Zihua Tan / No Hay Banda - What Came Before Me Is Going After Me [No Hay Discos]

Put out on the circuit via No Hay Discos on November 7th, 2k25 is "What Came Before Me Is Going After Me", the first ever collaboration album cooked up between Malaysian-born and Vancouver-based composer Zihua Tan and the prolific No Hay Banda outfit which brings two extended compositions to life over the courcse of 59 minutes. Opening with "Remnants Presents", a solo percussion piece executed by Noam Bierstone, we're taken into a realm reminiscent of electro-acoustic practices with its cold distant scraping and clanging metal sounds in parts accompanied by solemn and meditative, sustained and almost gong-like hits fading out into droning background atmospheres and therefore hits a special spot for us, providing a flashback to the experimental electronic x electroacoustic music we discovered in the mid 90s in all its spatial glory, filled with nerve-wrecking squeals and rasping, well unsettling outbursts. Furthermore the albums main and title piece, rolled out over more than 34 minutes, stays on a path of eerie, minimalist atmospheres and more quasi-electroacoustic scraping, whirling and non-tonal bowing abstractions, yet pairs this foundation with ethereal, well angelic non-vocalisms and harmonic outbursts, echoes of Post-PostRock abstractions, dark, klaxon'esque dronings and retrofuturist off-harmonics, sequences of quasi-white noize and - as a stark contrast - densely layered instrumentation which work their way up to an intense crescendo and infernal climax before slowly and errily fading away into unsettling mad- and nothingness. Highly recommended. We really dig this!

Album artwork on Instagram!