Kirk Barley - Arc (2026)

On Kirk Barley’s definitive solo gem, alternative tunings and a tactile feel for pitching rhythms generate their gentlest and most absorbing work, twinkling amid a microcosm of similar, exploratory productions from Mark Fell & Rian Treanor thru to Aleksi Perälä, Beatrice Dillon, Terry Riley & Jon Hassell.

Building on a decade of work spanning cuts for Brownswood thru to jams with Matthew Herbert and Matt Davies, ‘Arc’ finds Yorkshire-bred artist Barley fully indulge formative passions for microtonal just intonation - as seeded in Terry Riley’s ‘Shri Camel’ - and slippery syncopation to the fullest. Half solo, proper, and half peppered with percussion by regular spar, Matt Davies, it follows his nose for open frontiers of alternative tunings and wonky meter with the blend of low key modesty and prism-pushing tekkerz that have long endeared his work to lovers of lower case experimental music.

Sweetly balanced between timeless, folk-soul-wise and futurist sensibilities, the half hour suite knits hyaline synths and rippling gamelan metallophonics with clarinet and guitar in lissom, sloshing shapes that effortlessly seduce, rather than demand, the listener’s attention. In particular we are drawn to the bits in duo with Davies, floating sublime ideas in the dreamlike, inverted dub architexture of ‘Ion’, settling on mind like a strangely bucolic Incus work on ’Sundry’, and thru the exquisite, tip-toed rhythms of ‘Ecstatic’, to a trippier, bittersweet type of ante-chamber music on ‘Fret (Hear)’.

He’s also deeply charming when left to his own devices. Ambient opener ‘Billow’ calls to mind the tenderness of Cotton Goods works, and ‘Knead’ chases a certain geist of Irdial or Plaid-esque gamelantronica into the sublime title tune, while ‘Prism’ most beautifully ties all his interests in a melting dream sequence which he caps with the harmonic nightlight glow of ‘Column’.