Walks

The monument’s acid-ambient architects are Paul Jones and Stephen Black — known jointly as the woodwind-and-key-wielding, sculptural-papier-mâché-hat-wearing Group Listening — and the bright cube is Walks, the duo’s third album. Following renegade reinterpretation records Clarinet and Piano: Selected Works Vol. 1 (2018) and Vol. 2 (2022), which pulled apart, pondered, and re-shaped cult ambient classics by the likes of Robert Wyatt, Arthur Russell and Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Walks is Group Listening’s first volume of completely original compositions. Slipping out of their analogue skins, they have “embraced our electronic selves” says Black. Jones adds: “There’s no acoustic piano on the new record, and Steve’s playing an EWI, wind synth…our electronic avatars have risen.”