The Quietus

Individual fragments lose their original function while simultaneously becoming recurring motifs. As a result, the record achieves a remarkable coherence. It is not a concept album in any conventional sense, yet it unfolds like a single narrative whose chapters continually circle back to the same question.

Somewhere Good ultimately succeeds in making its own temporality feel persuasive, inviting repeated returns rather than instant comprehension, and confirming Tara Clerkin Trio as one of the more quietly singular voices operating in experimental music.

This set, featuring two of the surviving members of Cabaret Voltaire, is as clear and powerful as any of the live albums the group released while Richard H. Kirk was alive.

Paradessence retains the lush intricacy but adds a sense of disorientation and rupture – the surreal eruptions and colourful misfires inevitable when it’s possible for worlds to merge.

Without sounding like a broken record, it’s tough to sit with the overwhelming sensations of these tracks when they are gone before even arriving. The longest track of the record however, at one minute and 36 seconds, feels the perfect length to live with.

These recordings offer a vivid sense of how important SFA would become to the culture they’re from.

Ultimately, by the end of these thirty minutes, the chemistry between these two musicians feels undeniable.

Big swings, of course, can result in occasional misses. But those missteps don’t outweigh the satisfaction of seeing an artist of Staples’ reach meeting the moment head-on.

The opening pair of tracks are the most immediate and accessible over the course of this record. .... While the rest of the record thrives in its instrumental intricacies, these songs are far from ornate, and their instrumentation provides a perky backdrop for Scratch’s voice.

While her breakthrough Eternal Home spilled out with messy and unwieldy ideas, this record has a welcome focus, at least in its overall shape. The ideas themselves are as varied as they’ve always been.