Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Opening with an extended skit inspired by John Carpenter’s Darkstar, it’s obvious from the start that this Strange Gibberish mixtape is going to be heavy on the humour. It’s also heavy on the creativity and experimentation, with some of the beats straying well into avant-garde territory. It’s far too diverse for me to sum it… Read more

  • Cyberchump – Flutter And Flow (ambient rock)

    Cyberchump – Flutter And Flow (ambient rock)

    Cyberchump, according to their website, ‘is an electro-organic duo that explores aural soundscapes of rhythm and moment’. While my rarely dormant inner pedant is keen to learn what other kinds of soundscape might exist, this gives a fair sense of the textures to be heard on Flutter And Flow. The music is far from ambient;… Read more

  • Tim Risher – The Cracked Chimes (ambient)

    Tim Risher – The Cracked Chimes (ambient)

    Ambient music is usually associated with a certain set of characteristics; although dance music producers became interested in ambient as a source of inspiration, and whole stylistic zones have arisen around the combination of different dance genres with ‘ambient-type’ sounds, even to the extent that the term is frequently used unadorned to refer to such… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Concept albums are something that are probably most often associated with complicated rock music and high-falutin lyrics dealing with such themes as the importance of dragons as a symbol of self-realisation. Well, this is very definitely a concept album, but the music it includes is not rock, not complicated, and not endowed with any kind… Read more

  • Huey and the New Yorkers – The After Hours EP (groove rock)

    Huey and the New Yorkers – The After Hours EP (groove rock)

    Fun Lovin’ Criminals were a major part of the sound of the ‘90s for me; this was the decade in which I had my 20s, achieved my ambition to become something tangentially similar to a professional musician, met my now wife, and became, to my lasting amazement, father to the most intellectually impressive entity I’ve… Read more

  • Steve Lawson and Daniel Berkman – Finger Painting (improvisation)

    Steve Lawson and Daniel Berkman – Finger Painting (improvisation)

    Steve Lawson has spent much of his career exploring the front edge of musical and technological possibility, in terms of the sounds that one bass player can make, the ways that musical recordings can be constructed, the ways that musicians can talk to listeners, and the ways that recordings can be distributed to them. He’s… Read more