First Impressions 022: Pastoral impressionism, free associating noise, windblown trip-hop, synth vortexes and more.

Initial vibes on new music

Hello,

Not much to add here this week along with the reviews, except one question:

With the expanded edition of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II forthcoming and the renewed spotlight on it as a pioneering work in the field, just how ambient is Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92? Perhaps this is an opprtunity to reissue that also as Selected Atmospheric Techno Works 85 - 92.
Comment below!
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OK, let’s go:

Water Still Flows - Rich Ruth: The Nashville artist seems boundless in his quest to reinvigorate fusion as more than a nostalgia trip for ECM blowhards. (like me) In the ecstasy-first expanse of this new album, Ruth has found a flow-state of open excess, charged with heady spiritual jazz, prog-metal doom and cosmic synth minimalism, cannily conceived with equal parts pomp and ceremony.  If you find something beautiful in the display of sparks running off an anglegrinder, this is possibly your kind of uncanny jam.  

Meridians – Fuubutsushi: Speaking of ECM blowhards, the beautiful thing about this pandemic-born, remote-working quartet of violinist Chris Jusell, guitarist Chaz Prymek, percussionist and keyboardist Matthew Sage and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi has been their patient steps over four albums, each player contributing to a distinct air revolving around rumination and slow turnings. The way they stretch out on this new double-length has them positively bumpin’ by comparison in some parts, often swinging and shuffling out of their soft bomb approach towards exuberant pulses closer to the exquisite ends of TNT-era Tortoise. Still, Meridians still bottles the group’s way with lightness and subtlety, daubed by a pastoral sense of impressionism in an atmosphere-steeped outing also remindful of the great Kenny Wheeler. (ECM blowhard reference, but please investigate)

(https://cached.media/meridians)

Elixa – Th Blisks: In the continuous Xerox cycle of 90s and 2000s revisionism, Th Blisks are casting their own shadow, not tracing outlines. Elixa is a kind of windblown trip hop, stripping that sound’s blueprint of upscaled soul down to a stream of foggy signals and narcotic submissions. Riffing on cold post punk isolationism and dub smears that are more muffled than blunted, Elixa lifts from its state of submerge with echoing guitar melodies and Amelia’s Besseny’s starry vocal inviting a shoegaze pop swirl into this slow twisting, disarmingly globby concoction.

Clearing - Powers / Rolin Duo: Two longform pieces from the Cleveland, Ohio duo whose improvisations for hammered dulcimer and guitar continually cascade into the epic without pretence. In their light-fingered, delicate approach, both players show themselves to be true minimalists who happen to play traditional folk instruments, threading sinuous patterns in the name of harmony, intimacy and the power of sensation and movement towards open spaces of energy  where love is high up in the air.

speak, thou vast and venerable head - Loula Yorke: After the distinct glassy synth works of her previous Volta album, the UK artist rumbles closer to earth with this new album, making her modular compositions a vortex of grit and force. Interestingly, this has been produced for UK label quiet details, whose premise is to ask artists to interpret that phrase as they like. It splinters and bulges with detail, but there’s not much that’s quiet about it, as Yorke expertly steers a mass of textures that variously bang, blur and crackle. She has likened the overall effect to being on an imaginary ship:  indeed it’s all full steam ahead along choppy waters.

Out of Practice - Yellow Swans: A return after 15 years absence from this noise duo, a cornerstone of the DIY fuckery that spooked and thrilled America’s CD-R and tape underground in the 2000s. Out of Practice attacks its sound sources - guitar blizzards, tape loops and electronics – with a loose abandon like the overspill and fizz of elements mixed in a test tube. That’s not to say these dab hands don’t have any control over proceedings, more that they shake out any idea of flow being linear as opposed to the charge of real-time moments conjured from free association and the chance for abstract reverie.   

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Sydney people, take note: Longform Editions has partnered with the Art Gallery of New South Wales for their Volume Festival. We’ve commissioned four new exclsuive longform works to reverberate throughout the gallery during Volume, heigheting these spaces’ potential for meditation and transition.

More here -

https://longformeditions.com/actions/threshold

Volume has a great program ahead inclusing LE alumni Eiko Ishibashi, Kim Gordon and more -

https://volume.sydney/

With thanks to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Volume.

Thanks for reading.
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Andrew Khedoori is the curator of Longform Editions.
First Impressions visual by Mark Gowing.