Embarrassments or Riches?

Sergio Sorrentino & Machinefabriek Vignettes

Autodidactic Dutch graphic artist – turned sound artist Machinefabriek recently added to his prolofic 2013 output with this effort, a collaboration with Sergio Sorrentino, an Italian avante-garde guitarist considered to be one of the best modern Italian guitarists. From an early age he showed a precocious brilliance, performing in a tonne of places in his native country, and has gradually amassed a large amount of acclaim for his work, which, it should be said is more Oren Ambarchi than Sir Richard Bishop. The album as a whole reminds me of the high point of Machinefabriek’s 2012 album Color Tones a 12 minute track called Mosaic, which culminates in a wonderfully relaxing and evocative guitar part. In a way, with Sorrentino’s able assistance, Machinefabriek has distilled the beauty of this moment into an entire album, backed up by a suitable sense of dread, reminiscient of Svarte Greiner’s release of this year, Black Tie. If I were to describe Sorrentino’s guitar work in 2 words I would say: natural harmonics. I can totally understand why as well, as they possess a subtlety that a notew often can’t muster and it’s a tool I’ve used endlessly in my own exploration of bass guitar. The album is one of those albums that flows as one piece, with an element at the end of each track ushering in the next. The electronic drone style sounds from Machinefabriek’s synth work extend notes beyond their expected length, giving a sort of disorienting effect which maximises the dynamics of the piece. The only real problem I can think of is that never really explodes, but to change that would ruin its subtlety.

Huntsville

Past Increasing, Future Receding

Huntsville are one of the many Norwegian bands such as Puma, who fall into the ‘jazz’ category which for my money is always a rather dismissive label to put on these normally very eclectic artists, so for the purpose of this review I am going to defy Occam’s razor and instead call them ‘ambient free-jazz-folk.’ This is their second album since moving from ubiquitous Norwegian jazz label Rune Grammofon to Hubro and much like their other albums consists of a small number of long tracks, in this case 3 tracks totalling 40 minutes. I always feel like this is a brave format for such a short album, because in a 40 minute punk album, for example, you can afford to throw a few crap songs in and no one will notice. The opener, Presence in Absence, starts with some rather ominous, pulsing, ethereal tones which are unceremonously eclipsed by a loud clatter from the drums, recalling in a way the dynamic brilliance of Emptyset. At 17 minutes, it’s rather a slow burner, and gradually adds layers over the course of the track as the timbre slowly thickens. Very melodic guitar work gives the track a meandering feel until it gradually decays, interesting, though is how each instrument has a moment where it leads the track. ‘The Flow of Sand’ is possibly my favourite, as it evolves over a slightly distorted repetitive bassline, like a darker, less groovy Fire! Really what we have is 3 interesting studies in drone, which evolve slowly by varying the elements involved and the more expressive elements, like the guitar, seem to guide a change in mood. While the album’s great, there’s a certain sense of no end product, but any Huntsville – or indeed free jazz fan, will know to enjoy the journey.

Joachim Nordwall

Soul Music

This album has the potential to be one of my favourites of the year, and its quality is backed up by its recent place in Wire’s latest office ambience, one of the biggest accolades in my opinion. Having said that, it’s certainly the biggest misnomer of the year. Those in search of soul music should probably scurry back to their Motown collection as there’s not much to enjoy here. What it does have, is Joachim Nordwall of The Skull Defekts fame blasting out some music that I would describe as the lounge-music in purgatory. It’s not a huge departure from his previous work, and indeed final track Psychic Propaganda is actually a re-edit of last year’s EP, showing a connection between it and this work, which actually has a thicker timbre by comparison. If this is Dante’s Inferno, then the album’s equivalent of Virgil is the percussion, provided by Jean-Louis Huhta, also from The Skull Defekts. The percussion is really the central theme of the album, one that hypnotises and creates something of a trance like state, but in a much more muted and eerie way than the electronic genre. The relation between this album and dance music definitely does hold water though, particularly in tracks like ‘Soul Vibration’ or the very appropriately titled ‘Acid Ritual,’ where Nordwall’s synth work recalls acid house. In fact, ‘Acid Ritual’ would be a great alternative title for the album, particularly given the dark ritualistic vibe that Nordwall produces throughout. It reminds me a little of EVOL’s Proper Headshrinker, an album that it sounds nothing like but which, like Soul Music, presents the traditions of electronic music in a very abstract and unfamiliar way.