★Jaz Records
Your True Emblem
Your True Emblem is the latest offering from Vancouver’s Cyrillic Typewriter, the enigmatic mantle of Jason Zumpano, joined here with fellow Destroyer alumna Scott Morgan (Loscil) and Nic Bragg, and recent recruit Terri Upton of Frog Eyes.
Discordia
Talvihorros is the work of Scotland based composer and producer Ben Chatwin, working in the field of ambient electronics. Through his distinctive approach to analogue electronics, he crafts dense collages of sound that hint at the conflicting beauty and chaos of the cosmos. ‘Discordia’ and ‘Mechanica’ are the first new recordings to be released by Talvihorros since 2014’s ‘Eaten Alive’ an album that explored the darker recesses of life. Continuing along in that vein these two visceral pieces are…
Sine Studies II
Sine Studies II is loscil’s continuation of the challenge set forth in Sine Studies 1- namely, to generate music derived from computer generated sine waves and no other sound source. Sine waves are perfectly pure units of synthesized sound, which alone contain no overtones and a somewhat unnatural sounding simplicity of spectral content. While their abstract purity in its rawest form can seem clinical, unnatural, synthetic and rather void of emotion, loscil takes it upon himself to morph, add, s…
Sine Studies I
The newest release from Vancouver’s Loscil, their first on the Jaz imprint, employs simple sine wave generators as the source for all sounds, transforming and processing some, while leaving others in their original form. Pure math and sonorous clarity on 45 RPM from one of Canada’s foremost ambient composers. Limited release of 300 copies featuring original artwork by Network Osaka.
Custodian
Custodian marks a much grander stylistic experiment in The Cyrillic Typewriter’s discography of cinematic pop enigmaticism. Explained away as a score for an unreleased horror film, Custodian may be a uniquely Ruritarian soundtrack, referencing an origin of unverifiable existence, a plausible, approachable, but ephemeral stranger. Suggesting a Heart of Darkness narrative of doomed exploration and dreaded discovery, the album employs swelling drones and Delphic female vocals to convey an overarchi…
Best Suit
Outside of Ontario, some of us had to actually work yesterday. So, now we are in the mood for Weird Tuesday. Here’s something to totally mess up your work day: ‘Best Suit’, the excellent techno, ambient, avant garde album from Jason Zumpano’s The Cyrillic Typewriter. Accompanied by Megan Bradfield on double bass, Zumpano lays out some jazz-informed musical musings that are occasionally laid-back but more often chilling and cinematic. It’s the soundtrack to a future nightmare.
Dominions
2016 release. Dominions is the second full-length release from Canadian electroacoustic composer Sarah Davachi, following 2015’s Barons Court. A slightly more demure approach is at work here, shifting from the brooding textures of her previous work to softer tones and more delicate movements in structure, as in side openers ‘feeler’ and ‘ordinal’. Recorded primarily at her home base in Vancouver, Davachi returns with her typical assembly of electronic equipment, mostly consisting of vintage synt…