The best new albums this week
Our writers’ must buy albums
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Florian Stöffelbauer’s vibe precedes him. As the founder of Neubau, he’s laid out a persuasive demonstration of the creativity still to be found in traditional machine-powered methods, all filtered through a subtly gothic lens that borrows the gloom from minimal wave and fattens up the production. In the current era of vintage-sounding electronic music, there are those who make the practice work and those who fall into the retro-fetishism trap and leave you stufling a yawn. How Neubau and associated artists succeed is that the final intention is greater than the process – there’s a shared sensibility in mind, to create seductively dark tracks suited to shadowy nightspots, and Stöffelbauer is surely key in steering this at the helm of his label.
As a producer, the Vienna-based artist has slipped a few things out here and there – a couple of collaborations with Mr Ho on ESP Institute, some new beat edits on Berceuse Heroique, a white label drop on Mechatronica – but this album represents a more comprehensive impression of Heap. Interestingly, Stöffelbauer isn’t releasing it himself on Neubau, but rather handing it to the wonderful Daniel Rincon (Ambien Baby) on his Isla. The Canadian label is a fine platform for Heap, having consistently carried similarly enchanting atmospheres and crisp electro structures via other artists since 2016. Wherever he’s shored up, Stöffelbauer brings the Neubau vibe with him though.
There’s an abundance of bleepy, brooding tracks leading up each side of the record, whether transmitting through the gloaming mist of ‘Diall’ or the noirish purr of ‘Trist’. There’s functionality to these tracks, and you can hear the touchstones of industrial, minimal wave and synth-pop stewing in the bones of the music, but they’re most immediately felt as mood pieces. ‘Jetzt Oder Nie’ demonstrates this more explicitly with its leaning towards electronica, edging away from the dancefloor to offer something more specifically for your mind.
Neubau also has past form in carrying low-tempo chuggers, and there’s space for a few of those in Heap’s universe too. ‘Inner Peace’ is a primal beatdown with wonderfully nuanced sound design on the ostensibly simple drum mantra, while ‘Losing Time’ closes the album out with a coda of acoustic toms cutting a path through a pool of inky pads. The latter works well as a cool down, but equally you could picture it setting a subtly tense, captivating tone for a long night ahead.
‘No Palm Too Big’ is a surefire standout from the album, though. This is in no small part down to a wonderful appearance from Gayna Rose Madder, who comes on like a Scouse Anne Clark as she unfurls her poetry over a slow-creeping thump of what sounds like a Yamaha RX5 drum machine. Rose Madder is a cult figure from the mid 80s minimal wave underground, previously appearing in Shiny Two Shiny as well as slipping out occasional solo singles. Her deadpan delivery evokes a thousand post-punk memories, and the beat sounds something like 23 Skidoo making a more looped up, minimalist groove for the low-motion dancefloor. Yet still, Stöffelbauer’s focus maintains, and this doesn’t feel like an attempt to ape those historical styles but rather channel the same spirit in pursuit of this neo-gothic club music.
It’s ‘False Hope’ where the veil slips slightly, embracing a fuller production and edging towards a subtly trancey sound which feels less in thrall to the eternal night of a basement club. Here, one imagines Heap working a damp field of dawn ravers cast in pale blue light as the moon finally sets. The contrast isn’t unwelcome, but it’s not as compelling as the red-lit reveries for immortal souls which make up the rest of the record. Overall, False Hope triumphs through the consistency of its atmosphere, further building out the night-world Stöffelbauer is so clearly committed to.
OW
Radiant Futur – Hypersensitivity (Muscut)
Muscut continues to provide a beacon of ambient splendour from Ukraine in the face of adversity, capping an Autumnal trio of tapes with this stunning excursion from Radiant Futur. The alias belongs to one Ian Yeriomenko, previously spotted slipping out experimental techno on Get Busy and now committing to a gentler approach. Hypersensitivity is steeped in the tradition of sequenced synth patterns – the kind of ambience which provided a natural foil to techno in the 90s. It’s not quite right to call it ambient techno due to the lack of drums, but the movement of the music certainly evokes the machine language of Detroit and elsewhere.
Across nine pieces, Yeriomenko veers from brief vignettes to widescreen vistas, letting the likes of ‘Life Amplifier’s Modulaiton’ stretch out over eight minutes of sci-fi cityscape sound design and emotive synth strokes. There’s equal footing for field recordings and melodic phrasing, with ‘Etiam Transeat’ reveling in the trickle of water as a sparring partner with heartbreak composition. Hypersensitive in this sense might mean emotional fragility as much as an intense reaction to sonic stimulus.
The title track itself achieves a kind of pinnacle of chill-out room romanticism, interweaving low and mid-range arps with electric lead flourishes coming from the Vangelis playbook of synthetic exoticism. It’s natural and expressive, but still completely rendered within circuitry like any self-respecting replicant. These ideas have been explored many times before, but Yeriomenko holds you confidently within the confines of his album by shifting the tonality from track to track without losing that mournful mood. It’s not a release you’ll find yourself reaching for on bright, sunny days, but when you want sadness to envelop you, Hypersensitive has a heavy-hearted sound you can absolutely wallow in.
OW
Stonecirclesampler – Deep Blue Aquatic Creatures (The Tapeworm)
Let’s take a trip into the dank fog of the cassette label scene, lit by the flickering lantern of long-standing and trusted outpost, The Tapeworm. On this occasion, we’ve been invited to trudge along an autumnal path with Stonecirclesampler, a suitably obscure figure otherwise caught issuing missives as Superior London Pulp. An active presence on social media, the artist concerned has left something of a breadcrumb trail in anticipation of Deep Blue Aquatic Creatures, pointing followers to early Burial, Shinichi Atobe, General Strike, J.G. Ballard and other ephemera. Such influences shouldn’t be taken in literal terms, and the sound on this tape is well and truly submerged to demand an exacting listen for those trying to join the dots.
If there are echoes of experimental dub to be felt on these two long-form pieces, they’re determinedly pressed into the sodden carpet of leaves that litter the noise floor. Skeletal looping hiccups occasionally pulse in the foreground. Windswept rattles whisper past, but they’re pushed into the distance, far enough to almost dip beneath the horizon. Alas, there’s not much horizon to take in, just a bank of raincloud encroaching in the dying afternoon light. It’s forbidding like a tape release should be, arriving at the perfect time of year when the damp touches every surface for the mould to set in before winter’s icy totality wipes the slate clean.
OW
Anna Tivel – Outsiders (Mama Bird US)
From amidst the varied wilderness of Oregon, Portland’s Mama Bird Recordings has been a reliable source for some great folk records in recent years. Like much folk, their releases contain a charming sense of grounding, full of nature-based imagery and down-to-earth illustrations of everyday life. Anna Tivel’s Outsiders takes a different approach at first, beginning from the perspective of the first man on the moon, gazing at earth’s ascent. Though we do return to a more intimate lyricism, with the opener Tivel teases the record’s interest in a broader picture; a portrait of America’s growing divisions and fault-lines. Instrumentally, the track is also an introduction to the album’s sound. There is a typically acoustic folk feel, but often Tivel’s band is backed with synths, reverbs, and echoes. One of the intriguing incorporations of electronics comes with “Royal Blue”, a confessional song that hinges on a simple drum-machine loop and a recurring, mono-synth bass line.
Soon this foundation blooms into lush, reverberating instrumentation. At times the album recalls the string-kissed work of Angel Olsen or the adventurous folk of Big Thief’s most recent LP. Indeed, Tivel’s voice shares a similarly raw tone with Adrianne Lenker. Both carry a powerful delicacy in their vocal timbre, the singing often shrinking to an intimate whisper. Outsiders is often a desperately sad listen. Despite the hopeful lyrics of “Two Dark Horses”, the track is devastating, alternating between stripped-back production and expansive reverberation. It showcases Tivel’s writing, dense with ethereal, wild imagery. “The Bell” ties back to Tivel’s broader themes, encapsulating her feeling towards contemporary America. “But now I guess the rain is coming, and it’ll rain like hell, but nothing ever changes til you ring the bell,” she sings. It’s a moving warning against despondency and a thoughtful finale.
NS
The Prodigy – Fat of the Land (XL)
To say Fat of the Land was a significant step change for The Prodigy might be misleading if you’re one of the seven people reading this review in the hope of ascertaining whether the band’s second full length is worth buying. Suffice to say, Music For The Jilted Generation or Experience this ain’t: their first two albums were rawer, clubbier — or at least free party in a field-er — records that encapsulated scenes during a moment in truly outspoken ways (“fuck ‘em, and their law” indeed).
Fat of the Land is a different beast, but compares in many ways. No longer ‘underground’ (whatever that means), by this point dance music had taken over everything from Radio 1 to ITV’s Chart Show, and even the resolutely anti-establishment KLF were regular fixtures on commercial broadcasts simply because their tunes were selling so much. Moving into those times, The Prodigy chose not to regurgitate but press on, delivering unapologetic tracks that have just enough to work as ‘proper singles’ but make no excuses and take no prisoners. It’s always been a challenge knowing how to describe their tunes, so let’s just say this iteration strikes a perfect balance between borderline obnoxious, instantly memorable, and infinitely sellable.
MH
Yair Elazar Glotman – Speculative Memories (SA Recordings)
Since branching out from his abstract electronic beginnings into a more rounded electro-acoustic practice, Yair Elazar Glotman has quietly found a place amongst the vanguard of neo-classical artists. This is rightly confirmed by his string of collaborations with the late Jóhan Jóhannsson, Mats Erlandsson and more recently Lucy Railton. He’s worked on high profile soundtracks and delivered albums and EPs to labels like Subtext and Bedroom Community, evolving his work with a considered, high-brow approach to each successive work.
On Speculative Memory, the classically-trained double bassist ruminates on the elastic nature of memory, working pointedly with tape as the recording medium to enforce a real sense of time. If this is indeed a work drawing from his recollections as a young boy in Galilee, then it casts a shadow over this early part of his life. The album is predominantly downcast and sombre, even where the light of Sara Fors’ choral tones drift into the mix. Indeed, where so many childhood memories tend to selectively smudge out the darkness in favour of comforting impressions, Glotman’s approach has eked out foreboding, expressed through the sustained groan of a bowed string or an ominously protracted reverb decay.
The end result is ambiguous, certainly not a one-dimensional autobiographical work but rather a pensive journey into the dusty archives of one’s lived experience. In darkness there is also beauty – an oft-repeated trope which holds true on this engrossing reflection into our internalised fragments of the past.
OW
rRoxymore – Perpetual Now (Smalltown Supersound)
After an extended period of time recording as rRoxymore for Don’t Be Afraid, Hermione Frank has flown the nest to arrive at Smalltown Supersound. A label is but a vessel for an artist, but what’s interesting about this is that Frank’s move from a more club-focused label to a broader kind of indie (and quite a sizable one at that) has resulted in a new album that does the opposite of what you might expect. The first rRoxymore album, 2019’s gloriously technicolour Face To Phase, felt like a broad, adventurous spirit that could spring Frank into any number of creative directions.
Perpetual Now could then in theory have been a flirtation with songwriting perhaps, or some kind of multi-instrumental affair, but quite the opposite. Frank has homed in on the artful rhythm of rRoxymore and placed it front and centre, using a pointlist electronic palette for the drums and keeping things remarkably minimal. ‘At The Crest’ in particular casts out darts of melodic impressions that help shape the space, leaving oceans of room around for every element to breathe. If minimal sometimes becomes a byword for repetitive, that’s absolutely not the case here though. These pieces cavort and evolve, shifting through phases and keeping your brain on its toes.
You could draw a parallel with Beatrice Dillon’s own incredibly elegant constructions, but there’s a touch more rave impetus in the movement of Frank’s music. There is space for more effervescent psychedelic material as the album progresses, with ‘Fragmented Dreams’ blooming outwards at its various crescendos, but Frank seems confident and clear in her intentions to use patience over extended run times, creating nuanced narratives with hidden surprises that reward the attentive ear of a returning listener.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Oli Warwick, Noah Sparkes, Martin Hewitt.