Monthly Recommendations – October 2017

by Dæv Tremblay


Coma Cluster Void – Thoughts from a Stone

Thoughts from a Stone is a praise-worthy successor to the band’s debut album, and expands many ideas that were expressed there further. For example, what I like to call the “chromatic neighbourhood” – many consecutive chromatic notes – in chords and scales. Its traditional use is to bridge the perfect fourth and fifth with a tritone, especially in blues, but it can sound very unsettling when using it around the tonal centre and with more than three neighbouring notes.

Mini-review.

Ariadne – Stabat Mater

On Stabat Mater, however, Christine and Benjamin take

… Read more

Fissures, Ni, Lou Kelly, Playgrounded, Frequency Eater, Golden Hymns Sing ‘Hurrah’, Zenxienz, Cryptic Fog, and Keith Price

by Dæv Tremblay


Fissures – The Long Winter Demos
You might remember, back in 2013, Slice the Cake’s singer releasing one song – “I” –, under the Fissures moniker; a sort of progressive, atmospheric post-metal track. The rest of it would not be released until 24 October 2017 as The Long Winter Demos, nine tracks and one hour long. The whole album is quite good and really promising as far as being a demo. I suggest you take a look!

Ni – Dedoda
I got really excited when I saw something about a new release from Ni, one of my favourite French … Read more

Gershlauer, Fiuczynski, DeJohnette, Garrison, and Mikadze – Mikrojazz! Neue expressionistische Musik

by Dæv Tremblay



They’ve done it! Again, perhaps, but Mikrojazz!, with the subtitle Neue expressionistische Musik (New Expressionist Music), is the latest, and arguably one of the first, completely microtonal jazz records to come out. With the combined talents of Philipp Gerschlauer on saxophone, David Fiuczynski on fretless guitar, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Matt Garrison on fretless bass, and Giorgi Mikadze on keyboards, Mikrojazz! has all the fuel it needs to develop xenharmonic compositions for jazz. Does it deliver? Yes, it does, but not without a few criticisms of mine. The players take up the challenge of writing and playing jazz in … Read more

Ariadne – Stabat Mater

by Dæv Tremblay

On 27 October, New York’s experimental electronic multimedia duo Ariadne will release their long-awaited fourth album, titled Stabat Mater. While I wasn’t initially fond of their previous release, Tsalal, it grew on me tremendously, leading me to believe I might simply have not been ready yet for this sort of experience. On Stabat Mater, however, Christine and Benjamin take things to a whole new level. Here, songs are shorter, but there are a lot more of them: twenty, in total – but it could be argued that there is only one, a fifty-minute giant split into various … Read more

Charnia – Het laatste licht

by Dæv Tremblay



Belgian post-metal band Charnia released their most recent work on 20 October: the forty-minute unbroken track “Het laatste licht”. Grossly, the album-length song is split in two vague sections. For the first half or so, it’s a chamber music session comprised of a violin and double bass duo where lazy and languid voices interweave to form a droning piece, between melancholy and despair. The second half starts past the twenty minutes mark with a drumbeat that is soon joined by the rest of the band. For the remaining time, strings and electrics join forces in a slow, heavy, and pounding … Read more