GOLDMUND
The Malady Of Elegance
TYPE039
Type Recordings 2008
15 Tracks.  55mins57secs

Keith Kenniff’s solo piano recordings show an unironic childlike wonder.  The Malady of Elegance, like Curduroy Road before it, is conservative in its tonal focus.  While its manner is reflective and studiedly neutral, the effect of these beautiful miniatures, performed with sublime delicacy, is oftentimes quietly haunting.

Pieces prove rather hypnotic in small doses.  Particularly during the first half of the recording, unfurling in an almost folk-like manner, tracks secrete tiny details at a meandering pace, fading in an out of earshot, and when they finally do well up and state their case, it’s a real event. Continue Reading »

PETER BRODERICK
Float
TYPE027
Type Recordings 2008
10 Tracks. 35mins46secs

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick moved to Copenhagen in the second half of last year when Danish folksters extraordinaire Efterklang invited him to join their touring caravan following the release of their excellent Parades. Not one to miss a golden opportunity, Broderick dropped everything and took his quarters in the Danish capital, and has spent the last six months criss-crossing Europe as part of the band as well as alternating opening slots with Danish singer Anna Brønsted, aka Our Broken Garden.

Following Broderick’s debut single, released on Type last year, and a limited edition mini album of solo piano works, Docile, released last November on Swedish imprint Kning Disk, Float collects ten compositions which expands on the delicate pieces of Docile to incorporate voluptuous orchestral swathes and other instrumental textures. Continue Reading »

Originally hailing from Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick currently resides in Copenhagen, where he moved to toward the end of last year after Efterklang inviting him to join the band for the tour that followed the release of Parades, their album of last year. Broderick has recently released a beautiful mini album on Swedish imprint Kning Disk entirely made of instrumental piano compositions, and his debut album, Float, is about to be released on Type. We caught up with him as he was about to embark on yet another leg of the Efterklang tour to talk about the multiple facets of his work, living in Europe, recording on a shoe string and endorsing a one-man band persona on stage. Continue Reading »

The Efterklang caravan stopped in London’s Bush Hall on Friday, as part of their two-week-long tour of the UK. Taking their Parades album, released a couple of months ago, on an extensive international tour, the Danish quintet and their troops couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate venue. Formerly known as the Carlton Dance Hall, Bush Hall, in the heart of West London’s Sheppard’s Bush, was built at the beginning of the twentieth Century by William F. Hurndall, a publisher, as a gift for one of his daughters. It has since been a soup kitchen during the Second World War, and was, in the fifties and sixties, turned into a bingo hall and amusement arcade, before being turned into a concert venue at the turn of the millennium. The highly ornate ceilings and walls have been preserved, and grand chandeliers offer a testament to the place’s former grandeur. Continue Reading »

SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU
S
TYPE030
Type Recordings 2007
o5 Tracks. 21mins.40secs

With his past few releases, be it under his own name or the On moniker, Sylvain Chauveau has been moving away from his gorgeously sparse and poetic piano works, towards brooding electroacoustic compositions. His first recording on the Type label attempts a fusion of these two realms, resulting in something that is heterogeneous stylistically, yet clearly reserved in its musical forms. Each track enjoys a short but seething lifespan, consisting of discrete audio chunks that are fragile, tentative, and irresolute. Continue Reading »

AARON MARTIN & MACHINEFABRIEK
Cello Recycling/Cello Drowning
TYPE029
Type Recordings 2007
02 Tracks. 21mins. 54secs

Cello Recycling incarcerates the listener in Netherland’s Rutger Zuydervelt and American multi-instrumentalist Aaron Martin’s penchant for staccato, pointillist constructions, layered together into quaking masses that positively purr with energy. The opening twelve minute composition unfolds like a rolling cloud of harmonics shot through with querulous whines and whimpers. In an almost obsessive manner, it constantly grates against itself, picking at its own scabs, trying to break free of its moorings, to lose its depth of field, and float in a space free of resistance. Continue Reading »

XELA
For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights
TYPE017
Type Recordings 2007
12 Tracks. 60mins45secs

Four years after it was first released on the recently revived Neo Ouija, Xela’s debut album, For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights has been remastered and given a whole new set of attires thanks to graphic artist Matthew Woodson for its re-released, this time on Twells’s excellent Type Recordings imprint, only a few months after the third Xela album, The Dead Sea, was released. Continue Reading »