The best new albums this week

The albums that matter to our writers

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Calm – Quiet Music Under The Moon (Music Conception)

Even for the uninitiated, both the album title and the artist moniker of Fukagawa Kiyotaka’s latest collection serve as a powerful indicators of the listening experience embedded in the grooves. Operating under his now familiar Calm moniker and altogether at home on his Music Conception label, Kiyotaka shows inspired form throughout the duration of ‘Quiet Music Under The Moon’ — a sublime set of compositions well suited to help facilitate mindfulness, or at the very least to provide a momentary escape from the stresses and strains of modern living. The Japanese artist has furnished the world with a profound body of work over the last 30 years or so, composing countless albums and singles for the likes of Hell Yeah, Music For Dreams, Wave Music, and many others.

The bulk of his work has arrived via the Music Conception imprint he launched in the early 2000s as an outlet for his own prolific output as well as hand-picked delights crafted by a sprinkling of esteemed contemporaries. Few artists are endowed with a comparable ability to elicit blissful sensations in the listener than Kiyotaka, whose music tends to blur the gloriously transient lines between jazz, funk, ambient, Balearic and out and out meditation music. While recent releases for Italian label Hell Yeah have basked in Mediterranean sunlight, ’Quiet Music Under The Moon’ veers towards the ambient, with ten inspirational titles each overflowing with transcendent intention. The weightless serenity of the opening track ‘Drift To Dreamland’ elegantly sets the mood, with languid piano lines floating over gentle chords and endless pads. The title proves descriptive, the music equipped with an almost sedative quality as the slide into slumber peacefully manifests. A subtle shade more melancholic in tone, the LP’s title track blends bitter with sweet as hallucinatory swells delicately harmonise, with poignant chord progressions serving to surprise as the unknown landscape slowly reveals itself.

For an artist as distinguished as Calm, the stealthy segue into the cinematic feels entirely devoid of effort, and the LP soon reveals the discreet complexity of its evolving narrative. ‘Late Summer Night’ drifts through synth-led passages that appear plucked from avant-garde celluloid before settling into the fully focused present, with tender melodies serving as an evocatively charged assuage. Ever blissful as we’re guided through a soft focus haze, the tropical arpeggios of ‘Moon Shower’ slowly unfurl, morphing into the filmic drones of ‘Moon Bathing’ as the immersion drifts ever deeper. Led by fizzing synthesis, the new age electronica of ‘Moonage Daydream’ evokes the pioneering soundscapes of Tangerine Dream, with hypnotic lead melodies, bubbling arpeggios and celestial pads mesmerising as they intertwine. Still basking in the moon’s silvery light, the shifting landscape continues to engage.

Alien but unthreatening, the glassy pads of ‘Moonlight Shadow’ elevate as they evolve, with dream-inducing motifs interwoven with purposeful piano lead and sustained bass. Soaring into distant galaxies, the fluid motion extends via the ecstatic luminosity of ‘Ray’, with glistening refrains floating amidst dense pads as the zero-gravity soundscape endlessly rises. The organic double bass of ‘Arigato Arigato’ re-establishes an earthly connection, loosely tethering floating melodies to a fluid jazz nucleus. Finally, the introspection reaches its inevitable climax, with the closing track ‘Oyasumi, Ohayo’ fusing space and time as ageless melodies effortlessly float into the endless silence. There’s no doubting Kiyotaka’s mastery, and, while understated, ’Quiet Music Under The Moon’ is among his most brilliant of creations. Simply sublime.

PC

…And Oceans – As In Gardens, So In Tombs (Season Of Mist)
Finnish symphonic black metal collective, …And Oceans, awed the scene with the release of their furious comeback record, ‘Cosmic World Mother’, in 2020. Their first full-length in almost two decades; the band were naturally under a cloak of self-imposed pressure to ensure the material felt a worthwhile addition to their canon.

As guitarist Timo Kontio states – “Well for me starting to do Cosmic World Mother was more nerve wrecking and even in doubt whether we should make new music or not. In the end it was quite an easy project to do, to our relief. So, when we started to make this album, it was more relaxed and more or less go with the flow mentality. We had the first ‘difficult comeback album’ done, and everything came quite easily! It was really refreshing to make this kind of music after so long.”

While seemingly always against the clock with deadlines to their nineties/early noughties output, and the anxiety of the return album behind them, the writing/recording process for, ‘As In Gardens, So In Tombs’, offered a refreshing respite form these stresses, allowing the members to focus on their strengths with a seasoned approach, analysing each facet of their compositions to craft their most dynamic, rewarding experience to date.

Take, ‘The Collector & His Construct’; a seething bedlam of frosted, blackened fury that casts a shroud of ethereal malevolence with its euphoric keys and pelagial guitar layering. The tremolo-picked riffs morph into one another with watery, lysergic effect, conjuring an ouroboros of cascading structure that seems to weave together in hallucinogenic fashion.

While all of the traits of the scene are present, down to the heart palpitation blast-beats of drummer Kauko Kuusisalo, whose performance throughout is staggering, the skin smashing madman also exudes a true artist’s restraint at times, knowing when to pull back and allow other warring sonics to engulf the proceedings.

Standout highlight, ‘Cloud Heads’, utterly turns the symphonic black metal formula on its head with a synth-laden breakdown that evokes coldwave greats such as Depeche Mode, only repurposed for Scandinavian bedlam, while Kuusisalo’s thrash-inspired rhythms and rapid fire bass drum peddling, pulse and pull in 360 directions.

Analysing philosophy, physics and our own connection to the sciences that make our understanding of ourselves less frightening, …And Oceans, have crafted an intensely overwhelming, serene entry that may maintain the outer rage the genre is known for, but utilised in such a manner to process human despair and grief in a euphoric context. It may only be January, but the first candidate for black metal project of the year has set a triumphant standard of equally harrowing and moving dexterity, only possible through musical and life experience. 

ZB

Sweet Baboo – The Wreckage (Amazing Tapes From Canton)

It doesn’t seem possible that Cardiff-based Stephen Black has been at the Sweet Baboo coalface for 15 years. More remarkable is this seventh long-player is his first fruit in five years. Which makes it, really, seven albums in a decade.

Last spotted in long-playing action in 2017 with the delightful ‘Wild Imagination’, Black says he’s been wrestling with ‘The Wreckage’ for the last five years, four of which he claims were procrastinatory. Keep in mind he’s also been busy as a jobbing band member for the likes of Gruff Rhys, Cate Le Bon and Teenage Fan Club, among others. He is a man in demand, and no wonder really.

An impressive multi-instrumentalist, it took a spell in the studio with a bunch of pals, including his Group Listening bandmate Paul Jones on keys, vocals from Jodie Marie and Georgia Ruth, Boy Azooga’s Davey Newington on drums and Huw “H Hawkline” Evans on bass and guitar to bring ‘The Wreckage’ to life. And, well, job’s a good un.

H. Hawkline gifts the album a song in the shape of the radio-friendly ‘Good Luck’ (do check out Hawkline’s new album, ‘Milk For Flowers’, when it lands in March). The opener, ‘Hopeless’, is a belter, starting out all bossa nova and by the time it’s finished it’s built itself into a frenzy. Black says they were trying to capture the spirit of Stereolab, Tropicalia and Paul Simon. Which is pretty spot on. He’s previously talked about his love of “Jeff Lynne acoustics, cheap drum machines, Talking Heads keyboard riffs and Wings guitar licks”. What’s not to love, eh?

‘The Wreckage’ finds Black at his idiosyncratic best – children’s TV gets a look in with the delicious piano-driven ‘The Worry’, which was inspired by the ‘Rainbow’ theme tune and channels Vince Guaraldi (you can almost see Snoopy dancing along). Hats off also to the driving rhythm of ‘Horticulture’, which is a song about houseplants (choice lyric, the album is full of them, course it is – “I’m not schooled in horticulture / I’m just trying to keep my plants alive”) Oh and Black’s family pet appears on woofing duty on ‘Herbie’, a song about him.

Sweet Baboo serves up yet another feel-good collection of pop gold. Course he does. He always does.

NM

Dream Dolphin – Gaia (Selected Ambient Downtempo Works) (Music From Memory)

Music From Memory continue to uncover fresh surprises from within the already well-mined realm of 90s electronica. Following their Virtual Dreams compilation and the MLO collection, this insight into the work of Dream Dolphin feels like a natural progression, holding true to the overarching mood of melancholic beauty rendered through crystalline synthesis. Dream Dolphin is the work of a Japanese artist known only as Noriko, who started recording under this alias when she was just 16. Her approach is redolent of the open-ended spirit of the early 90s, when flips between genres and approaches were a logical by-product of the experimental climate, and an artist’s individual voice was the glue holding everything together.

Dream Dolphin’s own voice is defined by the rich layers of synthesis which shape out each track, striking a tone not a million miles from new age, but with enough shaping and nuance to nod to the nascent techno era the tracks emerged in. On ‘Stars’ the melodies shimmer and undulate up top, but there’s also a powerful rumbling murmuration underneath which is where the depth and intrigue in the music really comes through, making for a quintessential ambient techno experience.

The likes of dub backroom nodder ‘Healing Moon – Tsuki No Iyashi Umi No Mahou’ are as 90s chill-out as it gets, but still there’s an edge to the sound as Noriko indulges her stated dub and post-punk influences with some grainy interference. Elsewhere we’re treated to a blissful kind of leftfield pop, strung out ambient house, blissful Balearic-ready chill-out and many more idiosyncratic swerves besides. It’s the sound of an artist drawing on their omnivorous appreciation of different music and filtering it all through a particular set of tools, and it hangs together beautifully. 

OW

Sa Pa – Atmospheric Fragments (Astral Industries)

Sa Pa builds on a recent purple patch of EP releases for Lamassu and Rosa and a stunning collab album with Deadbeat to offer two extended abstract trips for the ever-loving Astral Industries crew. The context is a chance for the more ambient, less techno side of Sa Pa to come through, although in truth both flag posts seem a little reductive when considering the artist’s work. Their approach to techno is highly disruptive and experimental, fractalising rhythms and creating dense, writhing mix downs in defiance of club music’s punchier tendencies.

On this release, which comprises two alternative versions of a piece created as part of an audio-visual installation focused on environment, we get taken into the less beat driven dimensions of Sa Pa’s sound, where thoughtfully arranged textures, impulses and field recordings shift like tectonic plates with a steely veneer. Calling back to the snatched location captures of their debut LP on Forum, there are charmingly human moments of poppy radio and casual chatter threading in between ominous slabs of tone and drone, guiding your ear through imagined spaces but also, conversely, taking us out of the concept and into Sa Pa’s real world, recorder in hand, engaging in some kind of non-aggressive eavesdropping.

If the ‘Studio Mix’ has a light and airy feel at times, there’s a more brooding impetus coursing through the ‘Live Mix’ on the flip. The tendency tips towards rumbling low end with a chasmic depth to it, perhaps hinting at the power of a suitably hefty soundsystem through which to experience the sub frequencies. Even without the more obvious rhythmic pockmarks, there’s still a constant shifting at play in line with other Sa Pa material, where infinitesimal detail lies bedded into the overall cloying, cushioning sound. At once towering and imposing and yet also intimate and furtive, it’s as engrossing as we’ve come to expect from the shadowy figure on the fringes.

OW

Groupshow – Greatest Hits (Faitiche)

Emerging from the tangled intrigue of Jan Jelinek’s musical world, Groupshow became a project of its own almost by accident. Jelinek invited Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler to join him for live renditions of the music from his 2005 LP Kosmischer Pitch, and instead they found themselves happily cavorting away from the programme and finding a natural affinity within pure improvisation. Approaching their performances and recordings with the nod to academic ideas that often accompany Jelinek’s work, they continued to work intermittently with a string of gigs and a smattering of releases. Now, a spectrum of recordings from live and studio settings have been combed through and presented as a kind of retrospective, although there is of course a wry humour in presenting this release as Greatest Hits.

It would be challenging for a group of this nature to have something as seemingly banal as a hit. With experimentation at its core, the music moves restlessly forwards and worries little about what came before it, let alone going back for another listen. Fortunately for us as the audience, there is some gold yielded along the way in this process which does indeed reward a faithful set of ears.

There’s plenty of flesh and bones on clanking, angular funk machination ‘…The Science Behind Shoes’, which did in fact come out on a 7” in 2009, but it’s still largely unhinged in essence. ‘It’s Not Just Country Birds That Are Attracted (To This Blue Glass Bird Bath)’ has a wonky but warm minimalism at its core which should satisfy those craving a little of Jelinek’s more ‘typical’ sound, or indeed that of Andrew Pekler’s own solo modular works. At every turn there is surprise to be found, and there’s no sense of trying to make things easy, but in their playful three-way conversations there’s also an inherent cosiness which makes this summary of Groupshow’s oeuvre a thoroughly pleasant one to explore.

OW

Toulouse Low Trax – Leave Me Alone (Bureau B)

It seems Detlef Weinrich is keen to shake off the baggage of being associated with the Düsseldorf scene he helped nurture. Like a true contrarian, he’s better off out on his own rather than being perceived as the godfather of a scene which is really more like an attitude than any particular sound. He’s even left Germany and settled in Paris, and now he presents a new collection of works on Bureau B two years after his last. Having spent a fair amount of time cutting an ambiguous figure in the contemporary leftfield dance zeitgeist, Weinrich seems to be fostering a more pronounced artistic identity.

If Leave Me Alone is a manifestation of that intention, then it’s working. The album is absolutely full of the obtuse angles, scuffed rhythmic gallops and head-fug atmospheres he’s made his name on, but there’s also a certain clarity coming through which helps the music land in a fresh and inviting way. The weirdness is inherent in ‘How To Beat The Sea’, but it absolutely slaps in the same breath, mixed with the perfect balance of grit and shine, hammering a crooked beat down with enough insistence to make it work and leaving space for the modulating matter on top. It’s still blunted, with that sampler-jockeying swagger that has always made him a fascinating artist, but now the ideas seem to catch on with deadly accuracy to match.  

OW

Harmonious Thelonious – Cheapo Sounds (Bureau B)

Stefan Schwander has enjoyed many memorable moments over the last fifteen years, immersed in an intoxicating fog of transglobal sounds and textures as he strives to distil his polyrhythmic influences into stripped, minimalist soundscapes. Journeying through far-flung territories in search of inspiration, his music encompasses the complex rhythms of pan-African, South American and Middle Eastern folk, repurposing traditional musicality via a distinctly modernist aesthetic. ‘Cheapo Sounds’ continues this sonic quest, adding to an ever-expanding body of material that’s appeared on the likes of Emotional Response, Italic and The Trilogy Tapes.

Delightfully eccentric, the oddball melodics of ‘Soft Opening Machine’ starts the album on a share footing, closely followed by the undulating syncopation and off-kilter electronics of ‘Liquid Sound Waves’. Striding across stripped topography throughout, the collection stays true to the Harmonious Thelonious path. Veering through the sinister swells of ‘Limitations’, with its brooding bass and jagged noise hits, the jerking rhythms of ‘Gummi Twist & Crawl’ serve as a spirited interlude before the deep dive continues. The dreamy melodies of ‘Sunglasses’ hover over tension-building chords, while the glitches, pops and staccato stabs of ‘Orion Stars’ propel infectious synth motifs over hyperactive rhythms. The alluring harmonics of the title track prove to be a highlight, but, with a concept so distinct and diligently adhered to, this coherent collection is arguably best enjoyed as a whole.

PC

High Vis – No Sense, No Feeling (reissue) (Venn)

Liverpool based working class heroes, High Vis, have had quite the momentous rise over the past year, what with signing to acclaimed indie label, Dais, and dropping one of the strongest albums of 2022 in, ‘Blending’.

Now gearing up for their first UK headline tour, while dates for their US run have already begun to sell out, there seems no more ample time to reissue their staggering 2020 debut full-length, ‘No Sense, No Feeling’.

Combining the glistening Madchester aura of seminal artists such as Oasis and The Stone Roses, with a hardcore-indebted bite; their material takes a hardened approach to its post-punk machinations, resulting in a sonic stew of influences akin to Echo & The Bunnymen being repurposed for mosh pits.

The bruised anthemics of opener, ‘Choose To Lose’, dissect working class poverty and the toll it takes on a community’s mental health, while the aggro-shoegazing of, ‘Stabbed’, is indicative of the melodious wings the group have always kept intact, only opting to take flight once laying the groundwork with more familiar aggressive fare.

Make no mistake, however, the hardcore punk aspects of their compositions serve as an adjacent platform; highlighting their bedrock of inspiration and past projects, while operating as a jumping off point for their more serene sophomore effort.

At only eight tracks and a brief twenty-five-minute runtime, the album can float by if not appreciated with attentive ears, but with its brazen embellishing of the modern formula with leftfield, outsider influences, it should come as little surprise how much the group have managed to resonate with listeners on both sides of the pond.

Frustrated, bewildered and pissed off, yet delivered with a restrained, refreshing vulnerability, High Vis have filled a void in the modern hardcore scene many weren’t even initially aware of, to begin with. Most importantly of all, in the retrospective tint of their acclaimed follow up; ‘No Sense, No Feeling’, makes tonnes of sense with its indications of the creative heights on the near horizon.

ZB

This week’s reviewers: Zach Buggy, Oli Warwick, Patrizio Cavaliere, Neil Mason.