THE WIRE 286, 12/2007: "The building blocks of 'Together Alone, Together Apart' by New Zealand's Richard Francis are 'sound moments': sonic interludes of a dozen or so seconds of environmental sound, whose subtle arrangements and cross-contaminations are the springboard for the compositions found here. Given the quiet volumes, sounds at the threshold of audibility are presumably those which have captured his imagination. A soft hiss and variable low end frequency introduce the first untitled track, with small crackles, glitches and echoes sporadically breaking through. The second is considerably more dramatic, with a flapping rhythm emerging from a grounded hiss like a moth's wings beating against glass. The final track is almost undetectable, even with headphones, and strengthens the connections between Francis's work and the reductive strategies of Bernhard Gunter or John Hudak. Here, swells of deep frequencies rise and fall along a fog of unsettled static, concluding a refined and highly recommended album."
hyperdubrecords: "After the surprise success of his self-titled, low-key debut on Hyperdub , Burial returns with an eagerly awaited follow up album, ‘Untrue’. The new record is weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void." Read the whole interview
wikipedia: "Amir ElSaffar is an Iraqi-American trumpeter and vocalist. In addition to being a classical and jazz trumpeter, he is also a skilled interpreter of Iraqi maqam, which he sings and plays on santur. In 2002 he began studying the maqam tradition in Baghdad and London, with Hamid al-Saadi, one of the most renowned maqam singers in Iraq. He has released a CD of this music and also applied maqam techniques to his trumpet playing." Read on
discogs.com: "Lionel Marchetti (France, 1967) is a composer of musique concrète. First self-taught, he discovered the catalogue of Musique Concrète with Xavier Garcia. Lionel Marchetti also performs improvisation using microphones and loudspeakers." Read on
beyondbooking.com: "Despite being a minimal-techno artist, Pronsato offers a palette that’s as full of unexpected patterns and meticulously rendered textures as a Wassily Kandinsky painting." Read on
domino records: "Pram’s restless groove, an endearing and gently refusenik mix encircling early Rough Trade innovators The Raincoats, astro jazz, sci-fi soundtracks, creepy Victoriana, tropical analogue and tumbledown funk." More
Watch the latest uploaded footage from our recent 25th anniversary season including Christian Marclay's Screenplay event, plus Sonny Simmons & Tight Meat and Jooklo Duo at London's Red Rose."
Contents summary: Keith Moline meets exotic avant-rockers Pram in their Birmingham dreamhouse. Plus Brian Marley's Harry Partch Primer, Michael Gira's Invisible Jukebox, Michael Bracewell on Roxy Music and more alongside all our regulars including Global Ear, Epiphanies, Savage Pencil's Trip or Squeek and more. Read on
Hear a track by Pram offered up exclusively to The Wire.
Hear a soundwalk through the installations at Riga's sound art exhibition SKAN.
See excerpts from a Kinescope of Harry Partch's Revelation In The Courthouse Park.
Listen to a selection of tracks by Lionel Marchetti.
hyperdubrecords: "After the surprise success of his self-titled, low-key debut on Hyperdub , Burial returns with an eagerly awaited follow up album, ‘Untrue’. The new record is weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void." Read the whole interview
hyperdubrecords: "After the surprise success of his self-titled, low-key debut on Hyperdub , Burial returns with an eagerly awaited follow up album, ‘Untrue’. The new record is weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void." 