electronic

The most immersive Icelandic music i’ve encountered is by Þóranna Björnsdóttir, whose collaborative work LUCID blew my mind a few years back (becoming by Best Album of 2019), and who has consistently captivated me on the various occasions i’ve heard her performing live. Released in 2022, Þyrpingar [convergences – the …

And finally we reach the zenith, the apex of this year’s best albums, each and every one of them a bewilderment of shock, awe and wonder.

It was 16 years ago that my first Best Albums of the Year list was published, and for most of the years since there have been 40 entries on the list. However, there were many times when recommending 40 as genuinely ‘best’ felt like a struggle, and a few years …

In 1997, British musician Janek Schaefer created an instrument he named the ‘tri-phonic turntable’, a pimped-up record deck featuring a trio of tone arms and the ability to play fast and loose with rotation direction and speed. That same year, he gave a performance at the Urban Salon in London …

Today’s Advent Calendar piece, Static by Finnish composer Otto Iivari, is technically an audiovisual work. On the two occasions i experienced it, the electronics were presented in conjunction with a tiny TV on a table, displaying a mixture of static and several clear bands that made for a curious relationship …

i’m turning today to an enigmatic piece by Giacinto Scelsi, one of the last he ever composed. Maknongan dates from 1976, just a year before Scelsi would cease composing altogether. At this time, his attention had become focused on low sounds. Dharana, composed the previous year, is for cello and …

In between the concerts and events at this year’s AFEKT festival, while i was in Tartu i was able to experience the latest venture from Japanese multimedia artist Ryoji Ikeda. Taking place in the spectacular Estonian National Museum, it comprised a solo exhibition and the world première of a collaboration …

i stressed before the primacy of Plexure within the context of these two new albums. Yet the extent to which Oswald has been irresisitably drawn back to this work suggests that the idea of a ‘definitive’ version is meaningless. Indeed, the extensiveness of the so-called “bonus tracks” (most of which …

Part 2 of my deep dive into John Oswald‘s extensive reissue of all things Plexure is coming soon. However, in the meantime there’s a time-critical update relevant for any other plex-heads out there. For this weekend only, Oswald has made available two additional Plexure-related items.

It seems as if an age has passed since i last wrote about the music of Canadian composer John Oswald. It was actually only four years ago, but a pandemic has come and gone during that time, which perhaps makes it seem longer. At that time, Oswald was beginning to …

Honestly, it’s like that old joke about waiting for buses. You wait years for a new release from Lee Fraser, and then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of Live at Parken, Vienna, 05.08.23, released in March, comes a new album, Scii Tenaph, not so much accompanied …

It was with no small excitement that i heard a few weeks ago that US sound artist Christopher McFall was bringing out a new album. Not only is McFall one of the most captivating artists working with field recordings that i’ve ever encountered, but it’s also been no fewer than …

Despite being primarily a chamber music festival, the concerts at this year’s World New Music Days in the Faroe Islands devoted significant time to works involving electronics. Five of these were installations, of which two were noteworthy. One was Ringar í Vatni [Rings in Water] by Faroese musician Heðin Ziska …

i sometimes wonder whether i’ve come to prize obfuscation in music more than clarity. When things are unclear, things get interesting, the ear and mind work harder, there’s potentially something to be discovered. This is one of the primary aspects that i’ve been revelling in when spending time with Turkish …

For many years i’ve been a keen follower of the work of Noé Cuéllar and Joseph Kramer, better known as Coppice, and have often written about their unique electroacoustic output. There are many things that draw me to it, one of the strongest being the way in which they create, …

It’s been far too long. Six years since Lee Fraser‘s last album, Cor Unvers, and a full decade since his debut, Dark Camber, both of which were among my very best albums of 2018 and 2014 respectively, and both of which continue to blow my mind anew every time i …

i’m concluding my January exploration of interesting free music with Heitsi-Eibib-Rec by Spanish sound artist Francisco López. Usually, López prefers to leave his works untitled, so Heitsi-Eibib-Rec is therefore somewhat unusual. Though the work doesn’t have an accompanying note – except to say it uses “original environmental sound matter recorded …

The next freely available release i want to explore is Devotion, by US musician Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. It’s a 20-minute fantastical work that lives up to its title by suggesting varying forms of ecstatic focus.

Heteromania is a collaboration between sound artist Conure (aka Mark Wilson) and cyberpunk poet Kenji Siratori, originally created around the start of 2007, but subsequently unreleased, so Wilson made it available online in 2011. While i’m only familiar with a relatively small amount of the extensive Conure back catalogue, i’ve …

It’s surprising to realise i’ve not given US sound artist Colin Andrew Sheffield some attention for a long time. His 2008 album Signatures made it into my very first Best Albums of the Year way back in 2008, since when i have to admit to playing catch-up with his work. …