Larry Achiampong
Untitled

boomkat: ...Mesmerising, sui generis noumena from a mongrel duo of Püdel regulars, F#X/E.K.G. and Nika Son, a.k.a. C for Nina and good news' V I S label, together building on a collaborative practice developed during and since they were commissioned for an installation in a Hamburg gallery.Their Tennõ EP is a result of haptic and synthesised inputs generated from a variety of tape-machines, filters, self-made physical resonators, synths, drum machines and vocals, yet you’d be hard pushed to pick out where and how those “instruments” are used in the abstract, amorphous fabric of their compositions. Submitting to their sound is like going in blind, giving yourself up to their fancy. Across the front Geroll revolves a central knot of a hip hop break which seems to freeze and thaw in and out of focus like some lost joint from Spectre’s The End album left to fend for itself on the high plains, ending up stomping itself into an acid wormhole.On the other side, even the rhythmic handrail is extinguished with Diphtongues, plunging us into deepest indigo drones and a bath of glossolalic texturhythm acutely recalling Tongues of Light’s amazing Channelled Message at the End of History record, before spinning out along multiple vectors at once like a six-handed Valerio Tricoli in Tennõ.Another peach from this brilliant label.

Editions Mego: ...Heaven is a work of contemporary church music. Centrally occupied with the subject of death, its conceptualisation was catalysed by Spiluttini’s discovering his mother’s preparations both for her own death and for his. He arrived at her home in 2015 to be led into the local church and shown the two adjacent places she had reserved for their urns. The tracks on Heaven together consist of an analogously personal and anticipatory negotiation with death.Partly derived from organ recordings made in the same church, the album frequently enlists Arvo Pärt’s compositional method of tintinnabuli. Aside from the thematic logic of its sacred associations, the method suits Spiluttini’s tendency, in spite of heavy and dynamic passages, to minimise tonal complexity. His characteristic uses of gnashing bass, restlessly irregular pacing and serrated distortion return. This time, they combine with pads, harps, fluttering organs and swooping choirs.

Sia Ahmad returns with A Body of Full Of Tears, the Canberra sound artist’s first new work as Shoeb Ahmad since “quiver” (2018) and their departure from critically-acclaimed jazz ensemble Tangents.Where “quiver” embodied themes of dysphoria and identity with a soul-pop conceit, ABFOT dives headfirst into the tumult beneath waves of distorted sound, obscuring Ahmad’s foundational songwriting in the process. It’s the cathartic din of an artist rediscovering the expressive and electronic elements of their early practice, marked by a period of deep isolation where questions of artistic and familial identity prevailed.All profits from sales go towards ongoing contributions made to Aboriginal Legal NSW/ACT and Pay The Rent.