• Actress – AZD

    Experimental music is supposed to try and expand the boundaries of the possible. It’s always something of a gamble, but a thrilling one at that. Actress, AKA London-based experimental techno artist Darren Cunningham, has thus far managed to carve a niche for himself in an area that’s generally quite difficult to stand out in. Spend enough time among his soundscapes and you can begin to easily identify an Actress track – there’s a distinctiveness to his work that Cunningham has characterised as “almost like extreme patenting”. AZD (pronounced “azid”) is his fifth album under this moniker, one that arrived with…

  • Actress – Ghettoville

    Actress, AKA Darren Cunningham has prowled the dark world of experimental, minimalist electronica for nearly a decade now. The title of this his fourth album harks back to Hazyville, his debut full length, and, if the finality hinted at in the album blurb is to be heeded, the pair seem likely to bookend the Actress story. Accordingly Cunningham has decided to create his masterpiece. Adopting varied approaches, Actress hunts the murky territory of a glitchy, avant garde noise and presents the results in phases. These phases become most obvious over five (not six) sides of vinyl LP (everything needs to…

  • Choice Cuts: The Best Tracks of… January

    In the first of an new series-based feature, Belfast-based writer Aaron Hamilton trawls through the very best music released in the month of January, distilling his favourites to a mere eight tracks.  Whereas the first five are in no particular order, the final three are, as you might well guess, in order of consecutive greatness. Will we be humming their choruses this time next month? Check yourself then and read on now. St. Vincent – Digital Witness [Loma Vista] A second teaser to her upcoming album, ‘Digital Witness’ shows a decidedly weirder side to Annie Clark’s music. The big horns are…