Silver Nun: Tabula Rasa EP

The other side of the COVID pandemic has effectively seen the golden age of collaboration. Whether it be in person or file-sharing from all across the world, many of the finest releases in this era so far have stemmed from collaboration. It was bound to happen, as technological advances have enabled the kind of transparency and connectivity for outliers all over the world to unite and form a new dimension of underground and DIY culture.

Two of those voices merge as Silver Nun – the new project from Durham underground lifer, Lucy Valentine, which features Tampere, Finland percussionist, Simo Laihonen, who combine for the intoxicating Tabula Rasa EP.

Valentine is one of the many DIY artists spinning plates, firstly as a filmmaker and running the Crystal Cabinet label, to musical collaborations including work alongside Mike Vest and John Pope, as well as her own band, Mondo Sadists. Backed by Laihonen, a percussionist who has spent years in jazz circles including groups, Black Motor, Jorma Tapio & Kaski, Laihonen & Salmi, Matti Salo Trio and Mr. QBICO ORCHESTRA, on Tabula Rasa, the duo present a refined sketch that teleports the listener to exotic territories.

With the guitars recorded live in 2021 by Valentine in a deconsecrated church, two years later, Laihonen provided his percussion to these recordings, and it’s this brick-by-brick approach that enhances the listening experience on Tabula Rasa. Five pieces that are a slave to the drone, which forms the backbone to these recordings.

Beginning with the opening title track. Howling raga that drips with menace and fills the ears. It’s not meditative in the slightest, and it’s down to Laihonen’s percussion which makes everything feel close and alive, providing the kind of acidic power trip that challenges Grails’ Burning Off Impurities.

With one track bleeding into the next like one long-form freak-out, Capricious Metal swerves with the kind of snake charming psychedelia that sees Valentine looking east. Between the humidity and sun-balanced smog, it’s a sound that has you wiping the sweat from the brow. So too Prima Materia – a metallic flash akin to Ravi Shankar hitting the peak of a trip on psychedelics.

And it doesn’t abate on Tabula Rasa’s final two cuts. Under the Hypaethral Sky and Chamber of Wrath / Initiation by Fire, barn burning psych that crackles with vivid colours and musical nuance that sets Silver Nun apart from the loss-leader psychedelia that’s currently littered up and down the U.K.  

From start to finish, Tabula Rasa is like white-hot heat rushing through the mainlines. Valentine and Laihonen, fine tuning something that sounds so confident and soulful that it begs the obvious question: what’s next?

Tabula Rasa is out via Crystal Cabinet. Purchase from Bandcamp.