Claire Cirocco - Drawing Circles Around the Centre

Claire Cirocco of the great XV debuts under her own name for a suite of nameless electronic pieces described as falling "somewhere between Satie, Eklund and Sani". A grand claim perhaps, though I understand the associations, which also serve to make it very clear that what Cirocco is driving at here is wider ranging than the feral, art damaged assault of her work with XV. Recorded in two parts over three years, it's almost as if we're getting two Cirocco records for the price of one. On the A, the seven nameless tracks are also wordless too, plangent synth excursions that present as a kind of primitive channeling of Eno-like spaceage ambience and Radiophonic evocation. The label says 2019, but this is the kind of introverted and isolated synth experimentation that the krautrockers and post-punkers have been chiseling away at for decades, as authentic and affecting expression as anything being done with an acoustic guitar. A different but still legitimate folk music, I'd surmise. The B makes the shift of temporarily bringing Cirocco's voice into play, looping and processing in ways that made me think invariably of Robert Ashley, Sydney Spann or Claire Rousay, while the lengthier instrumentals are richer and more drone-like than their counterparts on the A, not unlike Annelies Monsere's interpolation of - yes, that word again - folk song. It's all wrapped in a lo-fi fuzz so as to add that always compelling sense of DIY outsider charm, of someone out there alone and inspired enough to keep hitting at the buttons to see where the expression takes them. Typically low edition of 205, with the requisite paste on front/back covers, looking just as it sounds.