CoH & Wladimir Schall — COVERS

[Hallow Ground — 2025]★★★★★

Reviewed 2 January 2026by Colin Lang

Whether intentional or not, COVERS by CoH (Ivan Pavlov) & Wladimir Schall, unearths something about the nature of the standard musical form that perhaps goes unnoticed: the actual act of covering, as in placing a cover on something.

Without being overly obtuse about it, it is in this sense that COVERS adds to the usual homage sauce, and in the process, drains the original of some of its former pathos or energy. Indeed, much of the work on COVERS, spread over seven languid tracks, feels like it's being pulled down a drain, its faint echoes a last aural vestige of some kind go original. It is not entirely apparent, however, which pieces are being covered, neither from the titles given nor from the recorded results. Instead, the "covering" at issue is one that blankets with a restrained palette of piano and atmospheric electronic.

Sure, hints are provided in titles, such as "MERRY XMAS MR ERIK" and "GNOSSIENNE À RYUICHI", which parade their influences, but for those familiar with Sakamoto or Satie, there is even more absent space at play if you can believe it. The whole thing sounds like it was slowed to half-speed, or at least recorded that way. It reminds me of similar covers slowed down to sonic zero by Keith Fullerton Whitman, among others. The effect is a soft darkness, pitch-perfect for the season, where the attack and subsequent decay of each note land like snow.

Fans of Satie and Nils Frahm will find real treasures as they travel down the drain. Others looking for a record that plays up absence without taking itself too seriously are likely to crack a hard-won smirk. To dig in