Linus - Linus, album review

Whilst 'Stealth' album releases are amongst the latest fads to be realised by a record industry that is still pondering how to be relevant in a digital age, as utilised by Beyoncé, Thom Yorke and Drake, it is altogether less newsworthy but certainly a massively interesting concept to behold when even the birthing of a new creative identity flies under everybody's radar.

When a facebook acquaintance made during my time covering Enfield's music scene, nonchalantly posts 'I did a thing' with a link to a 9 track album it was perhaps fortunate that it neatly coincided with some rare downtime and a need to drown out the sounds of the polish builder working on next door.

I'll admit that I know little of Josef Kirby, I know of him as the lead singer of local Djent-Metal rockers UNX and I gave the band a glowing review for their debut EP a little over two years ago, and much like that EP, it is the developing progression of sound and style that creates a truly listenable body of work.

The age old contrasting of light and dark, quiet and loud, are characteristic of the eponymous nine track instrumental album released under the guise of LinuS, and it is the thoughtful crafting of these nine tracks that is wonderfully realised, with the absense of an intimidating vocal presence the entire focus is solely on the music, and whilst there are a handful of whirling maelstroms these are few and far enough between with far more time spent on the building of clearly defined roles for the instruments involved, the instrumentation certainly is not sparse, but simply has had all but the most essential elements stripped away and each detail is given appropriate room to breathe, relying as much on what is not included as what is.

My knowledge of metal's musical touchstones is woefully lacking, I can recognise the required moshpit baiting and neck breaking guitar riffs and driven drum rhythms even if I cannot match them to the tide of bands that have served as inspiration, but I can hear the sci-fi epic nature of Muse's output that has launched them into a stadium filling stratosphere upon ... And Here They Come, In There Thousands, at near 7 minutes long it is buoyed by a lightness and woozy atmospheric that serves it well and it is telling that this has been chosen as the showcasing track when the album loads in the bandcamp player, it is not merely a midway point on the album chronologically but also thematically as it heralds some lengthy movements that retool the albums already accessible take on metal with an added ambience.

It is from this point forward that the debut long-player emboldens itself with magnificent opuses that are wonderfully crafted and bely the fact that they were uploaded on a whim.  

Self-produced using Cubase and with all guitar parts and bass played solely by Josef himself alongside programmed drums, the arrival of Linus in the world, as a musical identity and as an album, may go unnoticed by many but it has certainly not gone unnoticed by me, and I hope future musical endeavours are announced to a wider audience with more than just a four word facebook status.

FabricLive 80: Mumdance, compilation review

A maelstrom, a heaving monstrosity of noise. Static and feedback pirouette in a divinely unsettling manner, giving way to beeps and whistles and god knows what else. But it certainly isn't music.

And it certainly isn't a conventional way to kick off a mix CD that's sole purpose is to channel the spirit of the longstanding club that lends it's name to the flagship banner being flown. Sticky, sweaty dancefloors would not move to this. Around five minutes into the mix and the whirling sounds become slightly cinematic, six and a half minutes into the mix and the crescendo gives way to a dirge of clipped and sparse... well... to call them beats would be to lend them musical credibility.

 

The grime fuelled carnival spirit that Mumdance flirted with early in his career is unrecognisable and instead his delivered mix is a jarring and almost undanceable mess of experimental dance pushed to the very limits of its own definition. More Aphex Twin than Artful Dodger, Mumdance creates a potentially self-indulgent journey through warped sonics and time signatures that never once even considers the possibility of being a mainroom main-stay, bar a last minute sprint for the finishing line over a measured and unrepentant last-ditch furore into jungle and drum 'n' bass.

Words at times cannot comprehend the boundaries that are being pushed.

Personally I thrive on the sounds of the outlandish, and even I find this 70 minute mix to be unnerving in a sober state of mind, any reasonable combination of pills, thrills and bellyaches would relegate this compilation to a shuddering and sickening flashback that is better best forgotten.

But this sanctioned soundscape must be fit for someone's consumption.

Tread carefully. Move Carefully. Dance carefully.

Approach with extreme caution.

Released 16th March on Fabric

 

Late Night Tales - Jon Hopkins, compilation review

I slip into a candle-lit bath.

This feels like a perfect fit.

Other Late Night Tales releases often have a vibe of an afterparty, a melding of minds as records play in the wee small hours, but Jon Hopkins turn in the series feels different... more personal, more insular.

His offering is a mix for the individual.  To call it constructed is to do it a great disservice, it feels more natural than that, gently pouring from one musical movement to another, the ebbs and flows often gradual, virtually no announcement is made as one track takes the reigns from the other.

The tranquil state is thrown on occasions, vaguely psychedelic turns or disturbances that jar against the relaxed ambience, haunting and cutting a swathe through the safety of a run-of-the-mill chill-out session, because this is no run-of-the-mill chill-out session.

Jon Hopkins' acclaimed musical states are writ large across the 75 minutes, it is grandiose, yet personal, meditative, yet reaching, and I find myself still listening even once the bath water has gotten cold.

Released 2nd March on Late Night Tales

Tonik Ensemble - Snapshots, album review

previously published on glasswerk.com

Sigur Ros sure have a lot to answer for, having seemingly single-handedly set the precedent for what is expected of music hailing from their near-mythical and majestic home of Iceland.

Tonik Ensemble feels no need to let up on the inherent atmospherics that have become culturally defining, but there is an added edge,  a deeply felt darkness that pours across the 8 tracks, and a beat driven underbelly topped off with carefully selected vocal collaborators lift this above the ethereal stereotypes.

It is certain that Snapshots is delivered on a chilled wind of glacial cool, yet as it whistles through your bones it also reflects touches of Faithless's most introspective moments with the crowd-bouncing synth refrains wisely sidestepped for more individualistic tendencies.  Echoing of inward bound paranoia and whirls of emotion, Tonik Ensemble has crafted a delicate beast that dances its fragile dance in the overlooked darkness of uncrowded dancefloors.

Released February 10th on Atomnation

6&8 + Day Before Us - May Propre Fable, un Dimanche

sometimes, music stumps me.

basing my output on my ability to put my own thoughts, feelings and opinions into words, being stumped leaves me feeling rather redundant.

and mostly I tend to feel this way towards music when I feel that my own words will lessen the true experience of just listening.

this is certainly the case in point with 'May Propre Fable, un Dimanche', a startlingly ethereal experimental soundscape that shifts and mutates from dreams to nightmares within a heartbeat, played out across sonic environments that at first seem unthreatening, giving way to my own very human instinct of feeling unsettled by the sounds that I am surrounding myself with, and ultimately wondering if I can even bare to carry on listening, as the whirlpool of emotions dredged up across the space of a few minutes cause such a drastic reaction to the audio atmospherics.

and even putting aside the music, for now, let's focus on the jarring, creepy vocal jaunts that are strewn across the sparse thirty six minute running time, turning simple statements, sentences and facts into mantras that echo like a horror movie, an unemotional delivery that means nothing, yet left to our imagination, could mean anything.

there is power in the art on display here, exemplified in the fact that the release is presented as a number of rooms, rather than tracks bearing pretentious titles, and in fact, the ever more pretentious framing device, and the collaborative efforts of 6&8 (spoken word fleshed out with ambient electronica from the UK) combining with Day Before Us (French semi-classical dark cinematic ambience) reeks of high brow pretentiousness and enthusiastic chin stroking, and if that is the reaction you elicit from this kind of art, then so be it... because art is made to produce reactions, differing from person to person.

and art is made to be experienced, throwing my wayward attempt at a review into disarray, even I myself throughout the course of writing this have pondered how so much of what I have written could be perceived as negative, yet here is a collection that I have enjoyed.

'May Propre Fable, un Dimanche' by 6&8 + Day Before Us 
is available via Auditory Field Theory