Brueder Selke & Midori Hirano "Split Scale"
Brueder Selke & Midori Hirano’s debut album unites two artists who share both inimitable skill and depth of expression. Pillars of Berlin’s new music community and globally lauded composers, they each share a background in classical tradition while practicing on the cutting edge of modern music. The brothers Sebastian and Daniel Selke are open-minded, critically-acclaimed instrumentalists and composers with a sprawling catalog of international productions. As Brueder Selke, aka CEEYS, the polyinstrumental duo focuses their passion for genre-bending music primarily on their hand-picked Q3Ambientfest, sharing the stage every year with fellow artists such as Laura Cannell, Mabe Fratti, Resina, Jules Reidy, Grand River, Yair Elazar Glotman, and now-collaborator Midori Hirano. Midori Hirano’s mastery of sound sculpting has put her in high demand as a composer for film and television, including recent soundtracks for All or Nothing, Tokito, and a documentary on the Premier League, alongside astounding collaborations with artists including Hprizm of Anti Pop Consortium and Ilpo Väisänen of Pan Sonic. In addition to her own composing, Hirano has remixed the likes of Robot Koch and Rival Consoles. Split Scale, the group’s first album together, follows a series of live collaborations. The artists chose a simple concept, following a western scale from beginning to end, and from this created a suite of sublime, synesthetic soundscapes and cinematic movements. The vivid tapestry of sound and color is luminous and emotive.
The immediacy and emotional power of Split Scale belies the precise nature of its creation. The group began by splitting out the notes of a scale, A through G and back to A, using each as a starting point and tonal foundation for a piece on the album and then equally split the pieces with Midori starting half and the Selke’s initiating the other half. The album then was refined by artists trading tracks, each working on a piece as if in dialogue with the other. The pieces were meticulously edited with a focus on the subtle shift in tonality, translating the simplistic premise into an affecting exploration of mood and atmosphere. Hirano elaborates: “I feel that this naturally became like one piece of music, as if we were climbing up a long, colorful staircase.” There is a distinctive live, “played” feel to the suite, despite each track being slowly pieced together across separate studios. Brueder Selke explains: “In order to keep the soundscape tight and organic, we would both play multiple instruments and devices simultaneously. For example, Sebastian would support his cello passages with synthesizer in the sub-bass range, while Daniel might build arpeggio runs on the synthesizer that are unplayable by humans, then compete with them on the piano. The unhurried pieces are painted with graceful melancholy and curiosity, at times lavishly exploring single hues or technicolor gradients all stemming from the tonal center.
Split Scale’s opener “A” begins the conversation between the artists, with Hirano’s cyclical arpeggios feeling out the space, Brueder Selke adding subtle noise and texture with washes of smudged cello and synthesizer. “C” finds the artists trade roles, Hirano’s rippling electronics rising like heat shimmers before shapes start to coalesce amidst the haze, Sebastian and Daniel tracing the outline of the landscape in arcing strings. Closer “AA” takes the final step on the cycle with one of the album’s most explicitly electronic moments, ascending skyward with pulsing, prismatic chords before breaking apart into astral ambience.
Split Scale touches on many western musicians’ foundational experiences with sound, the equal tempered scale. “We, in a way, traveled back in time back to our beginnings… our choice of tones was relatively simple, intuitive, almost child’s play,” notes Brueder Selke. “We wanted to take this unique opportunity with Midori to start from zero, and to do it together.” Split Scale is an album born of a collective experience and mastery of instrumentation and arranging that manages to convey a dazzling sense of wonder, as if one was playing an instrument for the first time and truly listening.
Rose City Band "Sol Y Sombra"
Rose City Band’s music is sun-kissed timeless country rock whose seemingly effortless momentum carries the joy of its creation without ignoring the darkness pervading our consciousness. Led by guitarist/vocalist Ripley Johnson, the music of Rose City Band is rooted in his love of private press records of the mid to late 70’s. The band, in addition to Johnson, features pedal steel guitarist Barry Walker, keyboardist Paul Hasenberg and drummer John Jeffrey who enmesh a keen sense of rhythmic drive and melody with gentler, sumptuous atmospheres. Sol Y Sombra digs its heels into insatiable grooves, its parade of catchy songs conjuring a sunset drive through an open desert, both a celebration of a sojourn and a reach for the warmth of home.
The contrasts of Sol Y Sombra, the musical equivalent of bright stars in a night sky, are to Johnson an inevitability. “With Rose City Band, I’m generally trying to make uplifting music, good time music,” says Johnson. “This time I couldn’t avoid the shadow being more of a presence. There’s no getting away from it. The shadow is always there. So, I left it in.” Like many genre-breaking private press albums, the melancholia-infused Sol Y Sombra’s contrasts equally enhance moments of joy and movement whilst elevating the music with its honesty and intimacy. Nuanced performances and interplay between players unfurl like desert flowers splashing color onto an arid landscape. The ensemble’s buoyant moments still glide with ease, but there is room to revel in respite of the shade of a dark cloud. For Johnson, the album finds places where the conscious meets the unconscious, the songs emanating the more mercurial and curious aspects of their sonic dream world, using darker hues to paint the panorama around them.
Sol Y Sombra’s opener “Lights on the Way” is halogen on the highways, a beam of light pressing onward past dashed lines and soaring with Johnson’s guitar work and lush harmonies. The album’s first half is rife with blissful Americana, from upbeat rollicks to ballads dripping with sweet molasses. Walker’s pedal steel speckles the slow-motion shuffle of “Evergreen” with glinting starlight. His playing throughout pairs perfectly with Johnson’s effervescent guitar lines, exuding the casual virtuosity of pedal steel country legends while lending remarkable modern twists to his graceful licks. Across the album, Johnson’s tasteful guitar interjections and soothing voice are met in kind with the versatile playing of Walker, Hasenberg, and Jeffery, with special guest performances by synthesist/vocalist Sanae Yamada. Album closer “The Walls” perfectly captures the band’s explorative and expansive songs, Hasenberg’s soulful organ driving the album to an emotionally cathartic conclusion.
Throughout his prolific career with Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo and now Rose City Band, Johnson’s music has consistently centered around exploration and discovery. Sol Y Sombra imbues his penchant for space and resplendent tonality with a denser amalgam of his influences. Johnson tactfully incorporates new elements with deftness and fluidity, while holding the band’s center intact. “One of my takeaways from making this record is that I spent a lot of energy trying to do things a little different but ended up back where I started in many ways,” notes Johnson. “And that’s OK.” Through a delicate balance of the somber and the serene, of subtle evolutions and familiar sounds, Sol Y Sombra makes for a holistically joyous experience, finding solace in both sun and shade.
Mogwai "The Bad Fire"
The arrival of a new Mogwai album – their eleventh – is cause for great celebration. The album’s title, The Bad Fire, is a working-class Glaswegian term for Hell. It reflects the difficult time that members of the band were going through. New to the studio was American producer John Congleton, known for his work with Explosions In The Sky, Sigur Rós, John Grant and pretty much everyone in between. Congleton’s work can be heard on the album’s three singles. The album opener “God Gets You Back” sounds like Daft Punk being hunted by My Bloody Valentine, while “Fanzine Made Of Flesh” sounds like a victory parade for a baby yeti; and “Lion Rumpus” does actually sound like a lion rumpus. The music of Mogwai is a difficult thing to describe, but an easy thing to experience. At punishing volume, it can annihilate your body, leaving you as little more than a head which should by rights fall helplessly to the ground. Yet the music contains an updraft, a sense of beauty encased in the onslaught. This holds you up, suspended and empowered, reminding you that paradise is your birthright. This is especially true of The Bad Fire. It may have been created in dark conditions, but all that is transcended by the act of four musicians working together here, now, in the moment – the only place where Mogwai exist.
