"A bardo gong bath of in-betweenness": Jake Muir reviewed - The Wire

"Much of what could be called anti-genre metal made by electronic, electroacoustic, ambient or otherwise non-rock practitioners employs conceptual manoeuvres that are, by now, fairly well rehearsed. Treating metal as an almost alchemical material to be refined - thus elevated - into pure form, it ditches the vernacular: studded leather, pinwheeling hair, widdly-widdly solos etc. It even whittles away at notionally the genre's most foundational unit, the riff, or at least processes riffs beyond legibility."

"The results run the gamut of effectiveness, but whatever the merits of a given project - in fairness, the approach is not without its successes - the premise tends to hinge on a presumed internal homogeneity: that metal is pure horror vacui in excelsis, to be carved and moulded, that it has no space. Jake Muir seems to approach both metal and ambience (and, for that matter, genre itself) from a different angle."

"What do we mean when we describe something as ambient, if it's not about the spatial? The split and union between interior and exterior, the sonic experience of enclosure and openness, in turn or at once, is crucial. Muir's oeuvre demonstrates an acute sensitivity to all of the above in both obvious and often strikingly unobvious ways. In part, the revelation in his method is how it kicks the tires of (if not rejects, wholesale) categorical distinctions between the environmental recording and the sample which tend to be seen as relatively more experiential and more mediated objects respectively."

"Named after the disquieting impulse to identify recognisable, often facial, features in random formations (the man in the moon being a famous example), 2026's suitably uncanny Pareidolia is not the first of Muir's releases that could be considered a genre excavation: Lady's Mantle (2018) is a lysergic slipstream of sun-bleached surf rock on the brink of dissolving in spindrift, while Mana (2021) is part investigation, part gentle voti"

Anti-genre metal by electronic and ambient practitioners often refines metal into pure form, removing vernacular elements and processing riffs beyond legibility. This approach frequently assumes metal is homogeneous horror vacui with no space to preserve. Jake Muir approaches metal and ambience differently by focusing on what “ambient” means when it is not only about spatiality. His work emphasizes the split and union between interior and exterior, and the sonic experience of enclosure and openness. It also questions categorical distinctions between environmental recordings and samples, treating them as more interconnected than experiential versus mediated objects. Releases such as Pareidolia, Lady’s Mantle, and Mana reflect genre excavation through uncanny, dissolving, and investigative sonic transformations.

Read at The Wire Magazine - Adventures In Modern Music