Posts Tagged ‘Synths’

Watch: ‘I Am The Fear’ by IST IST

Posted: 19 September 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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“I Am The Song Stuck On Repeat… I Am The Fear” warns frontman Adam Houghton, his baritone oozing with its trademark ominousness.

But rest assured listeners, there’s nothing to worry about. Piled high with oscillating synth strokes, meteoric basslines, and stacked guitar tones, ‘I Am The Fear’ is a single from the Manchester band that more than bears repeating.

The track arrives with an artistic official video directed and edited by Black Rock Creative and produced by Tom White & Mat Peters. Captured amidst the crumbling surroundings of a Victorian theatre, it features a captivating performance from actor Oliver Marson, alongside on stage footage of IST IST.

Confident and catchy, ‘I Am The Fear’ arrives as the band’s first new recorded material since 2024’s Light A Bigger Fire. Produced by Joseph Cross and mastered by Robin Schmitt, it marks yet another bold step forward for a band who demand your attention more with everything they put their name to.

With the promise of a new album looming, standby for further news on that front very soon…

Watch ‘I Am The Fear’ here:

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Over the years, IST IST have forged a formidable reputation on word of mouth excitement, amassing a dedicated cult following in the process. Operating with a fierce northern DIY work ethic, the band have an ever-growing back catalogue of successful studio and live releases. Self-releasing their entire repertoire through their own Kind Violence Records label, the band’s output has been championed by BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6Music, Radio X, XS Manchester, KINK FM in the Netherlands, The Times and more.

Their acclaimed fourth record ‘Light A Bigger Fire’ reached 25th in the UK Official Album Charts in 2024, with John Robb praising the record as “glorious yet introspective 21st-century pop music” in a five star review on Louder Than War.

Taking the record out on the road last year, over 8,000 people across thirteen countries turned out in force at iconic venues such as the Paradiso in Amsterdam and New Century Hall in Manchester to support the band in what stands as one of their most successful European tours to date.

Riding this wave into 2025, IST IST returned to Europe for further dates including their SOLD OUT debut Italian shows, and subsequently released two live albums ‘ON FIRE’ and ‘Live In Italy’. The band are book-ending this year with a run of major shows back in the UK – in Leeds, Glasgow, London, and Birmingham across late November and December – as they celebrate their 10th year in business.

And in the last few weeks, IST IST announced their biggest hometown show to date. In 2026, the band will play the salubrious Albert Hall show; a show that presents both an unmissable opportunity to revel in the career high points of their decade long career, while getting a glimpse of their eagerly awaited new album.

Catch IST IST at the following UK shows:

IST IST – 2025/26 TOUR DATES

Friday 28th November – Leeds – Warehouse

Saturday 29th November – Glasgow – Oran Mor

Friday 5th December – London – 229

Saturday 6th December – Birmingham – O2 Academy2

Friday 1st May 2026 – Manchester – Albert Hall

w/ Support from DESPERATE JOURNALIST + THE YOUTH PLAY

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Ist Ist I Am The Fear

Kev Hopper – XiX

Posted: 27 August 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Dimple Discs – 22nd August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Weird shit is welcome here at Aural Aggravation. It was a part of the ethos of my starting this site back in 2015. Yes, it’s been that long since I decided that I wanted to strike out alone with a view to creating a platform devoted essentially to stuff that appealed to me and exploring them with more long-form, discursive essay-type writing. This of course completely went against the grain of where most media, in particular music media, is at now, and this has only become more pronounced over the last decade, in which time attention spans have largely been reduced to circa 120 characters or simply .GIFs and memes. But – presumably because my focus is on rather niche music which doesn’t always receive a wealth of coverage, rather than because of my propensity for divergence into the personal or the political – Aural Aggravation now attracts a respectable readership. I don’t feel any desire to celebrate 10 years of doing this: to do so would really be to celebrate a decade in a lifetime of stubbornness, a compulsion to write, and a musical obsession which I choose to inflict upon the world, but I do suppose, on reflection, that the rarity of the format, occasionally touching on theory, but – hopefully –without too much hypotactic wankery.

And so we arrive at XiX by Kev Hopper, who despite fourteen solo albums, and despite co-founding electronic act Ticklish in the late ‘90s, and was composer/bassist with Prescott in the 2010s, and working as a visual artist by the medium of painting for a good number of years, is still probably best known for being the bassist in Stump between 1983 and 1988. Despite only releasing one album proper, their output of singles and EPs was solid, they were all over the music press at the time, and they were championed by John Peel. This potted history throws into sharp relief just how times – and the face of the music industry, particularly outside the mainstream – have changed.

Hopper’s second album on Dimple Discs is a collection of quirky, whimsical electronic experiments. Skittery, light, and lively, there’s a playfulness which defines the pieces, even when sliding into low-end notes and minor chords. ‘Vector Prodder’ plunks and plonks, twangs and reverberates, and slides into spooky but fun territory, and in some respects it’s got 1960s Addams Family vibes. ‘Gruntian Forbes’ twists and spins strangeness into a sunny calypso groove, and this, in many ways, encapsulates Hoppers’ approach to composition on the twelve tracks on offer here – namely taking a comfortable form, and rendering it uncomfortable by warping, twisting, and distorting it in some way or another, tossing in some ethereal haze and a bucketload of l’aissez-faire oddball elements. And why not?

XiX fully embraces the spirit of experimentalism – the idea of simply trying things out and seeing what happens, and not even being hugely concerned if it’s only half-successful. That isn’t to say there are any semi-successes or borderline failures on XiX: what I’m driving at is the spirit of creative freedom which pervades. When cut free of the constraints of commercial concerns, when liberated from self-censorship, and simply creating for the sake of creating, for the joy that experimentation and making sound can bring, a work takes on a level of buoyancy. XiX is the sound of creative freedom. ‘Devils’ may be dolorous, with hints of Tom Waits, but ‘Lance The Prawn’ is an exercise in gurling synth and ridiculously OTT vocal processing (half-burying absurd couplets like ‘lance the prawn / on the lawn’) amidst bleeps and wiffles and space-age throbs and pulsations.

It’s sci-fi in its influences, but it’s Douglas Adams on the serious scale. While I’m no fan of Adams myself – I find the humour simply too cheesy, but worse than that, I find the fans of his works, who insist on referencing him relentlessly beyond irritating, I would like to think that this scaling works in context. The album’s material is not irritating or nerdy, but it is, at times, overtly strange, and nowhere more so than on ‘Brand Street Psychodrama’. It may be but a brief interlude, but it’s all the disorientation. ‘Window Seat’ brings all the chimes and gentle brass, evoking that mythological bygone age crossed with intimations of ‘made in China’, in the brittle 80s plastic sense.

Having just written about Eamon the Destroyer’s new release, it seems that this belongs in the same field, but represents an altogether different face of the experimental dice.

And this is a good thing, in that we are able to wander through very different corridors while stroking our chins and pondering the work emerging from the field of ‘experimental music’. Towards the end, there’s an urgency that builds to XiX. Or perhaps it’s just my anxiety rising as midnight draws closer.

Either way, this is a supple work, which ventures across a range of styles and forms, with the chiming, tinkling nine-minute closer, ‘The Cucurella Problem’, with its whimsical , warping lead lines and tentative, wandering bass being truly exemplary. It bends the brain, but slowly, gently, softly, and it’s kinda nice.

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Trek with Quintronic – Stranger Than Today

Posted: 5 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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17th December 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s inevitable that with the sheer volume of music in existence, there will be a fair bit which bypasses even the keenest enthusiast of the obscure. Trek and Quintronic is a pairing I feel I really ought to be familiar with. Emerging in 1980 Paul Wilcox (Trek) and David Kane (Quintronic) recorded two albums, noted for pioneering ‘electronic rock’, with Landing in from 1980, and the self-titled follow-up Trek w/ Quintronic LP the following year, created using an array of synths, plus pedals and six- and twelve-string electric guitars. There was a reissue, entitled Landing Plus, released in Europe in 2012 and the US a couple of years later, which featured the entirety of Trek w/ Quintronic and a couple of additional cuts by way of the ‘plus’, but twelve years on, it’s not exactly easy to come by, and this new release offers something quite different, featuring as it does ‘9 of the original Tw/Q tracks plus 11 new, never released songs written by Paul Wilcox, spanning a period of 40 plus years, all remixed and remastered.’

This means that some of the material was recorded after their second album, without seeing the light of day, while some of the contemporaneous recordings have been flaking away on old tapes since 1980 or thereabouts, and their restoration and repair has been quite an undertaking, achieved quite remarkably by David Lawrie of The Royal Ritual. The aim, as they state on the website, was to ‘present the definitive collection of the best of Trek with Quintronic’, and containing some twenty tracks, this is a wide-ranging, and in-depth summary of their work – and it’s often the case that musical careers consist of considerably more than the material that was released at the time, for whatever reasons.

That ‘You Might be Lonely’ and ‘As We Sing’ first appeared on Landing makes this a truly career-spanning document, which showcases the full span of their musical vision and innovation. It’s often easy to forget just how new to the market (affordable) synths were at this point in time. The advent of 80s synthpop and industrial music came about as a result of the emerging technology, which also, notably, included drum machines. It was a revolution.

There’s a gothic, church organ feel to the introduction, and its grandeur also makes a nod to the prog past of the pair, but it’s listening to ‘You Might be Lonely’ that the span of their influences coupled with the use of the kit at their disposal becomes apparent: it’s like Hawkwind but with synths, both rumbling and swirling and with additional laser blasts and primitive drum machine knocking out a metronomic rhythm, all coalescing to provide a backdrop to a vocal delivery that’s an overt Bowie rip.

The Bowie influence looms equally large on the glammy ‘All the Rave’, only here with the addition of sweeping string sounds. It sounds remarkably fresh, as well as prefacing – by a long way – the trend for orchestral flourishes which would be a big thing in the late 90s with, and winding up with a big, flashy guitar solo. It’s visionary stuff, and the execution is remarkably sophisticated, particularly for the time.

Some of the songs sound more of the era: ‘Zolian Space’ lands somewhere in the region of OMD and Ure-era Ultravox, but it’s a nifty enough pop song. There are a fair few of those on offer here, not least of all the bouncy Suicide-meets-Bowie ‘White Hoods’, and the hyperactive twitch of ‘Twin Forces’.

The guitars are to the fore on the previously unreleased ‘Built to Average’, hinting perhaps at one of the many directions they could have veered. It’s a solid tune, but coming on like a collision between Bauhaus and Mr Mister, it’s dated more than some of the other material, whereas, in contrast, the spiky ‘Wally And The Rich Kid’ is pure vintage yet still more impactful in its stark, dramatic stylings.

Some of – what at least I assume to be – the later material stands out because it sounds different: ‘Religion’ is slicker, the drum machine in particular more ‘real’ sounding, and in a way it tells a story of technological advancement and its effect on music-making. Objectively, it sounds better, in terms of clarity, fidelity, separation, but for everything that’s been gained, something has been lost, and it’s something that using emulators or even vintage gear can never fully recapture. There was an unmistakeable zeitgeist about the ‘79-’82 spell, which was unique, and Trek with Quintronic were right there and probably didn’t even realise at the time. No-one did, really.

Hindsight really is everything. Stranger Than Today is an outstanding compilation which goes beyond in providing a hitherto unseen insight into the context of their groundbreaking second album and beyond.

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Poly Ghost – Ananas Ring

Posted: 23 December 2023 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

I may have mentioned before that I’m a sucker for the sound of vintage drum machines – partly by association with so many of the innovative acts which emerged in the late 70s and early 80s, which used them in a host of different contexts, exploring the near-infinite avenues these little bits of kit afforded. For a start – and perhaps most significantly – it was possible to make solid percussion without the need for a drummer or drum kit, meaning furthermore, thanks also to the advent of the portastudio, there was no need for a proper rehearsal space or studio to rehearse and record music. In fact, with relatively cheap synths, you could record as a band without even having a band. The other thing was that, if amped up right, these things could be immensely powerful. And so it was that we saw the emergence of acts as diverse as The Sisters of Mercy and Metal Urbain, Young Marble Giants, and The Human League.

Poly Ghost are a German synthpop trio, and ‘Ananas Ring’ is a quirky, fairly minimal tune that brings together the primitive sound of the aforementioned Young Marble Giants with the retro-chic of Stereolab, delivered with a humourous twist that could only come from a German act. Anyone who says the Germans lack humour is simply missing it. Absurdist wordplay might not be everyone’s bag, but from Die Toten Hosen to the deliberately clunky lyrics on St Michael Front’s first album, there’s no denying that there’s a thread of quirky amusement that’s uniquely German.

And so we arrive at Poly Ghost’s ‘Ananas Ring’, and while the twisted punning of the band’s name is one thing, the inter-language incongruity of ‘ananas’ – French for pineapple – with the English ‘ring’ (the French word for ‘ring’ is ‘bague’) from a German band takes messing around with language to another level. Despite the lyrics seemingly being in English, I have absolutely no idea what the song is actually about. But, I do have functional ears, which are totally sold on this quirky sound. The accompanying video is daft, and ‘Ananas Ring’ is a nifty tune that brings all the analogue, and the squeaky, inflected vocals just make it all the more wonderous.

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Hanging Freud – Worship

Posted: 9 December 2023 in Albums
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Spleen+ (Alfa Matrix) – 1st December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Christmas has come early this year, with an absolute deluge of releases landing on1st December, many from acts I like or am otherwise keen to hear. Hanging Freud are in the former bracket, and Worship marks their seventh album release, following 2021’s Persona Normal.

The duo have established themselves as purveyors of premium-quality dark, stark, gothy electro, and with Worship, they solidify their position with aplomb. Persona Normal was recorded at a leisurely pace between 2018 and-2020, and, like so many other releases in the last couple of years, Worship was written and recorded during the pandemic and under lockdown conditions, and the accompanying notes lay out both the contents and context in further detail:

‘The 10 songs featured on this album literally come from a place of contradiction hanging somewhere between courageous vulnerability and fearful resilience, and deal with themes such as collective distress and loss, finding beauty in tragedy or yet questioning about what makes us human in the symbolic contrasts of life and death…. It’s no surprise to hear that this “less is more” introspective ode to melancholia was written in particular claustrophobic circumstances during the pandemic lockdown. “Because of what was going on, we were essentially stuck in temporary accommodation in Scotland, away from our studio and forced into a period unexperienced before. The songs that came out therefore come from a different place. Everything was done within a laptop and is proudly 100% digital. It was recorded and mixed while literally sitting on the side of a bed in a mouse infested apartment…” explains Paula Borges.’

If it sounds like a grim and oppressive set of circumstances for creating art of any kind, then the singles which prefaced the album have set the tone and expectation, while affirming the claustrophobic intensity of the music which emerged from these challenging conditions.

The result is a hybrid of Siouxsie and 17 Seconds era Cure with a hefty dose of New Order’s Movement and dash of Editors circa On This Light and On This Evening. Reference points may be lazy journalism, but they serve a purpose. While this album stands alone like an icy obelisk, singular and a monument to the darkest introversions, some musical context is probably useful for discursive purposes.

The stark ‘Falling Tooth’ is as bleak and haunting as it gets: Paula’s vocals are breathy but theatrical, pitched over a strolling squelchy synth bass and a vintage-synth sound that wanders around over just a few notes, while ‘I pray we keep the world’ is low, slow, sparse, and lugubrious, as well as emotionally taut, and dominated by a truly thunderous drum sound. ‘This Day’ is particularly drum-heavy, withy only gloomy, droning synths sweeping through a heavy mist of atmosphere.

There are some who bemoan the use of drum machines, and who complain that they lack the vibe of a live drummer. Hell, there are contributors to forums and groups devoted to The Sisters of Mercy who question why they don’t get a real drummer, some forty-two years on from their inception. These people are missing the point. Drum machines can do things that human drummers can’t, and one of those is how drum machines can be louder, heavier, more monotonous than a live drummer. And in context for certain music, this can be a real asset, accentuating the sensation of dehumanised detachment of synth music that sits at the colder end of the spectrum. And Worship is one of those albums which will leave you with chapped lips.

It’s against brittle snare cracks and sweeping synths that Paula claws her way through complex emotions, and where the lyrics aren’t immediately decipherable, the haunting vocal delivery is heavy with implicit meaning. It resonates beyond words alone. Everything is paired back to the barest minimum, exposing the darkest recesses of the psyche.

Standing alone as a single, ‘A hand to gold the gun’ was bleak and heavy. Sitting in the middle of the album, this sensation is amplified, accentuated, and the gracefulness of the vocals as they drape around the broad washes of sound which surge and well is that of a dying swan.

‘Her Joy’ is perhaps the least joyful thing you’re likely to hear in a while, and if ‘Beyond’ feels somewhat uplifting, it’s only because it’s a flickering candle flame in an endlessly dark tunnel, as devoid of air as light. The mood is heavy, and presses on the chest, slowly pressing the air out and crushing the spirit, and as the album progresses, the effect is cumulative. By the time we arrive at the piano-led ‘Don’t save yourself for him’, I feel my shoulders sagging and my back hunched forward from the endless weight of this.

Worship is a masterful exercise in poise and restraint, a work which conveys the purest essence of isolation, of desolation.

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Saloli – Canyon

Posted: 15 July 2023 in Albums
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Kranky – 7th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

If the prospect of an album from a solo pianist whose recording moniker is the Cherokee word for ‘squirrel’, and which is intended to evoke ‘a day in the life of a bear in a canyon in the Smoky Mountains,’ with each track channeling a different emotion or experience in its daily explorations, sounds as if it may be soft, neoclassical tinkling, Canyon will come as rather a surprise.

As the accompanying notes explain, ‘Canyon was composed and performed live on a Sequential Circuits MultiTrak synthesizer…routed through a delay pedal. This refraction adds a lyrical spatial quality, as though “echoing off canyon walls.” It’s music both gentle and adventurous, curiously rooting through soils and streams, in a sustained state of discovery’.

It’s a proper vintage piece of kit, an analogue synthesizer only produced for a couple of years in the mid-1980s. Described by Vintage Synth Explorer as ‘a six voice analog synth with sophisticated filters, envelopes, modulation capabilities and built-in sequencing’, it’s clearly got versatility in its favour – which means Saloli has a broad range of sounds and effects at her disposal to articulate the range of moods and emotions of her subject. But above all, it has that classic analogue warmth of tone, the rich, organic texture that resonates in a way that’s almost biological. It’s something that’s both affecting and in some way comforting, the fuzzy edges conjuring a sonic blanket, and even when venturing into more abrasive territories, analogue synths very much have the capacity to reach the parts their digital successors somehow can’t.

The album starts strong: ‘Waterfall’ spirals and cascades in a swirl of synth that doesn’t necessarily evoke – at least to me – anything bear-like, but the more ambient end of Krautrock ‘Lillypad’ drifts soft-edged semi-ambience strolling and ‘Snake’ is unexpectedly graceful. But then, if you’ve ever watched a snake move, it is a graceful, supple movement, and snakes have an undeservedly bad reputation among humans. Very few of them are dangerous, and they’re certainly not the only creature to shed its skin. Again, the notes provide an insight which perhaps has a bearing on the tone here, explaining that ‘In Cherokee teachings, humans and animals are considered to have no essential difference – originally, all the creatures of the earth lived together in harmony’, and as such, ‘Canyon captures shades of this Edenic notion across eight elegant pieces, alternately meandering, pensive, playful, and pure. Sutton’s playing, as always, is dexterous and dimensional, mirroring the dazzled senses of its muse. If then, the compositions don’t quite confirm to our expectations, based on our perceptions of the various inspirations, it could well be on account of Saloli approaching them from a very different perspective. Why are we scared of snakes? Some of it is likely biblical in origin, some to popular portrayals in movies and media. But one is not afraid of one’s equal, and living together in harmony means there is no reason for distrust.

Such belief systems may be difficult to comprehend, but how much better, more pleasant, more bearable, would life the world over be if everyone held these views? There would be no social hierarchy, there would be no capitalism, there would be no war. Consider that for a moment.

The beauty of Canyon is that it’s a work which encourages and inspires contemplation.

It’s the playful side of Saloli’s songwriting that comes to the fore on the slowly bouncing ‘Yona’. It’s mellow, light, uplifting, and contrasts significantly with the introspective ‘Silhouette’ which follows, a reflective, melancholy pie, which makes you ache ever so slightly inside: you can’t quite pinpoint the reason, but that’s the power of music. Moreover, it’s the power of Saloli’s music, as the forms shift from string-like elongated notes to shorter, more piano-like sounds, with all of the variables in between.

‘Full Moon’ is positively bloopy and gloopy, trilling tones like synthesized pan pipes echoing out over a bubbling, bass, and it works nicely: there is contrast, there is movement. And in an abstract way, it captures the energy that seems to emanate from a full moon. And there is an energy which affects creatures and humans alike: some if it’s mystical and mythical, but I’ve often felt hyper without even realising it’s a full moon.

There’s something buoyant but also stealthy and predatory and then again, at the same time, increasingly discordant and with shades of darkness, about ‘Nighthawk’, a seven-and-a-quarter-minute monster with transportative qualities, before the true closer, the eight-minute ‘Sunrise’ heralds the arrival of the new. A new dawn, a new hope. Breathe deep. This could be our reality too.

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Spotlights – Alchemy For The Dead

Posted: 18 April 2023 in Albums
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Ipecac Recordings – 28th April 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

As their bio explains most succinctly, ‘Spotlights occupy the space between a push-and-pull of jarring metallic catharsis and sweeping distortion. Even as either side vies for supremacy, neither extreme ever completely tightens its grip, allowing waves of melodic vocals and expressive sonic sorcery to breathe in the middle. This deft balancing act has enabled the trio—husband-and-wife Mario Quintero [guitar, vocals, keys] and Sarah Quintero [bass, vocals] joined by Chris Enriquez [drums]—to carve a singular lane. Armed with an uncanny ability to wield darkness or light, the trio’s fourth full-length offering, Alchemy for the Dead [Ipecac Recordings], finds them exploring something we all face, yet few embrace…’

Expanding on this, Mario explains the album’s overarching theme, which the title alludes to: “One of the major parts of our lives, is the fact we’re all going to die,” he says “Most people are terrified of it, some people learn to look forward to it, and some see it as a way out of their misery. Various cultures view it differently. There isn’t necessarily a story to the album as a whole, but each song deals with the theme of death. It could be fantasy such as bringing a loved one back to life or darker moments like suicide and deep depression.”

It’s a fact that, at least in Western culture, death remains perhaps the last taboo, something of which even the dying tend not to talk about, not properly.

It was back in 2018 that I first encountered Spotlights: their cover of ‘Faith’ by The Cure from their Hanging by Faith EP was an instant grab. This was a band that really ‘got’ the atmospherics of the track and captured the essence of what, for many, myself included, remains as an untouchable trilogy of albums, 17 Seconds, Faith, and Pornography.

Alchemy For The Dead doesn’t sound like any Cure album specifically, but still takes cues in terms of weighty atmosphere. Following a gentle introduction that borders on dark synth pop, it’s not long before the blasting power chords crash in, thick and dark and heavy. And the thick, processed bass on ‘Sunset Burial’ blends with a rippling guitar that’s richly evocative and reminiscent of Oceansise at their best. But when they break into monolithic crescendos of distortion, I’m reminded more of the likes of Amenra, of BIG ¦ BRAVE.

There are some extravagant guitar breaks, but somehow, they’re as forgivable as the more processed prog passages, which in the hands of any other band would likely sound pretentious: Spotlights sound emotionally engaged and sincere without pomp or excessive theatricality: this isn’t something that’s easy to define, not least of all because it’s such a fine line when weighing up musical that’s so reliant on technical proficiency and very much ‘produced’. And the production is very much integral here: the arrangements require this level of separation and clarity. But this is where it’s important to distinguish between production and overproduction, and it’s testament to Mario’s skills at the desk that he’s realised the band’s vision so well. The bass really dominates the sound, which is so thick, rich, and textured, and also explores a broad dynamic range: the quiet passages are delicate, the loud ones as explosive as a detonation at a quarry.

Similarly while the songs tend to stretch beyond the five-minute mark, there’s nothing that feels indulgent or overlong here. ‘Repeat the Silence’ builds on a simple repeated sequence almost reminiscent of Swans’ compositions, but thunders into a bold, grungy chorus that’s more Soundgarden.

The album’s shortest song, the three-and-a-half-minute ‘Ballad in the Mirror’ is also the most overtly commercial, a straight-up quiet/loud grunge blast, and the riffage is colossal.

‘Crawling Towards the Light’ marries monster riffage with Joy Division-esque synths, and somewhere between Movement-era New Order and Smashing Pumpkins, but rendered distinctive by the propulsive drumming which drives the track which builds to a roaring climax.

The seven-minute title track is sparse and suffocating. It has a nostalgic quality that’s hard to define, and it’s perhaps something that’s only likely to punch the gut of nineties teens in this specific way, but it’s understated and emotive, and then the guitars crash in and it’s fucking immense and… well, what a way to conclude an album.

Alchemy For The Dead is a huge work, an album that draws its own parameters and digs new trenches around genre definitions before bulldozing them to the ground with riffs. Complex, detailed, and unique, Alchemy For The Dead is something special.

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Tom Belushi Jazz Trio – Death Mast LP

Posted: 31 March 2023 in Albums
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Christopher Nosnibor

I get a lot of weird shit come my way. I guess it’s to be expected: I review a fair amount of weird shit and it just snowballs: weird shit finds me. And this is very much weird shit. Despite some serious deliberation, I can’t decide where the emphasis lies in that statement.

Details about the artist or the release are practically non-existent, but it doesn’t take too much digging to establish that the Tom Belushi Jazz Trio aren’t a trio and they don’t play jazz.

Having released an EP (also entitled Death Mast) and deleted it almost instantaneously, Tom Belushi Jazz Trio seem determined to render themselves as evasive frustratingly obscure as is conceivably possible. But this is clearly not simply a musical project, so much as an exercise in postmodernism that revels in ephemerality. With CD copies of this release being limited to single figures, I’m reminded of various crackers projects by Bill Drummond and The KLF, among others, whereby the objective seems to be to create an objet d’art that’s so scarce it’s beyond reach even before it’s released, essentially only existing in legend.

Slapping synths, gloopy stuttering beats, warping irregularities and groaning keys redefine the sound, along with snippets of robotic, autotuned vocals. Oriental motifs are dominant in this instrumental album’s ten exploratory tracks, which appear to be largely AI in origin. Because yes, it’s taking over the world. Think you can hide or linger on the peripheries now? You’re simply deluding yourself.

There are some nice sounds – and some naff ones – all balled together in an eclectic hotchpotch of ersatz electronic collaging. ‘Traitor’s Gate’ is a droning shanty that’s actually got human vocals; it’s woozy, disorientating in an uncanny sort of a way.

The titles are daft, absurdist, Dadaist or abstract, and littered with references, many of which are obscure – ‘Luke Haines. I Have Your Hat’; ‘No Mark Wynn’;(a particularly cheesy and overly synthetic slice of r ‘n’ b); ‘Stairwell Crooks Shutterstock Dust Jacket’ but ultimately seem to present as little true meaning as the music itself (and I can’t ever recall having experienced any dilemmas over purchasing avocados).

Death Mast is one of those albums that was probably more fun to produce thana it is to listen to. It does have considerable novelty value, and it does have lots of ideas, but few seem to be explored in any real depth or fully realised, and as such, the main idea seems to be the concept for the creative process – or should that be ‘creative’ process?- rather than the end product. But with the ideas and even the passages within the tracks being as fleeting and as ephemeral and impossible to locate as copies of the album itself, what are we really left with? Ultimately, Death Mast presents more questions than answers, a point of discussion more than a musical project. But, if there is one conclusion we can draw from this it’s that there is no need to worry that AI will bring about the end of music as we know it. At least, not this week. Welcome to the post-postmodern age.

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Bruno Muerte – Errors

Posted: 18 March 2023 in Albums
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24th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

This Oxford based act describe themselves as ‘Techno Western New Wave Electroclash’ and ‘Synth lovers’. Unfortunately for me, this description conjures images of moustachioed hipsters circa 2009. The pair may well, be, choosing to keep their mugs off the record, and I’m all too aware of just how the field of instrumental electronic music is very much the domain of middle-class white guys tinkering with expensive toys. This lack of cultural diversity may be a leading factor in there being so much sameness stylistically.

Sameness isn’t really a criticism one could level at this album, for while it does assimilate many common tropes of contemporary synthesizer music – in that its inspirations are often retro in origin – stylistically, Errors offers a broad range.

‘Science of Errors’ is a punchy piece of electropop with some big, bold proggy sections that surge along in a rush, and it’s a strong start. ‘Conga Cop’ is very much a tune of 80s TV show vintage style. It’s extremely busy in terms of arrangement, stabby synths shooting over a hectic rhythm and samples flying around there and there, before going altogether more minimal on ‘Phil D’Ophear’, a much darker slice of techno where the dense bass dominates. Elsewhere, ‘Wibli Wobli’ packs a driving, energetic groove.

Errors is big on ideas: it’s positively bursting with them, and consequently, there is a lot happening, sometimes, if not all at the same time, then densely packed together, to the point that sometimes it feels as if there’s too much happening. And not all of the ideas necessarily work perfectly: the Clangers whistling over a microtonal waltz on ‘Satomi’ is novel and fun, but little more, but it’s Bruno Muerte’s willingness to experiment and the mix-and-shake approach to making music that’s a large part of the album’s appeal.

As they write in the accompanying notes, ‘One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist without errors.’ It’s refreshing to hear: Errors, then, is not a quest for perfection, but a celebration of imperfection and the joy of being creative. And ultimately, it’s joy that Errors brings.

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Distant Animals – Everything Is Fucked And We Are All Going To Die

Posted: 27 December 2022 in Albums
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Panurus Productions – 2nd December 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Panurus Productions are renowned for their favouring of pop and jaunty indie on their catalogue, but as the title suggests, they’ve really excelled with the saccharine-sweet, shimmery Christmas bauble stylings on this December release by Distant Animals, the vehicle for Daniel Alexander Hignell.

The accompanying blurb sets the pitch for ‘A scuzzed out synth/noise/punk affair… straddling a range of genres but never settling on any one of them for long, shifting around with an angry, anxious energy directed at our bleak status quo.’

Granted, this does mean it’s nowhere near as abrasive as recent releases from Trauma Bond or as dark as Carnivorous Plants, this is a hybrid form that coalesces to convey the sound of post-industrial nihilism.

The synths drive and dominate the sound, and they’re layered into thick, foggy swirls pitched against grinding, fuzzy-as-fuck sequenced bass and a drum machine that’s largely submerged beneath the swelling squall. The opener, the eight-and-a-half-minute ‘Greetings from the MET Office’ builds and builds into an immense wall of sound, the guitar adding layers off noise and feedback rather than melody. There is a tune in there, somewhere, and vocals, too, buried in a blitzkrieg that sounds like Depeche Mode covered by My Bloody Valentine and then remixed by Jesu or Dr Mix and the Remix.

‘Phase Down and Sweat to Death’ gets dubby, with samples and snippets cut in and out of the mix, and actually finds a murky, echo-drenched groove in places, before veering off on myriad detours.

As titles such as the title track and ‘Panning For Shit In The Shallow End’ intone, this is far from a celebratory collection, with the delicate and brittle-feeling ‘Hegel’s Violin’ sounding like it could have been penned by The Cure circa Seventeen Seconds, and yes, it’s fair to say that there are what some may refer to as ‘gothic’ elements to the brooding sound.

If songs titles like ‘Fondly Remembering When Primark was a Woolworths’ and ‘They Didn’t Have Snowflakes In 76’ might suggest that Hignell’s been gorging on the Memberberries, but on the evidence there is, buried away in trudging industrial sub-zero trudges and stark, oppressive abstraction, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and we can appreciate these compositions as critiques of the multi-billion-pound nostalgia industry and Brexit Britain, where narrow-minded twats get dewy-eyed all over social media reminiscing over false memories of a golden age that never was. ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to…’ It’s patent bullshit of course, but so many subscribe to this that, well, it must be true that The BBC haven’t screened Monty Python in decades because they’re woke lefties (and nothing to do that after airing it in 2019 for the fiftieth anniversary, the rights were purchased by NetFlix), and Stranger Things is only good because, well, it’s like The Goonies, isn’t it?

‘Panning for Shit’ is sparse, minimal electro that borders on Krautrock, and is the sound of drowning, not waving from our turd-encircled island, and there are many elements of this album which seem to align with the bleak perspectives and sounds of early industrial acts like Throbbing Gristle. But, to be clear, these are simply touchstones, rather than direct comparisons. Everything Is Fucked And We Are All Going To Die may evoke a sense of familiarity and a strange sense of déjà-vu, but ultimately presents a unique view and amalgamation of influences and stylistic references, and herein lies its true strength.

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