Foxy Digitalis
Anytime we get to venture into the sonic ripples in Mike Cooper’s waves, it’s a good day. His latest for Room 40, Black Flamingo, finds Cooper in a series of duets where possibility glides endlessly on the open seas. “Incandescent Gamelanations” is a spirited sonic conversation, teetering in woozy swells and steely investigation. Cooper and Ray […]
Rattles from outside our vision scratch into the light as Katie Lou McCabe’s “Dirt Track” breathes into life. Discordant steel-string squalls open pathways through the darkness, leaving space for a voice to scream out in a cleansing reverie. The opening is a trick, though; to knock us off our perch and bring us into the […]
When two titans like David Toop and Lawrence English come together on a project, it comes with expectations. “Whistling in the Dark,” the first taste from their upcoming album, The Shell That Speaks The Sea, heightens the drama with phantasmic atmospheres saturated with distorted squalls. Ambient sounds obscure the harsh edges at the periphery, where skittering, […]
Peter Mack’s shapeshifting animations make the childlike whimsy on Sam Gas Can’s “Gleep Glorp” feel oddly psychedelic. A lilting melody that’s woozy and rough around the edges will do it for me every time, but an uneasiness lurks at the periphery. Gas Can tiptoes through magnetic hedges, peeking around each corner hoping to find a […]
Last year, Jolanda Moletta’s album, Nine Spells, enchanted me completely. It’s an exposition of vocal wonder and sonic world-building, but when she performed the album live – as documented in the forthcoming Full Moon Session – it took on an even more emotional bend. “Spell VIII” runs the gamut, from otherworldly resonances to quiet reflections, all pushed through […]
Since I was a teenager and first read about String Theory, I have been fascinated by it, wanting to understand the internal resonances that connect all things. “String 9,” from Canadian composer and sound artist France Jobin’s new-old work, 10-33 cm revisited, explores these concepts through refined sonic creations. Initially released in 2008, the original has […]
There’s a spellbinding vulnerability when we share our memories. Kalia Vandever’s “Mirrored Solitude” is more than a reflection as it casts its lens past the horizon line. “‘Mirrored Solitude’ accesses an adolescent vulnerability, pondering early curiosities and longing,” Vandever shares. “Taking walks around downtown Los Angeles became a favorite pastime of mine in high school. […]
“Divine Physics” has been living in my head since I heard it a couple of weeks ago. Proteins of Magic – the moniker of Kelly Sherrod – creates a sonic minefield that surrounds and imbues her ecstasy-filled vocal performance. “Devil clipped your ticket too,” she spits over a torrid beat and emotional chord progression. “Tore […]
The quiet becomes an impermeable force on Julia Dyck and Stefan Christoff’s “SILVER MOON X.” Minimal synth patterns search the fractured fog for a place to pause, to simply take in the surroundings. Dyck performs a reading over the sounds, heightening the emotive atmospheres, echoing the fragmented footage by Guillaume Vallée. This feels like an […]