#7: Return of Reach; Billions of Reviews; Hours and Hours of Content™
Well, did you miss me? Reach is back, and so are some other things. This bumper edition covers a whole heap of it.
Hello again, dear subscriber. Thank you for waiting for Reach. I’ve missed almost three whole months of writing, and it’s quite tough to set the motor running again like it once used to.
I’ll spare you the gritty details, but 2023 has been a serious of consecutively rougher months, and back at the end of July I felt like a used match that was still (aggressively) trying to get yet more fire out of its own burnt-out ends. And when the fire didn’t come, I berated myself further for not being what I was. A rock and a hard place, with one of those two being me and the other being life.
I can’t honestly say “Hooray! things are entirely better!”, but at least some things are, and moreover I feel the urge to get back onto writing again, in the hope that doing more will lead to doing better at it once again.
I’m a big fan and follower of the poet and musician Roger Robinson, and he’s been undergoing a bit of a campaign on social media for quite some time to instigate people to get back into creativity with daily advice for artists. His advice is wise and sage, but a fair bit of it is ultimately different — and very nuanced — ways of rephrasing that old clip of Shia LaBeouf shouting “Just DO IT”.
So, we’re doing it again, and for the hundred-or-so people that follow me on socials but don’t subscribe (ahem) or those who mostly just like the sole post I make on Insta per month to show they know about the albums that I’ve covered without investing time to read my actual work, there’s a smell of good news coming your way. But, I’m learning to under-promise and over-deliver, rather than vice-versa, so that’s all I’ll say for now.
This release of Reach is a bit of a hodge-podge one: I’d written some reviews of some albums back in July, and then scuppered the reviews because of negative self-talk, so they’re printed here pretty much unedited, because they’re not so bad really and I’d like to shout the records out still, although as far as modern music media is concerned they’re already dusty old news (boooo to that way of thinking anyway). I’ve also including some quick splashes of words on notable stuff out now, which got me through August.
I’m going to try to make Reach a lot more doable for me in the months to follow, and that means shaking up how rigidly I approach the formatting, how regularly I post, and what content is inside. I’d given myself high standards, then got angry for not meeting them; I recall now I’m in my own room, and I make all the rules.
One of the new things is gonna be news-type stuff, writing and sharing quickly about stuff both from myself, and from friends and strangers whose work I admire. This month feels like a good month to return to writing, since other things are making a return as well:
The excellent Netil Radio Newfilter, helmed by Miro sundayMusiq (who I’m listening to right now on Netil Radio, as nature intended, on Sunday morning) has kickstarted again after a similar hiatus. Miro writes acerbic and inspiring take-downs of music industry & UK political fuckery which are both well-researched, self-evident, and really important reads for anyone dancing in electronic music circles these days, as well as a boosting up some of the amazing talent on my favourite radio station in London.
He’s also begun a new Substack for his Pacifist Techno Syndicate, which is essentially a group of the biggest, baddest, and sexiest ambient/techno/trance DJs in London and beyond. I don’t know what kind of thing we’ll find on the newsletter yet, but I reckon it’ll be worth a follow if any of those nouns or adjectives sound good to you.
The really amazing news is that the wonderful Boomarm Nation label out of Portland, OR, is back at releasing music! Anyone who’s followed my Netil Radio show PAIJATA, its previous iteration Cloud 8 on Bristol’s Noods, or really just anything I’ve been doing with writing about music and playing it out, will have brushed up against tracks from this label, which were among the first to place flags on such great musical mountains as SeekersInternational, St Abdullah, El Mahdy Jr, and many more of my all-time favourites. It’s ran by seemingly tireless musician and curator Gulls, and the new release is a nice 3-tracker with him and 1/2 of Natural Magic, but more on that another time. I desperately hope this means we can soon find all those old releases again , re-uploaded to Bandcamp in their rightful place, but here’s a remaining taster of their earlier catalogue to keep you going:
Finally on the “news” thread, two new reissues, in keeping with this issues’ theme of “back on it”:
Firstly, the stellar trance soundtrack of the PS1 game wipE’out’ has got a reissue via Lapsus, with some seriously proper remixes — watch out for Wordcolour’s microtonal missile!
A recent quiet evening in with my partner watching August in the Water, a cult film by Sogo Ishii, turned into a moment of cosmic serendipity when one of the best labels (full stop), Mana Records announced a reissue, which is out now!
Before I scare you off with too much writing, I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for bearing with, a huge thank you to anyone who gave me words of support to keep up the magazine over the last few months, and a massive thank you to Rami Abadir who said some really lovely stuff about my writing the other day that made me all fuzzy and self-assured again and yes that’s a name drop and a self-compliment rolled into one but ya can get facking deal with it.
This lot’s from July, unedited and publishing just to clear my head (and drafts).
El Kontessa - Nos Habet Caramel | نص حبة كراميل
Bilna’es - 28/07/23
Palestinian label Bilna’es release their juicy treats about once a year, and while this is far too infrequently, it gives time for the music to gestate. Last year’s debut album from Julmud remains one of my favourite listening experiences and I don’t doubt El Kontessa’s debut will slot rightly in-line with it over the next year.
Nos Habet Caramel is an infusion of a lot of different aspects of music bounced on the playlists and streets of her native Cairo, and one could easily write an essay on the heritage of Nos Habet Caramel, but exhausted as I am, I’m more interested in relaying to my readers the more elemental appeal of this album, rather than the musicologist’s critique. The terms Mahraganat and Shaabi music will come up in just about every other piece of coverage the album has earned, and while I’m gonna leave it to others to spell out what that means, it’s very important to remember where this album is coming from, broadly speaking.
The greatest success of this record, in my eyes, is its shifting gaze. I’m trying my best not to be overly comparative (and elitist) in my writing, but today’s a cheat day: a huge amount of dance music could be reduced down to a handful of unique bars of music, and the rest just copy-pasted (from within a track, or templated from other pieces of music). Sometimes that’s fine; techno likes a minimalist look; classic ambient loves to linger on an idea. But these days I’m most interested in evolving music that snares the attention, and never lets it loose again.
All of the tracks here begin and end in utterly different sonic locations. All have a handcrafted feel. Instead of leaning heavily on driving repetition to harness anticipation and energy, El Kontessa does the same with unpredictability: Ghaltet Meen is as multifaceted as a mirrorball, both in sound and composition, and the eventual explosion of energy roaring in at the halfway mark comes almost by surprise — and then it’s whisked away again.
Tantalising listeners in this way, El Kontessa meanders towards the ultimate point of her music, and in doing so making all the meanings intended. Instead of rushing to get the hit fast, the joy is in the whole story, the route there rather than a fast punchline.
MARMO - Epistolae
Utter - 07/07/23
I spent far too long attempting to describe why this musn’t be categorised as a ‘lockdown album’, despite being made in 2020 and ‘21, and yet none of my words seemed to stick well, for the sole reason that Epistolae deserves none of the comparison or drawn parallels between it and the heaps of *yawn* music released in, because of, and “inspired by”, the pandemic years. So, I’ll cut to the chase:
MARMO is Christian Duka (who makes excellent music as part of Vādin and does lots of cool sound stuff in London with Iklektik and Amoenus) and his hometown friend Marco Maldarella (whose illustrations adorn this LP, two Vādin albums, and the Introspective Electronics mix series) — created over distance, during lockdown, yada yada.
You could say there’s 13 tracks here, but it’s best to think of it as a single movement. Each track flows into the next with detail and grace: more than simply fading from one to the next, whole compositions are given over to pulling the listener through to the musical narrative.
It might be the first published release by Duka and Maldarella together (I might be wrong here as well), but their shared experience and talents grant this album a huge amount of clout. Darkly mysterious, journeying and vast, Epistolae is a great achievement, covering a run of genres from dub to ambient and the myriad forms of experimental music. Where you might have to be in the right mood for other albums, patience with this one will make the mood for you.
Another class offering from Utter, which co-released the very nice and relatively high-profile new album from Mu Tate with 3XL. Despite its numerous successes, I still feel this label deserves much more respect and attention.
Gooooose - Rudiments
Svbkvlt - 26/07/23
Rudiments is an act of absolute class. A cornerstone of the album is the Shanghai musician’s apparent mastery of being both extremely silly — with a name like ‘Gooooose’, are you surprised? — and at the same time very seriously accomplished.
Notwithstanding the ambient intro track, all of the offerings here present various forms of dance music that, at the basest level, feel quite familiar — techno appears, as does breakbeat, and something like versioned UK Funky. But “basest level” is not really a zone this album deserves to be anywhere near. Each track is built on a galaxy of micro-sounds that seem to be 3D-printed into perfect tactile sonic solutions, like bizarre Escher-like cogs that hardly make sense to the eyes, but work a piece of mechanics with smooth function and simple efficiency.
Immaculate is a hard word to use with confidence as a writer or critic, yet with tracks like ‘Sandbox’ — which really has it all: mysterious intro, surprisingly fresh-feeling snappy vocal snips, DAMNED groovy acid breakdown and 20th Century Fox cinematic closure — it’s hard not to make a conclusion that this album is a pretty perfect one.
When I speak of micro-sounds, I speak of how the gorgeously bright notes on Gin & Broccoli evaporate suddenly, get truncated or crunched out, or stretched into relative infinity. I speak of the grooviest grooves on Chips, made all the groovier by surgically-applied delays and reverbs. Just… just put it on, I’m far from my finest with words lately, and I’m doing it a disservice. Stellar, 10 stars, more of this all the time, thank you.
With July’s delayed writing published, I’m gonna scatter some seeds for a few more recent albums that have struck my inbox and play queue lately. As a personal challenge, a small act of mercy to you readers after this mammoth email, and an insult to the great music itself, I’m gonna keep things very brief. The music deserves much greater attention that I’m going to provide it here. And, by way of commiseration to the world of music, I hope to get down to writing and publishing another Reach very soon. Signing off until then, thanks again for being part of and witness to this journey/experiment/public diary of mine, and for fuck’s sake subscribe if you haven’t already, ta!
Kept brief and without over-formatting to make it swift, ok?
Temp-Illusion — failsafe
PTP - 01/09/23
Iran’s Shahin Entezami (AKA wonderfully talented ambient musician Tegh) and Behrang Najafi (who I’m sure has other projects I’m miserably ignorant of), get back on their wild-ride shit as Temp-Illusion with failsafe, an absolute thriller of a record from start to close. Steven Toast wastes no time in thrusting you into the thick of their basslines and gritty percussion, while percy (that’s personal fave, now you know) Jane Plough is fucked-ambient-meets-jungle-breakdown and mega levels of good.
Keeps you guessing wrong in a very good way, and delivers on the goods in a VERY good way. Heaps of influences going on in here, Kikini Bamalam is gonna be slaughtering decent kinds of dancefloors for years, trust. This doubles as your warning call to check the other Temp-Illusion stuff, and a wake up for EU bookers to get onto it, because they’ve been fucked over by shitty & European racist border/visa control policies more than their fair share already.
usof - Wish You Were Nicer
exael - Vanishing Act
Enmossed x Psychic Liberation - 27/08/23
These two dropped together at the end of August and both deserve a huge accolade: the music from both usof and exael has long been downright fucking excellent (best in class, some might say, and I wouldn’t fight that), but somehow these isolated musicians managed to simultaneously turn in their most brilliant work, polishing themes and personal motifs that have defined their sound studies to a radiant sheen.
Lisbon’s Living Room caretaker usof has always been great, but never (quite) struck such wistful tones as these to date; sheer quality modernist ambient that thrusts two middle fingers at the boring over-spiritual gong-type stuff in favour of vibrant sound design worlds that are like gazing into a never-breaking wave, full of beauty, grace, romance, motion and power.
On the flipside of the latest PLxEN double-drop, exael combs their demonic Brood/Dhalgren formulae into immaculate (yes, that word again), throbbing, sexy and emotive clubambient — Desire is a Glitch? yes. ten thousand times yes, with psychoactive vocals from Zoe Darsee — while elsewhere the artist’s more dreamy side gets time in the sun, and comes in with a bronzier glow than we heard at the end of Flowered Knife Shadows. I make few secrets that exael is probably my favourite musician for years now, and this is maybe the starter manual to their music: it doesn’t let you off deeper digging, but it gives you a good starting course.
V/A - Extra Muros Czech Republic
FLEE - 08/09/23
Closing out this extra-long edition with a locally-built LP of collaborative material forged in December 2022 by a load of bright talents local to Prague (Andriy Kostyukov, Rlung, Timmi and Oliver Torr) with a couple of overland guests (Jay Glass Dubs & Haich Ber Na). Musicians spent some time together working on music together, edited final cuts presented here on this album.
As far as albums grown entirely out of collaborations go, I’m downright floored by the quality here, especially considering the amount of time the musicians had to learn to work with each other — it says two weeks on the album bio, but early results were shared in a live performance after something like 3 days. Wonderful local heroes Radio Punctum hosted a recording of that concert, which you can check out on SoundCloud.
Andriy Kostyukov (from Ukraine, based in Prague after the Russian occupation) makes amazing music with Timmi on Pettels and Greek big dog JGD on perhaps my favourite, Sandy Dub, while Torr creates a great post-club/pop/much besides singalong with Haich Ber Na, that evokes the super-personal notes heard on Oliver’s debut album.
Rlung & Timmi collaborate with predictably great results (knowing their music) on Dew on the Desert, which relies on their shared love and talents in ambient, which kind of softens the blow still felt from JGD & Oliver Torr’s rebellious & hyperfriction’d take on jungle… there’s so much going on here, get yer teeth stuck in.
welcome back :)