Reviews
The middle sequence in a series of transformations by the Sheffield-based electronic composer, Familiarity Enfolded follows on from the first link in a chain of collaborative immersions, Familiarity Folded – released in just the last week. In what could also be a collaborative showcase for the Audiobulb label too, a smattering of artists who’ve previously released material on the platform now bond and work with Autistici in redeveloping or evolving and remixing his compositions and ideas for a three-part project.
Finding common ambient space and minimalist approaches to visioning new soundscapes and movements, part two includes contributions from Tomo-Nakaguchi (an artist we’ve raved about on the site in the last few years, and made our choice albums of the year lists), A Dancing Beggar (who hasn’t appeared for a very long time on this site, but has made our choice albums lists in the past), Russ Young and OdNu (another artist who has appeared in our reviews sections in the last couple of years). The prospects look good already, with this quartet’s sphere of influences within the ambient and electronic realms both adroit and always worthy of attention.
First up both Autistici and Tomo-Nakaguchi match-up for an incipient majestic awe of both the natural and synthetic on the opening ‘Twilight Glow Of The Sky’. What could be the sound of filaments falling like pattering rain on a drum skin or piece of Tupperware can be heard amongst the moving glimmering light captured at such an inspiring moment in time and place.
The cove atmospheric ‘Caiplie’s Hermitage’ references the atavistic caves of the title, found between the Scottish towns of Anstruther and Crail on the coastal pathways of Fife. A Dancing Beggar is the foil this time around, playing on the hallowed ghosts and history of that mysterious cavern, which is believed to have been used as a place or sanctuary of worship for Christians in the 9th century AD. There’s constant wash or downpour of rain and presence of water elements that continue throughout this piece, and it could be that the artists are perhaps sheltering from it as they build up an abstract picture that’s one part natural and the other near sci-fi. The brassy resonating strings of a guitar are plucked, pulled and sprung as heavenly machines move around in the background. A Dancing Beggar joins both Autistici and OdNu on the finale; a twenty minute plus long form illusion inspired by the track title’s Arthurian referenced enchantress, sibling, shapeshifter and seducer Morgan Le Fay mirage, the ‘Fata Morgana’. A “superior mirage” in other words, this optical phenomenon and complex mirage creates distorted and sometimes fantastical images of distantly observed objects. You must have seen this when looking at to sea in particular conditions and seeing tankers or ships appearing to float above the waves. Sonic wise, this reminded me of Jeff Bird with its essence of piped or pumped pastoral sounds. But there’s also something hallucinogenic about it too. There’s a Mark Hollis solo style piano bit, something that sounds almost like a concertinaed ghostly echo of some shipwreck shanty plus the shimmers and shivers of magic.
That leaves the final track of the quartet, the ‘Dissolved in Light’ collaboration with Russ Young, who I must admit I’m unfamiliar with. It begins with the itchy rubbing chorus of crickets and sundown atmospherics. A veil of mist dissipates to reveal a most minimalist timelessness before Laraaji-like bowls are struck softly and the sound of tines and melodious ambient waves entwine. Andrew Heath evocative piano notes and falls meet an amorphous staccato engine as the track moves along its placeable journey to the sacred.
‘Relinquishing’ control, the concept behind this series has worked rather well; resulting in some magical, stirring and illusionary pieces of sophisticated and highly immersive ambient and lowkey electronica. A Dancing Beggar seems to be adding something of the bucolic and pastoral to the mix to give it a connection to the human and greenery, the nature and history. But all four collaborators prove congruous partners on this project. Part three, Familiarity Unfolded, will follow in due course, and it will be interesting to hear the results of another set of sonic and musical partners.
Autistici has always been less a musician in the conventional sense and more a careful gardener of sound, planting seeds of texture and waiting patiently as they unfurl into strange, delicate blossoms. "Familiarity Enfolded" - the second in a trilogy of collaborative explorations on Audiobulb - takes this ethos and pushes it deeper into the soil of shared authorship, where the lines between one artist’s gesture and another’s reply blur into something fluid, organic, and unpredictable.
This record is not about dominance or ego but about listening: the art of stepping back, of allowing Tomo-Nakaguchi, A Dancing Beggar, Russ Young, and OdNu to breathe into the compositions and, in turn, letting those breaths become the air in which Autistici’s own ideas float. The result is music that feels like a weather system - sometimes clear, sometimes hazed with fog, sometimes rumbling with an unseen storm just over the horizon.
The opening remix of Tomo-Nakaguchi’s “Twilight Glow Of The Sky” does precisely what its title suggests: it hovers in suspension, twilight as sound, every detail in slow dissolve, as if the sky itself were remembering how to dim. “Caiplie’s Hermitage” with A Dancing Beggar is more grounded yet haunted, like discovering an abandoned chapel on a windswept coast, stones singing back centuries of salt and silence. Russ Young’s contribution, “Dissolved In Light”, seems to melt at the edges, a piece that refuses to remain solid, spilling its form like water across glass.
And then there is “Fata Morgana”, a 20-minute mirage co-created with OdNu and A Dancing Beggar, which could be the record’s heart: a hall of shifting illusions, radiant yet unstable, where you are never quite sure whether the music is drawing you nearer or pulling you further away. It is both destination and disappearance, a sonic horizon that keeps receding just as you reach it.
There’s a quiet irony at play here. For an album called "Familiarity Enfolded", what you encounter feels anything but familiar. It feels uncanny, otherworldly, but also intimate - like rediscovering a dream you forgot you had, or finding a photograph of a place you’ve never visited yet somehow recognize.
Autistici, long aligned with labels like 12k, Home Normal, Hibernate, and Eilean Rec, has built a body of work rooted in the fragile dialogue between technology and environment, industry and wilderness, structure and chance. This new chapter underscores that philosophy by dissolving the boundary between self and other. To collaborate, here, is to surrender control - and in that surrender lies the album’s deepest resonance: a reminder that music, at its best, isn’t possession but communion.
And perhaps that is the quiet message tucked within these four pieces: to be enfolded is to accept. To step into a sound not entirely your own. To recognize that sometimes the most beautiful creations arrive when we stop clutching at authorship and instead let the currents carry us.
Two new Autistici albums, "Familiarity Folded" and "Familiarity Enfolded," will be released on Audiobulb on July 25 and August 2, respectively. These two releases mark the beginning of a three-part series dedicated to the creative potential of digital collaboration with other experimental acts. The focus is on the idea of relinquishing one's own control in favor of collective processes—a dialogic working method that is reflected in both remix projects and collaboratively composed pieces.
Existing material is not only altered, but transformed into a new form. Sounds are looped, stretched, fragmented, or reintegrated, a process reminiscent of thought and memory processes in which past perceptions and current experiences overlap. Sonically, the two albums oscillate between electronically charged, almost aquatic textures with shimmering and crackling details, acoustic instruments and field recordings, and openly contoured arrangements in which otherworldly moods unfold. Autistici's signature remains clearly audible: a meticulous, narrative sound architecture that repeatedly allows for moments of introspection.
"Familiarity Folded" was created with Jacek Doroszenko, Russ Young, and Corey Gordon. "Familiarity Enfolded" features work with Tomo Nakaguchi, A Dancing Beggar, OdNu, and again Russ Young. The artwork for both releases is by Jeff Dungfelder, who, in addition to his graphic work, is primarily known for his own musical work under the moniker Ümlaut. Both albums are available for download.
These are the first two parts of a trilogy celebrating collaboration among musicians, with Sheffield's Autistici at the core. The producer's name reflects his "fascination with tiny sounds", and approachable moments like 'Observing Hyphae' (with Russ Young and Corey Gordon) and 'Fata Morgana' (with OdNu and A Dancing Beggar) wring real beauty out of relatively simple ideas, via exquisite sonics and a slowly unfolding sense of drama. 'After Water Formed A Shape' and 'Fluctuating State' employ some nicely understated distortion, but generally things glide along with serene, engaging charm.
Familiarity Enfolded on Audiobilb Records. Another transformative collection of sounds this month comes from Autistici, whose drum-free flow of ambient sequences charges both mind and body with the power of energy and the joy of emotion. More often than not, these days, a lot of ambience drifts by without saying much, musically a bit too safe and samey, but these productions grab you, highlighting the gifts of each of the artists while they collaborate together.
