ambient / experimental / jazz / idm / glitch

Krysalisound

Sometimes it's good to step out of your musical comfort-zone and into strange sonic territories. I guess that's what the good people from Krysalisound must have been thinking when they signed this odd duo. Mostly known for their soothing ambient releases, the label now unleashed something unusual, to say the least.

​klās'tĭk is the duo of Andrea Koch and Masaya Hijikata. One lives in Berlin but has Italian roots, the other resides in Warwaw although born in Japan. So the cultural background of klās'tĭk is quite eclectic, so I guess it's no surprise that their music is quite eclectic too.

It all begins with a song called 'Chauvet'. At first, the song calmly explores the regions of experimental ambient and live looping, only to evolve into something ritual with eerie vocals and  glitchy percussion. 'Airtight Decoration' then drags the whole thing into the world of jazz, mostly characterized by the drums. Somewhere in the back of my imagination, Tom Yorke is jamming with Autechre and the Dale Cooper Quartet. 'Torque', a brilliant piece of drone-jazz somewhat follows that example, but without the vocals. That's probably why 'Torque' is my favorite track on this album with its pulsating soundscapes, complex drums and an almost magical atmosphere.

Every track on this album has its own story to tell, and it's rarely something easy-digestible. 'Night's Highest Noon' is chaotic and strange, and so is its follower 'Commuters'. Yet, here too, beyond the intense elements of free-jazz, there are unexpected loops and sounds, turning each song into something you have probably never heard before. I guess it's up to you to decide if that's good or bad. All I know is that this is a baffling debut, one that needs time and effort to be explored. Or in other words: this is glitchy jazzbient at its very best. I don't know if that is a genre but it covers the load quite well. Interesting debut....


​Serge

death metal

punk / hardcore

sludge metal / noise rock

death metal

death metal

post rock / post metal

alternative rock

electronic / alternative / experimental / trip hop

indie / alternative rock

post rock

black metal / "funeral grunge"

black metal

sludge metal / doom / krautrock

ambient / experimental / noise

Serge

electronic / edm / experimental / glitch

Automated Shadows is an album released on May 22, by American electronic music artist Wu Wei. Almost forty four minutes long, the record has ten tracks: Automated Shadow, My Circuitry, First Words, Blistered, Blinded, Manufactured Heartbeat, Witness, Oceans, I'll Always Think of You, Life Support and Before I. With a visibly organic sound that easily captures the vivid nuances of an atmospheric dream, Wu Wei’s melodies are small glories of splendor inserted into a vivid realm of luxurious amplitude, upon which all restlessness becomes solidified in a greatly styled serenity of peaceful grace. With harmonies that liquefy into a cosmic ocean of dense purity, the rhythmic shape of each and every song on this album is a marvelous experience of ultra-consciousness: doesn’t matter where your mind is, it is subtlety captured by the mindful coalescence of a navigating dream, that will formally captivate and reinstate into your darkened sense of reality a profound period of calmness, that will penetrate all levels of existence that floats throughout the parallel pyramids of the personal world of your thoughts. 

With a very singular style, that easily understands the poetic scope of its fantastically dense level of artistry, Wu Wei’s music conforms to a world where logic is another basic sense of the human spirit. Diffusing melodies that understand the intimacy of perfectly correlated rhythms, the work done for the sake of a complete expansion of dreams is not just marvelous, but inexperienced. With an elusive degree of originality, Wu Wei has created, on Automated Shadows, a subtle sonorous surface, that gracefully transforms itself into a reinstated planetary system of peaceful synesthesia, where all your senses are amplified into a more delightful expansion of conscious sensibilities.   

Automated Shadows is a dense and formidable work, that can be considered complete in its own right. With a continual layer of circular harmonies that complete its own sphere of graceful possibilities, the record transmits a genuine horizon of vicissitudes, upon which all harmonious rhetoric becomes a method for the sensorial musical perception. 

Don’t get me wrong. In any way – despite its resourceful and abundant qualities – I can point it out this album as a masterpiece. Sometimes, you feel the absence of a more solid and agitated, corporeal body of rhythms. Nonetheless, it is never tedious or monotonous either. In the end, Automated Shadows is a very good, reenergizing electronic musical work, with a very personal sonorous layer of its own. With calm and transcendental style, this record certainly represents an interesting vibration, with a very peculiar atmosphere of wonderful beauty.   


Wagner