Zamilska — Uncovered

Uncovered, the third album from Polish producer Zamilska, sounds like a night gone sour. This is music for the bloodbath that opens Blade — for a club whose sprinkler system is ready to paint the dancefloor red. But there's something more atavistic at play, too.

Shamisens, chimes and throat singing lend the LP a lurid sense of ritualistic power. They're littered over dark rhythms and mantra-like lyrics; words as function, spat by unfeeling mouths. For a staunchly electronic album, Uncovered evokes a surprising amount of folk tradition, of monsters with long-dead names. Dark magic and Gauguin's spirit of the dead, hovering in the more ineffable corners of primativism.

Uncovered is eerily difficult to place - flitting from second to second between the futuristic and ancient. Zamilska's ability to draw the album's disparate elements together is impressive. What's more impressive is that she makes it sound effortless.

The tracks on this album are slight, but this reflects its wealth of ideas. You get the impression Zamilska is too inventive to settle, snatching phrases away just as you're used to them. Any slower and she'd be boring herself. As the album goes on it feels like a jenga tower of invention; 'surely it can't keep this up'. But, miraculously, Uncovered punches just as hard in its final moments as its first.

Uncovered is available for purchase and streaming here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Blanck Mass — Animated Violence Mild

At this point, you know what to expect from a Blanck Mass record. For years now, Benjamin John Power has been producing tunes for the clubs in hell, coalescing dance and doom.

From out of the gate, Animated Violence Mild follows suit. A somewhat perfunctory skit precedes this album's true intro, the monstrous 'Death Drop'. An anime theme with necro production, this track feels like getting your ears hoovered. It's as relentless and grimy a re-introduction as you could hope for — and even finds time for a playful synth ditty towards its tail end.

But don't think that means you can catch your breath. A seamless transition into 'House vs. House' retains the album's hypercaffeinated pace while allowing some softer, poppier elements to seep in. It's a triumphant track that bops like a carnival. The beat barely changes up for seven minutes, but it's so infectious you won't mind.

In its cheap-thrill energy, Animated Violence Mild seems at least semi-parodic. Each track feels like an assimilation or piss-take of an existing genre. 'Love is a Parasite' has a glam rock feeling to its instrumentals, but retains previous tracks' ice-cold production and introduces some extreme vocals. The result is as compelling as it is absurd; half Norwegian black metal, half Toto.

And on 'No Dice', the glitzy Watch the Throne Kanye and emotionally volatile Yeezus Kanye get into a gory car accident. But it's so out-there, you'll be rubbernecking from start to finish.

The slight frustration with this album is that it's too much of a good thing. Animated Violence Mild is saved by a surprising moment of quiet in the second half of 'Creature/West Fuqua'. Without this, it would almost completely lack variation. But this quiet moment is made even more beautiful by its brevity; restrained in its restraint.

Like a kid running down a hill, arms flailing, feet lifting off from beneath them, Animated Violence Mild is an album on the brink of eating concrete. But it's all the more exhilarating for it.

Animated Violence Mild is released on the 16th August, and is available for streaming and pre-order here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Cosey Fanni Tutti — Tutti

Last year saw the re-release of 1981's Mission of Dead Souls, a recording of what was at the time Throbbing Gristle's final performance. It's difficult to overstate Throbbing Gristle's level of influence and forward thinking. No words could convey this as well as Mission of Dead Souls itself — still sounding newer and more contemporary than most work released almost forty years later.

It's arguable that Cosey Fanni Tutti has become a victim of her own success. To casual listeners, Tutti sounds like more of the same; something which, in many artists, would indicate complacency. But it feels like Throbbing Gristle’s members left no stone unturned. It's miracle enough that their output doesn't sound worn away, haggard, derelict. 'More of the same', with these people, means more provocation; more progress.

And it's not identical. There is one obvious difference between Tutti and Cosey’s previous solo work. Time to Tell examined the psychological toll of femininity and the sex industry through spoken word. Its style has been aped many times and by many acolytes, including recently Jenny Hval on Blood Bitch. But on Tutti, this device is dropped, letting the music speak for itself.

The music speaks loudest when Cosey focuses least on rhythm. 'Sophic Ripple' is the standout on Tutti by virtue of its oddity; memorable as a mood or a soundscape. By contrast, the album's riff-driven title track is entertaining, but slightly disposable. Whatever feeling it tries to inspire barely makes it off the ground. So Tutti is a mixed bag — but that's to be expected when Cosey herself has described the album as 'not locked into any specific time or place'.

In recent years artist have been making comebacks, polishing past glories. Reminding everyone how they got so famous. But Cosey Fanni Tutti has neither the luxury or inclination to do so. She is, as ever, a titillator and a pusher of buttons. Like 2016's Blackstar, this is as much a reinvention as a retrospective. With any luck, Cosey will continue to wreck civilisation for some time to come.

Jenny Hval’s Blood Bitch has some nice homages to Cosey’s first solo album. Tutti is available for stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe