Little Skull - Untitled

Highly limited new LP from Dean Brown's Little Skull project, written and recorded around his first London performance at Cafe OTO in 2021. I missed that show due to Covid, but heard very encouraging reports of a set heavy on atmosphere and an astute understanding of pace and tone. Not really surprising if you've heard any of Brown's other work, but based on the evidence of this latest record, he was certainly in inspired creative form during that period. Brown's NZ underground roots still colour the edges of his work, though these seven tracks seem to make a little less concession to the improvised approach of his Nova Scotia project or his early forays into noise and drone. What to call this, then? Untitled seems to sit between the world of ambient, improv and drone, taking from all but not especially present in any one camp, not too dissimilar to Andrew Chalk (and his work with Elodie), an artist to whom Anomalous themselves have drawn comparison. You might also hear aspects of Eliane Radigue in miniature or passing elements of Steve Roden perhaps, though the contrast of track four's prettied piano composition with the imposing dirge of track five into the minimalist pulse of track six (all songs are untitled btw, a running theme this week it seems) suggest Brown is casting his net wide, exploring his creative urges, uninterested in tying his colours to a particular mast. With no words or labels to help parse any meaning, it's anyone's guess what Brown is aiming at here, but the results remain typically engaging and impressively intuitive. Perhaps my favourite Little Skull work to date.