Sonar: Vortex

Richard Gehr on July 26, 2018


Bärtsch/Ronin’s Zurich comrades Sonar plays a heavier electric sort of grooving minimalism. American outside-guitar hero David Torn adds microsampled cosmic debris to Sonar’s double-guitar oomph on their thrilling new Vortex, which he also produced, adding layers of grit, volume and perhaps MAGA-inspired chaos to the quartet’s already off-kilter tritone tunings. The music churns skyward with both patience and passion. Torn explodes chords into millisecond shards and sustains single notes through eons of emotion in rhythmically complex multipart compositions that sound unlike anything else in rock

Artist: Sonar
Album: Vortex
Label: RareNoise