Stian Westerhus—Redundance

Even the most unpredictable artists tangle with the weight of expectation. Stian Westerhus is no exception: having cut his teeth in experimental guitar composition, Westerhus’ ventures have since plumbed more eclectic depths. This broadened scope leaves commentators impotent; scrabbling to cram something amorphous and multi-faceted back in that neat “experimental guitar” box. But Redundance is the latest in a line of releases which affirm Westerhus as someone who can’t really be described in simple terms.

It this all makes Redundance sound like it’s going to be some kind of dadaist, Trout Mask-esque mess of errant ideas, it’s not. Simple until it’s subjected to analysis, Redundance is an album as easy to enjoy as it can be difficult to parse. In short, it volleys back any interest you give, and benefits rigorous attention as generously as casual listening.

First-half track ‘Verona’ is as freely enjoyable and funky as something Bombay Bicycle Club or Hot Chip would release—but with a fire to its squelchy instrumentation neither band would dare to attempt. It also finds Westerhus channelling David Byrne with some charmingly eccentric vocals. It embodies the appealing swagger of Redundance; how every minute of its runtime is elevated by a confident inflection. Westerhus is living proof that not everyone can pull this shit off—and he carries offbeat choices on his own singular and irresitable appeal.

Tracks on Redundance regularly sprawl across seven or eight minutes—another manifestation of Westerhus’ confidence—but never feel over-extended, or even long. Title track ‘Redundance’ is as good an example of this as any. It has a lolling, soporific power; the heaviness and inexorable downward trajectory of sleep paralysis.

Across the board, Westerhus’ ideas are clearly established, and given the exact amount of time they need to develop. If anything, this album could have benefitted from a patience-tester; some kind of massive slog to emphasise the muscularity of its soundscaping and roll deeper into its own trance. But that’s probably just the masochist in me talking. As is, Redundance offers something for everyone—whether they be headphone-set introspectives or the most casual of listeners. For something no one can really describe, Redundance sure has some broad appeal.

Redundance is available for purchase here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

Sightless Pit—Grave of a Dog

Sightless Pit are as close to a supergroup as their field will allow. Comprising Lee Buford (The Body), Kristin Hayter (LINGUA IGNOTA), and Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), the band have crafted a document of abjection and hopelessness which combines and solidifies their respective strengths. It comes at the tail of two years of on/off studio time during which the artists have tinkered, tweaked, recorded and assembled stems. The rarity with which they shared studio space is impossible to hear on this record—something cohesive, beautifully engineered and, in its own way, gratifyingly restrained.

The album’s ace-in-the-hole is Hayter—an industrial/noise artist who emerged and shot to relative stardom in a very short span of time, and represents the very best of what the genres can currently achieve. Her compositional input and staggering voice elevate the material on Grave of a Dog to operatic status; and its disruption and disentegration (such as at the end of ‘The Ocean of Mercy’) serve to pull the ear even more sympathetically to Buford and Walker’s glitchier, crunchier sound.

Buford’s influence is particularly notable: a relentless, mechanical heartbeat of distorted drums which pushes forward like a dynamo, inflates the album with pressure, and gives it brittle, burning life. But no one element is more valuable than the other here. It is an album which could only have been made by these three collaborators.

The material presented on Grave of a Dog is profoundly negative—but the accompanying experiential thrill tips it into something affirmational. Like a liberation through loss, this album reaches such extremity, and throws life into such stark relief, that everything feels much simpler under its shadow.

Grave of a Dog is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words: Andrew O’Keefe

King Krule—Man Alive!

Archy Marshall cuts the same silhouette as Bowie’s Thin White Duke—but the similarities don’t end there. Born stone’s throws from each other (respectively in Southwark and Lambeth), both artists transcend their earthliness, defy categorisation, and are fans of the sax. Marshall is larger, and smaller, than life; transparent, would he not be so fascinating to observe.

Man Alive! has the difficult task of following Marshall’s lauded (but still not-lauded-enough) The Ooz—a 2017 album which assembled all the best things about roughly twenty different genres into a cohesive whole. Man Alive! is constructed from the same blueprint, but with some noodly edges shaved off; a leaner, tighter, and more focused piece of work than its predecessor.

Its early energy is explosive and irresistible. An opening salvo of four or five songs is almost impossibly exciting, peaking with the beat-driven ‘Stoned Again’. Replete with Marshall’s psychotic backing vocals and thundering drums and bass, it’s a sensory overload in the best possible way.

The adrenaline rush soon submits to a cool beauty, an unravelling of Marshall’s anger and its replacement by gentle washes of hope. It’s an unfamiliar mood being explored here, but its first steps are far from tentative. A throughline of discordance tells us this could collapse at any time—who hasn’t sabotaged their own happiness at one point or another?—but the big take-homes from Man Alive! are its lush crescendos; hypnotic, looping chord sequences; and its uplifting lyrical content (“don’t forget you’re not alone”).

The looseness of tracks like ‘Slinky’ will lead them to be overlooked. But any fan of The Ooz will know that Marshall’s vignettes and diversions are often just as rewarding as the keyframe cuts of his albums. Man Alive is absolutely stuffed with these little golden nuggets, which add so much character to an album already bursting with it.

Marshall is able to create music which sounds global and local, ageless and contemporary, mystical and empathetic. The boy can do it all, and is destined to go down as one of the greats—so don’t be one of those thickos who wasn’t listening at the time.

Cellular is out now on XL Recordings/Matador Records. Directed and animated by Jamie Wolfe Ink and paint assistant - Annapurna Kumar https://www.jamiewolfe.c...

Man Alive! is available for purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Bucky—Come Back

London is a city factioned by class and cultural minutiae. It’s the rope in a tug-of-war between natives and a swelling crowd of commuters, newcomers and tourists. Bikelife rideouts strive to reclaim gentrified central streets. Chicken Shop Date earns ad revenue off blatant class tourism. I once spoke to a girl who moved to Catford because it had “cat” in the name.

Bucky’s Come Back is a sprawling document of a South London kept hidden from visitors; a place of loneliness and kinship, danger and beauty. But it’s also kind of a break-up album, eulogising a city that once valued its inhabitants, and exploring the pain of letting that go. ‘Had to Leave’ repurposes its vocal hook beautifully, as words once aimed at an ex-lover are redirected to a birthplace.

‘Knives & Daggers’ is the first of many tracks on Come Back which address the city’s knife crime “epidemic”—something national press describe like a virus, but for which recommend no curative measures. The track moves in swathes of gorgeous, Vangelis-esque ambience, an elegiac counterpoint to the beat-driven material around it. It exalts the rapper MDot, who was stabbed to death some years ago but whose death is still just as keenly felt.

More ambient tracks pepper the album, and are hugely effective when they show up. ‘Estate’ yawns with space like the roads of a community in which no one drives, with gentle blasts of what can only be described as glitch. It’s an otherworldly track—the only thing which bears comparison is some Caretaker material (particularly Everywhere at the end of time — Stage 5).

‘Pirates’ immediately follows that track—a nostalgia-packed banger that pays tribute to London’s pirate radio stations. It’s a scene which is very much still alive, instantly accessible online, yet nowadays only recognised by the mainstream in parody—like Kurupt FM’s four-stars-from-the-Guardian “podkast”. The track features some shell-casing tinkles as percussion, one of a few nods Bucky makes here to future garage poster boy Burial. But while Come Back can lean on some stereotypical garage sounds, it has a richness and ambition entirely of its own. ‘Angel’ is practically orchestral, filled out with rich string samples and yearning bass. ‘Walk Away’ is like RnB vaporwave; a track almost as simple in concept as it is heartbreakingly glorious in execution.

The effect is something like Gaspar Noé’s Into the Void; a bodiless and sometimes invasive bird’s eye view of a city both dark and luminous. Come Back is a hugely ambitious album which sticks the landing, leaves no street unexplored, and should probably be on the citizenship test.

Come Back is available to purchase and stream here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Grimes—Miss Anthropocene

This year, a 2010 documentary by Canadian filmmaker Emily Kai Bock, Human Heart, resurfaced on youtube. Its subject is Claire Boucher (Grimes), then a gawky astrophysics flunker trying to chip a sideline for herself in the music industry. She appeared a character adjunct from society; buffeted by dreams and blissfully unaware of the shape of things. Ten years have passed since then—and Boucher and the world’s relationship has grown more complicated.

The Grimes of Human Heart is unrecognisable, replaced by a pop-star ice queen who wears Iris Van Herpen gowns in her music videos and tags Balenciaga in her sponsored Instagram posts. Boucher never aimed to be a relatable or socially-conscious artist—instead aiming for pixie/juggalo cross-breed—but she wasn’t a superficial one either. So this flouncing around in exclusive designer wear still feels oddly like a betrayal of principles.

In fact, Boucher has pretty much become a walking principle-betrayer. “I don’t want to be infantalised because I refuse to be sexualised” is a commendable statement—one that looks really good as the headline of a news article. But it feels rich coming from a performer who deliberately babies up her voice when she sings and had a camera rotate around her PVC-clad arse in the ‘We Appreciate Power’ video.

The obvious counterpoint is that Boucher was making a critical and much more specific statement about the music industry’s treatment of female artists. The elephant in the room: multi-billionaire Elon Musk—Boucher’s partner and modern-day Howard Hughes. When Musk was publicly called out on refusing to let his workers unionise, Boucher swept in to deflect the tweet-storm and defend him. It seems, for Boucher, the only imbalances worth correcting are those which affect her industry gal-pals and the surrounding cultural elite.

On Miss Anthropocene, Grimes presents a mass-appeal repackaging of Nick Land’s accelerationist philosophy, arguing that we should welcome the advent of climate change. In some way, it’s the same aloof, playful Grimes of ten years ago—but one who is directly addressing some rather more serious topics. “Wouldn’t it be fun if Dune was real”, the starry-eyed Grimes of Halfaxa, is a lot more palatable of a sci-fi conceit to accept than “we are all about to be annihilated in an ecological apocalypse haha”. It might not be so bad if Boucher wasn’t under the same roof as someone who could make a fucking difference.

I’m sure most positive criticism around Miss Anthropocene will focus on its production. But that’s really easy to get right when you have a thousand times the budget as everyone else.

Miss Anthropocene feels like a compromised product—something which has no concern for people, but still waters itself down for their approval. And Boucher herself has become harder to market as she has become more famous; a contradictory, nonsensical person who has been saddled with celebrity, and is now expected to take stances on things. But which is she feigning: indifference or sincerity?

You can find a download/streaming link for this one yourselves—she doesn’t need our help.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe