textura

Albums
Aera
Apricot Rail
Darcy James Argue
Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi
Félicia Atkinson
Atom TM
Black Jazz Consortium
Borghi and Teager
Kate Carr
Jace Clayton
Nicholas Cords
Cosmin TRG
Benjamin Damage
T. Dimuzio / Voice of Eye
Field Rotation
Footprintz
Garnica
Stefan Goldmann
Good Luck Mr. Gorsky
Darren Harper
Chihei Hatakeyama
Jerusalem In My Heart
Marsen Jules
Philippe Lamy
Mary Lattimore
Linear Bells
Jay-Dea López
Andrew McPherson
Markus Mehr
Oneirogen
Fabio Orsi & pimmon
Quicksails
Simian Mobile Disco
Colin Stetson
The Third Man
Simon Whetham
Yuco

Compilations / Mixes
Art Department
Balance presents jozif
+FE Music: The Reworks
Ruede Hagelstein
Inscriptions Vol. 2
Rebel Rave 3
Your Victorian Breasts

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Broken Chip
City of Satellites
Fescal
Isan
jffstnhs
Librah
Yann Novak
Simon Whetham

Good Luck Mr. Gorsky: Good Luck Mr. Gorsky
Granny Records

Featuring two side-long performances recorded live at Bios Cinematheque in Athens in June, 2011, this self-titled twelve-inch vinyl outing (available in an edition of 300 copies) is about as pure a representation of Good Luck Mr. Gorsky's sound as one might hope to hear. Having formed in 2004 in Thessaloniki, Greece, Savvas Metaxas, Spiros Emmanouilidis, and Thanasis Papadopoulos are by now well-acquainted with one another's creative impulses and consequently a clear sense of cohesiveness emerges from the improvs. And it's truly a natural record of their interactions as no edits were made to the recording.

Metaxas (field recordings), Emmanouilidis (synth, prepared piano samples, trumpet), and Papadopoulos (synth, sampler, vocals) created the album's experimental material using both physical and electronic sound sources. The album opens with trumpet shudders and outdoors field recordings draped across a pulsating synth base, before moving into different territory where bell percussion tinklings and prepared piano flourishes rub shoulders with spacier synth effects and a background stream of nocturnal insect chirp. Everything unfolds at a comfortable pace, and the trio avoids ear-shattering spikes in volume, preferring instead to keep the dynamic and volume levels at an even keel. Having said that, side two does up the intensity level slightly when it underpins ghost-like wails and synth squiggles with a plodding rhythm base, but the music never loses its fundamentally atmospheric character, and that's never more true than when it descends into a haze of trumpet squalls and chanting voices as it nears its end.

The impression created is of three like-minded individuals deploying their respective sound generators so as to collectively shape the explorative and organically developing mass. It's not a game-changer but rather a modest and unpretentious recording whose presumed aim is to capture the Good Luck Mr. Gorsky sound in its most unadulterated form, and in that regard it definitely succeeds.

April 2013