Utham

From Raw42:

Shane McGowan meet Leonard Cohen on this unusual and quirky, yet minimal story-track. Simple guitar backdrop initially (adding instruments later) and all emphasis on the lyrics and slow reflective style. - raw42.com

mysterious, dark piece with occasional radio samples, isolated plucking instruments and background noise. - raw42.com

Review by Jay Breitling : "Out on the fringes of the music scene there are mad scientist types like Matthew Boggs, the principal behind Utham. Boggs creates distinctly non-commercial, exploratory instrumental music simply because of his love of playing. While the results of such projects are often dubious and almost never see the light of day, it can often be fascinating to step into a musical world created for no other reason than the love of creating it.

Utham's world is mysterious, dark and paranoid. Musically, the tracks sounds similar to the dark, interstitial segments found on Pink Floyd's The Wall. Most of the songs center around pulsing bass lines, up to their ankles in foggy reverb. The disc's opener, "MHz", is Utham's most cohesive statement, and stands out among the disc's seven tracks. What sounds like random recordings from police scanners rise and fall just out of earshot. Amplifier noise crumbles away on the periphery. Guitars appear, but only for an instant. "Azma" builds on the same sort of bass work, but introduces a majestic E-bowed guitar line and some airy chords on top of the soporific bottom end.

Admittedly, experimental ambient music (look ma, barely any drums!) isn't for everyone. But since the genre's practitioners tend to be a fairly anonymous bunch, fans should take a chance on digging up Utham's disc. Listeners unwilling to stray too far from the mainstream should be content to watch Boggs float dreamily past. - splendidezine.com