New releases last four weeks: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: With 2021's Infinite Granite taking a sharp left turn into the realms of hazy, luscious dream-pop, eyes have been pointedly fixed on San Francisco blackgaze heroes Deafheaven ever since, with many of their fanbase pondering where to next? The answer is their highly anticipated sixth full-length, Lonely People With Power, which finally showcases the band freed from all creative restraint and audience expectation, marrying their equal and effortless understanding of black metal malevolence and shoegaze ethereality, even allowing frontman George Clarke to make full use of his recently discovered vocal range. Howling shrieks and delicate crooning weave around one another on the euphoric heft of 'Heathen', whereas 'Magnolia' offers up one of their most succinctly black metal cuts to date, radiating with the caustic aura of Emperor's more proggy latter-day output. Forgoing their usual post-rock penchant for a small number of tracks all clocking in at approximately ten minutes, the numerous cuts (12 in all, marking the most of any Deafheaven album to date) prioritise instantaneous delivery on their most sprawling and musically diverse collection yet, fusing their harshest and most accessible sonics into one monumental victory lap touching upon everything from black metal to shoegaze, dream-pop, thrash, post-rock, emo, screamo and post-punk.

Review: Based out of Melbourne, Australia, Takiaya Reed (better known as Divide & Dissolve) is a one-woman monolithic force of industrial-tinged, neo-classical leaning instrumental doom metal. Originally a duo, 2023's fourth full-length Systemic marked the first effort from the project following the departure of percussionist Sylvie Nehill (of M?ori and White-Australian heritage), with guitarist/saxophonist Reed (of Tsalagi and African-American heritage) embarking on a solo venture from there on out. Her second singular display of overtly political, droning sonic dread comes in the form of Insatiable, which coalesces mercurial beauty with bombastic abrasion, almost as if sonically illustrating the warring of mindsets active in our collective conscious. From drawing ire back in 2018 for their controversial music video for 'Resistance' which featured spitting and spraying urine-coloured water on monuments of colonial figures such as Captain James Cook and John Batman, Reed has made it clear ever since that their punishing instrumentals are designed with the artful intention of "decolonising, decentralising, disestablishing, and destroying white supremacy", which she makes overwhelming ends to accomplish without a single word uttered.

Review: Talk about appropriate names. There's something about Helen Island that sounds as though it has been cast adrift, washed up, and left to establish its own thing. The Parisian enigma's work feels ghostly, haunted by a past that has vanished into the ocean mist. Whether they'll ever be reunited is the real question, but mystery is the joy here. Whether it's at the uptempo, synth pop hued 'Hot Zone Regular Day', or the weird and wonderful psyche-electronica-field style 'Forever Starts Today', breathy samples on 'Indivisibl' or the innocent contemporary classical-cum-ambient plucked strings and keys of 'Restless Lovers' and 'Gore Lore', the whole thing is a strange and beguiling ride through the outer reaches of popular music.

Review: Some 37 haiku poems are given an avant-garde, 64-minute musical backing with translations from poet Harry Gilonis, on this unique project by composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow) and vocalist Atsuko Kamura. We hear a vignetting lingual interplay, with lines in English by Hodgkinson sung in Japanese by Kamura, as a wide instrumental span covers percussions, violin, viola, harp, clarinets, guitars and electronics result. Recorded between Tokyo and London, the album offers a startlingly satisfying sonic renga (a Japanese poetic form encompassing a succession of haikus), lending the brevity of classic haiku an expansive, stretched-out prosthesis. From the 17th through to the 20th-century, this is a subduing but still irregular experience, as it formally demonstrates the laconic and aphoristic essence of the haiku.

Review: Rhode Island post-metal avant-garde duo The Body have made a name for themselves due to their caustic maelstrom of harsh, brutalist experimentalism as well as their prolific output and collaborative nature, releasing collab albums with the likes of Full Of Hell, Thou, Uniform, and most recently, Dis Fig. Their latest endeavour sees the pair link up with another duo of musical extremity, Toronto, Canada's recently reformed industrial two-piece Intensive Care. Was I Good Enough? has been on the cards since the artists first began making plans as far back as 2018, trading, warping and ruining mutual sessions with layers of loops, distortion, samples and even dubs, constantly striving to find the ideal haunting balance between both of their sonically hideous, oppressive worlds. For all of our ears' sakes, they just might have succeeded.

Review: This reissue of Janitor of Lunacy recaptures Nico in a stark, spellbinding 1983 live performance at Manchester's Library Theatre during a period when she called the city home. Spread across 20 tracks on double vinyl, the album distils her haunting presence and singular voice into raw, intimate recordings that draw from four of her solo records as well as Velvet Underground classics like 'Femme Fatale' and 'All Tomorrow's Parties.' The set also includes a brooding take on Bowie's 'Heroes' which is, like the rest of the pieces, minimalist and emotionally charged. This was Nico stripped down to her essence, namely bleak, beautiful and moving.

Review: British conspiracy thriller Utopia follows a group of young adults who, after discovering a mysterious comic book - The Utopia Experiments - embark on a manic quest for corporate restitution and prophetic fulfilment. As a shadowy government organisation detects their plans and resolves to track their every move, we watch an empathic but deadly game of cat-and-mouse; and Cristobal Tapia de Veer's acclaimed score only heightens the tension. This new 2xLP edition includes such instantly recognisable motifs as 'Brainwave Playground', 'Satan's Waltz' and 'The Monarch's Pyramid', capturing the series' eerie and intense atmosphere. The score continues to resonate to this day, following Tapia de Veer's success with The White Lotus and Babygirl.