Category Archives: Switched On

Switched On – Feiertag: Time To Recover (Sonar Kollektiv)

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feiertag

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Dutch musician Joris Feiertag has a number of impressive disciplines on his CV, from drumming and production, but until now he had not delivered a long player. Time To Recover puts that right, released on Jazzanova’s Sonar Kollektiv label, and on the evidence of the music artist and imprint are an ideal match.

The 50-minute album has 16 tracks, three of which are cinematic interludes showing off Feiertag’s musical versatility. This extends to the songs themselves, a mixture of instrumental and vocal numbers. Guests include Tessa Rose Jackson, Oli Hannaford, Pete Josef and James Alexander Bright.

What’s the music like?

Cool and summery – ideal for a poolside soundtrack but never in danger of sinking into the background. That is because Feiertag’s songwriting and structures are tight, with plenty of riffs to hang on to and some bright, airy textures. The breezy It’s Alright is a lovely pop-infused number, an ideal match of James Alexander Bright’s vocals and the airy production. Yearn, meanwhile, is a softly affecting song where Tessa Rose Jackson and Oli Hannaford team up to pull the heartstrings. Jackson also features on Follow, a really nice bit of low-slung electro funk.

The instrumental Pretend shows off Feiertag’s ability to get a lovely blend of outdoor, blue sky vibes and intimate, indoor club music. There is a twist of jazz, too, a technique the excellent Saccharine uses more explicitly, constructing a sound and an approach Bonobo would be proud of.

The interludes are good but could easily be used as fully-fledged tracks themselves, especially the satisfying thrum of the flamenco guitar on Bilbao.

Does it all work?

Yes. Time To Recover doesn’t have any tracks worth skipping, the album hanging together logically and beautifully. Its hot weather vibes pull the listener in, while the vocal tracks are presented as meaningful songs. Only the interludes could do with extending further – which is a compliment in itself, as it is rare for a review to ask for a longer album!

Is it recommended?

Yes. Time To Recover is a summery album with a good deal of class.

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Switched On – Loscil: Clara (Kranky)

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loscil

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

‘Clara’ is the Latin word for ‘bright’. It is employed by Vancouver’s Scott Morgan to describe his latest album under the Loscil moniker. Morgan is a highly productive musician known for making minimal material stretch a long way, but with Clara he has outdone himself.

Taking a three-minute piece for a 22-piece string orchestra, Morgan recorded the output but then subjected the recording to heavy treatment. The master was purposefully damaged, introducing surface noise to give the impression of recordings made outside in the field, with gravelly scratches and frissons of white noise.

To match this, Morgan took snapshots of the score, stretching them into almost unrecognisable, broad canvases – rather like the detail you would find on a set of micro-models. The effect, as he says, is that “shadows are amplified and bright spots dimmed.”

What’s the music like?

Too often music is described as immersive, but the music of Loscil cannot be seen as anything else. As it unfolds, Clara has the reassuring regularity of a tidal system, its rich colours mixed together in a slowly moving but utterly compelling cycle. The tracks work on their own terms but are best experienced as part of the whole, as material from the original three-minute track stretches out to 70 minutes.

Although this is the first time Loscil has explicitly taken the orchestra for his inspiration, his music has always had suitable dimensions for these large-scale arrangements, and so Clara represents more of a shift in colour than a change in textural depth. With this in mind, Lucida paints pastel shades while a single chime tolls, but while that track has a metronomic regularity, Stella reaches a beautiful stillness, the ebb and flow of just two repeated chords providing the ultimate ambience over a ten-minute structure. From here Loscil naturally segues into Vespera, where a regularly turning mechanism sounds like the onward motion of a boat. Aura exhibits a more remote beauty, looking farther afield after the slowly bubbling Sol. Darker tones are used for the title track, in spite of its Latin meaning, a rich chord building with purpose from the bass strings before we glimpse the light in the violins. Eventually it fades over the horizon like the setting sun.

Does it all work?

Emphatically. Morgan makes ever-more meaningful and powerful music, which remains by turns simple and incredibly pictorial. His music gives the listener a wider perspective, a grasp of the earth’s vast spaces from their own little corner of the world. It reminds us how, in an age of technology that moves faster than ever before, nature has not quickened its pace to follow suit, proceeding where possible with its same sure-footed and inevitable progress.

As Loscil, Morgan gives us the reassurance that despite those supposed human advances, the progress of geology and nature is unlikely to ever be fully checked.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Clara is another very strong addition to the remarkably consistent Loscil canon, which continues to evolve and develop without repeating itself. It provides another reminder of just how far Scott Morgan is able to stretch the barest of musical material, resulting in an album of awesome depth and presence.

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Switched On – Georgia Anne Muldrow: VWETO III (Foreseen Entertainment / Epistrophik Peach Sound)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

“VWETO III is intended for movement”, writes Georgia Anne Muldrow on her Bandcamp page. “It’s to be played when you birth yourself back outside after a long introspective period to get the things you need.”

‘Vweto’ is a word in the Congolese Kikongo language meaning ‘gravity’ – and it suits Muldrow’s grounded approach, as she draws on hip hop, jazz, funk and soul for her inspirations.

Most of the album’s 17 tracks are instrumental, but space is allowed for vocals, “like DIY songs that people can have for themselves”, she writes. “I want to see the sisters rapping up a storm.”

What’s the music like?

Very much ‘alive’. Muldrow’s refusal to process her music too much leads right to the human heart of the music, with irregularities welcome in both pitch and rhythm. Just a few seconds of Old Jack Swings are what’s required, the low slung beats and grubby bass line combining in an earthy sound.

Georgia’s music is spaced out but with a firm sense of direction too, so the lovely wide-screen synth trappings and psychedelic loops are given solid, bassbin-bothering beats. Slave Revoltalleyway Boom has a great combination of squelchy bass, cool keyboard and a rhythm purposefully dragging its feet, while throwback baps gets its winding piano into a circular loop.

Meanwhile Slow Drag gives musical signposts towards one of Georgia’s mentors, Alice Coltrane, with its spiritually rich organ sound. Alternatively Grungepiece shreds its guitar against a sprinkling of piano dust.

The vocals are good, too – Love Call Groove has a sultry air, while the rapping on Ayun Vegas Session 1 matches Georgia’s rich alto

 

It is difficult to know where the analogue stops and the digital starts on VWETO III – proof of Muldrow’s successful fusion of past, present and future.

Does it all work?

Yes. As she did in the previous two volumes of this series, Georgia operates an extremely open musical policy, and the fresh improvisation on a lot of these tracks gives them a freshly minted feel.

Is it recommended?

It is. VWETO III achieves its aim of looking outwards and upwards, celebrating the likely return to the outdoors and positive living. Its freedom is at odds with the closed environments of the last year and a half, and its stylistic blends and inventions are invigorating. More power to her elbows!

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Switched On – Leon Vynehall: Rare, Forever (Ninja Tune)

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leon-vynehall

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Thus is the first album of Leon Vynehall‘s thirties, a response to the nagging inner voice asking where he was going artistically. The response is predictably varied, a creative line in the sand showing off what a versatile producer he has become.

What’s the music like?

Because of the variety of music here, Rare, Forever hangs together extremely well as an album. There are strong undercurrents running through it too- Vynehall’s ear for richly coloured sounds is always apparent, as is a strong affinity with elements of rave from the late 1980s. These are revealed in the quicker tracks, but the atmospheric slower material is equally effective.

From the off, a strong melody winds upwards before cutting to loping beats as Ecce! Ego! takes shape. Mothra features probing electronic riffs, flickering against a white foamy backdrop. Alichea Vella Amor takes a thoughtful tenor sax solo and winds it around a metronomic backing, while on Snakeskin ∞ Has-Been the beats cut loose.

The ambitious beats and chopped up rhythms are a strong feature of the album as it gets into its stride. Worm (& Closer & Closer) is a particularly good track, with a dislocated vocal and big, wide open loops. An Exhale has splashes of colour over the bumpy beats, while Dumbo also hits a jagged groove, the rave elements up top. The air hangs thick and heavy for the elegiac Farewell! Magnus Gabbro, while All I See Is You, Velvet Brown gives us an atmospheric close.

Does it all work?

Yes. A very different album to his previous acclaimed long player Nothing Is Still, but one that shows Leon Vynehall has capacity to master a number of different styles and speeds. Nothing Is Still was achingly cinematic at times, but Rare, Forever has a wide range of approaches, and hits a powerful set of grooves as it progresses.

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Rare, Forever is a portrait of an artist at a fascinating point in his career. The multi-talented Leon Vynehall still has enormous potential, and it will be fascinating to see where it takes him next.

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Let’s Dance – DJ Kicks mixed by Special Request (!K7)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The DJ Kicks story continues apace, and continues to choose imaginatively, with no sign of the quality dipping. Stepping up for this release is Paul Woolford, donning his Special Request moniker. As a listener he saw the DJ Kicks series ‘as a benchmark of quality and a time-stamped gateway into an artist’s state of mind’, going on to say that ‘for this volume, I wanted to focus on lush melodics. I kept that as a constant thread throughout, choosing only records I cherish…it’s not a ‘current snapshot’ by any means, more a chronicle of some of my all-time favourites.’

What’s the music like?

Given Woolford’s history and pedigree, the idea of sharing in his favourite music is too good to resist – and so it proves. It is no surprise to report a varied set of house and break beat, moving from classic disco-house to full blooded drum and bass, by way of variations in between. The mix is pleasingly rough around the edges in its blending of music, giving it a more authentic feel.

Woolford takes us straight to the heart of the dancefloor with Alicia Myers’ Right Here Right Now, remixed by John Morales, a very cool cut of swooning vocal house, and he backs this up with instrumentals from Harvey and Morgan Geist, complete with trumpet solo. Being such a prolific writer and producer, Woolford can’t resist adding some varied examples of his own canon, so we get KissFM NY87 Mastermix and Vellichor trading riffs and busy percussion while pushing the mix forwards.

Woolford then gives us sun-soaked techno from As One, Virgo (the brilliant synth-heavy R U Hot Enough?) and Ace Mo, complementing them with diverse beats from Krystal Klear, Speedy J, LS1 Housing Authority and μ-Ziq. Bleeps and blips, warm keyboard pads, dynamic percussive runs – all are found in a thrilling sequence of dance music, the direct style of Woolford’s own productions embodied in the music he chooses.

Two of his own remixes form highlights of the later section of the mix, FC Kahuna’s cool Hayling and μ-Ziq’s Twangle Frent, underpinned by a massive, sonorous bass sound. Now the pace is frenetic, with flurries of drums from Galaxian and Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse cutting to a widescreen breakdown powering the Tim Reaper mix of another Special Request production, Pull Up. The two collaborate on another stormer, Elysian Fields, before a final Woolford collaboration wraps up the mix, the shimmering 96 Back co-write Petrichor.

Does it all work?

Very much so. Woolford is well-versed in pleasing his crowd, so the notion of a CD-length DJ Kicks mix comes easily to him. The only difficulty, you sense, was choosing what to leave out of the mix! In 25 tracks we get an excellent history lesson with no preaching, a view behind Woolford’s own creative process.

Is it recommended?

Highly. Special Request is an inspired, stellar addition to the DJ Kicks series, which just keeps on getting better. As a celebration of dance music’s primal power to move, you couldn’t ask for more.

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