Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

Babils – Ji Ameeto

Posted: 18 May 2017 in Albums
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Sub Rosa – 6th March 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

Hey, I’m a sucker for any band who mixes rock, new wave, psyche, kraut, experimental and repetitive music. Consequently, I was sold on the pitch or Babils’ fourth album even before I’d slipped the disc into the player. Reduced to a five-piece following the passing of co-founder Michel Duyuck in November 2014, Ji Ameeto represents the first release of the Brussels-based collective without Duyuck.

The album contains just two tracks, each around the sixteen-and-a-half minute mark. The title track is one of those swirling psych-hued expanses which find layer upon layer of sound emerge, converge and diverge at an infinite array of angles. And all the while, the rhythm section keep on plugging away, thumping out a hypnotic, motoric beat and locked-in bass groove. If my opening sentence reads sarcastically or as being somehow facetious, that’s only partly the case. There is something about long songs that go on and on and on that I find hard to resist. Perhaps it’s an extension of Henri Bergson’s theories on comedy, whereby he suggested that repetition was a key facet of successful comedy, to music that render such heavily repetitious grooves so compelling. Or perhaps it’s the fact there are effectively two songs going on here: the unstinting, relentless rhythm section which hammers on down an unswerving path, countered by everything else, not so much a hotchpotch of incidentals but a succession of fragments and slivers of songs overlaid in top of said rhythm section.

‘C’est la raison pour laquelle nous ne cesserons jamais de recommencer’ throws together a spaced out baggy bassline and shoegaze guitars – and production values – with dark, gothic overtones. Honking horns bleat wildly at incidental junctures, while spiralling guitar breaks rupture from the vast foggy vistas conjured from the swirling sonic depths. At times a cross between The Cure’s Carnage Visors and early Ride, but at the same time altogether more immersive and ‘druggy’ sounding, it’s a disorientating composition which not only celebrates but positively hinges on the contrast between the dissonance and weirdness of the lead lines, and the consistent solidity of the bass and drums as they drive onwards towards the horizon, holding down the same grove for an eternity and more.

 

Babils

Fixions – Genocity

Posted: 16 May 2017 in Albums
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Oracle Rouge – 28th April 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

French cyberpunk / dark-wave project Fixions are, they say, influenced by ‘classic movies such as Blade Runner, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, the extreme metal scene from the 90s, Amiga video games, Fixions evolves in a style mixing dark and surrealistic elements, bombastic, powerful production, and a solid 80/90s dystopic science-fiction aura.’ With this, their fourth album, they threaten ‘the most extreme and deep release they ever produced’ in the form of ‘a concept album inspired by classic cyberpunk fiction tales, where every track depicts one of the thousand dangers the “Edgerunners” will encounter when visiting the city at night [and] sees Fixions merging futuristic urban ambiances with dark epic elements and heavy, abrasive sounds’.

While the concept might not be rendered entirely explicit through the album’s 16 instrumental tracks, but themes emerge both from the audio content and the titles (not to mention the cover art) applied to the compositions: ‘Crimeware’; ‘Terrorwave’; ‘Black Chrome Riot’ all contrive to summarise the intent of Genocity, which to all intents and purposes does come across as a sort of reimagining of Neuromancer in audio form.

Jittery, skittery, interloping lead lines weave their way over thumping basslines that wow and drag, melded to stomping, insistent, industrial-strength disco beats. It’s all about the imposing soundscapes and minor chords, the tension and the relentlessly restive digital flittering. There are grooves aplenty – hard, driving eurodisco grooves packed back to back, interspersed with more contemplative Kraftwerk-inspired tracks.

Does it sound futuristic? Not really. The ‘80/90s dystopic science-fiction aura’ is all-encompassing. The sonic elements are all tried and tested, well-worn tropes which evoke the spirit of ‘the future’ as it looked in those line-green neon-hued imaginings from the 1980s. As such, it’s possible – and indeed hard to resist – viewing Genocity as a sort of nostalgia piece, in which the time and space being yearned for is a golden age in which the future – a future which ultimately failed to become the reality in the present in which we now find ourselves – offered exciting and near-infinite potentials. Perhaps the realisation of that failure is the thread which ties the fictional technological dystopias of the 80s and 90s to the bleak cyberreality of the Internet and the digital age as we now experience it. At least the dystopian digital futures depicted in fiction were, and are, just that – fiction. Artificial Intelligence and automation, a reality in which everyone carries a computer which pinpoints their precise location 24/7 have not given us more leisure time, or more freedom, but has instead overtaken and occupied every inch of everyone’s lives and resulted in the erosion of freedoms at a pace which perhaps even outstrips the technological advances themselves.

When faced with incalculable progress and its effects on the psyche, it’s only natural to regress to safe times. There is, beneath the tension and amidst the dark currents which flow through Genocity, a certain sense of a regressive channelling. And so while it may not be the sound of the future, it does provide a perfectly serviceable recreation of futures past.

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Agnes Hvizdalek – Index

Posted: 15 May 2017 in Albums
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Nakama Records – 27th February 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

You think of the human voice and you’ll probably immediately cast your mind to speech and singing. But the extremity of the range of the human voice is truly remarkable, and extends far, far beyond these limited parameters. Index sees Oslo-based Agnes Hvizdalek explore, over the course of forty-seven minutes – mastered as a single track – the potentials and possibilities of her vocal cords. The CD’s packaging offers nothing but a fingerprint by way of an explanation, but thankfully, the accompanying press release assists with the provision of context and framing the ‘pure vocal sounds that oscillate between fragility and levity, in the most well-shaped musical manner’ by explaining the way in which they’re ‘interwoven with, and set in contrast to the buzz of the city sounds and the building acoustics’. That city buzz is São Paulo, and the album was recorded at the bottom of a 60-metre-high chimney at the old factory “Casa das Caldeiras” in the heart of the city with the world’s largest helicopter fleet. As such, Index captures the correspondence between the individual and environment as well as exploring the limits of the individual themselves.

It perhaps goes without saying that this is about as far into avant-garde territory as it possible to get: a work of pure experimentation, of parameter-pushing and prioritising process over end product. That doesn’t mean that Hvizdalek’s concept is entirely original: Mike Patton’s Adult Themes for Voice (1996) stands as a bewildering document of one man’s immense vocal capabilities. It’s largely unlistenable, at least in anything more than small doses, but at least it’s broken into bite-sized chunks of sonic derangement. Hvizdalek makes no such concessions to accessibility, and while many of her vocal acrobatic are less extreme than Patton’s, Index is nevertheless a hugely challenging album, a morass of saliva and tongues and brain-bending bleating and blowing.

To describe the various sounds would be essentially pointless – not only dull, but abjectly failing to convey the actual experience of the album. So, Hvhizdalek hums and drones, wheezes and moans, ululates gutturally and breathes like a bellows. She squeaks and snarls and snarks and spits. But what’s remarkable is that while at times she sounds perfectly human and natural, oftentimes the sounds issuing forth from the speakers sound like no creature on earth. And yet the bewildering polytonal rasps and drones sound like no instrument known to wo/man either.

There’s no way in the world anyone is ever going to sit down and play this album for pleasure. I write as someone who’s actually spent the best part of an hour with these sounds rippling and bouncing from the speakers wired to my laptop wearing pyjamas and a bemused expression. A part of me feels obliged to give the album at least one more run-through, but the fact is, while I have absolute admiration for Hvizdalek’s artistic commitment and vision, I simply can’t face it, at least not now. This is absolutely no sleight on Hvizdalek’s work: Index is a true work of art. It’s a work to ponder, to reflect on and to sample when the mood takes. This may not be often, but in a world cluttered with sonic wallpaper, there’s a real need for an album like Index.

Agnes Hvizdalek – Index

Her Name is Calla – Live at Bishop Street Church

Posted: 12 May 2017 in Albums
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Self-released – 19th May 2017 – DL/CD (limited to 100 numbered/signed)

Christopher Nosnibor

Having witnessed the evolution of Her Name is Calla since the time of the first release of ‘Condor and River’ and their tour with iLiKETRAiNS (as they were styled back then), and having seen them play live at least a dozen times over the last decade, this release comes in many ways as a pleasing reminder of why they’re still a band worthy of attention and time.

Initially – and perhaps still – out of necessity, Her Name is Calla pursued a DIY ethos, recoding their ambitiously vast music at home and in tiny, cramped spaces and self-releasing in limited, hand-made, hand-numbered runs. And having worked with labels and achieved an international following, the fact they’re keeping things in-house means they’re a band that fans can still cherish and feel as if they’re ‘theirs’. And so it may be that they’ve settled into a certain cult position as they continue to plough their own unique furrow, but the offer of a limited edition of 100 signed CD copies of this live album reflects the band’s continued commitment to their ethics, their fans, and, above all, their music, which they continue to release with or without label backing.

Live at Bishop Street Church – recorded at Leicester’s Handmade Festival this year – captures the sound of a band with an ever-shifting lineup in their current incarnation, which sees them reunited with founder member and multi-instrumentalist Thom Corah, whose bras work proved to be a distinctive feature of their early work: his trombone action on tracks like ‘A Sleeper’ (by far the most buoyant song in their repertoire) and ‘Navigator’ certainly adds to the range of the overall sound, and changes the dynamics of some of the songs considerably.

Although they’ve changed the running order of the tracks, Live at Bishop Street Church is very much an honest account of the band’s live set.

While Her Name is Calla in 2017 are a lot more geared toward quiet, achingly mournful acoustic songs than epic, angst-dripping slow-burners that build to ear-bursting crescendos, there are still no shortage of songs which hit those emotional and sonic peaks to be found scattered throughout their post-Heritage recordings and which feature in their live sets.

The nine-minute ‘The Navigator’ is one of the clear standouts, not least of all because it encapsulates Her Name is Calla in their completeness: a hushed intro, a deliberately-paced build and a rip-roaring crescendo built on a tempest of brass, strings and guitar, with rolling drums rumbling like thunder toward the climax. Then again, the thirteen-minute ‘Dreamlands’ begins with a quiet, haunting segment where Tom Morris’ vocal soars, fragile and pained, over an acoustic guitar, before – three-minutes or so in – the build begins with sonorous brass burring low-end over crashing cymbals of increasing intensity and wordless vocals.

The write-up which accompany the release explain that “‘Meridian Arc’ and ‘Pour More Oil’ are presented here as ‘additional’ tracks as the multitrack failed during the recording of those songs. These were picked up solely by a handheld stereo audio recorder.” The audio quality is certainly less than the rest of the album, but the inclusion of the two tracks in integral to the release. While a shade muffled and heavily reverby, they do, nevertheless, capture the energy of the performance, and both tracks are quite integral to the set. The former is a work of thunderous dynamics and ragged emotional outpouring, while the latter, which closes the album, has become one of the band’s signature pieces, a haunting, spiritual offering which is incredibly moving in any context. Here, stretched out to almost ten minutes, it almost redefines the term ‘haunting epic’.

As a band whose catalogue is littered with incidental and peripheral releases, Live at Bishop Street Church adds to the sprawling clutter which renders them one of those acts which are a completist’s nightmare. But this is also a well-realised document of the latest phase of a band in constant transition. And while the older material is largely overlooked, it does highlight the quality of their later work, as well as evidence the strength of their current live form.

 

 

HNIC_Live BSC

Demen – Nektyr

Posted: 11 May 2017 in Albums
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Kranky – 19th May 2017

James Wells

‘Atmospheric’, ‘haunting’, ‘hypnotic’… these are the first words which spring to mind while the resonant bass notes pulse long and slow beneath Irma Orm’s uniquely sedate voice, bathed in radiant reverb like a sonic halo. These words are all cliché, the everyday tools of the music writer’s trade, and in being cliché, their power has been eroded over time. But what words are there which truly convey, and do justice to, the depths of the music which comprises Nektyr?

The album’s seven tracks are expansive in every direction: textured, rich, slow in tempo, they gradually unfurl to reveal an enigmatic sonic vastness and deep emotional pull.

‘Morgon’ drifts, fugue-like, the dense cloud of sound utterly immersive and with Orm’s vocal, Jarboe’s most intoxicating work comes to mind by way of a touchstone. Woozy synth tones lurch and sway over a stuttering heartbeat of a drum in the fade of ‘Korridorer’.

This is deep material that reaches into the soul on an almost subliminal level: to dissect its power to the point at which it can be readily conveyed n words would be to diminish that power. This is music which communicates on another level, one which transcends language and as such, renders any critical appraisal in mere words not only challenging, but essentially obsolete. This is music you feel, intuitively, instinctively, and in your core. It’s a spiritual, if not a religious experience. Indescribably moving on a level far below the conscious, it really is quite an album.

 

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The Immersive Project – The Immersive Project

Posted: 7 May 2017 in Albums
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Spezialmaterial / Staubgold – SM052 – 6th June 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

You’d expect an act as boldly named as The Immersive Project to make music which is nothing short of completely immersive and engaging from the outset. Even if you wouldn’t, I certainly would, and did, and so was a shade perplexed when my initial reaction wasn’t ‘wow’, but ‘what?’ Snaking bossa nova beats and strutting strings conjure an exotic vibe on the album’s first track, ‘Middle Class Massage’. Is the medium the massage? Am I missing something?

The Immersive Project is a collaborative work, the product of the shared endeavours of musical percussionist Holger Mertin based in Cologne, and electro musician Michael ‘Koko’ Eberli from Zurich. As such, it’s one of those works which could only exist in the modern age, in which distance is no object and geography is a state of mind. The pieces contained herein are what can emerge when collaborators bounce ideas off one another’s ideas, rather than one another, with producer Marco Riedener’s contribution being such that he is named on the cover as the Project’s third member.

‘Pizzifikato’ begins with soft, finger percussion and trilling strings before a trudging march and swampy bassline stroll in to create a dense atmosphere oozing with a sense of esoteric mysticism. Elsewhere, ‘Hilo’ (which features Eberhardt Kraneman of Kraftwerk / Neu renown) hurls a whole heap of stuff together, with bits and pieces of post-punk disco, wibbly synthtronica, bulbous bass and jittery grooves criss-crossing one another all over the shop. What indeed?

It’s certainly varied in its scope, with ambient and semi-ambient explorations interspersing the various forays into experimental dance. At times eerie, often playful, this is a work that defies ready categorisation. It’s not mood music, it’s not dance music: as on ‘Zwerchfell Schwingt’, the clattering, booming thuds are distant and contribute more to the creation of atmosphere than groove. And while the majority of the compositions are strongly orientated toward the rhythmic aspect, it’s by no means a beat-driven album.

‘Regenmann’ brings some chilled, swampy, vibes, and the attention to detail, both within each piece and the overall flow of the album becomes increasingly apparent with each listen. Textures and tones compliment and juxtapose alternately, often confounding expectations from one moment to the next. Such focus on variance and nuance requires a huge create commitment: an immersion on behalf of the creators. It does take a little bit more effort on the listener’s part to fully engage and to appreciate this, but ultimately, the rewards are there for the taking.

 

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Mensimonis – Clone Fever

Posted: 5 May 2017 in Albums
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Opa Loka Records – ol16012

This is one of those slow-building, immersive albums that doesn’t really go anywhere, but has a cumulative effect. Positioning Clone Fever is hard. As the band’s biography explains, they try to ‘do a “musical” thing with the idea of droning away at it… It seems a very simple and basic concept but it always leads to very different results.’

On a technical level, ‘Radboud takes care of the lower parts of the sound, and using oscillators and effects, Lukas is allowed to stay on top with an accumulation of lopped guitar attacks that slowly evolve into drones as the overtones take over.’ This much is apparent in the way each of the compositions on Clone Fever evolves, and through a process of gradual growth, develops into something quite different. It’s the sonic density that the pair create through this process which is the defining feature of the album’s sonic impact.

The first of the four long-form tracks is entitled ‘the individual is handicapped by coming face-to-facee with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists’. As preposterous as the title is, is could well be a soundtrack to our post-everything times. It begins in Earth-inspired drone-folk territory, but as the backwards guitar noodlings build layer upon layer over a slow-swelling elongated drone that expands to fill all space, throbbing and pulsing. And so it goes, for over 22 minutes. But did I hear that right? Did the CD stick or did extraneous electronic sounds fleeting rupture the droning wheeze just a few minutes in?

The ears and the mind can play tricks on the listener, and so can Mensimonis, Radboud Mens and Lukas Simonis (the name being a compound, the creative output being some kind of third mind greater than the sum of the parts, namely electronic / industrial / noise ns noise improv).

Similarly, ‘few believe me when I tell them that the rulers of this planet are of reptilian bloodlines’ continues the ‘conspiracy’ theme, and also starts hesitantly, stuttering, fragmented splinters of a melody gradually growing into something surreal, unreal, a discordant, hazy swell of sound.

‘give the clone a soul, god is watching over your shoulder’ is noisier, forged from a wailing wall of mid-range feedback which hums and quavers as it grates and grinds. Toward the end, the density of sound reaches a point of overload, the signals and sounds breaking up, fracturing, stuttering, glitching.

The album’s final track, ‘all rumours being investigated’ is both the shortest and most challenging, a grating, serrated racket of atonal guitar clanging, churning metallically into an agonizing sonic whorl. By the close, it’s excruciating – in the best possible way, in that it offers no respite, as volume and frequency combine to yield a sound that assails the senses from every angle.

One may broadly categorise ‘Clone Fever’ as a drone album, and it is very much a work centred about the accumulation of sound to create vast, immersive dronescapes with deliberate, unfurling layers folding into one another. But this is a work that digs deep into the psyche and with its occasional jolts and incidental eruptions which interfere with the organic flow of the thought patterns, it’s also an album which offers new potential and at changes the listener on so many levels. It’s an album that does require a degree of patience, but which ultimately delivers a great deal more than the surface suggests it may.

 

Mensimonis

Pękala – Kordylasińska – Pękala — Werke für Schlagzeug und elektroakustische Geräte

Posted: 3 May 2017 in Albums
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Gagarin Records – GR2037 – 1st March 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

Werke für Schlagzeug und elektroakustische Geräte (that’s Works for Percussion and Electro-Acoustic Devices) is the second album by Polish duo Miłosz Pękala and Magda Kordylasińskam, and it’s a covers album. But as you might expect from an act which started out under the moniker Hob-beats Percussion Duo, this isn’t anything like a regular mainstream covers album. The selection of ‘original’ compositions more than amply evidences this, with the album starting with a brace of Felix Cubin compositions – ‘Renaissance Gameboy’ # 1 and #2.

Miłosz is a vibraphonist and percussionist, while Madga’s instrument is marimba: they use these to recontextualise and realign the explorations of Kubin’s works (while usually found working with synths and Gameboys, these pieces were originally written for violin, saxophone, cello, drums, and tape), and the results are nothing if not fascinating. It’s a slow drip, clatter, rattle and scrape with the occasional swelling rumble. It’s percussive, but not overtly so, and the unorthodox approach to generating – and recording – sound using their instruments of choice means identifying the origin of each individual sound is almost impossible.

Frank Zappa is by far the best-known artist covered on here. Famed for being difficult to play and originally written for drum kit and electronic percussion, but later emerging in various revised forms, it does seemingly lend itself to Pękala and Kordylasińska’s set-up. But of course, they’re not content to simply ‘play’ it, and instead incorporate dripping water, temple blocks, cups and use lose-mic recordings of all of these and more to forge an altogether different kind of clicky, flicky clattery racket.

Pieces by Thymme Jones and Steve Reich receive similar treatment, with the latter’s ‘Vermont Counterpoint’ performed with the flute motif and, indeed the rest of the orchestral parts, performed on vibraphone, glockenspiel, marimba and dulcimer. Building layers of rippling melody, it’s remarkably faithful to the original.

An original Pękala composition, ‘Modular #1’ closes the album. Based on a rhythmic pattern generated by a modular synthesiser, it further demonstrates the versatility of percussive instruments, as delicate waves of sound drift and flow in supple glissandos.

And yet, as beguiling as the music is – and it really is extremely pleasant, and relaxing without being too much ‘background’ – the thing I found to be most charming is the sticker on the cover of the CD, which lists the running time of 36:52 as the ‘Total Playtime’. It may not feature on the commercial release, but it does serve as a reminder that music, however serious or experimental, invariably involves an element of play, and this is nowhere more apparent in Pękala and Kordylasińska’s approach to music-making.

 

Pękala – Kordylasińska

Lusterlit – List of Equipment

Posted: 1 May 2017 in Albums
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1st March 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

Lusterlit are a duo comprising Charlie Nieland and Susan Hwang. The pair are part of Bushwick Book Club, in Brooklyn, a rotating group of songwriters and performers put who on regular shows featuring new music, art and snacks inspired by a chosen work of literature.

Concept and eclecticism are evidently very much core to their ethos: they promise ‘a mix of styles ranging from indie to soul to shades of shoegaze, reminiscent of PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, U2 and more,’ and, unusually, draw their lyrical inspiration entirely from the literary world. As someone who often bemoans the dumbing down of rock music, while running around shouting about how literature is the new rock ‘n’ roll because literature is the original rock ‘n’ roll and rock ‘n’ roll is dead, this appeals, at least if one perhaps overlooks the mention of U2.

List of Equipment somehow sounds like something Steve Albini would call an album or an EP, and it follow on from their previous releases, Hopeful Monsters and Everything is Sateen: Five Songs Inspired by Vonegut.

The first track, ‘Ceremony (Inspired by Blood Meridian)’ may not be a New Order cover, but does create a slow-building, claustrophobic atmosphere. But with some mournful guitars sliding beneath Hwang’s vocal, which in turn calls to mind the spirit and sound of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, its haunting darkness is still infinitely more accessible than Cormac McCarthy’s text. The song builds to a swirling climax of breaking tension, the drums rumbling like thunder in the distance.

In keeping with the eclectic sourcing of material, the title track draws its inspiration from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. ‘We’re all gonna die,’ Hwang rasps against a nagging, insistent stomp. The gentle middle eight drops into a more baking-friendly zone before all hell breaks loose with frenzied pianos and percussive detonations that punches an angry hole in the coffee table fodder of a book listed on Amazon a ‘a statement, not of culinary intent, but of aspiration.’

The inspiration for the murky The Day of the Triffids – a work I first encountered as a child via the 1970s BBC adaptation – requires no explanation here, and with clattering, minimal beats and a woozy, squirming synth, Lusterlit convey the creeping fear of John Wyndham’s classic novel with disturbing adeptness.

The swing into funk-tinged soul for ‘Fight’, the first of a diptych of songs inspired by Johnathan Letham’s The Fortress of Solitude (a book I’ll admit that I haven’t read) marks a significant stylistic shift, and while it’s not my musical bag, it’s slickly executed, and demonstrates the wide-ranging versatility of Lusterlit’s musical skills, with Nieland’s dextrous picking having as natural a flow as Hwang’s soulful vocals. Its counterpart song, ‘Genius of Love’ lays down a late-night groove with a shuffling drum and over the course of its six minutes, channels a dreamy atmosphere, rounding off a set of songs that are intelligent, articulate and appealing, without any offputting airs of intellectual snobbery.

 

Lusterlit - List of Equiptment Cover

Soma Crew – National Instruction

Posted: 30 April 2017 in Albums
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25th April 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

National Instruction is Soma Crew’s debut album. This is something of a technicality, as they rebranded shortly after the release of Another Dead Insect in 2015. And while all of the defining features of their previous incarnation remain, Soma Crew, having solidified with their current lineup, can be seen to have made marked progress since then.

The sonic haze which hangs heavy over all of their previous recordings and which defines their live sound is present and correct. On National Instruction, there’s also a wilful raggedness to the performances, with guitars and vocals titling off-kilter every which way, often to quite disorientating effect. It’s also by far the best-realised representation of what Soma Crew are about, showcasing a dense, murky sound, and a climax-centric approach to forging layered songs which plug hard at a single cyclical riff, nailed tight to a simple, repetitive drum pattern. Yet it’s also the work of a band who are evolving, and National Instruction marks a clear progression from their Soma EP release last autumn.

Si Micklethwaite’s vocal style isn’t conventionally tuneful, but then a melodic attenuation is by no means a prerequisite for singing in a rock band. Given the atonal drone elements of Soma Crew’s compositions, which are more focused on creating an atmospheric dissonance than a technically precise, melody-driven musicality, it works, and, bathed in reverb and a kind of fuzzy-edged soft-focus, he sounds more comfortable than on any release he’s featured on thus far.

‘Got It Bad’ features what is probably one of their most overtly catchy choruses to date, with a more clearly defined structure than any previous song – but it’s perfectly offset by a guitar line that heaves off to the left during one of the chord changes which launches said chorus. The nine-minute ‘Pyramids’ finds the band locking into the kind of groove they work the best. A spindly echo-drenched lead guitar wanders, spider-like over a chugging rhythm and spare, motoric beat that typifies their slow-burning brand of Black Angels-influenced psychedelic rock. Elsewhere, ‘Dangerzone’ is tense and angular, with eddying swells of abstract sound and feedback building into a cyclone of immersive noise close to the end. This is something they’ve got a real knack for.

Having heard a fair few of the cuts on Natural Instruction played live, it’s gratifying to observe just how well they’ve replicated the spirit and energy of the live sound on songs like ‘Remote Control’, which carries a shuddering, ramshackle Fall-esque vibe within its jagged two-chord battery. The album’s second eight-minuter, ‘Westworld’ starts of slow, sedate, but simmering: it’s never a case of if it’s going to break, but when, and while maintaining a pedestrian pace, it’s almost halfway through before the drums thud in. And then the guitars get up the volume… and then… and then… By the end, it’s still plodding away but the layers have built up and it’s a big old racket.

There’s something of a trickle toward the tranquil on the last two tracks, with the closer, ‘Maps and Charts’ being a particularly sedate – not to mention accessible indie tune. But rather than being an anti-climax, it reveals newly emerging facets of the bands, perhaps hinting that future releases will see them further extend their range.

 

Soma Crew - National Instruction

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