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The best new albums this week

The writers’ verdict

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

The Orb – Prism (Cooking Vinyl)

A prism is a piece of glass whose precise angles and faces are handy for reflecting light. A triangular prism will separate white light into its constituent colours giving you a spectrum.

It’s been three years (and a month) since the last album from The Orb. Abolition Of The Royal Familia was released on 27 March 2020. Quite the week as it turned out. Days earlier the entire country had been told to stay at home in the first of the Covid lockdowns.

Overnight, the album release was scuppered and a big tour cancelled. But Alex Paterson wasn’t going to let a global pandemic shut him down. Throughout the whole shebang he didn’t let up. There was a third volume of The Orb’s Auntie Aubrey’s… remix excursions, a cracking Royal Familia remix LP and Alex launched his own Orbscure label. And of course, there were DJ sets galore – several 12-hour extravaganzas – beaming live from West Norwood’s Book And Record Bar via WNBC.London.

In among all that, Alex and Michael Rendall rustled up a whole new Orb album featuring a slew of guests including David Harrow, Gaudi, Youth, Jono Podmore, guitarist and old school friend David Lofts, as well as a selection of guest vocalists.

Unlike …Royal Familia there isn’t a central narrative (I mean, there might be, this is The Orb after all), but that title, Prism, tells you everything you need to know. In these enlightened post-Covid times The Orb have made an album that radiates light while also spanning the musical spectrum from ambient to house to dub, pop, drum ’n’ bass and reggae. There’s even a poem by Alex chucked in for good measure.

Clocking in at 70 minutes, Prism comes across four sides of vinyl arranged in four distinct “movements”. It feels like a proper record, with a beginning, middle and end.

Opening a record with a track like ‘H.O.M.E. (High Orbs Mini Earths)’ takes balls. At over 10 minutes half the track is the dark ambient intro, complete with that Alex poem (it’ll have you returning for a closer listen). Choppy keys begin to rise in the mix before the whole thing gives way to a house-fuelled hands-in-the-air anthem, which melts away, all ambient washes, before the shimmering, acid-squelching, wah-wah funker of ‘Why Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You Can’t Be Anywhere At All (Where’s Gary Mix)’ arrives. For me at least, the first side has the buzz of the opening side of Frankie’s ‘Pleasuredome’. It’s bold and brave and beautiful and other words beginning with B.

The pop-ish songs enter on the disc one flipside starting with the sunshine reggae of ‘A Ghetto Love Story’. The deep, satisfying dub rumble of ‘Picking Tea Leaves & Chasing Butterflies’ is so full of meows it had our cat looking around for the perpetrator. Tying up the side comes ‘Tiger’, a nod to Alex’s late, much-loved brother. Tiger was his nickname and it’s also the name of Alex’s son. The soaring vocal, the infectious groove, the sweet melody, it’s a glitterballed floorfiller however you look at it.

Over on side three the samplefest dub of ‘Dragon Of The Ocean’ takes us into firm Orb territory with narration from a 1950’s children’s programme (“We’re going to play a hiding and finding game”), bird song and a bunch of NASA bleepy chat takes to the airwaves before the trancey ‘The Beginning Of The End’ does what it say on the tin and ushers you, in an upbeat manner, towards the grand finale of the closing side.

And what a side. The final brace of tracks are total scorchers. At 10-minutes plus, ‘Living In Recycled Times’ goes full-tilt drum ’n’ bass before dissolving into an extended outro featuring the violin of Violeta Vicci and chunks of 1960s US radio drifting in. Saving the best for last, the title track is just short of 10 minutes and opens with more chatter, this time from the famous 1972 World Chess Championship between Fischer and Spassky. What does it all mean? No idea but this last side is something else. If The Orb ever needed to affirm their credentials, which they don’t, this would do it.

‘Prism’ is magnificent stuff. Long may The Orb continue being such a ray of sunshine in our world.

NM

Flaty – Intuitive Word (Gost Zvuk)

Somewhere at the centre of Gost Zvuk’s murky world lies Flaty, just one of the many aliases and projects from Evgenii Fadeev, also found recording as AEM Rhythm Cascade, Serwed, and lots more besides. He’s the kind of artist who revels in switching stances from release to release, imbuing all the music with idiosyncrasies and finishing everything with a certain grit. The last Serwed album was a masterpiece of complex systems music, while he just recently put out an indie-oriented album of songs with Kedr Livanskiy. You could perhaps liken him to an equally prolific, unpredictable auteur like Pavel Milyakov, although sonically they’re very much in their own distinctive tracts.

Intuitive Word holds true to Flaty’s free-spirited possibilities, offering up something wholly unexpected and utterly magnificent. As ever, it’s a touch futile summing the sound up in some catch-all umbrella term, but some of the key inputs appear to be RnB vocals and dream-like shards of pop composition dragged through messy signal chains. There’s a melodious beauty coursing through everything, but it’s equally distorted and off-key.

One of Flaty’s key skills is in balancing the noisier elements in his mixes with crisp, elegant impulses which cut through, and that’s absolutely true here. ‘Lament Pit’ offsets grainy chords with crystalline chimes, coming on like the backing track for a sentimental ballad given a heavy dose of dissassociatives. The way he teases the more forthright elements in his tracks constantly baits your expectations, such as with the nearly-obscured guitar strum of ‘Strut’, triggering a thousand memories of 70s AOR heard from distant radios and yet never quite delivering the pop pill you expect. Instead, we get some delicate flute to savour over the top of the mix.

There are these moments of patchwork beauty throughout Intuitive Word, and these sample sources add a whole new, starkly human dimension to Flaty’s sound. His force of musical personality renders the music like nothing you’ve heard before, but there’s a collective memory held in these sounds which might well take you to unexpected places in your own data stores.

OW

Ohhms – Rot (Church Road)
Kent’s own sludge-doomers Ohhms make their much-anticipated return on Rot, serving simultaneously as both their most expansive and accessible work to date.

The sixth full-length from the endlessly prolific and creative outfit shies away from political or animal rights themes this time around, opting instead to delve into classic horror cinema and allow film to truly dictate the subject matter, which is no real shock when you discover that vocalist Paul Waller even hosts a podcast focused on the differing eras of horror.

As the intro track ‘Tonight’s Feature Presentation’ conjures an image of a black and white TV host preparing the listener for a scarefest marathon, each subsequent cut feels like a film unto itself. From the hypnotic ‘Let’s Scare Jessica To Death’ (based on the John Hancock 1971 picture of the same name) with its ethereal post-sludge groove, to the more bombastic killer crocodile banger ‘Eaten Alive’, based on Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper’s 1976 creature feature that swells with Mastodon indebted heft, it’s evident the group’s newfound playfulness has informed the nuance and atmosphere of their compositions immensely.

Trudging through mercurial post-metal serenity purposefully weighed down by heaving psych-doom riffage, yet still exuding ludicrously catchy hooks like on the eccentric ‘Body Melt’ with its absurd high-pitched backing vocals, or standout single ‘The Mephisto Waltz’ inspired by the 1971 Paul Wendkos occult murder mystery, channelling Black Sabbath by way of Swans, Rot is both the encapsulation of all the varying sonic forms of Ohhms’ identity to date, and a transcending of their former brooding selves into a truly dynamic collective. Drawing on various forms of modern and retro heaviness to craft a work that’s equal parts unsettling, delightful, macabre and endlessly entertaining just like any horror worth its salt should be, this is an unmatched collection by one of the UK’s most criminally underrated heavy exports. Regardless of its title, on LP six there’s zero signs of rot to be found.

ZB

Mayaan Nidam – Habe Ich Gewonnen? (Giegling)

After consistently blowing away the techno world with the emotional landscapes of Prince Of Denmark and his various elusive aliases, it’s no surprise the German minimal collective Giegling are seeking a change of tack. Emo-techno does get boring after a while. To help themselves along, they’ve enlisted the help of Kreuzbergian modular sound artist Mayaan Nidam for a new EP, ‘Habe Ich Gewonnen?’ (‘Did I Win?’). Unusually for Giegling, it covers everything from bleepy drill to janky post-punk to dub techno, which can only be a good thing. Male-dominated label titans need to show a willingness to metamorphose, let alone allow new styles to enter through their floodgates.

Nidam is an Israel-born musician whose sound expresses the darker side of what modular techno has to offer. It’s often noted that she’s an intermittent releaser, with several-year-long gaps having cropped up between her various EPs and albums, which extend back to 2009. Despite what many insensitive types might think, this is a sign of a considerate musician, one unwilling to compromise quality for quantity This latest EP consists of four nameless tunes, which recalls everything from the farting experimentations of German coldwave mainstays Die Elefanten, to the meek and snappy drum machine workouts of early Drexciya. 

Track 4 is the most riveting, fearlessly moving through erratically frozen drum hats and rims which recall a future-past vision of the stock drum beats used by Vondelpark and Jamie xx, but much better, and original. There’s also a crunchy, yappy lead chord line. This emotive yet abrasive sound woofs and bites away at the track’s bandwidth, dominating the mix almost completely thanks to its throaty, “yoy-bass” ish quality. Repeat listens reveal subtler sounds worked in between the beats, from faint rattling chains to sidechained pink noise. This is another gem from Nidam, a piece for the dance music lover whose curiosity extends beyond techno’s straightest grooves, and into a quenched thirst for the genre’s sonic history. 

JIJ

Holy Tongue – Deliverance And Spiritual Warfare (Amidah)

The impression made by Valentina Magaletti and Al Wootton’s Holy Tongue was immediate and decisive. Here was a dream combination of one of the most talented percussionists of our time colliding with the gifted, dub-faithful processes of a truly dedicated producer, resulting in a modern update of the post-punk-dub idea that brought the best of the practice into a new sphere. After three EPs and a live tape which emerged in relatively quick succession and a steady stream of acclaimed gigs, they’ve now expanded the scope of their project with an album.

What’s most exciting about hearing Holy Tongue stretch out over 10 tracks is that they’ve done much more than follow a safe and steady formula of dubby drum workouts. Given the quality of the prior records, that probably would have been quite enough, but the military funeral peal of brass and drums that heralds the start of opening track ‘Saeta’ tells you there’s much more to take in on this occasion. It’s a pointed creative choice steeped in meaning, and it segues brilliantly at the midway point with the blip of a dub siren as some visceral electronic pulses come charging in, only to give way to disembodied wails trapped in a delay unit.  It’s a lot to pack in to three and a half minutes, but they manage it, and the scene is set for an album bursting with invention and risk.

There is some absolutely on point post-punk dub-disco to savour, of course. ‘Threshing Floor’ is a pitch-perfect soundsystem stomper, utterly motorik but bristling with hand-wrought fluctuations. On ‘Susuro’ however, the working method is applied to a much lighter sound palette, taking away the thrum of drums and bass and playing around with pockmark percussion and modal melodic touches which nod to the corner of dub experimentation inhabited by David Cunningham, Steve Beresford et al. ‘Joachim’ is similarly knotty, with Magaletti’s electro-acoustic patterns threading around a wandering double bass figure in a marvel of labyrinthe composition. This is just some of the innovative detail etched into an album which exceeds the promise of what had come before – a rich, vibrant work which adds something meaningful to the tradition of experimental dub and post-punk.

OW

Dijit – The Room (Youth)

Back in 2020 Youth released Hyperattention: Selected Dijital Works Vol. 1 as a means of introducing the work of Egyptian producer Hashem L Kelesh, otherwise known as Dijit. You might consider his music aligning with fellow countryman ZULI’s more rap oriented work, Palestine’s Muqata’aor Algeria’s El Mahdy Jr – all artists with distinctive, regionally-rooted styles, but who have a common thread of hip-hop influence in their music.

After the somewhat scrapbook emergence of his prior work, now Kelesh returns on Youth with an album which feels fully realised as an intentional body of work. There’s a level of sophistication in the production and composition of ‘BAKO’ which instantly draws you in close – a certain bluesy melancholia in the keys and a haunting vocal spot from Deedz. From there, the album opens up in all sorts of surprising ways, skipping by delicate beatless pondering and deadly, slow and tough beat downs.

There’s faster, fiercer fare on ‘Saga’, perhaps the track which most directly  draws on Kelesh’s location in Cairo in a scintillating rush of twisted up vocal snatches, shaking bells and tumbling drums with an unexpected gnarly synth hook at the mid-section. It’s an unusual combination which embodies the freedom Dijit moves with, but this freedom doesn’t come at the cost of the album’s sense of togetherness. With the ample vocal turns manifesting in half-sung, half-rapped, sometimes muttered forms, it takes on a diaristic tone. But more than anything, it’s a noticeably mature work with an air of intention which should lend it longevity – an all-important quality when so music zips past us top be forgotten instantly.

OW

Moufang / Czamanski – Recreational Kraut (Source)

Sometimes artists find each other, and it just fits. When David Moufang (aka Move D) and Jordan Czamanski first teamed up (with Gal Aner, Czamanski’s partner in Juju & Jordash), their Magic Mountain High project felt like a breath of fresh, improvised air in the era of rigid live techno sets. Leaving it all the the moment and starting each performance from scratch, their innate skill and experience with synths and drum machines became a thrilling proposition where you could sense the fragility of the jam, and yet it never missed. That was some 10 years ago or more, and in the mean time it’s become a lot more commonplace to see people working hardware on stage and employing tools and training to take their music in unexpected directions.

Now, as Moufang and Czamanski present a new collection of collaborative studio sessions, they represent elder statesmen of the live method – Moufang especially has always taken this kind of approach right back to his early Deep Space Network and rEAGENZ projects amongst others. When ‘Recreation S Parts 1-3’ opens up in languid Rhodes and subtle threads of noise, it’s with an air of maturity as codified by the music’s inherent jazziness. It’s music for big sweaters and cups of coffee on rainy days, and perhaps a sizeable spliff if you’re feeling spicy. That shouldn’t be mistaken for saying the results are dull in any way – it’s played with feeling and it unfolds at an even pace, with gently fuzzed guitar and eventual sonar bleeps sneaking in as the 20-minute piece meanders along. Perhaps such extended, slow-paced music is a tad self-indulgent, but diffused into a space it sets a seductive mood that would never urge anyone to skip along.

It’s far from the only mood on the record, either. ‘Tea For 2’ is instantly more direct, with a tidy drum machine tick nudging along the deep house chords and undulating waves of synth, . ‘Fireworks & Jive’ finds a compelling tract between prevailing jazz and more outré sound design diversions, creating an off-key kind of house that lands with poise.

At times the more experimental works feel like they could have perhaps been spared from a pressing. ‘On The Inside’ certainly has its moments, but it circles around at an odd angle without finding a direction, and the omnipresent Rhodes starts to feel a little tired. Overall, this lack of direction is a pitfall of the improvised approach and perhaps a by-product of the source material, but it can also yield pleasant surprises. When ‘Spogliati’ kicks in with a scuffed broken beat a third of the way through, it shifts the entire nature of the jam and the Rhodes playing adapts in kind.

At its best, Recreational Kraut sparkles with invention and human touch, best demonstrated as the album reaches its final run. ‘Personal Kraut’ moves like a cosmic house delight with a discernible trajectory. ‘Late To The Party’ follows it with one of the most cohesive ambient excursions on the album, and ‘Rudy Rudy’ skips through downtempo pastures without needing a destination in mind. It’s not a perfect record by any means, but in its best moments it’s a fine reminder of the beauty that lies in the improvised approach.

OW

Various Artists – Waves of Distortion (The Best of Shoegaze 1990-2022) (Two-Piers)

While Brighton’s Two-Piers label has only been around since lockdown it has wasted little time in putting out some quality releases. Their thing is reissues and compilations, music they say “which needs to be heard, no boundaries”. Highlights so far include a couple of cracking French psyche pop comps, an after-hours ‘Music For The Stars’ collection and now there’s this.

Rather than being an encyclopedic ‘Best Of’, ‘Waves Of Distortion’ has that lovely feel of a very personal mixtape. Sure, Ride, Lush and Chapterhouse are here with tracks from 1991, but it opens with Slowdive’s ‘Slomo’ from their 2017 reunion album. Which is bold, but it works a treat.

Coming as a 22-track double on transparent red vinyl, there’s some great stuff here. Slap-bang up to date there’s the likes of Horsegirl and bdrmm (look out for their new LP in June on Mogwai’s Rock Action label… and indeed Mogwai also feature with ‘Kids Will Be Skeletons’ from 2003). It’s also a global concern featuring the likes of Beach House and Ringo Deathstarr from the US, Sweden’s Echo Ladies and Australians Lowtide and Flyying Colours. From the old school, Ultra Vivid Scene’s ‘Mercy Seat’ and Galaxie 500’s slowcore cover of New Order’s ‘Ceremony’ are both delicious. 

By mixing up the OG (“original gazers”) with the new school, this is a very neat collection that not only contextualizes the current scene, but should lead you on quite the voyage of discovery.

NM

Matthewdavid – Mycelium Music (Leaving Records)

A welcome return for LA’s Matthewdavid who has, of late, been forging a path at the forefront of what his people describe as a New New Age. On this, his first full-length since 2018’s Time Flying Beats compilation, he’s concerned with The Mycelium, which mushroom fans will know is the subterranean network through which plant life communicate.

Matthewdavid ponders how the Mycelium might sing and offers his conclusions via the use of norns, a script-based, open-source sound instrument that allows improvisation as well as accident. And if Mycelium Music is anything to go by it’s quite the box of tricks. The work is described as generative music, which has been around for a while and relies on systems or process to create the finished pieces. Think Terry Riley’s In C, Delia Derbyshire’s Unit Delta Plus or Eno’s Discreet Music.

On top of all that it’s also a response to ambient pioneer Laraaji encouraging Matthewdavid to innovate zither music. So there’s a bunch of zither-related tracks. ‘Zithercelium’ glistens and shimmers with the instruments bright tones while on ‘Zithertronica’ the sharp pings disappear as if being detuned like a radio with the dial finding instead the warm thrums of ‘Grain’.

These dozen tracks seem to merge and melt into each other much like you’d imagine that subterranean network does. It’s particularly good on tracks like ‘Spills’ which seem to fire up as if a handle is being turned, the sound rippling into view and staying there as long that handle keeps going round.

It’s one of those records that needs to be allowed to do its work from start to finish. And it’s all rather beautiful when it does.

NM

Monde UFO – Vandalized Statue To Be Replaced (Quindi)

Is there a definable vibe to music from California? Given the size of the sprawl it’s debatable, but on tripping into Monde UFO’s album for Quindi it makes perfect sense their music comes from the West Coast, in some mythical region where the sun shines every day and people glide along through life at an easy pace. Touching on bossa nova, lo-fi indie rock, exotica and a shot of dub, the band lay down intimate vignettes that occupy their own space. It carries an air of un-self-consciousness – vocals veer off-key, bum notes get hit and there’s room for the odd splash of schmaltz, but it all adds to the sincerity of the project.

In ‘Instruments’ tumbledown jazz from a mic’d up room you can sense the more experimental tendencies that lie beyond the sweetly sentimental songwriting that guides Monde UFO’s hand. Sure enough, they sound like a band enjoying tethering their weird tastes into something much smoother – the kitsch organ lines are precariously close to coming unhinged and the drums spill into cosmic delays without too much encouragement, but ultimately the album feels like a serene dream passing through small towns gridded out with white picket fences underneath infinite stretches of blue sky.

The lyrics only double down on this small world feeling, as ‘The Woods Behind St. Marthas’ deals in sort of a rolling commentary on teenage misdemeanours with a wry, gossip-y tone. ‘Government Employee’, perhaps the most perfectly realised song on the album, leaves a breadcrumb trail of surrealist clues and real-life minutae. These are puzzles which reveal a little more with each listen, but such is the nature of the music, Vandalised Statue… works just as well as a gentle scene-setter for your suburban barbecue or beach-bound road trip.

OW

UH – Humanus (Prah)

The sibling duo of Dominic and Fionnuala Kennedy make up what may be one of the most onomatopoeically-named electronic music bands out there today – UH. But it’s not the instant draw of their oomphy name alone that draws us in. It’s their naturalistic, on-the-fly, modular jam-born music, which has everything from acid to euphoria to retrofuture cinematics – a potent, impassioned sound. 

Despite their successes, UH’ve been relatively quiet on the recorded music front. ‘Seasick in Salts’ came as the debut EP, with long-form pieces like ‘Starchild’ giving slippery future-organics and pastoral dance-trances. These are fashionable trends, but UH indulge them from a more honest place than most, noding to their Irish heritage and love for rural, wide(screen) landscapes. It’s no surprise that Humanus, then, has been described as “neo-Celtic acid” or “cybernetic folk”, but neither of these terms do it enough justice, as it’s really more like precision, mega-joyful IDM. Standouts like ‘Hit’ and ‘Attention’ occupy the bangers front – the UK garage influence rings clear – while ballads like ‘Mama’ and ‘500 Ascended’ lean as deeply into Kate-Bushy eccentricity as they do Trance Wax or Congress-style breakbeat.

Fionnuala’s ecstatic, legato-femme singing covers topics as far-flung as hitwomen, cults, and impossible scenarios like hiding in stars. It’s this breadth that leads us here: Humanus sounds like what might happen if Laurie Anderson, Andrew Weatherall and Vangelis all took an eccie together and, in the process of entheogenically ego-dying, had forgotten what defined each person as separate from one another.

JIJ

This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Neil Mason, Zach Buggy.