Angela Wai Nok Hui

The Plum

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Cassette

Boomkat Product Review:

'The Plum' is a major new work from percussionist and sound designer Angela Wai Nok Hui, who uses her rigorous academic training to inform kaleidoscopic long-form compositions that teeter between minimalist concréte and bizarre, processed gongs and drones.

Based between London and Hong Kong, Hui describes her sophomore album as "a bouquet of glitching memories and blurry sounds." Dedicated to her grandmother, it features a pair of compositions that play with the concept of time: the first side, 'The Plum', cuts effected, pitch bent clangs with snippets of vocals and lower case white noise that sound like embers crackling in the distance; and on the second side 'Boiling' is exactly that, 20 minutes of boiling water that subtly echoes the first side's effervescence.

Both pieces challenge the way we listen. 'The Plum' seems as if it settles into a meditative cluster of unstable tones, but just before you're allowed to slip into a trance, Hui interrupts the flow with dialog or odd vocal harmonies. At first it might seem unintentional, like a glitchy stream or a skipping CD, but these supposed failures are precise and intentional: the bit-reduced garble, the broken flow, and the jump cut are tools Hui employs to remind us where we are and what we're listening to.

There's a precise narrative in the chaos, that reveals itself slowly when you've had a chance to absorb its divergent facets. The moments of near-silence, where crackles and muffled voices remain, are a chance to consider the busier segments, and when she juxtaposes warbling, underwater tones with choral voices, it makes connections we've never really noticed before. Then we've got 'Boiling' - a beautifully rendered long-form recording that highlights the textural complexity of water. It might sound simple, but listen carefully and you're reminded of the beauty inherent in actions so commonplace that we no longer really listen.

Please note that a digital version of the album is available via Don't Look Back Records.

Cassette (2)