This is the first album for Italian producer Stefano Ranieri. He has been making and releasing music for around 15 years, and is now ready to dip his toes into the long player format. A list of the DJs supporting Ranieri’s work includes Carl Cox and Masters At Work, says much about his reputation built up in that time, and also the styles of dance music he gravitates towards.
What’s the music like?
Excellent. Ranieri uses all his experience of making dancefloors move to come up with a wide range of tracks that fulfill that brief perfectly. Koncept One has a touch of Lil Louis about it, with a great vocal rant ‘you’re not free, you’re a slave’. It comes after Your Time Is Up has set a smoky scene with a really good loping beat.
1942 has a powerful vocal and a strong piano line. C’est Terrible goes more acidic but counters that with a really good, slightly tribal sample. Saulè punches through a bassy electro riff, while a minimal cut like Karming Deep works really well as it has a good vocal cut to go with its keyboard hook. Die Of Pain has a real gravitas, taking the tail end of a Martin Luther King speech. Of Course is excellent too, rolling along nicely.
Does it all work?
Consistently. Ranieri knows what works on the most basic level, and has the confidence to let his beats do the talking. Each of the fifteen tracks is excellent, really well paced, and does all the right things – without ever being routine.
Is it recommended?
Enthusiastically. Risonanza is a really fine piece of work, whether you approach it from a house, techno or electro direction. Stefano Ranieri can be proud of his achievement.
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You can listen to clips from the album and purchase Anywhere Here on Traxsource
It has been out for a couple of months, but when you consider the debut album from Irish producer Gavin Boyce has been two decades in the releasing, what’s a few days between friends?! In that 20 years Boyce has been concentrating his endeavours on the single or EP format, with a stream of high quality house, techno and deep disco releases, many of them released on the excellent Canadian label Nordic Trax.
Their relationship goes back to 2012, and includes the much-loved Haboo, but his reputation for quality and positive house goes back a long way before then, with a fine bouncy vocal track called So Obvious getting pride of place on a Sessions mix by Mark Farina in 2006.
Anywhere Here contains a 2021 album mix of Haboo and a new version of Boyce’s 2008 release Face Down, alongside 10 other originals.
What’s the music like?
You don’t have to spend much time at all with Anywhere Here to know that it carries the imprint of an experienced production hand. Yet with Boyce experience has never bred over-familiarity, and he has always had a strong inventive streak running through his house music. Each of the instrumental tracks here on the carries a spark, a spring in its step, with a bit of class too.
Try Be Grand, a really strong nocturnal track that introduces itself with a slightly dubby tread. Haboo is predictably brilliant, an airy version for the album capitalising on its strong reputation, while Radarz has a similar open air feel, powered largely by a two chord progression on the piano.
Boyce’s beats are reassuringly solid throughout, with tracks like Olive Groves ideally paced and structured. Face Down introduces some sharper tones, while the flowing piano on Kitui has an end of day warmth, with the poolside beckoning. Anywhere Here, the last of the dozen, is arguably the best with its probing melody.
Does it all work?
Yes. Boyce stretches his 12 tracks over 80 minutes and structures them like a DJ set, so the peaks and troughs are beautifully managed, with an assured selection of beats and grooves that keep their vitality throughout.
Is it recommended?
It is, provided you bolster your Gavin Boyce collection with a selection of mixes from the singles he’s already released on Nordic Trax. Anywhere Here shows off his prowess as an album artist though, capable of keeping the floor full as the dozen tracks take us on a journey filled with strong, colourful grooves. All Boyce needs to do now is make sure he doesn’t leave it another two decades for the next one!
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You can listen to clips from the album and purchase Anywhere Here on Beatport
Conclave is a musical collective under the wing of the multi-talented instrumentalist and vocalist Cesar Toribio. With his roots in the Dominican Republic and Florida, Toribio acquired a love of rhythm-based music through playing drums in church, studying jazz music in Boston, and garnering an appreciation of Afro and Latin-based rhythms.
The name ‘Conclave’ is an accurate identity for his aims, explained in the press release as an amalgamation: con (with) + clave (a unifying rhythm that holds the key to unlock dances both ancestral and contemporary).
What’s the music like?
Joyous. When thinking about dance and rhythm-based music it is so easy to take it for granted, to forget what an impact it can have on a community and how important it is to boosting moods in these difficult times. Cesar Toribio takes music back to those first principles, recognising the elemental feelings his music can provide, and because of that his self-titled album feels like a pure celebration of music. The album turns out to be as colourful as its cover.
To give some of the many highlights, the rich layers of There’s Enough are brightly coloured and enormously uplifting. Habla has a persuasive, swaying rhythm capped by a brilliant trumpet solo. Somehow All That I Need, featuring Sharin, is even better, with a winsome give and take between the two vocalists. Meanwhile Twice, while a little more introspective, features a squelchy bass and sun-drenched keys.
A soaring vocal takes Rise to the next level, while the much loved Perdón dazzles with its shimmering textures, a strong communal presence. The extended Alati Yeye Chege is hypnotic, while the album signs of with some irresistible, Todd Edwards-type funk on Take Heed (No Sunlight).
Does it all work?
Yes. The rhythms are gloriously instinctive, and production levels are just right so that the music has plenty of room to breathe, keeping its elements to the fore.
Is it recommended?
Heartily. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere who are mourning the loss of our summer, the occasional appearance of the sun should be soundtracked by this album. It may have been out for a couple of months but if you haven’t got it yet, you are encouraged to invest in some warmer musical weather. It will go far – and comparisons with Masters At Works’ Nu Yorican Soul offshoot are well-earned.
Wooden Elephant [Aiofe Ní Bhriain, Hulda Jónsdóttir (violins), Ian Anderson (viola, arrangements), Stefan Hadjiev (cello), Nikolai Matthews (double bass)
Backlash Music [59’29”]
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The quintet Wooden Elephant releases its take on Radiohead’s seminal album KidA, second in its reworking of game-changing albums that commenced in 2016 with Björk’s Homogenic then continued in 2018 with Beyoncé’s Lemonade, on the enterprising Backlash Music label.
What’s the music like?
When it appeared in autumn 2000, Kid A not only redefined what even as forward-thinking a rock band as Radiohead was capable of, but also topped the mainstream charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, an album as artistically radical as it is commercially successful such as violist Ian Anderson has made it his mission to reassess. Each of the musicians plays a range of sundry instruments (what improviser Jamie Muir would have deemed ‘allsorts’), yet they are extensions to the already inclusive string sound on which these ‘arrangements’ are based.
After the gradual merging into focus then rhythmic and melodic clarifying of Everything in Its Right Place, the subdued moodiness of Kid A is afforded a ruminative treatment which reveals an unsuspected poise in the melodic line and whimsical twist to the accompaniment. The rhythmic obsessiveness of The National Anthem gives rise to an invigorating textural workout that spills over into mayhem towards the close (who needs an orchestra?) – and to which the video’s Jarmusch-like interplay of drink-stirrers with woodland inhabitants offers an intriguing complement. A siren-song reverb from wine glasses then segues into How to Disappear Completely whose brooding eloquence and lilting gait make it a highlight now as then, while Treefingers is no less arresting given its ethereal emergence and timbral finesse.
The propulsive syncopation of Optimistic effects a vibrant and soulful – if, in this context, relatively straightforward – response, with the hymnic preamble then stealthy integrating of rhythmic and melodic elements across the course of In Limbo satisfying in its immediacy. Nor is there anything predictable about Idioteque with its plaintive unfolding set against a pulsating undertow that drives towards a febrile close, out of which the lucid melodic profile of Morning Bell is maintained from its tentative arrival to its sudden disintegration. It duly remains for the aching pathos of Motion Picture Soundtrack to provide a heartfelt ending; here with its (unintended?) postlude, which is often tracked as Untitled on digital versions of the original album, serenely dissolving into a melange of ricocheting chordal patterns.
Does it all work?
Almost always. Something that was never quite a rock album has provided ideal material for an ensemble that is not quite a string quintet, Wooden Elephant taking full advantage of this stretching of musical and conceptual boundaries to come up with what is an absorbing listen in its own right. Just occasionally the ensemble’s interplay evokes those bluesy harmonies of Quintette de Hot Club de France, but this serves to throw the more experimental aspects of its approach into provocative relief. Nor does the vividly defined sound leave anything to chance.
Is it recommended?
It is. This is an ideal opportunity to reconsider a key album from the turn of the Millennium, finely interpreted by a sympathetic and resourceful ensemble. Wooden Elephant is giving a performance in Potsdam this November, with hopefully further hearings to follow in the UK.
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Further information
For more on Wooden Elephant, click here, and for more on Backlash Music, click here
One Little Independent have today announced the return of Poppy Ackroyd with new music for piano. Her fourth album Pause, set to be released in November, is a collection of ten pieces for the keyboard which, in the label’s words, ‘utilize the full instrument, with a mixture of inside piano strumming and playing the keys’.
Evidence of this can be seen in the new track Seedling, and its accompanying video directed by Jola Kudela. She collected small pieces of plants and leaves, submerged them in water and put them in her freezer, then observed the process of defrosting, filming it in time-lapse. The second part of the video was filmed with infrared camera. “I was trying to imagine the process of nature waking up, beginning with a seed, that then slowly transforms itself into a seedling”, says Kudela. “So, we begin with a frozen environment that encapsulates the seed – it seems trapped and immobilised by the icy world. Then gradually it starts to warm up and defrost, fighting with the power that has been holding it frozen.”
Poppy gave some background to Pause. “For previous albums almost as much of the creative process was spent editing and manipulating recordings as it was composing at the piano, however after having my son, I struggled to spend time sat in front of a computer. The only thing I wanted to do while he was still small, if I wasn’t with him, was to play the piano. In fact, much of the album was written with him asleep on me in a sling as I used any quiet moment to compose.
It therefore made sense that this album should be a solo piano album. I used extended technique – playing with sounds from inside the instrument – like I do in my multi-tracked recordings, however it was important to me that every track on the album could be entirely performed with just two hands on the piano.”
Watch and enjoy below…while looking forward to Poppy’s full-length return.
Arcana.fm 