Hello, and welcome to noodle – our monthly round-up of all things experimental, improvised, noisy and, downright odd, where we’ll be taking you through some of the outer reaches of the new Scottish releases.
A couple of artists that we’re very fond of have excellent releases out this month: the first is vocalist and composer Rylan Gleave, with his All Men Unto Me project. ‘Requiem’ reimagines the structure of the Catholic mass for the dead, stacking drone and heavy noise onto overdriven church organs with Gleave’s incredible vocal layered into a choral wail. It’s a powerful piece with mourning and grief front and centre.
Rhins is the latest moniker of the artist known to his mum as Joe Quimby, previously recording as Hivver and as part of Remember Remember, amongst others. ‘The Burnout’, released on LA’s Dragon’s Eye Recordings, builds on the droney soundscapes of his previous releases with an anger and frustration of trying to fit a world that won’t accommodate you.
Electronic composers in the Berlin School mode of soaring ambient soundscapes, Isolde & Isobelle will always get our attention. Latest release ‘Half Light’ is no exception to that – one of the more melodic of their recent works, building those towering layers of swirl and soar. Eighteen-minute closer ‘The Monstrous Fachan’ is a glacial, minimal ambient journey named after the mythical monopod that roams the West Highlands.
When he’s not recording albums with members of The Cardigans, James Yorkston is often found around the stranger end of things. His latest collaboration with saxophonist Lina Langendorf and Cornish psychedelicist David A Jaycock sees him experimenting with a nyckelharpa – a traditional Swedish instrument somewhere between a violin and a hurdy-gurdy.
The snappily titled ‘Yorkston/Jaycock/Langendorf’ builds on each of their strengths, creating a surprisingly accessible blend of folk, ethio-jazz, and experimental electronics.
Glasgow label Somewhere Press have put out ‘Aboyer au mauvais arbre’: a series of improvised sessions by ARBORE, the collaboration between instrument builder and field recordist Diane Barbé and noise musician Laure Boer. It’s an ambitious and fairly overwhelming project that takes in analog synths and circuit-bent telephones, peaking with ‘Pas une trompette’, which samples a speech entitled ‘Visionary Experience’, given by Aldous Huxley in 1961.
Closer to home, the always reliable scatterArchive continues to put out absolutely excellent experimental work on a pay-what-you-can basis. ‘DUOS’ sees Keisuke Matsui’s cello winding around some beautiful improvisation on a Korg MS-10 from Martin Hackett, finding a surprising delicacy in its analog whorls.
Lastly, staying with experimental electronics is Edinburgh’s unclassifiable Proc Fiskal. ‘Canticle Hardposte’ takes on the atmospherics of the nocturnal city with glitchy beats and melodic microsamples: little snippets of vocal played like keyboard lines and half-nostalgic house keys, all delivered with the sense of humour of someone who calls a song ‘uHazsh’.
I’ll be back next month with more of the best and weirdest music Scotland has to offer.
