the extended kindness comes from closer listen. read the whole thing there!
Many labels make an effort to raise the profile of female electronic musicians, but pan y rosa discos goes all out. Of their fifteen releases so far this year, eight are by women. Their music demonstrates an incredible variety of styles and is drawn from a wide variety of countries…
When listening to the first few seconds of attractive synthesis by Latvia’s Līga Smirnova, one thinks, “oh, it’s just another club-based synth track.” But listen just a little longer, and all preconceptions will be destroyed…
Jelena Glazova may be another Latvian artist, but her approach is vastly different from that of her labelmate. Relying on heavily processed voice, Glazova creates soundscapes that flutter and pop without providing any hint of their human genesis…
The script flips again with tay_ploops (Jessica Gabriel). The Vancouver-based artist also uses voice, but her voice is recognizable throughout, delving into poetry, fragment, onomatopoeia, and all manner of stutter and loop. spool oops is a fun album, as one might expect from the title, as well as by some of Gabriel’s other careers (puppeteer, clown)…
Shifting gears once again, we encounter the work of London’s Lola de la Mata, an impossible to categorize artist whose work demonstrates incredible intelligence and complexity. de la Mata’s main interest is the kinesthetic nature of the body in relation to movement and sound. Her work has often been used in dance performances, as the nuances of her compositions lend themselves well to creative interpretations. In Remise en Bouche (Palate Cleanser), one can hear percussive breath and snapshots of song, along with static and feedback, trains and bells, violin and voice…
Vietnam’s Nhung Nguyen (Sound Awakener) offers an intriguing combination of static and chime on the 12-minute single piece Oblivion. The drone influence is apparent along with the “drifting, falling” feel of ambience, justifying the description of the work as “calm, meditative, chaotic and noisy.” While listening, one feels the tug between peace and activity, retreat and forward surge, work and play, regret and letting go…
Those listening to these releases in order may flinch when they reach Anna Xambó‘s H2RI, a collection of twenty one-minute tracks rife with feedback and noise. The album would make a great alarm clock. But there is also pattern in noise: frequency, repetition, dynamic contrast, give-and-take…
The latest label release comes from Brazilian artist Bella, and captures a live half-hour performance inspired by water and light. The piece, titled UN, is as dark as the unmapped fathoms, where furtive movement is often imperceptible and creatures create their own illumination. One can imagine this piece filling the performance space with reverberation, sound waves bouncing off walls and traveling through bodies…
