Thomas Blake
Thomas Blake
Thomas Blake lives in the West Country with his wife and his son. He writes things down and looks things up for a living. He likes wine, cricket and modernism. And lots of black coffee.
On How You Been, SML perfect their collaging technique. Tracks sound more complex and intuitive, and they instinctively work a groove, moving from space-age synths to gritty, organic minimalism. Variety is key, from creeping percussion to soft-focus krautrock. This is improvised music at its most engaging and immediate. SML have created another special album, one that forges bright new pathways in American jazz.
Fiddles screech and swirl, a pump organ sighs and groans. Child-Lanning’s dulcimer is indebted to Jean Ritchie, and at points, an autoharp conjures the spirit of Maybelle Carter. A total of ten musicians contribute… and then there are the electronics, the decayed tape loops, the environmental recordings. The individual musical strokes are loose and expressionistic…Weirs’ Diamond Grove is hypnotic, bucolic, meditative, jarring, melancholic, jubilant: an exceptional musical document.
Folklore Tapes visits Gloucestershire and Hampshire. Zandra explores Painswick’s yew tree legend with a beautiful, melancholic and uncanny incantation using ghostly vocals and acoustic guitar. Edd Sanders and Jamie McQuilkin tackle Hampshire with a sustained, organic drone and improvisational textures inspired by church bells. Both sides complement each other and shine a light on the eccentric corners of England, which should be celebrated but are in danger of being forgotten.
on “a little death”, claire rousay creates something that is akin to ambient music, but unlike the majority of what falls under that banner, her music is made for a more engaged kind of listening. There is always something going on around the edges, a constant tension between comfort and disquiet. Tranquil as it may sometimes appear, this is nonetheless music for troubled times.
Troubadour, the new full-length from Tiberius on Audio Antihero, sees them perfecting their “noughties emo and the much more general aesthetic of country music”. Blending twangy alt-country and pedal steel with shoegaze and post-hardcore dynamics, it’s a highly original, resonant, and expertly structured album that balances pastoral daydreams with cathartic, complex songwriting.
On their self-titled album, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio construct vibrating pathways of sound that lift you clear of contemporary concerns. It’s not zeitgeisty; it’s expansive spiritual jazz, mystical yet grounded, profoundly improvisational. The Portland trio crafts condensed pieces under five minutes that expand into timeless, textural soundscapes. Like Coltrane, this is music that paints a picture of what peace might look and sound like.
On Inner Day, Jim White expands on his percussive solo debut, creating a fuller, more detailed document. Keyboards, guitar, and even White’s own playful, semi-spoken vocals come to the front. It’s an impressive balancing act —a “clever, controlled use of tension” — between intricate drums and uncanny melodies. While White navigates wonder and trepidation in a mightily refreshing way, you still get the feeling that this is just the start.
On Old Segotia, Seán Mac Erlaine and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh engage in an intense musical conversation. Rather than compromising between folk and jazz, they create a new palette, crafting varied tracks that shift from smoky grooves to avant-garde improvisation. Augmenting traditional instruments with electronics and field recordings, the duo create a complex, surprising map of new musical terrain.
Emily A. Sprague’s “Cloud Time” is one of the most stunning ambient records in recent memory. Recorded live in Japan, it draws from the “naturalist” school of modular synthesis, engaging with the Japanese tradition of environmental music. Sprague whittled hours of recordings into a suite that is both deeply contemplative and refreshingly human, a “sonic wonderment” of texture and off-the-cuff creativity.
On Merlyn Driver’s debut album, “It Was Also Sometimes Daylight,” there is an ease to his singing and playing that belies the nuance and complexity of his songwriting, which at times approaches genuine poetry. He takes highly personal, confessional songwriting and elevates it with unconventional language. It’s also a timely reminder of the small amount of time and space we all take up on this world.
Greg Jamie is unashamedly preoccupied with the liminal. Across a Violet Pasture, tilts at the hard-to-hit zone between sleep and waking. This is Old Weird America with a nod to the stranger recesses of British hauntology. At times, the Townes Van Zandt comparisons also seem more apposite than ever, a reminder that, for all the uncanny, rootless strangeness of his music, the album is built on Jamie’s outstanding songwriting.