Intense performances on Chinmoku Wa Ishikure Ni Yadoru Bouryoku (TROST TR220), on which French guitarist Michel Henritzi is joined by alto sax players Kawashima Makoto and Mochizuki Harutaka. This slow, long-form music shows them bearing witness to some form of catastrophic event – the horror of it just grows larger, particularly on the opening track. What scares them? I think it’s something in the sky; the titles allude to the sun, the moon, and the clouds. Traditional subjects, they, for Japanese art, but unlike a Japanese print from the 18th century, it’s clear things are not going well at all. Admittedly ‘Sadness of the Moon’ is slightly less apocalyptic, but the dissonant notes, grating sounds, and astringent tone are so palpable hear it’s like having a scoop of copper pennies shovelled in the mouth. Henritzi plays feedback as well as his usual lapsteel guitar, but at the end of the day he’s all about the sound he makes, and his feedback work is every bit as tear-stained and sodden with flood waters as his lamenting six-string. The two Japanese sax players have appeared before on Henritzi’s An’Archives label with their Free Wind Mood LP in 2018; I can’t recall hearing them before now, but minimalists from the Onkyo shed (a shed which Henritzi has championed) they sure ain’t. Indeed their insistent rasping tone is quite rude, demanding that we pay attention to their coarse parps and harrowing wails. (09/01/2023)
Lawrence English on the Kranky label? Odd but true – the Australian maestro of Ambient drone and owner of the Room 40 label is here with Colours Of Air (krank236), a duo performed with loscil (i.e. Scott Morgan from Canada). Organ music, recorded on a very old pipe organ found at a museum in Brisbane; each track is supposed to evoke a different colour. The sound of the instrument has been heavily altered under the respective transformations of our duo – they don’t see it as anything more than a “source” – but its original voice sometimes shines through the layers of processed drone. Results – about 10% transcendence, 90% tasteful wallpaper. (30/01/2023)
As Lucaslavia, the DJ / electronica artiste Stefan Goldmann tries his paws at avant-garde metal spliced with death ambient on his Furnace (MACRO M70) album. Slow to start; it never manages to warm up until about track 5 ‘Qanath’, when the molten torrents begin to rage with more fury. Lucaslavia wishes to conceal much of his emotion beneath the “calm initial form” of this record, but promises us that “violent currents” can be found by those explorers who wish to take soundings. Although he happens upon some decent sounds as he compiles this gazetteer of Hell’s regions, this is mostly uneventful processed drone with too much reverb, spiced up with occult-sounding titles. (21/02/2023)
Recording as Sbatax we have two seasoned improvisers, Bertrand Denzler (tenor sax) and Antonin Gerbal (drums). On the title track of Spires (UMLAUT RECORDS UMFR-CD43), we have a non-stop “energy jazz” blowout, and what I like here is the short repeated phrases from the woodwind half of the act, which are far more effective than an unstructured free-form whirl-a-roo. The piledriver mode continues onto track two, the exhausting ‘Azimuths’ – allowing us to savour the “steam engine ploughing over metal rods” effect of the French maniac’s drumming. Very similar cover design – and contents – to this duo’s 2020 album. (22/02/2023)