Council Meeting Memo #095 — Five for Friday

Vril: Saturn Is A Supercomputer (Omnidisc, Album)
Originally released at the end of 2024 but only just managed to eek this out of its shrink-wrap. We here at the council offices have been long time fans of the German-born, Lisbon-based producer so this review is totally gonna be biased. OK, so on the surface this could be seen more of the same in the folder marked ‘Atmospheric Techno’. But there’s more to it than that, with wild stylistic changes that hold your attention throughout. From pointillist ambience to electro pop to Autechrean house. In a word….Vrilliant. SA 🇵🇸

Vanessa Tomlinson: The Edge is a Place (Room40, Album)
Tried running through this twice at home and it just didn’t connect. Blame external forces on both occasions — illness, mood — but consumed externally away from my abode whilst in transit and it clicked. Compositions created from a variety of objects and instruments. Aleatoric in nature but crafted with a controlled script. Not the most easiest music to consume but find the right angle of entry and it works wonders on headphones. SA 🇵🇸

Various Artists: Telepathic Fish (Fundamental Frequencies, Compilation)
Really depends if you were there or not. I mean, to the untrained ear, and to quote some younger friends, “it just sounds a bit shit.” Back when Ambient Techno marked itself out as a reckoning force in the landscape of UK’s clubland. Some of these tunes definitely had an impact when amplified through decent sound systems. It had a way of enveloping the listener in a sonic world that was quite unique at the time. But of course can seem passé now. Drugs also helped.

But naysaying aside, some of the tracks on here still hold up, especially the ones from the big hitters. But the track that succinctly summed that whole time up for me is the The Orb’s (Kris Weston era Orb we’re talking here) remix of Keiichi Suzuki’s ‘Satellite Serenade’. SA 🇵🇸

Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin & Markku Ounaskari: Arcanum (ECM, Album)
The thing with ECM, amongst many other aspects, is that the label’s covers give no clue as to the musics they precede. Each serves to differentiate one from another, but the mood they suggest can be mysterious (which is also the meaning of this album’s title), puzzling or plain misleading. ‘Arcanum’ is a case in point: is that a shard of ice on a windowpane, a permafrosted lump of rock? Whatever it is, the impression is of great chilliness, yet the 16 tracks here are a brilliant melange of beautifully recorded — ECM, natch — ensemble music played on drums, bass, sax and trumpet) that are by turns, playful, impassioned, abstract, melodic, haunting, spare, heady and more. Notably, the longest track is 5’14” and quite a few last a couple of minutes or less. None of them outstay their welcome, but all are distinct. This isn’t ‘normal’ Scandinavian ‘jazz’, but a set of delightful, exploratory, hybrid pieces, composed and improvised. CB 🇵🇸

Melaine Dalibert & David Sylvian: Vermilion Hours (Ici D’Ailleurs, Album)
Reverberating waves and filigree trails wash outwards from sparse, but confidently struck, single acoustic piano notes. Those notes coalesce, suggestively, into chords in the form of ongoing transient epilogues. The notes / chords are melodic. This continues for the duration of the piece (20’ 29”, ‘Musique pour le lever du jour’ (tr. Music for Sunrise)). I feel no desire for more. I wonder momentarily how similar this experience is to, say, Harold Budd and Brian Eno’s work. I dismiss the thought. I can hear the rumble of the piano’s mechanics, the movement of its pedals. The materiality — part and parcel of the notes and their ethereality — is pleasing. It’s succeeded by Arabesques, similar in length, a touch slower, a shade more reflective in tone, the space for a sense of eldritch wonder concomitantly increased. CB 🇵🇸