From Dirty Three to the Bad Seeds and now a parallel career as a composer with and without Nick Cave, Warren Ellis has certainly led a fascinating creative life. He’s just released a new project with Marianne Faithfull and in another first he’s composed the soundtrack to a book – a recently released collection of short stories by Chinese writer Can Xue. This piece initially … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Warren Ellis – Purple Perilla
Ambient / post-rock / drone / soundtrack / soundscape There’s a beautifully ponderous lumber and sway to this new post-rock track from the Toronto, Canada artist Alaskan Tapes (Brady Kendall). The lulls and gentle washing peaks are perfectly paced and giving a sense of movement that carries the listener through an emotionally melancholic six minutes. What I like is that the piece never gets heavy … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Alaskan Tapes – The Sky Sings Its Chorus (For Us Alone) [Pt. 1]
JESSICA THE SPACE BETWEEN INDEPENDENT (via Bandcamp) One half of folk-noir duo Jep and Dep (also featuring Darren Cross of Gerling), Jessica’s debut album takes the sound forged from that musical partnership and crafts it into her own ethereal and immersive world. Cross is still on hand as producer and engineer but it’s clear from the outset that this is Jessica’s singular and personal vision. … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Jessica – The Space Between
Darren Cross returns with a new album called Keeping Up? In recent years he’s explored folk noir with Jep and Dep, his own eclectic solo albums and a pair of instrumental acoustic folk albums under the moniker D.C Cross. Here he orbits planet Gerling closer than he has since the band split back in in the late 00s. It’s still a totally different musical creature … Continue reading ALBUM REVIEW: Darren Cross – Keeping Up?
Jessica (one half of Jep & Dep) has just released her brand new debut album The Space Between on Bandcamp and ‘Pictures’ is the second single from to be drawn from what is a beautifully ethereal and immersive collection of songs. ‘Pictures’ rides a hypnotic guitar line reminiscent of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood before Jessica’s vocal takes centre-stage, unfurling and overlapping with itself as she wanders … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Jessica – Pictures
Pascal Schumacher is a Luxembourgan composer and vibraphone player who’s built up an impressive resume playing with quartets through to orchestras. This new release comes from an EP Tropismes (The Mudam Session) where he performed at Mudam, the contemporary art museum in Luxembourg, and you get a real sense of how he operates at the nexus of classical and minimal electronic composition. The lightness and … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Pascal Schumacher – Prelude To Robert M
Let’s kick off the new week with some really nice post-rock sounds out of Kirikiriroa (Hamilton) in New Zealand. If you dig the type of music created by Mogwai and Jakob then this will be your kind of thing. ‘Ultraviolet’ is moody, dark and ominous even when it’s not heavy. It’s cinematic too, but still operates in a compositional rock format. Empasse is the work … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Empasse – Ultraviolet
Figure 8 is a haunting and dream-like piece of instrumental ambient composition from 22 year old queer, nonbinary ambient artist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Andy Schiaffino from Los Angeles. There’s a David Lynch, otherworldly atmosphere to both the music and the video clip – like a ghostly ballroom soliloquy from a bygone era. The song is a cover of a cover — originally a children’s song on the … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: body / negative – Figure 8
Tristan Welch‘s track starts with a keening, searching feel. Slow vaporous tendrils reaching up and out into the aether. There’s an insistent quality to ‘Asset / Defect‘ but one that takes the uplifting route rather than a dark and foreboding path. As time ticks by, the sonic layers deepen and widen, with a dawning quality – the first rays rising slowly from the horizon. Gradually … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Tristan Welch – Asset / Defect
Sweet synth mantras and new age vibes percolate on this track from Siddharta Corsus, a Belgian/American living in Portugal. ‘Lightstream’, from his new album Constellations, sets the mood immediately with pulsing, bubbling percussive elements that invite warm melodic washes to the meditation. The rest of the album follows suit, drawing on kosmiche, computer game and Eastern influences, such as tablas, and an inner sense of … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Siddharta Corsus – Lightstream
Today we’ve got a new track from the Sahara and El Djerid region in the south of Tunisia. Azu Tiwaline is a producer who blends dub-influenced and psychedelic desert electronica that moves and flows with a real fluidity and sense of spirit. ‘Izen Zaren‘ is a track that comes from the second part of her 2020 album Draw Me A Silence Part II (check out … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Azu Tiwaline – Izen Zaren
Ambient and (neo)classical compositions can often tread a fine line, evaporating into the ethereal realm or overstating their grandeur. Both extremes lack the required balance of satiating the heart and the mind. In the hands of auteurs such as Nils Frahm, Brian Eno and Harold Budd, music of this ilk can blossom and sway with the most subtle of transitions and adjustments – and it’s those … Continue reading NEW MUSIC: Tom Ashbrook – Oaktrees
Doubtful Sounds 