The The 
Ensoulment      
(Cineola/ear MUSIC)
★★★★★

THE first album in a quarter of a century from Matt Johnson’s The The is full of political and philosophical concerns. 

It opens with Cognitive Dissident, a haunting, dark and slow tempo funk bass-driven exploration of the dangers of social media. Vocal harmonies to the fore in the mix, it sets the tone for the ambitious sonic textures throughout. Next up is Some Days I Drink My Coffee by The Grave of William Blake. An atmospheric gospel-inspired homage to a London past. Life After Life explores themes of grief, offset by an upbeat chorus and intriguing chord changes. 

Co-Production duties were overseen by Warne Liversey, who worked on The The’s landmark albums, Infected and Mind Bomb. Recording took place in Johnson’s London studio and at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Johnson was joined by long-standing band members James Eller bass, DC Collard keyboards, Earl Harvin drums, and Barrie Cadogan lead guitar. 

A world tour gets underway this month.

Meemo Comma 
Decimation of I  
(Planet Mu Records)
★★★★★

THE fifth album by the Brighton-based composer and producer is inspired by the Strugatsky brothers’ 1971 novel Roadside Picnic, which was adapted for the film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. The story is based around a group of people exploring a land that has been transformed by alien visitors, where only toxic artefacts have been left behind. The new album’s deeply affecting instrumental works conjure up the atmospheres and themes of the movie. 

The album opens with melodic flute on They, Spoke, then onto the disorienting electronica for The Soldier. Next up the Steve Reich-inspired clusters of clarinets and intertwining synth organ drones on The Poet. Influences abound from the ambition of Vangelis to that of vintage Wendy Carlos. Another stand out track is PAlpha, full of industrial noises and disintegrating melodies. 

As the composer says of the piece, “I liked the idea that as the characters walked through the land there were Geiger counters going off around them almost like cicadas.”

Anna Gourari/Orchestra della Svizzera italiana 
Paul Hindemith/Alfred Schnittke
(ECM Records) 
★★★★★

ANNA GOURARI is a German pianist who has recorded three solo albums for ECM. For her latest work she has teamed up with the Lugano based Orchestra della Svizzera italiana. Under the leadership of conductor Markus Poschner they perform Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and Paul Hindemith’s The Four Temperaments. 

Schnittke was a 20th-century Russian composer who wrote orchestral works on themes of morality and spirituality and musically was strongly influenced by Dimitri Shostakovich. The concerto opens up with dramatic single note piano refrains, imaginatively interpreted. Clusters of chords prepare the way for drives of sweeping progression as the strings join.  

Hindemith was a German American composer and theorist, influenced by the likes of Arnold Schoenberg as well as the Expressionists. The Four Temperaments is a work for orchestra and ballet premiered in March 1943, full of formal leanings and features solo violin, here played with exceptional tenacity by Robert Kowalski. The recording produced by Manfred Eicher, full of detail and sonic clarity.