Albums
Atmogat
Autechre
Autistici
Bitcrush
Black Gold 360
Sylvain Chauveau
Cut Iowa Network
Delicate Noise
Dof
The Element Choir
FNS
Four Tet
Gutta Percha
Greg Haines
Chihei Hatakeyama
Ian Hawgood
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Kahn and Mueller
Konntinent
L/M/R/W
Francisco López
Aaron Martin
Musette
Near The Parenthesis
Offthesky
Dustin O'Halloran
Redhooker
Relmic Statute
Ruxpin
Sintetic-Collage
Sister Overdrive
Starkey
Tokyo Mask
Youth Pictures of F. Hend.
Compilations / Mixes
Agoria
Advent
My Private Space
Peeling
Untitled 10
EPs
Amman.Josh
A Wake A Week
Tolga Baklacioglu
Boxharp
Cursor Miner
Abe Duque
EPROM / Eskmo
Funckarma
Florent Ghys
LJ Kruzer
Lobisomem
Maps and Diagrams
Moving Dawn Orchestra
Marcello Napoletano
Alexandre Navarro
Obsidian
Glen Porter
Nigel Samways
The Soul's Release
Sparkhouse / Jacksonville
Subeena
Talvihorros
A Wake A Week:
Abandon
List Records
Dave Dando-Moore, perhaps best known for his Detritus output, received deservedly strong notices for his 2009 release on Spectraliquid, Little Black Cloud , which he issued under the A Wake A Week alias. Generally speaking, the material issued under the new guise is close in spirit to the dark ambient style associated with Miasmah's Deaf Center—even the EP title, Abdandon, hints at the material's despairing character. Dando-Moore shapes field recordings, samples, and various instruments into intense set-pieces of relatively modest duration (the thought of any one of the three pieces being recast as a twenty-minute epic exerts an undeniable if perverse allure).
In “The Very Idea,” a sparse scattering of sombre piano notes pierces the collective fog of an industrial drone, cloud turbulence, and an indecipherable voice drifting across the electric wires; the grief-stricken ambiance is suggestive of a suicidal figure wading into the sea while car drivers cruise past, blithely indifferent to the tragedy unfolding mere feet away. A nightmarish, droning homunculus of churning machine noise and muffled voices, “Abandon” keeps up a controlled wail for six minutes, until a few gasps of violin playing can be heard breaking through at track's end. In “Perigee,” a cauldron of organ and strings brings ear-piercing pitches and combustion to a broil in the EP's most claustrophobic setting, the stuff of which the darkest nightmares are made. It's bleak stuff for sure but it's also powerful, and anyone with a jones for atmospheric soundsculpting should investigate further.
April 2010