Foxy Digitalis
The disorienting intensity popping across the spatial plane on Ben Vida and Lea Bertucci’s “Gasps and Spasms,” the opening track from their forthcoming collaborative debut, Murmurations, is all-encompassing. Sputtering woodwinds crackle to life, growling beneath a wall of electronic debris. Tape detritus fizzles in the open spaces, opening cracks for Bertucci’s voice to twist itself into […]
Time stands still on the utterly beguiling first missive from Eucalyptus’s forthcoming album, Moves. Led by saxophonist and composer Brodie West, the Toronto octet sends out a personal and introspective rumination on “Dust in the Wind.” Joined by a host of stellar musicians including trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, bassist Michael Smith, and newly-joined guitarist Kurt Newman, Eucalyptus […]
The forthcoming Black Lives: From Generation to Generation double LP/CD compilation is full of eye-opening gems. Featuring the likes of Cheick Tidiane Seck, Oliver Lake, Alicia Hall Moran, Stephanie McKay, Marvin Sewell, and so many more (including a Malian choir composed of girls 7 to 13 years of age!), the range and depth of music is inspiring. Black […]
American guitarist and composer, as well as Mobius Trio founding member, Robert Nance makes a heavy impact in a shade under 90 seconds with an interpretation of Schoenberg’s “Sech Kleine Klavierstücke – vi. Sehr langsam.” This is music with a view. Nance balances intimate, engaging guitar passages with the allure of empty space to create […]
The forest is aglow with bountiful arpeggios on the second single from Marcel Sletten’s forthcoming double album, Irish Words and a Bottle of Myrrh. “Sassafras” rises in pointed succession, the sun’s neon arc following a preplanned succession of aerial points. Warm synth pads move with purpose even with a softness around the edges. Plans always go […]
Malcolm Pardon’s 2021 debut, Hello Death, was a memorable eulogy for past lives and forgotten dreams. His compositions held their power in the pensive arrangements built from quiet, considered sequences. As he readies Death Revisited, a collection of remixes from his Roll the Dice comrade, Peder Mannerfelt, plus Regis, Klara Lewis, and here, Penelope Trappes, the world […]
Inside a jet black room, sharp tendrils of light seep in on “We Don’t Eat Dead Things,” the first single from Ensemble Dal Niente’s stunning object/animal. Composed by LJ White, the piece is equal parts whimsical and wild. Sopranos Amanda DeBoer Bartlett and Carrie Henneman Shaw weave their voices into enchanting sunset hues, cascading across the […]
Sam Wenc’s new album as Post Moves, Heart Music, rides in a space that finds long-forgotten aquifers in parched, abandoned expanses. The first single, “Always For Pleasure,” utilizes his focused approach on pedal steel, but builds outward with a diverse palette and keen ear for sonic details. Empty spaces become lush aural environments as he colors […]
Subtle shifts are like mountainous choruses throughout Vlad Dobrovolski’s newest smooth-cut diamond, Playbacks for Dreaming. On “See And Keep Silence.” The mines open into expansive underground caverns where gems shimmer across every surface and unimaginable neon flora blossoms into life. Dobrovolski is a master at creating imaginative tonal textures and mixing them with hypnotic arpeggios that […]