Senyawa – القصه

Senyawa is an experimental doom band from Indonesia, the members of which create handmade instruments to play on their albums. On top of what they usually do, القصه—hereafter Alkisah—is centred around decentralization. Therefore, while the duo wrote and recorded eight original songs for the record, they are releasing it with the collaboration of multiple (over sixty!) independent labels worldwide, which are given full freedom for the release: artwork, mix, mastering, and even remixes and reinterpretations! This leads to a new and interesting way to think about what an album is, and, ultimately, who owns music, if anyone. So, I’ll include below some versions of this album that include artwork, remixes and reinterpretations I find interesting.

You can read more on Alkisah.net.

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Cameron Graves – Seven (Artistry Music)

Cameron Graves is an astounding pianist about whom Matt already told us way back in top 40 albums of 2018 list. Well, I have the pleasure to bring you the news that this impressive composer and musician just released a new album, titled Seven. On it, you’ll hear what one could lazily describe as a heavier flavour of Tigran Hamasyan, but, as I pointed out, it would be lazy at best. Indeed, the music is centred on piano, it’s also on the heavy side, more so than Tigran himself, on the average, and it has some degree of focus on rhythmic complexities, but the comparison stops there. For Cameron, the listening experience is closer to progressive metal than to jazz, and Seven is an amazing album from start to end (as well as his debut).

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Bruit ≤ – The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again (Elusive Sound)

French post-rock entity Bruit ≤—read “Bruit est ingérieur ou égal à…”, or “Noise smaller or equal than…” for the English crowd—released their debut album, Monolith—which we reviewed here—back in 2018, which already gave us a fantastic taste of the band’s promising future. Now, however, we get the mature product, the aged wine, and it’s as good or even better than whatever you’re thinking right now. On The Machine Is Burning and Now Everyone Knows It Could Happen Again, Bruit ≤ keep their very cinematic, atmospheric foundations and expand on them. The whole album moves from one moment to the next exactly as a story that unfolds. Better still, the use of spoken excerpts further sets the tone for the piece you’re listening, and it can lead to quite emotional apogees. The album comes out on April 2.

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Ummons Echo – War Lovers

Ummons Echo is an Austrian solo project by Martin Wiederstein that is, at first sound, some sort of synth-heavy progressive post-black metal beast. The project is instrumental—for now—but I find it quite suitable as it is: each song has enough colour and progression to guide us through whichever journey they were written for. The use of programmed drums and other instruments on the record aren’t so egregious as some, and fit the synthetic aesthetic the project seems to rely on, so it’s no problem. In just two months, Martin released two quite promising albums under the Ummons Echo moniker, so definitely keep an eye out for this project’s future releases!