BEN KACZOR Vinyl & CDs

Review: Ben Kaczor and Niculin Barandun's debut album, Pointed Frequencies come on the tasteful German outlet Dial Records and explores the healing potential of sound through six immersive tracks. Their collaboration began in 2022 for an audiovisual show at Digital Art Festival Zurich and has developed masterfully since and as Kaczor studied sound therapy, Barandun became intrigued by its possibilities, and it is that which has inspired the album's direction. It incorporates therapeutic elements like binaural beats and solfeggio frequencies into a seamless blend of ambient and experimental music. Through free improvisation, the pair have cooked up some brilliantly contemplative pieces here.

Review: The fact that this is the 13th release in the Ohm series catalogue need not impede the assurance of quality by way of superstitions about unlucky numbers. New ones from Modernism, Tim Kossmann, Bec Kaczor and Kirill Matveev work through gassy textures that rasp against negative, membranous moulds, be this on the understated, unassuming 'Love Goes' or the neurotransmissive 'Deserve Rage'. Bjarnar Jonsson has a good radar for talent, and does a bang-up A&R job on this resistant, reactant techno comp.