & ‘EP Number 2: Overwhelmed By The Unexplained’ (Hive Mind Records) – Chosen by DV/Review
“Creating a musical, lyrical eco system of their own, soundtracked by folk, minimalism, the hallucinatory and pastoral – with only the final vaporous misty esoteric second EP’s titular track changing from cuckoo-like voiced loops and sympathetic strings to disturbing futuristic daemonic augur –, the Nino Gvilia encompassed guise ebbs and flows with the movement of the replenishing waters, the lakeside and mill turning scenes of the surroundings, to produce a disarming hymn. Idiosyncratic in beauty, I’d recommend this diaphanous accomplished mini opus to those with a penchant for Hatis Noit, Seaming To, Tia Blake and Roberto Musci.”
H________
Hackedepicciotto ‘The Best Of Hackedepicciotto (Live In Napoli)’ (Mute)
Chosen by DV/Review
“As a duo in recent years, Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto under the twinned Hackedepicciotto moniker, have channelled their diverse experiences as members/instigators of such groups as Einstürzende Neubauten, Crime And The City Solution and the Space Cowboys, into a signature sound that embraces the cabaret and soundtrack gravitas of post-punk, post-industrial, electronica, the esoteric, weird folk and twisted fairytale: which they themselves have described as “symphonic drone”.
Their fifth album, the partial sonic and lyrical autobiography, part photo album scrap book dedication, Keepsakes, was released last year. As with most of their catalogue, the duo’s albums are either recorded in a stirring, inspiring location, or in a different country. The most recent being no exception, recorded as it was at Napoli’s legendary Auditorium Novecento using the famous venue’s stock of various instruments. That album now forms the focal or centre point for this live release of choice bell tolled maladies and drone sonnets from the duo’s back catalogue. Performed over two nights, they’ve chosen to return to the Auditorium Novecento setting that made Keepsakes such an atmospherically rich and momentous, dramatic record. And so, they perform a quartet of songs from that most recent album alongside picks from the Menetekel (2017), The Current (2020), The Silver Threshold (2021) and Perseverantia (2023) albums. And it proves a winning formula as the perfect showcase, and a more unique approach to performing the “best of” their back catalogue.” DV
Christopher Haddow ‘An Unexpected Great Leap’ (Erol’s Hot Wax)
Chosen by DV/Review
“A comfort blanket bookended by the reassuring signs of life via the sounds of an ultrasound, Christopher Haddow’s first steps out as a solo artist (flanked on either side by the contributions of Josh Longton on double-bass and Jamie Bolland on piano) capture the abstract feelings of parenthood. An Unexpected Great Leap is in fact, partially, an ambient tool to send both Christopher and his artist wife Athene Grieg’s son Louie off to sleep.
You may know Christopher as the former lead guitarist of Paper Planes and as a member of Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gates, but under his own name and with a different, more personal, direction he’s beautifully, imaginatively and conceptually complimented his wife’s visual feels of parenthood with a searching and settling album of ambient Americana and womb music.” DV
Sahra Halgan ‘Hiddo Dhawr’ (Danaya)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Few artists from the disputed region of Somaliland could qualify better than the singer, freedom fighter and activist Shara Halgan to represent their country’s musical legacy. As an unofficial cultural ambassador and symbol for female empowerment Halgan’s journey is an inspiring one: Forced out of her homeland during a destructive civil war – in which she played a part in nursing and “comforting” fighters from Somaliland’s secession movement, sometimes alleviating suffering through song –, Halgan had to flee abroad to “survive” hardships and dislocation in France, but eventually, a decade after the overthrow of Siad Barre’s ruling military junta, returned home to motivate and promote proud in Somaliland’s cultural heritage.
It was during her time in France, removed from her roots and homesick, that Halgan would meet the musicians that went on to form her studio and touring band: step forward percussionist and founder of the French-Malian group BKO Quintet, Aymeric Krol, and the guitarist and member of the Swiss ensemble Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp and L’etrangleuse, Maël Salètes. Both appear on the latest, and third Halgan album, alongside newest recruit Régis Monte, who adds “vintage organ” and “proto-electronic embellishments” to the heady and fuzzed mix.
Enriched soul music with an edge and buzz, Halgan and her troupe strike a balance between the heartfelt and empowered on electrifying album; that focal voice sounding so fresh and young yet wise and experienced, able to encapsulate a whole culture whilst moving forward.” DV
Herandu ‘Ocher Red’ (Hive Mind Records)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Trance is spun with bass noodling, Ethio-jazz, post-punk funk, Moroccan and Arabian cassette culture, retro space age keys, no wave dance music and the Aphex Twin to create an interesting explorative zap, skip, playful, mysterious and dreamy vision that mirrors the Gavrilov brothers feelings of their native landscape, and the episodes of life, the shaping of their creativity, born in that Siberian setting.” DV
Herald ‘Linear B’ (Errol’s Hot Wax)
Chosen by DV/Review
“If mid-70s Eno working his magic with Merriweather Post Pavilion sounds like a match anointed in heaven then Lawrence Worthington’s ridiculously long-delayed debut album is going to send you into a woozy alt-pop state of bliss. The latter partner in that ideal fantasy of influences is hardly surprising, with the Animal Collective’s “infrequent” co-founding member Josh Dibb (aka Deakin) playing the part of co-producing foil and soundboard. And although the eventual Linear B album was first conceived twenty plus years ago, when the Animal Collective and Panda Bear and a menagerie of congruous bands were building an alternative-psych-pop scene – the darlings (quite rightly) of Pitchfork and the burgeoning MySpace culture -, and when the musical palette of sounds is produced on cheap 90s Casio and Yamaha equipment, Worthington’s Herald nom de plume still resonates and feels refreshingly dreamily idiosyncratic.
The results set a personal psychedelic language of feels and character-dotted whimsy to a maverick alt-synth-pop production: imagine Syd Barrett, K. Leimar and Edward Penfold backed by a Factory Records White Fence or Panda Bear. Unassumingly lo fi yet symphonic, you can hear hints of neo-romantics, colder synth spells, the post-punk, the Bureau B label’s cult German new wave and post-krautrock offerings, John Cale and a very removed vision of The Beach Boys.” DV
Holy Matter ‘Beauty Looking Back’
Chosen by DV/Review
“Bathed in a new diaphanous light, Leanna Kaiser steps away from her ambient shrouded Frances With Wolves duo (albeit with an embraced cast of familiar faces and musicians) to take up the soloist guise of Holy Matter.
Following up on a tapestry of enchanted and dreamy singles, woven from gossamer threads of fairytale and fantasy, the musician, songwriter and filmmaker now unfurls an entire beautiful album of nostalgic imbued troubadour-folk, softened psychedelia and country woes, sad lilted resignation, solace, reflection and pathos.
Gazing both lamentably and in sighed resignation from metaphorical fairytale towers and vantage points emphasised by poetic weather patterns, Kaiser gently exudes a longing sense of wistful pulchritude. The past is always near, inescapable and worn like a comfort blanket; moulded to Kaiser’s desires, sorrows, reflections and duality. Holy Matter proves an interesting alluring and enchanting creative progression for Kaiser, her debut solo a refreshing take on the familiar and the tropes of time. “ DV
Hungrytown ‘Circus For Sale’ (Big Stir Records)
Chosen by BBS/Review
“This is the fourth album from Hungrytown, but the first I have had the pleasure of hearing, and indeed it is a pleasure as psych folk with more than a hint of baroque pop is right up my street. There is a beauty and calmness to it that one can lose themself in and ignore and forget briefly the day-to-day turmoil that surrounds them. Vocalist Rebbecca Hall is blessed with a magically sweet innocent voice that floats and weaves its way through the musical sea of melodious tranquillity that wraps itself around the listener: pure bliss.” BBS
K___________
Kitchen Cynics & Margery Daw ‘As Those Gone Before’ (Cruel Nature Records)
Chosen by BBS/Review
“I admit I have a bit of a soft spot for weird, strange folk music, I put it down to watching too much Bagpuss and The Clangers as a toddler: wasn’t the 70’s a wonderful decade to be a child. So, this fine album of weird, strange folk songs is right down my summer pathway stroll of mischievous delight.
Kitchen Cynics & Margery Daw go from the childlike tales of the sinister folk whimsy “Christopher Tadpole” to the dark and cold clawing of “Mole Man“; if you wondered what story time at the nursery school on summer isle might sound like, these gems will answer your wonderings. “The Four Trains That Killed Me” and “Last Of The Little Lost Lambs” are both wonderfully John Cale like in the darkness and utter beauty as much as “Accused Isle” is like listening to a slightly deranged Pam Ayres on the old Radio Luxembourg via an old transister radio under the bed clothes in the darkest of nights [wasn’t the 70’s a wonderful decade to be a child]. “As Those Gone Before” is a true magical gem of off-kilter folk whimsy, an album of true eccentric magnificence.” BBS
L____________
The Legless Crabs ‘No Condoms, Just Satan’ (Metal Postcard Records)
Chosen by BBS/Review
“The sound of rock ‘n’ roll future and past collide in this nineteen-track beauty of anger and attitude: songs that deal with the strangeness of living in this world today.
From the Cramps like “I Catfished My Brother” and the sonic escapades of “Rope Bunny”, to the heaviness and sludge-rock dark humour of “Shark Lover” this is an album that should be all over alternative radio, and once again, has to compete with far less talented and easier and blander beige alternative rock.” BBS
Letters from Mouse ‘Clota’ (Subexotic Records)
Chosen by DV/Review originally by Graham Domain
“In Celtic mythology, the Goddess Clota was patron of the River Clyde and brought purity to the natural landscape. The album pieces reflect the beauty of nature and how nature evolves and changes, both with the day and with the changing of the seasons.
Altogether it’s a beautiful album that deserves to be heard by many. It is also a great ambient album for meditation or creative work such as painting. Wonderful.” GD
LINA_ ‘Fado Camões’ (Galileo Music)
Chosen by DV/Review
“Back this time with the British producer and musician Justin Adams and a small ensemble, LINA_ takes on the classical 16th century poetics of Portugal’s most famous literary son, Luís Vaz de Camões.
Musically tender, accentuated and like a fog, mist at times, even vapour of the mere essence of a score, there’s echoes of old Spain, the Balearics, North Africa, the Middle East but also Turkey and the Hellenic. LINA_ is a leading light, pushing the boundaries without losing the soul, truth and appeal of the music she adopts and transforms. Fado Camões is another artistic triumph.” DV
The Loved Drones ‘Live at Atelier Rock HUY’
Chosen by BBS/Review
“The Loved Drones have a power and an all-round likability and uniqueness that all the great bands have. They are a band who plough their own furrow through live casting off tangent animal shapes at the sun, raising two fingers to the lack of talent and originality that currently is forced upon us by the mainstream radio and press. The Loved Drones are quite wonderful.
“The Hindenburg Omen” is a instrumental that a blockbuster film should be made just so it can be included on the soundtrack, and “Humans Can’t Compete” once again is brimming with a Cope-like magnificence. These eight live tracks show what a great band we have in our mists and really should be heard and appreciated by all of us music lovers who love mind bending space hopping cosmic musical delights.” BBS
THE MONTHLY DIGEST OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC, THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSRAY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST, AND ARCHIVE MATERIAL CHOSEN BY DOMINIC VALVONA
Continuing a series that started in 2023, the Digest is my one-stop column of the new and the old; a secondary home to all those releases I missed out on or didn’t get room to feature in either my Perusal reviews features or singular Our Daily Bread posts, plus a chance to celebrate timely anniversary albums and dip into my own record collection with the a special anything goes playlist, and to, finally, dip into the Monolith Cocktail Archives.
The New: this will be a briefing of a sort, with a short outline, thoughts and reactions to a number of recent albums from my inbox – currently a 1000+ releases a month on average!
The Social Playlist: choice music collected from across the ages, borders and genres, with a smattering of tracks from choice anniversary celebrating albums of worth and cult status. Consider it my unofficial radio show.
The Archives: self-explanatory, but each month I chose past pieces from the extensive Monolith Cocktail back pages that have a timely ring to them.
_((THE NEW))_
LINA_ ‘Fado Camões’
(Galileo Music)
Fado dramatist with the spellbinding voice, LINA_ follows up her impressive collaboration with Raul Refree with another unique reading of the famous Portuguese form of sullenness, sorrow and plaint. On that previous project, the diaphanous and emotionally sonorous pulling songstress and composer transformed the music of the Fado legend and actress Amália Rodrigues; filtering that icon’s songbook through a modern production of minimalistic gauze and sonic atmospheric effects.
Back this time with the British producer and musician Justin Adams (credits include projects with Robert Plant, Tinariwen, Eno and Sinead O’Conner to name but a few) and a small ensemble, LINA_ takes on the classical 16th century poetics of Portugal’s most famous literary son, Luís Vaz de Camões. So titan a figure in that country’s rich history, his medieval period language of lyrical romantic aches, mortality and nature is said to be the basis of Portuguese itself: often called the “language of Camões”. Integral to the very soul of Portugal then, it’s fitting that such a talent as LINA_ is behind this interpretation of his work; transcribing it’s prescient and near timeless reach to the music of Fado. Examples of which include, when translated into English from the original lyrical language, “They hear the tale of my misfortunes, and cure their ordeals with my hell”. Tortured but also overwhelmingly beautiful and romantic throughout, it suits the musical form very well across twelve near magical songs of air-y mysticism, the venerable, yearning and dreamy. Musically tender, accentuated and like a fog, mist at times, even vapour of the mere essence of a score, there’s echoes of old Spain, the Balearics, North Africa, the Middle East but also Turkey and the Hellenic. You can also add the supernatural to that list too: a passing over into the ether. At times other times there is an almost semi-classical feel, merged with Iberian and Galician new wave, with some songs standing out as radio-friendly floated diaphanous pop visions of the Fado spirit.
Incredible throughout, LINA_ once more proves herself the most striking if not talented artist in this field of exploration and music; bring together beautifully and evocatively time honoured traditions and the legacy of literary Portugal with the country’s most prized and famous export to magic up another essential album. LINA_ is a leading light, pushing the boundaries without losing the soul, truth and appeal of the music she adopts and transforms. Fado Camões is another artistic triumph.
Andy Haas/David Grollman ‘Act Of Love’
The experimental NYC percussionist-assemblage artist and knight of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood (alongside saxophonist Andy Haas and the late multi-tasking Michael Evans) David Grollman knows more than most about the cruelties of the Alzheimer’s Disease; losing his wife, the poet Rita Stein-Grollman to Early Onset Alzheimer’s in early 2023.
Funneled and channeled into this most recent album with Haas, Grollman and his sonic partner of avant-garde arts and evocations reflect the very essence of loss through an apparatus of Dadaist and Fluxus apparatus: namely in Grollman’s case the balloon, with the textured tactile touches and stretches of its latex surface wrinkling as it expels its air; in a manner, like the life force slowly leaving the deflated body and personality of what someone once was as they lose themselves to this incurable disease. Meanwhile on sax, Haas deals in exaggerated long, slowly drawn-out breathes and blows; sometimes appearing to lift the weight that sits on his lungs, and at other times making noises that resemble steam and the pressure of valves being released and squeezed. Together it sounds like La Monte Young, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton and Marshall Allen in remembrance.
But then there’s another dimension, the brilliant, often acerbic poetry of Rita (written before she succumbed to the disease), which is read out in both almost laconic and grumpy confrontational style by David. Another piece of text, ‘Message From ME’, which the title makes obvious, is a voicemail left by the already mentioned and late Michael Evans (who passed away back in 2021), another knock-about figure on the scene and much missed member of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood. Act Of Love is a challenging and strained but obviously emotional well of remembrance, with the harsh and more attentive abstractions of the performances somehow managing to convey that which can’t always be said or represented.
Variát & Merzbow ‘Unintended Intentions’
(I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free) – Released the end of last year
Unsurprisingly concentrating the mind, the brutal barbaric dystopian-scarred landscapes of war-torn Ukraine have been transmogrified into the abrasive, concrete debris soundscapes of nightmares by the trick noisemaker of dissonance and pulverizing noise, and co-instigator of the Prostir label, Dmyto Fedorenko (aka Variát). As his homeland continues to be bombarded and churned up by the invading forces of the despot Putin, Fedorenko teams up with fellow noise sculptor of some standing, Masami Akita – the harsh and confrontational Japanese artist behind the 500 plus back catalogue Merzbow project – to reshape the needled, scowled, squalled, overbearing, sinister, menacing and static coarse ruins: the only hope of which, is in the “resilience” of the Ukrainian people holding back the tide of destruction and evil.
Crushing morbid forces merge with the air raids of drone attacks, decay, coded signals, charged force fields, transistors, the Fortean radio set and the alien. Occasionally a keyboard chord materializes, along with the recognizable sounds of toms and breaks – the drums sounding like at times like they’re being beaten with boxing gloved pummeling hands. At one point it could be the set of a roofless cathedral, another, from the charred remains of a devastating fire: I could of course be projecting all this.
Throbbing Gristle, Gunther Wüsthoff, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sunn O))) (if they cashed in their guitars for synths and a laptop), Oberman Knocks, Boris and Scott Walker are all brought to mind. And yet this is a unique collaborative pneumatic and caustic vision from the two artists, one that can’t help but evoke the devastating, mindless and distressing scenes unfolding. And if you needed any prompting or a reminder, profits for this release all go to supporting ‘Ukraine resistance against Russia’ with donations made to self-defense and humanitarian foundations. PS: Thanks by the way to the label, I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, for the CD and stickers; always appreciated to receive something physical in an increasingly soulless, downloaded or streaming, non-committal world.
Various ‘Hyperboloid 2024’
(Hyperboloid Music)
I had to try and shoehorn this end-of-year compilation from the Latvian label in to the Digest this month. Twenty-five visionary trance-y and techno tracks from the roster’s myriad of artists – a sort of Balkans and beyond Warp label Artificial Intelligence series for the new age and new century -, there’s variations of the electronic genre spread out across a generous showcase that marks yet another creatively successful year for the imprint. Old skool rave breaks sit next to entrancing vista soundscapes; d’n’b with hardcore; and near Grimes-like pop electronica with thoughtful rumination. Get stuck in.
Roma Zuckerman ‘Phenomenon of Provincial Mentality’
(Gost Zvuk)
Filaments, electric currents, crispy buzzes and granular fizzles combine to form the most redacted and evocative of minimal techno, deep house and EBM-esque dance music on the Siberian producer’s archival showcase for the Gost Zvuk label. Charged, pulsing and rhythmic at all times, Roma Zuckerman’s spheres of influences run through glimpses and throbs of Basic Channel, Kreidler, Rob Hood and Dave Clarke, twinned and merged with an alternative cosmonaut Soviet era vision of Sky Records. And most surprising of all, on the collection’s finale, ‘Compañeros’, there’s a move toward windy-fluted Latin American with the use of a Spanish pastoral rhythm guitar. Voices, the echoes and morphed ravings, communications and alien warped effects of which, play their part too; at times sounding like Richard H. Kirk, and at others, like some two-way radio cosmic interface between ground control and Soyuz shuttle. A highly recommended slice of deep bass, futuristic and simultaneously retro-futuristic minimalist techno that will almost definitely make the end of year lists.
(((THE SOCIAL/VOLUME 82)))
Continuing with the decade-long Social – originally a DJ club night I’d pick up at different times over the past 20 plus years, and also a café residency from 2012 to 2014 – playlist, each month I literally chose the records that celebrate anniversary albums; those that I’d love to hear on the radio waves or DJs play once and while; and those records that pay a homage and pay respects to those artists who we’ve lost on the way.
January starts with one such sad but celebratory nod to the late Marlena Shaw, who passed away last weekend (I’m incidentally writing this at the start of the third week of the month). The California Soul(stress) had some real sass and attitude, as proven by the provocative, taking-no-shit, title of her 1974 LP, Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?; from which I’ve included the short gospel-light ‘The Lord Giveth And The Lord Taketh Away’. Also 50 this year, there’s tracks from Pekka Pohjola’s Harakka Bialoipokku, Harmonia’s ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ and (sticking with a kosmische/krautrock theme) something from the quartet of albums made under the auspices of The Cosmic Jokers nom de plume – a supergroup that never really was, the main participants of which included such lauded icons as Manuel Göttsching, Klaus Schulze, Jürgen Dollase and Harald Grosskopf fucking around in Dieter Dierks’ studio; the results of which, unknowingly recorded by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Gille Lettman at the time were put out during 1974 – Schulze was incandescent enough to sue over the whole affair.
40th anniversary nods go to Finnis Africae’s incredible fourth world self-titled peregrination, Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves and Harold Budd & Eno’s prized and influential The Pearl LP. A decade later and there’s also tracks from The Wake’s Tidal Wave Of Hope and Air Liquide’s Nephology (see my archive essay style piece further down the column).
I usually leave the most current and newest of tracks to the Monolith Cocktail’s Monthly Playlist (next edition due next week), but have included recent(ish) tracks from Igor Osypov, Bagaski, Nicole Mitchell and, not really new but reissued late last year, a track from the originally 1984 released Ein Bundel Faulnis in der Grube album by Holger Hiller (of Palais Schaumburg German new wave fame) – reissued that is by krautrock/kosmische specialists Bureau B.
The rest is for you to discover; a smattering of eclectic delights, wonders and nuggets from across time and from across the globe. Actually, if you are reading this, and if you have time, I’d really like some feedback on the length of these playlists. I’ve gradually tightened the running order down to around the 30 mark and the length under 3 hours – down from 33 last year, and before that anything from 40 to 100!!! Let me know if this is a ridiculous number, or just right.
___TRACK LISTING AS FOLLOWS:
Marlena Shaw ‘The Lord Giveth And The Lord Taketh Away’
Bob Dylan ‘Tough Mama’
Ethel-Ann-Powell ‘The Jaybird Song’
Acayouman ‘Si Ou Ladje Moin’
The Wake ‘Britain’
A Passing Fancy ‘Your Trip’
The New Tweedy Brothers ‘I Can See It’
Americo Brito ‘Sabe Na Panama’
J.O. Araba ‘Kelegbe Megbe’
Finnis Africae ‘Zoo Zula’
The Cosmic Jokers ‘Power Drive’
Ike Yard ‘Beyondersay’
Air Liquide ‘Semwave’
Holger Hiller ‘Chemische und physikalische Entdeckungen’
Harmonia ‘Sonnenschein’
Fireballet ‘Carrollon’
Pekka Pohjola ‘Hereillakin uni jatkuu’
Dhidalah ‘Adamski’
Son Of Bazerk ‘The Band Got Swivey On The Wheels’
Bagaski ‘Hawkish Torso’
Joe Mubare ‘Number 8’
Nicole Mitchell ‘You Know What’s In There’
Igor Osypov ‘Vango’
Lard Free ‘Warinbaril’
Teengenerate ‘Something You Got’
Tasavallan Presidentti ‘Weather Brightly’
Second Hand ‘I Am Nearly There’
Duffy Power ‘Glimpses Of God’
Grothbros ‘Tollah Tra Flex’
((((ARCHIVES))))
Air Liqude ‘Nephology – The New Religion’ Is 30 Years Old This Month
Selective electronic musicians often come out with the line that they’ve been influenced on a particular album by the Krautrock greats, citing such luminaries as Roedelius, Michael Rothar, Klaus Schulze, Irmin Schmidt etc. – as though they were in some way picking up the baton and running with it.
Of course most of this is a whole crock of shit, as hardly anyone essentially understood that those innovators from the 70s were always moving forward and re-inventing their sound, never usually dwelling on the past; just copying it or reprising it totally misses the point.
OK, so I’m sort of meandering off on a tangent, but basically you can take a look at the likes of Neu!, Cluster, Kraftwerk and CAN and see they were making something fresh and new; to really take on their train of thought means to push those delineated boundaries even further.
Heir apparent to the synthesizer and analogue re-wiring school of exploration, were, and still are, the Cologne duo of Air Liquide. They took up their forefathers brave new world mantle, and built an ambitious and inspiring variation based around the technological leaps in music production; concentrating on the styles of Techno and Acid House.
Their seminal opus of 1994, Nephology, adopts vestiges of cinematic, industrial, ambient and dub; producing an impressive soundtrack that stands up well even by today’s standards, and adheres to the German desires of progress.
The duo comprised of the exceptionally talented Cem Oral and Ingmar Koch, better known as Jamin Unit and Dr. Walker, both entrenched in technical know-how – Koch was the lucky recipient of a Roland JX3P synthesizer on his 14th birthday, a gift that led to him being hired by Korg to program sounds for a number of their iconic models.
Koch began recording in the late 80s, composing, as he puts it, assembly line House and Hip Hop tracks for the German labels Hype! and Technoline. The latter label went bankrupt, prompting him to join a course on electronic composition at a University in Cologne. He would soon meet fellow student and synth enthusiast Oral, and find that he also shared a common interest for groups like Tangerine Dream, CAN, Heaven 17, early New York Hip Hop and Chicago acid: working together seemed almost inevitable.
By the end of 1991 Air Liquide was born, with their first EP release following in a matter of months, and a self-titled debut at the end of 1992. Their second album, the 1994 released Nephology opus, really upped the ante with its mostly innovative themes and layered tracks modeled around the more sophisticated tones of intelligent Techno and dance music – future projects saw the duo experimenting with Gabba hardcore and ethereal fashioned traversing styles of trance.
Singing from the same hymn sheet as The Orb, and many similar ambient acts, they immersed themselves in a haze of new-age touchy-feely rhetoric, using both celestial horizons and the skies above as the central theme to hang their music to: That Nephology title is itself taken from the, originally Greek, word for clouds; adopted as the terminology for the study of their formations – interestingly over the last century it has remained a rather marginalised and forgotten art…well, that was until the recent interest in global warming.
The 14-track album is split into various sections, with the main tracks interspersed amongst the otherworldly type segue ways and vignettes.
A central atmospheric resonance runs throughout, evoking a cosmological and space-age mood, one that has an often ominous or threatening feel to it; charged with rippling static effects.
Mainly we are treated to some indolently and cleverly multi-layering techniques, produced from an impressive display of iconic analogue/electronic equipment, including the Roland Tr 808, Jupiter 8, ARP 2600 and a pair of Moogs.
Side one of this double album entirely consists of acid drenched grooves and bouncing taut techno. The grand opening of ‘The Cloud’ emerges refined and full of empyrean quality from the ether, its tightened rolling drums and throbbing bass cascade over an electrified wild jungle rich sound collage; sounding like a Germanic 808 State. As though in tribune to Klaus Schulze and his cohorts, the duo interweave startling ambient sequences, dousing the beats in swathes of metallic walled corridor sounds and whispering missed conversations.
This swirling tome is followed by the more Chicago house style of ‘Semiwave’; a sauntering announced rhythmic workout, full of ever-tightened repetitive percussion, moody dramatic bass and lethargic plonking notes. Ethereal strains of some distant cooing float in and out of the track, setting the look-to-the-skies above scene perfectly, sending us hurtling ever further into the stratosphere.
Caustic meatier bass lines and squelchy 909 bleeps flourish on the bonus track ‘Auroral Wave’ – seems this and one other tune, are not included on all versions.
Hardened ticking away drums and pre-set handclaps encounter Mo Wax space-esque sustains, whilst moving along at a Mannuel Göttsching pronounced building pace.
Air Liquide manage to absorb many different styles of music including dub; the strong use of dark moody bass can be found on tracks like ‘THX is on’, where Sly and Robbie meet Carl Graig’s Plastic People period flow. There’s also room for Hip Hop, with the duo re-working Cypress Hill’s ‘Insane In The Brain’ for their own beguiling electro track ‘Stratus Static’. They manage to meld both the stoner-induced sample of the Hill’s track with what sounds like a dub-esque clattering Art of Noise, to produce something quite original and sublimely dizzying.
Scattered throughout are more light-hearted moments, including ‘If There Was No Gravity’, where they take on the ambient workshops of both The Orb and Orbital. Wispy willowy female vocals poetically describe a sort of dipsy journey through the clouds, the lyrics leaning towards cliché almost:
“How you’d love to live up there,
Kiss the sun and walk on air.
If there was no gravity,
You’d be in nephology”.
Dubtastic bass lines bumble along to fill the sweeping calm and dreamy melodics, in a display of evanescent pulchritude. The looming presence of Kubrick, or rather the meticulous chosen soundtracks that go hand-in-hand with his films, add dramatic passages of tension and suspense. ‘Die Reisse Im Teekeesel’ (loosely translated as ‘Those travels in the tea boiler’) uses 2001 A Space Odyssey harrowing soundscapes, with the chanting evocative mantras from ‘So Spoke Zarathustra’ to add intrepid doom. Both ‘Kymnea’ and ‘Im Grlenmeyerkolben I and II’ echo and groan with menacing moments plucked straight from A Clockwork Orange: Walter (Wendy) Carlos’s switched on treatment of Henry Purcell’s ‘Music For The Funeral Of Queen Mary’, and the tormented ‘Timesteps’ are brought to mind.
Eerily the duo can’t help but intersperse a sober and haunting array of imbued cinematics, dropping in hints of Dune, Star Trek and The Thing to create an often emotive or imaginative atmospherics, which lends the album a certain gravitas.
On the closing track, ‘The Clouds Have Eyes’, they end on a chaotic hypnotic flourish. Helicopter chopping Jeff Mills style beats rapidly rotate, as an operatic style haunted choral sweep swirls around in the tumultuous cyclonic blades. That almost disturbing voice-like loop, calls out from the melee as though an apparition from some distant planet or dimension: a perfect finish.
Nephology does undoubtedly sound of its time to some extent; tied in some respects to a particular epoch, yet though it’s over thirty-years old it somehow rises above sounding dated. In fact recent revivals of the late 80s and early 90s electronic scenes – where labels such as R & S, Harthouse, Structure and Rising High fed the deep thinking dance music appetite – have encouraged a mini-renaissance and re-valuation. In 2024 you could easily slip a bit of the old Nephology into the club, and no one would blink.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
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