I was speaking to the redoubtable milkman the other week about Murcof, and in particular whether he would be aware of the huge influence he appears to be having on the snowballing electronic/classical crossover scene.  I was asking this because I had read an interview with Erik K Skodvin in which he ‘fessed up to his debt to Fernando Corono.  In particular, Skodvin mentioned the epiphany he experienced when listening to Martes for the first time, after which, of course came Deaf Center’s stunning Pale Ravine, last year’s bewitching album as Svarte Greiner, Knive, and his stewardship of the impressive Miasmah label (I must confess to having had a similar awakening on my first listen, and am hence disappointed not to find myself in Norway, drinking black coffee and preparing piano strings whilst mulling over the terms of Greg Haines’ record deal). 

Anyway, the milkman asked Murcof about this, and received the mystical-sounding reply: “Yes, I am aware of my influence, some people have made it clear to me that I have influenced some of them, which of course is flattering, and more so when they take it to another level, when they add their own personal signature. One of the main reasons I do music is to transmit inspiration the way I receive it from other musicians, or from any other source for that matter, but as raw energy to be later sculpted in whatever form they wish.”  I suggest heading over to the milkman’s new place to read the interview in full.

Cosmos is possessed of a Gordon Brown-like brooding seriousness and huge black shadow, and like one of the PM’s speeches, it is pretty long, and builds to an irresistible droning intensity by the end (hmmmm, not bad, maybe I could start a political spin-off blog, give Guido or Iain Dale a run for their money…or maybe I’ll just stick to the space imagery.  Yup, that’ll be it).  The piano and slippery understated beats of “Cometa” sound most like his previous releases, but the album quickly plots a course for the dark matter.  I can hear Ligeti in the monolithic “Cosmos I” and “Cosmos II” - although after having watched 2001 recently, everything space-y makes me think of Ligeti at present - with their electronic murmur which decays on re-entry into red-hot Sunn 0))) drone.  But it is the gravitational pull of the weighty “Oort” which swings me neatly back to the question posed at the start of this piece (I hesitate, as always to call these things reviews).  It sounds much more akin to a Miasmah release than anything Murcof has released so far, full of unidentifiable instruments which sound like the world is folding in on itself, sucking the stars in towards the void it is leaving behind.

The stellar Cosmos is released on Leaf later this month.