The Predatory Wasp
Dennis Huddleston’s music has always been based around loops, and his latest album as 36, Ablyss, is the fullest expression yet of this obsession. The 21 tracks that make up the LP are not unfinished ideas, waiting to be fleshed out into fully formed tracks: they exist purely in their own terms, tools for drifting off and becoming completely detached. Or as he puts it: “Feel free to get lost in them whenever you need them.”
I’m busy today, but this is lush and you should listen to it. For a more committed précis, see Boomkat’s excellent (as always) hype.
Hinako Omari’s debut album a journey… was one of my favourites of last year. Released last week her new LP stillness, softness… explores a new sonic range, and was mainly composed on her Prophet ’08, the Moog Voyager and UDO Super 6, an analogue hybrid synthesizer that creates binaural, 3D-simulating sound. The album is darker, more expansive and more overtly theatrical than her previous work, but still seems to exists in the liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming, with the brief but beautiful stalactites illustrative of its meditative tone.
On the strength of its final 30 seconds alone, Blender in a Blender would be one of my favourite pieces of music this year. A collaboration with guitarist Roy Montgomery, the track was first drafted by Lattimore during an artist residency program in UCross Wyoming, and later evolved over the duo’s pen pal correspondence. Montgomery’s chords emerge from the harp-induced haze in the outro, and are completely and utterly mesmerising. It’s taken from Lattimore’s new LP Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, an album so obsessed with nostalgia it could have been tailor-made for me.
https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/goodbye-hotel-arkada
“Triangulating liquid acid, deprivation chamber house, and the outer reaches of dub techno” Yes, please!
The 2010 collaboration between The Orb and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has been “reimagined and remixed” as Metallic Spheres In Colour, and although my pretentiousness radar is on high alert with this one, I’m also intrigued. As Pitchfork sagely noted in their original review, “it’s an album designed to be listened to”, and I’m not entirely sure I can add much to that statement, other than to say this particular ‘movement’ sounds like a direct mash up of Sueno Latino and Leftfield’s Original. Is it good? I’m not sure! But listen below while enigmatically gazing off into the middle distance and decide for yourself.
https://burningshed.com/the-orb-featuring-david-gilmour_metallic-spheres-in-colour_cd
Released today My Noise is Nothing is a collaborative album between Lord of The Isles and Scottish poet Ellen Renton, pairing the former’s sparse, atmospheric production with the latter’s pandemic-penned words; verses that deal with her coming to terms with an influx of raw, unfiltered emotions.
Inspired by childhood memories of his grandmother and summers spent swimming and eating from her garden, Chuck Soo-Hoo’s new album as Ki Oni A Leisurely Swim To Everlasting Life explores the idea of a spirit floating into the afterlife, and is probably my favourite album title of the year so far, so perfectly does it encapsulate the gently meandering ambient it embodies.
https://kioni.bandcamp.com/album/a-leisurely-swim-to-everlasting-life
Synthpop royalty Vince Clarke recently announced his debut solo album, Songs of Silence alongside the lead single The Lamentations of Jeremiah. The album is described as “10-track lyric-less album of uncategorisable ambient beauty” and yes this is definitely true of the lead single, but “uncompromisingly bleak and foreboding” is another way of describing it. Situation it certainly ain’t.
https://mutebank.co.uk/products/vince-clarke-songs-of-silence-cd
Grant Chapman’s new album Revisions starts with an anguished scream and ends with a breathy vocal repeating “it’s so sad” for a couple of minutes, but despite this it’s actually a joyful listen, and really not depressing at all (honestly). Calm and serenity permeates through the entire album, which makes that jarring start all the more surprising. It’s hard to pick out a highlight as all the tracks flow pretty seamlessly, but sometimes it really is “so sad”, so Comedown gets TPW seal of approval. Also, at the time of writing this currently has zero views on YouTube, so it makes me feel good to know that might increase to a dozen or so following this post.
The Predatory Wasp 