Village Green Recordings

Anthony Tombling, Jr., the British musician and filmmaker known as CUTS, wrote and recorded the project's second full-length, UNREAL, primarily in lockdown after he had moved to a house in a remote location. It seems like isolating himself from society was a necessary step for him to take in order to deal with the ongoing political and environmental crises, and channel his anxiety and emotional turbulence through music. While the previous CUTS album, A Gradual Decline, was an ambitious, mainly instrumental blend of ambient, post-rock, and neo-classical, UNREAL is closer to the darkwave pop of the project's earlier EPs. The lyrics react to pandemic life and disinformation without directly addressing any specific issues, but unmistakably capturing feelings of shock, disbelief, rage, and despair. The music generally dwells within the more IDM-informed side of industrial, with steady yet broken rhythms pounding underneath dark, atmospheric synths and mildly cyborgian vocals. "DISSOLUTION" sets up with a simmering beat and sinks in with a gorgeously distorted melody. The title track has a more club-ready kick drum that is disoriented by a battering, physical-sounding clang, as Tombling periodically reflects that "This life is unreal." The mostly instrumental "SHELTERED LIFE" conveys the bitter coldness of seclusion mainly through frayed, buzzing melodies, and "THE BRINK" is a more vulnerable expression of damaged hope and helplessness. Even though it deals with the emotional effects of living through catastrophic times, the album isn't completely harsh and unforgiving, and there's an undeniable sense of humanity coursing through the work. © Paul Simpson /TiVo

English composer Ben Chatwin conceptualized his album The Hum around the hidden frequencies and nearly inaudible sounds present in any environment, but particularly electrically powered ones such as houses and recording studios. Mixing and mastering the entire album with analogue equipment rather than computers, he aimed to capture a different, more physical form of energy than he did on his previous works. Apart from the presence of rhapsodic strings on several tracks, The Hum sounds more electronic-based than more fully orchestrated Chatwin albums like Heat & Entropy and Staccato Signals, with rougher, grittier synth textures as well as pulsating beats, perhaps influenced by some of the remixes on 2019's Altered Signals. On "Transistor," he starts with a rich, buzzing synth tone and matches its tension with slow, post-industrial pounding and dark, synthwave-ish melodies. "Creep Strain"'s gorgeous rush of strings is overtaken by bristling distortion and choppy IDM-style beats, and "Snow Crash" is a more dramatic wash of static waves and mournful violins, gradually building up to an overpowering climax which seems to be accompanied by a ghostly choir. Later pieces like the brief, shifting "Interference" and the title track certainly feature scrambled voices, perhaps lost black box transmissions, in the mix. The concluding "Ghost in the Machine" emerges with a much clearer, more sparkling melody, and while it's far less distorted than the other tracks, it's just as emotionally stirring. By changing up his techniques and methods, Chatwin has produced something stranger and more otherworldly than his past work, yet equally fascinating. © Paul Simpson /TiVo

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