The best new albums this week
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Chaos In The CBD / Various – fabric presents: Chaos In The CBD (Fabric)
While it feels a little late in the day to describe this as an arrival for the Helliker-Hales brothers — they have, after all, been operating on the deep house vanguard for a good few years now — Chaos In The CBD’s induction into the Fabric Presents hall of fame feels like the icing on the cake of a roundly impressive (and still very much rolling) career in the dance underground. Loveable brothers Louis and Ben (aka Beans) have been forging compelling club material and working dancefloors for well over a decade now, their evolving sound and ever-growing status making them an undoubted jewel in London’s subterranean musical crown. Since leaving their Auckland hometown behind for the creative hub of Peckham, the duo have scored hits on the likes of Rhythm Section International, Needwant, and Hothaus, have launched their own In Dust We Trust imprint, and have tirelessly toured the globe — winning friends and admirers as they enliven audiences with their propulsive rhythms and grooves.
After playing in a rock band in high school, the siblings were well and truly bitten by the dance bug back home in New Zealand, thanks, in no small part, to vintage house and techno sounds mined on the airwaves and in cyberspace. One mix with which the pair were particularly enamoured as they ferociously devoured electronic flavours came in the form of Caspa & Rusko’s FABRICLIVE 37 album, so the invitation to curate their very own compilation for the London clubbing institution was met with understandable enthusiasm by the now-seasoned selectors.
In a bid to shine light on the work of the artists who’ve inspired them the most while showing reciprocity to some of those that have encouraged and supported them along their journey, Chaos In The CBD opted to treat listeners to a glorious retrospective of esoteric wonderment, digging especially deep to serve a powerfully personal blend of unfettered subaquatic gold. Among the carefully chosen tracklist, there are a couple of titles that the boys were especially happy to add to the mix. Having let it slip through his grasp when he first became aware of it, JD Hall’s 2005 Sunfire Records release ‘Into You’ was the number Louis name-checked in their recent Juno Daily interview. With its heartfelt melodies, bumping drums and soul-flecked lead vocal, its easy to understand the appeal, and the same can be said of the other jam the brothers made special mention of in advance of the release, Hanna’s impossible to find ‘You & Me’. Again endowed with wide-eyed sparkle and a gorgeously emotive core, the track’s inclusion was particularly challenging to facilitate, with even the artist unable to provide a master for the music, with the piece eventually being lovingly remastered via an expensive vinyl copy sourced in Paris after some serious hunting.
As well as appearing in 23-track CD and digital editions, they were natural choices for inclusion on the eight-track vinyl edition — making them available on wax without the need for expending serious amounts of cash. Joining them on the exceptionally appealing double-pack are, among others, Chaos In The CBD’s contribution (the gorgeously immersive ‘Higher Elevation’), Ronin’s sumptuous ‘Romantic Yearnings’, Raymond Castoldi’s organ-heavy strut ‘The Jungle’, and Psychedelic Research Lab’s hallucinatory joyride ‘Tarenah’. All of these are, of course, available on the full mix, along with plenty more seductive four/four moves. The tripped-out sax bursts of ‘Fingers’ by Turntable Terror Trax provide one of many highlights, as does the cinematic scope of Chris Brann’s beautifully orchestrated ‘Journey To The Centre’.
The compilation, in fact, never stops giving. From the hypnotic shuffle of The Element’s ‘Oh You Got Me’ to the life-affirming harmonics of ‘String Section’ from Byron Burke presents Komputer Kidz, the nimble keys of Brothers Of The Underground’s ‘Gotta Love’ to Kerri Chandler’s soul-heavy version of Blak Beat Niks’ ‘I’ll Be There’, organic textures abound throughout. Full-force club dynamism permeates the collection, too, not least via the prog-leaning flex of Sound Clash Republic’s ‘Raunchy After Dark’, the saucer-eyed swells of ‘Seven’ from The Logic Box, or the seductive percussion of Juzu aka Moochy’s ‘Lugar Precioso’. Refined, coherently sequenced, and, perhaps above all, filled with love and appreciation for the roots of the sound they’ve devoted more than a decade to advocating, Chaos In The CBD represent in spectacular style here, serving a lesson in rarified house innovation while donning the cap to some of the movement’s masters.
PC
James Holden – Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities (Border Community)
Most of us have woken up the morning/afternoon after to discover, with some horror, that the late night, possibly emotionally enhanced, version of ourselves has left out an unexpected note to self. This may be prosaic (“Remember to take the bins out”), or cryptic (insert your own inner monologue here), but in James Holden’s case, it was a manifesto and a direct instruction – Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities. Righto, thanks for that early hours James. Alas, there was just one problem – Holden had no idea what it was supposed to mean.
What he did know was what he ultimately hoped to achieve – “I wanted this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded” album, he has said. And so he set off blindly, with an instruction manual he didn’t understand and the shreds of a rulebook he’d recently torn up, and trusted that his subconscious would know what to do. That a 20 plus year career stretching from early success as a trance DJ and producer to more recent shamanic explorations with his band The Animal Spirits and multi-instrumentalist Wacław Zimpel would feed into the music he’d create.
The resultant album is like a supporting document for a larger project, a How To guide for users who want to read beyond the small print. This isn’t the result of hours of tinkering and experimentation refined for public consumption – these are the experiments played back in real time, the journey as it actually happened, for good or otherwise. And it’s littered with notes to self and signposts, as if Holden is cheering himself on as he progresses. The opening song title, ‘You Are In A Clearing’, deliberately evokes the Choose Your Own Adventure books, suggesting that this is the start of the journey and we will watch Holden make choices throughout. Will he go north to trance, east to techno, west to electronica or south to avant jazz? Or find a way to go in all the directions all at once?
It’s a bold undertaking that could tax your confidence, so there are pep talks on the way. ‘Trust Your Feet’ (open ended electronica with trance chords appearing like a faint memory), ‘In The End You’ll Know’ (lush innerspace explorations evoking the 70s synth days when electronic music was an experiment), and ‘Four Ways Down The Valley’ (birdsong and decaying noise, a distant party throb and the reminder that there are many paths, always). And there are revelations and lab reports, proof of breakthroughs to keep the momentum going. ‘Contains Multitudes’ (Orbital and Sabres Of Paradise bleeding into percussive clatter, a jazz looseness and piano chords from a haunted World War 2 dance hall), ‘Worlds Collide Mountains Form’ (prog synth, scratching violins, slap bass, collisions in sound as Holden observes, clip board in hand), and the overall conclusion and most important finding – ‘The Answer Is Yes’.
Here are the questions that Holden answers in that one song. Would you like brass that sounds like an elephant howling? Electronica that feels like it’s spiralling out of control? A tolling bell, a meandering guitar solo, rattling tambourine-like percussion, robot cicadas, radioactivity as an instrument, a far-off beatific choir celebrating the final day? Hmm, let me think about that, replies late night Holden. The answer is yes
It could be argued – and here’s the cynical critic bit – that there’s too much of the process on display here, and that we’ve all heard these individual elements before used by Four Tet, Bicep, Holden himself, everyone. But lifting the lid and opening up (and out) the process is actually what makes it thrilling, a vivid insight into a world you already knew existed. Behold – a mirrored maze, a room full of doors, a manuscript with a thousand unanswered questions, a journey littered with signposts and notes to self. Keep going, James. You’re on the right track.
IW
Nkono Teles – Love Vibration (Soundway)
Soundway Records are no stranger to dusting down hard-to-find musical jewels to present to grateful diggers, and their latest offering is another fine example of just such an undertaking. Though their back catalogue is garnished with a selection of immaculately spun new material, some of the label’s most memorable moments have unquestionably been the result of archival digging.
A prime example was their wildly popular 2016 compilation Doing It In Lagos which, apart from catapulting Steve Monite’s impossibly catchy ‘Only You’ into the cusp of the mainstream, made all-manner of otherwise unobtainable Nigerian disco and boogie jams available to vinyl buyers. The closing track on the album was ‘Be My Lady’ from Nkono Teles, and here, Soundway shine further light on the musician and producer, uncovering a selection of suitably rare and thoroughly enjoyable tracks in the process.
Born in Cameroon, Teles was a key figure in the booming ‘80s Nigerian music community. Composing, arranging, producing and playing with scores of notable artists, he supplied agile keys to giants of the scene, with Tony Allen among those to benefit from his keyboard wizardry. Responsible for his fair share of indelible solo moments, Teles is entirely deserving of this retrospective highlights selection that bursts with imagination and ingenuity. Opening track ‘Martin Street Special’ is a case in point, its authentic boogie bed brilliantly enlivened by beguiling synth flourishes and stirring melodic twists.
The heartfelt harmonics of ‘Love Got A Hold Of Me (Instrumental)’ add a pop-ready thrust to the mix, with dancing marimbas and anthemic synth strings proving especially rousing, while the meandering introspection of ‘Hometown Weather’ pitches jazz-flecked chord progressions alongside space-age production for another engaging instrumental journey. ‘Martin Street (New Version)’ ups the tempo while adding electro bite to the original’s indelible melodies, before the sing-along abandon of ‘Love Vibration’ and ‘Party Beats’ add vocal energy to the infectious boogie orchestration. Essential listening for all self-respecting diggers, this is a sensational addition to the already superlative Soundway inventory.
PC
Liturgy – 93696 (Thrill Jockey)
There are few acts in the modern extreme metal sphere who approach the genre with the level of avant-garde artistry and vision that has made Liturgy such a unique, often controversial outlier. The brainchild of one Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, her self-labelled form of “transcendental black metal” has taken many chameleon-like forms since the release of their 2009 debut LP Renihilation. It was 2011’s Aesthetica that truly cemented the group as a vital proponent of stretching the machinations and pre-established rules of the scene into looser, more expansive structures, but The Ark Work released in 2015, saw further excursions into digitally processed, trap-inspired post-metal, resulting in quite mixed responses from purists already uncertain of where their opinions on the group lay.
Making their brazen return in 2019 with HAQQ; an abrasive opus which restored much of the cavernous fury of their earlier work whilst retaining many of their later production motifs, the project quickly became heralded as their finest output to date, while the following year Hunt-Hendrix unveiled Origin Of The Alimonies; an experimental blackened opera composed, directed, and starring the artist, which seamlessly fused their established formula with classical arrangements performed with an 11-piece orchestra.
With all of these impressive, dynamic endeavours, anticipation has been high to see what form the latest Liturgy audible event would take. 93696 may be painted with the standardised conclusion of sounding like all previous efforts syncopated, but that’s precisely what Hunt-Hendrix has achieved across this gargantuan 82-minute opus.
Broken into four acts, each with their own ethereal, orchestral arrangements to serve as respites from the frenetic mathematical mayhem and fractured pieces such as ‘Djennaration’ or the intimidating monolithic 14-minute title-track, the album intersplices elements of digitised trap, screamo and walls of sonic dexterity that at first overwhelm and bewilder but unfurl upon repeat listens to exude their truly dizzying level of craft.
93696 is a number derived from the religions of Christianity and Thelema, a numerological representation of heaven, or a new eon for civilization, which ties directly into Hunt-Hendrix’s own philosophical teachings and lectures that accompany many of the band’s recent works. As heady and impenetrable as the concepts and compositions may first appear, the more time given over to this remarkable accomplishment is rewarded endlessly with genuinely cathartic, moving sonic power, truly transcending black metal and redefining the genre as a means of experimentalist freedom and philosophical enlightenment.
ZB
You might assume not speaking Turkish would be a bit of an issue when trying to lose yourself in an Anatolian folk rock album. While the trans-Atlantic hegemony of international pop music has served as a tool for people to learn English with (albeit in limited and often technically problematic form), the relatively simple nature of the spoken language contrasts Turkey’s more nuanced and complex intonations. Few will listen to Altin Gün in the hope of improving their communication skills, then, but what’s being said and sung is perhaps not as important as the instrumentation, arrangements, and sounds themselves.
It’s been a little while since we last encountered the Amsterdam-based band, and it’s safe to say things are developing well. Their previous two albums, Âlem and Yol, were largely concerned with paying homage to the sci-fi influenced, synth-first world of 1980s electronic pop. And they pulled that off with aplomb. Here, though, they turn their attention to something markedly different but similarly transportive, looking instead to a more homespun tone. It’s psychedelic, but in an earthen way, invoking images of captivating performances in remote village halls and — from a western perspective, at least — a fascinating artistic other.
Indeed, Aşk shares more in common with the outfit’s first two albums, and in many ways could almost be seen as the triumphant return of a band to their formative style after time spent exploring the farthest reaches of cosmic synthdom. Now safely back on solid ground, those off-world experiences still inform what’s here, making for an innovative take on traditional styles, tracks seeming to envelop you in guitar licks, lunging basslines and spiritually-charged vocal styles. The result is a grand tapestry comprising songs that are hard not to feel captivated by, even if you might be guessing the words and their meanings.
MH
Polyphia – Remember That You Will Die (Rise)
The highly anticipated fourth full-length from Texas instrumental prog-rock virtuosos Polyphia continues their strange amalgam of technical guitar wizardry and trap-inflected production.
2019’s New Levels New Devils saw the four-piece slowly eschew their more technical metal origins in order to embrace motifs from outside genres, with Remember That You Will Die furthering this unique trajectory with utter abandon.
Enlisting a myriad of differing guest features from the trumpet blasts provided by Brasstracks on chilled out opener ‘Genesis’ to the hypnotic synths and keys from Anomalie on ‘The Audacity’, the project shifts constantly from natural follow up to collaborative endeavour, especially in the midsection.
The absurd Kawaii J-pop bedlam of the Sophia Black featuring ‘ABC’ somehow finds the Venn Diagram intersection of progressive rock and video game and anime soundtracks, while the Killstation and Snot features on ‘Memento Mori’ and Fuck Around & Find Out’ feel more like Polyphia produced tracks for these artist’s own projects rather than simple guest appearances.
There’s still no denying that the standout moments come when the band operate on their lonesome, with the acoustic reimagining of their formula on ‘Playing God’, and the euphoric glitch of ‘Neurotica’, both showcasing their effortlessly complex compositions and nuanced progression with lackadaisical finesse.
While the Chino Moreno spot on the penultimate ‘Bloodbath’ can’t totally shake the looming presence of such a vocal personality, with the results sounding much like a hyper-technical Deftones song, the closing Steve Vai collaboration ‘Ego Death’ is a match made in masturbatory guitar heaven, with its triple leads weaving in and out of each other in a fluid maelstrom of severely impressive artistry.
The percussion might be compressed and digitised to a point where it sounds identical to trap production, and the diverse array of featured artists may inspire some head scratches and eyerolls, but Remember That You Will Die lives up to its title by prioritising the joy of collaboration above all else, be it specific fan tastes and expectations, cohesion or natural progression. At this stage in their career, Polyphia are having fun with their art rather than concerning themselves with the self-imposed ideal of legacy craft, and the results are as staggering as they are perplexing.
ZB
Fabio Orsi / Massimo Amato – Inerte (Backwards Italy)
Two of Italian underground music’s skeleton key players return for a captivating collaboration for cassette, nailing six tracks for an LP that evokes a mood like no other. Unfortunately, Inerte is likely to fly under the radar for many music fans who’ll love it, which is a crying shame, because it sounds like nothing less than the soundtrack for a swords-and-sorcery drama and a future sci-fi spectacle merged into one.
Fabio Orsi is an electronic musician and atmospheric drone specialist from the Southern Italian region of Taranto, while Massimo Amato is a synthesist and composer whose influence is felt widely as a continuer of the trailblazing Italian industrial music scene. Extensive back catalogs aside, the pair have never collaborated before nor produced anything like this in their own solo rights.
Conceived after the makeup of noble gases from helium to neon (each track is named after a gas), one can hear that this is an album with good chemistry built into it. Orsi handles most of the background pads and swoons, while Amato helms up most of the arpeggiated sequences that take centre stage. The verbed-out ‘Argon’ and the alien-chugging ‘Radon’ are highlights, both letting harmonic squelches peek out of their gargantuan otherplanetary hazes.
We find it no coincidence that the album instantly conjures future-past mental images. The music is like a vision of 1970s and 80s kosmische music, many of whose actual artists (GG. Tonet or Otakar Olšaník, for example) looked to the oncoming nuclear age as a source of ironic inspiration. It’s no wonder, then, that Orsi and Amato also look to the recent past for a fresh take on the future to come. While the first five tracks are named after well-known chemicals, the sixth track is called ‘Organesson’, a recent synthetic element named only seven years ago in 2016. The track is a tonally optimistic shift, its arps endlessly dancing into a curious, almost endless radioactive half-life.
JIJ
City & Colour – The Love Still Held Me Near (Still)
In the four years since 2019’s A Pill For Loneliness, life has done a number on Dallas Green. Lockdown reunited the Canadian singer/songwriter with his bandmates in post-hardcore icons Alexisonfire and led to an unexpected phenomenal fifth album in last year’s Otherness, which saw the band touring extensively across festivals and headline sets the world over.
Behind all of this positive creativity, Green has been mourning the loss of his cousin Nicholas Osczcypko, and producer, collaborator and close friend Karl Bareham who both tragically passed away within a year of each other, with The Love Still Held Me Near serving as the sound of grief, processing and rebuilding in all of its shaky, uncertain challenges.
The seventh full-length from Green’s solo folk project City & Colour offers a lush bevvy of blues-soaked Americana steeped in emotive honesty and cathartic self-deprecation, in a manner only a writer with such extensive emo credentials can conjure.
Lead single ‘Meant To Be’ is a genuinely devastating refusal to accept the death of a loved one, simultaneously lashing out at organised religion’s attempts to make peace with one’s passing while offering no real alternative apart from frustration and sobering loss.
‘Underground’ pulses with a more rhythmic optimism while Green pleads with himself and others to do more than simply live but to love, and embrace our time together before we all subsequently end up under the ground, while ‘Fucked It Up’ serves as a minimal, slow building folk ballad akin to earlier works such as Bring Me Your Love or Little Hell. Here is where the tattooed, bearded songsmith allows his serene vocal cadence and semi-abstract yet completely relatable lyricism to paint a picture of hindsight in a struggling relationship and whether we ever truly feel content or if we always seemingly feel as if things are worse than they once were.
Fragile and delicate, yet exuding a seasoned and hardened demeanour, The Love Still Held Me Near showcases Green at his most introspective, reflective, lost and uncertain, yet constantly searching for the purpose or the light or the love. Whichever guide one needs to pull them out of the darkness.
ZB
Katie Gately – Fawn / Brute (Houndstooth)
Songs of innocence, lost and found, define the latest from Katie Gately. Her second long form outing on the mighty British independent Houndstooth — a stamp of quality for experimental electronic stuff and alt-leaning club fare — across 11 tracks she looks to pay homage to the universal experience of growing up, albeit not growing old, attempting to convey the emotional rollercoaster of childhood into teenage years, making for something that’s at once playful and inviting, but also quite challenging.
Dedicated to her daughter, Quinn, who was born in 2021, the idea is for this record to be something she can appreciate at different stages of her life ahead. So that means opening with upbeat and almost childish sounds, before we delve deeper into the anguish and furore that seems to define adolescence. Musically, that means combining avant-garde pop with noise, weird samples of library sounds, dark indie rock, experimental punk and much, much more. In the end, it’s hard to tell whether it works because it makes sense together, or it succeeds because it’s so full of surprises expectations are never going to match the reality. Much like our experiences as humans. A weird and wonderful place to spend your time.
MH
Side By Side – You’re Only Young Once (Revelation)
Originally released in 1988, the one and only EP from hardcore punk Youth Crew pioneers Side By Side has become a time capsule of early Revelation Records lore, largely due to the fact that members such as guitarist Sammy Siegler would go on to work with a myriad of seminal acts throughout the remainder of the 80’s and 90’s such as Youth Of Today, Judge, CIV, Glassjaw and Rival Schools to name but a few.
You’re Only Young Once began life as an EP pressed to a limited number of vinyl, but after bootlegs came into circulation adding every other additional recording of the group available, Revelation opted to repress the same type of compilation, cataloging the small collection for an official pressing. Decades later and with hardcore at the height of resurgent popularity, there’s seemingly no better time to reissue the project for both lifers who’ve potentially hocked or worn out their original copy, and newcomers looking to do their astute hardcore research.
Cuts such as ‘My Life To Live’, ‘Look Back’ and ‘The Time Is Now’ jolt with the effervescent energy of angst-riddled youth with glimmers of optimism peppered throughout. If Gorilla Biscuits are the Youth Crew high watermark, Side By Side reside just in their shadow, less active and making admittedly less of a direct impact, their legacy has only grown the more hardcore begins to receive it’s long overdue adoration from the music world at large. In short, You’re Only Young Once is a piece of seminal hardcore history and to have it back on wax is cause to spin kick, stage dive and rejoice.
ZB
This week’s reviewers: Ian Watson, Zach Buggy, Patrizio Cavaliere, Martin Hewitt, Jude Iago James.