April’s Top 10

Another great month of releases has made it an extremely tuff choice to only select our current fav 10…

1. Antonymes – Beauty Becomes The Enemy Of The Future

Packages arrive through the post on a regular basis with regards to cd submissions for the Fluid playlists. This always excites me and sometimes I feel like the young child on Christmas morning eagerly waiting to find out what could possibly be inside…

This week however I had the luxury of opening a package that was ‘above the norm’ to say the least. Something that had so much attention to detail with regards to design, appearance, funcionality and of course, sound.

The package that I talk about is the upcoming limited edition photo book release of ‘Beauty Becomes The Enemy Of The Future’ by Ian Hazeldine, otherwise known as Antonymes. Full details here

2. Sam Amidon – I See The Sign

Staying true to the formula found in Sam’s aforementioned 2007 LP and also in 2008’s “All Is Well,” this new record largely comprises of old-time melodies and lyrics, with children’s singing games common throughout. Where “All Is Well” built upon his sound, adding horns and string arrangements to bring a greater sense of depth to the instrumental constructions of his work, “I See The Sign” evolves this sound significantly. Full details here

3. Plinth – Albatross

“Albatross” is a collection of 5 interpretations of the Fleetwood Mac track of the same name and like the changes we are witnessing in the world around us, it provides the listener with a variation of audible delights suitable for the adapting seasons.

Despite being a bird, in literary circles the Albatross itself is largely considered to hold metaphorical value.  Sometimes defined as a wearisome burden, this is in an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Full details here

4. Scott Tuma – Dandelion

“Dandelion” is a a hymn to loves won, then lost. Dying on the vine, he bellows “You are so pretty,” yearning for something simpler and easier to navigate. “You’re always on my mind” reminds us that things come to an end, that even the best things have a shelflife. It runs head first into the megalith that is “Free Dirt.” Mike Weis makes his present felt as the duo navigates the darkest moments Tuma’s ever put to tape. This is “Taradiddle” drowned in the mud. Hope is lost to the darkness as denial turns to acceptance. Winding down into a wall of cymbals and heavy-handed acoustic guitar, it’s total catharsis. Tuma and Weis show again just how well they work together. Full details here

5. The Sight Below – It All Falls Apart

In the year since Glider’s release, The Sight Below honed his craft and traveled the world, toting his equipment to distant cities and festivals, playing breathtaking audio/visual performances, and wandering off into the night. Evidently, this was time well-spent. With his new album It All Falls Apart, The Sight Below expands upon his strengths at every turn, crafting a paean to impermanence, an ambient meditation that uses the sounds of sadness in the service of sweet emotional catharsis. Full details here

6. David A Jaycock – The Coleopterous Cuckoos Collude

An active member of Pickled Egg recording artists Big Eyes, as well as The Big Eyes Family Players, David plays a vast selection of instruments, with his signature guitar intricacies joined by analogue synthesizers, bowed banjos, toy piano, harmonium, and a zither . Subsequently, The Coleopterous Cuckoos Collude is an achingly beautiful work of cinematic majesty; its progressive classicism enhanced by David’s will to actively break traditional musical boundaries. Full details here

7. Gareth Hardwick – Of The Sea And Shore

Recorded over a four month period during the Winter of 2009/10, Gareth’s characteristic long form guitar drones have been enhanced by a widened palette of sounds consisting of different instrumentation, effects and recording techniques. Cymbals and chimes supply a percussive undercurrent, whilst radio static, dictaphone field recordings and harmonium are used to add further texture. Full details here

8. Alva Noto – For 2

As we listen we are almost aware of this record having breath, as a watchful vacuum draws in influences before exhaling them back into the music. This ebb and flow marks time over for 2’s reference points, reminding us that creativity is perceptive of that which lies at its edges and, similar to language, absorbs it within. Full details here

9. FNS – FNS

Despite being his first recording for Miasmah, it transpires that FNS or Fredrik Ness Sevendal is in fact a veteran of the Oslo experimental scene. Having collaborated with several groups over the years, FNS is very much his solo project. Using a variety of instruments, but predominantly focusing on guitar, there is a premeditated approach here; an effort to ensure the lo-fi nature of the record is appreciated by the listener.

Opening with “Silence to Say Hello,” the intention of this sound is clear. Delicate guitar riffs, in tandem with light percussion, are counter balanced with an un-even swirling of self constructed noise and reverbs. “Sappélur” is an altogether different affair and for all the meditative qualities of the opening track, this is an unsettling cacophony of noisy drones. Full details here

10. Tanner Menard – The Oceans of Your Aura

Each ’song’ in the album was created using two instances of pianoteq, a physical modeling software that here replicates two pianos each 10 meters in length, each having a unique tuning system always tuned one hertz from the other with A being 444 and 445 respectively. Both pianos also allow their strings to vibrate freely through the use of a constantly activated damper pedal. Loops of midi data drive these pianos through an improvisation that I carefully crafted into slow motion portraits of quasi-song structures. Full details here