AVI C. ENGEL - Mote

"A flask of light from the world
before we drank it all

and smashed the bottle on the rocks"

Canadian Alternative Folk artist Avi C. Engel continues their one continuous song that will end when [they] die. The result is an immersive new album, available digitally and as different CD editions via Fenny Compton.

AVI C. ENGEL - Mote (2025)

While nothing I've heard from Engel, who I admittedly follow a bit on/off with varying attention, has ever been bad in my ears, their music doesn't always find a hundred percent perfect balance to keep my interest through a whole album.

The reason for that lies in the risky basic formula of the music. Almost every song is slow and sparsely orchestrated. The vocals are always soft, delivering poetic images from behind an introverted veil of melancholia. The artist won't suddenly wow you with flashy dramatic turning points, a smash hit or huge hooks. No, in a tradition once again upheld by "Mote" the singer/songwriter's albums rather appear as one continuous flow of emotional contemplation.

That means it's all about subtle things, about the small accentuations, which have great impact. Where is the acoustic guitar aided by minimalist percussion? When are the lead vocals accomponied by harmonies? When does the intimate inconspicuous production open up into sounding just that critical part bigger? When are guest musicians brought into the mix, adding touches of melodica, clarinet, additional guitar?

The eight tracks on this album find the right answers to these questions. While they are all maintaining a common mood and timbre on the surface, there is just the right amount of careful change within textures and arrangements in the deep to bring that certain tension which keeps you attentive.

There's always a notion of some unspoken truth that might come to light at any moment, something expressed through music where thoughts and words alone fail. It's not right before your eyes to decipher yet... but somehow it feels close. However it doesn't actually matter if it's revealed to you or not. Avi C. Engel's Experimental not-quiet-Americana sound dwells in a dreamy state on the edge of epiphany. It's all about slowly and steadily experiencing that state - and ultimately finding peace within it, without knowing all the answers beyond the horizon.

cassette craze chronicles XXXIII feat. AIDAN BAKER, AVI C. ENGEL, MAIRU and MONOVOTH

Cassettes, cassettes, cassettes, ca...? Wait. Something feels weird, I don't know...

Well, let's just - sloooowly - get started with a serious statement of Doom:

MONOVOTH - Pleroma Mortem Est (2024)
[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

After playing with several adjacent influences on the rather Avantgarde self-titled debut, Lucas Wyssbrod's solo project Monovoth now dedicates itself fully to pure Funeral Doom in a flavour close to Bell Witch. Albeit not being equally colossal in size "Pleroma Mortem Est" breathes a similar air of cosmic magnitude with heaviness and beauty seemingly not made for our limited mortal perception.

It's just that brand of the genre I totally love to let myself fall into. The cassette format enhances the impression of a forever returning cyclic nature just by "Grata Mors" and "Somnia", the respective first tracks  of both sides beginning with deliberately similar intros, which can make it hard to determine where you are at first. In the end it doesn't matter, because from this album's perspective the listeners' little matters are just small insignificant specks on specks of stardust anyway.

MAIRU - Sol Cultus (2023)

Sometimes huge and aggressive Post Metal can feel a little stale and tiring, but this band just has that certain it, which captures me. I just have difficulties putting this tape into my play... Ok, now I get it! Something felt strangely off about this cassette since the moment I opened the package from Trepanation Recordings. My dear Dan, you sent me the wrong format! No worries, that's not a biggie actually, CDs are fine and both have the same price, so this doesn't bother me.

It disqualifies the release from being featured here however, so I have to stop this mini review at this point and carry on with the two *checks twice* actual tapes which I recently got from Cruel Nature Records... 

AIDAN BAKER - Everything Is Like Always Until It Is Not (2024)

After Monovoth already taught us that most of all is Death Aidan Bakern continues our philosophy lecture with the observation that "Everything Is Like Always Until It Is Not".

With each of its eight tracks named after one word of the album title, this is an album which undergoes an according subtle dramatic change during its runtime. It starts as if the typical sound of Aidan's band Nadja had been reimagined in a relaxing Ambient Doom Jazz setting, with synth and flowing guitars meandering in slow waves above smooth bass lines and half deliberately-amateurish / half Smooth Jazz drumming.

There is a monotonous undertone lurking somewhere in the background, which in the beginning is providing a sense of comfort. During the second half however it grows to an ominous Drone, which takes over more and more of the sonic space, making it more and more uncomfortable until with "Not" the album ends in an openly contorted reflection of its beginning.

No doubt, mister Baker knows what he's doing with this fearless exploration of (un)easy listening. And Cruel Nature Records know how to pack and design a tape release. Perfect concept and execution all around!

AVI C. ENGEL - Too Many Souls (2024)

I didn't hate it, but partly I felt a little lukewarm about Avi C. (formerly Clara) Engel's last album "Sanguinaria". "Too Many Souls" however is a different beast. Not that the general approach of Engel's music would have changed - that's not something anyone would seriously expect I guess. They still cultivate an intimate, very DIY kind of acoustic singer/songwriter sound, based in equal parts on Folk, Classical, Alternative and in lack of a better term Experimental influences.

The seven tracks of this new album - including a wonderful cover of the traditional "Wayfaring Stranger", which joins versions by Oceans Of Slumber and Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter in my collection - all just find the right tone of introspective, but still interesting and listenable brooding. Among the minimal arrangements of guitar, percussions and occasional melodica, which carry Avi's soothing vocals, especially the gudok, a lute-related Slavic string instrument, is the emotionally captivating star of the show.

A beautiful, poetic album with the same nice (even though not necessarily most convenient) cardboard packaging as seen with Aidan Baker's cassette, including Engel's own artwork and a great looking shell.

Um, didn't I want to write about BORIS, CLARA ENGEL, JASNOVIDEC, LEAGUS, PAM RISOURIÉ and THE OCEAN at some point?

Even though I can only check out a small percentage of the promo invitations I received with this one life I have, some stuff unfortunately still gets left behind on my to-do-list.

And since we're doing collective reviews right now anyway, here are a couple of promos and other digital releases I bought or snatched somewhere else, which definitely deserve their justice:





LEAGUS - Flora Eallin (2023)

And there's no album I have criminally neglected more than this Norwegian Contemporary Jazz masterpiece! Normally just a guitar / piano duo Leagus was recruited to write a piece for the ten-member North Norwegian Jazz Ensemble in 2021, and the result - besides several live appearances - was this amazing album, whose twelve tracks always sound fresh and modern, but somehow also take you through a historical journey, touching on all different kinds of experimental Free Jazz and Fusion.

Even the specific achievement of putting one of the most annoying parts of any music album of the year into one of the best songs surrounded by an hour-long cornucopia of beautiful stylistically boundless magic, is somehow respectable and ultimately works. Well, just listen to "Pripyat", have a little patience and I'm sure you'll know, what I'm talking about, haha!

All other various vocal and instrumental performances and arrangements really are flawless though. And between Ambient, Pop, intimate Smooth and large Big Band Jazz, Heavy Fusion and all kinds of delicate and wild experimentalism connecting and dividing those elements, "Flora Eallin" is a truly exciting journey you just don't want to miss!

Is It Jazz? the record label asks. The answer is yes, but also so much more!

BORIS - "Akuma No Uta" Anniversary single "Ibitsu" (2023)

Now let's obliterate our hearing for a small moment and enjoy Boris' re-recording of a little song from an album originally released twenty years ago. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Fuck yeah, Rock'nRoll! That was good. I'll continue writing once the veil of feedback tinnitus has lifted a little.

THE OCEAN - Holocene (Instrumental) (2023)

From Japan back to Europe, where Post Metal superpower The Ocean has released a new album. As always I didn't care much, because this band is undoubtly good on stage, but seldom has that it, which makes me want to listen to their studio work. Or maybe they have the other it, which holds me back from engaging, being the redundant sheer existence of vocals.

Luckily they kind of know of this themselves and always make their releases available as alternate purely instrumental versions. And suddenly this heavy atmospheric stuff is so damn extra-good! This music just works way better this way. Hell, I even enjoy the track with freaking Karin Park as guest singer much more... um... without her. Not her fault, obviously. Sometimes even the greatest vocalists are best if they just shut up. The song needs what it needs - and doesn't need what it doesn't.

Still not saying that regular "Holocene" is a bad record by any means, but "Holecene (Instrumental)" just feels like the real thing, the Director's Cut, the legit Post Rock album of the year contender.

PAM RISOURIÉ - Days Of Distortion (2023)

Definitely pro-vocals is my stance on the full-length debut of the French Shoegaze group Pam Risourié. Not that the falsetto voices here would be something super special or outstanding on their own. But they are just the right choice to accompany the breathy dreaminess of this rhythmically often quite upbeat Post Punk affair, which towards the end gradually grows into a more and more spacious and cosmic experience.

Distorted guitar music in an ethereal haze. Eruptive and beautiful.

JASNOVIDEC - Vzpom​í​nka Na Sv​ě​tlo / Fyziognomie Hyeny (2023)

The most abstract release of this bunch by far comes from Stoned To Death Records in the shape of this two-track EP (also available as limited 7") from Jasnovidec. Just like on the 2020 self-titled debut album you should expect buzzing, crackling, droning and random analogue synth and electronics with zero hooklines, yet a lot of atmosphere and a big experimental tag on it!

With that inner preparation you'll find this is quite listenable and enjoyable.

CLARA ENGEL - Sanguinaria (2023)
AVI C. ENGEL - Sanguinaria (2023)

Look, I waited so long that I missed the name change! But does it even retroactively apply to a release once it is already out there in the world? If you obtain just the digital version it could, right? I don't know, I better leave that question for someone else to contemplate about.

Avi doesn't sound radically different than on their last album "Their Invisible Hands", the delicate minimal DIY instrumentation of these ten Alternative Folk songs is just as interesting and compelling. But even tough we're basically staying on the same high level and Engel keeps the total running time at least a little briefer this time, there are just a couple of tracks I somehow cannot fully warm up to. Hard to say why, maybe some of the sparse melodies simply don't fully meet my taste.

That also the excellent tracks require the right mood to work, shouldn't come as a surprise, because this music is not only slow-paced and quiet, but also very close and personal in away that doesn't work twenty-four hours a day. And that's totally fine.

If you're new to this artist, I'd recommend to listen to earlier releases first, but fuck me, you won't do what I tell you, so feel free to start diving into Clara/Avi's "one long continuous song" wherever it suits you best!