Category Archives: On record

Switched On – Will Saul: Open Too Close (Aus Music)

Posted on by
Reply

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Will Saul is a seasoned dance music producer, but in the last decade or so his preference has been to operate behind the scenes. That still makes for a busy life of music, with the highly regarded Aus Music to run, an excellent contribution to the DJ Kicks! series and a good deal of DJ work.

Open Too Close sees him return to the album format for the first time in 13 years, and employs his structural thinking of a DJ, condensing ‘what I play in a club if an eight hour set was condensed into ten tracks’.

What’s the music like?

Saul’s approach is a good one on several levels, for it allows him to show off his musical versatility while giving the listener value for money in the variety stakes.

It proves easy to relocate Open Too Close to the club, for in Freya’s Theme we have the perfect warm-up, a shuffling beat supporting cool keyboards that is reminiscent of earlier Matthew Herbert. It successfully captures that moment in a club where you know it’s where you want to be for the rest of the night, and a few hours’ dancing at the very least lie ahead.

Capitalizing on that, Room 9 and Visions up the tempo successively, the latter given a brilliant vocal hook as its beat harks back to 1980s funk. Openings and Moorings are bouncy numbers, Saul hinting at urban garage with the offbeat vocals, before Pingalatu breaks cover, driving forward with a sound that is pleasingly rough round the edges, a bit of pure club music.

Through the album Saul puts his music in the context of stuff he really likes and the artists and DJs he works with and around, meaning the style is never restricted beyond something you would definitely dance to. My Left Sock shows this off brilliantly, an energetic piece of break beat, countered by the warm weather specials Submerge and One For Rex, with its clattering beat. Get Back Up signs off with a nod in the direction of Detroit, spacious chords complementing the robotic vocals.

Does it all work?

Yes. Saul appears to have deliberately given himself the maximum time of an hour to fulfil his brief, and the ten tracks described above form part of a longer-reaching structure like a DJ set, just as he wanted them to.

It means the music always feels like it’s heading somewhere, and with a good number of earworms there is no chance of Saul outstaying his welcome.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Great to have him back as a creator of music as well as a DJ. He’s too good not to do both!

Stream

Buy

Switched On – Lindstrøm: On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever (Smalltown Supersound)

Posted on by
1

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Just the four tracks for Lindstrøm‘s sixth album, in which he makes an album from hardware instead of computer plug-ins for the very first time. His inspirations behind the release range from Barbra Streisand – whose musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever inspires the title – to Robert Wyatt, whose solo albums, capped by Matching Mole, made an impact for their freedom and fearless approach.

The raw material for On A Clear Day is drawn from the autumn of 2018 and a piece Lindstrøm was commissioned to write by the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, a museum near Oslo. He gave three performances at the arts centre, and the sketches he composed formed the basis of this album, which is almost completely without beats.

What’s the music like?

Free as a bird, as Lindstrøm implied it would be, with each of the four minute tracks clocking in around the 10-minute mark.

The title track has no percussion at all, so the sonorous keyboard tones are free to work at their own pace in a sprawling structure that brings the music towards Jean Michel Jarre at times, while retaining Lindstrøm’s own distinctive language. Often it is composed of just one line, thoughts passed to the listener in musical sentences that have a similar rhythm to everyday conversations.

Really Deep Snow continues the hypnotic effect established in the title track, but more on the front immediately, bubbling synths leading and a kick drum that sounds ready to cut in but not quite. With a wobbly organ contribution and some lovely held string pads it is a stronger track.

The brilliantly named Swing Low Sweet LFO is next, the free bird analogy especially evident here as the glittering synthesizer figures soar and swoop over a weightless texture. Freedom is most definitely the name of the game here, even when a solemn chorale-like figure takes over towards the end.

Finally As If No One Is Here introduces ticking percussion, which creates a surprising amount of tension that is released by stealth into meandering lower range thoughts.

Does it all work?

Yes, as long as the listener bears in mind that this is music for the backdrop of a culture centre. It is much less driven than Lindstrøm’s work with beats, but the freedom apparent throughout the album is contagious and far reaching. As ambient music it fulfills its function easily.

Is it recommended?

It is, though with a concession to Lindstrøm fans that On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever does not contain any of the producer’s barnstorming modern disco numbers.

For now that is the style of music he is best known and loved for, and there are a few moments on this album where the listener inevitably pines for a new piece of beat-infused brilliance.

Instead, On A Clear Day I Can See You Forever uplifts and calms the mind in a more subtle way, and makes us anticipate his next move even more keenly.

Stream

Buy

Switched On – A Winged Victory For The Sullen: The Undivided Five (Ninja Tune)

Posted on by
Reply

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The Undivided Five marks a key point in the album career of A Winged Victory For The Sullen. The duo, Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie, already had impressive musical CVs before uniting as a group eight years ago, O’Halloran with his solo work and Wiltzie both in a solo capacity and as one half of acclaimed instrumental duo Stars Of The Lid.

Since their inception AWVFTS, as they can also be known, have grown a reputation for intense instrumental music and atmospheric live shows. Their late-night Prom with Nils Frahm in 2015 drew admiration, while their soundtrack work for Iris and God’s Own Country has shown their suitability for the big screen.

The Undivided Five, however, is their first ‘artist only’ album since the Atomos album of 2014, and marks the start of a new chapter at Ninja Tune. The number ‘five’ is significant – it represents a circle of five women of which a recently deceased friend was a member. It also resonates with the significance to the duo of their key musical interval, the perfect fifth.

What’s the music like?

Subtly powerful. From the very first strains of Our Lord Debussy it is clear this is an extremely meaningful album to the pair. One of its themes is different strains of ‘goodbye’ – Keep It Dark, Deutschland for O’Halloran’s time in Berlin, as he moves to Iceland – then Adios, Florida, which would appear to be more relevant to Wiltzie and his location in Brussels, then Aqualung, Motherfucker, a tribute to their recently passed close friend.

Loss is a factor in this music, the duo also unexpectedly losing a close friend in the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson last year. Perhaps because of this there is a barely concealed tension running through the music, which breaks cover at times but essentially powers the slow, strong and meaningful chord progressions.

The ability of the pair to make a great deal of substance from the most innocuous of musical cells is deeply impressive, and is very carefully thought through. Colour is very important to the music, but so is space, each track having presence in its outer frequencies but leaving plenty of space in the middle for the listener.

Our Lord Debussy is superb, growing slowly but surely from its elegant piano cell, the piano itself driving a chant-like piece of music as it mirrors the composer Debussy’s ability to replace melody with harmony. It is briefly reminiscent of some of the soundtrack work of Thomas Newman in its ability to slow time and space, creating a distinct sound world, but the development of the music is too individual for those comparisons to stay.

Two compositions stand out for their instrumental solos – The Slow Descent Has Begun, with a solemn violin solo, and Aqualung, Motherfucker, with a deeply poignant line for horn. This pair form the centrepiece of the album, with the following A Minor Fifth Is Made Of Phantoms offering a little resolve in its organ-like timbres.

The album’s stately progress continues with Adios, Florida, which falls over the edge in heartbreaking fashion at its end, and The Rhythm Of A Dividing Pair, a more consonant and peaceful work. Keep It Dark, Deutschland finds O’Halloran in consoling mood at the piano.

Does it all work?

Yes. This must have been a difficult album to make for O’Halloran and Wiltzie, but – as their band name implies – this is a band that galvanizes great strength from adversity. They do so here in music of rarefied atmosphere and latent power.

Is it recommended?

Yes. The Undivided Five takes their output up a level, expanding its possibilities and giving notice that A Winged Victory For The Sullen are getting better and better. This is their most effective and meaningful album to date, but the signs are it won’t be long until they go even further and better.

Stream

Buy

Switched On – Erland Cooper & Leo Abrahams: Seachange (Phases)

Posted on by
Reply

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Seachange is the ambient companion to Erland Cooper’s second solo album Sule Skerry. It continues Cooper’s celebration of the raw elements of his Orkney origins, the second of a pair based on the open sea. Behind both albums, and their ambient companions, sit Cooper’s long-standing desire to present Orkney in sonic form, preserving the island’s essential parts to be with him when he is working in the city. Initially these musical thoughts were for private use, but have proved incredibly successful when shared with friends and the listening public.

Seachange is split into three ‘Tides’ but runs as one whole, featuring the guitar work and studio craft of Leo Abrahams. Cooper imagines the music ‘pulled apart by placing recyclable source material into the North Sea and watching it become torn, pulled apart, diluted, stretched, weathered and then reassembled in Orkney Geo’ (the inlet between Orkney and Shetland). ‘It creates a different form, with dissolved and overlapping melodies that eventually disappear into granules like plankton’.

What’s the music like?

The intricacies of Abrahams’ guitar are the perfect foil for Cooper’s ambient workings, giving the music an appropriate perspective to represent the vast North Sea. In the foreground the woozy atmospherics are distorted by wind and spray, yet all the while more expansive drones reveal the wide open spaces as the eye looks further.

Seachange works best on headphones, where its details can be fully appreciated, or on a big system where the depth of the bass gives real depth. There is a deeply personal, awestruck appreciation of the sea, made real through music and complemented with Abrahams’ ever-thoughtful nudges and deft musical phrases.

Those familiar with the wonderful Sule Skerry album will recognise these phrases and appreciate the journey they have been on, with bird-like sounds and the ebb and flow of rippling textures all contributing to the movement of water both close at hand in the inlets and on the vast, open sea.

Does it all work?

Very much so. As with Solan Goose, his first album, Cooper has complemented the main release with an ambient companion allowing time for deeper reflection and peace of mind. In celebrating the elements it is a subtle way of pointing us away from busy urban lives and out to the beauty of nature.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Seachange is a reminder of just how small us listeners are when set in such a vast natural expanse, a reminder not to get too far ahead of ourselves and too absorbed in technology or man-made phenomena. The sheer beauty of nature will always trump that.

Stream

You can stream Sea Change on Apple music here

On record – Matthew Whiteside: Entangled

Posted on by
1

Written by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Entangled is the second album release of Glasgow-based composer Matthew Whiteside. Taking its name from the centrepiece, Whiteside’s Quartet no.4, it is his follow-up to 2015’s Dichroic Light, and adds a further two new quartets.

Entangled itself was commissioned by the Institute of Physics in 2017 for string quartet, electronics and film, as a work dedicated to Whiteside’s great uncle, John Stewart Bell. It explores the proof of ‘quantum entanglement’, where particles are entangled in a ‘spooky’ way.

The substantial Quartet no.5 takes a predominantly slow outlook, while Quartet no.6, which begins the disc, could almost be said to exist without tempo.

What’s the music like?

Entangled is a pretty apt description for the music in this quartet, which is equal parts analogue and digital. The acoustic sounds are treated with studio trickery, the listener’s perspective on headphones cleverly manipulated as the sounds move between foreground and middle ground.

We travel through three movements, entitled Waves, Spooky Action and Spinning, all accurate descriptions for the music within, which contains jagged melodic gestures and writing that veers between fragmentation and long, sweeping notes. There is drama aplenty for Spooky Action in particular, more than appropriate for this time of year, while Spinning disorientates the listener with its sudden loss of a clear tonal base. The experience is quite unnerving all round.

Quartet no.5 also has three movements, none titled, and the structure is heavily weighted towards the first movement, which is almost twice the length of the other two combined. It features a pronounced cello tone buzzing like a fly, the other three instruments expanding out from this drone-like figure. Whiteside uses quarter tones that help bring consonant and dissonant harmonies in and out of phase. The second movement is lighter and more elusive, fading into the middle distance above a lightly plucked dance figure from the cello, while the finale employs a more explicit drone, adding overtones and micro adjustments to create music of tension and imminent peril.

Quartet no.6, which begins the disc, was the last work written and was in part inspired by wind chimes and a particular view Whiteside experienced in Tallinn. It is in effect a folk-inflected drone, played on multiple stops by the strings to make it sound rather like a squeezebox. It is very much a ‘less is more’ piece, setting a rarefied atmosphere and floating some way above the ground thanks to its almost complete lack of bass. A Celtic flavour can be discerned on its wings.

Sitting between the quartets are two bite-sized Responses of three minutes each. These are electroacoustic pieces that work as effective bridges. Response One is a time out from the string quartet texture doubling as an ambient repose, while Response Two is more explicitly connected to Quartet no.4, warping its output and conjuring some intriguing sounds.

Does it all work?

Entangled is an effective piece of work. Whiteside’s writing for quartet takes its lead in part from Bartók and can on occasion draw too much, but it also looks beyond the medium to electronic means, securing a contemporary sound that is strongly communicative.

The structure of the album is effective too, the Responses well placed. Emotionally the three works inhabit very different places, with Quartet no.6 the most immediate and Quartet no.4 the most directly challenging.

The Aurea Quartet give superb technical performances, and give no.6 in particular the ideal weight to help it float on the wind. The recording stresses the leaner textures of the strings, but this aids Whiteside’s music.

Is it recommended?

Yes. It is refreshing to encounter a composer making albums with new classical music in this way, for when used imaginatively the format still has much to give. Entangled also works when interpreted as different shades of brightness. I thought of no.6 as the bright light, no.4 as the dark and no.5 as a deep pastel shade, with a kind of chalky blue in the middle. Try it and see what you think!

Based on the Responses, it would also be interesting to hear more of Whiteside’s electronic work.

Listen

Read

You can read about the workings behind Matthew Whiteside’s Entangled on his website here. The commentary is as much about the mechanics – and occasional frustrations – of self-releasing an album, while giving insights into the creation and recording of the music behind.

Buy