After establishing herself as a techno DJ in some of the wonkiest corners of underground dance music, Gwenan Spearing has spent the last few years settling into slower, more abstract territory. Alongside her club sets, she co-organises an ambient deep listening series in Berlin and spends her spare time experimenting with modular synthesis. Phase Space is the latest expression of this interest, a project rooted in generative electronics and real-time responses.
Degrees of Freedom is Spearing’s first outing under this new alias: an EP of meandering ambient tracks that blur the lines between electronic and acoustic as instruments are sampled, warped and overdubbed through her synthesiser. On the subaquatic opening track Sync, cowbells are stretched and delayed beyond recognition against a pulsing analogue rhythm. Towards the end of Some Pluck, a dense shimmer almost sounds like steel pans, but you get the impression it’s something more elusive.
Her improvisatory approach is the core of this album. Time signatures are varied and sounds are layered randomly by control circuits while Spearing tinkers along. What could just be friendly easy listening material is tipped off-kilter by these strange elements – and is all the better for it. Generator I, as uncanny as it is beautiful – much in the way that Mica Levi’s film scores are – is where this approach shines most. The deep, woozy melody is enough to induce a dream-like state, but instead keys tumble around it. On Sleep Pressure, a self-styled “lullaby for grownups”, the soporific sequence is unsettled by the faint clatter of metal, which has the same soft dissonance of wind chimes, delicate but jarring.
Even closer Generator II, the record’s most straight-up atmospheric composition, is flecked with subtle fuzzy glitches. It’s a lovely, drifting listen with just the right amount of curiosity and texture to keep you locked in.
Also out this month
Pool Jams is the latest record by the Berlin duo INIT, made up of Nadia D’Alò and Benedikt Frey (R.i.O). As the name suggests, there’s a summer sensibility here, but only in the most feverish sense: think smoky vocals, sluggish grooves and clouds of synths – hypnotic music for hot, late nights. On Openness Trio, guitarist and producer Nate Mercereau, saxophonist Josh Johnson and percussionist Carlos Niño join forces to create a collection of compositions that are as expansive and beguiling as the California hills and canyons they were recorded in (Blue Note). Another great collaborative effort comes from Brazilian sound artists Anelena Toku and Carla Boregas (Other People). Marking a decade of their multidisciplinary project of the same name, Fronte Violeta is both soothing and ghostly. Across the 10 tracks, soft, droning electronics are interlaced with whining vocals and samples of found natural objects including branches and feathers.
