Johnny Scarr - Etude in Black.

Johnny Scarr – Etude In Black – CDr – 2024 - Chocolate Monk – Choc.615.

https://chocolatemonk.co.uk/available.html

https://mantile.blogspot.com/

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"Some significant personal events occurred and I made some inept "faulk" music in response (so emo). Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the work fails to convey much of anything about those events. After making stuff which was intentionally devoid of emotional resonance for years, this way of working felt pretty revealing and somewhat pathetic. Which is probably why, by the time I was done with it, I think I ended up burying most, if not all sentiment that might have been there." - Mr J.Scarr

Quote taken from Chocolate Monk website.

Etude in Black comes three years after Johnny Scarr’s last release ‘NONNAH’ in 2021. NONNAH was excellent, so it will be a hard act to follow. I also have the opinion it was one of the best things that I had ever heard from Chocolate Monk. The title alludes to an episode from season two of the US Crime Series Columbo. I believe the cover is an image of Columbo (Peter Falk) with corpsepaint added. 

Etude in Black follows the use of solo synthesiser work that NONNAH also used, deep resonations, shifting melodies, two long improvised pieces of work that were heavily edited afterwards. The synths begin as haunted echoes that eventually begin to sparkle at times and achieving a dark beauty. It feels like the slow comedown of too much beer at Rammel Club and walking home down Woodborough Road in search of cheap pizza to eat in a shop doorway.

Like good Ambient work it shifts into different territories, at one point it begins to form glitchy drones that sound like bagpipes channelled through electronics, in another it sounds like basement bleakness, cellar creepiness playing out. In other parts the synths take me to the film A Chinese Ghost Story and makes me desperately want to watch it again. The second piece goes into murkier, choppier territory. The sound melts itself, bubbling and gargling in parts. Sections cut out and remerge in different sections, it is like a record skipping from one track to another. The second track emits more despair than the first creating a total contrast.

Etude in Black like NoNNAH is a challenging work of shimmering, shifting beauty. Well worthy of your purchase and listening.

Nothing and Nobody 2024.

Johnny Scarr - NONNAH

Johnny Scarr – NONNAH – CDr – Chocolate Monk – 2021 – Chocolate Monk. 523

http://chocolatemonk.co.uk/available.html

http://mantile.blogspot.com/

I was keen to buy NONNAH since I’d heard that it was out by word of mouth at a Cremation Lily gig a few months back after its release in September. This is the first Johnny Scar release in a decade and since Spoils and Relics last released anything (2017). The album consists of two tracks on a CDr in a card sleeve and was released on Chocolate Monk.

I’d been playing a lot of early Mortiis and Disgusting Cathedral at the end of last year and this somehow loosely connects to that, creating a listening pattern of clear synth-based sounds, that peaked in me giving this a lot of plays over the last 3 months. I also feel I need to get a backup copy of this as my CDr isn’t looking in too great a condition.

NONNAH has a truly unique sound, keyboards and the sounds are manipulated and toyed with and sometimes phased out for new sounds to lead. Drones layer over what has previously been made as if something were taped over it suddenly and the results left as final tracks. The overlays of synth are occasionally kept similar to ensure continuity. There is good variation of change throughout the work, it is at times subtle and others obvious. A depressive feel comes through in the work as it meditates upon itself, but the almost melodic aspects of the synths gleam through like feelings of hope, these differing emotions of the sound create beauty in the work. NONNAH is a mystery within itself.

NONNAH has been continuously on my playlist since I bought it in November. Had I done a best of 2021 review list, this release would have easily been amongst my choices, possibly even at the top.

Coventry Soul 2022.