From New York and London
Recommended if you like Kali Malone, Éliane Radigue, Caterina Barbieri, Burial’s Comafields
Up next Infinity Gradient album out 21 November
There’s something about the pipe organ that keeps experimental musicians going back for more. No other acoustic instrument pierces and shakes the air in quite the same way.
Composer-performers such as Kali Malone, Jonny Greenwood, Ellen Arkbro, Sarah Davachi and Kit Downes are just the start. An experimental organ culture has grown in the UK thanks to events like Organ Reframed at Union Chapel in London (which over the past decade has commissioned music from composers including Mark Fell, Éliane Radigue and Hildur Guðnadóttir) and the fantastically named Bristol concert series Mainly Slow Organ Music, as well as adventurous organists such as James McVinnie.
Infinity Gradient is the latest in a growing canon of initially serene organ music that later reveals depth and grit. An hour-long piece for organ and 100 loudspeakers, it was composed in 2021 by New York-based composer Tristan Perich, and performed with McVinnie at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 2024. After an opening flourish, the piece is arranged in seven sections but, in essence, it works through a handful of stretched crescendos.
Perich’s breathing, warping electronics feel like a natural addition to the organ’s already extensive sound palette. His textures move surprisingly quickly through moods; oscillating figures morph from Caterina Barbieri to Baba O’Riley. Drones, pulses and scratchy hums form the base of this musical language, to which the organ adds layer after imposing layer. The moment when the full organ kicks in (with four massive subwoofers to boot) is well worth the wait. Hugh Morris
This week’s best new tracks
Waterbaby – Beck n Call
Singing of hopeless infatuation, the Swedish Sub Pop signee deploys one of the best piano riffs we’ve heard in ages, a head-nodding shuffle that melts into a string arrangement later on: masterful craft.
Underscores – Do It
A key collaborator on the new Danny Brown album, the hyperpop star threads Timbaland-era Justin Timberlake through a taut, terrific track made for earnest 00s MTV dance moves.
Mssingno – Think of Me
Pairing a Brandy sample with a UKG beat isn’t the most original idea, but then again Mssingno is the master of these ghostly nostalgic reworks – and the chorus is pure sad-banger rapture.
Mala & Magugu – Militant Don
It’s been rattling around sets by Four Tet, Skream and more for a while, and now this chunk of classic dubstep lands on the general public with thudding force, further enlivened by Magugu’s Flowdan-style chatter.
Nothing – Cannibal World
A heaving, bending mass of shoegaze guitars and wafty dream-pop singing is churned up by junglist breakbeat: an absolutely inspired concept from the Philly band.
JBee – If I Lose (ft Kidwild)
Over pink-sunset drill production from DCBeats, JBee glumly reflects on the relentlessness of the grind, while Kidwild – capping a superb year – lets himself be vulnerable: “I just want you to hold me.”
Beau Mahadev – Sucker
Leading off the NYC electronic producer’s atmospheric debut album, Subterra, a tech-house melody ripples like a tropical fish through a cavern; fans of Erika de Casier will love the vocals, too.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
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