Artist : Ben Frost Album : Under Certain Light And Atmospheric Conditions Label : Mute Link : https://ethermachines.com/ Style : Electro
Reykjavik-based Australian Ben Frost turns timbres into sonic drones, leading him away from ambient and towards avant-garde electro on Under Certain Light And Atmospheric Conditions.
Ben Frost is an Australian musician and sound engineer who grew up in Melbourne. He released his first EP in 2001, which evolved into his debut album in 2003. Not feeling at home in Australia, he settled permanently in Iceland, where he became a member of the Bedroom Community collective. His electronic music is inspired by classical, noise and minimalism; as you’ll have gathered, the artist is fond of collaboration and experimentation. A jack-of-all-trades, he worked alongside Brian Eno in 2010 for the “Rolex Arts Initiative”, and has been at the helm of numerous soundtracks, including those for the Netfllix series Dark and 1899.
This album contains three previously unreleased tracks from sessions on the previous Scope Neglect album, and is constructed from material captured during live performances, improvisations and field recordings. The result is not devoid of a certain hermeticism, distancing itself from any melodic velleity with a kind of dark, gothic ambient, where the saturation of the guitar may suggest a kinship with drone metal. However, the electronic treatment and the various aspects of this radical music are far from the norm, as this is clearly experimental electronic music.
Ben Frost’s music is dominated not by timbres, but by sonic textures. Depending on the track and the quality of your system’s phase, these will be more or less fluid and their differentiation more or less obvious. Good definition or headphone listening will help you to unravel this lacework of sounds reprocessed in the studio, or sometimes simply integrated as they were recorded. If you listen carefully, you’ll be able to admire the work that has gone into shaping these pieces of music, while retaining their rough, raw quality, blended with the cold, mineral feel of Iceland.
Artist : Barbara Hannigan, David Chalmin Album : Electric Fields Label : Alpha Classics Link : https://www.barbarahannigan.com/ Style : Classical
Barbara Hannigan joins forces with pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque and producer/musician David Chalmin for Electric Fields, an album at the frontier of contemporary classical music.
In music, as in many other fields, the realization of an idea or a project is a matter of encounters and associations. Here, Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, already a frequent partner of John Zorn, shows a certain appetite for breaking out of the rut of the contemporary classical repertoire. French pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque are no strangers to musical adventures, as is David Chalmin, who can as easily be found behind an instrument as a console.
Carried by Barbara Hannigan’s voice, this album shows the singer’s facility in mastering complex scores. She transports us to the songs of ecstasy composed by Hildegard Von Bingen, as well as avant-garde works such as Luciano Berio’s vocal exercises, or contemporary Bryce Dessner. The textures, brought to life by the synthesizers distilled by David Chalmin, are generally discreet, taking the ensemble to the threshold of ambient. However, it can happen that the electronics take precedence over the balance that holds most of the parts together, to the detriment of unity at times.
Contenting oneself with a voice and two pianos in no way prevents one from taking possession of a vast listening space and demonstrating great presence, as this disc seems to demonstrate. The voice is free and uninhibited, and we appreciate both the artist’s technique and that of the recording. The synthesizer adds an extra dimension, reminiscent of David Hykes’ Hearing Solar Winds. The piano’s resonance and touch are just like the voice, unfettered, and help to draw us into a crystalline, brilliant world full of sparkle. Like a pop record, Electric Fields alternates energetic, gripping tracks with more soothing ones, like the reworked baroque pieces by von Bingen that open and close the album.
Artist : Aurora Album : What Happened To The Heart ? (Deluxe) Label : Decca (UMO) Link : https://www.aurora-music.com/ Style : Electro Pop
With What Happened To The Heart? Aurora blends electronic influences with her pop and folk-inspired songs, creating a delicate setting for her pure, limpid voice.
Totally self-taught, Norwegian Aurora Aksnes discovered a keyboard in her family’s attic and explored its sounds when she was just six years old. She began writing her first songs when she was just nine, but it wasn’t until high school that her mother urged her to present her music to others. One of her friends recorded her during one of her first performances and posted it on the Internet. Thanks to this video, Aurora was spotted by labels and had several singles released from 2012 onwards, including “Runaway”, which met with some success on streaming platforms.
What Happened To The Heart? is Aurora’s fourth album, and here we present a slightly expanded version one year after its release. Her influences include Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Kate Bush and Björk. While her compositions are reminiscent of the folk of the first two artists, their electronic overlay brings them closer to modern pop. Some tracks feature simple layers of sound that accompany her crystalline, almost fragile voice. Others are more energetic, with a rhythm that asserts itself, a structure that becomes more complex and a more varied instrumentation that reinforces the record’s interest, and which we imagine will ignite crowds at festivals to come.
Like the vocals, everything is clear and every sound source is precisely positioned, whether it’s a dancing bass, drums, guitar or backing vocals. The record’s few ballads are charming little miniatures of sound with a soaring quality, and when the instruments multiply, the tracks become fuller and more impactful. Aurora takes advantage of this to push her voice forward, in a particularly delectable way, with certain passages almost taking on a club sound, for a record that banishes boredom and proudly advocates a hedonism full of life.redom and proudly advocates a hedonism full of life.
Orlando Weeks is best known as the lead singer and one of the founders of London rock band The Maccabees. The Maccabees released their first album in 2007, and went on to become a household name. The success of their four albums continued to grow, and their split after a farewell tour in 2017 left fans in disarray. The former frontman launched his solo career in 2020 with his first opus under his own name, ‘A Quickening’, which met with a well-deserved response. Including the soundtrack to 2017’s The Gritterman, Loja is his fourth recording.
With his consummate art of the crescendo, Orlando Weeks delivers a collection of little pop diamonds that, like multi-faceted gems, combine obvious grace with rich density. The singer’s voice, central to the record’s identity, is always meditative or haunting, the fullness being provided by the instrumentation, particularly the rhythm section, which is hypnotic without ever being too fast. The other instruments melt into layers of sound that permeate every space and, above all, the listener’s mind. Featuring a number of contributions, this is an album whose music is emotionally charged.
It’s hard to talk about anything other than sound textures, so much so that listening to this music seems to materialise the flow of a river whose rough bed is revealed by its slight eddies. If you listen carefully, you get the impression that you can make out the takes of each sound track and how they are arranged, without the harmony of the whole being compromised. This is an album where you hear a lot of acoustic instruments but which also owes a lot to electronics, including in its form. Without attempting to do so, Orlando Weeks responds to those who wonder what poetry could sound like if it were only music.
The band is strongly marked by the voice and inspirations of Emily Cross who, already accompanied by Dan Duszynski, to whom she was married, also embodies the Cross Record duo. As well as making music, she works as a death doula for people condemned by illness, or those seeking to make peace with their own finitude. The duo met Jonathan Meiburg from Shearwater on tour and quietly recorded an album under the name Loma, although they were not sure whether they wanted to follow it up. Brian Eno noticed the album and took part in the recording of their second album.
This third album was partly inspired by poems generated by an artificial intelligence trained by Laurie Anderson and her body of writing. On the other hand, the difficulties of reuniting the members of the group who live in England, Texas and Germany have shaped the compositions. You could call it impressionistic pop-folk, like little clouds of musical vapour that melt and evaporate. The calm, drawling voice is backed up by an acoustic guitar whose notes ebb and flow, or an electric guitar whose distortion is used as a support without any aggressive aspect. The drums set a contemplative rhythm.
This is an album that deserves several listens and a good sound level adjustment to appreciate all the subtleties of the resonance of the notes of the different instruments and the intonations of the voice. Piano, wind instruments and recordings of natural sounds, such as birdsong, complement those already mentioned. The drums sometimes seem distant, sometimes more encompassing, without taking over the soundstage. While the music isn’t one of the warmest, the sound of the record isn’t particularly sharp, making it a pleasant listen at any volume level.
