‘Spidiffs In (September)’ by Lisa Cradduck
I’m a few days late with our albums of the month this time, because for the past couple of weeks I’ve been living in a wifi-less hut and working on a smallholding in Somerset. I haven’t done nearly enough work for The Quietus while I’ve been away, but I have dagged sheep, tickled pigs, pickled cucumbers and wormed goats. And I’ve listened to a lot of Alice Coltrane.
As we head into winter/the apocalypse/our final days before Boris Johnson becomes prime minister and turns the UK into even more of a shambling delusional shitshow, may I recommend all of these things to you with all of my heart. Yes, even dagging sheep.
Albums Of The Month
Alice Coltrane – Spiritual Eternal (Real Gone)
It begins with Coltrane on her Wurlitzer organ moving forever headlong into your hippocampus and the universe; the strings come in, at once a response to the cosmic Wurlitzer sounds and an all-encompassing encouragement of them. It is the most startling and natural combination, full of sass and swag. But whose swag am I hearing? Is it Alice Coltrane’s or is it mine? I don’t know. I know that on a meepy day you can self-medicate with this song; your chest will rise, your soul will hum and soar, you will smile all beatific. As a woman I met recently put it: “You listen to this song and you know you’re the bee’s knees.” Anna Wood – read more here.
Gazelle Twin – Pastoral
Pastoral is a disquieting listen, especially for those who think we can harness any ideas of ‘the nation’ for a progressive good. Those ideas are instead the basis of a Brexit-accelerated reactionary turn that believes Middle England is under threat and must be protected (and kept white) at all costs. Gazelle Twin shows us that any romantic idea of England is a poisoned chalice, at best, and Pastoral’s jester is the fool who skips along with us towards a looming dark age. Bob Cluness – read the full review here.
Shinichi Atobe – Heat (DDS)
Shinichi Atobe first emerged in 2001 with a single four-track 12” released by much-loved dub techno label Chain Reaction, then 13 years later came the gorgeous Butterfly Effect on Demdike Stare’s DDS imprint. That album revolved around smudged chord patterns and blunted kicks. There’s been two more albums and an EP in the years since, with Atobe building on those first two releases with slightly more maximalist results each time.
Where those records have mostly been pulled together from material produced sometime over the last two decades, Atobe’s latest album Heat finds him in more contemporary territory. Opening track ‘So Good So Right’ uses shifting hi-hats and the kind of hypnotic, minimal-leaning drums that would sound right at home in the sets of DJs like Zip and Ricardo Villalobos. Many of the tracks on Heat (see ‘Heat 2’, ‘Heat 4’ and ‘Heat 1’) develop very subtly across their extended runtime, Atobe opting to let his gorgeous melodic loops burrow into the listener’s skin as the best dub techno should. ‘Bonus’ consists of a simple piano loop rolled out over three minutes of basic drum patterns while closer ‘So Good So Right 2’ rolls along at an unhasty 115BPM pace as shimmering pads unfurl. Atobe’s strongest quality has always been his ability to turn heads with the most minimal of developments in his tracks, and it shows no sign of diminishing on Heat. Christian Eede
Yves Tumor – Safe in the Hands of Love (Warp)
He welcomes murky R&B, indie psychedelics and, most strikingly, his own voice further into the fray than ever before. The result is an album replete with cutting honesty and desperation, his lyrics stark and fragile. Eoin Murray – read the full review here.
The Caretaker – Everywhere At The End Of Time – Stage Five
Each stage of this project by Leyland Kirby is designed to roughly mirror the stages of developing dementia. This new part is the second of the ‘post-awareness’ phases, one of “confusion and horror”, as explained on Kirby’s Bandcamp: “More extreme entanglements, repetition and rupture can give way to calmer moments. The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar. Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.” Patrick Clarke – read more here.
Caterina Barbieri/ELEH – Split (Imprec)
Being able to behave beyond the laws of the physical world has meant it is not in electronic music’s nature to stop moving and, after all, music’s temporality will always mean audiences are destined to go from A to B. But both ‘Bestie Infinite’ and ‘Wear Patterns’ mindfully avoid the linear journey, bearing a kind of subtle inertia that renders stillness in the listener, as if floating in space but orbited instead of orbiting. Russell Cuzner – read the full review here.
Low – Double Negative (Sub Pop)
Across the album, every instrument has been abstracted almost beyond recognition, and all sounds are in messy conflict with each other. Extremities are stretched out, oscillating between claustrophobic rumble and gleaming beauty. The drop-outs and clicks of the album’s most intense moments are littered with cracks that let light shine through. William Doyle – read the full review here.
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – King Of Cowards (Rocket)
King Of Cowards opens with a simmer, a descending bass riff bubbling away until it boils over into an intergalactic launch of searing noise, and you’re reminded that this is a band of quite tremendous power. Baty’s vocals are more colossal than ever, surfing the monolithic wave with an almighty howl. The rest of the Pigs are on agile form, switching momentum from cosmic rushes to almighty, crushing descents without hesitation. Patrick Clarke – read the full review here.
Adult. – This Behavior (Dais)
“If you’re old enough to remember Detroit electropunk duo Adult. at their fashionable zenith in the early 2000s, then you might not be amped for This Behavior, their seventh studio album. But this is your loss, as it’s another pinpoint smash from a consistently great and striking band who’ve never lost their hardcore.” i>Noel Gardner – read the full review here.
Årabrot –Who Do You Love
Two of the songs here are unlike anything Årabrot have previously made. They are unfathomably gorgeous, and moving in the absolute extreme. ‘Pygmalion’, its music swimming in sublime, aching melancholy, feels like comfort in a time of all-consuming vulnerability, a moment of transcendent kindness; ‘Sons And Daughters’ is flooded with gentle rolls and crashes of percussion, a defiant moment of resistance, consolidation and preparation for whatever may come. Patrick Clarke – read the full review here.
Pig Destroyer –Head Cage (Relapse)
Head Cage is angry; it touches on depression, the darkness inherent in humanity, life and death and the fear that comes with it all. The combination is devastating and while they don’t stray from their own formula too much, Pig Destroyer are still masters of their craft. Cheryl Carter – read more here.
Suede – The Blue Hour
The Blue Hour is a record quite unlike any other, and Suede remain one of the most distinctive bands that this country has produced in the past few decades. Luke Turner – read the full review here.
Tracks Of The Month
$hit & $hine – ‘You Were Very High’ (Diagonal)
How to use samples to create pure diamond-solid pleasure, lessons 1-1000.
Audiobooks – ‘Dance Your Life Away’ (Heavenly)
The gauche and joyful power of Audiobooks continues unabated with this new single. The video is a perfectly matched piece of skill, strength and compelling oddness. AW
Objekt – ‘Secret Snake’ (PAN)
Ever-reliable and head-spinning, the producer channels the swagger of dancehall before building to a crescendo of colourful synths that recalls early OPN. CE
BED – ‘White Coats’ (Heavenly)
Something between a piano rave choon and a funeral song, from Baxter Dury, Etienne De Crécy and Delilah Holiday. Makes you cry-dance. But in a really good way. AW
Hen Ogledd – ‘Problem Child’ (Weird World)
A song that sounds like a jagged old Janice Long pick-of-the-week with a whiff of The B-52’s, but more Welsh and with an ecological anxiety hanging over it like a leaden cloak? Yes. From our beloved Richard Dawson with Dawn Bothwell, Rhodri Davies and Sally Pilkington; album coming soon. AW
Ian William Craig – ‘Some Absolute Means’ (Fat Cat)
The leading – some would say sole – proponent of opera drone tape experimentation returns with a particularly plangent sounding yet beatific excursion into noise. JD
Kasper Marott – ‘Keflavik’
An unashamedly spritely club banger that arrives just slightly too late to earn its deserved summer anthem status. CE
