Oh the endless demand. Where were we? Almost asked that the time before last time, do we need a new editorial yet? An endless parade indeed, whatever morning this is and the inbox is full of messages, pleas, can you listen to my new song? Have you listened to our album yet? We could really do with a review, and who needs a damn editorial? Let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, another five (or so) slices of musical things that have passed our way recently and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of lemons and here comes the intro, Don’t be flippant she said, how could it ever be flippant? I can’t remember why she said that now, in one ear, out the other, we have a bad attitude here apparently, no respect for those who work in the music industry, well no poop Sherlock, have you only just worked that one out? We’ve been showing (and getting) zero respect since the last century, zero flips given…
Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying rabbits out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake oil? Everything must go and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us?
Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start somewhere in Los Angeles, California with Sarah Davinchi…
1: Sarah Davachi – A rather rewarding taste of things to come from the album The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir, out 13th September 2024. A piece of music that more than speaks for itself…
“Night Horns, an edited version of the epic closing track from the forthcoming new Sarah Davachi album The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir, released on 13 September. The piece utilises a specific type of pipe organ as a solo instrument a mechanical-action instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1864, located in the Église du Gesù of Toulouse, France. Like some of Davachi’s previous organ work, it focuses heavily on the organs pedals as well as the textural variations made possible by the mechanical tracker actions that most possess. The edited version of the track is accompanied by a video also made by Sarah Davachi”.
“The seven compositions on this album, written between 2022 and 2024, form a conceptual suite and an observance of the mental dances that we construct to understand acts of passage; the ways that we commune and memorialize and carry symbols back into the world beyond representation. To this end, The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir engages two references to the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus: Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, a collection of poems from 1922, and Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo, an early baroque opera from 1607. The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir is a supplement of sorts to Two Sisters (2022) and Antiphonals (2021), which were attempts to begin bridging the gap between the fixed electroacoustic pieces that emerge in Davachi’s home studio and her slow-paced, somewhat open-form chamber writing, in which each performance presents a new structure and in which each iteration offers the path to a new composition and deeper meaning”.
More via Bandcamp or www.sarahdavachi.com and more from us in a bit…
2: Patrick Shiroishi – We’ll let Paul Lai tell you about this one; “This is Patrick Shiroishi’s new song and video, my Upsilon Acrux and real life brother is doing nothing short of amazing work. And he put Eno in this video as the younger version of him. This is Eno’s first time on set as part of a crew and I couldn’t say enough good things about everyone involved, such a beautiful and warm creative environment, thanks Patrick and all the dancers and directors its a really emotional piece both visually and sonically. Please watch and feel”.
The Procession is taken from Patrick Shiroishi‘s new album Glass House on Otherly Love Records on September 30th, the album is the soundtrack to Volta Collective’s Glass House directed by Mamie Green.
3: Stop Motion Orchestra are from Texas, they have a rather nice new instrumental tune, some breezy sunny ska and a lot of that going around all the shops always closing stuff as if they were trying to buy a wooden fish on wheels. Lush, a lush tune, and one, two, nothing counts in this complex world. Delightful.
4: Malcolm Pardon – Enter The Void is taken from Malcolm Pardon’s upcoming album, The Abyss. Released on 20th September on the Leaf label. Malcolm is one half of Swedish duo Roll The Dice with Peder Mannerfelt.
“For Pardon, there’s beauty in our universal, inescapable demise. Like the romantic notion of the orchestra on board the Titanic playing their repertoire as the ship went down, on ‘The Abyss’ he looks past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance. “It’s not meant to be threatening or horrific in any way,” says Pardon of the album. “There’s this constant dialogue we have with ourselves about how we’re going to die at some point. It’s like a constant companion, so you might as well get to know it, and befriend it.”
In contrast to the bombast of later Roll The Dice material, Pardon’s 2021 solo debut ‘Hello Death’ saw him take a much more stripped-down approach, placing the emphasis on plaintive piano composition with only the subtlest of sonic treatments in the space around the notes. Without intentionally setting out to record a conceptual follow up, as he developed the sketches which would become ‘The Abyss’, Pardon found himself contemplating unknown futures and the artists’ quest into unexplored territory. “For me, on a musical level ‘The Abyss’ represents exploring your own capabilities,” he says, “Starting from an empty canvas, then slowly finding the way forward by connecting the right notes. It’s almost a subconscious experience. I sit down by the piano, and if I’m lucky I find something that takes me down the vortex.”
The lilting romanticism of new single ‘Enter The Void’ serves as a perfect distillation of Pardon’s approach, balancing a delicate piano refrain with a low, rumbling blast of noise before being carried aloft by swooning strings that echo down a distant hall. The video is accompanied by a cinematic and unsettling video by Swedish director Oskar Wrangö. “I have always been drawn to Malcolm’s music,” Wrangö explains. “It creates new images in my mind, and that’s a pretty rare thing. To me this track is a fine balance between real darkness and simple beauty. I wanted to create a unique visual experience in that landscape – when it comes to the end of things or the beginning of something unknown. It comes from a dark depressive past of my own and I think the strong contrasts are important. It’s taken me to new and interesting places. If ever a nightmare was poetic, this is my very personal interpretation of the title – Enter The Void.”
Find the album on Bleep / Leaf Label / Bandcamp
5: Build Buildings – Now this sounds rather a lot like what André 3000 was doing in Victoria Park last Saturday evening, very very much the feel of what was going down under that big orange moon, this howver is a taste or two of the rather relaxed new album, Ecotone, from Build Buildings. Build Buildings is Brooklyn based Ben Tweel, Ben makes music with computers, instruments and household sounds, we’te told the sounds on Ecotone are sourced from acoustic guitars, lap harp, ukulele, mbira, and clarinet, and played through the gestural iPad program Samplr (whatever the hell that is?). He’s released numerous albums since 2004, most recently 2022’s Bring in the Lampstand and Light Its Lamps on the rather respected Audiobulb label. What we have here with this new album is a mellow minimal set of carefully placed sounds, gently composed (or it is improvised?) pieces that move along in way that suggests they’re in no rush to get anywhere. Ecotone is a crisp album, a refined piece of art
And from 2022…
THE ORGAN 