Electronic
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Jazz improvisation lends itself naturally to electronics. That so few artists in the genre have chosen to add them to the mix is, depending on your perspective, either a missed opportunity or a happily dodged bullet. Chicago’s ADT has a new album that will move more than a few improv lovers from the second camp…
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The contrast between the gentle ambient sounds Pepo Galán is well known for and Carlos Suero’s penchant for thick, dense electronics is central to the appeal of this new collaborative effort. The duo has produced a layered, ominously visual album. Galán’s work on the cover captures the feel of these five new works perfectly. Dark…
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Any album that sets out to contemplate our place in the universe had better have some gravitas. Portugal’s Afonso Arrepia Ferreira (a.k.a. Farwarmth) has plenty on this new release. At just 19, he’s produced an epic. These 13 tracks are giant, growling monsters. Ferreira combines electronics, noise and high-volume distortion with beautifully performed piano, synthesizer,…
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To fully appreciate this extraordinary new work from Rutger Zuydervelt (a.k.a. Machinefabriek), it’s important to understand the subject of the documentary that The Red Soul serves as a soundtrack to. Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union, as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as Soviet Premier…
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Often described as dark ambient, Sann Gusmão’s work deserves a less narrow classification. This new recording is more sophisticated than most everything we’ve heard from that subgenre in recent years. That’s not meant to be a knock on other artists. It’s just that these nine new tracks reach beyond the conventions of any single style…
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Lewis Carroll fans will recognize this title from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Watching a croc coax fish into his mouth with a warm smile, Alice recites a poem that begins “How doth the little crocodile; improve his shining tale …” Carroll’s poem within a story was a parody of Isaac Watts’ “Against Idleness and Mischief.”…
