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No Corner: ...Lowkey but pivotal Bristolian duo O$VMV$M supply No Corner with their first 12”, some 6 years after their debut ‘Memoryz Ov U’ in 2015Part of the sprawling but loose knit Young Echo collective, Amos Childs (Jabu) and Sam Barrett (Neek) have been in the shadows recently, producing for Manonmars and Rider Shafique, but ‘Weekend Saviour’ marks their sultry return to the fray via six slow and eazy downbeats in signature style. Chopped & screwed rap instrumentals, R&B, and dancehall inform the vibe, although skewed with a lilting South Western accent and perfectly skudgy, stoned appeal that oozes from every cut, working with a paucity of ingredients in an unshowy manner that’s made them clear favourites of red eyed night owls.The ghosts of Avon’s trip hop and heritage gloam large over proceedings, with perhaps obvious comparisons to be between Portishead and their dusty, creaking opener ’116 Greystoke,’ but there’s also something more fugged out to the likes of their dungeon bunkered title cut that’s more intimation, not imitation, as they pursue a perpendicular style of bluntedness between the slompy ‘Deathphone,’ plus the pastoral dancehall of ‘Bird Ride’ nodding to Equiknoxx, and an outstanding closer of cartoonish samples and groggy groove like a Metal Fingers meets Wiley screwball in ‘Codzilla Outro’ pointing to new angles of their sound.

boomkat: ...Among electronic music’s most intriguing new artists, Zoë McPherson devilishly complicates her sound in adeventurously strong 2nd album starring Elvin Brandhi and Greetje Bijma. Really strong LP this.Chasing up her debut LP ’String Figures’ (2018) and last year’s collab with Rupert Clervaux, ‘States of Fugue’ frames Zoë’s sound at its most elusive/illusive and cryptic, weft with samples of uncertain origin and sledding into unexpected places of enquiry. "On ‘States Of Fugue’, Zoë Mc Pherson orchestrates a very personal, tactile and fluid journey through emotions that range from subdued calm through to outright rage and playful devastation. She takes plunges into the deepest depths, lead by multiplied voices from the distance, with sounds crawling from beneath the surface of bass-frequencies, with what we can only describe as a rubbery synth glue (check ‘Growth’) before untangling all the tension in a whirlwind of mangled percussion (Exile) and letting completely loose on the rhythm-driven ‘Taste’… And this is just a pointer towards the three opening tracks!As the record continues, we visit vast worlds via Zoë Mc Pherson’s forward-thinking, left-turn taking sound. We haven’t even reached the polyrhythmic banger ‘Tenace (Dogs On Road)’ and the vocal disturbance of ‘Get It!’ yet, and we’re already super-charged on Zoë’s unique energy.Although her roots as a drummer can be heard throughout the record’s versatile and deft appliance of off-setting rhythms and the unique unscrewing of percussive elements, it’s the use of her voice that carries the record through so effectively. The direct stream of voice that locks in and out through each tune, wether in a directly understandable form or in a more guttural, effected shape really gives the record its feeling. The noises are relatable even in their strangest shape, and the narrative only compliments the sentiments of sound within. On ‘Learn Your Language Faster’ with Elvin Brandi on vocals, Zoë found her perfect match in terms of this vocal-charged message."

Founded in 2015, Tears|Ov are sound artist/self-taught musician Lori E Allen, classically trained cellist/mixed media artist Katie Spafford and illustrator/prison psychotherapist Deborah Wale. The trio first collaborated on Lori E Allen’s ‘Tears of the Material Vulture’ cassette on The Tapeworm, a re-imagination of a brief collaboration with Madame Chaos of cut-up cablecasts, 1995-1996, on Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Television in New York City. That release served to resurrect a hibernating creative practice between the three friends.Their writing process takes the form of structured improvisation. Allen will create a bed of loops, field recordings or a full framework. She then shares this base with Wale and Spafford who embellish or delete, the three building the pieces through long improvised sessions in London, playing late into the night. During these sessions, the feeling of a songs’ words or the emotional tone of a sound can spark sudden mood changes, altering the arc of the compositions. ‘Crucially the music is improvised – it is never the same twice. There are triggers and moments that signal moving to another part of the music, but the timings and lengths largely depend on our moods and interpretation on a given day/performance. Because of this, the album was recorded with ambient mics capturing multiple instruments. It wasn’t possible to record all the instruments separately as we respond to each others improvisation. Even if the changes are very minor, they really affect the emotion of each piece’ Spafford says.