Reviews

The WITNESS series (2020)

Sonambulo (2019)

“Expansive and with a fine touch of experimentalism… Begg at his best.”
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly (NL)

“An album full of magical, surrealistic beauty”
Jan Willem Broek, De Subjectivisten (Shadow cabinet)

“Magnificent… Possesses a mystical aura… Contains vast open landscapes and compressed, solemn twilights”
Paolo Bertoni Blow Up (It)

“mysterious… enigmatic… minimalism with maximum impact”
Peter Van Cooten, Ambient Blog (BE)

“It is in the liminal space between dog and wolf that the music of the Scottish artist Michael Begg is housed. Begg is the musician who awakens at dusk like others do at dawn. He is the musical somnambulist. His musical landscape subtly and slowly changes, but each time it is reflected in the same window of soot black glass.
Denis Boyer, Feardrop (FR)

Vanitas (2018)

“Over the years Michael Begg has brought us some great works, crossing borders – from atonal quietness to orchestral expansiveness… keeps the listener captivated on a coherent album that makes great sense.”
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly (NL)

“Meditative and reverential… Wondrous and startling”
Compulsion Online (UK)

“it’s remarkable to ponder how accomplished and visionary his work is… A gorgeous sound palette which he uses to paint tantalising shadow realms and infinite night skies”
Norman Records (UK)

“Glorious. Magnificent work.”
John Kealy (IRE)

“I’ve just listened to Vanitas and I’m blown away. It’s a hugely immersive work – I quite lost track of a sense of time. At turns heartbreaking, melancholic, unsettling, uplifting and transportive, it has a deeply emotional resonance. I think this is going to be one of my favourite Human Greed/ Michael Begg releases.”
Grey Malkin, The Hare And The Moon

“The music he creates with his ‘cheap tools’ and his ‘doomed junk instruments’ bears every sign of a brilliantly creative composer… the kind of artist that does not conform to imposed rules but pushes the boundaries into unknown territories to be explored.”
Ambient Blog (NL)

“He paints the nostalgic panoramas of his dreams in a tranquil, subtle but extremely exciting way with tender brush strokes. It is all of unprecedented, fragile beauty.”
Subjectivisten / The Shadow Cabinet (NL)

“There are few more nocturnal musicians than Michael Begg. I do not exaggerate when I place him in a high firmament alongside Arvo Pärt and Coil. Begg’s is a music to make the twilight last, and in that liminal area he sets his table. We listen and shudder, while we still have the time.”
Denis Boyer, Feardrop (Fr)

“Decadent flows intertwine with filaments of imploding chaos and soaring drones… Essential and penetrating.”
Paolo Bertoni, Blow Up (IT)

Titan (2017)

A magnificently graceful and beautiful sonic document
Norman Records (UK)

Begg’s extraordinary electronic sound installation… with huge, swelling harmonies, occasionally building to moments of ecstatic beauty… its slow-burn, cumulative effect is one of uncompromising power and inevitable decay, both a celebration of enduring strength and a memorial to its demise
The Scotsman (UK)

Begg’s installation is perhaps the standout at Glasgow’s Sonica… The wheelhouse becomes the humming dark heart of the crane as Begg’s electronic enfolding and eroding of the raw sonic materials sets a rich and taut piece in perpetual motion… turning the iconic structure into a gently haunted compound of wind and noise.
The Wire (UK)

Delicate and sparse… A great album
Vital Weekly (NL)

 With Michael Begg’s instrumentation, the Titan Crane feels like a living creature. One that tells us an important story.. if only we listen.
Ambient Blog (NL)

Michael Begg makes architecture sing like no one before him.
Stephen Fruitman, Igloo

TITAN also featured in the 5against4 Top 40 Best Albums of 2017

Let The Cold Stove Sing (2016)

“Let the Cold Stove Sing is moody, introspective and gravitational.  It’s a more restrained album than we’re used to hearing from Michael Begg (Human Greed), but it may be his best.”
A Closer Listen (USA)

World Fair (2015)

“If you have not heard this yet, rectify that situation immediately… Astonishing even by the high standards I would have held Michael Begg to… World Fair is a formidable work… they have made manifest an album of rare power”
Brainwashed Readers Poll 2014

Was Ist Das, Album of the Year, 2014: “The brilliance of Human Greed has been quietly hidden in the music underground for a few years now and getting brighter all the time. This year they delivered their finest album yet, a dark swoon from the cold hills, a bedtime story for lost adults everywhere.”

World Fair is a devastatingly beautiful release from a much under-appreciated group… At the hands of Human Greed obliteration has never sounded so enticing
Compulsion (UK)

World Fair is an incredible achievement… Human Greed are criminally undervalued; Begg is one of our most significant contemporary experimental composers. The scale that he has imagined and created with World Fair is testament to this. It is a masterwork.
The Active Listener (UK)

This latest album is astonishing even by the high standards I would have held Michael Begg to… World Fair is a formidable work… they have made manifest an album of rare power.
Brainwashed (USA)

World Fair is a strong and provocative album… kaleidoscopically rich in sonic colour. It’s especially notable for the deftness with which it blends centuries-old songcraft with modern electronic production treatments and sounds.
Textura (CA)

Simply put, World Fair is one of the best releases this year. One of the absolute musical highlights of the year.
Was ist Das (UK/USA)

OMEGA.OST (2014)

Sound wizard Michael Begg offers breathtaking sound collages… a dazzling, intriguing whole. Even after 10 spins this reviewer had goosebumps on his arms and a cold shiver running up the spine… indicating Begg as a fucking master of his craft. After listening, your perception of music and the apocalypse may never be the same
DARK ENTRIES (NL)

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Older reviews can often be found on associated release pages in the shop