I will walk heavy and I will walk strange.

Mark Z. Danielewski

Most Recent

The Quietus •

Reviews | Deathprod

Following in the still reverberating footsteps of last year’s world-clobbering opus Sow Your Gold In The White Foliated Earth, Compositions might initially feel a little flat. Backwards looking, even. And, in certain respects, that case might be made. The attacked strings and explorative scales that propelled 2022’s ode to Harry Partch out of Deathprod’s usual sonic cul-de-sac, for example, have been set aside as swiftly as they appeared to arrive...
The Quietus •

Album Of The Week | Distant Worlds: One By S t a r g a z e

Venturing out into the streets, you can catch glimpses of the pandemic’s claw marks here and there. A masked person or two on public transport. Congealing hand wash stations in shop doorways. The wheeze of permanently altered lungs. Soft bruises and deeper scars haven’t fully healed. As I type this, I’ve just received confirmation that I can book my next inoculation (is it jab number three or four? Who could say? Perhaps this is the one that’ll finally contain the 5G chip…)
The Quietus •

Reviews | Shake Chain

In this access-all era of music and the near-constant reinforcing of the status quo into quite narrow parameters, it’s not always possible to stumble upon something that catches you off guard. Hearing something that dares to do things a little differently can be jarring or unsettling. But it’s those outsider peripheries where the more interesting boundary-pushing acts are likely to be found. And it’s precisely where Shake Chain hang out.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Sea Moss

The unsettling Youtube sensation Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared recently took the leap to full television series status. In it three friends/roommates (very much up for debate) are visited by confounding, inept, irritating, and sinister characters who wish to teach them some sort of dubious life lesson via the medium of song. This typically results in a musical number with a shrill peak of pure cacophonous mayhem, causing blood to weep from the eyes and ears of the three pals.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Sarah Davachi

In 2014, during the lead up to their US premiere in Tennessee, the experimental supergroup Nazoranai, which consists of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Stephen O’Malley, were the subject of a documentary by filmmakers Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss. At one point during the film, O’Malley describes a time when he was stopped from interrupting a Haino “soundcheck” because the Japanese musician was processing all of the oxygen in the venue, inhaling and exhaling for an hour until he was satisfied that all of the particles had passed through his respiratory system. On Two Sisters, it feels as if Sarah Davachi is permeating our pores in a similar fashion.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is dancing in an eye-scorching tumble of neon bricks and video game aesthetics. Her physical movements have been tracked via a motion capture suit and used to generate a 3D avatar of herself. It’s a hyperreal world that merges her new album’s sound palette and the 3D-generated visual landscapes that make up the accompanying music videos and the record’s sleeve artwork featuring her body wrapped in heat-sensitive armour, her hair and her left arm gloriously aflame.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Staraya Derevnya

“Let’s say it’s a mass of data… waiting for a correct interpretation” – Peter Brock, The Stone Tape. In 1972, following the BBC’s airing of Christmas ghost story, The Stone Tape, a theory arose that the energy generated during traumatic or emotional events could be recorded onto rocks and replayed at a later date. This psychometric notion, known as The Stone Tape Theory, lays the foundations for the latest release from self-professed ‘Krautfolk collective’ Staraya Derevnya.
Echoes And Dust •

Holy Scum - Strange Desires

Combining the ear-flattening forces of Action Beat’s former axeman, Salford’s finest head Gnodders and the noise slinger responsible for Dälek’s atonal assault was never going to result in a bundle of twee folk tunes (mind you, The Body & Big Brave did surprise us on that count last year) but, despite prior forewarning, it’s still damn hard to prepare yourself for just how truly oppressive Holy Scum’s onslaught is on Strange Desires.
Echoes And Dust •

Knifedoutofexistence - Mist Clouds The View

There’s always been a sense of obfuscation with Knifedoutofexistence’s music. His vocals often appearing quite low in the mix, demanding that the listeners lean in to try and decipher his words. Then there’s the sound palette itself – bolshy, hardened distortion intermingling with struck metal, field recordings, and carved synths to create heady, shrouded atmospheres of loss and longing. Despite the eponymous allusions, Mist Clouds The View appears to buck this clouding trend.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Wilma Vritra

Coming together via, I assume, a secret network of tunnels that stretch from Los Angeles to London, Wilma Archer and Vritra have followed up their 2019 collaboration, Burd, with the subterranean assemblage,Grotto. Despite the name, the production on Grotto is anything but dank. Archer’s sound palette has made a huge leap forward from the understated lo-fi sounds on Burd. Boasting a vast array of strings, orchestral swells, and coated in full technicolor luminescence, Grotto is an album for synaesthetes.
Echoes And Dust •

Clara Engel - Their Invisible Hands

When I was young my grandfather used to say that his favourite musician was Hank Williams. When pressed on why this was, his response was often that “he can make his guitar talk”. It was an answer that I struggled to understand as a child. Why would he want to make his guitar talk? Sing? Yes – I could see why that would be of use. Making it roar even seemed to make some sort of sense, but talking? Who would want to hear a guitar having a natter? I couldn’t wrap my head around it...
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