Love Theme – Love Theme

Love Theme is Alex Zhang Hungtai and Austin Milne on saxophone, and Simon Frank. Love Theme, their debut album, is a languishing and bleak experimental jazz recording edited from improvisation sessions. The record is droning over almost all its runtime, with electronic music elements complementing the saxophonic exchanges. It’s melancholic and atmospheric, reflecting on the past and reaching within. There is nothing flamboyant about this release – it’s actually quite drab –, but in being so it goes straight to the point it wants to make: an ode and elegy to love. Through the slow burn of noise percussions … Read more

Review : ni – Les Insurgés De Romilly

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