Alpha Maid has been quietly honing her smoggy DIY sound since 2019, when she released her first EP via Curl Recordings, the collective and label founded by Mica Levi, Coby Sey and Brother May. Six years and seven releases on (including a few collaborations with Levi), the sound of that scene continues to resonate in the experimental London guitarist’s music: the scuffed-up production; the dub influences; the disaffected, barely discernible murmurs and groans. Her new album balances those brilliant scuzzy elements with songwriting that stands on its own two feet.
Though little is given away, Is This a Queue was supposedly written across several years and different locations. It checks out: the record is a cluster of heady, rough-around-the-edges tracks, assembling a motley crew of previous collaborators to document the people and places she has encountered along the way.
Opening track 6-9 sets the tone: built around a rickety, chugging drum loop, the track is layered with off-kilter bells, sinister screeches and fragmentary voice recordings. Wandering instrumentals like this one make up the bulk of the album’s 31-minute run time: there are also swarming clouds of feedback (GOAT Rosetta), ritualistic drum workouts (Why We Have to Move, featuring percussionist Valentina Magaletti) and scrappy guitar jams (Strut in Straddle).
Woven among them is a handful of hook-laden tracks, more akin to songs than improvisations – and more memorable for it. The track 2 Numbers is wonderfully catchy, merging angular post-punk guitars with Manchester musician Leo Hermitt’s coarse singsong delivery, while On Smoke sounds like a break-up song warped through Alpha Maid’s Auto-Tune-entrenched drawl. To call these tracks lo-fi might suggest her music is delicate or twee, but really it’s anything but: the album is tough and steely, offhandedly chucking in a Giggs reference or industrial clang for every jangly riff.
Also out this month
OKO DJ is the kind of artist to play live industrial recordings, acid house and trap music all in one club set. While more suited to home listening, her debut album As Above, So Below (Stroom) is as expansive, adorning hazy guitar jams with swirling FX and syncopated percussion, while moody spoken-word-style vocals add an eerie, late-night allure. After a brief detour into pop-ish territory with last year’s album Sentiment, Claire Rousay returns to her more esoteric roots on , an album of collage-like compositions recorded at dusk (Thrill Jockey). Instruments drone, glitch and flicker around found sounds and warped voice recordings. The latest in Invisible Inc’s 10-year anniversary series is Resonance, a various artists compilation honouring the psychedelic end of the Glasgow label’s output. Expect a constellation of tripped-out, lounge-y sounds, from space rock and dub to musique concrète.
