Challenging sonics have always been the appeal of Berlin Atonal. This years edition proved to be an immersive five-day marathon showcasing the very best of avant-garde music, audio-visual arts and a whirlwind of creativity. Madara Fridenvalde shares her personal experience of the festival that featured world premieres, rare bookings and first-time collaborations.
Reviews
Results1355
Idealist: Mind Field
Idealist is a man who’s learned his craft, who’s taken the time to work on his output, and having turned heads with “Firewood Street” back in 2016 on his own imprint… he’s back after 2 years off with a hefty new Mind Field LP on Echocord.
Shinichi Atobe: Heat
Atobe certainly brought his A-game to the table on his most danceable record yet. Heat features all of the sonic touchstones that we’ve come to expect from his music and capitalizes on the best moments from the almost 20 years we’ve known him to exist.
Thomas Fehlmann: Los Lagos
It’s been a while since we’ve heard a solo project from the electronic music legend, and the wait has been well worth it. ‘Los Lagos’ is a testament to Fehlmann’s longevity as an artist and a peak at what he’s capable of as a songwriter and producer.
Djrum: Portrait With Firewood
Occasionally there’s an album that smacks you around the chops with its sheer brilliance. Not just a gentle slap engendering vague thoughts that you might listen to it again but rather a proper clump leaving you dizzy eyed and reaching for the replay.
Nachtdigital Flex
In its 21st year, Nachtdigital has no plans to grow up. With playfulness at its root, the festival creates an environment in which performers and partygoers can let loose. Here’s our personal account of our first ever experience (inc. photos and videos) of Nachtdigital.
Various Artists: Lost Transmissions From The Off-World Territories
Glasgow based Invisible Inc. celebrate their twentieth release with a proper labour of love. Not content with just compiling a selection of excellent other worldly cosmic variations, Invisible have pulled together an impressive roster of musicians including Laraaji, Malcolm Cecil (as Tonto’s Expanding Head Band), K. Leimer and Richard Bone.
Ultrafog: How Those Fires Burned That Are No Longer
Landing via Motion Ward by early September, the debut long-player from Japanese producer Ultrafog shines with both a multitextural and multitextual density, blurring the line between the transience of the present moment and the everlastingness of memory.
Vril: Haus
Vril continues to dumbfound with yet another loop-based release of stargazing, dubby techno with a fresh slice of ambient on the rim. Haus is simply phenomenal and anyone that says otherwise is a hater.
Various Artists: Studio Barnhus Volym 1
Studio Barnhus Volym 1 is a quintessential representation of Studio Barnhus quirky, carefree and joyful sound – nothing less than a treasure for the lovers of the Stockholm label.
Sculpture: Nearest Neighbour
The graphic novel format pulls Sutherland’s visuals away from their usual spinning zoetropic prints. No longer produced for display on a constantly spinning turntable, his images have a greater sense of momentum by being allowed to evolve over the static page.
Heathered Pearls: Detroit, MI 1997 – 2001 Remixes
Heathered Pearls gathers an impressive cast to re-visit two of the tracks contained on the original release ‘Detroit, MI 1997 – 2001’ – The outcome are six excellent jams, so different from one another that you would hardly notice they all come from the same source at first listen.
Pariah: Here From Where We Are
“Here From Where We Are” is a richly textural, densely organic album, an absorbing venture into a sonic biosphere formed from the sounds of living matter. A record made with machines but spiritually rooted in the primeval muck from which we emerged.
DJ Richard: Dies Iræ Xerox
“Dies Iræ Xerox is a chaotic record full of wild ideas bound close together by a unique vision” On the cover of DJ Richard’s latest album,
Continue Reading
Wen: EPHEM:ERA
Wading through more bullshit than Pusha T claiming Pablo Escobar-esque parables and “beef”, while Kanye’s warbling humbleness, really, there aren’t better openings for taunting new music, much like Wen opening up his sophomore album ‘EPHEM:ERA’ with ‘Silhouette’, when he starts fucking around with that Alice Coltrane sample tho… urgh, it’s dutty time.
Project Pablo: Come To Canada You Will Like It
Kicking off his new label, Verdicchio Music Publishing, Montreal’s Project Pablo steps up with his inviting debut LP, ‘Come To Canada You Will Like It’. Even though each track is deeply enjoyable on its own we’re talking about a solid work where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and where each track acquires full meaning when interacting with the other ones.