Category Archives: On record

Switched On – Mount Liberation Unlimited: Mount Liberation Unlimited (Studio Barnhus)

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What’s the story?

Mount Liberation are from Stockholm, Sweden, and they make music best described with the words ‘space’, ‘funk’ and ‘percussion’ in the same sentence. Tom Lagerman and Niklas Janzon used to be in a band together but found they were enjoying themselves too much in their new project, signing to Axel Boman’s Studio Banhus label. This is their self-titled debut album.

What’s the music like?

Mount Liberation Unlimited is a thrilling ride. Bolstered by heaps of live percussion, their take on space disco is packed with riffs, quirky harmonic asides and a strong rhythmic base. Welcome To Organic is a great illustration of their approach, with a breezy hook, cut up vocal, beefed up percussion and a feelgood vibe – yet if anything it is eclipsed by Gospel (Makes My Body Move In Sinful Ways), a particularly funky number with filtering and drum fills to work an absolute treat on the dancefloor.

Prozac is similarly full of upward looking sentiments, ‘Krauten’ has a driving bass and solid drum track that would do the likes of Justice proud, while later on Techno Thrills and Ecstasy Pills ends in a lush, Balearic warmth giving the effect of a sonic bath to the headphone listener.

Does it all work?

It’s irresistible. Any album that has the ability to put a smile on its listener’s face within five minutes has to be admired, and not only do the pair manage that but they maintain the feeling even in tracks like the seven minute Climb Me Up, with its twinkling xylophones.

Is it recommended?

This is an excellent piece of work that repays multiple listens. Its organic approach, hook-laden and cunningly developed with a healthy sense of humour, is to be admired. Most of all it’s a heap of fun!

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Switched On – Haiku Salut: The General (Secret Name)

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What’s the story?

This is a really intriguing proposition, in which instrumental trio Haiku Salut are invited to score The General, the silent Buster Keaton film of 1926. The group have until now built their reputation with three intricate and intimate instrumental albums, all containing music that translates well to a memorable live experience of subtle imagination. This would seem to be an ideal opportunity for expansion, for the band to show their talent for the bigger screen. The soundtrack runs for the whole film, clocking in at an ambitious 79 minutes.

What’s the music like?

Much more varied than regular listeners might expect. That’s not a criticism of previous albums, more an observation that it is easy to mistakenly pigeon hole a band! If like me you had them down as pedalling intricate electronica, building on small melodic loops to more expansive effect, you would be pleased to note the number of different styles Haiku Salut naturally work in to the fibre of this record.

Initially the pairing of graceful piano and subtle electronics is familiar, and is typically effective, but the sighing motif in the main theme of Start has a sinister undertone and is unsettling. In the centre of the soundtrack, Cannon plays some brilliant sonic tricks with its massive reverb and a held drone chord, expanding the band’s sound considerably, while Train Steal produces big beats to go with the depiction of the crime itself.

This wide range of moods continues to Chopping Wood, where solemn keyboard chords intone like thoughtful brass, or Hide, where a four to the floor beat gives softly voiced energy. ‘Reunited’ conveys its emotion simply through piano, with a watery accompaniment, Firewood crackles with an energetic if subtle beat, while Obstructions has the friendly chatter of loops. The final number of the 23, Finish, returns us to the same outlook as the opening – but that slightly sinister undertone has still not gone away.

Does it all work?

Yes, and without the moving pictures there is still a strong narrative thread running through this music, which leaves a lasting impression. While the subtleties are still on show, Haiku Salut show really impressive ambition and a taste for bigger and more imaginative sounds. The potential is clearly there for the trio to score a lot more films in the future, given the thought and imagination applied here. Their style will continue to win a lot of friends through its melodic approach and interesting textures.

Is it recommended?

Yes. The General continues to impress in subsequent hearings, either in fragments or in a listen to the whole picture.

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On record – Clare Hammond, Swedish Chamber Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan: Mysliveček: Complete Music for Keyboard (BIS)

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Clare Hammond (piano), Swedish Chamber Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan

Josef Mysliveček (1737-1781)
Keyboard Concerto no.1 in B flat major (late 1770s)
Six Easy Divertimenti for Harpsichord or Piano-forte (1777)
Keyboard Concerto no.2 in F major (late 1770s)
Six Easy Lessons for the Harpsichord: Sonatas 1-6 (1780)

BIS BIS-2393 [74’22”]

Producer and Engineer Thore Brinkmann

Recorded March 2018 at the Örebro Concert Hall, Sweden

Written by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Not many composers could claim to have influenced one of the greatest composers to have lived, but Il Boemo (The Bohemian) could do just that. Josef Mysliveček, to whom the nickname was applied, was a Czech composer of rare standing and a mentor to Mozart in the 1770s. He had a life of eyebrow-raising but ultimately tragic events, culminating with his death in great poverty in Rome in 1781, having nearly lost his nose a couple of years earlier to a botched operation.

Clare Hammond’s interview for this site puts more musical detail onto his fascinating tale. More importantly this disc for BIS serves notice of Mysliveček’s standing as an important musical figure and prodigiously talented composer. If you like Mozart, his music is a natural but essential step for further exploration.

What’s the music like?

Really enjoyable. The Piano Concerto no.1, where Hammond is joined by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan, has a sparky personality, with plenty of vigour in its fast outer movements and elegance in the softly voiced central slow movement. There is an economy of thought, too – it finishes quickly with the minimum of fuss.

Clare Hammond clearly loves this music, and she plays with poise but also enjoys the instinctive nature of Mysliveček’s writing. The solo works are notable for their compressed construction, never threatening to outstay their welcome and on occasion producing unexpectedly dark undercurrents.

She is alive to these and handles the technical challenges really well. The Six Easy Divertimenti sound anything but unless they are in her hands! She makes the most of their tendencies to surprise, as in the mysterious pauses on some pretty exotic chords in the fifth piece.

The Piano Concerto no.2 has some notable syncopations in its first movement, as well as some adventurous harmonic diversions, before slipping into the minor key for a profound slow movement. Some of the music is contrary, staying away from big technical displays when you might expect them, but the third movement has a spring in its step nonetheless.

The Six Easy Lessons (again sounding pretty difficult!) bring parallels with the keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti, and receive crisp and characterful performances. The second movement of the First Lesson reminds of the Czech composer’s tendency to spice up his melodies with chromatic movement, and this is one of many good tunes to be found throughout these spirited pieces.

Does it all work?

Yes. The structure of Mysliveček’s output from Hammond gives an ideally balanced disc, with the concertos complemented by the solo works. The clarity of her performance ensures it can be heard in the best possible light, and recording from the BIS engineering team is ideal.

Is it recommended?

Yes, and it fills a gap in the 18th century discography. Here is an important figure on whom the spotlight so rarely shines – and we are grateful to Hammond and McGegan for directing it to the right place.

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You can buy this release directly from the BIS website

Switched On – GLOK: Dissident (Bytes)

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What’s the story?

Ride’s Andy Bell has pulled together all his solo recordings to date under the GLOK alias. GLOK – the German word for ‘bell’ with a crucial letter missing – has been an undercover enterprise until now, an anonymous project brought to life by Bytes chief Joe Clay, a Ride fan himself.

As this story suggests Bell is modest about his side project, but now he has been ‘outed’ as a one-man band, expect to hear a lot more of this music as the year progresses, even allowing for a new Ride album due in August.

What’s the music like?

Dissident unwittingly taps into the success of recent TV series such as Deutschland 83 and 86, where the pleasures have been as much about the music as they have been the plot. Yet as Bell looks back to the 1980s and further, he brings in the influence of Krautrock luminaries such as Can, Neu! And Bauhaus. He does this without compromising his own skills as a guitarist and his credentials as a much-loved ‘shoegaze’ producer.

Keith Tenniswood has remastered the whole album, which unfolds at a very natural pace. The title track clocks in at nearly 20 minutes, but is one of those productions you can completely lose yourself in, the main riff turning away in the background while running through a series of filters, the drum beats receding and then coming back with extra depth.

Bell expands his outlook with the subtle groove of Kolokoi (the Russian word for ‘bell’) and the airy textures and firm kick drum of Pulsing, which has a tempo suitable for dub-infused house. Cloud Cover adds a reminder of his first known discipline as a guitarist – a nice acoustic meander here – while the closing Exit Through The Skylight introduces chattering beats and a more processed feel.

Does it all work?

Yes. Bell has equal headspace for the past and the present, setting the mood perfectly with tracks that are suitable for both ends of the day. ‘Dissident’ on its own shows he can master big structures with durable ideas, while the shorter tracks teem with melodies, subtle humour and a refreshing lack of pretence. The album repays both foreground and background listening, preferably in a hotter climate!

Is it recommended?

Yes. Ride fans will love it, but the recommendation extends to anyone with a love of instrumental music and synthesizers.

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On record: Leila Josefowicz, Soloists, Finnish RSO / Hannu Lintu – Zimmermann: Violin Concerto & Die Soldaten (Ondine)

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Leila Josefowicz (violin); Anu Komsi, Jeni Packalen (sopranos), Hilary Summers (contralto), Peter Tantsits (tenor), Ville Rusanen (baritone), Juha Uusitalo (bass), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Hannu Lintu

Zimmermann
Violin Concerto (1950)
Die Soldaten – Vocal Symphony (1963)
Photoptosis (1968)

Ondine ODE1325-2 [73’45”]

Producer Laura Heikinheimo
Engineers Enno Mäemets, Anna-Kaisa Kamppi (Photoptosis), Jari Rantakaulio (Violin Concerto), Antti Pohjola (Die Soldaten)

Recorded June 2016 (Photoptosis), May 2018 (Violin Concerto), live in September 2018 (Die Soldaten) at Helsinki Music Centre, Helsinki

What’s the story?

A belated though most welcome addition to those releases marking the centenary of the birth of Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-70), the Cologne-based composer whose singular music has gradually gained in recognition during the almost half-century since his untimely demise.

What’s the music like?

One of Zimmermann’s earliest successes, the Violin Concerto emerged out of a Violin Sonata from two years earlier. Most distinctive is the central Fantasia, whose rapt intensity (notably in its closing pages) is thrown into relief by the movements either side – a vehement opening Sonata with antecedents in Hindemith and Hartmann, then a final Rondo whose element of rumba duly adds to the heady abandon. Leila Josefowicz (who gave a memorable account of the Sonata at Wigmore Hall – reviewed by Arcana here) touches all the expressive bases for this impressive reading.

It was with his opera Die Soldaten that Zimmermann fully came into his own as a composer. Its gestation (1957-65) was a protracted one, during which the dramatic concept was radically overhauled without diluting the music’s emotive power. Intended to demonstrate the latter’s practicability (along the lines of Berg’s Lulu Symphony a quarter-century before), this Vocal Symphony comprises scenes from the first two of four acts in which the ultimately tragic fate of merchant’s daughter Marie at the hands of a brutal military class is set in motion.

Among the six soloists, Anu Komsi and Hilary Summers stand out for their security in the acrobatic vocal lines, while without eschewing more tangibly human expression. Yet it is in the purely orchestral episodes where Zimmermann’s increasing radicalism comes fully into focus – the Preludio with its melange of competing textures over the remorseless tread of drums; then the Intermezzo during Act Two – the simultaneity of action onstage mirrored by a layering of musical events with Zimmermann’s trait of timbral contrast rendered at its most visceral.

By the time of the ‘prelude for large orchestra’ that is Photoptosis, the composer’s idiom had found even greater power and concentration – evident in the textural stratification of its outer sections as they build from fugitive unease to assaultive violence. Between them, an interlude of half-remembered quotations and allusions ranges from the provocative to the inane – as if to confirm that remorseless ‘closing-in’ of the musical past on that of the present, and thereby denying any purpose for a creative future such as overcame Zimmermann in his final years.

Does it all work?

Yes, and not least when the performances are as perceptive as they are here. Both the Violin Concerto and Photoptosis have been recorded several times, not least by Thomas Zehetmair (ECM) and Karl-Heinz Steffens (Capriccio), though these new accounts would now be first choices. The Soldaten-Symphony has had no previous commercial recording (live readings by Hiroshi Wakasugi in 1978 and Peter Hirsch in 2014 can be heard on YouTube), making this an essential addition to the Zimmermann discography aside from its artistic excellence.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Hannu Lintu draws a committed response from his Finnish Radio Symphony players, recorded with unstinting clarity and the programme afforded context by a thoughtful booklet note from Mark Berry. An impressive release with which to mark Zimmermann’s centenary.

Further listening

You can listen to this new release on Spotify:

Further reading

You can read more about this release on the Ondine website