This post represents the continuation of this week’s Utility Fog – find the main post here. Times being as they are, I’m socially distancing myself at home (not quite self-isolation), and have recorded the show(s) here. The wonders of the cloud! The lovely Joseph Earp who presents This Is A Love Song usually after me has been feeling a little under the weather, and that’s enough for him to keep himself at home. So here we are… two more hours of Utility Fog selections!
We’ve got a few repeats of artists from earlier, and some extraordinary longform works.

So tuck yourself in and LISTEN AGAIN for the longform love… You can stream on demand from the This Is Not A Love Song page on FBi’s website, or of course podcast it here.

Beatriz Ferreyra – Echos [Room40/Bandcamp]
I’m so glad that Lawrence English has introduced me to the work of Argentinian composer Beatriz Ferreyra via his Room40 label. Active since the 1960s, she is still making music now. These works can be seen as musique concrète, but to me they’re actually more engaging than a lot of the original concrète work which seems strangely gimmicky now (an unfair generalisation no doubt!). These three works are all quite fabulous – two based around vocal manipulation, one involving percussion and a lot of spatial movement. The piece “Echos” goes back to 1978 and is made up entirely of recordings of her niece, who was killed in a car accident. It’s quite a beautiful tribute to her – lively and full of movement.

Luciano Berio – Altra voce [col legno]
An even more longform work now, from groundbreaking and highly influential Italian 20th century composer Luciano Berio. This piece from 1999 is for mezzo soprano (here Monica Bacelli), alto flute (a beguiling sound, here performed by Michele Marasco) and live electronics (Francesco Giomi, Damiano Meacci and Kilian Schwoon), taken from the double CD Les Espaces Électroacoustiques II released by the col legno label. I find the dischords beautiful here, many created by live electronic manipulation, and the way the low female voice and low flute’s sonorities interact is exquisite. The text is by Berio’s third wife, Talia Pecker Berio.

Wacław Zimpel – Release [Ongehoord]
Polish composer Wacław Zimpel is one of those talented young artists who is classically trained but also plays jazz improv and draws from techno and psych rock and whatever else he pleases. His latest album Massive Oscillations grooves through four long tracks – kosmische synth pulsations, something like minimal techno, and this final track featuring the voice of Holly Hock. It’s the most “classical” sounding piece on the album, with rhythmic tuned percussion, but it could also be ambient electronica of some sort. The whole album is mixed by James Holden, who adds his organic techno feel to the proceedings.

FEAN – Wetterreid [Moving Furniture Records/Bandcamp]
You can read more about FEAN on my earlier post. This track comes from their first album, released in late 2018.

Síria – Gloria [Crónica/Bandcamp]
Síria – Danse macabre [Crónica]
Like FEAN, I played Diana Combo‘s Síria on the earlier show tonight, so much more info there. I played her wondrously strange cover of Patti Smith’s “Gloria” from 2018, and a swirling, crushing track from her new one.

Mise_En_Scene – Patterned Clouds (Adam Basanta‘s Random Groups Rework) [Crónica/Bandcamp]
Also on Portugal’s Crónica, Mise_En_Scene is the work of Tel Aviv musician Shay Nassi. The fabulously glitchy piece here is a remix by Tel Aviv-born but Vancouver-based Adam Basanta.

Pablo’s Eye – Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu parisien [Longform Editions/Bandcamp]
Belgian collective Pablo’s Eye have been around since 1989 and are one of those groups that you’re sure you’ve heard of and you know you’ve heard some tracks somewhere… Well now I need to go and find out, because this track for Sydney’s Longform Editions is quite a delight. Over nearly 19 minutes, the same things happen in various orders, at times coalescing into lovely electronica with beats and bassline, at other times gently flowing back and forth. The track is named for a practice of the French experimental author Georges Perec, sitting in a French café and recording every single event and thing that passed through his field of vision…

Ground Patrol – Rain/Fracture [Art As Catharsis/Bandcamp]
The Sydney-New York duo Ground Patrol are made up of familiar fellow Alon Ilsar on drums (not AirSticks!) and Kyle Sanna on guitar. Both are comfortable working across many genres, but here the project circles around math rock, krautrock and even postrock – although after a mathy first half, this track melts away into patient ambient sound. It’s my favourite track from their new album Geophone, so I’m glad I have this opportunity to play the whole thing.

The Plains – The Zone [chemical imbalance]
Finally tonight, one side of the debut cassette from Sydney duo The Plains, made up of two Sydney music stalwarts. Luke Telford played in the long-lost, lovely postrock/indie band Derwent River Star, and is a very talented writer. Kell Derrig-Hall is known as The Singing Skies, and also had an experimental duo called Moonmilk with his wife Lia Tsamoglou aka Melodie Nelson. The Plains is an exercise in patient minimalism, centred around their two acoustic guitars, layered with distant field recordings and synth fx. Blissful late-night listening.

Listen again — ~210MB

Broadcasting from home… Now that NSW is about to be in lockdown, I’m already ensconsed at home, keeping safe. It’s been a hectic week, not just with the progressively more severe announcements as the COVID-19 situation gets worse, but also because Bandcamp decided to make Friday very special by waiving their revenue share for 24 hours, in support of artists losing income (and potentially their entire livelihoods) due to restrictions from the coronavirus catastrophe. This caused an absolute frenzy of new music being uploaded and released on Bandcamp over the last couple of days – impossible to keep up with!

So… let’s take joy and solace in music. Not only have we got our usual Utility Fog goodness tonight, but there’s a bonus 2 hours afterwards as I’m filling in for Joe Earp who’s a little under the weather and playing it safe by staying in. You’ll see a separate post about part 2!
As usual, LISTEN AGAIN for your comfort – stream on demand from FBi or podcast here.

The God In Hackney – The Pub Machine [Junior Aspirin Records/Bandcamp]
The God In Hackney – Carbon Date (Shed) [Junior Aspirin Records/Bandcamp]
The God In Hackney – Sur La Piste des Bêtes Ignorées [Junior Aspirin Records/Bandcamp]
The God In Hackney – Crumble & Collapse [Junior Aspirin Records/Bandcamp]
I discovered UK band The God In Hackney only a week or so again, when their wonderful song “The Adjoiner” was featured on The Wire Tapper 52, accompanying the April issue of The Wire. Their new album Small Country Eclipse appears to be officially released on the 1st of June, but digitally it’s just come out this week!
Formed in 2003 by Andy Cooke and Nathaniel Mellors, joined by the other two for their first album Cave Moderne in 2014. They are one of those UFog-loved affairs of great, catchy songs with really unusual arrangements. Excellent, flowing drums (or indeed stop-start drums) from Ashley Marlowe, acoustic and sometimes dubbed-out by Mellors, with many acoustic instruments as well as plenty of electronics. Andy Cooke is credited with “fire extinguisher” as well as vocals, keyboards, and guitars. And Dan Fox contributes multiple instruments including cello and trombone. There are heaps of influences here, from krautrock & spiritual jazz to experimental electronic, leftfield pop, dub and more. It’s such classic UFog music it hurts.

Tropical Fuck Storm – Suburbiopia [Joyful Noise Records/Bandcamp]
That always topical (and always slightly obtuse) fuckstorm, Australia’s greatest punk-funk experimental rockers Tropical Fuck Storm have just released the A-side of a new 7″, written & sung by Fiona Kitschin. The usual score with TFS – melodic but angular, hard-hittin’, lyric-spittin’.

Sparkspitter – Life Horse [Sparkspitter Bandcamp]
Adelaide instrumental rock band Sparkspitter have taken a really long time to release this new 2-track single. It was originally recorded in 2017. I know the feeling. Anyway, both tracks are awesome – chiming guitar patterns and thumping drums and edges of feedback loops. And all proceeds go to the excellent Seed, Indigenous Youth Climate Network. Grab it!

The Letter String Quartet feat. Marita Dyson – Same But Swallowed [The Letter String Quartet Bandcamp]
The Letter String Quartet feat. Marita Dyson – Blossoms of the Wreck [The Letter String Quartet Bandcamp]
This wonderful album slipped under my radar, although I’ve had conflicting news about release date. I thought it was mid March but Bandcamp says it came out a month ago. Melbourne ensemble The Letter String Quartet feature some very experienced musicians who play across contemporary classical and pop/indie genres. Steph O’Hara, Lizzy Welsh are the violinists, Biddy Connor the violist and artistic director, and Zoë Barry the cellist. Their new album All The Stories is a song cycle is a collaboration between poet Maria Zajkowski and Connors compositions/arrangements, with vocals by The Orbweavers‘ Marita Dyson (although one song is a lovely Orbweavers cover). The works are inspired by the experiences of women residing at the Abbotsford Convent in the 1900s – an orphanage, a convent for nuns and a place where women were taken who had become pregnant out of wedlock. These rich and moving stories are set with both experimental and beautiful string arrangements – I’m drawn to return to this album a lot, and highly recommend that you spend some time with it.

Helen Money – Many Arms [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Helen Money – Marrow [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Helen Money – Understory [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Alison Chesley, as Helen Money, is a pioneering, genre-smashing doom cellist, who I’ve been a fan of for many years. Despite her great history of punshing riffage and layered cello distortion, and some great collaborations including one with Jarboe, this album floored me. The riffs are there, but there are also beautiful passages of gentler stuff, multiple cellos with piano and ambient synthesisers & crackling electronics (provided by producer Will Thomas aka Plumbline and also heavy music legend Sanford Parker). There’s maximalism and minimalism here, and it seems lovely to bridge from The Letter String Quartet’s neoclassical song arrangements through pummeling cello-metal and then floating cello & piano to get to the next material…

Ian William Craig – The Smokefallen [130701/Bandcamp]
Ian William Craig – Open Like a Loss [130701/Bandcamp]
There’s a hell of a story with the new Ian William Craig album, and there are a couple of “hells” in here which are achingly familiar. IWC took himself off to a city called Kelowna in British Columbia (Canada) to find some space to record his next album, and to hang out with his Grampa who had just gone into palliative care. And here’s the thing: the city was surrounded by forest fires – a now-regular occurence due to climate change. Oh how well we know this in Australia! His Grampa’s lungs filled with fluid as a result of breathing in the smoke, and tragically passed away within a week of Ian’s arrival.
Ian continued recording, and this awful situation finds an outlet in the always-moving sounds from Craig – his classically-trained voice and piano layered on tape machines, which are used to saturate, distort and twist the sound. It’s visceral, physically touching music. There’s more to this story, which you can read in the Bandcamp description, go on.

Max de Wardener, performed by Kit Downes – Deranged Landscape [Village Green/Bandcamp]
Max de Wardener, performed by Kit Downes – Blueshift [Village Green/Bandcamp]
Pianos disturbed in different ways here, from composer Max de Wardener (whose earliest works include some UFog-beloved skittery idm and folktronica), performed by experimental musician, pianist & organist Kit Downes. It’s not often that you hear deliberately detuned pianos, other than that “honky tonk” style of never-tuned saloon bar jazz. Here de Wardener is deliberately looking for the otherworldly effect of “off” resonances. At times it makes my stomach turn, but de Wardener & Downes ably demonstrate the possibilities here, from the spooky-gorgeous echoing quietness of “Deranged Landscape” to the classical-folk of “Blueshift”, where the clearly articulated detuned notes chime out like bell tones.

FEAN – Soere molke [laaps Bandcamp]
FEAN – Ketlik [Moving Furniture Records/Bandcamp]
FEAN – Swellen [laaps Bandcamp]
From the ending of the great French experimental/ambient label eilean records comes new venture laaps records. Their second release is also the second release from a European supergroup of sorts, FEAN.
One half is the grouping of Dutch musicians who record as Piiptsjilling: the Kleefstra brothers Jan Kleefstra (spoken words) and Romke Kleefstra (guitar, bass and effects), along with singer Mariska Baars and electronic musician Rutger Zuydervelt, who you may know as Machinefabriek (considering I play him ALL THE TIME on this show). For FEAN they are joined by a selection of Belgian musicians: Annelies Monseré (church organ, keyboard), Sylvain Chauveau (credited here to tuned percussion and radio) and Joachim Badenhorst, whose wonderful clarinet, bass clarinet & saxophone tones are heard throughout.
It’s always strange with the Kleefstras’ projects to hear the poetry of Jan spoken in Frisian, a language group found only in the north of the Netherlands. So very few people will understand these words, but such is the soothing voice of Jan Kleefstra that it always sounds evocative and welcoming. Around this we have drones and slow-moving instrumental conversations. It’s neither as minimalist as it sounds nor as abstract – rather it’s organic and adventurous.

Síria – Canção do Gato [Crónica/Bandcamp]
Síria – Senhora do Almortão [Crónica/Bandcamp]
Síria – Nos Montes [Crónica/Bandcamp]
Síria is the current musical project for Portuguese musician Diana Combo. Her first album Cuspo made a heavy impression in 2018, repurposing avant-garde works on vinyl (all credited), layering different works along with her own effects and then performing her own songs along with them. So on the middle track here she takes music by Svarte Greiner along with her own cymbal playing and vocals. For her new album Boa-Língua she performs versions of traditional songs and a few originals, again with her own percussion and vocals. “Nos Montes” was also remixed by long-established Portuguese experimental electronic duo @c. The album’s title literally means “good tongue”, in contrast to the term “má-língua”, which translates as “tittle-tattle” or gossip. The album is an attempt to address the way some people will speak obliquely, deliberately misunderstand etc. It’s fiercly creative, original work.

Listen again — ~181MB

On this apocalyptic weekend where Australia is on the brink of heavy action against the coming COVID-19 explosion, we’ve got beautiful experimental songwriter music, experimental post-classical, ambient and experimental electronics of various sorts…

If you are self-isolating and feeling lonely, you can have my voice bringing you wonderful music from years & years by clicking through the archives on this blog – the sidebar should have month-by-month archives going back years.
You can LISTEN AGAIN to tonight’s show either by streaming on demand at FBi’s website, or podcasting here.

Hilary Woods – Tongues of Wild Boar [Sacred Bones/Bandcamp]
Hilary Woods – Take Him In [Sacred Bones/Bandcamp]
Hilary Woods – The Mouth [Sacred Bones/Bandcamp]
The first solo album from Irish artist Hilary Woods, released by Sacred Bones in 2018, was a collection of bewitching simple tunes with piano, guitar, sparse percussion and synths. It followed her tenure in Dublin-based indie rock band JJ72, but it was a while between her leaving that band and releasing her first solo record. The new album, called Birthmarks, was recorded while heavily pregnant, and much of it was put together in Oslo, working with the great Norwegian noise artist Lasse Marhaug. Cello from his frequent collaborator Okkyung Lee is also all over the album, and Jenny Hval appears on synths as well. It’s incredible work, very evocative, and utterly uncompromising, with industrial rhythms, scraping cello noises, lots of unsettling ambience, across a couple of instrumental tracks and some moving, haunting songwrting. Highly recommended.

The God In Hackney – The Adjoiner [Junior Aspirin Records/The Wire]
Elizabeth A. Baker – Command Voices – 415x [Aerocade Music/The Wire]
April’s issue of The Wire has arrived digitally, and with it, the 52nd edition of The Wire Tapper cover CD. As usual there’s some very interesting music on there – a few things I know and/or own, and lots I’d never encountered. The God In Hackney instantly attracted my attention with a vocal that reminds me of e.g. Gordon Sharp‘s work with This Mortal Coil, but a skittering drum beat underlying the vocals and drones. Wonderful, can’t wait for this album. Meanwhile, Florida composer & performer Elizabeth A. Baker is a “new Renaissance artist” who works with toy pianos and electronics, although I feel in this excerpt from a new double album there’s a real piano’s insides being dissected. Lovely sounds.

Keith Fullerton Whitman – Fairport Convention; “Fotheringay” (1969) [Keith Fullerton Whitman Bandcamp]
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Aphex Twin; “Alberto Balsalm” (1995) [Keith Fullerton Whitman Bandcamp]
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Contemporary Drummer #6 [Keith Fullerton Whitman Bandcamp]
I’ve been following Keith Fullerton Whitman‘s work for decades now, since his pioneering drum’n’bass/breakcore work as Hrvatski from the mid-to-late ’90s, and I’ve been friends with him for a fair amount of that time. He’s a lovely, generous guy with wide interests and strong opinions, and his knowledge of 20th & 21st century electronic music – musique concrète and sound-art of all sorts, noise, as much as IDM and jungle and techno – is unparalleled. And it all turns up in his prodigious musical output, which is now appearing at quite a clip on his Bandcamp. He’s also a prodigious self-documenter, so what you get is an overwhelming amount of material a lot of the time – rehearsal tapes, alternate versions etc. Here we have examples from two recent series. Resonators (1) sees him taking beloved works and looping segments of them, which are sent through a set of effects which draw out particular resonances & frequencies through reverbs, EQs, ring mods etc I presume. Some tracks, like the two tonight, are quite recognizable, while others come out as beautiful drones.
Meanwhile, the “Redactions” series takes sound sources and absolutely mangles them. Here (for Contemporary Drummer [Redactions]) various drum solos ripped from YouTube are messed up with various other sound sources, originally in 4-channel settings. For the release they’ve been reduced to stereo and should be listened to as loudly as possible. I chose a relatively polite part, which I find rather compelling… but I wish I could hear it loud in a room with four separate channels…

Hidden Valley Logging Company – 902 (C.E. Mix) [Lillerne Tapes]
Hidden Valley Logging Company – Channel Looper [Lillerne Tapes]
Chicago label Lillerne Tapes can be relied on for really interesting, evocative sounds ranging from ambient to dubby techno, trip-hop, glitch etc. This is their second release from Vancouver-based producer Cameron Everatt aka Hidden Valley Logging Company, and it’s a fair bit less ambient than his previous releases (although I did lean on the more beat-based tracks here). Head-nodding beats with deep, looping textures and minimalist melodies make for a really satisfying listen – absolutely love this, great driving music, or indeed stay-at-home music.

Temp-Illusion – Two Ships [Zabte Sote]
Temp-Illusion – Excerpt from Autoelected Side B [Zabte Sote]
Temp-Illusion – Nankraws [Zabte Sote]
I’m so glad to finally be able to play the new album from Iranian duo Temp-Illusion. The duo, made up of Shahin Entezami and Behrang Najafi, sent me a copy a while ago and I was blown away. I would’ve played it early, but of course last week was International Women’s Day, so here we have it tonight, along with an excerpt from their previous live release. Both albums are released on Ata Ebtekar’s Zabte Sote label dedicated to adventurous music from the Persian massive in Iran and the world over, and Temp-Illusion are such a talented pair of musicians from Tehran, really pushing the limits of electronic production and beat-making. New album PEND concerns itself with the way external factors can rule one’s life – especially in Iran, where rumours of war alongside external sanctions and different levels of leadership (or lack thereof) create a situation of continuous anxiety, ruins the economy, destroys life. Still, the music here is pretty life-affirming. It’s dark and glitchy but complex and melodic, smart and funky.
My heart goes out to all my Persian friends and acquaintances. It must be a particularly scary time at the moment…

Nazar – Intercept [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Nazar – Airstrike (feat. Shannen SP) [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Nazar – Retaliation [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Angolan producer Nazar grew up in Belgium, and moved back to Angola after their bloody civil war. He’s now based in Manchester, and his music combines various contemporary forms of UK club music with Angola’s native kuduro to create a heavy, intense atmosphere of dread and oppression. His father was a guerilla general during the civil war and it’s conversations with his father as well as his wartime memoire which informed the new album Guerilla. Like 2018’s Enclave, the album features kuduro weaponised with sounds of guns cocking, field recordings and sounds of Angolan voices singing and speaking, and lots of heavy electronic beats. It’s pretty intense and amazing.

Tennis Pagan – 70114 [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Tennis Pagan – Pli [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Finishing up tonight with something new from a new Melbourne artist called Tennis Pagan. We have no info to speak of – it’s their debut release, and it’s nice glitchy idm and stuff. One track here is a bit more abstract and beatless, but I was mostly talking over that. Then I played a lovely bouncy bit of melodic drill’n’bass. EKO is a great little EP, get into it.

Listen again — ~206MB

A rare International Women’s Day edition of Utility Fog. It’s not that rare for me to program a lot of music by women, but it’s not that often that the show actually falls on IWD, so it’s nice to be able to celebrate that in style. So much to choose from too!

LISTEN AGAIN, listening is good, listening is necessary. Podcast here, stream on demand from FBi.

Leah Kardos – Bird Rib [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Apology [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Remnant 2 [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Sexy Monday [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Novice [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Little Phase [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Into Sporks [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
London composer Leah Kardos, who grew up in Brisbane but has been in the UK so long she’s a native now, is a beloved stalwart of Utility Fog playlists, with her combined interests & deep capabilities in classical composition, electronica and pop – indeed she’s teaching a BA(Hons) in Music Technology at the University of Kingston in London nowadays. Since her last album Roccocochet in 2017, she founded the Visconti Studio at the University with the venerable longtime David Bowie producer Tony Visconti. It’s great to have a new album from her, one which looks back at her earlier work and builds a number of compositions from reversed and manipulated versions of older works.
We went back to that original wonder, 2011’s Feather Hammer – two tracks, the sampled yearning voices over emotive piano on “Apology”, and the live acoustic cut-ups and piano-percussion of “Remnant 2”. From 2013’s Machines, featuring the classically-trained Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz on vocals, we have spam emails turned into IDM pop, and then from Spirit Level’s 2017 Piano Day comp Kindred Spirits, her pitch-perfect mute-pedal post-classical piano ballad “Novice”. Finally, on 2017’s Roccocochet, Leah abandoned computer recording techniques almost entirely, so on “Little Phase” we have a live ensemble performing a piece that’s equal parts minimalist composition and post-rock. And we finish back with the new album, where “Into Sporks” harkens back to the IDM beats of Leah’s earlier work.

Belia Winnewisser – Lower [Buh Records/The Wire]
From a compilation of Swiss Underground Experimental Music from late last year, this is a new track of glitchy electronica from producer Belia Winnewisser, a cross between almost academic sound design and quite catchy electronica. Her last release was 2018, so I hope we get something more from her this coming year along the lines of this track!

Soho Rezanejad – Ezra [Silicone Records/SHAPE Platform 2019/The Wire]
I first discovered Danish-Iranian artist Soho Rezanejad via her beautiful vocals on Croatian Amor‘s Love Means Taking Action album. I now need to investigate her two albums on her Silicone Records, from which this track is taken – experimental electronic techniques, extended vocal techniques, a pop sensibility but also a love of darkness, drones and noise. What’s not to love!

Carla dal Forno – Blue Morning [Blackest Ever Black]
Another Australian artist (here from Melbourne) who’s relocated to London, Carla dal Forno has a background in quite experimental ensembles, but creates subtle, catchy minimalist pop with some surprising instruments and a talent for getting under your skin. Her last album came out on her own new Kallista Records label, in no small part because the label who nurtured her earlier releases, Blackest Ever Black, has now closed up shop with this last compilation, aptly titled A short illness from which he never recovered.

Bonniesongs – Sand Dunes [Bonniesongs]
Hot on the heels of her wonderful debut album Energetic Mind, Sydney-based Irish musician Bonnie Stewart aka Bonniesongs recently released this gorgeous new song, inspired by a trip into the NSW wilderness with the improv ensemble Splinter Orchestra, which was followed by the devastation of the recent bushfires. It features regular collaborator Freya Schack-Arnott on cello, and all profits go to WIRES.

Lack The Low – Convert The Masses [Provenance Records]
More strings here, with a stunning track combining beauty with harshness from Melbourne singer-songwriter Kat Hunter aka Lack The Low, from another bushfire fundraiser, Provenance Records’ Marks of Provenance III.

Insect Ark – Tectonic [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Lift Off [Insect Ark Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – The Collector [AutumnSongs Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Daath [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Swollen Sun [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Dana Schechter is a very busy woman. I first heard her work in Michael Gira’s Angels of Light, which combined sometimes heavy sonics with psychedelic folk and roots. She now plays in the touring line-up of Swans, as well as joining the doom-folk of Wrekmeister Harmonies, and the insanely evil extreme metal band Gnaw, among many others. But among a few of her own ensembles, she’s recorded as Insect Ark since 2011. The 2013 EP Lift Off already showcases the doomy riffs and disconcerting sonic experimentation of the project, and the brilliant 2015 debut album Portal/Well has punishing doom riffs and dark drones aplenty. Schecter’s multi-instrumental talents have her playing massive basslines alongside pedal steel and electronics, but for the last two albums she’s augmented the band into a duo with drummers Ashley Spungin for 2018’s Marrow Hymns, and now Andy Patterson (of the great female-led folk/metal group SubRosa, RIP) for 2020’s The Vanishing, both released on Profound Lore Records. The fact that it’s instrumental makes it no less heavy and no less absorbing. It’s all about the bloody great riffs and sonic exploration (e.g. the binaural panning of the lovely ambient track I finished with).

Laura Cannell – BE ONE – The Tallest Tower [Brawl Records]
A stunning field recording of church bells recorded in Cow Hill, Norwich is at the centre of this new track from Laura Cannell, English folk violinist from the UK. She has requested recordings of bells from around the world to incorporate into new recordings – a series called The Bell Effect Project. These ringing tones in the first track to be released fit beautifully with the organ drones and (perhaps?) electronics here. I hope there are more of these soon!

Maria Moles – II [Nice Music]
Releases from solo percussionists can often be surprising affairs. Melbourne percussionist Maria Moles works extensively with contemporary ensembles and composers as well as bands and electronic musicians. Her own practice involves live drums and percussion layered and then manipulated with filters and modulators. This track, the second side of a cassette recently released by Melbourne’s Nice Music, starts with a loping repetitive rhythm but slowly the sounds are swamped in resonant electronics, eventually fading to nothing and restarting a few times in different ways. It’s quite wonderful to zone out to, or to follow closely.

Listen again — ~196MB