At least for my taste, there’s not much better than hearing extremely deep, cavernous, and at some points, scary, black ambient. No, not dark ambient. This is black and bleak. Morego Dimmer (Xerxes The Dark himself) composes a lot of top-quality material, but I feel like he’s begun to hit the peak of his powers. I can say without hesitation that Iran is the place to watch for this strain of electronic music.
Music
[Music] Emma-Jean Thackray – Um Yang 음 양
Emma-Jane Thackray has quietly become the most important trumpet player to emerge from the London jazz scene in at least the past 10 years. Her sound melts the best of jazz fusion with electronic music of many shades. From her Bandcamp site:
Emma-Jean Thackray, an outstanding figure in the UK jazz scene, releases Um Yang, her long-dreamed project dedicated to the Taoist philosophy of duality and harmony. A highly ambitious and personal record that sees Thackray leading a septet featuring Soweto Kinch and Steam Down’s Wonky Logic, recorded straight to vinyl.
An accomplished trumpeter, beat-maker, singer, composer and DJ, Thackray draws on far wider influences than jazz. Her sound is distinctive; in the words of The Guardian like “Bitches Brew-era Miles entering the dub chamber with a New Orleans marching band – in a good way”. Since debuting in 2016, Thackray has directed the London Symphony Orchestra, performed at the NY Winter Jazz Fest, played Glastonbury five times in 2019 alone, and launched her own record label, Movementt (in association with Warp). Championed by Gilles Peterson, Theo Parrish and Jamie Cullum, Thackray has firmly cemented her place among a new wave of exciting young musicians, collaborating with Makaya McCraven, Junius Paul and Angel Bat Dawid, and still finds time to host her monthly radio show on Worldwide FM.
Raised in Yorkshire, Thackray inherited a grounding in Taoism from her father, and approaches her music with the same pursuit of harmony between Um & Yang (the Korean Ying & Yang), balancing melody and rhythm, groove and free improvisation, cerebral and physical. For this one-off recording, Thackray has applied this ideology in every sense, even down to the ensemble itself featuring not one but two percussionists. Um commences with ethereal interplay between keys, percussion, and Thackray’s trumpet, recalling the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane’s classic records. As the piece builds, an earthy groove emerges. On both trumpet and vocals, Thackray leads the ensemble further out until the piece peaks with an epic breakdown. On the flip, Yang starts on the same cacophonous note but progresses to a joyful groove before returning to a peaceful state again, balance restored.
When Night Dreamer Records invited Emma to record Um Yang straight-to-disc at Artone’s vintage recording studio in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Emma was excited by the idea of capturing this specific project in one-take, without overdubs or edits. “Recording in (Artone) was such a dream” Thackray recalls. “It had all the fantasy analogue equipment you daydream about one day being able to use. The desk looked like something Uhura would use. All the instruments were natural, woods and metals, no plastic in sight, and everything was to be hit or blown, all analogue. I really needed everything to be natural and real, because the music is about the universe, about the energy of all things, and what is more real than that.” Honest sound to match truly honest music. With Um Yang, Emma-Jean Thackray has created her most personal and defining work to date.
https://ejthackray.bandcamp.com/album/um-yang
I have but one gripe. She needs to make those out-of-print vinyl records of hers in print at least digitally!
[Music] T E Morris (featuring Jo Quail) – Running Down the Clock
Singer T. E. “Tom” Morris was once part of Leicester and Leeds-based post-rock group Her Name Is Calla. This single continues in that vein, being a gloriously mournful track.
[Music] Ruheman – Slight Collapse
Ruheman is the monicker of Bristol-based producer Sam Bates. Today must have been a good day because bright, sweeping ambient music in the vein, ever so slightly, of Brian Eno’s “Thursday Afternoon,” with more atmospherics and a touch of field recordings, was precisely what I was looking to hear. I don’t know much about Sam’s background, but if this is his first proper EP, he has a rather good future ahead of him.
[Music] CHRISSIE HYNDE & JAMES WALBOURNE (The Pretenders) – ” Dylan Lockdown Series “ — The Fat Angel Sings
When Chrissie Hynde heard Bob Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul,” the 17-minute elegy he had recorded about John F. Kennedy and surprise-released in late March, she was caught by surprise. “It really knocked me sideways,” she says “It’s so magnificent.” Like everyone, she was in what she describes as an “odd frame of mind” due to the pandemic-related lockdowns that had […]
CHRISSIE HYNDE & JAMES WALBOURNE (The Pretenders) – ” Dylan Lockdown Series “ — The Fat Angel Sings
[Music] Txema González ~ Insularum — a closer listen
Thanks to our friends at A Closer Listen, a blog we wholeheartedly recommend reading. We’re back in business, though we ask that you expect few posts until September. By then, we will have finished our move to Brno, Czechia.
It’s rare that we encounter an album devoid of liner notes. We assume the moniker of the Portuguese artist is a pseudonym, as Google lists Txema González as a cycling masseur who died in Seville a decade ago. We feel on firmer footing with the title; insularum means island, while the cover and second track title refer to a […]
Txema González ~ Insularum — a closer listen
[Music] Yoshiko Sai – Taklamakan
A late night of doing paperwork for an upcoming trip to Hungary and move to Czechia brought me to this absolute gem of a folk-prog album. Yoshiko Sai released a few albums in the mid-1970s which were not well-received at the time, but listeners’ tastes have finally caught up with her mellow, trippy, slightly psychedelic songs.
Dissecting Table – Between Life and Death — NOISEXTRA
Japanese industrial psychosis plows through the wastelands in the form of Dissecting Table’s “Between Life and Death.” We are fully on board for Ichiro Tsuji’s unique industrial art and have a blast digging into his post apocalyptic sounds. Hop into a flamethrower-equipped car and crank this dystopian masterpiece. Everyday is one more day of insanity.…
Dissecting Table – Between Life and Death — NOISEXTRA
[Music] Marianne Blok – “Salut à toi, soleil” – Le Coq D’Or (Rimski-Korsakov)
Sunday evening listening. This is an aria from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s beloved work, Le Coq d’Or, sung by Dutch coloratura soprano Marianne Blok.
[Music] Various Artists – Meticulous Midgets Magazine 2020
Meticulous Midgets is a magazine out of Russia who did me one of the kindest honors by doing a sketch on the blog. I am delighted to return the favor by covering their survey on not only the Russian electronic, avant-garde, experimental and indie music, but a few tracks from the United States, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Croatia, The Netherlands and Great Britain as well. This is a compilation whose broad scope equals that of my colleague Raffaele from Unexplained Sounds Group.
I expected to hear good headphone music, and I am happy to say that the comp delivers handsomely. There are three standout tracks for me:
The whole comp makes for solid listening, but just by hearing these three tracks, you can hear the depth and scope of the sort of music Meticulous Midgets covers. They have made a fan out of me.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 