{"id":546898,"date":"2026-07-13T05:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546898\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T05:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T05:20:09","slug":"akusmi-terra-incognita-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546898\/","title":{"rendered":"Akusmi: Terra Incognita Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the lush opening moments of Terra Incognita, composer Pascal Bideau\u2019s new album as Akusmi<\/a>, it\u2019s as though he were swinging a giant magnet, drawing in every sound that fascinates him. Low piano notes gather tentatively; sostenuto woodwinds hover just above ground level; a rainstick adds contour and shading. As the piano arches into a sparkling glissando, a harp follows suit, carving out space for a light, airy synthesizer drone to materialize. The elements all curl around each other into a blissful tangle; listening feels like tracing a stream widening as it cuts into a mountainside. As the nearly 11-minute track floats along, it slowly coalesces, its ambient haze glomming on to a gentle but steady rhythm that emerges halfway through. The touchstones are plentiful\u2014Harmonia<\/a>\u2019s cyclical drift, Alice Coltrane<\/a>\u2019s stargazing elegies, gamelan\u2019s hypnotic shimmer\u2014but the song is strange and unpredictable. More than just a record collector\u2019s skillful collage, it\u2019s the thesis statement for Bideau\u2019s utopian musical vision.<\/p>\n

Over the next 38 minutes, the London-based Bideau and his ensemble, which includes tabla maestro Sarathy Korwar<\/a>, Senegalese multi-instrumentalist Dud\u00fa Kouate, harpist Marysia Osu, and composer Daniel Brandt<\/a>, put forth a groove-focused, genre-agnostic collection, drawing inspiration from any and everywhere. Bideau\u2019s debut, 2022\u2019s Fleeting Future<\/a>, hinted at the explorations of Terra Incognita, its complex electroacoustic grids opening into ever-expanding crescendos. The liner notes cited Jon Hassell<\/a>\u2019s term \u201cFourth World\u201d to describe that record, and it\u2019s tempting to invoke it again here. But this time, instead of manipulating known instruments into the alien textures of some imagined, faraway continent, Bideau sets the action right in front of us, in a borderless Pangaea where sounds and ideas from all over connect into something recognizable but wholly new.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Jazz is the most identifiable launchpad here, as Bideau, who plays saxophone on every cut, frequently channels the expansiveness Gary Bartz and Wayne Shorter<\/a> brought to McCoy Tyner<\/a>\u2019s Extensions. His serpentine phrasing on \u201cClub Subterranea\u201d squiggles atop the angular bed of synths, balafon, and metronomic hi-hats that he and Mattias Mimoun lay down, destabilizing the pulse like gusts of wind through tall grass. Later, on \u201cDrongo\u2019s Flute,\u201d his sax leads through a thicket of flutes and harp, slicing a path for Kouate and Korwar\u2019s polyrhythmic percussion. As the track builds into a towering matrix, Bideau\u2019s sax joins the ranks, becoming just another shape in its thousand-piece puzzle.<\/p>\n

Other pieces are more indebted to various forms of trance music found around the globe. \u201cRain Dance\u201d fuses the circular repetition of Moroccan gnawa with Berlin School synthesis into a swirling, earthen kosmische that is equally overwhelming and mesmerizing. The squirming saxophones on \u201cPleine Lune\u201d threaten to burst apart and splatter across the stereo field, but Kouate\u2019s timekeeping cymbals keep everything sufficiently locked together, creating an inviting, captivating push-pull. As the mille-feuille of Kouate\u2019s vocals surfaces near the end of the closer \u201cDawning Dusk,\u201d its beatific churn becomes that much more ecstatic, replicating the joy and power of singing in a group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the lush opening moments of Terra Incognita, composer Pascal Bideau\u2019s new album as Akusmi, it\u2019s as though…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[692,93,61,60,278,514],"class_list":["post-546898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}