Timothy Fairless – Friction (2026; Dragon’s Eye Recordings) – Avant Music News

I was introduced to Timothy Fairless last year with his Keep Talking to Me release (reviewed here), a recording of a generative sound installation sourced from processed voices, field recordings, and drones. It was a stunning set of pieces that contemplated how meaning can be shifted through means of communication, and made my albums of the year list.

Friction is Fairless’ follow-up, his fifth full-length album since 2014 or so (along with several EPs). He again works from heavily processed field recordings, but Friction takes raw material from further afield: the inside of a Swiss mountain, the crowds of Tokyo’s Asakusa, and quiet spots in London. The first three tracks all share the album’s title, though they qualify it in ways that respectively suggest each of these locations. Contributions from synthesizers, lap steel, percussion, viola, and voice are added to round out the overall soundscape.

Friction (Don’t Look Down) consists of soft, lilting drones, and spiky aleatoric percussion elements that rattle and loop. It provides a sense of calm overlaid with unpredictable micro-events. Friction (No 4 AM Phone Call from Tokyo) follows so seamlessly that it comes across as being an extension of Don’t Look Down. Here, the drones shimmer and occasionally break, leaving the field recordings to continue their clattering and fractured path. It has a feel of distance and disconnection, waiting for something that never occurs.

Friction (Like You Mean It) is where Fairless takes the album over the top. Again picking up where the previous track left off, he begins this 11-minute sonic exploration with slow and heady, yet ominous, drones accompanied by fragments of instrumentation. By the 4-minute mark, the drones have built into massive walls of sound, dense and intricately constructed. Staccato effects clutter the background, as do fragments that resemble thunder. Gradually, the sculpted effects begin to dominate the foreground with shifting and echoing distorted textures that are overwhelming in both their saturation and complexity. This is one of those tracks that benefit from being played at high volume, and I could see how it would make for an immersive (if not cathartic) live performance.

Diagonal feat. Madeleine Cocolas is a shorter piece of relatively quiet ambient music, a calm that follows the storm. Cocolas’ chanted, wordless singing is accompanied by viola and synth and/or lap steel, with comparatively minimal incorporation of field recordings. It is a fitting and peaceful conclusion to an otherwise densely-packed release.

Friction will be available on October 2, 2026 from Dragon’s Eye Recordings. Fairless has once again produced an album of the year candidate, and remains an artist to follow closely.