#szun waves

[stardustdiver]

🌈Album Cover Colours

tagged by @fourteenthz, wanted to keep this to cds i physically own irl and also like :p (some of them are a bit of a stretch but. hey whatever, also i see your no repeating artists but like....im not not-including hyperdimensional expansion beam and i only had 1 other purplish. also like ¾ of my cd ownership is some sort of jazz/jazztronics😊)

tagging uh, idk who hasnt done this yet....you 🫵 reading this if you want to

❤️Paramore - Riot

🧡Szun Waves - Earth Patterns

💛Paramore - Brand New Eyes

💚Casiopea - Mint Jams (honoring you with big reason im into jazz now, along with dawntrail, like a top 3 album)

💙The Comet is Coming - Hyper Dimensional Expansion Beam (another fave for me, was the 1st one i really saw in hmv since getting radio/cd player again, thought id try it, the cd cover sold me - seems cool n spacey, n then the vibes were like 👌 i love it)

💜The Comet is Coming - Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery

🩷Paramore - After Laughter

🤎Snarky Puppy - Empire Central (fun fact, the copy i have has a printing error, on its spine its printed as "Empire Centarl")

🖤Joe Armon Jones - Turn to Clear View

🤍65daysofstatic - Music for an Infinite Universe (No Mans Sky official ost)

🌈Honorable mention: The Comet is Coming - Channel the Spirits

uuhhh. parting message. listen to the comet is coming. okay bye

[iamthecrime]

[burlveneer-music]

Szun Waves - New Hymn To Freedom

Sometimes in improvised music there can be a distance between listener and players, a sense you’re sitting back and admiring their interplay and abstraction – but with Szun Waves’ second album, you’re right in there with them, inside the playing, experiencing the absolute joy the three musicians feel as they circle around each other, exploring the spaces they’ve opened up. The three members already have sparkling pedigrees of their own. Norfolk’s Luke Abbott is well known for his explorations of the zones between pure ambience and the leftmost fringes of club culture. With Portico Quartet and Circle Traps, Jack Wyllie has been in the vanguard of UK fusions of jazz, classical and club music. Australian drummer Laurence Pike has likewise found a unique voice in improvised and experimental music-making, whether in the bands Triosk or PVT, or as a solo artist. The trio’s musical relationship has grown naturally and steadily, and it shows. From Wyllie adding shimmering sustained sax notes to Abbott’s gorgeous ambient pieces in 2013, Szun Waves emerged when Pike was added to the mix, energising the sound but still keeping its levitational qualities. Their 2016 self-released debut album hit a natural groove – it was a “proof of concept” as Abbott says – and now they’re in a place of pure spontaneity: New Hymn To Freedom is a document of six entirely live improvisations – “no edits or overdubs” – and its title couldn’t be more apt.

Luke Abbott - synths Laurence Pike - drums Jack Wyllie - saxophone

[nicocoisanerd]

The 21st marks the first year anniversary for my show, so why not tune into this months episode and celebrate? Hope you’ve enjoyed tuning into my show for the past year and hope you will continue to do so. As for me, I’ve had a blast preparing these things monthly basis, so I am looking forward to continuing the trend over the past coming year (hopefully years!). Link is embedded on the picture.

Tracklist

Fripp & Eno - Wind on Water

The Besnard Lakes - Light Up the night

Swans - (---). Pt. 5

King Crimson - Moonchild (Excerpt)

Alcest / Newmoon - Havens c/w Hi

Szun Waves - Through Stars

The xx - Fantasy

Ummagma - Winter Tale (A.R. Kane Mix 69 Style)

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Bitchin Bajas - Despair Is Criminal

The Orb - Alpine Dawn

Tenniscoats - One Swan Swim

Ramin Djawadi - Fake Plastic Trees

Solar Fields - Aline

This Will Destroy You - Freedom Blade

Dustin O'Halloran & Hauschka - Layers Expanding Time

Desolate Horizons - I Can Hear You Smile

Underworld & Ewan Bremner - Eventually But (Spud's Letter to Gail)

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Bitchin Bajas - You Will Soon Discover How Fortunate You Really Are

FOG & How to Disappear Completely - An Ending

SPC ECO - Found

[imathers]

Top 40: Szun Waves — Earth Patterns

I had literally never even heard of these guys until I ran into the Dusted review of this record, and honestly I don’t remember what made me check it out (I read pretty much everything we put up, and definitely can’t keep up with checking everything out, even just everything that sounds interesting). Whatever made me give it a chance, I’m glad it did, because this stuff is fucking transcendent. There are a lot of things you could do with a sax/synth/drum trio but I don’t think I’d get quite as much out of most of them as I do from Earth Patterns. Not surprised either to see James Holden contributing to one track; somehow this has, like his The Inheritors (a real touchstone for me), a rough-hewn, natural-world-evoking feel. Also, funny coincidence, two albums with 7 tracks apiece today! This one now has three “bonus tracks” on Bandcamp, but they weren’t in there when I bought it, so I haven’t heard them yet.

[woodencup]

Szun Waves - Exploding Upwards (Official Video)

[pesura]

album stream: Szun Waves - Earth Patterns (The Leaf Label, 2022)

Szun Waves is: Luke Abbott - synths + piano Laurence Pike - drums + percussion Jack Wyllie - saxophones

[dustedmagazine]

Szun Waves — Earth Patterns (The Leaf Label)

Earth Patterns by Szun Waves

Earth Patterns is the third album by instrumental trio Szun Waves. Laurence Pike, who backed Angus Andrew on last year’s Liars album, The Apple Drop, plays drums; producer Luke Abbott plays synthesizer; and Portico Quartet’s Jack Wyllie plays saxophone. The raw musical materials were recorded back in 2019, pre-COVID, with the help of James Holden and David Pye. Pike, Abbott and Wyllie spent three days improvising in the studio, then, once COVID hit and the world ground to a halt, the trio had plenty of time to shape the recordings into the seven tracks found here. At one end of the spectrum there’s the glimmering, almost-New Age waft of “Willow Leaf Pear”; at the other, there’s the album’s cataclysmic centrepiece, “Be a Pattern for the World.”

“Exploding Upwards” opens Earth Patterns with a gently cycling series of synth chords, over which Wyllie’s sax nimbly dances. Wyllie’s tone is pure and brassy, lacking the rasp or vibrato of more expressive players, and blends beautifully with Abbott’s analog synths. “New Universe” foregrounds a juicy lattice of synth textures, backed by tumbling toms and wailing blasts of saxophone. “Garden” is essentially “New Universe part 2,” emphasizing the rhythmic aspect of the trio’s interplay. “In the Moon House” is a gentle oasis at the album’s heart, and is the sole track on which Abbott switches to piano, his nagging ostinato peppered with Pike’s bells and tambourine, and Wyllie’s subdued saxophone. After the opening trio of more upbeat, electrified pieces, it offers a moment of repose before Szun Waves launch into the album’s defining moment. 

At nine minutes, “Be a Pattern for the World” is undoubtedly Earth Patterns’ apex — and its crowning musical achievement. It begins humbly, gently, stirring into life out of the silence. The piece gradually builds and builds, then by its halfway mark it’s increased in intensity to the point of wide-eyed ecstasy, surges of sound uniting the trio into a single roiling beast, unleashing wave after wave of expressive, cathartic playing. It’s the kind of track that continues to amaze on repeat listens, with the following “Willow Leaf Pear” acting as an appropriately bucolic comedown. Though the album is closed out well enough by the droning “Atomkerne,” it’s “Be a Pattern for the World” that leaves a lasting impression. 

Tim Clarke