Albums of the Year : 2023
The album is no longer the default method of music appreciation.
Therefore only albums that are remarkably consistent or that make more sense as an overall work rather than just a collection of individual tracks.
Heard first in 2023, released whenever.
As it happens this year just two - one for Winter, one for Summer.
Arcanist : Hyperborea (2022)
I’m a devotee of instrumental synth in general, so that is the direction from which I approach ‘dungeon synth’. Only over the last couple of years have I developed an appreciation for any of it, and even with the dungeon synth artists I enjoy, their work is often too much of a pastiche, or makes too much of a reference to vintage computer game music for me to want to listen for very long.
This though is something quite different and I don’t even necessarily feel the need to class it as dungeon synth. The nearest music to this for me would be Jim Kirkwood, who I once described as if a budget version of Tangerine Dream soundtracked ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Jim Kirkwood is of course a precursor to dungeon synth, but his proximity to that scene while not really being fully in it, that’s how I think of Arcanist. At least with this album, I’ve not explored further yet.
The budget is higher here (at least it sounds that way) and I have to say the talent too, the tongue is not required to be in one’s cheek quite so often to appreciate ‘Hyperborea’. Epic in the real sense of the word, in other words not just long but multi-part: time and time again the music changes direction and surprises, not least for me the ‘mediæval’ sounding passages, or the parts where it suddenly breaks into black metal. Frequent and great use of acoustic (or acoustic sounding) plucked strings* and nice keyboard lead lines that I find pleasingly earnest.
Try the short track ‘Ubbo-Sathla’ as an introduction, or I think my favourite is ‘The Coming of the White Worm’.
* Trying to avoid saying ‘guitar’ as I think it might be something else but I’m not an expert.
James Holden : Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space Of All Probabilities (2023)
It’s noteworthy when electronic music conjures sensations that compliment rather than clash with the feeling of being out in nature*. Sun, forests, water, are the images this brings to mind, as well as other, deeper, more ambiguous kaleidoscopic impressions that defy detailed description.
The cover is a bit twee but I have to say that if you imagine the sort of music these guys would make, that is kind of what the album sounds like too.
One or two definite bangers in the middle but I think it makes more sense played in full, hence this being one of my albums of the yeat.
* I don’t like this phrase, we’re always ‘in nature’, but you know what I mean.