Council Meeting Memo #036
Shelley Parker: Wisteria (Hypercolour, Album)
Wisteria is an album of left-field, breakbeat-adjacent music named after a climbing shrub of the pea family, that’s it there on the cover. Parker is from a fine art background like Beatrice Dillon; the first sentence of her Discogs bio states: “Her practice explores the experiential potential of sound and image through the manipulation of technology and the study of structure and material.” thereby not differentiating her one jot from most other musicians. No matter, Wisteria is an intriguing release in its unexpected melding of breaks and the sort of harsh industrial sounds that might have wandered out of ‘Eraserhead’ or the latter part of ‘Threads’. It has the driven chilliness of peak Autechre: pensive, static and eery. After a number of listens, I’m not sure it works as an album though individual tracks are impressive, but I’d highly recommend you give it a listen in case you think otherwise. CB
Kunsf: Idle (ZEL ZELE, Cassette)
Utterly hypnotic blend of unnerving ambience and hyper-translucent computational music from Istanbul via Berlin. Breathy female utterances against decaying granular synthesis on opener ‘Everything’ sets the tone perfectly. ‘Not saved’ evokes a warm and luminous shimmer. ‘Will be’ ever-so-slowly walks a fine line between tranquil and troubling. But any sense of digital dread is slowly washed away by the departing ‘Lost’. Purchase on sight. SA
Gianluca Caiati: Learning From Inexperience (KSR, 12”)
Despite the (brilliant) title, it’s all pretty accomplished stuff. Everything in its right place as it were. But I’m really here for the Substance remix. Dampeners on the drums, off-beat dub techno presets and, um, not much more. The original mix isn’t half bad either. SA
Kellen303: Life’s Different Now (Keysound, 12”)
Mistakenly thought this was gonna be some sort of over-indulgent acid house fest. Instead it’s a rather fine example of tightly constructed bass music. NYC’s Kellen303 knows how to sculpt low-end theory around disparate styles. Found ‘White label’ a bit too doom-laden for the aged likes of me but I did find a tremendous sense of value in the VIP mix of the title track. Stripped back of extraneous energy, it dubs out the vocals and pins it to an urgent score. SA
Kiki Kudo: Profile Eterna (Trilogy, 12”)
Two expansive techno rollers that mutate over a generous running time. Both excel in world-building but the ambient ‘Space Planar’ stands out. Dispensing with the jackhammer tendencies of the first track and opting to jettison us into the void. SA
