The dog’s not keen – too many eerie drones and unexpected distant noises – but I rarely take the dog’s advice on music. I love it.

If you’ve delighted in the harsh, jagged beauty of Osborne’s recent releases like The Language of the Birds and Storm Heaven and Protest, this is a different kettle: all the expected fire and passion, sure, but wrapped in a less in-your-face aural package. More intimate. Open. Enticing in its sweeps of sound and mood. In places, ambient even.

So, is this Osborne goes Eno? If you like. But the soundscape here is carved with steel and sharp edges – a knife-edged ambience that might leave you relaxed and gently bleeding. Less Music For Airports than Here Come The Warm Threats, perhaps. 

So, noise but not noisy. At the low-volume, delicate end of the Osborne spectrum and, as the old reviewer cliché goes, a welcome addition to his catalogue. And if your dog isn’t keen, the good news is it sounds even better on headphones.


Anthony Osborne – soprano & alto saxophones, electronics, samples.

Berlin Blue
Kether
Sidetripping
Malkuth
Sidereal Time
Spectral Drift

(41:45)
Linear Obsessional

One thought on “Anthony Osborne – An Unknown Animal”

Tell us what you think...