Under the deceptive guise of easily absorbed melodies and rhythms, this is gently and subversively experimental. Subversive and submersive, this album lurks beneath a deceptively placid surface. No matter the occasional sweetness, and the apparently feather-delicate melodies, those opening notes on the piano betray a touch, a soupçon of menace. In fact, taking the opener…
Described as, “a fake-concept-album, where drums and guitar samples cohabit, fight, love and breed,” Mountains of Powerless is seven viciously enticing chunks of sound – you could be a rhinoceros and this would still get under your skin – with pulsating industrial soundscapes, glacial guitar feedback sculptures, and outworld rituals for a portable, battery-powered age….
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…
From the first stuttering moment, as bass, drums and guitar gently jostle this is different. What is this so-called music? A mathematically precise drunkard’s walk? Brownian motion made sound? A Morse-like code to whose hidden meaning we lack the key? On first hearing, it’s almost hypnotic but always with a beat ‘out of place’, a…
There was no 2018 end-of-year list for this writer, as Japanese songwriter Eiko Ishibashi’s The Dreams My Bones Dream put the button on the close of that year, being both the record that held the ear and imagination the fastest and the instrument with which he badgered friends and colleagues the most frequently by way…
In their bio and liner notes, RAIC claim various genres – noise, post rock, classical, black metal, free jazz, avant garde, film scores, big band, 70s car chase themes, and lounge – and in this release from January, they pretty much go all-in. Multiplicity indeed. The opening track – Balance Of The Three – is…
As a musician, Anthony Osborne is, in his own words, “a free jazz saxophonist and noisemaker. He likes to work in the intersections between free jazz/free improvisation, noise and drone. He is in eternal pursuit of the ecstatic.” Throw in some poetry or visuals (as in the Union Furnace or Black Howler projects) or favourite…
Anthony Osborne – soprano saxophone, Bb clarinet, harmonica, electronics, bulbul tarang, Ting-Sha, processing. On The Spiritual Dimensions of Boolean Logic Blues For Myself But Ronald, Why Are You Laughing? Japan in Autumn Sunlight On Concrete, Tree Blossom The Last Few Stars Burn Out In A Sky Of Eternal Night (32:31) Muteant Sounds Anthony Osborne should…
