Tag Archives: Kranky

Switched On – Adam Wiltzie: Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is an eagerly awaited solo album from Adam Wiltzie, once part of acclaimed duo Stars Of The Lid with the much-missed Brian McBride.

For this album, he looks to anaesthetic drugs for inspiration, recreating in a musical sense the feeling of induced sleep, where cares are parked and the brain is slowed.

Aiding him with production is Loop‘s Robert Hampson.

What’s the music like?

Some ambient music immediately makes you go “Aaah…”…and that is definitely the case with Adam Wiltzie, who sets out on a serene journey with these pieces.

They may not be fugues in the musical sense, but there is a sense of precision, a stately profile where each note carries equal importance.

The evocatively titled Buried At Westwood Memorial Park, In An Unmarked Grave, To The Left Of Walter Matthau, runs in two slow parts, its supporting ambience soft in focus but not in content.

Robert Hampson’s production supports Stock Horror, where a sonorous drone underpins an elegant chord progression. Dim Hopes adds bell-like chimes up top, while the drone takes on a new dimension in the deep, rumbling bass of Mexican Helium. A similar power can be felt in the broad scope of As Above Perhaps So Below.

Does it all work?

It does, especially if the album is experienced as a single musical canvas.

Is it recommended?

Without hesitation. It is reassuring indeed to have this release from Wiltzie, whose poise and stature in modern ambient music will only be enhanced by this special album.

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Published post no.2,162 – Sunday 27 April 2024

In appreciation – Brian McBride

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by Ben Hogwood. Photo by Steve Molter

Yesterday we learned of the sad and unexpected passing of Brian McBride, one half of the influential ambient duo Stars of the Lid.

Together with band mate Adam Wiltzie, McBride made subtly mesmerising music that left a lasting impression on its listeners. Influenced by but not restricted to modern classical music, the pair set about creating a unique sound, predominantly drone-based but carefully and beautifully constructed. Much of their best work was realised on the Kranky label, who revealed the news of McBride’s unexpectedly early passing.

This tribute on Pitchfork tells a fuller story, but in order to fully appreciate McBride’s genius, here are two listening links – one to the landmark Stars of the Lid album and their Refinement of the Decline, and one to McBride’s solo album When The Detail Lost Its Freedom

Switched On: Saloli – Canyon (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

It is relatively rare for electronic albums to be performed ‘as live’ – but that is what Saloli achieves with Canyon. Saloli – the Cherokee word for ‘squirrel’ – is the alias under which Portland pianist and instrumentalist Mary Sutton operates,

The whole album is performed on a Sequential Circuits MultiTrak synthesizer, routed through a delay pedal to add the spatial quality of ‘echoing off canyon walls’.

There is a concept powering Canyon, too, the album evoking ‘a day in the life of a bear in a canyon in the Smoky Mountains’. As the press release explains, ‘in Cherokee teachings, humans and animals are considered to have no essential difference – originally, all the creatures of the earth lived together in harmony.’ The album’s cover art is by Sutton’s father Jerry, its yellow lettering using Cherokee Syllabary and spelling ‘Yona’, which means ‘bear’.

What’s the music like?

Strong in character. Saloli’s writing is very ‘in the moment’, creating portraits full of colour and musical content.

Waterfall shimmers and glistens in the light, the melodic patterns of the synthesizer sustained as they bounce around the sonic picture. At this point Saloli’s music resembles earlier Philip Glass, both in its melodic language and its pleasingly rough timbre. This is clearly music evoking the outside, and is all the better for its untampered state.

Lily Pad is much more fragile, the live setting capturing the surface tension of the water on which it sits, while Snake is more obviously right and left hand, as arpeggios in the left complement higher melodies in the right.

The sonic picture changes strikingly for Yona, the playful bear portrait, whose lack of reverberation makes this feel a close-up, indoor encounter. Panning out again we hear the softer Silhouette, whose vibrato casts a spell and draws parallels with Wendy Carlos.

Full Moon brings a pipe-organ sonority to Saloli’s music, wide-eyed and brightly lit, the echoes used again to playful effect. The slightly jaunty mood continues to the elusive Nighthawk, the left hand on the keyboard establishing a Habañera-type rhythm while trying to pin down an elusive right hand melody.

Saloli ends with the exhilarating Sunrise, its rippling arpeggios telling of the light forcing its way upwards out of the darkness and into the day. Its evocative growth from subtle flickers to stabs of daylight shows Sutton’s skill at painting pictures in sound.

Does it all work?

It does. The intimate portrait of the bear is slightly curious, given the animal’s size, but it is typical of the personality running through Sutton’s music. This is electronic music with a beating heart, for sure.

Is it recommended?

It is. Saloli has made an album of instrumental tone pictures with lasting character and quality.

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Switched On – Tim Hecker: No Highs (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

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 No Highs 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 No Highs 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

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Switched On – Loscil // Lawrence English: Colours Of Air (Kranky)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This collaboration between Canada and Australia, between composers Loscil and Lawrence English, was born from a long-running conversation on electronic music. It gives both musical minds a chance to explore together the sounds of a pipe organ from the Old Museum in Brisbane. While Lawrence English’s work of the past decade has centred on the sounds of instruments such as this, Loscil’s has tended towards less analogue keyboard instruments.

Here the two combine their unique and deeply personal approach to music, taking the source recordings and manipulating the organ sounds into personal and uniquely colourful responses – hence a different shade for each of the eight tracks.

What’s the music like?

Perhaps inevitably, colourful. However there is something about the way Loscil and English bring colour into their music that sets it well above the ambient ‘standard’. These tracks really do live up to their names, and with eight different hues throughout the album it is certainly one for the mind’s eye.

The Brisbane instrument makes a major contribution, but not just through its resultant music. The mechanical actions are part of the recording process too, so on occasion the very instrument is inhaling and exhaling, providing a white-noise percussion along with the pitches.

Without ado, Cyan allows us to dive straight into these wonderful textures, a glittering array of musical shades that soon become punctuated with soft chimes. The music shimmers in a way that the organ music of Philip Glass does, but the motifs are blanketed, the shape shifting chords taking place like billowing clouds.

As the eight-part suite progresses, so we get to hear more of the nuances of the Brisbane instrument, with varying levels of attack and depth. The pitches stay relatively static, often in a drone-like stasis, but some allow for greater, mysterious movement – such as Aqua, with its ethereal sighing motif. Sharper tones are used for the brightness of Pink, a vivid contrast to the relatively withdrawn colours of Grey and Black that went before.

Black, the longest track of the eight, is a majestic piece of work, dark as space itself but panning out to the edge of perspective. Of a similar dimension is Magenta, whose slight pitch bends create a drawn out and very intense sonic drama.

Yellow is another standout moment, and it just so happened that I experienced this piece of music during a sunrise, which it most certainly evokes – one of those wonderful moments where sound and nature are as one.

Does it all work?

Yes. There are some fascinating processes at work here, and the feeling persists that the outcome is an equal musical agreement between the two parties. The listener still gets Loscil’s uniquely wide, weather-beaten panorama, but the pipe organ adds something special, Lawrence English securing his timeless response in a different and slightly more mechanical way.

Is it recommended?

Without hesitation. A mandatory purchase for fans of either – and for those in need of some musical balm to mark the end of January.

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