In The Flicker is album number five from this British three-piece, who blur the lines between electro ambience, avant jazz, and general drowsy ‘n’ improvised sonic experimentation. It’s a seven-track album appearing on London’s Not Applicable- as either a CD, or digital release- I’m reviewing the former.
 

The CD comes presented in a mini gatefold- this features a shadow black and dark green colour pallet. Inside the gatefold, we find a glossy twenty-four-page inlay booklet- which takes in similar black and dark green colouring/ shapes, as well as light green to yellow texts. The visual theme is down to the album been recorded outdoors, amongst the trees in woodland in Sussex. The album was captured with a pair of ambient mics- which not only pick up the sounds of the three-piece, but the forest around them.

The three-piece brings together Alex Bonne- trumpet and electronics, Tim Giles- drummer, and Sam Britton, a.k.a. Isambard Khroustaliov -electronics and soundscaping. The album is broken into six tracks, with each having its own sound make-up, but this is very much a release to take in as a whole trip- as the tracks do merge/ blend, and the whole album features a decidedly woozy ‘n’ drifting feel.

We move from the slowly baying horn drift, lazy ebb-to-loosely stab electro texturing, and hazily abstract forest-bound sound art soup of the second track “Amethyst Deceiver”. Onto the haunting and slurred “Cryptozoology” which feels like an eerier natural sound ebbed take on the type of early industrial ambient soundscaping Throbbing Gristle did. And we have the Miles Davis-on-downers meets brooding electro-forest sound stew of “Tågarp Time Travel”.

In The Flicker certainly does take the listener on a wavering ‘n’ wonky trip down to woods- for those who find joy in where abstract ambient and avant jazz meet ‘n’ meld. To find out more, and check out a sample track...