TranscendNoise

30. Kali Malone – Living Torch More than just an addendum to 2019’s The Sacrificial Code , Living Torch sees Kali Malone completely eschew her trademark instrument for bass clarinet, trombone, and a huge array of electroacoustic instruments. The two tracks express a mindset of composition that channels music concrete with a refreshing neoclassical approach, something Kali Malone and her contemporaries of labels such as Ideologic Organ, XKatedral and here Portraits GRM herald throughout their work. Without the organ at the center, much like Malone’s first album, the soundscapes created exist in interrupted timespace. These drawn out and ever-evolving pieces feel decidedly different from what similar artist like Tim Hecker or Ben Frost would achieve. Other than externalities dictating the course and meaning of sound, Malone is a master of a singularly aural perspective, stacking drones and buzzes of synths for the sheer experience of the body in sound. Having had the opportunity to se...

20. Andy Stott – It Should Be Us Eight years after blessing us with his second LP We Stay Together which established his signature sluggish broken dub music and served as the inspiration for other artists to rethink and slow it down, Andy Stott gives a tasty reminder that he is still helming the boards with muse and efficiency. We Stay Together saw a much-awaited release this year and by the start of November "It Should Be Us" seemed to relive and update the best negative bangers ever produced. With Boomkat mentioning the similarity to some of the sounds and tweaks of Stotts early work and Low´s Double Negative that broke the idea of what establishes a band and shoegaze last year, It Should Be Us returns the formula with a bigger focus on driving beats and, as described by Stott himself, tracks for the dancefloor. From the get-go, the sludge of Stott mingles with his shine and polish, the ghostly twinkle of "Promise" incentivizing to rethink dance music wh...