Ursula Sereghy — Cordial

Czech musician Ursula Sereghy has a background in jazz, but for this new recording, Cordial creates cleanly produced, digital IDM with a classically trained harmonic logic and many cut-up samples of sung female vocals. From what I can tell, she has one other solo recording, released in 2021.

I'd liken the style to artists like Matmos or Ruby My Dear, or albums such as Bjork's Vespertine or COH/Cosey's COH Plays Cosey, in which voice is used an ingredient in a heavily processed glitch collage.  With a warm, human feeling to the emotionally charged compositions, there are also aspects of the 'folktronica' sound of groups like The Books and Four Tet, with various acoustic instruments and fragments of performance peppered in before being displaced by other elements.  Wavy vintage pads are right out of a Boards of Canada interlude.

There are eight tracks on Cordial, but it is only twenty minutes long, going for purposeful density over length.  Each of the compositions, averaging two- three minutes, scarcely has a chance to repeat a measure, as every moment introduces some kind of rhythmic variation or melodic flourish.  She uses samples of individual sung notes to form chords and complex progressions, complementing this with bells, chimes, strings, bass guitar and others.

Fans of incredibly precise and elaborate sequencing will adore this recording.  Ursula is truly a perfectionist, and every aspect of the composition is thought through and clean, with every sound possessing its own space, taking its turn, with no incoherent overlap.  Very unusual grooves and odd meters are made to feel logical and smooth with this approach.  It is truly an audiophile quality recording, with punchy yet gentle drums, big rounded sub basses, and instrument tones which are very clear and live.  Playing the full recording induces no fatigue; after hearing it, I played the whole thing again.  This is genius-level work.