Posts Tagged ‘expeimental’

Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band – The New Atomic

Posted: 11 June 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Trash City Records – 26th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibnor

With over thirty members, there’s nothing imaginary about the bigness of the band led by Fergus Quill, and this, their third album, we’re told, ‘celebrates the full gamut of big band music from the big screen showbiz razzmatazz of yore to Charles Mingus, to John Zorn, to the Afrofuturism of Sun Ra’.

But first, a brief potted musical history of the big band, and the origin of this one, which was established as ‘a celebration of the neglected possibilities of the big band’. ‘Following World War II, big bands, with their large ensembles were considered commercially unviable for most, hence the transition to the smaller groups of the bebop era. They are still more scarce in our own times for the same, economic reasons. As such, an undertaking like this, led by primary composer Fergus Quill, is a true labour of love, of spiritual adventure and big fun, a joyful blast of collective noise’.

The New Atomic was recorded over three days, its forty-minute duration culled from some five hours of recordings – more of a box set than an album – and the result is quite remarkable.

‘J Surfing on the Sun’ kicks things off with a nine-minute journey that one might reasonably call quintessential film score stuff – think movie soundtracks from the 60s and 70s with big action. You could almost play this over the video of ‘Sabotage’ by The Beastie Boys – only it’s got swing, it’s got groove, and it’s got… not necessarily narrative, but changes in tempo and instrumentation which could readily correspond with different scenes and the telling of a story, culminating in a frenetic finale. It packs crazy horns and cadent keys and thrills and spills galore. Sure, it’s jazz, but it’s no ponderous chin-stroking shit – this is lively stuff to get down to.

If ‘Theme from “The New Atomic”’ goes avant-garde and disjointed in places, and space-age ambient in others, their cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Love Sick’ is tight, focused, and marks a complete contrast to the rest of the album – it’s overtly structured, and sedate in pace, but boasts some Pearl and Dean kind of blasts (that’s a reference that’ll only make sense to a certain demographic, but hey), and side two goes all out on the groove with ‘Do the Right Thing’, which again brings sturdy beats and a solid groove. And from hereon in, things only get more rambunctious and bold and expansive and wide-ranging, until we arrive at the final song, ‘ I Shall Not Be Moved’ an arrangement of the traditional song, which I’d always believed was ‘We’ rather than ‘I’. Essentially an acapella ensemble performance to begin, the coming together of voices articulating peaceful protest is intensely moving, and never more pertinent. It’s powerful in its simplicity and directness, and serves as a reminder that resistance is by no means futile: we need more of this, and a lot less lobbing of projectiles and burning of vehicles.

The New Atomic is every bit as explosive as the cover art suggests.

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The Spectral Light – Obliteration – Album review and EXCLUSIVE VIDEO STREAM

Posted: 16 July 2025 in Albums, Recommended Streams and Videos, Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Cruel Nature Records – 1st August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

If ever an album was appropriately titled, this is it. Obliteration is from the Sunn O))) / Earth end of the slow and heavy spectrum, with everything low and grinding and dense and seeping along at a snail’s pace – but it’s also so very different. The eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘Teeth’. which raises the curtain on this colossal work, trudges along, thick and murky, the guitars like sludge, overlaid with the most haunting, ethereal vocals, like spirits ascending to the heavens – or perhaps more accurately, fleeing the molten torment of the volcanic pits of hell. The quieter passages ripple gently, but there’s something off-key and off-kilter that proves unsettling, a discordance which isn’t quite right.

The album is described as ‘a visceral, atmospheric journey shaped by improvisation, deep literary roots, and a shared affinity for both crushing heaviness and ghostly ambience’, with the notes going on to add that ‘vocalist and instrumentalist Amanda Votta draws lyrical inspiration from classic rock icons and poets alike – Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, Carl Sandburg’s poems ‘Alone’ and ‘The Great Hunt’, along with Sylvia Plath.’

If none of the influences are immediately apparent, it’s likely because influence can be subtle, more a process of osmosis and assimilation rather than being about emulation. Drawing influence from Led Zep doesn’t have to equate to epic solos and using ‘baby’ a thousand times. And so it is that The Spectral Light suck all of those influences into a swirling vortex.

The churning ‘Branch’ is wild: ZZ Top on acid, Led Zep in the midst of a breakdown, riffs played at a thousand decibels through shredded speakers and melting amps. But it also spins into cracked post-rock territory over the course of its disorientating nine minutes.

Make no mistake: this is a monster: ‘Moonsinger’ warps and bends and it’s emotionally gutting in ways that are difficult to articulate. It touches the core of the very soul. The title track is defined by a dense, metallic churn… and yet there is still a delicacy about it. It’s dark, disturbing, ugly, and yet… beautiful. There is nothing else quite like this. And the dark, airless trudge of Obliteration feels like a black hole… and I find myself being dragged into its eternal depths.

Ahead of the album’s release, we’re privileged to be able to offer a video exclusive for the album’s final track and choice of lead single, ‘Whisper Surgery’. You might want to pour a big drink for this one.

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Cinema Cinema – Mjölnir

Posted: 14 June 2023 in Albums
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14th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

I could harp on about how I was introduced to Cinema Cinema way back some time around 2012 when I was writing for fringe magazine Paraphilia, and the fantastic interview I got to do with Ev Gold on the release of their second album. But my recollections for dates are hazy, and no-one really cares.

Cinema Cinema simply don’t do predictable. The only thing you know to expect for sure is that whatever they do, it’ll be different. There are few bands so committed to the pursuit of doing whatever the fuck they please. While many will find a sound a adhere to it, or otherwise make a marked shift in direction having worn a template out, Cinema Cinema push themselves with each record to be different, and to see just how far their can expand. They describe themselves as art-punk, and have been described as ‘experi-metal’, while venturing deep into the terrain of avant-jazz on their two collaborative releases with Matt Darriau of The Klezmatics (CCXMD (2019) and CCXMDII (2021)). There is something uplifting to see a band who refuse to be defined or limit themselves: Cinema Cinema are whatever they want to be.

For this latest outing, their seventh album, the New York cousin duo is again trio, this time featuring the mighty polymath percussionist Thor Harris. Having witnessed Harris performing with Swans, he is an immense presence onstage – and that also translates to her performances in general. The man can turn his hand to practically any instrument that can be used for percussive purposes, and he doesn’t just bring percussion, but an impressive collection of synths to the party, marking another substantial shift in Cinema Cinema’s sound on Mjölnir. It couldn’t be much mor dramatic: they’ve not only ditched the free jazz but gone for short, punchy pieces: with the exceptions of ‘Zero Sum’ and ‘Voiceless Idaho’, the majority of the album’s eight tracks are around five minutes long or shorter. Structurally, then this is different: the last couple of albums featured ten, even eighteen-minute monsters with sub-two-minute interludes. As such, Mjölnir feels more even, more balanced.

It also feels like something of a return to their noise roots, as demonstrated by recent single, the roaringly aggressive ‘War On You’, a driving explosive sonic attack that sounds – quite unexpectedly – quite like The Screaming Blue Messiahs with its thunderous drums and choppy blues-based riff – while at the same time pushing in yet further new directions. And those directions are myriad: Mjölnir is the musical equivalent of an octopus, its tentacles reaching in all directions at once.

But before that, ‘This Dream’ is a warped nightmare of woozy, bending synths, dark drones and twisting discord. There’s a nagging bass groove that sits somewhere between Air’s ‘Sexy Boy’ and Suicide. That probably should not be a statement that even exists, but it’s a measure of Cinema Cinema’s range, and the fact they make it work is a whole other matter. The guys have a rare knack – and that’s an understatement.

‘Zero Sun’’, the first of the album’s sprawlers, — this one clocking in at seven minutes and forty-five – is a beast, with trilling organs and lasers on stun – and couldn’t be much more of a contrast to the chopping, drum and bass0driven blasts that define the album; s sound.

Mjölnir is tense, and Mjölnir is and noisy. There are moments that worder on progressive, but overall, it’s noisy, aggressive droney, and exploratory. It’s not an easy listen: for as much as it’s got name contributors, it’s challenging, antagonistic. No two tracks are alike, and instead the tracks are blurring… ‘Blurring’ is bewildering, and the bleak vocals of ‘Voiceless Idao’ which border on the demented as they scrape across a track that wrestles with itself into crumbling and collapse.

The shrieking cacophony of that last track is particularly hard-hitting, and reminds us of what Cinema Cinema’s recent work have been lacking: riffs. That’s no criticism: they recent works just haven’t been very riffy. But now, the riffs are dank and dense and it’s no hyp to say that Mjölnir finds Cinema Cinema at their absolute peak. This… yeah, this is good alright.

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