Dear Laika - Pluperfect Mind (2021)

Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn creates some very experimental, noisy and artful pop music and she does it a lot: in the last four years, she released seven longer albums and one of them, Rinzen from 2018 was one of the shiniest gems on my blog that year. This time, the British artist comes back with perhaps the most nuanced and complex album called Pluperfect Mind.

Her music is strongly affected by her avant-garde approach to music. Thorn uses difficult melodies sown up from various matters into a chaotic and very atmospheric whole glued together by her unbelievably airy but poignant voice. There's next to everything in her music: electronic subtlety, harsh noise, instrumental randomness, choir appearances and, the most important part, mystery and uniqueness of its high-art theatrical style. It's not one to have fun to or to pick up melodies from; it's more like sounds for lonely and careful admiration. It's not music, it's "a beautiful and singular oddity which exists in the liminal space between dreamworlds and a blurry, watercoloured version of reality".

This is not an easy music but this was not meant to be either. It's very fitting as it talks about things that are not easy either. The main theme of the album is isolation, a topic so very well known right now, but it's also about Thorn's experience with being a trans-gender person. It is painful and poignant and lines like the one from Ubi Sunt (yawning ocean/ of days adrift and calm/ catatonic, watching sundown/ tremble against the wall/ washed out and faint/ i wait for nightfall) describe the lonely times of depression so accurately and poetically at the same time. This album's release  is one of the biggest events this year.

Pluperfect Mind costs 10 USD.

Dear Laika - Rinzen (2018)

Check: Asleep in Wildland Fire

Country: UK

Genre: avant-garde pop

Label: NNA Tapes

:bandcamp:

:facebook:
:official:

:instagram:

:spotify:

Holy Hum - All Of My Bodies (2017) EN

Holy Hum is Andrew Yong Hoon Lee, a universal artist who alongside creating sounds, has also exhibited his works in, e.g.,  the Vancouver Art Gallery. As a musician he has played with Siskiyou and In Medias Res and had a show on Primavera. This time he shows his solo project and, boy, is it awesome.

I'm under impression that it's his way to deal with his Asian origins but I can't really decipher the album cover. What I know though is that his music is really touching. Lee's vocal is full of sadness, longing and melancholia, sounds beautiful e.g. in the perfect "Flowers In The Snow" where it is accompanied by a female vocal (this time it's Kathryn Calder's). Another thing is that there's a lot of guests on the album - both vocalists and musicians playing flute, piano, cello or clarinet.

The whole thing is a mixture of sounds that are so different (from the lamenting strings to epic drums in the backgrounds) that it's super surprising how well they resonate together and how big their influence on the audience is. All of them are great: the lyrical songs, the high-paced ones ("Sex At 31") and those that drowns in an ambient-drone sea ("Joseph Pt. 2") or the one with spine-thrilling backing vocals ("White Buzz"). The album is infinitely complex, it's one of those that have to be listened to all over again.

"All Of My Bodies"costs 7 CAD.

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:youtube:

:official:

:spotify:

Holy Hum - All Of My Bodies (2017) PL

Holy Hum to Andrew Yong Hoon Lee, artysta uniwersalny, oprócz tworzenia dźwięków wystawiał też m.in. w Vancouver Art Gallery. Jako muzyk grał z Siskiyou i In Medias Res, występował też m.in. na Primaverze. Tym razem pokazuje swój solowy projekt i, serio, jest zachwycający.

Mam wrażenie, że rozlicza się na nim ze swoim azjatyckimi korzeniami ale niestety nie potrafię rozszyfrować okładki. Wiem natomiast, że jego muzyka jest niezwykle poruszająca. Wokal Lee pełen jest smutku, tęsknoty i melancholii, pięknie brzmi na przykład w doskonałym "Flowers In The Snow", gdzie również towarzyszy mu kobiecy wokal (w tym przypadku Kathryn Calder). Zresztą gości jest dużo więcej - zarówno wokalistki jak i muzycy grający na flecie, pianinie, wiolonczeli i klarnecie.

Całość to mieszanka dźwięków tak różnych (od zawodzących smyczków po epickie kotły w tłach), że aż dziw bierze jak doskonale są ze sobą zespolone i jak bardzo oddziałują na słuchacza. Świetnie brzmią zarówno kawałki liryczne jak i te wyposażone w wyraźne tętno ("Sex At 31") i te tonące w ambientowo-drone'owym morzu ("Joseph Pt. 2") czy w końcu pełne melancholijnych chórków powodujących dreszcze ("White Buzz"). Całość jest nieskończenie złożona, jeden z tych albumów, które należy słuchać i słuchać.

"All Of My Bodies" kosztuje 20 złotych (7 CAD).

:bandcamp:

:facebook:

:youtube:

:official:

:spotify: