Primitive Motion – Elemental Dreaming (I Dischi Del Barone) / Primitive Motion & Anthony Burr – Breath of Light Remains (A Guide to Saints)

For my money, the Brisbane-based duo, Primitive Motion, have remained one of the most consistently rewarding outfits of the past decade. Leighton Craig and Sandra Selig’s work as Primitive Motion initially surfaced on Soft Abuse back in 2011, and those early efforts featured a very minimalist, drums/keyboard/electronics throb that was heavy on hazy, echo-laden atmospherics. Their subsequent releases on Bedroom Suck Records included a more dynamic range of both in-focus and incidental pop songcraft, while retaining their signature ‘dream-float’ sound. Two of their most recent releases offer a brief look back on their earlier output and possibly glimpse into newfound directions for the duo. Elemental Dreaming, released on the exceptional Swedish I Dischi Del Barone imprint, is a 7” single that brings together two older tracks. “Telegrams For Comets,” recorded in 2012, features programmed beats by Glenn Donaldson (of The Reds, Pinks, & Purples, Skygreen Leopards et al.), whose writings you can find on this very website in his weekly Failure Of All Pop column. Donaldson, who has also contributed to previous Primitive Motion releases, maps out a linear groove reminiscent of his FWY! project that Craig and Selig overlay with a simple, in-the-red keyboard melody, squiggly electronics, and wordless vocal incantations. The flipside’s “Night Colour Song,” recorded in 2016, contains similar musical DNA just set to a slightly slower tempo and a more overloaded droning surface. As a single, it fits perfectly in the IDDB catalog that’s flush with murky, DIY post-punk greatness. Breath of Light Remains, a collaboration with well-regarded improviser and composer, Anthony Burr, is an entirely different affair. Burr, who is known primarily as a clarinettist, joined the duo on piano in their practice space for a long-form, improvised saunter through delicately beautiful sounds. Gone are the tense beats and lo-fi production values, and in their place are gentle piano lines, subtle cymbal washes, airy flute tones, and Selig’s floating voice occupying shared space with the open door, sun-dappled acoustics. Primitive Motion has approached elements of this sound on record before in much shorter bursts, but here they are venturing into a Necks-level territory of bold refinement and expansive beauty. It’s a comforting and worthwhile 40 minutes of continuous music that I find myself returning to regularly. 

Grykë Pyje – Collision and Coalescence (Mappa)

Jani Hirvonen (Uton) and Johannes Schebler (Baldruin, Diamantener Oberhof) have a long history of making ritualistic sounds that blur the lines between ambient, drone, and worldly folk music. In my mind, their solo output is closely associated with a peak time in the international experimental underground where labels like Housecraft, SicSic, Digitalis, Last Visible Dog and many others were pumping out tapes and cd-rs of free folk, psychedelic weirdness at a dizzying clip. Not one’s who rest on their laurels, this Finnish/German duo have remained active both as solo artists and on a few occasions have joined together under the name, Grykë Pyje, where they compose what they call “cryptobiology music”. What they create on Collision and Coalescence, their second full-length LP, is a rich, imaginary sonic ecosystem of chattering animal and plant life, gooey ectoplasmic ambience and pulsations, and chiming and shimmering sun-soaked activities. I suppose you could dub this a form of World Music or New Age music, or perhaps more tangentially there are nods to Mort Garson’s (Mother Earth’s) Plantasia, but to me this is pure headphone phantasia: easy to get lost in and to map out your own alternate green reality.

Tereshkova – Budget Angel (Audio.Visuals.Atmosphere)

If the Grykë Pyje release sounds like stepping into a lively imaginary ecosystem, then Tereshkova’s latest release, Budget Angel, could be described as a stroll through a collapsing futuristic cityscape with a lengthy stop at a lonesome, smoke-filled cabaret. With previous releases titled Fog and Other Memories, Dream Automaton, and Intergalactic Letdown, you get the idea of the haunted-by-the-past, thematic thread that runs through at least a portion of the Tereshkova back catalog that’s spread out over several top-tier cassette labels. There is indeed a noir-ish, retro-futuristic quality to this release, especially on the A-side’s “For Lesley.” Snippets of hazy saxophone, strings, voices, and synths float in-and-out in a seamless mix that, to resort to a major review cliché here, sound somewhat Lynchian in their somber, eerie tone. The B-side’s “Walking Off The Cliffs Of Moher” also unfolds in a highly organized patchwork of mini-scenes that hint at full John Carpenter synth-building suspense, but the spectre of children’s voices and other environmental sounds continuously push back against this dynamic, creating a different sort of tension-and-release altogether. There are still plenty of folks dabbling in longform, synth-based music, but, in my humble opinion, Tereshkova is working in the upper echelons of this pack with his compositional chops and world-building talents separating him from much of the others.