Review: This new album from Kevin Martin's band of enchanting doom-mongers forms part of a new series that pits King Midas Sound against various collaborators. In this instance, Martin and vocalist Roger Robinson were moved to link up with Austrian ambient champ Fennesz, whose laconic guitar tones lend an ethereal, orchestral quality to the haunted dub that KMS have always been known for. The ballads linger in an uneasy tension, both gentle in application but unsettling in tone, while Robinson and Kiki Hitomi once again share mic duties to round out the affecting situation in an unexpected but utterly magnificent meeting of minds.
Review: Ambient-drone legend Fennesz has been a pioneer in the science of sound for many years, and London's Touch has been responsible for releasing arguably his best and most important work to date. For its latest release, Touch has reissued the inimitable Venice as a 10th anniversary edition, and the album still sounds as fresh today as it did 10 years ago. It's ambient, for sure, but of a certain variety and quality. Filled with organic sounds and field recordings, tracks like "Rivers Of Sand" have become the blueprint for much of the work made in the same genre today, tailor-made for fans of Oneohtrix Point Never and a lot of the output on Bill Kouligas' PAN label. Unmissable.
Review: Although the past several years have seen ambient musician Christian Fennesz collaborating with a number of high profile figures - Ryuchi Sakamoto to name one - as well as release an EP, cassette, and soundtrack, the Austrian's last full solo LP was 2008?s Black Sea, making Becs very eagerly awaited indeed. A conceptual follow-up to 2001's seminal Endless Summer, Becs supposedly eschews the drone-based productions of Black Sea and sees a return to the "more florid pop mechanisms" of Endless Summer, something evident across the searing yet colourful textures that make up the album.
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