Reviews

Cyclic July roundup:

The Machinist – Of What Once Was

(Moving Furniture Records)
Two deep long drones with field recording and distorted guitar fuzz.

Leonardo Rosado – Opaque Glitter (Feedback Loop)
Mournful synths and crackle veering from blissful ambient to deep unease.

Rytis Mazulis – Musica Falsa (Megadisc Classics)
Thrilling canons and overtones from the Lithuanian superminimalist and ATTSWOH favourite realised by flute virtuoso Manuel Zurrio.

Lucia Mense: Electric Counterpoint (Satelita)
Excellent survey of new music for recorder from live Cologne performance.

Eisuke Yanagisawa: Ultrasonic Scapes (gruenrekorder)
Buzzing ultrasonic frequencies from organic and inorganic sources in Basic Channel steel box.

Mompou: Piano Works 6 (Naxos)
Positively dreamy undiscovered piano music from the willfully naive Catalan composer.

Nicolas Bernier: Usure Paysage (Hronir)
Award-winning musique concrete from the prolific Bernier.

Various: Contemporary Danish Music (Dacapo)
Impressive and high quality productions and performances of obscure chamber music by contemporary Danish composers. More on this label soon.

Villalobos and Loderbauer: Re:ECM (ECM)
Expertly pitched electronic doodling of ECM samples by Berlin techno duo.

Yoshio Machida: Scape Dance (Amorfon)
Patient Feldman-esque tin-pan improvisations and processed digital tin-pan digitalia accompany strange pastel visual cut ups on DVD. More on Amorfon, "the music adventure label and hair salon", soon.

Angélica Castelló: Bestiario (Mosz)
Chaotic sampladelica by Mexican subbass recorder player.

Coming up: New ambient stunner from Chihei Hatakeyama on Room 40.

The Sight Below / Rafael Anton Irasarri

I've been a big fan of Rafael Anton Irisarri's work since I heard his incredible The North Bend on Room 40 - bleak Badalementi-esque ambiance evoking some terribly sad place, less defined by portentous Lynchian horror than by the barren aftereffects of such menace, the alienation of a world emptied of hopes and dreams. After that I tracked down all his stuff, the Lynch connection made concrete on 'A Great Northern Sigh':


... and 'Lumberton' (a favourite of bvdub):


... along with his other influences - 'VoigtKampff's nod to Wolfgang:


... recordings of Satie's 'Gnossienne #1' (with Goldmund):


... and Part's 'Fur Alina':


... all demonstrate just how close his tastes are to mine. It's fortunate, and oddly rare, that I like his music, as all too often one comes across artists who cite fantastic influences only for their work to be total shit.

I'd read somewhere about Irisarri's other project The Sight Below but only heard it this morning, thanks to my dear friend Christo. Here the Voigt influence - read Gas - is clearly audible: dark, slowly unfolding synthetic waves powered by steady bass drum. There's less presence than with Gas, and less detail in the midrange drones, which Irisarri creates from effected guitar, not samples. There's also ample originality to justify its independent existence - a kind of shoegaze Voigt, or 'Gas meets Grouper' as one friend put it. These from 2008's Glider:





By 2010's It All Falls Apart there's less Gas and more Grouper, with Slowdive's Simon Scott on board to deliver added whoosh, as on 'Stagger'


... and there's vocals even, by Jesy Fortino of Tiny Vipers on Joy Division cover 'New Dawn Fades':


Beautiful and interesting music. I'm reminded too that other titan of ambient techno, Markus Guentner





Irissari favours vinyl, so check here for links to buying it.