Foxy Digitalis
In the opening moments of “Watch on the Orient,” the first track of Mephisto Halabi’s incredible The Arabic Room, it feels like traveling through time and space through the radio dial. Traditional music trips into a woman’s voice speaking Arabic before giving away to acid-soaked riffage. As soon as the sharp, distorted tones hit, the […]
Starlight Assembly is the new duo of Dominic Appleton of Breathless and This Mortal Coil and Italian composer Matteo Uggeri. It’s an unexpected combination, but their debut album, Starlight and Still Air, shows the symbiotic nature of their approach and ideas. Rich compositions dotted with layered character and countless textures create a future where the last […]
Returning for their second album in as many years on Hands in the Dark, Razen holds back on Blue Rot. This is music that sounds unmoored by the concept of time, existing simultaneously in ancient ruins restored to their former glory and in the dark recesses of a post-apocalyptic future. “Blue Rot (5th)” moves slowly, contemplating […]
There’s something that’s simultaneously emotionally satisfying and completely draining about “Julius Eastman/NY Metro Xylophone Player,” the newest single from the impossibly-named —__–___ (aka more eaze and Seth Graham). Visceral tugs radiate with a sinuous attachment from more eaze’s wistful violin notes as they grow and shrink back into the darkened corners. Graham and more eaze […]
Byron Westbrook’s Distortion Hue is one of the year’s densest, most visceral drone records, but with his new album on Ash International, Mirror Views, he takes a step back to view the wider landscape. Mirror Views is composed of cassette field recordings made in August of 2017, around the solar eclipse, combined with subtle synthetic elements. The effect is disarming on […]
I’ve been an admirer of Brett Naucke’s work for well over a decade now and his growth as an artist and composer in that time has been incredible. On October 1st, he will release his latest, and his most ambitious, album Mirror Ensemble, on American Dreams. Naucke opens a wormhole to new sonic dimensions on “The Glass […]
Havadine Stone already made one of my favorite albums of 2021 and now she’s joined forces with Ben Baker Billington as Blue Lick and with “II,” we get our first peek inside the glass jar. Stone’s words sting like the fury of 100 fire ants, zigzagging between blades of grass seeming innocuous until the moment […]
Neil Lord’s Future Museums project has been a favorite astral companion recently and with “Hum Body,” he finds new networks for transcendence. Lord’s work always finds companionship with celestial bodies, tapping into energy flows that connect distant points of light across the universe. With this initial view of his first-ever vinyl release from the great […]