Articles
Spotlight 10
Ten Favourite Labels 2013

Albums
52 Commercial Road
Chantal Acda
David Åhlén
Daniel Bortz
Peter Broderick
Brass Mask
bvdub / bvdub & loscil
Colorlist
Dale Cooper Quartet
Cuushe
Jack Dangers
Deco
Deetron
DFRNT
Egbert
The Foreign Exchange
Nils Frahm
Bjarni Gunnarsson
Robert Haigh
Marihiko Hara & Polar M
John Heckle
Arve Henriksen
Joy Wellboy
Kaboom Karavan
KILN
Land of Kush
Jessy Lanza
Last Days
L.B. Dub Corp
Lights Dim with Gallery Six
Livity Sound
Moskitoo
MUfi.re
Oddisee
Om Unit
Ø [Phase]
Raudive
Matana Roberts
Sakamoto + Deupree
Secret Pyramid
Quentin Sirjacq
Sleeper
Sonicbrat
Special Request
Stratosphere & Serries
Thisquietarmy
Ricardo Tobar
Tom Trago

Compilations / Mixes
Foundland
In The Dark
Mathias Kaden

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Anduin
Anile / Lm1 & Kharm
Cursa
Gerwin & Nuage ft. 2Shy
Hessien
Jon McMillion
Miaou

CD-Vinyl-DVD
Seaman and Tattered Sail

Kaboom Karavan: Hokus Fokus
Miasmah

Miasmah typically goes off the beaten track in its releases, and it's a tradition more than a little bit perpetuated by Hokus Fokus, the second release on the label from Kaboom Karavan, the Belgian collective led by Bram Bosteels (a regular Kreng collaborator who's credited with composing all ten of the album tracks). Surreal and foggy in the extreme, Kaboom Karavan's macabre material creeps into position on a fragile wave of string plucks, flute tones, and decrepit electronic atmospheres. It's unusual for an artist to so wilfully issue music of such seemingly diseased character, yet that's generally what's on offer here.

At first, Kaboom Karavan's sound stands defiantly alone like some enigmatic, blistered mutant—until, that is, the third piece, “Omsk,” arrives to suggest one very clear analogue: Tom Waits. Specifically, the track includes a gravelly voice alongside its ramshackle sounds that can't help but call to mind Waits' own croak. But even when the vocal element vanishes from the music, Kaboom Karavan's sound still retain some subtle tie to the decayed instrumental soundworld associated with Waits. “Barbaroi,” on the other hand, oozes a diseased noir-jazz character that makes it seem like one of David Lynch's nightmares rendered into aural form. Perhaps the liveliest cut of the lot is “The A Theme,” whose jazz-tinged woodwinds actually work up to a surprising jaunt when they're not howling in pain.

Like some disturbing dream, the ghoulish music woozily wells up from murky depths, with strings groaning, disembodied voices wailing, and percussive instruments tapping out cryptic tattoos. Throughout the recording, kazoos, woodwinds, and muted horns struggle to extricate themselves from Hokus Fokus's musical swamp in tunes that often lurch and crawl, their rhythms as broken as their melodies.

November 2013