Experimental/Electronic preorders

Review: A collaboration rooted in intuition, Clay finds UK experimentalist Matthew Herbert and South London drummer-vocalist Momoko Gill stepping into strange, emotionally vivid territory, stretching the song form into new shapes on their first full-length collaborationi a record that's as textural as it is emotional. Built from improvised sessions and strange source materialiJapanese kotos, basketballs, domestic clatterithe music feels both homespun and futuristic. 'Calm Water' opens with uncanny stillness before 'Need To Run' and 'Mowing' introduce a kind of fractured longing. Gill's voice dances above the dust-clouded rhythms of 'More And More' and 'Heart', sometimes like a jazz phrasing exercise, other times like something closer to prayer. Even the more dancefloor-leaning momentsi'Babystar', 'Show Me', 'Someone Like You'iremain intimate, the spaces between notes stretching wide. On 'Animals' and 'Circle Shore', they seem to hover in slow-motion, guided by instinct and restraint. It's a record with no interest in genre boundaries, powered by instinct and a quiet refusal to settle.

Review: London minimal house innovator-continuator Matthew Herbert teams up with drummer and vocalist Momoko Gill - a self-taught musician with ties to Coby Sey and Tirzah - for a rawly real new record, Clay, as ever drawing on not just the textures of daily life, but also unconventional sound sources. As is typical for Herbert and his discog-wide interest in domestic sounds, we hear everyday foleys and realist samples utilised with efficiency, from kotos to basketballs, as Gill's voice carries across the eleven tracks a disarming clarity, from the layered arrangements of 'Mowing' to the up-close harmonies of 'Heart'. The pair previously collaborated on 2024's 'Fallen' and Gill's remix of Herbert's 'The Horse Is Here', but this is their first full-length release as a duo.