Category Archives: Switched On

Switched On – Amphior: Another Presence (Glacial Movements)

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amphior

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This was made during the first Covid lockdown, described by its author as ‘a strange vacuum of feeling lonely and isolated’. However Amphior – aka Mathias Hammerstrøm – emerged from the period with a positive outcome, connecting with himself as a person and addressing some long-held feelings on introversion and sensitivity. Another Presence allowed him to express those feelings and be more himself in the process.

What’s the music like?

Haunting. It is possible to hear what sound like disembodied voices in many of these tracks, and though they are not noticeably lyric-based there is a primeval vocal quality to a lot of Amphior’s writing.

Void, the first track, has wisps of sound in the middle ground, some of them vocal, above a distorted and cracked profile underfoot, like standing on a large geological feature in a cold wind. The voices become more ominous in the course of the second track Phantasm, as does the darker musical language. After these two heavier pieces of music, Imaginary Shelter is just what’s needed, a comforting wash of sound and soothing harmonies. Dream Traveler offers the same welcoming cushion, though is consciously on the move, with that sounds like slow footsteps in the snow. The slow walking continues, with gradually changing vistas, as Sleepwalker takes in a range of colours both dark and light, before Pathfinder pans right out again. The warm colours of Another Presence find Amphior returning to a settled harmonic base, from which What Was Lost offers thick ambience if a hint of unresolved conflict, before ultimately fading away on the wind.

Does it all work?

Yes. Through the eight tracks here Amphior captures both the claustrophobia and strange, twisted freedom lockdown seemed to offer in equal measure, the qualities complementing each other while never becoming fully satisfying. Here the music is ultimately satisfying, finding its resolution from darker thoughts and feelings earlier on.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Another Presence is an affecting and occasionally disquieting listen, moving at a very slow pace as it examines feelings and experiences held deep beneath the surface. Ultimately those examinations bring forward a positive and deeper calm, the listener able to appreciate the long form ambience of this extremely descriptive album.

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Switched On – mōshonsensu: A Strange Dystopian Tundra (Rednetic)

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moshonsensu

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

mōshonsensu is the moniker for Daryl Robinson, a UK producer making a fresh start under a pseudonym of Japanese origin. The commentary for his new album speaks with refreshing honesty of the importance of IDM and ambient music during the plight of a depressive episode in his life.

A Strange Dystopian Tundra could easily be a description of the landscape as we currently view it, as Robinson notes. “For me it represents dark times but also better times ahead hopefully. This album is combined with glitched beat patterns, melodic beauty and ambience woven together in a heuristic nature.”

What’s the music like?

Robinson’s music is equal parts meaningful, mysterious, uplifting and just occasionally troubling. In these respects it is an accurate reflection of feelings we have had throughout the last few years, but ultimately there is solace to be found in the ambient contours of his work.

Mystical Minds is a wonderful way to start, a track with a light touch but rich colours turning golden in the mind’s eye of this particular listener. Some of the mōshonsensu titles are amusing – Tedious Cricket, anyone?! – but in fact this is a track with a slowly rippling rhythm against a more distant hook line. The Detectives Walk In The Tundra is a striking addition, featuring a penetrating vocal from Jo Joyce, her contribution becoming a concentrated vocal refrain that sticks in the head. Sea Of Sound feels just like scattered footsteps on a shoreline, its beats allowed to run free, while Feel Down Innit also has busy activity, percussion flitting across the broad picture behind, like moths unwilling to settle – in this case possibly an effective depiction of anxiety and the fight against troubled thoughts.

Tribe has a serene but uncertain treble line, while Lost & Found Tape is a curious combination of angelic voices and grubby electro beats, a kind of inner city collage between the street and the church. Disposition Intact heightens this contrast, with big beats and airy voices, becoming a longer study of remote beauty.

Does it all work?

It does. The more you hear this album the more the emotional investment becomes clear, and yet it operates well on a surface level too.

Is it recommended?

Yes. By making an album that acknowledges the importance of ambient music to counter stress, mōshonsensu successfully faces the problem and gives us the obvious solution. As its title implies, A Strange Dystopian Tundra is not an easy ride, but it leaves the listener in a better place for hearing it.

It is also a timely reminder that to describe music as ambient does not short change the effect it can have on the listener.

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Switched On – Francis Harris: Thresholds (Scissor and Thread)

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What’s the story?

Francis Harris has already delivered a brace of thoughtful electronic albums in Lelend (2012) and Minutes of Sleep (2014), where he has considered some of our slowest moving and abstract ‘virtualities’. The train of thought continued with two albums as half of the Aris Kindt duo, but now Harris turns back to a solo identity for Thresholds.

In it, he ‘aspires to sonic universality and the presentation of a fully formed psychoacoustical world’, though it is not an ‘album of ideas’. In the commentary from his label, ‘inspired by the ecological and political upheavals of the present and the role of speculative thought as an avenue of global transformation, Thresholds is the work of a mature artist fully in control of his powers’.

What’s the music like?

While it is certainly important to consider the elements above, Thresholds stands on its own two feet for the listener who is completely new to its thoughts and sound worlds.

Often these worlds cross over, the album acting as the sonic equivalent of being on a train journey, or standing still while observing an object pass against overhead against a starry backdrop. The most effective tool here is the wide range of percussion, some of it very subtle, that Harris has at his disposal. The instruments and sounds, both acoustic and electronic, decorate the slow awakening of Useless Machines, then pepper Rebstock Fold with what feels like spots of electronic rain as a slower moving sequence of chords takes hold.

Harris keeps a background haze to proceedings, while a variety of musical languages unfold in the foreground. Many of these are slow moving, honing in on certain details, such as the muffled trumpet solo or vocal snippets that feature in Earth Moves. The dappled colours created by the music are often softly mesmerising. The title track, for instance, has digital chattering in the foreground while chords shift slowly in the background. The trumpet reappears on Speculative Nature Of Purposive Form as part of a largely static soundscape, but Cut Up responds to this with a good deal of nervous energy, its percussive buzzing suggesting an outlying jazz influence.

Does it all work?

Yes. These thoughtful compositions are consistently engaging but work as a whole in shifting the focus of the mind to calmer areas, the listener taking in the musical activity around the stereo picture but able to let it run on its way simultaneously.

Is it recommended?

Yes – Francis Harris makes ambient music with a difference, its intricate construction creating all sorts of moving patterns that the listener can either latch on to or allow to run free. Its imaginative colours and textures reveal something different with each encounter.

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Switched On – Fragile X: Human Condition (Cue Dot Records)

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What’s the story?

The Cue Dot Series reaches a dozen releases with this substantial piece of work from Fragile X – the alter ego for Glasgow-based musician J. Gorecki. He has designed an album to question aspects of human nature and instinct, in particular personal growth, but – as he details in the commentary alongside the album – the answers are firmly weighted towards the positive.

There are six stages of the human condition represented here – birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict and mortality.

What’s the music like?

Human Condition – as its title implies – is a mixture of highs and lows, but the music here gives the listener a wholly positive experience. Gorecki writes with great assurance, gently probing at our thoughts and feelings as he does so. Cogito ergo sum (which translates as I think, therefore I am) is the ideal way to set the scene, soft-grained textures cushioning some more probing melodic lines, and introducing us to a warm blend of electronically and acoustically-derived sounds.

The softly oscillating figures of The Good And The Beautiful have attractive, treble-rich colouring which is a hallmark of Gorecki’s writing, with golden hints to the textures from half way through. Object / Subject has murmuring voices as part of its overall ambience, before it pans out into a wonderfully spacious train of thought. Eudaimonia uses what appears to be a small collection of time pieces, each one creating an ambience among themselves, while A Question I Have Become For Myself has some distorted thoughts but also a reassuring, slow chorale in the background.

You Are has watery percussion and rippling chords, presenting a beautiful epilogue that gradually falls under the influence of a slow, brooding melodic line. This slightly darker aspect has already revealed itself in the shady Space Of Appearance, a relatively brief but sombre time for contemplation.

Does it all work?

It does. The album is best experience as a single span of music, its natural flow secured early on and sustained throughout the nine tracks. Gorecki shows himself to be as at home in longer structures approaching ten minutes as he is in creating shorter snapshots.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Human Condition is a thoughtful meditation, which works both as a foreground and background feature. Foreground listening is by far the best, mind, for the inner parts of Gorecki’s patchwork are fully revealed and the colours can be best appreciated. A subtle experience but a lasting and uplifting one.

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Switched On – Franck Vigroux: Atotal (Aesthetical)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The music for Atotal is half of an intricate story. To quote from the press release, Franck Vigroux created it as an audiovisual performance with regular collaborator Antoine Schmitt, their aim ‘to reconstruct in order to better deconstruct the processes of imposition of will by repetition and absolute synchronism, to propose a breach to a potentially life-saving decoincidence. The total work of art, when pushed to its paroxysm of absolute coincidence of the perceptions of a captive spectator, is similar to the techniques of mental manipulation of totalitarian regimes, proceeding by annihilation of the critical mind, repetitive semantic pounding, subliminal messages.’

Got that?! It bears reading a few times, along with the rest of the detail on Vigroux’s Bandcamp page, because the more you read it the more you realise how much thought the pair have put into the work.

What’s the music like?

The success of this album depends on how Vigroux’s music sits on its own, without visuals, as a single work of art. The answer is emphatic, for Atotal is never less than a powerful encounter for the listener, to the extent where it can be overwhelming on headphones. Certainly the images conjured up in the listener’s mind are very close to Schmitt’s pictures in the excerpt here:

The blasts of white noise circling around a two-note riff on Swinging Total are an illustration of how Vigroux creates a great deal from minimal beginnings. By contrast Atotal010 is well within itself, with remote breathing noises giving a primal, intimate air. Lame is another thrilling rush, a widescreen vortex of sound underpinned by a big beat, while Accelerando has similarly big textures but is disorientated, like the processing of a large machine.

Vigroux works his sparse material into the thrilling forward drive of Communication, and his writing has lots of spatial, semi-industrial elements to it. He can be caustic in style, but the likes of Perdu find him in descriptive mood, with flickers of sound near and far. Communication is again sparse material but has a thrilling forward drive. Side Total contrasts wave effects with blocks of sound, while Total Primus is great, a substantial track with rumbling bass and purer tones in the treble, not to mention a lumbering rhythm.

Does it all work?

It does, but a certain amount of caution should be advised – in a good way. This is music that can often hit its target square between the eyes, and while the effect can be thrilling it is not for every mood, being a treble espresso of music at times!

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Vigroux’s music is always worth exploring, his approach always interesting – and the music for Atotal is no exception to that rule.

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