An ongoing but intermittent series from us, wherein we try to cover a host of releases we simply haven’t been able to review in full but which don’t want to slip away unmentioned.

Reviews by Andrew Bowman, Rich Hughes, Scott McMillan and Matt Poacher.

Black Eagle Child – Lobelia (Preservation)

Black Eagle Child is the nom de guitar of Michael Jantz, a prolific Milwaukee based musician with an extensive back catalogue of releases on small, mainly US based labels. Lobelia has the feel of a summation, however, a slowly formed and slowly recorded paean to youth, family and memory. You might call the style pastoral epic (akin to a more content Scott Tuma or some of David Sheppard’s work with Ellis Island Sound), as these are gentle creations built from simple guitar figures, field recordings and the gentlest of percussive intrusions, yet the album’s themes belie this simplicity. The album is named after a flower extract that Jantz and his sister frequently received from their mother, and the cover features an extraordinary photograph of family ancestors. It is strange to say, but it is unusual to hear such a positive response to one’s upbringing and family life – we are used to confusion and loss. So to hear a record so obviously full of love and care is rare indeed. The thematic pull of the album is given an anchor by the presence of Mary, Jantz’s baby daughter who was born during the recording process. Her laughter on one of the tracks is like staring into a clear glass sky. A lovely moment on a lovely album. (MP)

Cleared – Cleared (Immune)

Cleared are Chicago duo Steven Hess and Michael Vallera. Formed three years ago to explore musical avenues associated with repetition and patience, this self-titled debut album comprises recordings that have been sculpted from various sessions into something more linear. Slow burning drones underpin everything like a quilt upon which various sounds and noises can be patchworked. Notes of singular percussion, field recordings and clunking, mechanical sounds are woven into this backdrop of shifting noise. It could almost be used as a soundtrack to some science fiction film where the bright, clean surfaces of a vastly technologically advanced future are undermined by a dark, hidden interior that’s just out of view. Patience is certainly a virtue here. Nothing happens quickly. Music, sounds and recordings all shift at glacial speeds, yet there’s always a thread of something interesting to hold your attention. A sound or idea that can be picked and pulled, getting bigger and bigger, yet simultaneously starting a new, different, sound-thread from a completely different area. This rolling, revolving door of sound is what makes this such an impressive and incredibly listenable album. Considering its weighty ideals, that’s no mean feat. (RH)

Derek Rogers – Informal Meditations (No Kings)
I know very little about Derek Rogers, but a glance at his discography shows he’s already released a good deal of CDRs and tapes, and on a variety of small labels. As is the way with many of the new breed of soundscapers and drone mavens, Rogers’ method is to release often and in hideously small runs – Informal Meditations was a cassette limited to just 40, and it was gone almost as quickly as it arrived. It would be a shame if more people didn’t get to hear this as it’s a beautiful, warm example of improvised drone and electronics. Casting around for easy comparisons I’m reminded of Erstlaub, KFW (in Lisbon or Playthroughs guise) and Sean McCann, though the second track does feature some harsher more power-oriented electronics. These are immersive and powerful pieces of music that deserve a wider audience. (MP)

Egyptrixx – Bible Eyes (Night Slugs)

Not so long ago when dance genres in the UK were clearly demarcated in terms of rhythm and/or tempo the arrival to the scene of outsiders, especially foreigners, usually and perhaps paradoxically, signalled stagnation – a signal to move on. In a free-for-all, is-it-this-or-that era, none of this counts; a universally lauded, quintessentially singles-led label can be mentioned routinely in the same breath as ‘UK bass’ and still issue an album by a Toronto-based artist with barely a raised eyebrow. Still, David Psutka is the odd one out among the Night Slugs set; he’s got the soaring and sliding synths centre-stage and he’s picked up the snappy syncopation of UK funky, but he’s also got subtlety in spades. This makes him an arguably less exciting singles artist than others on the roster, but then it’s hard to imagine the likes of Lil Silva delivering as convincing an album as Bible Eyes at this juncture. ‘Start From The Beginning’ sets out its grand intentions with cinematic pomp, gong-like low piano and delicate, jazzy hi-hats, sounding like nothing else on Night Slugs thus far. The title track quickly takes us (four-) to the floor  - a steady house pulse and yo-yo-like high-end vamp drive things, but it’s the supporting hand percussion and marimba rhythms that make it dynamic. It’s this slickness, which never descends into sickly tastefulness that glues everything together. From the pop-friendly electro of ‘Chrysalis Records’ through to the sombre dubstep of ‘Fuji Club’ (both featuring vocals from members of the band Trust) everything is layered with exquisite attention to detail. The melodies meanwhile never get nasty but they remain resolutely weird, calling to mind the warped otherworldliness of early house genius Larry “Mr. Fingers” Heard. Psutka might not be the iconoclastic pioneer Heard was, but among homogenised surroundings he’s forged an individual path that’s well worth following. (AB)

Ekoplekz – Memowrekz (Mordant Music)

“I hear you’re buying a synthesiser and an arpeggiator and throwing your computer out the window, because you wanna make something real” intones the character on LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’ – a song centred on a riff remarkably similar to that of Ekoplekz’s ‘Casioplekz’. And there’s something to be said for the statement’s sarcasm; working with purely analogue electronics isn’t necessarily noble in and of itself. It’s not what you got, it’s what you do with it. Luckily Nick Edwards’s gurgling, moody one-take improvisations in this arena are executed with a level of dexterity that matches their immediacy. Even across Memowrekz‘s initially intimidating 33-track length there’s a sense of fluidity; this is more than a tossed-off sketchbook of experiments. Which isn’t to say it’s not experimental in the truest sense, you can hear a stretching of the resources and feel the willingness to meddle. For every familiar echo of say Cabaret Voltaire (the pounding, guitar-led ‘Mindreaver’) or Cluster (the rustic rambling ‘Camarthen Fields’) there’s a singular oddity like the plaintive-sci-fi-chords-over-dancehall-rhythms of ’77 Steps’. Crucially though, there’s a keen intuition at work and Edwards’s endless enthusiasm for the interplay between rhythm and reverberation binds it all together beautifully. (AB)

Eleh – Radiant Intervals (Important)

The mysterious Eleh returns with his/her first “proper” LP in a couple of years, after the Location Momentum CD for Touch, and the two and a half LPs of more playful analogue experimentation for Important entitled Retreat, Return and Repose. Fittingly, given that it is released alongside a split LP which pairs him/her with Ellen Fullman, it initially appears to be a return to his/her lengthier, minimalist tone based explorations, “Night Of Pure Energy” starting with a succession of pure, overlapping sine waves. But then, the oddest thing happens: a beat appears, a slow, regular, 120bpm pulse emerging from beneath the deceptively calm surface, finally before it is ultimately torn into fragments by the waves. The following track, the wonderfully titled “Death Is Eternal Bliss”, positively rattles along, while the deep pattern at the heart of “Bright And Central As The Sun Itself” sounds like the cosmos’s own bass music. It sounds, for once, like the normally austere Eleh might actually be having fun. We are over a dozen albums in now, and yet it seems we are still no closer to finding out who he/she actually is. (SM)

Fen – Epoch (code666)

Black metal and Norfolk seems such an obvious combination when you think about it – the wilds, the roar of the wind across the flatlands. Yet I can’t think of another black metal band from this part of the world. This is Fen’s second album (alongside a couple of EPs) and in truth they seem to be slowly moving away from the raw black metal of their past into something more baroque and progressive. These elements have always been there in their sound, but on Epoch they are very much to the fore, creating a dramatic sweep, a sweep which fits well with their bleak outlook and celebration of the harsh landscape that bore them. There is much made of nationalism in black metal, and it’d be interesting to explore in more depth why there does seem to be a coalescing of black metal in the UK into some kind of scene, with bands like Winterfylleth and A Forest of Stars equally prominent. For now Fen are at the front of the pack and Epoch is a bold, in places brutal – and here’s the key – always affecting record. (MP)

Grails – Deep Politics (Temporary Residence)

Every time Grails release an album, I find myself convinced that the next one will really be “the one”; they are a band who seem to be perpetually on the cusp of producing a truly essential experimental rock album. That was particularly so this time round: their last mini-album, Black Tar Prophecies Vol IV, with its evocative use of vinyl crackle and horribly distorted, ghostly voices, seemed to suggest a new, and rather exciting new direction, one that would benefit from extrapolation across a longer form. The return of Emil Amos from his Om sabbatical, and an ear-pricking introduction of chasmic echo and churning Arabic string riffs also promised much. It doesn’t last long: that opening track “Future Primitive” tails off with a guitar workout which would have fitted on Pink Floyd’s Division Bell, not a sound I was in any great rush to hear again, while the following “All The Colours The Dark” is pure Western soundtrack pastiche – specifically Dominic Frontiere’s theme from Hang ‘Em High. Oh well. There is enough here – once again – to suggest that the next one will indeed be the one. (SM)

Julia Hülsmann Trio – Imprint (ECM)

I must admit that I’m unfamiliar with the work of pianist Julia Hülsmann, and that I only picked this new ECM release up as it had the name of Marc Muellbauer on the sleeve – Muellbauer being the instrumentalist last spotted round Liminal way adding some sturdy bass shapes and arco flashes to the Moritz von Oswald Trio’s superb Horizontal Structures LP. Hülsmann’s trio is, as you’d expect, a far more conventional jazz trio than von Oswald’s, specifically evoking the hazy late night vibe of Bill Evans and, with a knotty little bouncer called “Who’s Next?”, even the great Thelonious Monk. This is an ego-free meeting, with little in the way of soloing, just the sense of a tight band all engaging each other in a deft dance round Hülsmann’s slowly tumbling melodies. While most often this takes the form of a gradual coming together, the track seeming to appear from the mist before your eyes, “After The End Of It” feels like an unravelling, its skitterish drum patterns, staccato chording, and semi-funk giving way to a soft melodic truth, and the realisation that I must investigate Julia Hülsmann’s catalogue further. (SM)

Hype Williams – One Nation (Hippos In Tanks)

A few months ago during a London gig supporting Sun Araw, there was a palpable sense that Hype Williams simply didn’t know what they were doing. What on record might come across as faux-naivety was rendered live as something bordering on outright awkwardness. Yet when you look at the Hype Williams ‘story’ so far, you get the overwhelming impression of knowing, a calculated methodology that co-conspirators Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland would no doubt deny. Are they engaged in carefully orchestrated obfuscation? Here they name woozy, meandering synth workouts after Wiley lyrics: “William, Shotgun Sprayer” and “Your Girl Smells Chung When She Wears Dior”. The latter song muddies things further by centring itself on a drugged-up, recycling of a Cassie hook. The beatless, backwards keyboard ambience of ‘Break4Love’ borrows the name of Raze’s house anthem, but it’s earlier track “Unfaithful” that calls to mind 80s Chicago. Then there’s the self-help guru’s death speech and the peregrine guy: “in dreams I gush because I must, I am juicy, Peregrine”. Perhaps HW are just voracious collectors with a penchant for absurdist re-appropriation. Though the glut of obtuse metadata might indicate childishness, the restless, (slightly troubled) childlike nature of the music imbues the endeavour with definite charm. Keyboards smear themselves all over the place, like five-year-olds’ fingers through paint, drum machines clatter along hyperactively before suddenly crashing or slowing to near standstill; jaunty melodies waver suddenly into sadness. For all the comparisons to the American hypnagogic pop pack, these kids’ dim-lit dream world is all their own and it’s full of jolts, which often make it as intriguing as it is frustrating. (AB)

Moss (Olivia Block, Molly Berg, Steve Roden, Stephen Vitiello) – Moss (12K)

One 25-minute piece makes up this release on 12K’s Limited Series project. Limited to 500 copies, it’s a live recording of a unique collaboration between Olivia Block, Molly Berg, Steve Roden and Stephen Vitiello at the Trinity Cathedral in San Jose, CA, at midnight, and as part of the 01SJ Biennial event. Entirely improvised, it’s an astonishing piece of sculptured sound. There’s a gentle hum that floats, ribbon-like, in an acoustic space that breathes and flexes with energy. This flirts and co-operates with a series of other, unique, passages of music and field recordings. There’s an atmosphere created by a deluge of field recordings; water drips, insects beat, birds cry and wood creaks. Woodwind instruments puncture this tapestry, the one true, physical, sound that’s easy to describe. It’s a pure collage of sound. Seemingly disparate fragments that are skillfully pieced together. This isn’t noise or an abstract exploration of sound. This is what happens when four people who understand each other collaborate and improvise to craft music that’s completely fresh. Were it not for this recording, this unique set would have been lost forever, and that would have been very sad indeed. (RH)

Nils Frahm & Anne Muller – 7fingers (Erased Tapes)

A juxtaposition of wonderful sounds greets you when listening to 7fingers. Nils Frahm is a pianist at heart, but dabbles in electronica. On the evidence of this LP, we can probably say he does more than just dabble. Joined by cellist Muller, 7fingers is an interface between modern / neo-classical and the more sample, glitch led wing of electronica. Opener ‘Teeth’ might stick with to the pure neo-classical template, but the title track brings in waves of sounds and crackling pieces of noise that embellish and augment the background supplied by the more traditional instruments. ‘Let My Key Be C’ is Reich-esque with its repetitious, twinkling backdrop of notes, the cello soaring across it. ‘Show Your Teeth’ wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Gold Panda’s much praised debut album of last year, clipped beats pushing through scratches in a crystal clear sheen of sound, the stringed instruments skidding across this surface. It doesn’t feel like this has been forced either. This feels like a real live and organic partnership – each party bringing what they’re good at and crafting something fresh and exciting. This isn’t IDM with strings. This is another juncture of genres collaborating in a very clear, and impressive, symbiotic relationship. (RH)

Phaedra – The Sea (Rune Grammofon)

The Sea is the debut album from Norwegian Ingvild Langgard under the Phaedra pseudonym. A singer, songwriter and artist, The Sea reflects all these experiences and influences in its beautiful musical prowess. Falling into the slightly more ethereal side of the new freak/psychedelic folk movement, there’s something hauntingly aged about the sounds and production, as if these songs have been kept locked away for hundreds of years and only recently let free. In fact, there’s nothing to say that Langgard hasn’t come across these in some whimsical, fairytale experience and, in a fit of bewitching dalliance, experienced these songs. There’s definitely something magical about this album. It swoops and flows like a mythical creature that was born in some ancient forest. Apparently The Sea is the first part of a trilogy of albums that form a circular exploration of mythology and spiritual enlightenment. Having listened to this album over the past months, I can feel a transformation taking place in my own mind as Langgard’s vocals transport me onto another plane of consciousness. It’s almost subliminal, the way the words travel through your body and lift your spirits. The lyrics flit in and out of coherence, like incantations. You sense it doesn’t actually matter whether you understand them or not, it’s the fact that you’re listening that’s the key. Where we’ll be taken once this triumvirate journey has been completed, one can but wait in wonder. (RH)

Russell Haswell – IN IT: Immersive Live Salvage (eMEGO)

Anyone who saw Autechre’s 2010 tour will remember Russell Haswell’s warm-up sets – they are most likely permanently punched into their eardrums and burnt into their retinas. Tired of artists who hide behind their laptops leaning on the space bar, he opted for something more experimental and physical, with a live set up of knobs and pedals and strobe-triggered electronics. My most vivid memory of that evening is of being drawn towards the stage to be enveloped in this huge, twisted, metallic mass of sound, a visceral and thrilling affair. Translating that experience to record was always going to be a tough task, and no-one can accuse Haswell of not trying – capturing the performance from a variety of vantage points and rendering the experience on Dolby 5.1 DVD and the obscure Ambisonic UHJ LP format to try to make it as immersive as possible. The selection of 18 excerpts from performances all round Europe demonstrates – in case it wasn’t obvious enough – that he really was improvising, and doing it pretty well in these short bursts, although listening to a couple of hours of this torrential outpouring of frequencies does become a bit of an ordeal even for the likes of me. What ultimately salvages this particular project is the differing responses of crowds to the barrage: in Manchester they cheer and demand “one more tune!”, Birmingham’s chattering crowd sound like they’ve heard all this before, while in Lyon someone screams seemingly from sheer terror as soon as Haswell begins. Last word has to go to the Luxembourg punter who bellowed “We want NOISE! Not DANCE!”. He got exactly what he was looking for. (SM)

Seasons (Pre-Din) – Lesser And Still (THY-REC)

I’ve already mentioned Eleh, but here is another deeply mysterious character. This latest release from Seasons (Pre-Din) isn’t giving much away, other than an unsettling air of dangerously obsessive love. The cover is shadowy dark brown on black, a sweet personalised dedication sitting next to the words “I’ll be waiting with a knife and a rope…bare your soul, expose your throat”. Valentine’s Day must be a right bloody laugh chez Pre-Din. The contents are no less troubling. Over droning strings, Charles Manson rants psychotically, (it is the same “every reality is a new reality” speech that Coil once sampled), and the music just gets progressively darker and darker from there, the field recordings sounding increasingly blistered, the radio samples becoming tangled and buried under the encroaching tendrils of gloom. Even by the third of its five parts, the blackness is all that is left. Anyone arriving here by following the trails from the gothic menace of more recent work by Xela and Svarte Greiner will find much to enjoy in this particular clearing. Well, I say “enjoy”…(SM)

Tape – Revelationes (Häpna)

Though they are now onto their fifth album under the Tape name, you can’t imagine Sweden’s Berthling brothers, Johan and Andreas, along with their colleague Tomas Hallonsten, to be shouting about the fact, for theirs is a particularly unassuming music. Their albums have seen them move slowly (and slowly really is the operative word) from a pastoral blend of guitar and field recordings, to a blend of acoustic instrumentation with soft electronic drones, which reached its zenith in the warm, blissful sunrise of 2005′s excellent Rideau. Their landscapes continue to be formed at a glacial pace, and on this new album, with its brushed drumming, circular electric guitar melodies and wide open spaces, you can almost imagine them as a Scandinavian ECM jazz trio version of an American post-rock band (imagine a particularly sleepy later period Pell Mell). It is clearly a progress of sorts, and it all sounds undeniably pretty: it just isn’t quite the revelation that the album’s title led me to expect. Then again, more fool me, I guess. (SM)

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