Our Daily Bread 585: An Experiment with Myuthafoo
July 21, 2023
LITERATURE/ANDREW C. KIDD
Caterina Barbieri explores the mutability of time on Myuthafoo, a 6-track piece released on the Light-Years label on 16th June 2023. It was composed in the same period as Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego, 2019).
I have written a short story which references the broad-themed narrative of time. The two characters in the story are connected through a transient common consciousness, independent of time, each sharing their own respective experiences millennia apart. They are unconscious of this at first, but gradually develop insights into the event.
The first character is a cosmometeorologist (denoted as *) who exists in the distant future, returning from an interstellar mission, repeating his observations of TOI-2180 b, the Jupiter-like planet located 379 light-years away in the Draco constellation. The second character is a taikonaut (denoted as ∆) who is the first person to enter the orbit of Mùxīng. Mùxīng is the Mandarin word for Jupiter, translating as ‘Star of Wood’. They both listen to Myuthafoo on their respective journeys.
*
After a rapid deceleration, the long body of the survey vessel made an uncomfortably abrupt stop. A single occupant was jolted forward in his harness. The monitor projecting inside his helmet blinked the characters TOI-2180 b. The red writing of the display flooded through his visor as the synthesisers of Memory Leak sawed and played out triumphantly in his headset.
Finally!, he gleamed inside, the Draco constellation. The journey had been a long one, and
not without challenge.
Steely synths arped and orbited on Math of You in a manner not too dissimilar to his own trajectory around the exoplanet. He smiled witlessly at this reference.
He vacated the lead-lined safety of his survival pod and immediately felt the stifling heat within the grand archways and long corridors of the ship – this was the unintended transference of heat through the protective shields of its fusion reactors. His heart rate still bounded away at a fast-tempo; it held steady as he glimpsed out of the bow window.
The familiar rubor of this exoplanet reddened the white suit of the cosmometeorologist in pinkish projection. He observed its clouds that banded and danced in linear synergy as they rapidly rotated upon its axis. Their formations and morphology were recorded perfunctorily. Superstorms he named after other nebulae because that was easier than remembering the names of men and gods that he had never known or cared to know. The cloud vortices expanded and contracted in eternal rage. He marvelled at their fury.
This visit to Draco was a routine one: a simple stop-off to allow the hot heat exchanger to cool on his return from the recesses of intermediate space. Soon, his palm would hover over the propellant injector control, releasing the fusion pellet to send the ship forward, and him homeward.
After collating the new data, he made arrangements to have these safely stored for future analyses. During this process, he had started to feel uneasy: an unnerving sensation was propagating through him. He turned off the music blaring loudly in his headset, beckoning silence and space to breathe. The dizzying modulations of the synths had reached a pinnacle of inorganic arrhythmicity – perhaps this had been the cause for his unsettling?
He stared out silently at the hulking exoplanet for a while longer, pondering whether the way he felt had something to do with its magnetic energy. He peered into the dense orb in an act of mindfulness, imagining what metals and minerals its core contained. This had little effect. The discomforting feeling had become more pervasive.
What is this!? His mind called out in internal inquisition.
It was as if an invisible force was streaming slowly through him, illuminating not only his body, but his very being.
∆
A white-suited taikonaut was sitting at a seemingly incommodious 45-degree angle. Yet he sat quite comfortably, completely weightless in space, shuffling through the alphabetically-stored sounds that he had brought with him on this momentous journey.
Don Buchla – not today…
A reading of Golden Apples of the Sun…
No, no… it’s under ‘m’… ah, m…
The North Shanxi Suite by Ma Ke…
Moon, Silver Apples of…
Yes… here it is…
Myuthafoo
He pressed the play button on his receiver, smiling broadly because the celebratory opening track embodied the spirit of adventure. Minutes later, the shorn cross-section of the wooden planet came into view through the bow window.
Mùxīng, he declared to himself.
*
Mùxīng? I… I… what is this? I have never been here before – the star system, it… it is completely unrecognisable. It seems… illusory – a déjà vu, but…
Moving his hand away from the propellant injector control, he turned around to look through the observation aperture on the starboard side.
Barked appearance; ringed by age; gaseous whorls; circular and impermeable –
He paused to observe the ever-changeability of the line-like clouds that wrapped around the planet. They moved in opposing directions like some great puzzle that would eventually split open to reveal its hidden contents.
He left the observation station and made the short walk to the bridge; there, he would recalibrate the cartograph.
Red words continued to blink TOI-2180 b in his visor. He knew that the co-ordinates of the ship would have already been checked and double checked by the on-board neural network; still, he manually validated these in accordance with protocol. His location had been confirmed: he remained within the confines of Draco.
The cosmometeorologist had already passed through this constellation on his forward voyage. He compared the measurements of the specific gravity that he had obtained those short years ago with his updated readings.
It is much lighter… three-times lighter on this occasion!
His stomach had started to churn and a mild nausea built up inside him – invocations of the unexpected sight of this strange planet. For the first time in his life, he experienced the nervous excitement of uncertainty, the heavy weight of expectation. It was quite a remarkable achievement: he was the first to…
He stopped himself.
I have not been the first to observe this.
He sat down guardedly. Thoughts oscillated in his head. Eventually he calmed his mind by visualising absolutely nothing. He inhaled and exhaled four times a minute, repeating internally:
I am a cosmometeorologist. I am recording the density of TOI-2180 b. The presence of this exoplanet is undeniable. I knew it was here. I observed it only a few short years ago. This is a routine mission. My forward and return data should be the same.
I am not here to discover. There are vessels for that purpose situated in deep space.
I cannot discover something that has already been discovered!
I… I have discovered nothing here!
∆
‘Are you getting this, Control?’
The taikonaut remained suspended in pseudo-weightlessness, the padded shoulder straps securing him to the modular seat. He had already pressed the blue ‘load’ button on the grey panel in front of him. The dimly-lit red display blinked in confirmation that his message had been sent.
‘Affirmative. We have your location. Aphelion: 816 Gm. Perihelion 740 Gm. Location confirmed as Mùxīng.’ The static in his receiver crackled in return. It continued.
‘Commander, Mùxīng marks a colossal milestone in our celestial journey!’
This congratulatory statement had washed over the taikonaut. The reference had made no sense: he had trodden on nothing. His focus remained firmly on the readings on his monitor. He leant forward and pressed the blue button again.
‘Control, it is…’.
‘Repeat…’, Control broke in. ‘We could not make out your last transmission.’
‘The exoplanet…’, the taikonaut paused momentarily. ‘It is… much denser than I imagined. Also, it has far fewer moons than we had previously considered’.
‘Exoplanet?’, the static of Control enquired.
*
Am I truly conscious of this? Has the arduous journey unlocked some deeper awareness within me?
My vital signs are normal.
What is this feeling that… no, it is not fleeting because I can still feel it – it is… fading.
I must be imagining it. Yes, it is in my imagination.
But how can I be imagining something that I already knew was there.
The cosmometeorologist had closed his eyes to enter the deeper reaches of his mind.
I cannot be experiencing this… it… it is as if someone else has already lived in this moment… transf–… transference of thought… that would be improbable… impossible, even!
The cloud-ringed planet continually resurfaced in his consciousness. He opened his eyes to stare at its globular shape, the Great Spot, its barge, its moons –
The moons! Hah! the radius of its moons and their respective orbits – yes, the moons… I will use them to calculate its density.
The cosmometerologist peered through his viewing apparatus, eventually recoiling in shock.
How can that be?! 95 moons!
As he leant back in his chair, his headset clipped the edge of its protective padding, switching the music suddenly back on. The step-like cyclisms of Alphabet of Light played unhurriedly. He listened to the organic sound. It was oxymoronic. The pioneering excitement still fluttered within him. He turned around as the Gas Giant momentarily left his visual field: the window pillar of the ship had blocked out its unfamiliar appearance in quiet orbit.
∆
A soulful symphonia continued to play with the starlight: the two-toned lightness of Sufyosowirl echoed back the title track. It was organ-like as it entered another modular sequence. The taikonaut remained poised in controlled weightlessness.
‘I can confirm my last transmission as being correct. Exoplanets. I repeat: exoplanets, and exomoons. I am visualising something truly marvellous here. A Mùxīng-like planet, Jovian in stature; yet, something on a wholly grander scale.’
‘According to our readings, your present location is Mùxīng’, Control hissed into his receiver. ‘Please relay your bearings.’
The taikonaut remained silent: he had sunk into a deep introspection.
Am I imbalanced because I am listening to a contrapuntal melodia, one that holds its notes before stepping down the next rung of the polyphonic ladder? Disorientation through some form of sonic imbibement…
‘Please repeat’, Control rasped.
A new sound for a new vision – synthetic and tom-tom like, steadily moving me further away from the reality of this moment.
The taikonaut observed the exoplanet long after his vessel had escaped its magnetic pull. He moved slowly away on his mission to reach the dust-ringed world of Saturn.
*
The image of the gaseous clouds slowly dissipated into the ether of the cosmometeorologist’s mind. Swirls of You crackled indistinctly in his headset, bringing him back to the present. He knew that this would fade into a calming niente.
His monitor repeatedly blinked out the characters TOI-2180 b. His hand moved down to prime the nuclear fusion engines. He returned to the sanctity of the lead-lined survival pod during this pre-propulsive state. Glancing one last time at the disappearing planet, his ship lurched forward to leave a long and vapour-like trail of plasma that stretched far enough to traverse infinity.
Our Daily Bread 583: Alabaster DePlume, Comet Gain, Maija Sofia, Natalie Rose LeBrecht…
July 17, 2023
GRAHAM DOMAIN’S REVIEWS ROUNDUP: A SUMMARY OF THE LAST MONTH: NEW FINDS, DISAPPOINTMENTS AND TRIUMPHS
___{SINGLES}___
Alabaster DePlume ‘Did You Know’
(International Anthem)
I liked last year’s album Gold and the wonderful eccentric single ‘Don’t Forget You’re Precious’ on
which he talk-sang. This is the first single from new album Come with Fierce Grace, out in September. It’s a sad jazz ballad sang by Momoko Gill and is reminiscent of Corrine Bailey Rae. It’s not particularly memorable and is a bit of a disappointment after last year’s excellent output!
Deja Blu ‘Crash’
(Fragile Hands)
The new single from dream-pop duo Deja Blu is a mesmeric tune that begins like a dreamy cross between Massive Attack and the Sundays before DJ Shadow type drums kick-in and propel the song into a world of echoing dream ambience! Fabulous!
Maija Sofia ‘Four Winters’
(Tulle Collective)
The new single from Galway’s Maija Sofia is a song that sits somewhere close to Aldous Harding but with its own strangeness akin to early Kate Bush. A song that mixes woodwind, harps and harmonic discord with poetic lyrics of womanhood and the joy of pain via emotional growth! A bright flare in a sea of shiny blandness!
Peter Brewis (from Field Music) ‘Lemoncadabra’
(Daylight Saving Records)
This instrumental reminds me of the mid seventies when any song with a synth on it seemed magical. It does not have much in the way of a tune but sounds like he’s been listening to Chick Corea (circa The Mad Hatter), Yellow Magic Orchestra and perhaps Tomita! It sounds more like a BSide or Demonstration Disc than a tune with any commercial intent! Caramel Latte Froth (with sweeteners)!
___[ALBUMS]___
Playdate ‘Wonderland’
(Idee Fixe Records/Bandcamp/Ansible Editions)
This is an interesting album of modern technology versus traditional instruments, or put another way, programmed and improvised synths trade melodies and inspired ‘sojourns into space’ with vibraphones, woodwind instruments and even pedal steel! The group are a trio from Toronto made up of Carl Schilde, Matthew Bailey and Scott Harper, and guest improvisers include Christine Bourgie, Michael Davidson, Daniel Pencer and Andy Shauf’s woodwind section. The result is an album of chilled dreamscape music. Not essential listening, but ambient music that does have its own charm! ‘Insert Quarter(s)’ has echoes of Japan’s ‘My New Career’.
Comet Gain ‘The Misfit Jukebox’
(Tapete Records)
The Pandemic of 2020 gave David Christian Bower the time to re-visit the archive of unreleased tracks, demos and live recording for his band Comet Gain. The highlights of which were gradually released via Bandcamp throughout 2022. These are now released as a 17-track album of rarities.
The breadth of vision of the band is evident from the genre crossing musical make-up of the songs.Thus, we get energy and melody combined in a variety of musical settings – punk-pop, punk-funk, melodic pop-folk to name a few! Even the noisiest of Comet Gain songs has melody at its core. ‘The Weekend Dream’ has all the pop-punk energy of the Buzzcocks or the Only Ones. ‘Pinstriped Rebel’ meanwhile encompasses the jangle-funk of late-period Jam, the Style Council or the modernist cold white-funk of the new romantics. ‘When’ sounds like a song from the early 80’s Mod Revival or a pale 1970’s cover of a Wigan Casino northern soul song. ‘You’re Just Lonely’ sounds like New Order without the programmed synths! ‘Only Happy When I’m Sad’ is perhaps the pop nugget of the collection sounding like a mixture of Stereolab, Broadcast, St. Etienne and Everything but the Girl. A wonderful, warm, melodic, strange song.
The album is a fine addition to the Comet Gain musical catalogue, a compilation of rarities but also an album that succeeds on its own merits.
Natalie Rose LeBrecht ‘Holy Prana Open Game’
(American Dreams)
This is a beautiful album of cosmic folk strangeness singular in its vision and unique today, in its combination of sounds. Opener ‘Home’ combines strings, synths, woodwind and guitar with haunting vocals to produce a strange folk-infused cosmic jazz masterpiece. ‘Prana’ follows with its synths and vocal harmonies underpinned by piano and jazz drums sounding not unlike something from the Roman Polanski film Dance of the Vampires, evolving in the middle into a beautiful atmospheric sound-world! ‘Holy’ meanwhile is a chilled piano-led song complete with tremolo guitar and woodwind.
Sitting somewhere between Nico, Linda Perhacs and Alice Coltrane, the six haunting songs have superb intricate arrangements and a wonderful spiritual element! It could easily be mistaken for a long-lost album from the 1970’s, such is its charm.
The band include Jim White (drums) and Mick Turner (guitar) from the Dirty Three. If the album had been made by someone with a higher commercial profile, say Lana Del Ray, then it would be lauded as a masterpiece and top the end of year poles! That not being the case, the album is still a masterpiece of haunting music that has a meditative quality and reveals more of its colour with each play! Every home should own a copy of this album and play it each day as the sun rises bringing hope to the world.
M. Ward ‘Supernatural Thing’
(ANTI Records)
This is a nice album of easy listening Americana-pop! Songs such as ‘Too Young to Die’ and ‘Engine 5’ featuring First Aid Kit, have a Nancy (Sinatra) and Lee (Hazlewood) feel to them! However, much like his albums recorded with Zooey Deschanel as She and Him, the album never rises above ‘pleasant’!
To some it may seem that Matthew Ward’s music has slowly declined since the release of his influential Post War album in 2006. Being stuck in one place can still be inspiring if you have the presence of mind to see beauty in the everyday and there is plenty of evidence of that here. No matter where we are, we all share the same sky – some see nothing, others see the beauty in the changing light of day and are inspired seeing the shifting patterns in nature. But is M Ward on the cusp of regaining his greatness? Only time will tell if M Ward is indeed a writer of songs of subtle depth and longevity. He remains ‘one to watch’!
Bravery In Battle ‘The House We Live In’
(Believe)
French band Bravery in Battle have released a Video-Album that puts music behind words from International ecological activists calling for a rethink of how we live. Climate change is of course at the forefront of this urgent call to arms. ‘The Market’ is a key track on the album and melodifies a lecture by Australian ecological activist Clive Hamilton enhancing the message and sharpening the focus. A worthy release and worth a watch on YouTube.
Monthly Playlist: June 2023: Valia Calda, Killer Mike, Sparks, Kool Keith, Luzmila Carpio…
June 29, 2023
THE JUNE SELECTION: 50 plus tracks from the artists/bands we championed, rated and loved during the last thirty days. This is the eclectic, global and influential Monolith Cocktail Monthly Playlist, with music chosen from all the releases we covered in June plus those we didn’t have room for at that time. Selectors include Dominic Valvona (who curated this expansive playlist), Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Graham Domain.
___TRACKLIST___
Valia Calda ‘Stalker’
La Jungle ‘La Compagnie de la Chanson’
Ramuntcho Matta ‘Hukai’
Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra ‘Nation Rising’
Killer Mike Ft. Jagged Edge ‘SUMMER’
Royalz Ft. THE HIDDEN CHARACTER ‘God In Da Ghetto’
Professor Elemental ‘Ready Or Not’
DJ Mk & Sonnyjim ‘WORTH THE RISK’
Revival Season ‘Chop’
Vieira and The Silvers ‘The Judge’
Trees Speak ‘Radiation’
Cat Box Room Bois ‘California Stars’
ANGHARAD ‘Postpartum’
Outer Limit Lotus ‘Let The Night Ride You’
The Kingfishers ‘Lapwings’
Sedona ‘Domino’
Katie Von Schleicher Ft. Lady Lamb ‘Elixir’
Mari Kalkun ‘Munamae Loomine (The Creation Of Munamagi|)’
Sparks ‘Not That Well Defined’
Bob Dylan ‘Queen Jane Approximately’
Maija Sofia ‘Four Winters’
Mike Cooper Ft. Viv Corringham ‘A Lemon Fell’
Dirty Dike Ft. Jam Baxter ‘The Places We’ve Been In’
The Chives ‘Your Mom’s A Bitch’
Lunch Money Life ‘The God Phone II’
Martha Skye Murphy ‘Dogs’
Sacrobosco ‘Pearl’
CODED ‘Binary Beautiful (Sunshine Variation)’
Baldruin ‘Zuruckgelassen’
Lauren Bousfield Ft. Ada Rock ‘Hazer’
Ital Tek ‘The Mirror’
Joe Woodham ‘Spring Tides’
WITCH ‘Streets Of Lusaka’
Celestial North ‘Otherworld’
Psyche ‘Kuma’
Omar Ahmad ‘Cygnet Song’
Luzmila Carpio ‘Inti Watana – El Retorno del Sol’
Ricardo Dias Gomes ‘Invernao Astral’
Andrew Heath ‘Fold’
Granny Smith ‘Egypt’
Spindle Ensemble & Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan ‘Lucid Living – Live’
Pawz One & Preed One ‘Revenge Of Silky Johnson’
ILL BILL, Non Phixion, La Coka Nostra, Kool G. Rap, Vinnie Paz ‘Root For The Villain’
Syrup Ft. Twit One, C. Tappin & Turt ‘Timing Perfect’
John Coltrane Ft. Eric Dolphy ‘Impressions – Live’
Vermin the Villain & ELAM ZULA ‘POWER OF TWO’
King Kashmere & Alecs Delarge Ft. HPBLK, Ash The Author & Booda French ‘Astro Children’
Lukah ‘First Copy’
Kool Keith ‘First Copy’
Stik Figa & The Expert ‘Slo Pokes’
S. Kalibre Ft. Scoob Rock, Slap Up Mill, Jabba The Kut ‘Murda Sound Bwoy’
Verbz, Nelson Dialect & Mr. Slipz ‘Beside Me’
Dillion & Diamond D ‘Uncut Gems’
ALBUM REVIEW BY ANDREW C. KIDD
Gabríel Ólafs ‘Lullabies for Piano and Cello’
(Decca Records) 9th June 2023
Unsurprisingly, Icelandic lullabies are hard to come by. The few that do exist are comparatively bleaker – less cradle song; one could argue abstruse. Take the title of Móðir Mín Í Kví, Kví (in English, Mother of mine in the sheep pen), or the lines of Bíum bíum bambaló, a lullaby from Iceland made famous by Icelandic post-rock stalwarts Sigur Rós: ‘Bíum bíum bambaló / Bambaló og dillidillidó’; in English, ‘My little friend I lull to rest / But outside, a face looms at the window’. Still, a lullaby in the orthodox sense should serve to lull. Enter pianist Gabríel Ólafs. Lullabies for Piano and Cello offers something altogether gentler and less menacing. It is his second long play after the 2019 release Absent Minded, which earned him plenty of plaudits.
The opening piece is the spry Fantasía. It is finely poised and well-balanced. The long notes of Sigurðardóttir’s cello play slowly and jig around the piano keys that staccato and pirouette. Sálmur derives its title from the Old Norse word ‘salmr’, a psalm. The keys are bittersweet. Here there is clever use of the foot pedal: Ólafs holds the notes suspensefully, allowing the cello to inhale and exhale measuredly as they alternate between legato and bowed tremolo. Octaves are climbed by the piano, but the cello remains rooted in the bass clef. Moonlight streams in glittering certitude on Noktúrna. The piano is light and a little more distant than it was previously, perhaps in the same way that the eye perceives the blue light of the moon: familiar but altered – illusory even. Embers emerge and billow away on Eldur (from the Old Norse ‘eldr’, or fire). The cello enters and vacates as quickly as it emerged. It echoes the
piano, elongating the notes as it evaporates into the ether.
Ólafs is an effective narrator. On Frost, the left-hand plays gently. Its melody is simple and dots around a major scale. It is clear and glistens and is made momentary as it welcomes the sun; soon, it will become water, evaporating to air, exiting the world as quickly as it entered it. Is it too far-fetched to suggest that this is a bleak allegory of life? I shall leave that for the listener to decide. It is an Icelandic lullaby after all.
The harmonics of the cello play quietly, deepening the piano on Vísa. The melody is played legato. It is fluent. This deftness, this wonderful una corda (soft pedal) of the piano is felt again on Mamma which almost progresses into a lullaby; I write ‘almost’ because although the structure is circular, the melody is not repeated. Barnkind is Icelandic for ‘child’. The cello is the sole focus here. In the accompanying album notes, the cello is considered to be the “mother’s voice, sometimes speaking, sometimes singing” – this assertion is most evident on this piece. It soothes.
On Bambaló the cello bows quietly. It encompasses the mysticism of early folk – was this an ode to a tree, or a long-lost lover, or an ideal? The piece intensifies, yet the piano remains light and unimodal throughout. Its chords, its narrative, are progressed solely by the cello. The keys mimic in gentle accompaniment. It ends thoughtfully. Draumheimar is the final piece. It translates into English as ‘dreamworlds’. Clocking in at over three-minutes, it is longest piece on the album. The piano takes centre stage and plays a major key melody. I hear echoes of Ólafs’s previous LP at this juncture. The keys become less distinct and the hammer-action of the piano strings are audible here: they are dulcimer-like. It is pianissimo: very quiet; then calando: it softens and slows.
Lullabies for Piano and Cello is beguiling. Compared to much of modern-day classical composition, the pieces are very short, yet none are perfunctory. More so, it is completely emptied of electronics and field recordings. It is a work of simplicity. The melodies are short-lived and never reprised. Even more beguiling is the origins of this album: Ólafs chancing upon a collection of melodies in an antique bookshop. It beggars the question as to how many unplayed lullabies are lying unthumbed and unturned in bookshelves elsewhere in our world.
Monthly Playlist: May 2023: Delilah Holliday, Tony Allen, Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere, Lucia Cadotsch…
May 31, 2023
CHOICE MUSIC FROM THE LAST MONTH: TEAM EFFORT
The Monthly Revue playlist of 2023; a choice selection of tracks from the last month on the blog. Curated by Dominic Valvona with Matt Oliver on the Rap Control once more, and music from reviews by Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Graham Domain and Andrew C. Kidd. Expect to hear the unexpected.
TRACKLIST//
Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere ‘Damien Darhk’
Samuele Strufaldi ‘Davorio’
Les Dynamites ‘Pop Oud #2’
Andrew Hung ‘Ocean Mouth’
Matt Saxton ‘Freedom’
John Parish & Aldous Harding ‘Three Hours’
Lunar Bird ‘The Birthday Party’
YOVA ‘Feel Your Fear’
Atmosphere ‘Dotted Lines’
Illogic ‘Hot Lead’
Odd Holiday, Mattic & Daylight Robbery! ‘It Is Whut It Iz’
Delilah Holliday ‘Silent Streets’
Big Yawn ‘Crying’
Tony Allen ‘No Beginning’
Harold Land ‘Chocolate Mess’
Baby Cool ‘Magic (Live)’
Dyr Faser ‘This Menace’
Mekong ‘Out Of Control’
The Telescopes ‘(The Other Side)’
The Bordellos ‘Attack Of The Killer B-Sides’
Adjunct Ensemble ‘Nothing Grows/How Dare You Be Free’
Kassa Overkill, Danny Brown & Wiki ‘Clock Ticking’
Depf & Linefizzy ‘My Love’
Paw One ‘Sepekku’
Cas One ‘Silver Spoons’
Axel Holy & Badhabitz ‘Runnin’
Efeks, The Strange Neighbour & Downstroke ‘Its Only Right’
Chocolate Hills ‘Mermaids’
Orange Crate Art ‘We’re Just Innocent Men’
Tinariwen Ft. Fats Kaplin ‘Ezlan’
Cherry Bandora ‘Esy’
Danuk ‘Sewqo’
Lucia Cadotsch ‘I Won’t’
Jman & The Argonautz ‘Green Light’
Chuck Strangers & Obii Say ‘Say’
Billy Woods, Kenny Segal & Danny Brown ‘Year Zero’
Caterina Barbieri ‘Swirls Of You’
August Cooke ‘Flying Swimming Dredging’
Liz Davinci ‘I’m Through With Love’
Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabate ‘Anywhere That Is Not Here’
Oceans ‘Mike Tysong’
Creep Show Ft. John Grant ‘Moneyback’
Jean Mignon ‘Canadian Exit’
GRAHAM DOMAIN’S RUN-THROUGH OF RECENT AND UPCOMING NEW RELEASES
__/SINGLES\__
THE TELESCOPES ‘Where Do We Begin’
(Tapete Records) (Download only Single)
It seems only vocalist Stephen Lawrie remains from the original group and only his voice reminds of The Telescopes classic sound!
This is the first single taken from forthcoming album Of Tomorrow. As such, it sounds a bit like the House of Love with Lou Reed – a psychedelic song about filling in the hole in your soul with more emptiness – the modern consumer society looking for fulfillment amid the waffle of internet influencers, ‘reality’ celebrity and brand name hypnosis! I await the new album with interest!
MATT SAXTON ‘Freedom’
(Bandcamp) (Download Single)
This is an electronic track with folktronica leanings that reminds me of John Grant. It’s a delight – like eating your favourite ice cream! Give it a listen while eating a Cornetto!
YOVA ‘Feel Your Fear’
(Bandcamp) (Download Single)
Unusual pop song from Yova – interesting, odd and compelling! Yova are a duo – with exposure they could be massive!
SALEM TRIALS ‘ESPERS SYC (See Your Crime)’ / ‘End of Level Boss’
(Metal Postcard) (Download Double A Side Single)
Excellent Double A Side from Salem Trials – ‘Espers SYC’ comes across like the Fall playing a speeded-up Joy Division ‘Exercise One’ – some nice jarring chords and fried bacon rhythm!
With singalongs like ‘reasonable doubt my arse’ it could become a staple at Strangeways Indie disco! The crime? Presumably using your intuition (ESP) – contravening Section 7 of the State Controlled Thought Act 2023.
‘End of Level Boss’ meanwhile conjures up the ghost of Ian Curtis dancing to James Brown after the sacked JB’s were replaced by a funky Sunn O))) – Mesmeric!
___/ALBUMS\___
OCEANS ‘Dreamers in Dark Cities’
(Bandcamp) (Vinyl/DL)
There are a few bands named Oceans but this particular band hail from Melbourne Australia. They sound like they have been listening to a lot of 1980’s indie music like the Sound, the Chameleons, New Model Army, Cocteau Twins, Pale Saints, Slowdive, The Scars.
‘Pure’ sounds like a poppier Pale Saints and is perhaps the best song on the album. “I just want to feel alive” he cries as the music rises in life affirming sonic radiance! ‘Apart’ reminds me of the Scars with touches of Ride and Pale Saints. ‘Feels Like You’ hints towards Slowdive, MBV and Ride.
‘Mike Tysong’ sounds like New Model Army circa ‘The Ghost of Cain’ but with vocals akin to Adrian Borland (the Sound of ‘The Lions Roar’ fame). ‘Soft’ has hints of The Chameleons guitar sound combined with vocals akin to Lush! ‘Look Into My Eyes’ employs the 3 / 4 rhythm beloved of The Cocteau Twins circa ‘Treasure’. An album of youthful energy and life affirming beauty. The songs are energetic, well-constructed and well-produced. I like the album, but the band need to bring more of their own creativity to the table so they sound like themselves rather than the sum of their influences. Once they find their own sound, they will be magnificent. They are part way there and I predict great things for them in the future.
CREEP SHOW ‘Yawning Abyss’
(Bella Union) (CD/Download Album)
Make no mistake, John Grant is a genius! As half of Creep Show he provides the moments of sheer joy! ‘Bungalow’ comes over like a song that could have been on any of his brilliant solo albums, post ‘Queen of Denmark’. It’s a fantastic vocal, the music dark, funny, sexy, – electronic music at its best and a good song to boot! Elsewhere we find him singing strange rhymes on the title track ‘Yamning Abyss’ – a song that grows on you with each play.
The band Wrangler are the other half of Creepshow. Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder sharing vocal duties on such tracks as ‘Moneyback’ – “You want your money back / I didn’t think so”! Overall, a fine return from Creep Show who are doing a short tour of the UK over the summer!
JEAN MIGNON ‘AN/AL’
(Metal Postcard) (Download Album)
Raucous debut album by New York based Johnny Steines. A mixture of high energy garage punk and high-speed rock and roll – it sounds like a live album such is the energy contained in the grooves!
‘Tackled By Men’ recycles parts of ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, whilst ‘Canadian Exit’ has echoes of Warsaw’s ‘Failures’. If he can produce this excitement in a live-setting he willsurely make his own impact! Primal Rock and Roll that screams from the speakers andexcites like a high-speed car chase!
Key Tracks: All of them!
The BORDELLOS ‘Starcrossed Radio’
(Metal Postcard Records) (Download Album)
The latest release by St Helens finest is a cabinet of curiosities containing some wonderful lo-fi gems and hitherto lost standards!
Beginning with the glam stomp of ‘Attack of The Killer B-Sides’ – name checking great B- Sides by the likes of The Smiths, Stone Roses, The Beatles, Billy Fury, Shangri-Las, New Order, Rolling Stones, Mersey Beats etc… All delivered in a Mark Smith type drawl. Like any music fan, flipping a 45 over and discovering a great B Side was exciting and would lead to more investigation of the artist’s music.
‘Never Learn’ sounds like a lost standard to me – reminding of Morrissey when he was good, the accordion sound giving it a shade of the Pogues! The nice melody is under-pinned by what sounds like a balloon deflating, a synth or a cat being slowly trod on mixed with static and silence! Experimental brilliance!
‘Free New Music Day’ meanwhile takes the sound of the Doors Texas Radio and the Big Beat and transfers it to Northern England where you can ’take a cut price trip to the stars – singing Hallelujah in Karaoke bars’ – poetry from the streets Jim Morrison could only aspire to!
Other highlights include the strange melody picked out on guitar on ‘Sunk and Screwed’, which could be the theme to a weird kids cartoon! Oddly disturbing! I’m still humming it! ‘Vicious Circle’ could be a single. ‘Hurting Kind’ sounds like a lost Beach Boys campfire surf song – Brilliant!
The album ends with the sublime ‘Life Love and Billy Fury’ – a part electronic song where the melody or maybe some of the chord changes put me in mind of New Order without actually sounding like them! Great lyrics – another ‘lost standard’!
This album is one to treasure, an Aladdin’s cave of eclectic life affirming songs. The Bordellos are the fine web that holds the stars in place!
Monthly Playlist: April 2023: Circe, Micall Parknsun, Suki Sou, Carla Boregas, Ammar 808…
April 27, 2023
CHOICE MUSIC FROM THE LAST MONTH: TEAM EFFORT
The Monthly Revue playlist of 2023; a choice selection of tracks from the last month on the blog. Curated by Dominic Valvona with Matt Oliver on the Rap Control once more, and music from reviews by our latest recruit Gillian Stone plus Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Graham Domain and a returning Andrew C. Kidd. Expect to hear the unexpected as we leave you with this 45 track selection before we go off on a May sabbatical (well half of May, be back around the 15th with a packed schedule of choice music).
TRACKLIST//
Altın Gün ‘Çıt Çıt Çedene’
Ammar 808 Ft. Belhassen Mihoub ‘Yarima’
Les Abranis ‘Achethkhi’
Orti, Mayorga y Chiriboga ‘Muñequita Blanca’
Tuzeint ‘Mujer Divina’
United Grind Ft. Gamechangers ‘Doin This All Night’
King Kashmere & Alecs DeLarge ‘Most Blunted’
Neon Kittens ‘Loving Your Neighbour’s Wife’
Opus Kink ‘1:18’
Gabrielle Ornate ‘Delirium’
H. Hawkline ‘Plastic Man’
Land Of OOO ‘Matthew’
African Head Charge ‘A Bad Attitude’
Swans ‘Paradise Is Mine’
The Oldest Voice In The World ‘Talysh Mountain Border’
La Faute ‘The Crown’
fhae ‘Love You’
Alice ‘Triste et tout seul’
foil ‘Don’t Look’
Ali Murray ‘Spirit Of Unknowing’
Khotin ‘Lovely’
MultiTraction Orchestra ‘Reactor One’
Tobias Meinhart ‘Luna Park’
Deca & Ol’ Burger Beats ‘Blight’
Prastense & Shortrock Ft. Uncommon Nasa ‘A Broken Letter’
Micall Parknsun ‘Back’
Your Old Droog ‘Pronouns’
Illinformed Ft. Eric The Red ‘Doctor’
Silver Moth ‘Sedna’
Escupemetralla ‘Several specimens of ruminant animals with large udders chewing grass in a Cambridge meadow’
Sweeney ‘High School Damage’
Ale Hop & Laura Robles ‘Son de los diablos’
Cornelius Corvidae ‘Silver Flower’
James Howard ‘The Reckoning’
Draag ‘Mitsuwa’
Mike Cale ‘Slow Club’
Suki Sou ‘Petrichor’
Issei Herr ‘Aria’
Carla Boregas ‘A Cidade doe Outros’
Simon McCorry ‘Halcyon Fire’
CIEL ‘Somebody’
Tomato Flower ‘Destroyer’
Cindy ‘Earthly Belonging’
Circe ‘Riot Of Sunlight’
Chloe Gallardo ‘Bloodline’
Première: Renato Fiorito ‘Medusa’
March 29, 2023
TRACK PREMIERE
Dominic Valvona
Renato Fiorito ‘Medusa’
Taken from the upcoming Lustra album, released on May 4th by Non Sempre Nuoce
A votive offering of gratitude and devotion to the city he calls home, Renato Fiorito’s personal vision of Naples is the subject of the upcoming symphony, Lustra.
Following on from the Neapolitan composer, sound artist, live performer and sound engineer’s site-specific sound installation ‘Straight/Wandering’, commissioned and premièred at the 2022 Le Guess Who?! festival, this new concept album pays a special sonic homage to both Naples’ rich afflatus and street musical theatre and the bustling lives of its people; merging and filtering collected field recordings from across the city with passing melodies, reverberations of fleeting song, exchanges and a production of stirring, congruous electronica.
Straddling the bay looking out towards the Gulf, a fertile fecund in part because of its precarious proximity to Mount Vesuvius, Naples has perhaps one of the most incredible histories of any important city: in fact, perhaps one of the oldest continuously inhabited legacies too, stretching back to its foundation by the Greeks in the first millennium B.C. Fought over in that time by untold invaders, part of a number of forced (and more welcome) kingdoms, the people have still maintained a strong independent identity: a unique marriage of turmoil, violence and the sublime. Fiorito calls it a “place of ashes, blood; place of flowers and wine”. Artistically and culturally ascendant whilst the undead still linger in catacombs below the streets, a busy modern society attempts to navigate an archaic metropolis.
With a saintly “voto” alter on every street corner; a shopkeeper’s aria and promenade serenade competing to be heard above the rigged mufflers of mopeds, Lustra, as its “illuminate” translation describes, lightens up Naples psychogeography, shining a lens on the daily sounds, the unplanned, uncloyed captured moments when the industrial and abstract comes into contact with the musical. This manifests as mere evaporations, mirages or vapoured airs of a time and place; mirages often suffused with the sound of the sea rolling ashore, a crackling fire or the non-musical rhythm of play, of tools working away on some project or other. Serialism woven into a fabric of engineered sine waves, refractions, ambience, metallic and minimalistic percussive beats, the familiar becomes mysterious, holy, even ominous; the ephemeral now caught and bottled for posterity.
From that album, the Monolith Cocktail is premiering the vaporous, patted-beat turn subtle circular wave ‘Medusa’. “Jellyfish” or a reference to the mythological gorgon immortalised by all the Italian greats, including Naples fleeting wanderer Caravaggio, there’s a sense of under-the-surface breathes beneath the building granular and lightly churned textures.
Released on May 4th Lustra sees Fiorito once more collaborate with his sonic partner and fellow Neapolitan Antonio Raia on the crackling fireside, faint melodic and reflective softly rasped saxophone memory ‘3694’. Fiorito and Raia previously created the similar conceived Thin Reactions soundscape during lockdown in 2021, for the same Naples boutique label Non Sempre Nuoce (a track from which we premièred). The album’s only other named guests, the notable Suonno d’Ajere trio, can be heard on the well-known transformed aria ‘Mmiez’ ‘o Ggrano’; emerging from a filtered dream like submersion, a ether of singing, wave forms and subtle beats, their signature serenade of Neapolitan song pulls focus on the city’s dignified street musician heritage.
A new language formed from the musical history of Naples; its loves, devotions, desires and day-to-day interactions take shape in a contemporary field of ambience and downplayed electronica. You can pre order it now.
Our Daily Bread 566: Swans, Halo Maud, Night Noise Team, The Mary Onettes, Heartworms
March 27, 2023
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Picks
/SINGLES/
Swans ‘Paradise Is Mine’
(Mute)
The taster track of the new Swans album is upon us and is a track of longitude, going on for nine minutes. Maybe going on is the wrong description. Maybe gently floating, drifting like a thought on the edge of a maelstrom of seduction and unease; a song that in noway outstays its welcome. In fact it kindly invites you in for tea and biscuits, offers you a choice of what you want to watch and then twiddles its moustache in a Dick Dastardly way when your back is turned. Yes, “Paradise Is Mine” is a crafty little bugger of a song. I wonder, have the Swans pieces of high quality art been described as “a crafty bugger”? Probably not. I would not describe it like that to their faces as they are a bit scary; as in fact is this seduction of unease.
Halo Maud ‘Catch The Wave’
(Heavenly Records) Available Now
‘Catch The Wave’ is a rather beautiful song, especially the Dawn Version, which is the same beautiful song with mostly just vocals and guitar and without the aural sugar coating of synths and vocal effects. The gift without the wrapping dear friends as Halo Maud really does not need any wrapping or enhancing: it is like putting eyeliner on the Mona Lisa, she really does not need it. She’s perfect as she is.
Night Noise Team ‘Little Shocks’
17th March 2023
‘Little Shocks’ is a delightfully beautiful slice of well-written electro pop; intelligent lyrics and beautiful melody with quirky catchy synth lines, which nowadays is indeed a bit of a rare thing. Yes indeed this in fact a song (did you notice I said song and not a track) that is worthy to be released and not dropped, which is sadly the modern way; in my old days the only experience of being dropped by a record label was when I was being kicked off their roster. But this is a lovely little release, and I expect if the Night Noise Team releases an album it will be equally as lovely.
Ghosts On TV ‘Sunshine’
(Soliti) Available Now
A palette wash of sonic endeavor; a throw away memory caught in the wish of a recurring dream, Ghosts On TV supply us with a brief glimpse of daylight in these dark times with the appropriately titled “Sunshine”. A Flying Saucer Attack like pop covered chocolate delight of sadness and hope; a whispered sweet nothing sound-tracked by heavenly feedback, this is a lesson in how to write alternative pop.
The Mary Onettes ‘Pearl Machine’
(Welfare Sounds) Available Now
The Mary Onettes have just released a new track and it is indeed a bit of a gem, a pearl in fact. Maybe it is why they have titled this Cure like stroll of instrumental solitude “Pearl Machine”, a work of beauty and retreat that promises great things for their forthcoming album.
bigflower ‘Anything’
(Self-Release) Available Now
Another month another slab of hypnotic dark dense guitar beauty from bigflower, and “Anything” is indeed a thing of great beauty; the sound of sinking hope; a soundtrack of loss and remembrance that once again screams out to be included in some movie blockbuster. For Ivor makes music that has such a wide cinemascope to it, that completely engulfs you, and leaves you in a state of blissed out bohemia.
Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys ‘Howl’
(Unique Records) Available Now
I love this track. It’s an unhinged point of no return of a song. A track that is adventurous, sexy and is willing to argue its own point of view; song that takes great pleasure in poking you with a phallus shaped slice of no wave glamour. A track that will bewitch you and entice you into its lair, before happily hacking you to little bits with its pure originality and individuality. A gem.
Man/Woman/Chainsaw ‘Backburden’
(Big Richard Records) Available Now
Another blast of jerky punk rock: yes another. There seems to be a deluge of jerky punk rock coming my way lately, and 90% of it is very good. And this is one of the 90%, so I will indeed take the time out and cast my appraisal. Not that anyone really cares what I think. And why on earth should they, as everyone has their own musical taste, and me saying that I like it a great deal does not mean that you will. But I enjoyed Daisy Chainsaw and Elastica and The Slits and this is in the same ballpark – as an American would say. But with myself being British I will say Cricket ground. And this is very British and very quirky and lovely and punky, and I love it.
//ALBUMS-EPS//
Heartworms ‘A Comforting Notion EP’
(Speedy Wunderground) 24th March 2023
Have you ever watched a cat admire itself in a mirror and slowly become freaked out and scared of its own reflection, backing off as slinkily as possible, giving an air of nonchalant sexiness, purring seductively as it turns and leaves the room to go and make a kill in the cold and wintery back garden. You can do nothing but admire the blackness and beauty of nature unfurling its wonderous inner self; leaving itself naked and open. Well this four track EP is an aural equivalent; it’s dark, bewitching and beautiful, and leaves an uneasy tingling in your soul. The sound of Portishead visiting itself in an insane asylum, wonderfully unhinged, and unhingedly beautiful.
LMNOP (aka dONW7) ‘LMNO3’
Available Now
Everybody needs some lo-fi power pop in their lives. Well they do when it is simply as life affirming as this album is. 22 tracks of analogue tape beauty; songs that dazzle and twirl and make you remember the joy of a pop melody and the classic guitar riff, be it the “Heatwave” break of “Semi Circular”, or the Thin Lizzy like soloing on “Y”, or the Big Star worthiness of “Wanna Write A Letter To You”, truly a pop gem, and believe me this album is full of pop gems including the wannabe rock stardom of the excellent “Garbage”. LMNOP are truly a marvel of pop.
Smashing Red ‘II’ EP
(Metal Postcard Records) Available Now
Now when an EP is kicked off with a track that borrows a hybrid riff off Ringo’s “Back Off Boogaloo”, Warrants “Cherry Pie” and “Number 1 Dominator” by Top (remember them? An unsuccessful band from Liverpool once tipped for great things) you know it is going to be good. And indeed it is; five tracks that dip their toes in indie, folk and pop, at times making one think of the excellent Comet Gain, especially on “I Luv U” – a rather fetching song about trying to make in the music industry. And at other times, a mellow Kinks “Magic Garden” and the Ray Davies tribute “He’s No Angel”. So if you are looking for five well-written songs about life …please look no further.
$t33d$_uv_LUV ‘Ballads For Bros’
(Metal Postcard Records) Available Now
$t33d$_uv_LUV is maybe the worst band name I have ever come across. In fact, is not even a good password. Well, it is a good password safety wise, but one you have no chance in remembering and most bands want to be remembered; it’s not a name that will slip off the tongue of any alt DJs out there, and in fact could well put off blog writers writing about you as you really do not want to be typing that out in a review. Luckily I’m of sterner stuff and do not mind typing it out on occasion, and that is a shame, as Ballads For Bros is a good album and could actually gain some attention.
It’s an album I’ve listened to a number of times and is as strange as the band name. It’s not often an album starts with a AOR ballad; ‘Next To Me’ is quite lovely and is something that Lennon might have recorded for his Plastic Ono Band album if he had had a happy childhood, or something Todd Rundgren might have released in the early 70s. It’s a bit of a stunner.
The next track ‘Rock (Your City) Tonight’ is a delight of Royal Trux madness. It’s funny and it rocks. And those two stunners are the best two tracks on the album.
The third track ‘Brothers In Arms (Pt.2)’ thankfully does not sound like Dire Striates or have anything to do with their tastefully plucked guitars. But saying that, the track does actually have tastefully plucked guitars, and is another well-written ballad. Then the album gets a bit strange with music that could be lift music from Dr Who (‘D2TD’), and Add N To X like porn music for computers (‘Zoom On The Can’). So a strange and enjoyable listen overall and if they went down the AOR path further could be the next Journey or Chicago.
A word about the Author of these reviews::
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea joined the Monolith Cocktail team in January 2019. The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. Far too many projects, asides and oddities to mention, but his latest album is Songs For Cilla Black (released on Think Like A Key Music) threatened to trouble some online alternative chart for a week on Amazon – so things must be looking up.
Each week we send a mountain of new releases to the self-depreciating maverick to see what sticks. In his own idiosyncratic style and turn-of-phrase, pontificating aloud and reviewing with scrutiny an eclectic deluge of releases.
Gillian Stone Reviews A Trio Of Recent Releases.
Ruxpin & Stafrænn Hákon ‘Meet Me In Forever’
(Sound In Silence) Available Now
Ruxpin and Stafrænn Hákon’s Meet Me In Forever (Sound In Silence) is imbued with chillness but also encourages bodily movement. This is the first collaborative effort from the Icelandic artists, who have been separately releasing music for over twenty years. Previously creating in somewhat disparate sonic worlds, Ruxpin’s melodic IDM and Stafrænn Hákon’s atmospheric post-rock collide in Meet Me In Forever.
With elements of melancholic nostalgia and an ambient retro-vibe overall, the album is reminiscent of turn of the millennia Boards of Canada with more sophisticated, modern production. This genre blending is clear off the top of the record in the first track “Flawless Delivery” with it’s clear yet warbling post-rock guitar tones, percussive breath sounds, and swirling synths. There are electroacoustic elements throughout the record, such as in the meditative third track, “Odesa”, and in the field recordings that accompany “Offshore” and “Reunited (If It’s What You Want)”. The latter, penultimate track, is perhaps the strongest on the record. Sparse vocals by Olena Simon soar over a Múm-esque soundscape, ending with a field recording of barking dogs and human laughter.
Overall, Meet Me In Forever retains a special quality of being a record you could both sleep to and dance to simultaneously.
Anemic Cinema ‘Iconoclasts’
(Ramble Records) Available Now
Iconoclasts, released via the independent Melbourne-based label Ramble Records, is “Avant-jazz-metal collective” Anemic Cinema’s newest offering. Undoubtedly a jazz record at its core, the album from the Belgium-based group is also so much more. Opening with the considerable energy of “Oneirophrenia” (meaning: state caused by sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, or drugs that is hallucinatory and dream-like), the song introduces a heaviness along with alluding to influences from Zappa and Ornette Coleman. “Iconoclasts, Pt 1”, “Iconoclasts, Pt 2”, and “Iconoclasts, Pt 3”, three movements with a nod to prog in their naming convention, then take the listener on a vast and stunning timbral journey.
The intro of “Pt 1” hails to classical Modernism, while composer Artan Buleshkaj enhances the space with beautiful, reverb-y suss chords on baritone guitar. Things get far more metal in “Pt 2”, with the juxtaposition of horns and distorted guitar enhancing the angular aesthetic of the movement. It ends with Steven Delannoye’s solo bass-clarinet, which then evolves into a tritone driven bass clarinet riff that grounds “Iconoclasts, Pt 3”. For “Business in the Front, Party in the Back”, Delannoye’s tenor sax and Rob Banken’s alto sax trade solos over Buleshkaj’s fuzzed-out guitar. Halfway through, the track completely changes speed into more traditional jazz guitar, with the hollow body sound of Jim Hall, before the fuzzed-out guitar comes back in for a modified head that takes out the tune.
The album then moves into a fucked up little interlude, “In Sillico”, with wild, sliding guitar and fantastic drum work by Matthias de Waele. “Tessellate” trades a headbanger feel with total chaos, while “108” takes out the record with the softened timbres of acoustic steel sting guitar and soloing clarinet.
Iconoclasts is a singular experimental triumph that takes the listener on an epically diverse sonic journey.
Philip Selway ‘Strange Dance’
(Bella Union) Available Now
At the heart of Philip Selway’s Strange Dance, his third solo album released via Bella Union, is the orchestral piano ballad. It’s how the album begins (“Little Things”) and ends (“There’ll Be Better Days”), and where it returns to throughout (“The Other Side”, “The Heart Of It All”). Yet in between, there is also so much else going on.
Lyrically, the album is profoundly sad, but ends with the trepidatious hope of “There’ll Be Better Days”. There are tidbits of Radiohead’s influence – the occasional Thom Yorke chord progression and Jonny Greenwood string arrangement – but otherwise it stands apart.
Between Marta Salogni’s production and Selway’s vocals, the lush sonic environment is reminiscent of Peter Gabriel in his prime. And Strange Dance does stray from the piano ballad: “Picking Up Pieces” with its driving, 90s feel and “Make It Go Away” with its acoustic guitar and percussion that could be from a 80s Paul Simon record.
Favorites on the album include “What Keeps You Awake At Night”, which includes beautiful Steve Reich-esque glockenspiel, the unorthodox percussion timbres and high, sustained strings of title track “Strange Dance”, and “Salt Air” with its droning synth, distorted vocals, and sparsely swooping orchestral parts.
Throughout the record are the incredible percussion parts of Valentina Magaletti, who played in lieu of Selway as the Radiohead drummer felt he was “not in the right mindset” to contribute drums.
Strange Dance is a thing of luxuriant, sorrowful beauty that further establishes Selway as composer in his own right.
Joining the team earlier this year, Gillian Stone is a multi-instrumentalist and interdisciplinary artist originally from the Pacific Northwest and based in Toronto, Canada. Through her eponymous vocally-driven post-rock/drone folk solo project, she has released two singles, “Bridges” and “Shelf”, and her debut EP, Spirit Photographs. Stone holds a BFA in Jazz Studies from Vancouver Island University and an MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of Toronto. Drawing from her eclectic taste, she has worked with Michael Peter Olsen (Zoon, The Hidden Cameras), Timothy Condon and Brad Davis (Fresh Snow, Picastro), The Fern Tips (Beams) Völur (Blood Ceremony), NEXUS (Steve Reich), and visual artist Althea Thauberger.
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