Cheryl E. Leonard — Watershed

In Watershed, Cheryl E. Leonard presents three pieces exploring water in its different states. Opener 'Confluences' displays constant movement. Leonard has sourced her sounds from natural objects; so the clunk of wood on stone for percussion mimics a rush of water rattling pebbles. Floating ice tinkling the edge of a glass vocalises the gentle sway of the water around it. And, most impressively, the stream of water hitting a surface is used to produce a tone.

'Frozen Over', as you might expect, seizes this movement to stillness. It is full of loud silences and muffled, unidentifiable sounds. A sense of suffocation lingers in the piece, which touches on our exploitative relationship with the planet. The non-movement is a uncomfortable contrast to 'Confluences'. As 'Frozen Over' continues, it begins to thaw. Bells and gongs are introduced. The piece becomes violent; insistent. Its concern becomes more difficult to ignore.

The final piece, and title track, 'Watershed' adopts quite a different approach. Intended to tell the story of a river from source to mouth, it feels distant and detached. For the first time in Watershed we observe water not from within, but a position of floating omniscience. While it adds interesting variety, this piece sits uncomfortably with its fellows. 'Confluences' and 'Frozen Over' present so strongly as siblings that 'Watershed' ends up feeling like a bonus track.

Watershed is a comprehensive, sonically colourful album. It is like its subject — formless, in a constant state of change and, above all, generous.

For fans of Alvin Curran and Annea Lockwood. Watershed is available for stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Bjarki — Happy Earthday

Bjarki will be a familiar face to those following Nina Kraviz's label, трип (Trip). The Icelandic producer has been active for near on five years, but considers this month's Happy Earthday his debut.

This makes a lot of sense upon listening. The DNA of Bjarki's previous work is present, but everything sounds less piecemeal. It turns to older influences, wearing a Boards-of-Canada-sound on its sleeve. It also manages to hear forward to futuristic sounds.

Decaying analogue twangs interact with glitchy drums like two species exploring each other for the first time. The two elements feel distinct and alien from one another — but there is still so much joy in their meeting. The Boards-like elements feel blasted by nuclear fallout, delicate and faltering. The album feels aware, or even ashamed, of being unoriginal. That manifests, thankfully, in a very listenable way.

Happy Earthday's delicacy does not reflect artistic cowardice. It is sensititvity, subtlety. An antidote to boisterous artists who can sometimes dominate electronic music. Even when cutting loose on tracks like ‘AN6912’, it still feels narcotic.

A meditative, mindful album, with an appealing and glacial directionlessness. Nothing combines or coalesces to a conceptual whole here. But it fills an empty room with comfort.

Bjarki is featured on Trip’s wonderful compilation, ‘Don’t Mess With Cupid…’. Happy Earthday is available to stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Gaël Segalen — Sofia Says

Sofia Says opens hokey, with track 'Like Warehouse'. There's a synth tone, highest in the mix, reminiscent of Delia Derbyshire's work for the BBC. Mario Kassar's Terminator soundtrack comes to mind too. It's diabolic and goofy all at once. But within the space of a couple of minutes, it's swamped in abstraction. Fuzz and chaos intrude like radio interference.

It's disorientating -- and as a listener you feel wrongfooted. Gaël Segalen spends the rest of the album giving you this feeling again and again. The changing styles of Sofia Says are restless and eclectic. One second, a chorus of birds is manipulated into a cruel, laughing crowd. Hackings of phlegm seem to punctuate the laughter. The next second, melody emerges from its burrow and the laughter evaporates.

Even at its most transcendental, the music of Sofia Says is dark and ominous. 'Mountain East' begins as what sounds like a discordant video game. The horror of the unseen is invoked; gruesome faces obscured behind 8-bit graphics. A sweet-but-spooky drone provides a texture for this to sit on. It's later supplanted by a beautiful vocal line — but trenchant fear lingers. And the track ends with long, empty silence to fill with anxieties.

The vocals carry through into 'Mountain West', a companion piece to 'East'. They have a devotional quality which, fittingly, produces imagery of height, levitation, floating; the peak of a mountain. And we then descend once again into scraping, chaotic minimalism.

Things get even more disturbing in 'Cortege', whose concrète elements sound like a torture chamber. Metal scrapes over metal in interrupted gasps of what sounds like pain. Surfaces smack and slip. It's the LP's most impermeable piece, and a marks a disturbing high point.

'I'll See You Again', the album's closer, is by contrast very delicate. It's all set around a fragile, wavering drone. An almost angelic noise section draws you in, before tensile cable percussion punches through. A plodding inevitability brings doomy flavour to this track. The gentle drone becomes what sounds like an angry, possessed tremolo violin. Ideas become defined and then decelerate to a stop.

This is an inventive, alien-sounding album. It is in a constant state of flux and reinvention, never settling or assembling; never becoming uninteresting. A tense and exciting listen.

Fans may enjoy the work of SØS Gunver Ryberg. Sofia Says is available to stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Nihiloxica — Biiri

Nihiloxica's self-titled debut was promoted as 'a darker take on Bugandan drumming'. Biiri sees the group venture further still into unsettling territory. The twenty-minute EP comprises of four short, uptempo compositions. All are as memorable as each other, but in wildly different ways.

'Digga Digga' conjures images of a dungeon-y indoor rave. 'Baksimba' is overdriven and anxiety-inducing; it makes you want to grind your teeth to gravel. 'Dubugwanjuba' has the mournful atonality of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack. And 'Ding Ding' is a fitting climax, in perpetual acceleration until it ends by smashing into a wall.

These tracks share a common backbone, though, in the group's fearsome drumming. And this doesn't feel like a homogenised 'fusion' project made to satisfy the palate of global listeners. Instead, industrial techno and Bugandan rhythms operate in symbiosis. The gnarly electronic elements are extensions of what Nihiloxica would be doing anyway, in a world without synthesisers.

Nihiloxica are becoming Nyege Nyege Tapes' flagship act - and for good reason. The fact this EP was recorded live, in single takes, is astonishing. The group must be a hell of a live act. Biiri provides an adrenaline rush that elevates Nihiloxica above many of their contemporaries. It's the sort of music you can feel in the ends of your fingers, rattling in your skull and thudding chest. A real standout from the beginning of this year.

Nyege Nyege Tapes are yet to release anything less-than-stellar. Biiri is available for streaming and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe

Gordon Koang — Mal Mi Goa / Salaam

Music in Exile is a project run by Joe Alexander and Angela Schilling. Its aim is to create ‘space for artists working in culturally or linguistically diverse communities in Australia’. It reveals barriers artists face in producing their work, and attempts to drub them.

Its latest collaborator is South Sudanese musician Gordon Koang. Koang and his cousin fled the second Sudanese civil war, seeking refuge in Australia. Through contact with Music in Exile and Bedroom Suck, they have since released this single. Koang intends to use the proceeds from his music to bring his family to Australia from South Sudan.

The single's A-side, 'Mal Mi Goa', condemns the war and looks forward to a peaceful future. Its lyrics, in Koang's native Nuer, lilt above a modal guitar melody given sense by its repetition. There is an odd, appealing, karaoke-like quality to the song. It in this sense resembles 60s Cambodian superstar Pen Ran. A musician surpassing the limits of their equipment. But it feels exploitative to draw attention to either artist's production techniques given, as they are, to necessity.

The drumming on this release is exceptional, with a loose and jolly syncopation that belies complexity below. In fact, the all-round breeziness these singles have is deceptive in the same way funk was forty years ago. Koang is reportedly a joyful and generous person whose focus is on positivity. Mal Mi Goa / Salaam is as good an expression of this that anyone could hope for.

Fans should check out these wonderful Habibi Funk compilations. Mal Mi Goa / Salaam is available to stream and purchase here.

Words by Andrew O’Keefe