ALEX WARD - Gated
Discus: Discus 114CD
Alex Ward: all instruments.
Recorded July 2020 to March 2021 by Alex Ward at Stowaway Studios.
I suppose that one way into this music is to look at the images on the CD cover – modernist architecture with interesting and quirky variations that disrupt the monotony of tower blocks. I am assuming that the images are of buildings that people live in and that, given the world’s recent experiences of covid-19, that the word ‘gated’ signifies both a protected community (with the gates to keep out Others) and a restricted community (with the gates to keep us in). There are hints that this reading is on the right lines in titles like ‘The Celebrated Restriction’, track 2, and ‘Cushioned’, track 7. But other titles carry different significations – ‘Maybe it’ll break the heat’, track 10, possibly referring to a thunderstorm? These musings are inspired not only by the images and titles but also by the architecture of the pieces that Ward presents on this set: beautifully detailed sound sculptures, with layers and layers of instruments, rub shoulders with brutalist, noise onslaughts (often pounding guitar, thudding drums and frenetic bass). The mix of styles and rhythms and the abrupt transitions between these can (continuing the tower block metaphor) induce a sense of vertigo, so that the listener alternates between dizziness and a gradual return to calm. If these tunes had been created by a band, we’d admire the musicianship and the ways that the tracks like ‘Buyout’, track 5, have the experimentalism of, say, This Heat!. Knowing that Ward plays all of the instruments, one is impressed by the power, passion and honesty with which he plays each of these and the ways in which his approach to sound-making is driven by a powerful idiosyncratic logic of his own. ‘Hewn’, track 6, is aptly named because one gets the feeling that the music is being mechanically reclaimed from the very air around him; jack-hammer rhythms from drum and bass and drilling guitar swirls in repeated, looping patterns (if this was played in a lower, slower manner, one might call it ‘drone’ or ‘ambient’ – but at its pace and volume, it is anything but this). The very clever tricks that Ward pulls off in the pieces is to create just the right spacing between different experiences for the whole set to be an exhilarating and wildly entertaining ride.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Discus: Discus 114CD
Alex Ward: all instruments.
Recorded July 2020 to March 2021 by Alex Ward at Stowaway Studios.
I suppose that one way into this music is to look at the images on the CD cover – modernist architecture with interesting and quirky variations that disrupt the monotony of tower blocks. I am assuming that the images are of buildings that people live in and that, given the world’s recent experiences of covid-19, that the word ‘gated’ signifies both a protected community (with the gates to keep out Others) and a restricted community (with the gates to keep us in). There are hints that this reading is on the right lines in titles like ‘The Celebrated Restriction’, track 2, and ‘Cushioned’, track 7. But other titles carry different significations – ‘Maybe it’ll break the heat’, track 10, possibly referring to a thunderstorm? These musings are inspired not only by the images and titles but also by the architecture of the pieces that Ward presents on this set: beautifully detailed sound sculptures, with layers and layers of instruments, rub shoulders with brutalist, noise onslaughts (often pounding guitar, thudding drums and frenetic bass). The mix of styles and rhythms and the abrupt transitions between these can (continuing the tower block metaphor) induce a sense of vertigo, so that the listener alternates between dizziness and a gradual return to calm. If these tunes had been created by a band, we’d admire the musicianship and the ways that the tracks like ‘Buyout’, track 5, have the experimentalism of, say, This Heat!. Knowing that Ward plays all of the instruments, one is impressed by the power, passion and honesty with which he plays each of these and the ways in which his approach to sound-making is driven by a powerful idiosyncratic logic of his own. ‘Hewn’, track 6, is aptly named because one gets the feeling that the music is being mechanically reclaimed from the very air around him; jack-hammer rhythms from drum and bass and drilling guitar swirls in repeated, looping patterns (if this was played in a lower, slower manner, one might call it ‘drone’ or ‘ambient’ – but at its pace and volume, it is anything but this). The very clever tricks that Ward pulls off in the pieces is to create just the right spacing between different experiences for the whole set to be an exhilarating and wildly entertaining ride.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
