French instrumental math-rockers ni have already lobbed at us (across the Atlantic), two great, albeit short, releases: the two eponymous EPs of 2010 and 2012. This year, for the full release, the name ni just wasn’t enough. Les Insurgés De Romilly is a full-length album, clocking at around 40 minutes; 40 minutes of intense mathy prog-goodness!ni is about intense, mathematical, challenging yet light-hearted music. With Les Insurgés De Romilly, they have achieved an otherworldly balance of dissonant harmonies, catchy odd-time grooves, and psychedelic, sometimes schizophrenic, passages. The voices, too, are in some sort of grey area that will … Read more
True math! Upsilon Acrux is one of these bands that really mesmerize you, on every listen. Their music is so dense and complex, both harmonically and rhythmically, that it’s difficult to listen to their album, Sun Square Dialect, as background music, while doing other tasks. You might find yourselves trying to keep track of the changing time signatures or just trying to figure out what’s happening, and how it got there! It’s truly music for the brain.
The first thing I did was to press 1, and I was utterly disappointed that the very title of this album is a big ugly lie. However, I didn’t press the keypad 1 so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. This one-man project originates from Athens (no, not Greece’s Athens), in Georgia (no, not the country), USA, and plays us some really cool progressive rock music, with an emphasis on pianos and keyboards, which is a rarity these days.
Fuckin’ awesome!
