Tangents - Timeslips (2020) Hi-Res

Enigmatic Australian ensemble Tangents return with a new studio album two years after the release of New Bodies. The Australian Music Prize-nominated New Bodies thrust Tangents’ peculiar blend of furious improvisation and precision production into the international spotlight. More tension and intention pervade Tangents’ fourth album, Timeslips, demonstrating a thoughtful maturation of spontaneous ideas and more deliberately abstract assembly. With breathtaking, rhythmic drumming and adept production driving the various moods, Timeslips emerges from greater live performance and carefully constructed compositions. The brittle skittering mallets of “Exaptation,” raucous guitar of “Debris,” and processed trumpet of “Vessel” add new timbres to their existing palette of jazz drums, melancholy piano, throbbing cello and swirling glitched ambience. Mostly recorded in a single day, just before guitarist Sia Ahmad left the band, only the bravest, most intense moments from the original session remain intact on Timeslips. The tonal rumble of a 100-carriage coal train winding through New South Wales’ Bylong Valley signals the album’s slow close, recalling Tangents’ earlier references to the Australian environment on New Bodies and Stateless.