The Predatory Wasp
Taken from her new album Classic Objects, Year of Sky is as evocative and transportive as anything Jenny Hval has created, soundtracking a rite of passage into a world only she can perceive but that she’s desperate to share with us.
It’s a testament to the raw artistry of Keeley Forsyth that she manages to make music this bleak a joy to experience. The follow up to 2020’s equally desolate Debris, her latest album Limbs puts her extraordinary voice even more front and centre, often alongside the very sparsest of orchestration. Land Animal is a personal favourite, but at less than 30 minutes long I’d suggest listening to the entire album at least twice through to properly lose yourself in the beautiful sorrow of it all.
An unpopular opinion: I don’t really like Arca’s music and find it fairly hard, even borderline impossible to listen to. I’m wrong, obviously, and if I think about it it’s objectively ‘good’ (many would argue peerlessly groundbreaking), I’ve just never got on board with it. So it’s a rare treat to hear her remix of the equally experimental Laurie Anderson and enjoy it, so I’m finally free to jump on the Arca Appreciation Juggernaut ™.
Year Of Love is the second single to be released from Jenny Hval’s forthcoming album Classic Objects – her first studio album for 4AD. The song explores a “very troubling” experience she had of witnessing a marriage proposal at one of her performances. Plenty of artists, I’m sure, would have experienced this as a purely romantic act, and thought very little about it afterwards, but for Hval it elicited questions about how her art impacts others, and her own marriage; themes she explores and attempts to resolve over the course of the song.
Of course, you could just ignore all that and enjoy what is – lyrics aside – one of the most upbeat songs in her catalogue to date.
New year, new Burial, and what better way to fully embrace the January bleakness than with his amorphous, ambient-leaning Antidawn EP, which acts as both protective cloak and insidious amplifier of the cold, hash reality of the world across five expansive, spectral tracks. Burial’s work has become increasingly loose over the last decade, formal structures all but abandoned for longform sketches as various motifs are explored and then abruptly cut off as others emerge from the static-ridden gloom. Shadow Paradis stands out for me, as its final moment are among the most beautiful he’s ever conjured, and that’s saying something.
The world has changed – arguably irredeemably – since Huerco S released his last album, the universally lauded and wordily titled For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have); an album which many have aped but few – if any – have bettered. February 2022 sees the release of his new LP Plonk, which, if the first tastes are anything to go by, we’re all going to be completely absorbed by for many years to come. His palette many have expanded since For Those…, but his ability to craft intoxicating sonic worlds remains as tight and impressive as ever.
I wanted to start 2022 with something uplifting and positive and was sure this was a suitable choice. However after a few listens I’ve decided that actually Nosaj Things’s latest single might instead be crushingly sad and melancholy. I just can’t decide. So here it is so you can make your own mind up. Happy/Sad New Year all!
The third LP from the anonymous electronic producer was a welcome surprise drop today. If you’re not familiar with their work, the two previous albums consisted of murky dub techno – every track exactly five minutes long, a theme that continues here – that while not exactly ripe for the dancefloor, still held into some vaguely rhythmic propulsions: a fading dream of the rave rather than a direct memory. Vol. 3 however does away with any such pretence, with most of the tracks quickly dissolving into little more than washed out hints of ‘dance’ tracks’, a creaking, lilting ship on an infinite sea of static.
I haven’t yet had the chance to dive into Tirzah’s second LP Colourgrade which landed today, but I really, really hope it’s all as good as Beating suggests it will be. Lo-fi, fuzzy tape feedback, washed-out synths and her plaintive vocal combine to create an atmosphere that’s both otherworldly and highly intimate and a track that stands out as sounding like nothing else you’re likely to hear this week/month/year.
As someone who loved Low’s last album but is only vaguely familiar with their extensive back catalogue, I’ve spent the week trying to play catch up as much as possible in anticipation of their new LP HEY WHAT which arrived today in all its melancholy, distorted glory. It’s been quite a week, and while I wouldn’t necessarily recommend piling through that much Low at once (the darkness! the depths!), it’s been interesting to trace the developments of their 20+ year career in just a few sittings. As a fairly new fan, I certainly don’t have any authority in ranking these things, but also: HEY WHAT is categorically their best album, and Hey is its emotional zenith.
The Predatory Wasp 