Curious sound.

Subscribe

Jack Chuter

Jack Chuter

Crucial Listening #19: Norman Westberg

Laughing coats, booing the Blockheads, roller-skate disco. The New York guitarist discusses three important albums. Norman’s picks: 1) Nico – Chelsea Girl 2) Black Box – Dreamland 3) Lou Reed – Berlin Norman Westberg’s website is here, and be sure to check out those beautiful limited editions on his Etsy store.

Review: OOAME – Milanese Nwas

OOAME winds it up, and then lets it run. Milanese Nwas is built from custom software and digital synthesis, resulting in an auto-generative music that flickers and dances of its own accord. The press text talks about this material in terms of “artificial wildlife”, likening the lively, self-instigated behaviour of

Review: Plinter – Gino

Gino is a cat. “The most funny and friendly cat I ever [did] see”, according to Plinter. At just a year old, Gino was somehow poisoned and died shortly after. This album is a tribute to both his life (bouncy, mischievous electronics and kitten farts), death (swarms of static and

Review: Obasquiat – Strugatsky

The bass guitar is often at the centre. It’s the mediator between rhythm and melody, helping me establish my sense of up and down within the music. It’s also often the source of satiation that brings fullness and coherence to the act of instruments in dialogue; when everything

Interview: African Ghost Valley

Interview: African Ghost Valley

I am overwhelmed by African Ghost Valley. Their improvisation is like a light shined directly into my eyes – a deluge of present tense, as if trying to salvage as much of the NOW as possible before it perishes into the past. Their releases come thick and fast – at the time

Review: Erik Levander – Couesnon

Levander catches the balance just right. Computer processing isn’t used to transform the sound of vintage clarinet, but to explore it. Processing is a scalpel. A magnifying glass. A thermal camera. It isolates the warmth of breath gushing down the cylinder, or seeps in between the fibres of the

Review: Mazut – Atlas

The beats here are pure concrete. Techno for cold, hard surfaces. Yet it’s crucial that these beats are robust, otherwise Atlas – just like its mythical globe-carrying namesake – would be crushed under the weight that rests upon its shoulders. In this case, the rhythmic propulsion plays support to all manner