"An arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds"

Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Sad dreamy road


It's probably not my last mea culpa for an overlooked 2011 release, regrettably. Still, Felicia Atkinson's O-RE-GON (Home Normal; Spotty stream) is an indisputably great record that these ears only managed to connect with this year - & which has to be clumsily co-opted into our Festive 50 + 50...

Anyone who knows Felicia's mesmerising Aberdeen will recognise the ingredients of Green and Grey (stream in full below), O-RE-GON's jaw-dropping high point - breathy, repeating incantation, a simple, circling palette of faintly menacing texture, a hugely unsettling impact. 

But where the earlier piece draws its huge power from an uncanny inhabitation of obsession, G&G's emotional range is somewhat different - less of an unfolding narrative, seemingly more directed to journeying & discovery, redemption & release.   


& now her flurry of recent releases (besides O-RE-GON the past year has brought Les Bois Rouges, The Driver, Venice is Falling, Crystal arrows for a cosmic king & the compelling microKORGed loveliness of The Owls...) leads to On Being Kind to Horses. These 25 minutes of "snowy drones" for Fluid Audio take flight from a touching Mayakovsky poem. 

Not sure yet that there's much (anything?) to separate the Brugges & Ostende takes on the metallic, beautifully resolved Hooves Drummed (stream both in full below). Nor what else the release contains - both these takes & one more? 


Felicia Atkinson - Hooves drummed (Ostende)



Felicia Atkinson - Green and Grey




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