There is a note of defiance with this new album from Tim Hecker, the Canadian’s eleventh studio long player. It is in effect an anti-record, positioned against what is described as ‘false positive corporate ambient’.
It is meant to be unsettling, a reaction against comfort and calm, and, as the press release calls it, a ‘jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.’
The NoHighs title is borne out by the artwork, and its unremitting shades of grey.
What’s the music like?
Oddly, and perhaps inevitably, there is deep ambience in the musical content of Tim Hecker’s work, but it is pitched in a way that means it is never too comfortable or settled.
As NoHighs proceeds, it is a compelling listen, as Hecker has carefully shaded his work in response to the subject matter. There is certainly an unnerving tone to the long-breathed electronic sighs of Monotony, though an ideal contrast to this can be found on tracks like Winter Cop, which adds warmer tones, and even Monotony II, where the saxophone of Colin Stetson comes into its own. He plays a beautiful soliloquy that builds rather like a murmuration, turning this way and that against the spacious backdrop.
Sometimes Hecker’s approach is contrary, the result being that a track like Anxiety is actually quite calming in its own drawn-out way. Meanwhile the extended Lotus Light, which flickers intermittently at the start, pulses with activity once it gets going.
Does it all work?
It does. Although darkly shaded, Hecker’s music has an authority that is rare to music of this tempo and instrumentation.
Is it recommended?
It is. This is indeed a sound musical riposte to the ambient ‘muzak’ that can be found in a lot of areas currently
Four albums down, James Holden is showing another side to his artistry. Holden has always been closely associated with electronic music, but this instalment finds him looking to recreate what rave music was about in the early 1990s.
To do that he has in tandem a fleet of classic analogue synthesizers, and has personalized his approach with recordings of the young Holden on violin and piano.
What’s the music like?
The wordy title is a homage both to rave classics of the time but also brings to mind early Pink Floyd or 1970s Krautrock excursions. All are present in Holden’s music, though he keeps well away from derivative writing, instead bringing through riffs that are fresh, vital and energetic.
It is a big but wholly enjoyable album, one that goes back to first principles in making music for enjoyment, pure and simple. You Are In A Clearing is evidence of that, referring to some of the work Steve Hillage has done with System 7. Like Hillage, Holden gets his synths to talk, sometimes with dolphin-like keening noises, other times with soaring arpeggios.
The young Holden gets his look-in on Contains Multitudes, a longer expression of musical warmth where the violin and piano recordings complement the synths. Worlds Collide Mountains Form also uses the violin, though here it acts of a drone with a dubby bass for company. Common Land occupies similar ground, returning to the early Ibiza triumphs of 808 State for inspiration.
Does it all work?
It does. It may be a long album, but the high dimensional space does indeed realise all possibilities.
Is it recommended?
Enthusiastically. This is a joyous homage not just to early 1990s rave but also the more fantastical end of 1970s Krautrock – and yet James Holden makes the album even more than a sum of those parts. A wonderful and essential album that somehow works.
There is no sub plot to Crystal Vision, Nathan Fake’s sixth album.
The Norfolk-based producer describes his approach as “music for music’s sake – recorded without angles, agendas and themes”. This means a continuation of his energetic electronica, creating powerful minds-eye visions with its bold colours and busy rhythms.
What’s the music like?
Crystal Vision pulses with energy. The music here often feels like part of a bigger machine, especially in the cymbal-rich percussion, which on tracks like Boss Core feels like some sort of euphoric process, the repetitive motion of its beats leading to greater highs.
Vimana is a bracing and colourful track, using its synths to trace bright lights across the sky. Bibled grows inexorably over a thudding breakbeat, while the urgency of Hawk also whips up a storm, while uncannily describing its subject matter.
Wizard Apprentice gives an appropriately cool vocal to The Grass, while the closing Outsider is a busy and rewarding collaboration with Clark that takes a restless, probing single line and spins it out across an urgent beat and a wide sonic panorama, the music becoming ever more dense and thrilling as it progresses.
Does it all work?
Yes, it does – fulfilling Fake’s promise that the music is there for its own sake, creating positive energy and thoroughly rewarding experiences.
Is it recommended?
It is indeed, enthusiastically so – a strong addition to what is now a formidable discography.
So good they named it thrice! Cherry Red build on the success they have enjoyed with the first two compilations in this series, which takes its name from the track of the same name by Zeus. On the first triple album they looked at music in 1980, and ‘the dawn of synth pop’ – followed by the rise of the same style in 1981.
Now we reach 1982 and synth pop is ‘on the air’ – and the shift in musical style as it starts to take over the airwaves is tangible.
What’s the music like?
A fascinating electronic diary. There is lots to discover here, whether you approach the collection as a knowledgeable pop music fan, or if you come in from the cold. It gets off to the best possible and most appropriate start, too. Radio Silence starts the first of three instalments, a great, deadpan start with Thomas Dolby‘s plea to ‘tune in tonight’. Elsewhere the joyous song The Passage, from XOYO, makes a strong impression, as does the poise of Talk Talk‘s Mirror Man. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark make a majestic contribution with, as do Blancmange, who bring some gravitas with I’ve Seen The Word. Streetplayer is a bright and brassy number from Fashiøn, before Tears For Fears bring the emotion and the harmonic twists with Pale Shelter. Arthur Brown, Planning By Numbers and Ultravox complete a winning first part.
Part two starts strongly too, with Dramatis‘s The Shame and Fiat Lux‘s surprisingly graceful This Illness. New Order‘s Temptation could hardly be bettered in ’82, but cuts like Dead Or Alive‘s What I Want show there was plenty in reserve elsewhere. Soft Cell‘s Sex Dwarf and Yello‘s Heavy Whispers show just what variety there was too! The Human League‘s offbeat You Remind Me Of Gold shows a darker side, while the rougher sounding Hold Me by Section 25 shows electronic music in a murkier state, finding the middle of a darker dancefloor.
Clattering drums give way to elegance in Heaven 17‘s Let Me Go!, again a complete polar opposite to the scuttling beat of Siegmund Freud’s Party from Telex. Falco proves in the course of Maschine Brennt that he was capable of much more than one big hit, too. On this third part Cherry Red push the boat out further, Mikado‘s Par Hasard making an elegant impression, in contrast to Those French Girls and Sorry Sorry. Ukraine‘s Remote Control is brilliantly lo-fi, with cavernous production and a funky bass, but then Sergeant Frog‘s Profile Dance is compact and nippy. A final surprise awaits in the form of Omega Theatre‘s decidedly odd Robots, Machines and Silicon Dreams, moving between intimacy and choral bursts.
Does it all work?
Yes, mostly. The surprising aspect of this compilation is just how modern and fresh everything sounds, as though producers had just been let through the doors of their own studios. Not everything has aged ideally, but because the track ordering is so well thought out, there are natural peaks and troughs.
Is it recommended?
It is – and so is the series, going from strength to strength.
Anyone closely following the career of John Foxx over the last ten years will have been fascinated by his powers of invention. He is a rejuvenated musical presence, prolific in disciplines that include (but are not restricted to) electronic pop, broad musical ambience with substance, short stories (The Quiet Man, published by Essential Works in 2020) and now a first foray into the world of the solo piano.
Given his previous musical exploits, the only surprise here is that Foxx hasn’t done it before – but the time taken to enter such a crowded field is understandable. The Arcades Project takes its lead from a text by Walter Benjamin that Foxx read at art school in the 1960s, but which mysteriously disappeared from circulation until the internet made it available.
Foxx describes the book as “a sort of stroll through new ideas emerging from the city life of Paris in the 19th and early 20th century. It was also concerned with what the French poet Baudelaire had termed flâneurism. The flâneur enjoys walking randomly, drifting with the tides on the streets, taking great pleasure in a dreamlike state of coincidentalism – being open to all the unfolding daily events of a great modern city.”
What’s the music like?
The description of the book could also be levelled at the music John Foxx writes in response. For here is a true meander, the artist enjoying a slow pace in spite of the busy streets around him, operating at a much slower tempo.
That sensation comes through to the listener, should they walk with this music – which is a highly effective way to hear it. Somehow Foxx’s imprints are immediately recognisable. The restraint with which he uses the piano is commendable, but so is the manner in which its contributions are shaded, with reverb added to soften the sound and give it depth, without ever obscuring the melodic phrases.
A Formal Arrangement has a simple construction but is a thoughtful piece of music, while Floral Arithmetic sets off on a starry path, a single right hand phrase like a shooting star tracing across the sky. Daylight Ghost is not as eerie as you might expect; rather its airiness has an air of mystery behind it. In All Your Glory takes a sharper tone, securing a brighter colour, which ebbs on the softer hue of the mellow Last Golden Light.
Momentary Paris, through its title, conjures dreamy impressions of back streets and unexpectedly quiet reveries, away from the rushing traffic. Forgotten In Manhattan, meanwhile, has a penetrating piano sound with graceful wisps of accompaniment, very much in Foxx’s own distinctive style.
The Sea Inside is one of the more expansive pieces in the collection, and also the warmest, its blue waters inviting relaxation. Lovers And Strangers goes deeper still with a wistful melody, while Starlit Summer Night evokes the sort of sky Vincent Van Gogh would have been painting, taking the profile of a Satie piece but adding a roomy backdrop to the action close at hand.
Coincidentalism is a beauty, very much a case of less is more as each note is sustained across the musical sky, coming down to earth at the consonant close. This Evening needs even less on the note count to make its point, capturing the shutdown of the mind at this point in the day.
Does it all work?
It does, in a very unhurried sense. First time listeners to this area of John Foxx’s style may think there is not much going on, but as the album unfolds it is clear – as with all of his ambient music – that less is most definitely more.
Is it recommended?
Yes. This is another of John Foxx’s ambient works that hits the spot but remains slightly elusive in just how it does so. The piano is a very sympathetic vehicle for his music, and we will hopefully see further inspiration from this source.
Arcana.fm 