12/29/2012
Thuoom - Through This Dark Rain (2012)
9.4
/Abstract electronica, Sound-art, Organic electronica, Space rock, Psycho-acoustic, Experimental rock, Musique concrète, Psych-rock, Forest folk, Glitchtronica, Post-psychedelic electronica, New Weird Finland, Avant-electronica, Microtonal, Glitch ambient, Minimal, Experimentalism/
Comment: Tuomo aka Thuoom, a Finnish artist is back with the third full-length output which may be the most obscure issue of him so far. He exploits more and less conventional instruments and sonic sources like bottles, clocks, electric guitar, field recordings, human voice, metal jar, music box, sine waves, speaker feedback. Sounds intriguing, isn`t? The result is evocative due to sundry experiments with some disparate magnitudes of the soundscape, vowel effects, repetition-heavy (rhythm) structures, however, which are either wrapped up in lethargic, or ghostly vapor. Moreover, some tracks used to curve downwards as more obsessive, noisy and psyched-out than others (for instance, Underf). On the other side, there are up some places ready for more bright, redemptive developments (Novembrane, Drunken Lullaby). However, there is the remarkable exception, Indigo St, which relies on hirsute but spaced-out guitar strums therefore getting closer to psych-rock/space rock realms rather than dwelling in compulsive electronic courtyards. The ending part of it is especially breathtaking. You can be sure I am waiting for Tuomos`s proper rock album in future. The last track Ff beseems to the Finnish forest folk tradition more clearly than the rest bunch of pieces or parts of them. Similarly to his previous issues this 9-track album is released on his own Textural Healing imprint. By the way, two weeks ago Tuomo issued an enormous set of 35 tracks called reCycle.
Thuoom deserves to be signed up by some eminent Finnish record label (for instance, Fonal Records, or Wooden Sherpa) already.
Jan Grünfeld - A Trace (2012)
9.2
/Ambient folk, Folkgaze, Dream folk, Organic electronica, Ambient, Indie folk, Musique concrète, Folk indie/
Comment: there are up 13 compositions dragged out for 47 minutes. More profoundly, despite of being instrumentally minimal the issue is highly picturesque due to gliding guitar chords, blissed-out strums, suggestive vowel expansions, and environmental sound processing thereby resulting in wondrous tonality and plenty of semitones and fulltones. Emotionally it is a refreshing, bucolic listening time with regard to staggered murky and cloudless moods. Now and then Grünfeld is accompanied by unknown female singing therefore
further expanding his world of sounds. There may be drawn some parallels upon Imandra Lake`s pristine (ambient) folk endeavours and Coen Oscar Polack`s field recording snippets recorded in India, for instance. In a nutshell, this rich textured album can be considered a soundtrack of your saturday morning. At random today is saturday. And with sunshine.
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