Quarrtsiluni is a word in Inuit which roughly means that you are quietly sitting together waiting for something to happen. You may listen to this album in that way, but I do think that it’s rather eventful. There are six tracks which are titled only with numbers: Song one, two, three.. and so on. Each song or track is an improvisation with the starting point in the feeling of just sitting together and the sensation that something has to be said, something necessary. Maybe the spirit of the great whale is among us in the music, as they write on the label Lamour records.
Lisa Ullén on piano and Nina de Heney on double bass have been playing together for a long time and they are a well established duo. On “Quarrtsiluni” they are also joined by Swiss Charlotte Hug on alto violin.
Read more here and listen to the entire album in one session in the Youtube clip below, or sample one of the tracks in the Soundcloud player.
A 35 minute long sci-fi tone poem for pipa (chinese lute) and guitar pedals. It’s not exactly something you encounter every day. The music are also ambitious and quite unusual to say the least. BC Grimm, aka Brian Grimm, grew up with various chinese string instruments and has also later studied several of them in Hong Kong.
On “Orbis Obscura” the traditional chinese influences are not that obvious, so if you expect that you might get disappointed. But the music is built from the sound of Grimm’s pipa, a sound he then manipulates with the help of pedals and effects beyond recognition. Noise, drones and other sounds that are connected to sci-fi are poured into the mix, creating an interesting journey through Grimm’s sound imagination.
With their last album, “So Much Imagine” the duo Marching Band, Erik Sunbring and Jacob Lind, wanted to find their way back to their roots with a more DIY-based pop sound. And I liked the result where they vented in full their gorgeous indiepop-tinkering on a double album. Still, it feels like that album pales in comparison to their fourth album “Heart Jewel”, released a few weeks ago.
I notice the difference right from the start in the first track “Creator – And I Notice”, a folk-inspired, uplifting pop track. Overall the record feels happier, more energetic and more playful than any album I have listened to before with the duo. There is still a lo-fi vibe, which sometimes reminds me of Magnetic Fields, and their pop melodies are high class as usual. But here is also a variation in the arrangements and quite a few fun ideas that keep me on my toes the album through. They have also started playing with electronica and drum machines which makes this into a very unique brew, a brew that tastes very sweet and refreshing.
The horses without makeup are back, now with their debut album “Pt 1”. Last year we got to know their mix of grunge, punk and stoner rock when they ran us over with their first EP. Here on their first full length record the song “Sopsekt” has found its home among eight new songs, and if you liked them before, you won’t be dissapointed now. This is pure rock energy which grinds you in 27 minutes and obviously they grinded themselves a bit during the recording sessions. They write that the singer and guitarist Martin overdid himself while they were recording and fainted among all the equipment. They wanted to keep everything from the session so they simply put this track at the end of the album, and you can hear the incident on the last track “Number 9”. For sensitive listeners I can report that Martin is back on his feet again. Here are two songs:
In his solo project Tentakel Pontus Torstensson continues to weave together electronic influences from krautrock, techno, ambient and other genres with driving rhythms. Last year I wrote about his debut album and now he’s released the two track single “Impulse/Inversion” on the label Höga Nord Rekords. “Impulse” is an intense story with fast analogue synth figures urged on by a high-paced beat, sending me images of a hardboiled action movie in the beginning of the eighties. “Inversion”, on the other hand, is a more complex creation full of mystique with layer upon layer added until we reach a breaking point, where we are left floating over some cosmic no man’s land. Listen to the first track here:
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