TranscendNoise

30. Siavash Amini & Matt Finney – Gospel I've written quite a lot on the sonic world of Clawing and had the incredible chance to pick Matt Finney´s brain about his life and creation. Gospel , however, I didn´t highlight enough and this despite it becoming my favorite Finney moment of 2018 and at that one of the most jarring edifices of abuse and trauma, I ever listened to. With Siavash Amini at the helm, bringing to life three haunting soundscapes that feel like living inside Silent Hill´s hospitals and small neighborhoods, Finney went deeper into his past and explicitly stated what close listening unearthed in his previous work. The horrors of becoming a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of your own father, the aftermath that deals with unheard prayers to God and a religion unable to help in the real violence humans inflict upon each other. Maybe the thing that always pulls me towards Finney´s music is the fact that he is equally at loss as the next victim, his trademar...

10. Sumac – The Task (Love In Shadow) After becoming a holistic entity on their previous album and laying the groundwork of a threshold to be passed in Love In Shadow , Sumac learned to evolve into a breathing body, a dynamic entity that not only allows for each part of the trio to work meticulously in unison with each other and play more complex forms of hide and seek, but to push even further, allow space and substance beyond rational musicianship. Surely, The Deal was far from being a melodious or even easy to digest album, but the sense of a band finding grooves to carry was still audible enough, the abstraction and deconstruction the cream between the cake of song structure. In accordance with Sumac linking up with experimental overlord Keiji Haino, “The Task” is the continuation of the collaboration, even if it may have preceded the recording of American Dollar Bill by a few months. Turner and his mates go from a razor-sharp onslaught in the first six minutes to silence ...