February 2024
Nate Patrin on French Touch, collections of Vocaloid music, the Claremont 56 label, and the new wave of Irish & UK folk, plus fifteen new recommendations
Nate Patrin on French Touch
…so many of its artists arrived at the same general clubland locale after taking some disparate musical journeys to get there, and with a recognizable yet under-represented set of precedents to draw from, they wound up synthesizing an international aesthetic that established the potential for a signature sound while refusing to adhere too closely to a rulebook for it.
Collections
Shy Thompson on Vocaloid
With a community that propelled itself on an engine of pure passion, a Vocaloid oeuvre has developed with enough recognizable classics for Hatsune Miku to make the lineup at Coachella.
Harold Heath on Claremont 56
Over the years ‘Balearic’ has been codified into an accessible multi-genre sound that’s associated with a certain kind of dreamlike, Mediterranean leisurely hedonism, and Claremont 56 manage to epitomise that spirit while also encapsulating something of the early eclecticism and musical freedom of the original Balearic DJs too.
Chris Catchpole on the new wave of
Irish & UK folk
…many of these albums feature instrumentation and arrangements that could make even the most placid argyle sweater-wearing purist run for the nearest axe to sever their power cables, yet these artists’ deep understanding of the songs mean they resonate with a fierce authenticity.
Reviews
Ned Raggett
Nailah Hunter - Lovegaze
In its ten concentrated songs, Lovegaze showcases her talents excellently – little wonder that the first song is called “Strange Delights,” because that’s exactly what she brings.
Phil Freeman
Godflesh - Purge
Six years after the challenging, experimental Post Self, Justin K. Broadrick and Ben Green released the most overtly backward-looking Godflesh album to date. Purge came 30 years after 1992’s Pure, and deliberately sought to revisit that album’s ideas.
Godflesh - Post Self
Post Self is almost entirely devoid of the bulldozer riffs and rage-flecked shouting of earlier Godflesh material. Instead, the guitars on tracks like “Mirror of Finite Light” are almost ambient drones, or quiet samples deep in the mix, with a pounding beat and Ben Green’s bass dominant.
Godflesh - A World Lit Only by Fire
Toward the end of their initial run, the group had employed human drummers, but when they came back, they reactivated the primitive, jackhammer drum machine that had propelled their classic releases and set them apart from the pack as pioneers of industrial metal.
Harold Heath
Bill Laswell - Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974
The overall results here are stunning: futuristic, shifting, electronic-jazz-rock-funk-hybrid sonic soundscapes that are both prescient and otherworldly.
Rick Anderson
Pat Metheny & John Scofield - I Can See Your House from Here
What’s fun is that they don’t really try to fuse their styles – instead they kind of alternate between them, and sound like they’re having a complete blast in doing so.
The Gesualdo Six - Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday
Dense and astringent harmonies make his already emotional music all the more gripping, and this recording features his settings of texts that seem to reflect his moral despair: the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday.
Shy Thompson
POiSON GiRL FRiEND - Melting Moment
Amidst the nascent indie rock wave that was set to take over Japanese radio, Melting Moment stood out as a bold statement. It was danceable, but quiet and contemplative too.
Guido Gamboa - Left-Handed Club
As the interdisciplinarity texts swirl together in an indecipherable soup, you can’t help but search for patterns and craft your own interpretation of an overall narrative — even though the only thing these great thinkers might have in common is the hand they use to hold their toothbrush.
Chris Catchpole
Sadness Sets Me Free - Gruff Rhys
Sadness Sets Me Free dials down the conceptual shenanigans in favour of what the singer describes as “euphoric melancholy,” sugar-coating lyrics about breakups, depression, ruined friendships and political corruption in what might be his best set of songs since SFA’s Phantom Power, or possibly ever.
Iechyd Da - Bill Ryder-Jones
…like Sparklehorse or Mercury Rev (who’s Deserter’s Songs is a clear influence here), out of his own despair Jones creates a work of remarkable beauty, songs such as children’s choir-assisted “We Don’t Need Anyone” and “This Can’t Go On”’s epic, end-of-its-tether desperation sparkling with a transcendence that feels defiant, even optimistic.
Big Sigh - Marika Hackman
Yet the sombre mood and repeated calls to drag herself out of it has produced her most viscerally powerful record to date.
Jon Dale
Gérard Lockel - Présente Des Extraits De Concerts Tirés D'Archives De 1969 à 1990
The music doesn’t so much ‘develop’ over its twenty-years as it does mutate, intricately, but the power of Lockel’s vision dominates. It’s extraordinary.
