Category: Album Reviews

May 18, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

METTE HENRIETTE (ECM) 8/10 Norwegian saxophonist Mette Henriette may well be a fan of the Necks. The sort of minimalism she espouses on this double album certainly carries overlaps with their particular brand of minimalist sonic necromancy, although the differences are just as significant. Most obviously Henriette eschews long improvisations…

May 15, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

TEMPO (Sofa) 8/10 The concert began at midday and finished after 4pm. Without breaks. In any musical idiom this requires physical and mental resilience, but in free improvisation it demands remarkable creative stamina. Jim Denley (wind instruments), Kim Myhr (12-string guitar, zither) and Ingar Zach (percussion) conserve energy by making…

May 4, 2016 / Album Reviews - Archive

MUSIC FOR A NEW SOCIETY/M:FANS (Domino) 7.5/10 Bleak is one of the things art does best. Usually starkness is a key tool in creating it (think Beckett), but it can also be done more gothically, as artists like Mervyn Peake have shown. In 1982 John Cale, whose body of work…