experimental

Album Review: Forest Swords – Engravings

Forest Swords: Engravings

Similar Artists: Burial, Earth, The Haxan Cloak, Arca

Genre: Psych, Dub, Bass, Experimental

Label: Tri-Angle

In these perfectionist times, three years is not such an unreasonably long incubation period for a full-length album, but after the mouth watering psych-rock/dub fusion that Matthew Barnes concocted on his first release as Forest Swords — the immeasurably stellar Dagger Paths EP — his follow up has been one of the truly exciting things to look forward to in music. If you aren’t familiar with Forest Swords, ever since 2010, the English producer has gained wide acclaim and a steady cult following due to his unique, genre-melding style. Even with such a scarcity of material, he stands as a touchstone in today’s experimental music scene, and a prime example of how new forms of music are far from obsolete.

Much of Barnes’ success can be attributed to his singular musical style, which mixes the aforementioned genres with other, even harder to trace ones (noise, drone, jazz) into a living, breathing organism. However, while he’s rooted in the abstract, the music is given its levity through a sound palette that is earthly and humane. The appeal to Forest Swords lies with the array of sharp, psychedelic guitars mixed within heavily detailed and expansive electronic compositions. It can be a challenge to discern what is being sampled (if anything), as everything flows so seamlessly within one another. Although he does “borrow” the emotive, ghostly vocal samples of Burial, he does so in a way that remains naturalistic and evocative. For instance, the voices (which are mostly his own) often sound grainy and decayed from the inside out, yet they don’t lose their ethereal qualities through the process.

Atmosphere, however, is where Forest Swords truly makes its strides. Tracks often conjure images that are both nightmarish and skeletal, but strangely, these “dark” soundscapes are represented through stark, bioluminescent instrumentation. When there’s a key change, you’re going to notice, because this is music that tends to penetrate on a gut level; almost as if a post-rock or metal song were slowed down to an unrecognizable state. Needless to say, it lends itself more easily to woodsy, outdoor environments than clubby indoor ones, and due to its high emotive qualities, it’s perhaps most intended as introspective headphone music.

It turns out it was a good thing he took the time off, because this acts as the thirst quenching follow-up we’ve been waiting for. Matthew Barnes continues to develop his singular vision through Engravings — his first release for Tri-Angle — and he does so with a newly developed level of maturity that makes this his most refined release yet. While Dagger Paths had the ability to ride on the immediate shock and “wow” factor of its sound, Barnes knows he can’t simply repeat his previous successes — so this ends up being both a return to his former style as well as a move away from it. As a whole, Engravings does remain similar in style and tone to its predecessors — you won’t be mistaking this for any other artist — but thankfully, this effort isn’t a simple copy and paste procedure either.

This is a more restrained and minimal effort for the artist, and some of the immediate boldness on previous releases seems to have dissipated with age. Because it’s less showy and attention seeking than the Forest Swords or yore, it might take a bit longer than expected to sink in. Tracks like “Gathering” — which focus on spliced up vocal samples — sound particularly barren at first, and its clear Barnes is going for a more subtle, slow burning approach. It pays off though, and the structure of the album flows similarly to The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation (another exceptional Tri-Angle release from this year), as certain pieces act as interludes for more epic, single oriented tracks (“The Weight Of Gold”, “Thor’s Stone”, “Friend, You Will Never Learn”). However, if you want to get the full enjoyment out of this record, I suggest you play it loudly, as it seems the most profound aspects of the music are hiding.

There’s still plenty of risk-taking going on, such as on “Thor’s Stone”, which expertly introduces avant-jazz elements, or “Irby’s Tremor”, with its sharp orchestral flourishes. Piano is another instrument that is incorporated into many of these songs, sounding all the more curious for being the one element not treated with effects. Best of all are the vocals, which seem to be implemented in a fresh and interesting way on every track; he even works with the rare outside vocalist on the lovely “Anneka’s Bottle”. While what these vocals are actually saying is usually pretty undecipherable, I find this makes them even more emotive, as we are allowed to interpret them as we see fit. The finale, “Friend, You Will Never Learn” — if you can tell from the title alone — is particularly heartrending, and at 8 minutes it easily stands as a career highlight for the artist.

As good as it sounds now, i’m putting money down that Excavations is a grower. It’s a record that often causes me to feel hazy for minutes at a time, and I will often drift off into thought and miss entire songs. All the pieces are in their right place, but it’s almost as if I can’t see all of them in my current state. It would be too easy to say I occasionally get bored while listening to this album — but it’s really not that at all — I’d much rather blame my fading attention on how this is a record that sounds painstakingly, and most of all effortlessly, ahead of its time.

Track Listing:

1.) Ljoss

2.) Thor’s Stone*

3.) Irby Tremor*

4.) Onward

5.) The Weight Of Gold*

6.) An Hour

7.) Anneka’s Bottle*

8.) Gathering

9.) The Plumes

10.) Friend, You Will Never Learn*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Arca – &&&&&

by Rio Toro

Arca: &&&&&

Similar Artists: Actress, Laurel Halo, Dean Blunt, Shackleton

Genre: Post-Everything

Label: Hippos In Tanks

Great producers are not uncommon in today’s electronic music scene, but as I see it, there are very few that one could actually call “inspiring”; like how J Dilla’s nearly posthumous Donuts led to a slew of L.A. Hip-hop based producers going down a more experimental and sample based approach. More often than not, when something is deemed “new” — like every Tri-Angle release most surely will be — it is more often “new” in the way that it contains modern sound design and software enabled sleekness rather than “new” in the sense that it contains original ideas and aesthetics. It can seem at times like there is little discovery left to be had in terms of musical inventiveness, as almost everything can be sorted into its own micro-genre with relative ease. This is the reason why there is so much clutter in the field of experimentalism lately, as it is where artists seek refuge and take pride in saying “fuck you!” to the norms. However, the most promising producers might be the ones who can pull off being incomparably abstract yet catchy at the same time. It is these producers that are guaranteed to have successful careers.

Brooklyn based/Venezuelan born producer Alejandro Ghersi, who records as Arca, happens to have more than a few tricks up his sleeves, and despite the fact that he has yet to release a full-length worth of material, he is already proving that he is a one of a kind producer. Quite simply, Arca’s music sounds post-everything (post-internet?), and is futuristic in a not such an easily describable way. Adjectives I have came up with so far are kaleidoscopic, celestial, frigid, and tropical (Clearly, I haven’t done a very good job), but he is also clearly infatuated with hip-hop — at least the distorted kind — and the samples he uses manage to give the music its accessibility. It somehow isn’t as weird as label mates Dean Blunt or James Ferraro, although it’s just as experimentally based if not more so. Needless to say, even when his music fills us with so much intrigue, he’s not the easiest artist to write about

As you might imagine, Arca is quite the enigmatic figure. Even after the release of his critically acclaimed Stretch 2 EP, it was quite surprising to see Arca listed with 4 production credits on Yeezus seeing how so little is known of him. Kanye — or whoever may have sought him out — obviously saw that his productions were surgically precise and meticulously detailed yet raw and obviously supportive of a DIY mentality; this is how I can see him being potentially inspiring for future producers. Just listen to the way he loops vocals on “Fossil”, or the shape shifting piano chords on “Century”, or the way he can sound chaotic and adventurous while still maintaining tightly controlled underneath; it’s all you need to hear to take notice of his exceptionality.

&&&&& is a free 25 minute mixtape by Arca released on Hippos in Tanks. There are 14 tracks each running around 2 minutes, but I recommend that you don’t look at the song titles and let it all flow over you as one continuous piece; like the way it’s presented on the artist’s soundcloud page. It’s by far his most mind altering statement to date, and like the gif’s of the cover art being played on a loop on his webpage ( http://www.arca1000000.com/ ), it can also be rather frightening. If there was a social setting you would be allowed to play this mix in, it would be at 5 in the morning after a party when everyone is already dazed and bent out of their minds. If the drug culture gets a hold of this mix — and they surely will — it would be used in unison with the most intense psychotropics (DMT for example), both because it seems to open a portal to a different world as well as its short running time (DMT only lasts about 25 minutes).

The tracks are diverse, and they are based around an incredibly unique sound palette that turns their influences on their heads. Take opener “Knot” for example, which takes a hyper melodic kosmiche inspired keyboard pattern to verifiable extremes of frequencies. He turns ugly, dated sounds and makes them interesting again — like the ancient hip-hop beats and ambient textures that pervade the mix. Even at the most high pitched moments, it sounds majestic instead of noisy, and we never once feel like Arca doesn’t know what he’s doing.

There are moments on &&&&& where a musical style is at play that I really feel hasn’t been explored before. Better yet, it doesn’t feel like a fluke either. The 14 tracks here express a smorgasbord of intriguing musical developments and is essential for anyone even slightly interested in experimental music. It may only be a mixtape — and a brief one at that — but it just may happen to rival the best full lengths of the year.

Track Listing:

1.) Knot*

2.) Harness

3.) Fossil*

4.) Feminine

5.) Anaesthetic*

6.) Coin

7.) Century*

8.) Mother

9.) Hallucinogen

10.) Pinch*

11.) DM True

12.) Waste

13.) Pure Anna

14.) Obelisk*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: James Holden – The Inheritors

by Rio Toro

James Holden: The Inheritors

Similar Artists: Vladislav Delay, Ital, Pete Swanson, Manual Gottsching

Genre: Sound Collage, Krautrock, Experimental, Noise, Techno

Label: Border Community

The world of electronic music is a constantly moving one — there are seemingly hundreds of micro-genres, new *must have* equipment is put out on a day to day basis, and with intuitive tools like “GarageBand” being readily available on the everyman’s computer, it is easy (almost too easy) for people to make music. Due to these circumstances, the genre (if it can even be called that anymore) is flooded with near unlimited possibility, and because of that, producers seem to always be in a constant state of flux, desperately seeking out that next big sound — or at least a somewhat original one. It’s gotten to the point where every year (or every few months even) an electronic album comes around that is deemed “groundbreaking”, and honestly, keeping up with even the very best of the electronic releases throughout a year is a challenge; especially when you have to factor in that many of these albums take multiple listens to register.

Such is the case with James Holden’s The Inheritors. James Holden is a British producer/DJ who has worked on and off in the scene since the late 90’s. Although he own’s his own record label and released one of the best mixes of the 2000’s with Balance 005, he is arguably most well known for his early trance singles such as “A Break In The Clouds”, or his remix of Nathan Fake’s, “The Sky Was Pink”. With his 2007 debut full length, The Idiots are Winning, he took a side step away from his lush, bigger than life soundscapes to immerse himself more fully in prog and krautrock.

However, even for those of you who have become familiar with James Holden’s non traditional career arc, the first thing you will notice about his 2nd LP is how experimental it is. For one, the tracks are a blend of electro-acoustic instrumentation, with tones that alternate — almost haphazardly — between being sharp and dissonant to fuzzy and warm. Secondly, the tracks are based around live, single take keyboard melodies. This gives the music a whole lot of subtlety — at least some of which was likely unintentional. Even when something sounds like a loop, it isn’t, and once you realize this, hearing each piece play out becomes mesmerizing; since we never know when a drastic change might occur, it also feels rather dangerous. Lastly, there’s always something ominous lying within the depths of these tracks, as if a ritual is taking place and a ghostly apparition may be called forth at any moment.

The experience can be a bit overwhelming at first, and even after a dozen or so listens I am still startled by how layered many of these tracks are. While Holden certainly brushes upon Kosmiche (Circle of Fifths), noise (Sky Burial), minimal (Self Playing Schmaltz), and hauntology (Seven Stars), no track feels like a complete representation of said genre; there is no pure light or pure dark here. Instead, what we get is a series of sound collages that come together in a kind of delicious home made soup bowl. A treat that can only be offered by the very best that experimental music has to offer.

It has become somewhat of a cliche that electronic producers turn out music that is more challenging and inaccessible as their career lengthens, but that doesn’t keep The Inheritors from being any less of it’s own. This project was in fact inspired by William Golding’s 1955 novel of the same name, and while basing an album off of a 60 year old science fiction novel screams over-intellectualism, this is an album that has its more obvious pleasures as well. While people will complain that this music doesn’t contain the same sense of spectacle of Holden’s earlier work, that’s not necessarily true. If you want to find techno, or trance, or house, you can find it — somewhere within these endless waves of static hiss, its all there.

Track Listing:

1.) Rannoch Dawn*

2.) A Circle Inside a Circle*

3.) Renata*

4.) The Caterpillar’s Intervention

5.) Sky Burial

6.) The Illuminations*

7.) Inter-City 125

8.) Delabole

9.) Seven Stars

10.) Gone Feral*

11.) The Inheritors*

12.) Circle of Fifths

13.) Some Respite

14.) Blackpool Late Eighties*

15.) Self-Playing Schmaltz

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: The Haxan Cloak – Excavation

by Rio Toro

The Haxan Cloak: Excavation

Similar Artists: Demdike Stare, Andy Stott, Vessel, Raime

Genre: Experimental

Label: Tri-Angle

If you currently listen to music by way of earbuds/low quality headphones, I am going to ask that you make an upgrade before listening to Excavation. The album bears a startling physicality that stems from low bass frequencies which morph into dense pulses of sound waves. Each note burrows closer and closer into your skull until it has a hold of your very being. However, without the proper equipment, you would essentially be listening to a dark ambient record. Although it’s certainly a different genre, the deep, never ending chords are reminiscent of Sunn O))) at their heaviest. This is downright massive music, as there are single notes which seem to go forever inward. It’s easy to imagine these pulses expanding onward into an unknown oblivion whilst absorbing everything in their path.

Like many artists on Tri-Angle, Bobby Krlic is one of those next level producers whose music requires complete immersion of the senses. If you’re brave enough, surround yourself in darkness for this album’s duration; I dare you to come out of that experience unaffected. Even for those of you who are used to Demdike Stare or Andy Stott, this stands as something else entirely. While there has been a noticeable influx of producers making dark electronic music as of late, The Haxan Cloak has created an album that seems to have a personal tie with the netherworld.

With each track, Krlic guides us into the depths of the afterlife. It’s a place where serpentine bass slithers across our backs and razor wires slice inches away from our necks. Based on the cover alone (which casts a noose suspended in mid air against a black void) you could tell that the album is representative of a hostile environment, but thankfully, the album is much more than a simple horror film soundtrack.

Although Excavation chronicles a voyage that takes place after death, the scenery couldn’t be described as either heaven or hell. The place Krlic has imagined is much closer to a purgatory – or the intermediary portal that eventually leads to a higher state of being. Through the 50 minute running time, we get the feeling of being taken deeper and deeper into the unknown. Each plummeting bass drop sends us spiraling into the abyss. There’s no doubt that it’s an unsettling experience for those of us who are afraid of death – and after all, who isn’t?

It might seem overly esoteric and inaccessible, but despite its harrowing theme, Excavation proves to be strangely inviting. It’s a deeply personal record as well. After you look past the horror aspect, it’s easy to realize how emotional it all is. If you look hard enough, you can even find a lingering optimism regarding the afterlife. As the album progresses, brighter patterns seem to rise from the darkness such as synths and ominous bell segments. It hints at the protagonist’s progression towards a new state of being within a higher realm of existence.

The finale in particular is riveting. Simply titled “The Drop”, it explores a sound palette that is broader and more accessible than the previous tracks, yet it still contains the same sense of mystique and intrigue as what came before. Although it still calls to mind the feeling of being surrounded by darkness, now the very essence of the void has shifted into something that is elegant and beautiful. In a way, it feels as though Krlic has come upon an emotion that is removed from human experience.

Of course, no one knows what the afterlife really is like (if there is one at all). It would be silly to say that this album represents a realistic depiction of death. However, the album is so affecting on a gut level that it is safe to say that the music is representative of something. It may seem overly vague, but that’s the point. That “something” may be a place that exists in the back of your mind or in the depths of your soul. We all have a chasm locked away within ourselves that contains the secrets we long for; this album might be the perfect way to excavate them.

Track Listing:

1.) Consumed

2.) Excavation (Part 1)*

3.) Excavation (Part 2)

4.) Mara

5.) Miste*

6.) The Mirror Reflecting (Part 1)

7.) The Mirror Reflecting (Part 2)*

8.) Dieu

9.) The Drop*

* – Album Highlight

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