A ton of work clearly went into producing this album, but it's all so grossly gaudy.
sound collage
Slauson Malone 1 - EXCELSIOR
ReviewsCommentA puzzle worth trying to figure out.
Swans - The Beggar
ReviewsCommentWhile The Beggar's music might arguably be less vital than Swans' myriad masterpieces, a great deal of beauty and power is mined from Gira's confrontation of mortality.
L'Rain - Fatigue
ReviewsCommentLate to the party, but yeah, this is one of the year's most adventurous pop projects.
Slauson Malone - Vergangenheitsbewältigung
ReviewsCommentThis spiritual successor to A Quiet Farwell flexes Slauson Malone's singer-songwriter muscle.
Blarf - Cease & Desist
ReviewsCommentComedian and actor Eric André's very own musical side-project serves up a wild, sample-based ride into the demented side of plunderphonics on Cease & Desist. Not only that, but this record also serves as a giant middle finger to the limitations modern copyright law places on artistic expression within the auditory realm. Equal parts absurd and revolutionary: This is Blarf.
Slauson Malone - A Quiet Farwell, 2016–2018
ReviewsCommentA Quiet Farwell is an inventive and consistently stimulating collage of underground hip hop and various strands of abstract music.
Graham Lambkin - No Better No Worse (Vol 1)
New TracksCommentJust a month following the sad but deliberate closure of Graham Lambkin's Kye record label, the sound and visual artist has embraced digital distribution by joining Bandcamp. His five, long out of print solo albums are now on the platform, as is a new compilation of previously unreleased material. The recording of this collection spans from the first of those albums in 2001, all the way through last year; with the project effectively serving as an alternate history of the man's post-Shadow Ring career up to this point. The sprawling opening track, for instance, could be another world's Salmon Run.
Consequently, I recommend listening to the actual albums first if you're not familiar with them – given their aforementioned OOP status, that's a distinct possibility. Salmon Run is my favorite sound collage / musique concrète work of all time, Amateur Doubles is one of this decade's greatest ambient works, and Community was one of my 2016 faves, so it's hard to go wrong with any of those. But if you'd prefer a baptism by fire with this comp, fucking go for it.
A second volume of unreleased material is due out later in the year; not to mention a collaborative double album with Áine O'Dwyer on the way via Erstwhile. Suffice it to say Graham's making big plays in 2018.