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Switched On: Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri – Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun (Black Knoll Editions)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is the second collaboration between Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri, created during a three-day residency at Berlin’s Morphine Raum. The duo recorded their performances live while also reshaping their work, using rotary speakers, modular synthesizers and bowed guitar. All were captured through a vintage (1970s!) mixing console and microphones placed around the room.

As the pair returned to their home studios, Mogard manipulated the existing material through his studio in Rome, while Irisarri added guitar textures and treatments in New York. Then, passages recorded by cellist Martina Bertoni and violinist Andrea Burelli in Berlin added new layers to their work, after which Mogard reassembled everything into the final versions.

What’s the music like?

Like a slow-moving swan, this album proceeds serenely with no hint of the process going on underneath. Heard on headphones, there are moments of heart-shifting beauty as the slow moving but firmly set musical processes make their mark, and the harmonies make telling turns when led by the bassy drones.

This is the case for In the Eastern Wild, a descriptive number that grows in stature to become an awesome presence, a wall of sound complemented by Over The Domes, held exquisitely in suspension.

The centrepiece of the album is A Blue Descent, where immersive ambience takes on new levels with the help of Bertoni’s long-breathed cello phrases, brooding yet uplifting, and In A Quiet Radiance, which goes through a similarly pronounced crescendo. Here Burelli’s violin sits above with a wordless vocal, all beautifully judged and woven together.

The comedown from this is the huge space found by Of Blessed Ages, then the wall of outdoor white noise that is Among Shadows, with a drone you could happily dive into.

Does it all work?

Yes. The pair work as one throughout, the music unfolding with a natural beauty and stature rare in ambient music.

Is it recommended?

With great enthusiasm. This is music that can calm the fevered brow, but also warm the cold heart, for there are great emotional depths found through the smallest movement. A deeply impressive achievement.

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Published post no.3,005 – Wednesday 2 September 2026

Switched On – James Murray – Islands Alight (quiet details)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

James Murray’s contributions to the quiet details series now number three, building on the Slowreels – Everyday Exotic collaboration with Ian Hawgood and Weeds, his debut solo album.

About the sequel, James has said, “Islands Alight making landfall amidst these relentless heatwaves and impending drought feels about right; environmental anxiety courses through the album like wildfire, consciously balanced only by the rising of pale, elemental waters.

Developed over four years, the origins go back further still. Drawing together wide- screen melodic, rhythmic and electroacoustic concerns, Islands Alight stands as a deliberate, defining work at the confluence of ambient dub roots and the artist I am now.”

What’s the music like?

Murray has a special way of working with deep musical ambience that combines both restfulness and emotion. Islands Alight is undoubtedly suitable for hot weather listening but has a cool edge to it, calming the fevered brow.

After Shallows sets the scene, its deep sounds in contrast to its title, before Becalmed builds with steady intensity, with stately and rather gorgeous shifting patterns. Whale Isles pans out again for an expansive view, and has real presence, glinting at the edges but underpinned by solid bass. Albatross soars but also applies a firm beat, before Murray goes for deeper bass with Sargasso, the dub elements coming through. In fact the percussion is deceptive, providing strong rhythmic profiles but somehow sitting in the background.

Does it all work?

It does. Murray paces things to perfection, and the overall ambience is lasting long after the album has finished.

Is it recommended?

Enthusiastically. The best ambient music manages to soothe but also inspire, and James Murray is capable of providing both in equal measure. An album to put on repeat, for sure.

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Published post no.2,995 – Monday 24 August 2026

On Record – Panda Bear & Sonic Boom: A ? OF WHEN (Domino)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The second collaborative album between Animal Collective’s Panda Bear and founding member of Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom, looks to build on their successful work together on the Reset album of 2022.

A ? OF WHEN takes a different approach, using as its source material harp loops from Mary Lattimore, together with steel drum sequences, pedal steel webs and fragments of a mariachi band.

While the music might sound detached, it is actually a sharply observed commentary on the state of the world. As the album progresses they look at online exhaustion and progressive depression, political upheaval and the environment.

As the text on the press release states, “The goal is for the music to create physical connections between people, to encourage them to enjoy a real experience in the world with it and each other.”

What’s the music like?

In relation to the objective of the album, it is very much job done – for a listen to this album gives the listener a lasting positivity.

There may be some lyrical dark spots on the surface but musically this is bright sunshine, a celebration of two musical minds meeting and sparking some genuinely uplifting music.

The obvious reference points are The Beach Boys, with a frisson of The Mamas and the Papas and also The Zombies, but all updated with electronic knowhow and hazy production warmth. The source material – Lattimore’s harp and the accompanying steel band brightness – is economically used, and proves the perfect complement for Panda Bear’s vocals.

These are as distinctive as ever, and burrow into your brain via the incredibly catchy Lucky Charm or the light / dark alternations of Graveyard, up in tempo but down in lyrics.

The chorus of Never Givin’ In is a lasting show of strength, while the upbeat title track follows suit. Pray to you is immersed in watery strings, while Somethin’ that lasts shows this music has staying power, finding grace and tender moments among the woozy reverb.

Does it all work?

It does. The two work easily in each other’s company, and the resultant sound is like a musical heatwave.

Is it recommended?

Heartily. Music can be so much fun in collaboration, and A ? OF WHEN celebrates the outcome. Pure musical enjoyment was rarely so immediate!

For fans of… Animal Collective, The Beach Boys, Peaking Lights, Supertramp

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You can explore purchase options for A ? of When on the Domino Music website

Published post no.2,981 – Thursday 13 August 2026

On Record: Akusmi – Terra Incognita (Tonal Union)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Akusmi, the vehicle of London-based French composer Pascal Bideau, looks to match the impact and ambition of its first two albums with a third instalment.

The press release promises a great deal, namely an invitation to “seven faraway sonic imaginariums fusing global and spiritual jazz with life affirming minimalism into a hypnotic, polyrhythmic odyssey”.

Joining Bideau on this odyssey are a host of musicians, even though he himself is something of a one-man band. Terra Incognita features Sarathy Korwar (tabla), Dudú Kouate (percussion, ngoni and flutes), Levitation Orchestra’s Marysia Osu (harp) and Lluís Domènech Plana (flutes) and Daniel Brandt, providing electronics on Anima.

What’s the music like?

Richly colourful. There is a lot going on in Akusmi’s music, a hive of activity that rewards repeated listening, where the intricate inner parts and the freedom of the outer voices can be fully appreciated. The methods and techniques have deepened since previous album Fleeting Future, so the sound is more intricate, but the joy and warmth that make his music so attractive are here again in generous measures.

A Waking Dream is indeed like the start of a new day, starting with nocturnal rustlings but settling into a groove of crossrhythms and bright instrumental colours. Anima and Pleine Lune build on this, the latter especially a riot of colour, with the saxophone flying free up above. Rain Dance is even more propulsive, the ensemble swaying in a dazzling show of unity, while everything comes to a head in Dawning Dusk, an exhilarating track topped by Dudú Kouate’s multi-layered vocal. Kouate it is who secures the swagger to Drongo’s Flute, where the saxophone enjoys further freedom above the groove set by the Senegalese percussionist.

While jazz and Afrobeat are obvious influences here the musical processes Bideau uses are aligned closer to Reich or Glass, taking minimal riffs and developing them through communal means that build the musical intensity. The instrumental colours charm and bewitch, the musical equivalent of throwing open the windows on a sunny day.

Does it all work?

It really does, as Terra Incognita becomes an album of enduring positivity.

Is it recommended?

Yes, wholeheartedly. This is music with the most vibrant colours, reflecting its cover through grooves that sing and dance in unity. A life-affirming album reaffirming Pascal Bideau as a composer who knows no boundaries.

For fans of… Floating Points, Brandt Brauer Frick, Christian Prommer, Philip Glass, Terry Riley

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Published post no.2,957 – Friday 24 July 2026

Switched On – Berndt / Schmidt – Cloud Machines (Thrill Jockey)

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Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is the first collaboration between John Berndt, the Baltimore band leader, and M.C. Schmidt, one half of the celebrated duo Matmos. Both have pooled their considertable expertise in avant garde and experimental music in celebration of the comic books of Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) and “the beautiful miniatures of the SKY Records Cluster/Eno/Conny Plank collaborations”.

The result is an electronic record looking simultaneously backwards and forwards.

What’s the music like?

Packed with incident across an eventful three-quarters of an hour. There is so much going on here that repeated listening is essential to absorb and appreciate the sheer scale of the pair’s inventions.

At times their music sounds like an update of Anton Webern or John Cage, so compressed is its thinking, while the pair cast the net ever wider in search of extra instrumental colour. Humour abounds, with witty thoughts bubbling under the surface as the music ebbs and flows. Especially notable are Our Theme, which behaves like the tuning process of an analogue radio, the descriptive Gecko Lazzaro, featuring trombonist Patrick Crossland and guitarist Owen Gardner, and The Analysis of Joel, a playful and colourful shredding of lines from guitarist Joel Knispel.

3000 is typical of the warmth coursing through the album, its percussion suggesting African influences.

Does it all work?

Yes, in a way that makes you want to return often to Cloud Machines to see what else you can spot. There are so many musical happenings it can be difficult to keep up at first, but as the secrets reveal themselves so too does the pair’s full invention.

Is it recommended?

Yes, without a doubt – fans of the pair’s previous work will lap this up. Be assured, the music is every bit as colourful and as far out as the wonderful cover art!

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Published post no.2,955 – Wednesday 22 July 2026