4AD Schallplatten & CDs

Review: David Moore is an academic and pianist from Kasnas who formally studied in New York at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. He wanted to take his music to a wider audience and so started his Bing & Ruth alias and started putting out minimalist ensemble sounds with a cinematic style and grace to spare. Species is the group's fourth album and is an exploration of the Farfisa organ, with accompaniment by only a clarinet and double bass. Inspiration came from his recent obsessions, the desert and long distance running, and you can hear it in the movement and plaintive music that results.

Review: There's no doubt that Bing & Ruth, an ever-changing chamber music ensemble helmed by David Moore, and dedicated to blurring the boundaries between Reichian minimalism, early Eno style ambient and neo-classical music, is a unique proposition. To date, they've released a number of superb albums for Backward Music and RVNG INTL. Here, Moore has brought the project to long established independent 4AD. No Home For The Mind adds a few nods to jazz, particularly in Moore's piano work, to the usual template, resulting in a set that's beguiling, evocative and emotion-rich in equal measure. Given Moore's classical background - he started the project while at NYC's New School - you'd expect it to be brilliantly composed and arranged (and, yes, it is), but it's the quality of his reverb and delay-laden production that really catches the ear.

Review: Lucinda Chua is currently based in South London and is a singer, songwriter, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. She crafts elegant and emotive music mainly using her voice and cello, plenty of effects units and draws on ambient for her inspiration. What results is atmospheric and intimate music that is utterly enchaining as this album on 4AD proves across ten tracks that come after she spent an intensive period studying Chinese dance forms. Lead single 'Echo' is a pop song about ancestral trauma that walks a thin line between respect for the past and the hope and freedom of a new future. It's captivating indeed.

Review: While Tim Hecker has a well-earned reputation for extreme electronic experimentation, he's always been capable of delivering releases shot through with intense beauty. It's this side of Hecker's output that's explored on Love Streams, his first album for three years. Effortlessly melodious, fluid, and constantly evolving, it pairs fuzzy, drone-inspired textures, melancholic atmospherics and ear-pleasing ambient melodies, with flashes of steel drums, manipulated string arrangements, and the distinctive sound of an Icelandic choir. It's a sound palette that ensures a stream of memorable, eyes-closed moments, from the Tangerine Dream inspired "Voice Crack", to the loved-up bliss of the two-part "Violet Monumental".

Review: While Tim Hecker has a well-earned reputation for extreme electronic experimentation, he's always been capable of delivering releases shot through with intense beauty. It's this side of Hecker's output that's explored on Love Streams, his first album for three years. Effortlessly melodious, fluid, and constantly evolving, it pairs fuzzy, drone-inspired textures, melancholic atmospherics and ear-pleasing ambient melodies, with flashes of steel drums, manipulated string arrangements, and the distinctive sound of an Icelandic choir. It's a sound palette that ensures a stream of memorable, eyes-closed moments, from the Tangerine Dream inspired "Voice Crack", to the loved-up bliss of the two-part "Violet Monumental".