Reviews 393: Grimwig
Ali Safi is the owner of the individualistic and exploratory Marionette label, where he has forged a unique sonic and visual identity across a small and well-curated catalog, which includes artists such as Max Loderbauer, Valentina Magaletti, Burnt Friedman, and Francesco Cavaliere. 2024 marked ten years for Marionette, and to celebrate, there was an anniversary show at Cafe Oto in London, part of which included a DJ set by Safi under the name Grimwig. The result was a serene and somber display of astral ambient, fourth world ritual, psych folk drifting, kosmische exploration, dreamworld droning, and interwoven field recordings…all combining together for a ceremonial flow of far out and floatatious sound. And rather than let this wondrous set disappear into the ether, the always amazing Good Morning Tapes decided to release Grimwig’s performance in a slightly reworked form as a limited cassette, which came out towards the end of summer 2025 under the title The Third Place.
Grimwig - The Third Place (Good Morning Tapes, 2025) The A-side begins with mysterious loops of minimalist origin, as what sounds like overlapping guitars and keyboards execute tight spiraling patterns. Feedback strands are carried on reverberant winds, and prog folk organs descend through elegiac phrases, before everything merges into birdsong. When the minimalist patterns recede, space remains for a celestial display of kosmische keys, as exploratory tones of lullaby warmth and manipulated filtercreate a droning wall of dreamspace hypnosis. Chiming tones evoke heavenly harps, interstellar computations transmute into stratified layers of gemstone resonance, and strummed acoustics bring a rustic warmth against the colder tones of galactic drift, with everything eventually evolving into a gentle passage of Woo-style bedroom folk wonderment…these soft subdued strums and naturalistic flourishes of ambient atmosphere moving both towards and against the flow. Lysergic rchestrations create a display of dissonance against the barely there chords, while strange psychoacoustic fx swim across the stereo field. At some point, I recognize the the spiritual flutes of Baptiste Martin/Les Halles as they cascade over each other in a spiritual superposition of lofi splendour, and its nice to experience one of my favorite tracks blending so well here with it’s joyous and rejuvenating atmospheres of solar sonic warmth. Following this, textural delay fx mix with abstracted melodic percolations to create the feeling of floating in some underwater seascape, until these scenes of idyllic and oceanic new age transition to a more mystical yet earthy landscape of blowing desert winds, sitars, and snake charmer flutes. A crackling fire sits beneath flanging electric guitars that evoke desolate ambient environments, with the delay trails catching, growing, and billowing out into shadowy clouds of dark ambient incantation. From here, cold downtempo drums with a dub infusion plod through blowing moonmists and desert-night synthesis, and basslines slide in cavernous expanses of silence—accompanied only by chiming fractals, and also by vaguely sinister baby vocal babbles. Crystalline new age soul synths are swathed in smoldering shadow, while delay trails decay, overlap, and interlace amidst periodic of swells of synthesized string. And at the very end of the side, Berlin school sequencers execute aquatic dances of resonance and reverb, morphing into almost physical panorama of electronic percussion before a fade to silence.
We enter the B-side on dark folk spells delivered through gentle chord arps and sighing pads, with wildly warbling and ring modulating harp runs clashing atonally against the dream flow, and eventually pulling everything into a passage of avant symphonic strangeness. Flutes flit under echo chains, and further abstracted melodies move in chaotic counterpoint, as acoustic feedback dances in a whistling whirl. Ceremonial drums build beneath it all…resulting a thundering pulse, which anchors swelling cymbals and animalistic noises that catch in webs of delay. Ambient swells of blooming bass harmonize together, and pads like a hydrous breath introduce bleeping transmissions, while cymbal taps and disjointed voices fade into echo. Quivering swells die out within naturalistic clouds of glitch, and hopeful string sections struggle to be heard through hissing vapors and serene static structures, though there is a moment where everything comes together for a blissful stretch of classic Kampakt-style pop ambient. Elsewhere, it all devolves into more abstract progressions of gleaming glitch and mixdown malfunction amidst solo jazz guitar smolder…these soft six-string musings lit by candlelight, only sounding cut-up and reconfigured according to some broken and busted machine logic. Eventually we are left with a cracking and popping soundscape, alongside thrums, hums, and thumps of broken bass…the vibe almost like some eroded and beaten down music box recording played back by a deeply damaged computer. Next comes helicopter oscillations and sickly pads hovering like a feverish fog, with insectoidal flutters of interstellar synthesis shimmering and sheening all round the stereo field. Buzzing wing drones drift amidst a drunken river float of barely-there percussive pulsing, emotive basslines, and further overlapping layers of sickly synthesis…like a dengue dream vision of quivering, queasy, and dissonant ambience, which eventually moves into singing wood flutes and minimalist mirage-scapes of marimba, with what sounds like e-bow guitars generating wailing whale songs high in the celestial sky. I get touches of D.K.’s Distant Images, and also of Tortoise’s “Ten-Day Interval” and “Four-Day Interval” from TNT, though eventually further keyboards enter, building up an almost funereal song of underwater tonality and deep emotional intensity…like the creatures of the oceanic depths are singing a song of earnest and reverent beauty for lost souls. After this, the mix moves towards more terrestrial water sounds sourced from a river or stream, and additionally, birds sing over sliding sub-bass that sounds like some revving motor engine heard from miles away. Approaching the end of the tape, subsuming flows of amorphous melody fade in and surround everything, eventually developing into an ultra-deep new age soundbath, wherein plucked strings, natural field recordings, layers of fantasy voice, and purling pools of pearlescence support absolutely gorgeous and gauzy layers of soft synth hypnagogia.
(images from my personal copy)
