Category: Reviews (Page 8 of 206)

LOULA YORKE Time is a Succession of Such Shapes

5 August 2025 /

Following up 2024’s ‘Volta’, modular synthesist Loula Yorke is happy to declare ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’.

While its predecessor was born out of composed sequences, ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is an ambitious double opus that documents the Suffolk-based artist’s year of sonic journaling to record her daily life in rural England.

The end result is that Loula Yorke has presented a set of recordings that hum with soft voltage and modular shimmer for a peaceful aural glow with gentle looping melodies and field recordings fusing electronics and nature.

After the feeling of overwhelm exuded on ‘It’s been decided that if you lay down no-one will die’ from ‘Volta’, ‘Never Be Nervous Again’ makes a statement of focus and determination in its sonic collage. ‘Beautiful Things in Humble Places’ is just that, swathed in gorgeous sound design while ‘Everything Beating at the Same Brittle Pulse’ is appropriately named as well, fragile tones outlining things could break at any moment if not treated with care.

There are three variations of ‘Kenning’ with “Part I” comprising of abstract bleeps; however “Part II” livens up and brings in percussive elements while “Part III” gets much more rhythmic and swoopier before going a bit TANGERINE DREAM… like ‘Sparrowfall’ on Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Films’, this trilogy may have been better tracklisted together as a kind of “Kenning Suite”.

‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes I’ uses pretty hypnotic arpeggios that drift into meditative resonances while ‘Barely Aware of the Cup in My Hands’ expresses Erik Satie desire to make music that could “mingle with the sound of the knives and forks at dinner” by using a variety of kitchen utensils to accompany a soothing passage of electronics and subtle beats.

‘Let a Sound Complete Its Life II’ takes a diversion by playing around with drum ‘n’ bass while remaining cool and atmospheric, but not at all gentle or melodic is the generative swarm of ‘Spork’. ‘Sorry I Threw Away All Your Nails’ starts with a sweeping edge but withdraws as it apologises as ‘An Ironic Yet Devastating Demand’ explores the darker moodier side of cottage life.

In most of the pieces, there are subtle tunes and in the way that the melodies stretch and the systems loop, ‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is an accessible yet simultaneously cerebral record that possesses a giddy joy which can savoured as a set moment away from the noise of modern life.

“This isn’t an escape, but a quiet slipstream running alongside. A dream half-recalled, still happening in another room.”

‘Time is a Succession of Such Shapes’ is released as a double CD with bonus mixtape album ‘The Book Of Commonplace’ and download by Truxalis on 6th August 2025, available from https://loulayorke.bandcamp.com/album/time-is-a-succession-of-such-shapes

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
5th August 2025

COVENANT Andreas EP

2 August 2025 /

The ‘Andreas’ EP is a special release by COVENANT dedicated to the memory of the Swedish band’s former member Andreas Catjar-Danielsson who sadly passed away from cancer on 29th July 2024 aged 51.

Featuring artwork poignantly depicting a missing band member, all proceeds of ‘Andreas’ from all platforms will go to charity in benefit of his wife and children with Dependent Records waiving all profits from the vinyl edition in contribution.

As well as working with COVENANT, Andreas Catjar-Danielsson was closely associated with ABU NEIN and had remixed THE CARDIGANS ‘Hanging Around’ in 1999. He began his association with COVENANT in 2013, co-writing the appropriately -titled ‘Slowdance’ on the ‘Last Dance’ EP and the vibrant futurepop of ‘I Walk Slow’ on the album ‘Leaving Babylon’; both feature on ‘Andreas’ along with the lengthy spoken word ‘Das Nibelungenlied’ from 2019’s ‘Fieldworks Exkursion’ EP.

In 2016, he recorded, mixed and performed on a stark drone-laden cover of ‘A Rider On A White Horse’ for the COVENANT album ‘The Blinding Dark’. It is fittingly the lead track on ‘Andreas’ with the foreboding duality of founding vocalist Eskil Simonsson and ABU NEIN leader Erica Li Lundqvist transforming the Lee Hazelwood’s original acoustic flavoured country ballad into a gothic funereal set piece.

Featuring additional vocals from Andriana Seecker who had worked Andreas Catjar-Danielsson on his various theatre and dance commissions, the ‘Andreas’ EP closes with an even gloomier cover of YAZOO’s ‘Winter Kills’ which he helmed; written by Alison Moyet, it was one of the highlights of ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’ and saw her accompanying herself on piano while Vince Clarke provided subtle synthetic rumbles as the rhythmic backdrop.

“’Winter Kills’ is my all-time favourite YAZOO song. It’s just magic” Andreas Catjar-Danielsson had said via COVENANT’s social media at the time of its original digital release in 2020, “How do you make something so minimalistic so bombastic? Like Eric Satie. And even though the piano (and of course Alison’s voice) is the dominant instrument, it still sounds very synthetic. As if the cold winds of winter, the loss and the longing is hidden in the space between the notes. Or compressed in the wonder of the single drum hit.”

‘Andreas’ is released by Dependent Records on 17th October 2025, pre-order via http://lnk.spkr.media/covenant-andreas

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
2nd August 2025

TOBIAS BERNSTRUP Shadow Dancer

31 July 2025 /

Swedish multimedia artist Tobias Bernstrup is back with his seventh studio album ‘Shadow Dancer’.

Issued by the German-based independent Nadanna Records, ‘Shadow Dancer’, it according to Bernstrup “explores the tension between appearance and reality—how we perform identity, desire, and memory in a world flooded with simulation”. No stranger to these themes having released ‘Technophobic’ in 2018, the follow-up to 2021’s ‘Petrichor’ is “both a personal and cultural reflection, rooted in the shadowy edges of nightlife, surveillance, and performance.”

With possible spiritual connotations, the instrumental ‘The Sign Of The Cross’ sets the scene but this segues straight into the uptempo single ‘Chiaroscuro’; named after the art technique using strong contrasts between light and dark like on Johannes Vermeer’s painting ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’, it is classic Tobias Bernstrup, with “the voice that tells the truth you don’t wanna hear” over bright synth pulses and immersive beats.

‘Under Heavy Strobe Light’, the beats pump harder and the voice is deeper but as the title suggests, this throbbing excursion is made for “creatures of the night” who love the dancefloor. Taking a more steadfast synthwave pace, the ‘Shadow Dancer’ title song comes with an anxious resigned vocal that lets the darkness in while retaining that all important melody.

Playing on the album’s inherent nocturnal atmospheres where the body is strong, ‘Jackie 60’ offers reverberant twists to the bleeps and sweeps in this celebration of the New York night spot although it is a touch repetitive. But stuttering rhythms shape ‘Legend’ while ‘And The Smile’ adopts a much more speedy pulse in its midnight drive “playing ‘Crockett’s Theme’ on the radio”.

Taking a diversion away from the straight fours, ‘Piranesian Dream’ ushers in stark drum loops as well as guitar and piano pointing towards Bernstrup’s more gothic rock side project O+HER with Erica Li Lundqvist while still retaining an electronic base. With chunky squelches, ‘Breakout’ is given space to sparkle in its call to action as the melancholic technostalgia takes hold. The short instrumental ‘Estuarium’ acts as a fitting closer symbolising how all his disco, goth, post-punk and electronic styles meet in his music.

Reflecting on themes of identity and transformation as borne out by his striking gender fluid persona, this collection of intelligent political and historical observations will ensure Tobias Bernstrup fans will be very happy with ‘Shadow Dancer’. Retaining his established “Italo Noir” formula with a sharp edge of darkness, this is a logical and worthy follow-up to ‘Petrichor’.

‘Shadow Dancer’ is released by Nadanna Records on 1st August 2025 as a CD with 4 bonus tracks as well as a limited edition black or clear vinyl LP, available from https://nadanna.bandcamp.com/

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
31st July 2025

HISTOIRE DE COEUR Lost French Synth-Pop 7’ers & Euro-Bombs

29 July 2025 /

If the Yé-yé girls of yesteryear like France Gall, Sylvie Vartan, Jacqueline Taieb and Françoise Hardy had been born 20 years later and had access to producers with synths and drum machines, what would they have sounded like?

A new compilation ‘Histoire De Coeur – Lost French Synth-Pop 7’ers & Euro-Bombs’ released by Caroline True Records goes part way into realising that fantasy, although as the press release says, these Quarante Cinqs were “Virtually neglected until now – only the heads knowing…” – featuring singles released between 1980 to 1989, this was a period “celebrating the chanson of the past” while “updating that for a new generation and a new dancefloor.”

Curated by self-confessed Francophile John Kertland of Caroline True Records with sleeve notes by him too, one thing that certainly stands out is the sense of fun and adventure. This European outlook shines brightly from the dull Britain of that time with the Wednesday afternoon and Sunday closing that those narrow-minded culturally-stunted Reform supporting types want to return to… as Kertland puts it himself, this was “A golden age of Synth-Pop – Post-Disco… inventing the future… Delving into a relatively unexplored Niche French Music”.

Opening with the title song by Corinne Tell from 1987, ‘Histoire De Coeur’ offers tense synth funk with digital slapped bass and synthetic strings. From the same year and shaped by similar percolating digital bass, Fanny Forest’s ‘Les Lolitas Des Magazines’ makes use of DX7 pan pipes and brass stabs to embellish an archetypical Europop tune. Meanwhile, Fabienne Stoko’s cute ‘Poupée’ takes its lead from Belgian-based poppet Lio in its quirky rhythmic stutter but twists with its gothic choir.

From 1989, the Italo disco flavoured ‘Sauve-Moi’ from Valene comes with barrages of Simmons drums and the spring of real slapped bass while continuing in the Italo vein, especially in its keyboard lines, is 1984’s ‘Illusion’ by Kelly Way. The oldest track and of 1980 vintage is Sonia (not the lass from Liverpool!) whose ‘Sur Ma Musique’ has its own character but naturally harks back to the previous disco era despite the abundance of synths.

Opening the second half, the moody ‘Amour Combat’ by Tangui recalls German songstress Sandra’s ‘Stop For A Minute’ which also came out in 1987. Technology was moving at an unbelievable pace in this era and the amusing ‘Meteo’ by Praline Et Toni captures a love connection between an Apple Mac speech synthesizer and an amorous lady. Another duet and first released in 1984 by French disco label Carrere, the sweaty eponymous ‘Generation Egoiste’ combines deep male vocals with a Jane Birkin-like wispiness over a “Relax-ing” rhythmic pump and a DMX snap that is all very “Tout Tout D’Suite”!

From that best year in pop music, 1981’s ‘Vacances A Deux’ by Kira is the most synthpop track on the compilation and fans of Elli & Jacno or Lio’s ‘Amoureux Solitaires’ which was written by the duo will love this. An outlier comes from actress Geraldine Danon who plays synths on her own instrumental ‘Electric Eyes’ and it is her that adorns the album front cover of this collection; incidentally it was the B-side to her single ‘Dans Mes Yeux’ which was co-written by Italian singer Roberto Zanetti aka Savage which also deserved inclusion… maybe for Volume 2? Closing with ‘Faites Vos Jeux’, Nani Antoni gives it the full melodramatics over the smoky synthetic backing.

It would appear most of these tracks have been transferred from the original vinyl singles so crackles abound but this was before the mass takeover of CD, so likely to have been how these songs would have been heard for the first time. However, this does not spoil the enjoyment and there is a warm nostalgic listening vibe that is the antithesis of the fake deliberate “in the box” distortion that many modern synth acts employ to sound edgy but who end up unlistenable!

More “Euro-Bomb” than “Synth-Pop”, if you enjoyed the Ace Records compilation ‘C’est Chic! – French Girl Singers Of The 1960s’, then ‘Histoire De Coeur – Lost French Synth-Pop 7’ers & Euro-Bombs (1980-89)’ will appeal in its gathering of some charming electronically-driven takes on that elegant chanson style.

‘Histoire De Coeur – Lost French Synth-Pop 7’ers & Euro-Bombs (1980-89)’ is available as a vinyl LP and CD via Caroline True Records from https://carolinetruerecords.com/collections/frontpage/products/histoire-de-coeur-lost-french-synth-pop-7-ers-euro-bombs-1980-89 or https://ctrmusic.bandcamp.com/album/histoire-de-coeur-lost-french-synth-pop-7-ers-euro-bombs-1980-89

Text by Chi Ming Lai
29th July 2025

PATRICIA WOLF Hrafnamynd

11 July 2025 /

Ambient artist Patricia Wolf releases the soundtrack to the feature-length documentary ‘Hrafnamynd’ by experimental filmmaker Edward Pack Davee which achieved critical acclaim in its limited showings last year.

Icelandic for “raven film”, it features an unconventional autobiographical narrative where Edward Pack Davee looks back on his childhood living in Iceland. There are recorded conversations with his mother and father who was stationed in Iceland with the US Coast Guard, monitoring movements with neighbouring navigation transmitters in the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Newfoundland.

Illustrated by grainy archive home movies, Ektachrome slides and present day digital imaging, the film additionally has a touching subplot about a rescued talking raven named Krummi. With a wider commentary on the islands raven behaviour through fact and folklore, This in turn dictated the landscapes that were newly filmed to avoid the conventional tourist style of documentation and connects thematically to ‘The Secret Lives of Birds’, Wolf’s most recently released body of work.

Having worked with Davee previously in the filming of music videos for her tracks ‘The Culmination Of’ (from her debut album ‘I’ll Look For You In Others’) and ‘Woodland Encounter’ (from the follow-up ‘See-Through’), with her soft impressionistic atmospheres and airy melodies, Patricia Wolf was the natural choice for the soundtrack to ‘Hrafnamynd’. Indeed, her previous work had been used placeholder music as a guide to how he imagined the film to sound.

“This told me that he trusted my work and style and therefore I should just trust my intuition with how to proceed” she said, “I wanted to make sure that everything that I made was a direct reflection of what was happening on screen, a mirror of its emotion and energy so people could really lock into the film psychologically.”

Mixing her aptitude for ambient music and field recording with her experience in documenting bird song, Wolf has been able to further her Avian fascination and give an empathic perspective to accompany film of windswept birds flying in suspension and circling in the skies of Iceland’s picturesque locations. Her beautiful soundtrack complements additional footage of wildlife, pasturing sheep, volcanically formed landscapes, waterfalls, open waters and the Icelandic capital Reykjavík.

Largely created using the UDO Super 6, a 12 voice polyphonic binaural analog-hybrid synthesizer, it enabled Wolf to sound modern while also giving the emotive fuzzy tones that would correspond to the film’s timeline from the early 70s to today. A glassy ambience on ‘The Return To Iceland’ aurally focusses on the nightfall settling in while the gentle ringing calls of ‘Early Memories’ set the album’s scene, musically encapsulating wide open windy spaces as if the late Ryuichi Sakamoto was looking thoughtfully from above.

In its texturing, ‘Subconscious Familiarity’ offers a kind of cerebral awakening while ‘Hrafnaþing’ gets vibey and ‘Echoes Through Time‘ gets glitchy. Naturally, Krummi gets his own reverbed nylon strung ‘Theme’ alongside evocative titles such as ‘Reykjavík By The Sea’, ‘I Thought I Could Fly’ and ‘Surfing On Wind’ which capture the serene yet mysterious beauty of this remote Nordic island.

As with her wonderful work on ‘See-Through’, the electronic sound design, field recordings and occasional acoustic interventions provide a soothing backdrop. Does the music work without the visuals? Indeed it does and even without the film, there is the feeling of fresh breezy escapism throughout the 11 instrumental pieces that really lift the heart and soul.

‘Hrafnamynd’ is released on orange or black vinyl and digitally by Balmat, available from https://patriciawolf.bandcamp.com/album/hrafnamynd

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
11th July 2025

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