Finally. Five weeks into this year’s season, the Proms at last finds its way, Red Riding Hood-like, away from the safe, well-trodden path into the unfamiliar terrain of the avant-garde. Twice, in fact; first thanks to the London Sinfonietta, whose afternoon concert at Camden’s Roundhouse last Saturday (there’s presumably a clause somewhere prohibiting anything too radical from being performed within the Royal Albert Hall), conducted by Andrew Gourlay, presented new works by Georg Friedrich Haas, Mica Levi and David Sawer alongside, among other things, Ligeti’s great classic Ramifications. And later that evening, Ilan Volkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra brought Gérard Grisey’s Dérives to these shores. Quite a day! Read more
Having referred to the cinematic qualities of some recent premières, it’s interesting now to turn to a composer whose music does not sound conventionally cinematic, yet who has become well-known in recent times for a film score. Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 film Under the Skin is a remarkable piece of work, simultaneously alienating (literally) and human, and emotionally-speaking both aloof and raw. Mica Levi‘s score was justifiably lauded for the way it not only integrated so seamlessly into Glazer’s unique world, but gave that world a particular tone of voice. Including it in my 
Korean-American composer & singer Bora Yoon’s latest album is a fascinating intermingling of traditional and experimental elements that Yoon describes as “a sonic journey through the chambers of [the] subconscious”. Her songs are personal yet aspire to and evoke heights of mystical ecstasy; 
Þorvaldsdóttir’s approach to composition is heavily informed by an interest in textures, heard to excellent effect on the six works on this album. A recurring feature—and a beguiling one—is her predilection for rendering sounds vague, bereft of an obvious point of origin—no mean feat in instrumental music. Yet for all its unfamiliarities, her music is in the best possible sense accessible, employing structures and juxtapositions of material that are often disarmingly simple, making their point with utmost clarity. [
Anyone with a fondness for the easy listening of the 50s and 60s will find much to love about Weeping Willows’ latest album. The Swedish group’s adoration of its tropes makes the inevitable elements of pastiche forgiveable, but transcending the air of homage is singer Magnus Carlson’s voice, which here comes close to lyrical and vocal perfection. The arrangements are sumptuous and sensitive, but they wholeheartedly serve Carlson’s singing, conveying alternate waves of elation and sorrow. [
Time away from the flogged-dead-horse The Pipettes clearly does Gwenno Saunders a world of good. Hinted at in a collection of singles that began emerging last year, Y Dydd Olaf boldly enters a soundworld informed by crowd-friendly pop yet drenched in an unmistakable ambiance that harks to a more monochromatic past (without resorting to 
Not quite the explosion of vocal ingenuity one might have expected, yet Meshes of Voice nonetheless charts a pretty fearless path through new realms of song-writing. What constitutes the foreground in these songs is an aspect ever in flux, with vocal lines often submerged in multiple layers of material, the half-glimpsed words only one—and by no means the most important—part of their communicative language. Elsewhere, folk tendencies arise strongly, rooting the music in an authenticity of utterance that prevents it from losing itself in mere expressionism. [
One of the beauties of Deerhoof’s music is that it manages to have its tongue permanently in its cheek while maintaining a capacity to invent and challenge conventions. Perhaps that’s just another way of simply saying that Deerhoof find music-making endless, immense fun – something that radiates throughout La Isla Bonita, from the playful cowbell repetitiveness of ‘Paradise Girls’, the stop-start metric shuffling of ‘Tiny Bubbles’ (a song seemingly going at three speeds at once) and the leftfield construction of seemingly straight-faced album closer ‘Oh Bummer’. As ever, wonderful stuff. [
Black Swan’s unique take on hauntology has featured in many of my Best of the Year lists, and their latest offering is no exception. Tone Poetry is less caked in detritus, with the result that its surface is not merely strikingly visible, but often brilliantly bright. This surface becomes the focal point for a series of searing lyrical episodes, some (‘Prophecy’) packed with muscular strength, others (‘Rapture’) barely emerging from the dazzling light noise that fills them. Hauntological artefacts remain, though, occasionally coming forward to cast a sepia wistfulness on everything. [
Dolden’s particular compositional angle has much to do with layers—lots of them, stacked on top of each other way beyond the point when the structure should come toppling down. But this outrageously reckless approach is one of the key things that makes his music so strong and so appealing, coupled with a mischievous sense of fun, which has arguably never been more obvious than here. As i noted in 
While Unflesh didn’t (because it couldn’t) live up to the hype and expectations that preceded it, what Elizabeth Bernholz has created here came as a genuine surprise. Gone are the roaming, elevated forms of melodic lyricism that characterised The Entire City and last year’s Mammal EP, replaced by an aloof, clinical sense of detachment. Beats and patterns predominate, the lyrical content obsessed with what it means to be human—with the combined result sounding like an alien’s perspective on the subject. Fascinating and unsettling in equal measure. [
Trying to second-guess what Aaron Funk is going to do next is a mug’s game. All the same, few could have even imagined Poemss, a collaboration with fellow Canadian Joanne Pollock, eschewing Funk’s trademark breathless break beats in favour of laid back tempi, dreamy atmospherics and delicate melodies, executed with the kind of self-effacing, authentically unpolished vocal delivery one rarely hears from established artists. The electronica is as intricate and imaginative as ever, though, accompanying and encasing their voices in a veritable celebration of the joys of analogue synths. [Follow
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January 2017 listenings
i remarked in passing recently about the disparity between music i’ve listened to and music i’ve (not) written about, so as an adjunct to my reviews of new releases, i’m going to offer a brief monthly insight into some of the more interesting and/or noteworthy things to have entered my ears. Belatedly, here’s January’s:
Ari Mason – Creatures
i’m totally new to Ari Mason’s music, but stumbled across her 2015 single ‘Dim the Lights’ at the start of the year, which in turn led to me exploring Creatures, her first album. ‘Dim the Lights’ is included and is easily one of the album’s highlights, a really catchy song that i return to unhealthily often, with a half-speed chorus that’s a lovely touch, undermining the song’s sense of pace (the song is available as a free download on a three-track EP). Mason’s voice has a deliciously deep register and a smoky timbre, which in this light synthpop context makes for a beautifully effective combination, shot through with trace elements of melancholy. i wish i’d encountered Creatures sooner; it would definitely have appeared on my best of 2016 list. [Bandcamp]
Rose Elinor Dougall – Stellular
It’s slightly disgraceful that i’ve never yet written about Dougall’s output on 5:4, as i’ve been a fan ever since she did the right thing and went solo many, many years ago. Suffice it to say i have everything she’s released to date, which perhaps says something. It’s been a long wait for Stellular (her first album, Without Why, came out in 2010) but well worth it. Standout songs are ‘Strange Warnings’ and ‘Stellular’, but the whole album is a real treat, blending tip-of-the-tongue hints of something retro with an irresistably fresh pop outlook. If this whets your appetite, i highly recommend her 2013 EP Future Vanishes (which features a nice earlier version of ‘Strange Warnings’), the title track of which is one of the best pop songs i’ve heard in absolutely years. [Amazon]
Köhnen Pandí Duo – Darkness Comes In Two’s
Simply amazing; review here.
The Thing With Five Eyes – KOSMOS
Linked to the above release due to the leadership of Jason Köhnen, this is another iteration of what was once The Kilimajaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation. Also titled in Persian (كون), KOSMOS includes all four tracks from the group’s separately available EP نور, along with loads of unreleased pieces, forming a stunning one-hour tapestry of post-apocalyptic jazz elements flecked and frazzled with beautiful, brute force electronics. [Bandcamp]
Cristobal Tapia De Veer – The Girl With All The Gifts (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
One of last year’s best movies – and one of the most intelligent films to explore, admittedly obliquely (and with a twist), the otherwise tired zombie apocalypse trope – gets an equally admirable soundtrack courtesy of Chilean composer Cristobal Tapia De Veer. Gentle yet eerie, tender but menacing, it has refreshingly little to do with conventional movie scores, opting instead to surround and nourish the film’s narrative with a score that evokes, alludes and hints, often from a distance, rather than trying to spoon-feed or manipulate at point-blank range. [Bandcamp]
One other brief thought: i was listening quite a bit to Mica Levi‘s score for Jackie last month, and it’s baffling that it should have received the attention it has, including an Academy Award nomination, considering how inferior it is to the music she composed for Jonathan Glazer’s astonishing film Under the Skin a few years ago. She’s clearly an interesting composer – i’ve written about her on several occasions – but much of the attention her music for Jackie has received – particularly from film critic Mark Kermode, who has bizarrely convinced himself it’s of major importance – is sheer hyperbole. To be clear: the score to Jackie is careful, nuanced and at times wonderfully and appropriately weird (though never as much as in the film’s remarkable, highly-concentrated trailer), but much of it, heard in isolation, is plain atmospheric blah, instantly forgettable, whereas her music for Under the Skin, entirely ignored by the Academy, remains one of the most innovative, chillingly effective approaches to film music of the last ten or twenty years, every moment of it impossible to forget. That score absolutely should have been awarded an Oscar, but not this one. Credit where credit’s due.