MOJO Editor John Mulvey selects the best recent releases from music's more experimental outer-edges.
Amor Muere
A Time To Love, A Time To Die
SCRAWL
Mabe Fratti, a Guatemalan singer and cellist currently working out of Mexico City, is one of the rising stars of the global avant-garde. A couple of months ago, she turned up in MOJO’s Jazz column as half of Titanic alongside pianist/guitarist Hector Tosta. This time, she’s resurfaced in Amor Muere, four female improvisers who combine cello, violin, synth and tape manipulation into a kind of radical reinvention of the string quartet. If the capsule description suggests stern compositional austerity, this five-track debut is an often playful, often ethereal, constantly inventive pleasure, where the angular improvisations come together in micro-detailed harmony; 19-minute closer Violeta y Malva – think Julia Holter circa Tragedy - is a study of an intuitive quartet in constant, intuitive flux. And out of the beautiful sound designs, songs emerge too: Camille Mandoki’s vocal on Love Dies recalls Kate Bush’s deeper register on a track like Wild Man.
Mining
Chimet
THE LEAF LABEL
The art of converting climate data into music has already been explored by Daniel Bachman, among others, but this debut from a collective of scientists, programmers and musicians is still compelling. Chimet takes readings from a Solent weather station during Hurricane Ophelia’s visit in October 2017, and converts them into a multi-faceted drone piece, augmented by improvisations on piano (from Matthew Bourne), cello and synth. The calm, broadly, after the storm.
LISTEN TO/BUY: Bandcamp/Amazon/Rough Trade
François J. Bonnet & Stephen O'Malley
Cylene II
DRAG CITY
Sections of this second album from Sunn O))) bedrock O’Malley and Franco-Swiss noise academic Bonnet (aka Kassel Jaeger) occasionally resemble an ambient Stockhausen, or Gavin Bryars’ Sinking Of The Titanic reimagined by Keiji Haino. Mostly, though, it goes satisfyingly deeper into the meditative tonal states of O’Malley’s work, purged of its metal signifiers – like a gong bath, with guitar.
LISTEN TO/BUY: Bandcamp/Spotify/Amazon/Rough Trade
Drazek/Fuscaldo/Drake/Aoki/Jones/Abrams
June 22
ASTRAL SPIRITS/FEEDING TUBE
Chicago duo Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (electric guitar, trumpet) and Brent Fuscaldo (vocals, guitar) who used to operate as Mako Sica, are joined by some hitters from the local post-rock/jazz interface including Natural Information Society’s Josh Abrams and storied percussionist Hamid Drake. The results occupy a kind of fourth-world interzone; limber, free-floating explorations that gradually accrue, thanks to Fuscaldo’s chants, devotional heft.
Psychic Temple Featuring Lisa Bella Donna
A Universe Regards Itself
BIG EGO
Chris Schlarb’s LA project has made jazz capital out of Eno and Black Sabbath tunes previously, but here they’re plotting their own co-ordinates alongside synth player Bella Donna. The result, over two long pieces, is an unstable but successful blend of composed and improvised elements: big band cosmic jazz; New Ageish Suzanne Ciani-style texture; freeform psych; and – on serene ululations – a choir.