The album is much of what we have come to expect from UK musician Tony Young – driving orchestral compositions punctuated by powerful piano chords and pressing guitar, all supported by tight rhythms and wrapped in shimmering strings. Let us hope that what is brewing quietly in the incidental aspects of this album can unfurl in new, greater directions in the future.
Laurent Pernice vs. Laurent Perrier – Play Piano and Sounds
Although individual tracks on “Play Piano and Sounds”, with its unambiguous title of resounding literalness, are attributable to either one or the other Laurent, the interspersed presentation and shared vision make this a collection of mutual inspiration rather than the already familiar encounter between classical/jazz musician and electronic producer.
Kyle Bobby Dunn – A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn
Formulated from the drone alchemist’s primary ingredients of sustained, repeated sounds and tone-clusters, “A Young Person’s Guide…” finds sources in brass, strings, guitar and piano, electronically warped, stretched and woven into expansive textures. What results are two hours of profound introversion.
Erdem Helvacıoğlu & Per Boysen – Sub City 2064
“Sub City 2064” is imaginative off-planet urban fiction, filling the background of a noir anime series or manga storyboard. Encouraged by the effortless sonic renderings, like beads of narrative on a string, listeners will embrace the sensation of being transported somewhere unfamiliar, gritty and, at times, not a little ominous.
Sky Burial – Kiehtan
Solitary evenings spent among the dunes and pine forests of the Outer Lands provide the context for this release, and sonic experimentation is the method. Simply put, and to avoid wrangling over problematical categorizations, “Kiehtan” is archetypal stargazing ambient, a soundtrack for the spinning, light-flecked abyss.
Matt Davignon – Living Things
“Living Things” succeeds especially in its intimacy, permitting listeners to scrutinize its multifaceted underbelly of staccato crackling and gurgling wetness. They will find themselves rapt with attention, trying to discern in all that murky, bubbling saturation where exactly the drum machine dwells. Like a patient and secretive swamp creature, it doesn’t want to be found, and that is precisely the beauty of this release.
Kinetix / Pylône – Sonology
Both artists are masters of subtle movement and minuscule fluctuations, and both also express an aesthetic that escapes the constraints of time, casting the listener into uncharted depths filled with drones and half-formed sentience. “Sonology” is an excursion in perception and sublimity, and a fine example of artistic alignment.
Various – Acid Futures Vol. 1 & 2
“Acid Futures”, a colossal two-disc compilation from The Centrifuge, a UK-based electronic arts collective, will go a long way toward satisfying the full spectrum of cravings for die-hard acid lovers and the acid curious alike.
tokee – Quintuplet
With “Quintuplet” tokee not only delivers five fresh tracks, but also a sizeable selection of top-notch remixes; a limited release that, thankfully, plays like a brand new full-length. From 4/4 thumpers splattered with breaks and glitch to coasting and fluid downtempo groovers, tokee’s flawless production and innate sense of tempo render “Quintuplet” a powerhouse of swirling layers and solid beats.
Zeller – Turbulences
“Turbulences”, the latest from French industrial adept Zeller, could not be more aptly titled. The concise yet gut-shaking panorama of digital emissions and fractured beats found here challenges orientations in both genre and scale, seating Zeller firmly in the realm of seething, hard sci-fi soundtracks for the post-planetary age.