Pages

12/16/2018

The Hirundu – Tartarus (2018)




  • Electronic music 
  • Alternative 
  • DIY 
  • Psychedelic 
  • Art music 
  • Synth-rock 
  • Tribal music 
  • World fusion 
  • Avant-pop 
  • Experimental pop 
  • Crossover

Comment: the Englishman Johnny Crewdson is back with his project The Hirundu. By me he is always being welcomed because he used to have always something intriguing to say. Neverthless, he has been active for three decades already and musically The Hirundu has been a fabulous case by having been a platform for every kind of sonorous experimentation veering away from provoking an outsider lo-fi and DIY-tinged aesthetic and psychedelic alternative rock and nihilistic post-punk tendencies to frantic, dada-inspired radiophonic and disparate kind of electronic and ambient music experiments. In fact, something new will be added with every brand new ones and something old will be reflected back. That's what used to be called cohesive creative process and adhesive feedback, respectively, isn't. By listening to the first half of this 14-notch release one may think of it as a chill-out release in terms of The Hirundu because frequently those compositions lose weight by gravitating in a haphazard yet joyous manner with some sort of easiness with supportive faint reverberations of ecstasy (no hints at the pill, though). I am very convinced Johnny created it with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. The touch of poignant humor always helps and adds an extra value to a mix. With regard to it, for instance, one can think of Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart. More profoundly, the course of the first side runs across a patchwork-alike landscape. On the other side, the poignant humor is not the case for confined persons. There is no possibility to think of the album in an ambivalent way – it is thoroughly uncompromising and without any hints at a sleazy taste. Oh damn, I shall have to say again – a favourite issue in 2018. A case of breathtaking music indeed.