Austin Wulliman - "The News from Utopia" album review

 Austin Wulliman - The News from Utopia album review

The News from Utopia scatters dream-like fragments of sound and noise, combining contemporary musical techniques with electronics and over-dubbing.

While separated into six distinct tracks, The News from Utopia functions as a single, concert-length work in the form of an album. The upcoming release by JACK Quartet violinist and now composer, Austin Wulliman, brings listeners through a distorted, yet somehow familiar crusade, culminating with "The Lazy River", inspired by Zadie Smith's short story of the same name. Releasing on Bright Shiny Things September 15, The News from Utopia scatters dream-like fragments of sound and noise, combining contemporary musical techniques with electronics and over-dubbing. 

Starting off the album with a high-pitched, almost alarm-like beeping, "Docks" introduces us to Wulliman's personal alternate reality. Soon after, he introduces glissandi and percussive layers, filling out the texture until it sounds like a giant, resonant hurdy-gurdy. A harsh transition to "Blink" abruptly throws the listener into a muddling spiral. Fast passages play simultaneously at different tempi and screeching high notes send shivers down the spine. The News from Utopia is wonderfully convincing as a continuous album; it is highly recommended to listen via streaming or a physical copy to avoid awkward track breaks, which result in transitions being noticeable.* "The Fool's Heralds (como se vive)" introduces a Beethovenian four-note motive which cycles back for the following two tracks "The News from Utopia" and "Your Discovery Page".

The real charm on the album is the closing track, "The Lazy River". At almost fifteen minutes in length, "The Lazy River" brings together all the differing aesthetics and sound worlds of the album. It is by far the most romantic of the pieces, with Wulliman stacking just intoned partials, out of which a vaguely vertical melody arises. At times sounding as though an organ is pulling out stops from all around you, "The Lazy River" may be lazy, but not always relaxing.


pre-order the full album here

*this sentence has been edited from the original post after fixing personal playback issues

© 2023 Brutal New Music Reviews

originally written and published 7 September 2023

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