Articles
17 Pygmies
Bruno Heinen
Daniel Wohl

Albums
17 Pygmies
ACV
Airhead
Arborea
Aufgang
Dinky
Ecovillage
Ekin Fil
Fausten
Greg Haines
Ian Hawgood
Bruno Heinen Sextet
Human
Mathew Jonson
Jacob Kirkegaard
The Knife
Lacuna
Machinefabriek & M. Pilots
Moonshoes
My Home, Sinking
RP Boo
Rhian Sheehan
Spazzkid
Aoki Takamasa
Dandy Teru
Time Is a Mountain
Witxes
Daniel Wohl
Zeitgeber

Compilations / Mixes
Aquarius
Calibre
minMAX
Schwarz / D & W / DIN
Silence Was Warm 4
Under The Influence 3

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Anomalie 002
Chroma
Dying Machines
Kres
Kuantum
Mako and Villem
Martsman
Kate Simko
Spargel Trax 3 & 4
Test House
Chris Weeks

Mathew Jonson: Her Blurry Pictures
Crosstown Rebels

Mathew Jonson's comments on his working methods provide insight into his latest solo outing Her Blurry Pictures, which he primarily created in his Berlin studio in 2012 (some of its earlier pieces originated in his Vancouver hometown). Likening his work in the improv trio Cobblestone Jazz to “a conversation between players” and in the dancefloor-focused Midnight Operator to an “all-out attack on the senses,” he characterizes his solo work as introspective and organic; as he says, “In the studio I keep an intuitive way of working where there is freedom outside the laws of musical training.”

Such comments certainly dovetail with the nature of the material presented on his solo album for Crosstown Rebels where one hears the Wagon Repair head both controlling the music's direction and allowing it to direct him, too. A good example of the approach is heard in the opening piece “Level 7,” whose free-wheeling flow of fluid rhythms and chiming synth patterns were created during a soundcheck at the Free Your Mind festival.

Her Blurry Pictures truly begins to perk up one's ears upon the arrival of the third track “Sahara,” whose shuffling pitter-patter bubbles as hyperactively as the opening cuts but adds to its sequencer patterns a warped keyboard effect that can't help but drill itself into one's cranium. Nice, too, is the languorous title track, which effectively captures the dreamy and emotive side of Jonson's music. Other tracks include memorable details in their sound design, too: a distorted swirl of voices drapes itself across the driving house groove of “Touch the Sky,” and the funky house jam “Kissing Your Eyes” receives a boost from the addition of micro-glissandi to its fleet-footed skip.

June 2013