Issue 2025-004
Krokofant — 6
How many times have you heard someone say if "I am in the mood, I really enjoy the music of..."? This type of conversation can be used as a sort of disclaimer in case another person has a differing opinion, or it might be a true reflection of a person's attitude.
Krokofant's latest release brims with exuberance and vitality. It's not an easy listen, but for someone who is receptive and is in the mood to be challenged , it is ultimately a thoroughly enjoyable and gratifying experience. I have long enjoyed the music of Krokofant and their previous release, was included in my top ten albums list of 2021.
Krokofant's 6 has a very different style to its predecessor. The band's first three albums featured a trio of Tom Hasslan - guitars, Axel Skalstad - drums and Jørgen Mathisen - saxophone. The trio were joined in albums Q and Fifth by Keyboard maestro Ståle Storløkken and bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten.These albums were characterised by a more arranged style of writing (albeit still retaining a strong sense of freedom, invention, and spontaneity), and were critically well received.
In 6, Krokofant have reverted to a trio once more. During the album, it is obvious that the players have rediscovered their love of improvisation. Consequently, it is a release that displays lots of inventive interplay. This altogether freer approach to composition includes knuckle tapping, raucous hard driven riffs that are skillfully woven and juxtaposed with slower interludes and a few Avant passages for good measure along the way.
The album begins in an upbeat manner. Harry Davidson has a recurring fiery riff. The powerful deep-toned sound of the sax reminded me of Don Kapot's no holds barred approach in their Hooligan album. Later the piece evolves and the jangly tones of Hasslan's guitar offers a different and less insistent mood.
Country Doom features a wonderful guitar solo. It is by turns, distorted, twisted and climatic. It creates a palpable sense of menace and leaves a memorable aftertaste. There were times when the reedy tone of Mathisen's sax was reminiscent of the style of Elton Dean. Pretentious Woman is a great showpiece for Mathisens skill. His free blowing set against the insistent guitar riff and busy drums is quite infectious.
The dual melody played by the sax and guitar in The Ballade is quite pleasing to the ear. However, this is later offset by a range of disturbing effects that had me reaching for comparison with King Crimson's Larks Tongues In Aspic. As the piece develops, the drums become prominent and a low-end chug and thrust enters the mix. The tune shifts and turns into a sort of twisted sax led Glenn Miller dance hall shuffle. This change of emphasis is interesting and really put me 'in the mood' to appreciate this album. The guitar embellishments in The Ballade are enjoyable and overtime it has become one of my favourite tracks of the album.
Overall, Krokofant's latest offering may not be for everyone. However, I certainly found it a stimulating experience.
I was in the mood and I really enjoyed the music!
Vittorio Nistri - Filippo Panichi — Nistri - Panichi
What do you get when a charismatic musician of Italy's psychedelic culture, aka Vittorio Nistri from Deadburger Factory and Ossi fame, and a free improvising experimenter in person of Filippo Panichi for the first time join forces to create an album that rebels against artificial intelligence in an innovative way? Indeed. A thought-provokingly organic and at times completely unfathomable, impressionistic and experimental album comprising musical anomalies that often require and frequently demand one's fullest attention.
Completed by abstract artwork from Beppe Stasi and Gabriel Menconi, a visual presentation that deeply enhances the reflective nature of the intriguing musical eccentricities, it is their record label Snowdonia that labels this as electronic psychedelic progressive chamber music. A genre defying description that's fairly apt. Although it does miss out on the massive cinematic appeal that some of these nine included free-form obscurities portray.
This cinema aspect instantly creeps up in Il faro di Schrodinger, which atmospherically levitates in a suspenseful and darkly tense oppressive Bladerunner vacuum so mysterious, that on any given fright night it would scare the living daylights out of Ridley Scotts' Alien.
This atmosphere that can cut with a knife is also present in the inscrutable La Risacca Dell'alba which, saturated with a daunting sense of paranoia, slowly crawls onwards past elegant otherworldly ambient passages that brings memories of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker to life. With contra bass adding jazzy appeal this captivating scenic composition after an energetic intermission finally awakes in a concluding surreal avant-garde aurora of comforting melodies. To which classical melancholic brightness of violin and cello adds perfect aurora imagery.
Maya Deren Blues follows this by transmitting both jazz and blues impressions. Together with the curious psychedelic sound effects and the calming elegance of electric guitar, invaded by clarinet, vibraphone and electric piano, this overall generates a feel of palpable seclusion that somehow manages to imprint the country style illusion of a poor lonesome cowboy stranded in an alien desert. Pipistrelli sul frigorifero transports one into an EM hip-hop realm. Hollow and tinny beats, with raving melodies and sweeping noises sounding like dental surgery. It painfully reminds me to always brush after a meal in order to avoid root canal treatments. Thankfully thereafter the serene and at times secretively interrupted Edenic brightness of the soothing Secrets provides the perfect musical tranquillizer.
Containing a bass riff assembled out of individual bass notes by Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine), it is Sheriff In Tiraspol that showcases more controlled musical structures. It is designed with dignity of jazz and intricately construed perpetual rhythms engraved with electrical guitar improvisations. Thanks to the classical drama of violin and the concluding repetitive machine gun of beats, I'm all together vaguely reminded of Nash The Slash's experimental phase.
Continuing this experimental stage on the album is the bizarrely shaped La costante elastica. Starting of in "Constant" mode with a stationary dripping of estranging sound effects that are slightly reminiscent to the avant-garde style of Frédéric L'Épee, it is in "Elastic" that this composition beautifully bends and stretches the imagination. It is resulting in a groovy framework of jazz and classical melodies, that soothingly massages a jolly circus of Nubdug Ensemble into view.
This ensemble also partially comes to mind in Giulietta sotto spirito, which opens with a sinister exorcism of synths, clarinet and trombone that tastily carry the intoxicating flute melodies onwards. Until they all of a sudden shift into an oppressive heady hangover movements which tense with haunting atmospheres finally passes out in unsettling spacious atmospheres.
The album finally dies in exquisite beauty with the breathtaking melancholic splendour of Prove tecniche di solitudine. Saturated with impacting feelings of loss, grief, sorrow and heartfelt pain, this infinitely touching composition emotionally penetrates and moves in ways fairly indescribable. And in the end, it provides perfect peace of mind when the songs lamenting melodies finally fade into the peaceful quietness of a pond that vividly bursts with liveliness of rebirth.
Consistently challenging, strangely attracting and detaching, and enigmatically entertaining. I find that this debut by Nistri and Panichi is not one to be savoured in the background as it continuously commands time, effort and determination from its listener. But with time invested, alongside plenty of moments submerged underneath headphones to notice and experience all the detailed layers arranged in at times perplexing soundscapes, I find the results to be surprisingly satisfying.
Highly recommended for those who seek their musical rewards at the adventurous avant-garde end of our prog orientated musical spectrum.
SoundDiary — FourWord - Fairy Tales For Cyborgs
SoundDiary were founded in Vienna in 2007 as a "covered song project" under the moniker Momentarium. The band quickly adopted their own music style and changed their name to SoundDiary. FourWord - Fairy Tales For Cyborgs is their fourth album, following InVerse (2010), A Book In My Hand (2014), and Anamnesis - Letter In A Bottle (2019). All of these releases were reviewed on this site, and especially the latter album got very positive feedback here and elsewhere. I had not heard of SoundDiary prior to writing this review, I must admit.
Besides founding member Hannes Pichlmann (guitars, vocals, flute), the line-up on this album consists of Merlin Hochmeier (bass), Stefan Pichlmann (keyboards and programming), and Clemens Langbauer (drums) and can be considered as rather stable, the latter two members being present since the first release already. Andrea Redl acts as guest musician on violin and viola.
According to the press clipping coming with the release, the story of this album "is set in the future, where humankind 'evolved' to a species consisting of digital and artificial components. Feelings and concepts of emotional conditions are controlled by technical devices. The cyborgs lost any connection to the former human world." It is fair to say that this topic did not really appeal to me at the beginning, but dealing with the lyrics in detail made me admit that they are touching, emotional, profound, and enigmatic, telling much more than just another robot story. Like it or not, these are topics which might (will?) affect us in the future.
Conceptually, this album follows the same principle as its predecessor and is subdivided into three parts titled Autognostics, Autognosis, and Autonomy, consisting of four tracks each. These "chapters" set the general framework of the story, whilst giving enough room for its individual interpretation and own speculations, though. The protagonist, a cyborg called "No. 4", is concerned with aspects related to self-consciousness (part 1), before reaching that self-consciousness, helping him to remember his "pre-cyborg" past (him being Jonny?) (part 2), an ability which leads him to move from his current heteronomy to self-determination. So far, in a nutshell, my personal (probably a bit simplified) understanding of the story.
Musically, this concept is certainly not so easy to realise, but the band has succeeded extremely well in doing just that. The music adequately reflects and conveys the complexity and the varying moods of this narrative, ranging from anxious to confident, from introverted to outspoken, from melancholic to dynamic. Overall, SoundDiary's music is both ambitious and catchy. In any case, it features characteristics which, at least theoretically, seem to be diametrically opposed but nonetheless are assembled in a sophisticated manner across the individual tracks and even within the same song. Melodious parts encounter rough edges, contemplative melodies alter with energetic ones, volatility is paired with consistency, unexpected moments occur within clearly recognisable song structures.
According to the band, the music of SoundDiary started in the rock/pop segment, as evidenced on their first release, and gradually included more and more prog elements moving forward, with a healthy dose of art rock on top on their penultimate album. On their current release, the art rock elements are almost not audible for me any more. Instead, the band explicitly moves in prog territory with symphonic and neo-prog features (although ultimately is not easy to draw a clear dividing line between these two genres anyway). Hence, I both recognised elements from peers such as Neal Morse, Transatlantic, Flame Dream and especially Unitopia, and found some similarities with the harder sounding neo-prog bands such as Ayreon, Pendragon, Twelfth Night, and Pallas. Discreet retro feelings emerged and made me think of the music from Austrian peers Eela Craig, and Kyrie Eleison, plus German 70ies prog outfit Satin Whale. But the band does not deny their (hard) rock origins either, a heritage which here and there surfaces in the form of melodic prog metal snippets slightly reminiscent of Threshold, and Vanden Plas.
Although being complex technically and musically (without being unnecessarily complicated), this album is very accessible and keeps the listeners' attention from the beginning to the end despite its length. The songs coming across a bit harder, i.e. Ouverture, after its piano intro sounding very sadly, Rejection, Confrontation, and Forward, the ballad-like ones Silhouettes, Identity Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, and Someone - The Release, plus the ones combining both characteristics Sos Standby (Me), Memories, Blame, and Journey To O'one balance each other out very well. None of the songs sound the same throughout. The good interplay between guitar and keyboards, and their well-balanced division of duties stand out. This feature plus the efficient use of various keyboard instruments (including my beloved piano), the alteration of electric and acoustic guitars, and the strong and clearly audible presence of bass and drums give SoundDiary's music depth, variety and makes it seem mature and complete. If I could wish for anything, it would be a more intensive use of the flute.
This album is easy on the ear for me because: the songs are dense and compact without undue lengthy elaborations; solos are used purposefully and not excessive; the music features melodic hooks and choruses; it comes across in a textured form, and is accessible, and catchy, yet demanding and ambitious.
All this makes me wish that the band shortens the time span in between their releases a bit and don't let us wait another four to five years for the successor to come out. Definitely recommended!
TFNRSH — Book of Circles
Just one year ago I reviewed the band's previous album. I had some problems with what the official spelling of the band name was at the time. Only the Bandcamp URL has the spelling "tiefenrausch" so I guess the official spelling is now "TFNRSH". Instrumental music can make for weird names and titles, which is even more present on this album, as you can see from the track listing. None of that matters when it comes to the music, of course.
Although the band's sound has not changed a lot, I feel this album is a significant next step. The compositions sound worked out more. The psychedelic elements come to the fore often enough, don't worry, but it sounds like it is more planned now, more mature if you want.
Elements of Russian Circles but maybe more Monkey3 can be detected and while this pops up in several places, it does not make TFNRSH post-metal. Progressive psychedelic would be the best compact label here. And of course, a label is just that, and hardly ever covers the whole sound of any band.
The opening track has a great build-up, then a nice progressive section like a heavy One Of These Days (Pink Floyd). Awesome bass playing and drumming here. A Hawkwind-styled section before a great guitar solo. And yes, some post-metal. This track covers most of the TFNRSH sound elements. WRZL has great diversity, probably the most progressive track. And it has the greatest guitar solo of the album! I could apply the term "Heavy Hawkwind" to several of the psychedelic sections on this album, and it is one of the many things I really like about it.
Zorn has a hypnotic start of 4 minutes with spoken words in German. Is it a quote? From Swedish artist Anders Zorn translated into German perhaps? I don't know. I would like to hear the intro instrumentally, since the voice (not the German language per se) is taking away some of the hypnotic effect of the music. Perhaps it's taking a bit too long. The break into psych post-rock is lovely and well-timed, a smile appears on my face every time I hear this.
Some of the guitar melodies or song constructions reminds me of where Toundra took their music on the Vortex album, and TFNRSH are right up there, at least to me. Maybe this is the new post-rock? Those lovely guitar melodies again bring joy to prog-minded ears. Ending as it should be — heavy, psychedelic, and melodic.
The mix and production are wonderful. Heavy and a little fuzzy as you would expect from this type of music. But the clarity brings out the instruments, especially the excellent bass playing — an instrument often drowned in distortion or hard to hear in this genre.
The final track is one to cool down. Reflective, bluesy, with beautiful melodies. A long fade-out to tell you nothing sudden is going to happen any more. A soothing end to a brilliantly varied but overall heavy ride. Man, I want to see this band live...