Cruel Summer - (2017) Ivy LP

 

Mt. St. Mtn. ‎– MTN-19 

CRUEL SUMMER's sound evokes the dazed, fuzzed-out, swirling noise of the late 1980s UK sound while still sticking to their pop roots—they’ve aptly been crowned San Francisco’s “jangle darlings.” Following their 2013 self-titled EP (Mt. St. Mtn.,) they released the sold-out lathe-cut 7” for “Leeches,” accompanied by a video. In 2016 Cruel Summer released “Around You, Around Me,” recorded for L.A.’s Part Time Punks, the 7” B-side features a moody cover of Pylon’s “Crazy.” Mastered by Kramer (Galaxie 500 and Low). Ivy is the long-awaited, first full-length album from this quartet, who have become a mainstay in the San Francisco and Oakland club scene. Recorded at Santo Studio in Oakland, California by JASON KICK (Sonny & the Sunsets, Once and Future Band, Mild High Club, Maus Haus), the record is a love poem to San Francisco, with all its changes and disappointments. Cruel Summer recently completed a California tour with the UK’s Primitives, and in early August they will be accompanying the '90s noise pop demons Swirlies on a full West Coast tour.

Holy Motors - (2020) Horse LP

 

Wharf Cat Records ‎– WCR 106

 “Hold your horses, cowboy, put your pickup in reverse,” drawls Holy Motors vocalist Eliann Tulve on “Country Church.” Tulve makes a conscious effort to enunciate on the Estonian rock band’s second album, Horse. The result is an immediacy similar to when critics had to stop calling R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe “Mumbles” in the late 1980s.

Horse is akin to a Holy Motors hootenanny, markedly more confident and forward-facing than their debut. This time around, instead of directly appropriating Americana and American western film soundtracks, the guitars achieve cinematic grandeur by simply being evocative. The best example of this is their finest song to date, “Endless Night.” Hitting all the frequencies, this song alone earns the accolades lauding guitarists Lauri Raus and Gert Gutmann. At once elegiac and propulsive, “Endless Night” ends too soon. Speaking of frequencies, you’ll know if your bass EQ is too high from the low-end flicker of doom in “Midnight Cowboy,” sounding like Holy Motors playing at a prom where everyone forgot to show up.

That psychedelic spaghetti western template fuels intriguing dramatic turns in both “Trouble” and “Matador,” which has a false ending that pre-empts a searing guitar outro, and holy Epiphones, is it breathtaking. Although “Road Stars” is effective as an experimental, mid-album palate cleanser, the male voice unexpectedly joining Tulve’s is jarring; it’s just not a good duet. “Life Valley (So Many Miles Away),” a major-key instrumental with wordless vocals, closes the album on a high note. It’s the most ‘shoegaze’ of anything on Horse, and with some different effects pedals, this song would sound right at home on Ride’s Nowhere. Readily compared to Mazzy Star, Lana Del Rey, and Cowboy Junkies, with Horse, Holy Motors have made a gorgeous, stately record that puts miles between them and their reference points.

Gosh! - (2018) Odyssey LP

 

Nicey Music ‎– NICEY15

 Returning to Chicago after yet another self-booked tour marked by engine failure and a drummer jumping ship, Padraig Steadman and Claire Lambach wrote a stunningly beautiful album reflecting on the melancholy of a life in pursuit of art and music. Here’s GOSH!’s Odyssey, the too-real opposite to the Wayne’s World quest-for-rock-stardom narrative. It remembers an underpaid journey as arduous as the real Ulysses’s, full of tragic twists and chemical quicksands, dating back to Padraig’s years as the frontperson of Nude Sunrise — one of the most notoriously drug-fueled bands to churn through the DIY circuit in the first part of this decade, who always played louder than any band on the bill, who’s volume got our co-founder arrested in 2011, who toured with 200 hits of acid at least once in my experience, and who all worked at the same Papa John’s when they weren’t on tour. Since forming GOSH! with bassist/vocalist Claire Lambach in 2015, Steadman’s output has been far more sober (literally) — the group has become known for their uniquely minimal and sensitive psych rock, at times traversing into almost ambient territory. They can’t escape their distinctly Midwestern tempos, with vast gaping expanses between some chords, and a gritty, industrial drum machine popping in only occasionally to drive their more social numbers, but Odyssey takes on a western palette at the same time, emulating some of LA’s great country stars through the stark emotionality of voice and strum. There’s an optimistic stripe buried in all GOSH!’s music too, never put more plainly than in the album’s opener, “I can feel it coming soon.” Ultimately, the GOSH! story isn’t about hopelessness — it’s about an unquenchable faith in the power of love and music to survive even the most fucked up circumstances, and it’s always been a big inspiration to us. Here’s hoping this album can carry GOSH! onto a brighter leg of their Odyssey.

Choir Boy - (2020) Gathering Swans

 

 Dais Records ‎– none 

Salt Lake City’s indie pop favorites Choir Boy return after four years with the release of their new cosmic album, Gathering Swans. An emotionally powerful record, full of poignant heartbreak and gently steeped in pop nostalgia, Choir Boy push their distinctive sound further, while tenderly romancing the unsuspected.

Since the release of their well-received 2016 debut Passive With Desire, of which Slug Magazine’s Erin Moore declares to be “...packed with songs that are infectious by way of their sound, as well as their emotion...”, and their 2018 single “Sunday Light”, the band evolved from singer Adam Klopp’s project accompanied by a rotating cast of players into a solidified, permanent lineup featuring long-time collaborator and bassist Chaz Costello, saxophonist and keyboardist Jeff Kleinman, and guitarist Michael Paulsen. Following a series of tours with such notable acts as Cold Cave, Snail Mail, and Ceremony, Choir Boy began writing their new album. Proving to be a worthy successor, Gathering Swans builds upon Choir Boy’s infectiousness with unique pop sensibilities and impeccable polish.

The first single, Complainer, demonstrates Klopp’s angelic voice effortlessly floating within the heart-wrenchingly somber melodies, that in a tender state, will surely render tears. Lyrically, the song poses a form of wounded optimism, declaring “Oh my life, what a pitiful thing to hear...But it’s not that bad...I’m just a complainer”. Tracks such as Toxic Eye undoubtedly present the touching “choral-pop” sound that has come to be a hallmark of Choir Boy. Repetitious, layered vocal hooks that fade into the background, allowing the absence between breaths to be filled with the serene melody that embodies the foundation of Choir Boy’s appeal, demonstrating that the ethereal moments between the bright choruses and memorable hooks are as equally crucial and unforgettable as the lyrical content itself. A slightly more solemn ballad, Eat The Frog, skillfully adapts Choir Boy’s taste for nostalgia and translates such desire into a fully mature statement. The propulsive drive behind Eat The Frog possesses the emotional equivalent to sitting atop a hillside, just outside of the city, gazing at the sunset on a warm Summer night.

Creative, sincere, passionate and glaring with intention, Gathering Swans paints a bright, hopeful, and deeply heartfelt image that will most assuredly attract anyone who accompanies Choir Boy upon their journey.

Far Caspian - (2019) The Heights 12''

 

Dance To The Radio ‎– none

 Far Caspian have delivered another thoughtful and dynamic set of songs with their latest EP, The Heights. The five track EP takes listeners on a wistful journey. With their impeccable production and tasteful use of synth and lo-fi sensibilities, Far Caspian make their music more than just a listening session, but a full on experience. The record flows smoothly and softly. The band had released three of the five songs prior to the release. It was the perfect set of teaser songs to introduce new listeners to this unique and engaging group.

All of their songs have the ability to encapsulate you and carry you away. Despite the lyrical content, the songs feel dynamic enough to fit any situation or location. The title track The Heights carries a melancholic vibe while Conversations features an indie pop tune with 80s tendencies. A Dream Of You takes on more personal emotions while engaging with the same soft-pop synth sound.

Far Caspian - (2018) Between Days 12''

 

Dance To The Radio ‎– none 

Far Caspian’s debut EP is ready to whisk listeners into the clouds: Awash with hazy guitars and faraway vocals, the plaintive and dreamy Between Days (November 19, 2018 via Dance to the Radio) marries nostalgia and disconnect in a stirring display of vulnerability. In evoking the emotional magnitude of solitude, loneliness and wandering, the Leeds-based band have created a thing of striking resonance and beauty.
Formed this January, Far Caspian are very much the new kids on the block, to say the least. The four-piece consists of frontman and guitarist Joel Johnston, Jof Cabedo (drums and vocals), Alessio Scozarro (bass and vocals), and Nath Sayers (guitar). Though their story is just beginning, they’ve managed to make quite an entrance – earning early acclaim from critics on both sides of the pond as they splashed onto the music scene with melancholy tones and poetic lyrics.
If dwelling in your own dark, ruminative space is the current trend, then Far Caspian are a shoe-in for this season’s “it” band. Joel Johnston’s heart-heavy lyrics depict the natural turbulence of a life in transition: From the artist’s move from Ireland to the UK, to matters of love, purpose, and well-being, Far Caspian embed themselves in the throes of change.
And yet, almost in spite of itself, Between Days appeals to a wide swathe of listeners and situations. “I think we’ve ended up with a batch of songs that all have their own character,” Johnston, who also produced the EP, shared via press release. “Listen to this when you’re feeling low, when you’re late-night driving on a road trip, when you’re getting ready for a date or just with a friend.”
EP opener and title track “Between Days” sets the scene with its propellant beat and intoxicating sonic haze, immersing listeners in a rich, mellow slumber. The rhythms intensify on “Blue,” as Johnston somberly sings of acceptance and moving on. “The Place,” rich with catchy harmonies and a drowsily fun chorus, showcases the band’s ability to build up to big crescendos.
Penultimate song “Let’s Go Outside” is Far Caspian’s most successful release to date, putting their full character on display through wondrous melodies that fill the space with fresh hope and warmth – even if the lyrics themselves focus on homesick themes.
Concluding with “Finding My Way Home,” Far Caspian bring us down from the clouds in style: Dynamic highs clash with subtle lows as the band evoke a sense of the “new” and “unknown.” For the first time, we feel some excitement float into the mix – and with that sense of renewal and looking up, Between Days ends.

Emma Gatrill - (2017) Cocoon LP

 

 Willkommen Records ‎– WILLKOMMEN021

 Emma Gatrill is a multi-instrumentalist based in Brighton, UK. Her debut, 2012’s Chapter I, was a poignant collection of songs based around her then-latest acquisition – the harp. Subtly accompanied by various members of Brighton’s Willkommen Collective, her intricate harp playing coupled with a unique vocal fragility drew comparisons to Björk and Joni Mitchell as well as her friends and co-conspirators Rachael Dadd and Rozi Plain.

By the time the album came out, she’d already played clarinet in Laura Marling’s band on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, made up part of Broken Social Scene’s horn section on a run of UK dates and toured all over Europe as part of Sons Of Noel And Adrian. Since then she’s been touring and collaborating with kindred spirit Kristin McClement and as a member of Matthew & The Atlas.

In amongst it all, Gatrill somehow found time to develop her own live show beyond the simplicity of Chapter I; augmenting her harp and vocal with ambient analogue synths and drum machines using foot controllers, as well as introducing accompanying guitar atmospherics from label-mate Marcus Hamblett.

Five years and hundreds of live shows with dozens of different bands later, her larger-scale live ambitions fed back into the writing and recording process for Gatrill’s forthcoming second album, Cocoon.

The album showcases a huge leap forward in scope and imagination. The harp, tender vocal and unique take on classic songwriting are still at the core of Gatrill’s sound, but the arrangements draw from a much wider and often darker sonic palette – from orchestral strings to monosynths, drum machines to tap shoes and Casio keyboards to vibraphones.

Gatrill’s circle of influences has widened too – on Cocoon Emma draws from the joyful experimentation of Juana Molina and the intelligent pop and texturally rich arrangements of Julia Holter and My Brightest Diamond.

While the songs are more honed and focused, the lyrical content is broader. Philomela explores Greek mythology to the backdrop of tumultuous strings and thunderous drums and Robin tackles climate change set to chamber pop orchestration; while universal concerns of loss, isolation, hope and togetherness tie the album together.

The album was mixed by Dan Cox whose work for the likes of Laura Marling, Thurston Moore and Florence and the Machine lead to him being named Breakthrough Engineer Of The Year at the Music Producer’s Guild awards.

Dylan Moon - (2019) Only the Blues

 

Rvng Intl. ‎– RVNGNL57 

 Only the Blues is an introduction deferred, and it is the debut album by Dylan Moon. Across its 35 minutes, we are rarely made to understand what, exactly, the source of Moon’s blues is, how that feeling has mutated, or whether there is a life beyond the small rooms and cramped spaces where this music was made. If not opaque, this first meeting with Moon is at least hazily translucent.

This makes Only the Blues something of an esoteric response to an age of radical transparency. Broadly speaking, Moon works in the field of folk music. But from this pasture, he glances pathways to digression; seeking scenic routes and counterintuitive cartography, trusting that even the most aimless trip becomes lucid if the foggy details are documented well enough.

On this trip, images spill from Moon, and most of them seem foreboding. We are given the sense - both from his lyrics and from the viscous mood he creates, using electronic manipulation to send his songs down compositional egresses, from which they emerge with a mysterious residue - that things have not been going well. Even the most saccharine memories, dancing before a freshly lit fire or hanging out with childhood cartoons come to life, feel caked with a hidden history.

Moon studied electronic production and sound design at music school, and then moved to Los Angeles in hopes of working in the film industry. While simultaneously graduating from pop to psych to prog to beat-making, he returned to traditional songwriting on the west coast, working out his ideas over a pair of self-released EPs. He also stumbled upon an ancient drum machine with scratched contact points and seventy years spent under restless thumbs, finding a kind of sonic entropy in its past-futurist rhythm signals that serve as Only the Blues’ spiritual center.

The album was recorded in Moon’s bedrooms in L.A. and Boston, small spaces made more claustrophobic by the soundproofing he hammered into the doors and the bedding he leaned against the walls. A single soul, spinning away (and out) in a cramped room: It’s a state of mind — and being — that Moon used his formal training to refine across Only the Blues. This is an album ornate with so many musical ideas to express that it teeters between ecstasy and anxiety.

Tamaryn - (2019) Dreaming the Dark

 

Dero Arcade ‎– none 

TAMARYN has been crafting gothic dreampop and soaring shoegaze records for the better part of a decade. With each subsequent release she has both expanded her sonic palette and playfully deconstructed it, the project itself an iconoclastic exploration involving a variety of collaborators and genre-melding that has spanned three previous albums, an EP and a handful of singles. While 2015’s lush Cranekiss marked a synth-inflected left turn for the artist, Dreaming the Dark pushes her sound even further. It’s simultaneously her hardest, darkest record and still somehow her most accessible, landing squarely in the sweet spot between between pop and post-punk. Produced by and co-written with JORGE ELBRECHT (Ariel Pink, Frankie Rose, Wild Nothing, Gang Gang Dance), the nine tracks on Dreaming the Dark represent an emotional and aesthetic evolution, the front and center guitar washes and foggy ennui of her earlier records giving way to crystalline beats, synths and lyrical narratives aimed directly at the jugular. While the record still occasionally mines a 4AD-adjacent musical palette—all manner of Cocteau Twins gauze, her Kate Bush meets Tears for Fears level vocality and melodic guitar lines that might have swirled off of a mid-80’s Cure record—Dreaming also pack a hefty emotional wallop. The album flirts with the aesthetics of classic '80s synthpop while playing at the fringes of hip hop production and forward-thinking electronica.

Dean Wareham & Cheval Sombre - (2018) Dean Wareham vs. Cheval Sombre

 

 Double Feature Records ‎– LP-DBL 0015 

 Dean Wareham and Cheval Sombre bill their new collaboration as “western dream-pop,” which isn’t such a strange pairing: western-style songs have always had a dreamlike air. From Sons of the Pioneers through Hollywood’s singing cowboys to Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash, tunes like “Blue Shadows on the Trail,” “El Paso” or “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” offer a romanticized vision of the Old West, with dual emphases on manly self-reliance and tender longing for home. Wareham and Sombre (the project of Chris Porpora) co-opt the sentiments and add hazy musical arrangements to match on 10 songs drawn from the western-music canon and more contemporary artists, including Bob Dylan, the Magnetic Fields and Townes Van Zandt.

Wareham has considerable dream-pop credentials, having played in Galaxie 500 and Luna—touchstone bands for fans of atmospheric guitars and quavering vocals. Porpora is less well known, but Wareham has played on his albums and released Cheval Sombre’s self-titled 2009 LP on his own Double Feature label. They make a potent duo, giving more defined musical structures to the sometimes amorphous nature of dream-pop, and creasing the songs with a taut edge. The twosome tilts the balance more toward pop, but there’s still enough western here to make these songs sound like modern updates of what had been a bygone musical tradition.
The musical arrangements play up the sense of dreamy fantasy. Backed Britta Phillips of Luna and Dean & Britta, Anthony LaMarca from the War on Drugs and Will Halsey of Sugarcandy Mountain, Warham and Sombre employ chiming guitar arpeggios, soft-focus wordless backing vocals and understated ornamentation. Tightly coiled tremolo guitar and whistling add atmosphere to “Wand’rin’ Star,” written for the stage (and, later, movie) musical Paint Your Wagon. There’s an eerie keening from what sounds like a singing saw on another movie song, “My Rifle, My Pony and Me,” which Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson performed in Rio Bravo in 1959. Steel guitar underpins the lonesome air of Van Zandt’s “Greensboro Woman,” and muted piano chords and quiet acoustic guitar give the Magnetic Fields’ “Grand Canyon” a stately feel.

Wareham and Sombre take turns singing lead, a curtain of reverb adding depth to their vocals. That hypnotic, from-a-distance sensibility accentuates trebly electric guitars and booming tom-toms on Robbins’ “A Bend in the River,” and lends an otherworldly feel to the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger,” which mixes in majestic ’60s-style folk-rock vocal harmonies worthy of the Mamas & the Papas. Wareham sings that one, his voice still clear and appealingly plaintive. Sombre’s vocals have a darker cast, and he tends to murmur as if he’s sharing deep secrets, especially on Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” and Blaze Foley’s wistful “If Only I Could Fly,” which Merle Haggard recorded on his 2000 album by the same name.

A dream-pop icon teaming up with a protégé on an album of western(-ish) songs is probably not a collaboration anyone was looking for, but if Dean Wareham vs. Cheval Sombre was unexpected, it also turns out to be unexpectedly satisfying. They sing well together, they picked interesting songs to interpret and they perform them in a way that is reverent without feeling too earnest. Sounds like a dream.

Temple Of Angels - (2019) Cerise Dream 7''

 

Funeral Party Records ‎– FP034 

Los Angeles-based dream pop act Temple of Angels are back with “Cerise Dream”, their first single of 2019. The new song follows the release of their sophomore EP Foiled and debut US tour in 2018 which saw them sharing the stage with the likes of Iceage, Beach Fossils, Boy Harsher, and John Maus.

“Cerise Dream”, along with its B-side Breathless showcases the band diving into more a melodic direction, creating the perfect soundtrack for the summer days ahead. This is music to fall in love to, and with, capturing the same shimmering pastel daydreams of the Cocteau Twins on Blue Bell Knoll, and Heaven or Las Vegas, or The Sundays via Reading, Writing and Arithmetic—music from a time of unbridled optimism and sincerity, when goth, shoegaze, and alternative rock blended together in warm reverie.

Carla dal Forno - (2019) Look Up Sharp

 

Kallista Records ‎– KALLISTALP001 

 Carla dal Forno announces her second full-length album, ​Look Up Sharp​, on her own Kallista Records.

The London-based artist enters a new era in her peerless output pushing her dub-damaged DIY dispatches to the limits of flawless dream-pop. In a transformative move towards crystal clear vocals and sharpened production, Look Up Sharp is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It’s Like (2016) and The Garden EP (2017).

Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London’s sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno’s first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. Look Up Sharp is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. Dal Forno connects with kindred spirits and finds refuge in darkened alleys, secret gardens and wherever else she dares to look.

In her own territory between plaintive pop, folk and post-punk dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. The first half of the record is filled with dubbed-out humid bass lines, which tether stoned hazes of psychedelic synth work as on ‘Took A Long Time’ and ‘No Trace.’ These are contrasted with songs like ‘I’m Conscious and ‘So Much better’ that channel the lilting power of YMG and are clear sequels-in-waiting to dead-eyed classics like ‘Fast Moving Cars.’

The B-side begins with the feverish bass and meandering melody of ‘Don’t Follow Me,’ which takes The Cure’s ‘A Forest’ as its conceptual springboard. It’s the clearest lyrical example since ‘The Garden’ of dal
Forno’s unmatched ability to unpick the masculine void of post-punk and new wave nostalgia to reflect contemporary nuance. Look Up Sharp reaches its satisfying conclusion with ‘Push On’ - dal Forno’s most explicit foray into an undiscovered trip hop universe between Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn. The album’s last gasp finds personal validation in fragility: ‘I push on / I’m the Place I’m Going,’ a self discovery lifted by reverberant broken beats and glass-blown vocals.

Adding further depth to Look Up Sharp are the instrumentals, which flow seamlessly between the vocal-led pieces. ‘Hype Sleep’ and ‘Heart of Hearts’ drink from the same stream as The Flying Lizard’s dubbed-out madness and the vivid purple sunsets of Eno’s Another Green World. While ‘Creep Out of Bed’ and ‘Leaving for Japan’ funnel the fourth-world psychedelia of Cyclobe’s industrial-folk into the vortex of Nico’s The Marble Index.

Conceived as a whole, Look Up Sharp is a singular prism in which light, sound and concept bend at all angles. A deeply personal but infinitely relatable album its many surfaces are complex but authentic, enduring but imperfect, hard-edged but delicate. A diamond. Look up sharp or you’ll miss it.

Zoon - (2020) Bleached Wavves

 

Paper Bag Records ‎– PAPER128LP 

The opener on Zoon's debut album, Bleached Wavves, sounds like a familiar shoegaze prologue. Titled "Cloud Formations," it sounds like something My Bloody Valentine or Lilys might have come up with, with hypnotically swirling, textured guitars that meet and diverge in blissful dissonance.

While Bleached Wavves continues the path set out in its intro — featuring textured guitars that glide and crash in a collage of reverb and delay effects — it also blazes new trails in shoegaze, particularly in the way it implements sounds from traditional First Nations music, an inventive mixture Daniel Monkman cheekily calls "moccasin-gaze."

The most ambitious example of this mixture comes on "Was & Always Will Be," which features a layered, gauzy hum, jingly percussion, resonant drums, and voices singing in refrain — a breathtaking kaleidoscope of sound that uses shoegaze's blueprint for something totally new.

Because Monkman's influences are wide, the sounds on Bleached Wavves are varied, but never beyond cohesion. On the title track, guitars whirr and pulse, recalling MBV, and on "Light Prism," they plink and wail, like something off a Slowdive record. The influence is clear, but it's not distracting: both tracks feel like astute observations of the genre, honing in on its elements to subtly evoke nostalgia, longing and hope.

Bleached Wavves is rich with emotion, offering a nuanced account of Monkman's own journey of pain, sobriety and healing. Much of this journey is implied even in the band's name, which is derived from the Ojibwe word Zoongide'ewin, meaning "bravery," "courage" and "the Bear Spirit."

On "Infinite Horizons," as drums echo, collaborator Jesse Davidson says, "This is my attempt to reveal our truth in your language," before describing how he understands his past pain as strength: "strength of oneself, strength in numbers, strength to protect my people and our future from the pain your ancestors cut into our DNA. With one last journey into the sun let the fire be the ritual. Cleanse my spirit from this underserving pain."

The standout closer, "Help Me Understand," whirls with a haze of guitars and thrumming traditional drums, creating an expansive, looping soundscape that seems to transcend shoegaze. Like much of Bleached Wavves, it's intricate and subtle, familiar yet inventive, and rich with layers of life and sound. Zoon's debut album is nothing short of remarkable.

BlackieBlueBird - (2018) Ghost River

 

 T&E Records ‎– 1014

 Copenhagen’s dream pop duo BlackieBlueBird arrive with their debut album “Ghost River”.

BlackieBlueBird are the vocalist Heidi Lindahl and the composer Nils Lassen; together they create delicate torch songs of reverb and echo that captivate the listener with resonating guitars, lap steels, mandolins and a choir of mermaids that sporadically embraces Heidi’s golden voice. The echoes of love and longing, hellos and deceiving goodbyes live within her unique and clear vibrato.

GHOST RIVER symbolizes a subterranean river of memories that flows beneath our cities while on the surface we live our lives behind walls, among buildings and clamorous streets, ever pursuing our hopes and dreams. Unaware that deep within we are influenced by the GHOST RIVER, we fulfill what lies in our destinies as tiny twigs floating along the flow of a gentle water stream.

Resembling a dream, GHOST RIVER is an album that dwells in a drumless, cinematic atmosphere filled with romantic soundscapes of yearning desire and melodic choruses that caress the ear in a liberating and cathartic way.

Routine Death - (2019) 2 Weeks to 4 Months

 

 Fuzz Club Records ‎– FC113V12 

‘2 Weeks to 4 Months’ is the second album from Gothenburg-via-Texas duo Routine Death, comprised of Lisa and Dustin Zozaya. The album fuses shoegaze-y psych-pop and lo-fi electronics to create something that’s at times mesmerising and atmospheric and at others, distorted and unpredictable. The new album arrives following their 2018 debut album Parallel Universes and a summer of live dates that included a short tour with Wooden Shjips and performance at Fuzz Club Eindhoven 2019.

Lisa and Dustin – two musicians from Sweden and the US respectively – met whilst Dustin was on the road with his previous band Holy Wave. Now married but still separated by 7000 odd miles, the pair began working on music together to bide the time and give them something to channel themselves into collectively. After a few years spent recording things in their bedrooms and sending them forwards and backwards via WeTransfer, in 2018 the duo released their first set of songs as Routine Death: a debut album called ‘Parallel Universes’.

Just over a year on and they’re back with another collection of songs which, Dustin says, picks up where the last left off: “2 weeks to 4 months is the second part of this whole thing. There are some similarities to the last record, Lisa and I wrote and recorded it separately for the most part. It’s a collection of songs that are pretty reflective and cohesive of a certain period of our lives. When I started to look at all the work we’d done I realized it was one linear piece.”

Ai Aso - (2020) The Faintest Hint LP

 

 Ideologic Organ ‎– SOMA034

 Ai Aso’s immaculately crafted form of minimalist pop music skirts the edges of tensity with the manner and with the skill of a tight rope walker, calmly balancing repeatedly at every step, with a combination of surety and the risk of a slip, a fall, and an unknown uncoiling of events. Aso's capacity to capture, or inspire, the tension and attention from within the listener and observer are quite pronounced. At Aso's concert the performance constantly teeters near the brink, a sharpened awareness in the hall emerges from all observing, with the will of that most delicate balance. On “The Faintest Hint” she brings a meta level to the proceedings, the dream of a singer in a bright sunlit room in the centre of the density of the society, simply and precisely searching for single ideas, single tones, a sense of sensuality and even a dream of a grandeur (rock dream) emerge. A stillness prevails, even a sharp set of instances of dreaming, melancholia, nostalgia… or even saudade. The album was recorded, mixed & mastered by Soichiro Nakamura at Peace Music between 2018-2020. Atsuo and I joined these sessions as producers, and moreso as catalysts, yet also became the skeleton of a band on the album (with the tender touch). The legendary Japanese rock band Boris accompany Aso on two pieces. A faintest hint of sharpness and la tendresse féroce quickly erodes into a fine brief cloud of the purest crystalline dust.

Beach House - (2018) 7

 

Sub Pop ‎– SP1240 

While Beach House's sound has always focused on hypnotic melodies and Victoria Legrand's rich vocals -- and likely always will -- they've found different ways to explore this potent combination on each album. Legrand and Alex Scally delivered some of their most dramatic experiments on 2015's Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars, which presented a surprising amount of sides to their music even as they stripped it down to the basics. If possible, they're even more committed to change on their aptly named seventh album. To make 7, Beach House opted to work with Sonic Boom instead of longtime producer Chris Coady; brought their live drummer James Barone into the studio; and recorded songs as soon as they were done writing them instead of waiting to record all of them at once. This creative liberation resonates on every track, whether Scally and Legrand build up the instrumentation or pare it back, touch on their familiar sounds or invent new ones. 7's sequencing spotlights just how wide its range is, juxtaposing songs that sound wildly different, but equally like Beach House. The galactic whoosh of "Dark Spring" -- a key example of Boom's influence -- sounds all the more vast next to "Pay No Mind," the band's warmest, most down-to-earth love song yet. Similarly, "L'Inconnue"'s blissful call-and-response contrasts nicely with the edgy "Drunk in LA," where the beats and synths evoke rain-slicked streets and city lights. Then there are the songs that feel completely new: with its warping synths and enigmatic vibe, "Lemon Glow" gives the Beach House mystique a sci-fi update, while the sleek "Black Car" incorporates hints of dance and R&B without sounding like the duo is chasing trends. "Dive" is another standout, shifting from rainy-day contemplation to speeding down the road with the windows down in a way that's seamless and exhilarating. Elsewhere, Legrand uses 7's eclectic sounds as an opportunity to experiment with different lyrical perspectives that add depth to the album's dreamy surfaces, as on "Girl of the Year," where its cavernous sweetness echoes its tale of a young woman famous for self-destruction. Throughout 7, Beach House feel more concerned with capturing moments fully rather than conforming to notions of what a cohesive album is. That these songs sound like they came from different albums is ultimately more refreshing than disorienting, and the excitement that courses through each track is palpable. Scally and Legrand could have only made 7 at this point in their career -- not only do they have the skill to change things up, but the wisdom to know how and when to do so.

Beach House - (2015) Thank You Lucky Stars

 

Sub Pop ‎– SP1142

 Thank Your Lucky Stars is our sixth full length record. It was written after Depression Cherry from July 2014 - November 2014 and recorded during the same session as Depression Cherry. The songs came together very quickly and were driven by the lyrics and the narrative. In this way, the record feels very new for us, and a great departure from our last few records. Thematically, this record often feels political. It's hard to put it into words, but something about the record made us want to release it without the normal "campaign." We wanted it to simply enter the world and exist.

Carlo Giustini - (2019) Custodi

 

 Lontano Series ‎– LONTANO-TP05

Is it possible to capture the sound of a state of being, of a memory, of a past sensation?
Is there a possibility to translate a thought which once was into vibrational waves?
Behind this concept is based much of this work, this research carried out in the early autumn days of 2018.
The spark that started this research came by chance, or rather this spark was manifested to me in a place full of heavy memory, full of words, rich of dense and contradictory emotions. It was mid-August and I was at the local central bar in my neighborhood in Sant’Angelo. At the bar counter I happened to hear a tale that struck me in particular: a gentleman holding a glass of merlot told a friend the story of the tragic end of the custodians of Villa Letizia:
Villa Letizia is an ancient Venetian villa located inside the national park of the river Sile, a structure of the 18th century located right in front of my house, a villa which I see every day from my window while I have breakfast in the...

Black Zone Myth Chant - (2017) Feng Shen

 

Editions Gravats ‎– GRVTS010

The mighty Black Zone Myth Chant returns with a new LP of Chopped and Screwed electronics via deep space New Age for Low Jack and Jean Carval’s Gravats label...

Max P, aka Black Zone Myth Chant, presents the project’s most adventurous and urgent despatch yet, dosing with the unfathomably layered and immersive Feng Shen. What was initially intended as a one-away project has now morphed into something powerfully undefinable and strangely affective over the course of two albums, Straight Cassette and Mane Thecel Phares, an EP and a mixtape, realising something of a butterfly effect feedback between the gestures of his strangely formed objects and their dilated reception by listeners around the world.

Over the course of eight tracks he renders a phenomenal space where he can best describe the paradoxical, impossible physics of a psychedelic soul, by toying with the listener’s gauge of anticipation, perspective and temporality with a poetic clash of ideas lent from chopped & screwed hip hop and liminal club musics.

It’s music which exists in two states at once, driving yet floating, as with the pull and push of pitched down voices and rolling rhythms in Their Love For You, or with impenetrable density of clarity in the layered dimensions of Kubara, following a line that binds kosmische and dancehall in Under Protest/Telos, to the polymetric harmonic swirl of War Paint (DAPL Resistance), and connects the heat-seeking techno impulses of Ideas In Action, to the centre-less ambient panorama of Feng Jing.

Blod & Miljö - (2019) ST 7''

 

 I Dischi Del Barone ‎– IDDB030

"Inevitable collaboration from Arv & Miljö and Blod, two decent examples of the Gothenburigan bullheadedness that has occured around the FFFM/never gonna fit in circles in town. A weird 9-minute collage split up over two 45rpm sides, cuts from the past fades in and out with Svensk Sommar I Stilla Frid session leftovers straight from the floor tangled up with spicy snippets from limited to 14 cassettes, some 2018 live action and newly recorded nonsense. It's a poor man's mash up, an emotional coming of age/sucks-to-be-a-teenager/religious paranoia slowmo rollercoaster going backwards. Featuring Cobweb Iris, Hans Villius and Snapper samples. Mastered by Viktor Ottosson and artwork by Charlott Malmenholt. 200 copies, black vinyl and stamped white labels, postcard attached to the cover, insert. 45rpm." - I Dischi Del Barone.

Black Hat - (2014) Thought Of Two LP

 

Hausu Mountain ‎– HAUSMO 13

Spread informally across underground networks, learned by hearing and watching one’s influences in action, possessed of as many unique voices as artists – the experimental electronic and noise/drone movements constitute contemporary incarnations of “folk” music, with knobs, oscillators, and patch cables in the place of acoustic guitars and harmonicas. As these movements flourish and overlap, the music that Nelson Bean makes as Black Hat emerges as a bold addition to the expanding center of the Venn Diagram. As much as Bean participates in these scenes, performing regularly around his Seattle home and touring the west coast in the Summer of 2013, electronic music began for him as a family affair. Growing up in Oakland, CA, the 24-year-old producer received his first analog drum machines and synths from his father, a musician-turned-doctor. Supportive friends and family, the right gear, fierce ambition, and the inspiration gleaned from live shows and the boundless expanses of the internet: on paper, these seem like a recipe for a striking project. But Nelson Bean’s music exceeds the sum of the parts that brought it to life, carving out complex new permutations of composition and live performance that span the wide spectrum of the contemporary electronic underground.
Thought of Two, Bean’s first full-length LP, arrives in the wake of his acclaimed Covalence cassette (Field Hymns, 2013), extending the compressed, hypnotic styles of that release into three mammoth new compositions teeming with abstracted rhythms and alien tones. Composed with an intricate system of digital processes and synth hardware, the sessions captured here on record represent the culmination of the tonal explorations and structural decisions that Bean continues to fine-tune in his improvisation-infused live performances.
On a measure-by-measure basis, Thought of Two confounds listeners’ expectations of resolution and recursion. Its sophisticated rhythmic grids and detailed lead voices congeal and conflict in unpredictable fashion, propelling each track through diverse atmospheres and textures. “Imaginary Friends” begins with a brooding death howl that gives way to a mind-warping kick drum pattern, all before the machine-drum beatdown shatters and rebuilds the session from the ground up. “Portrait in Fluorescent Light” layers washed-out drones and patient effect manipulations into a narcotic drift that stretches time well beyond the track’s eight minute running time. The side-long “Memory Triptych” weaves a yearning synth motif through three distinct emotional spaces: a burgeoning introduction; the slow burn of the middle passage, led by a loping bassline and a muffled drum pattern into a matrix of interlocking pulses; the finale, pitting angelic synth quavers against the rumble of one last recurring bass phrase. Bean imbues his compositions with the grotesque cinematic sensibilities and rhythmic experimentation of Coil, the ghost-in-the-machine humanity of Laurie Spiegel’s computer-based synthesizer work, and the dark energies and urges of Miles Davis’s late-period psych-fusion ensembles – to single out just a few touchstones. Above all, Thought of Two showcases a mind eager to expand the vocabulary of today’s conflating strains of electronic music, presenting audacious new ideas with a confidence that demands playback at maximum volume.

Mick Chillage - (2017) Exulansis

 

Self-Released ‎– none

Exulansis...The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it,whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness which allows music to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

Mick Chillage presents us with ten pieces of music that clock in around 4 hours with additional remixes from Joel Tammik & Si Matthews and
Darren McClure

Mc Yallah - (2019) Kubali

 

Hakuna Kulala ‎– HK015 

Hakuna Kulala run out their first album with ‘Kubali’, revolving MC Yallah’s fiercely controlled delivery matched by rugged riddims from Debmaster.

A prime showcase of east Africa’s incredibly fertile electronic dance music scene, ‘Kubali’ catches Uganda-born, Kenya-based MC Yallah step on and off 11 seriously ruffshod productions blessed with the best of both scuzzy industrial fetish styles and up-to-the-second global bass/trap movements.

The mode is slow but urgent, toggling the gauge between Debmaster’s pressurised instrumentals and Yallah’s hot gobs of fire in a manner that recalls The Bug’s workouts with warrior Queen as much as a nastier version of Equiknoxx and Shanique Marie or a colourful counter to Coucou Chloe’s work with Sega Bodega.

Bookended by fractious reflections of their sonic environment int he shopped up vocals of ‘TT12’ and the distorted scenes of chants and percussion in ‘TT26’, the session flows thru big vocal highlights in the cold ragga slam of ‘Kubali’, the blown-out, shark-eyed killer ‘Teba Kuda Mabega’, their clash of sour sirens with demonic dembow bumps in ‘Malbanyoma’, and the grimy swagger of ‘Sifa Leero (Gangsta Edition)’. But that’s not to discount the smart placement of Debmaster’s succinct, scowling instrumentals, strung out between the bashy rogue ‘TT32v2’ and the psychoactive militancy of ‘TT145.’

100% bad as fuck.

MMMD - (2019) Egoismo LP

 

Antifrost ‎– afro2079 

Egotism, Arrogance, Hypocrisy, Separation, Bitter truth and a mouth of gold to deliver it. Tremors, chants, otherworldly strings and infrasound continue to dominate the soundscape, this time however a faint light flickers in the horizon.

 

 

MMMD - (2018) Hagazussa LP

 

Antifrost ‎– afro 2077

 Original Soundtrack for “Hagazussa – A heathen's curse”, a medieval terror film by Lukas Feigelfeld. 

Morton Subotnick - (2004) Electronic Works Vol. 2 CD

 

Mode ‎– mode 132 

 

Morton Subotnick (USA)
is one of the United States' premier composers of electronic music and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. Most of his music calls for a computer part, or live electronic processing; his oeuvre utilizes many of the important technological breakthroughs in the history of the genre.

The work, which brought Subotnick celebrity, was Silver Apples of the Moon. Written in 1967 using the Buchla modular synthesizer, this work contains synthesized tone colours striking for its day, and a control over pitch that many other contemporary electronic composers had relinquished. There is a rich counterpoint of gestures, in marked contrast to the simple surfaces of much contemporary electronic music. The exciting, exotic timbres and the dance-inspiring rhythms caught the ear of the public -- the record was an American bestseller in the classical music category, an extremely unusual occurrence for any contemporary concert music at the time.

The next eight years saw the production of several more important compositions for LP, realized on the Buchla synthesizer: The Wild Bull, Touch, Sidewinder and Four Butterflies. All of these pieces are marked by sophisticated timbres, contrapuntally rich textures, and sections of continuous pulse suggesting dance. In fact, Silver Apples of the Moon was used as dance music by several companies including the Stuttgart Ballet and Ballet Rambert and The Wild Bull, and later works, including A Sky of Cloudless Sulfur and The Key to Songs, have been choreographed by leading dance companies throughout the world.

In addition to music in the electronic medium, Subotnick has written for symphony orchestra (including "Before the Butterfly" a bi-centennial commission for the NY Phil, La Phil, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra), chamber ensembles, theater and multimedia productions. His "staged tone poem" The Double Life of was premiered at the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles.

Jacob's Room, Subotnick's multimedia opera, received its premiere in Philadelphia in April 1993 at The American Music Theater Festival. The Key to Songs, for chamber orchestra and computer (1985), Return, commissioned to celebrate the return of Halley's Comet, premiered with an accompanying sky show in the planetarium of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles in 1986.

His 3 CDROMS: All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis (1994), Making Music (1996), Making More Music (1998), an interactive 'Media Poem', Intimate Immensity, premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in NY (1997) and Echoes from the Silent Call of Girona (1998). Gestures for DVD surround sound and DVD ROM will be released on Mode Records in the spring of 2001. Making Music has now sold over 400,000 copies and is in 12 languages. In addition, his website for children, creatingmusic.com, is now online.

He also produced a series of concerts and events (1990-1997) where performers interacted musically in three cities simultaneously.

Subotnick holds the Mel Powell Chair in composition at the California Institute of the Arts. He tours extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe as a lecturer and composer/performer. He is published by European-American.

Petridisch - (2017) Oliveros: Sonic Meditations (Selections) CS

 

Metropolitan State Productions ‎– MSP 032

 

Pavel Milyakov - (2020) Masse Métal

 

The Trilogy Tapes ‎– TTT085 

As Buttechno, Pavel Milyakov has become a staple in Russia’s underground techno scene. Since emerging in 2010, he has founded the Johns’ Kingdom collective, soundtracked runway shows for fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy and released on revered labels like Cititrax and трип (trip). His new record, released under his given name on cult favourite The Trilogy Tapes at the end of April, sees him swap the dancefloor for more experimental fare.

The culmination of a years-long research project that included a flagship performance at last year’s Berlin Atonal, Masse Métal deals in creaking industrial soundscapes instead of pounding rhythm. While not the first time Milyakov has set out to explore territory beyond the club – last year’s La Maison De La Mort, for example, saw him try his hand at ambient – it’s one of the most extreme departures from his Buttechno project the Moscow-based producer has made to date.

While the album isn’t the most soothing of lockdown listens, as Milyakov himself says, Masse Métal speaks to the sense of precarity and, well, doom, that has become heightened during the current crisis. The album is built around samples Milyakov collected of military drills and broken machinery, always backed by a constant sense of unease. Together it evokes arid, man made wastelands and the bleakness of post-industrial capitalism, posing questions about humanity’s relationship to nature and itself.

We caught up with Milyakov shortly after the record’s release to discuss Masse Métal and talk through some of the album’s key tracks.

Quicksails - (2020) Blue Rise LP

 

Hausu Mountain ‎– HAUSMO100 

All music by Ben Baker Billington 2016 - 2019.
Mastered by Patrick Klem.
Art & design by Sam Kahn.

Quicksails’ approach on Blue Rise foregrounds his palette of modular and digital synthesizers, resulting in a strain of music that brims with shimmering textures and lush, layered harmonies. More than a full-on pivot to another style, Quicksails enters into a mode of production that highlights his melodic sensibilities and his ear for sophisticated DAW-based composition. Each track unfolds as a self-contained world replete with fluctuating tiers of fine-grain synth-tones that morph as they stack together into systems of polyrhythmic activity or smear into all-consuming drift. Quicksails lays out a menu of contrasting sentimental spaces and self-contained sonic tableaus, each of which refracts the sun’s light out across new terrains. Blue Rise cements Quicksails not only as a master synthesist and arranger of far-flung sound sources, but as a composer attuned to the time dilating properties and the instantaneous emotional impacts of the zones that he lays out before us.

Stanislav Tolkachev - (2020) Be Careful And Nobody Dies

 

Semantica Records ‎– SEMANTICA 112 

In 2013, the Ukranian techno artist Stanislav Tolkachev released Simple As A Miracle, his first record for Semantica, on which he explored a tough, twisted, minimalist, synth-led sound. Many of his records before then had their basis in this style—ditto most of his records since. Be Careful And Nobody Dies sees him return to Semantica, following the reissue last year of the Right Angle EP. Once again, the EP is tough, twisted, minimalist and synth-led. But here's the curious thing: it still sounds super fresh. So what is it about Tolkachev's sound that keeps it from becoming stale?

The strength of his synths is surely a massive part of it. There's barely a few seconds here where Tolkachev doesn't have some rich, rippling synthesizer shaping the stereo field. Two of the tracks—"Farewell" and "Emptyness"—don't even need beats to generate a powerful sense of forward momentum. Tolkachev is also drawn discordance and polyrhythms, and although we get relatively little of that here, "Manhunt" is a fine example. You'll want to stay alert to the moment at 01:15 where he fires up a piston-like hi-hat, ricocheting off the synth in a way that's equal parts confusing and thrilling. The record's most straightforward track might be its best, though. "Everything Ends" sounds like it could have been made on a four-track recorder. But when your synths sound this dazzling, what else is needed?

Sir E.U - (2016) 23

 

Self Released ‎– none

Sir E.U is not only someone I call a friend, but one of the most intelligent people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. He’s also greatly artistic, and blends his vast knowledge of world history with his homegrown D.C. roots and signature eccentric vision as an artist, combining for a smorgasbord of musings and clever rhymes that all add up for an entertaining and enjoyable listen.

His newest project, EBUKU, is the latest in a long line of projects from E.U, but this one is different—it’s E.U as fuck, but this is definitely a more mature Steven behind the mic; as both an artist and a person it seems. He buoyantly raps over the eclectic, at times glitchy production from a slew of DMV boardslappers and more.

What I love about his projects is that they stray away from the typical skeleton of projects that people put out these days. I don’t wanna say there are universal archetypes on every album, but often there are different tracks that are made to appeal to different kinds of people, and I’ve noticed it kinda limits the creativity of the artist because they’re trying to fit into that one box that’s going to appeal to X amount of people. Well, that goes entirely out the window with E.U, and I fucking love it.

EBUKU is an audible illustration of Sir E.U’s one-of-a-kind personality and flavor as an artist, and it’s really great. I’m mad excited to hear what he comes with next, because I know it’s going to be ridiculous and intricate in all the best ways.

------------------------

D.C. rapper and DMV rap scene pioneer Sir E.U. is back with a new project to follow his last album EBUKU and latest EP We Back now he’s back with more abstract music and unorthodox, eclectic production that only he could rap over. “23” is 9 track project filled with uniques and off kilter production borrowing from his rap idol MF Doom, Sir E.U. mixes several tracks with topical audio clips featuring everything from SNL’s “Black Jeopardy” skit, Hilary Clinton’s “super predator” comments and an audio clip of Oprah cursing taken from a sit down with her and Lindsay Lohan. The 9 track album features production from Left Fingers, stevedreez, GHOSTIE, HIPPODRAMIDAN, Pacific Yew and N.O.M.A.D. “23” is a “crazy age” for E.U. and he shows that on this project, “23” is an interesting listen a mixture of introspection,observations and stream of consciousness flow set to some odd production. It’s a reflection of where Sir E.U. is at in his life and with his music, give it a listen. 

Sparkling Wide Pressure - (2019) Yowling Seers CS

 

Lillerne Tape Club ‎– LL111

 Lillerne is extremely excited to help bring into the world the newest set of recordings by Frank Baugh, aka Sparkling Wide Pressure. Baugh’s prolific solo project has been releasing countless cassettes and CD-Rs (barely an exaggeration) via all of your favorite labels (including 2013’s Press The Reverse And Give Me The Tape, also on Lillerne) and his own Kimberly Dawn imprint. Baugh is a rare master of both quantity AND quality, andYowling Seers continues in the tradition of collecting his impeccably constructed, beautifully performed and produced compositions. In addition to his utilization of guitar, synth, tape collage, and vocal melody/abstraction, Yowling Seers is very rhythmic and often relies on and experiments with structures of rhythm and drum programming. This collection is as moody and sparse in parts as it is head-bobbingly plodding and inspiring—all the while mixing together the recipe of instrumentation and tape wizardry for which the SWP project is so well-known. Another beautiful document of time, memory and emotion by Frank, and I feel privileged to contribute in any way to its existence. Edition of 50 pro-dubbed cassettes with full-color, double-sided artwork featuring paintings by Frank Baugh.

Sparkling Wide Pressure - (2020) Fake Spells CS

 

Adversary ‎– Adversary no. 28 

When you dream. When you try to remember.
The rust has always been there.
You found your bookmark between a stone and a ripple.
A mossy shadow.

Active since 2007, Frank Baugh's Sparkling Wide Pressure has been a longtime favorite in our house and his newest tape, "Fake Spells" is simply a masterpiece. Warped vocals, loops, and synthesizers twist around patiently meandering guitars. These are songs in the vein of late-period Coil run through a hazy filter of Appalachian Americana. For those familiar with SWP, you already know. For those who may be new to the project, now is the time to get on board.

Professionally duplicated tapes. Comes with download code.
Edition of 50.

Omrr - (2017) Devils For My Darling CD

 

Dronarivm ‎– DR-48 

 Following “Music for the Anxious” album release with the French record label Eilean Records, omrr joined the Russian record label Dronarivm.

Devils for my Darling was created in 2017, The album is an imaginary love story.

Omrr is the stage name of Omar El Abd (born 22 September 1983), a self-taught musician, guitarist and sound artist based in Cairo, Egypt. omrr’s sound is based on glitch, noise, micro-sounds, sampling and field recording. He uses a variety of instruments and software to create free form, dynamic and dense sonic landscapes.

RXM Reality - (2019) Devil World Wide CS

 

Hausu Mountain ‎– HAUSMO 91

 RXM Reality is Chicago-based producer Mike Meegan. His futuristic strain of detailed beat work jitters somewhere between the margins of kinetic IDM, grimy industrial electronics, and intricately spatialized textural collage. DEViL WORLD WiDE, his second release with Hausu Mountain, builds on the precedent established by Panic Cycle (HAUSMO72, 2018), as Meegan steers his hybrid rig of hardware samplers and software systems through a series of rhythmic sketches that are as transfixing as they are claustrophobic. While RXM Reality builds his tracks over a rough grid that keeps one foot rooted in danceable rhythms, bursts of jagged percussion counteract the groove while noise debris drips between morphing synthetic elements. Individual synth voices serve as both anti-melodic lead lines and rhythmic markers akin to drum patterns, quivering their way through his tracks in various states of granular disintegration. When he eases back on the level of density and allows his sound sources to melt into swathes of silence, specters of beat structures carry on in lurching, start-and-stop rhythms.
RXM Reality’s music draws inspiration from his urban surroundings in Chicago as much as from a growing canon of dystopian audio and visual touchstones that inch closer and closer to real life as time goes on. DEViL WORLD WiDE’s fractal, continually splintered approach to sound design recalls the work of modern luminaries like Arca and Actress, two influences Meegan cited as formative to his expanding conceptions of production and composition. Like fellow members of the Hausu Mountain roster such as Fire-Toolz, Khaki Blazer, or Bonnie Baxter, the music of RXM Reality toys with building blocks of dark humor and chaotic irreverence, as tracks break into unexpected shifts in mood or shed any semblance of legible rhythm on a dime to explode into the territory of pure texture. A pummeling passage of breakbeats might slide into a patch of 8-bit squelch, while a brief flash of bouncy, major-key melody might herald the waves of feedback rushing in to wash out the mix. With track titles that land between the diction of dependence (“The Enabler,” “Addict”) and inner serenity (“Totally Stress Free,” “Prayers to Fall Asleep in Perfect Peace”), DEViL WORLD WiDE offers hints at the motivations that orbit Meegan’s art. In practice, RXM Reality’s tracks transcend our mundane daily existence and transmute his internal turmoil and composure into pulsing networks of sound as complex as the emotions that inspired them.

Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie - (2019) Knotting CD

 

Some Fine Legacy ‎– SFL 007

Since its debut on two releases from 2011 and 2012 (the live Hit & Run with Joe Talia and the studio Audience of One), the epic structured improvisational piece ‘Knots’ has formed a staple of Oren Ambarchi’s live performances. Like a jazz musician searching for ever-new ways to play a standard, the guitarist has repeatedly brought the piece to life in a variety of settings ranging from guitar/drums duets to a large ensemble replete with string section, with each iteration bringing with it new variations of tone, intensity and character.

Knotting presents the entirety of a beautifully-recorded set performed by Ambarchi and the astonishing Australian- French drum virtuoso Will Guthrie in Geneva in February 2019. Beginning with a delicately played but rapid and insistent ride cymbal rhythm over which Ambarchi layers his signature shimmering Leslie cabinet guitar tones and eventually building, as the piece always does, to a peak of caterwauling harmonic fuzz and thundering drums, the recording also shows the pair taking risks and pushing the piece into new directions, especially in Guthrie’s willingness to let the central pulse momentarily die away or only barely be implied as his main focus of attention turns to instantaneous responses to the subtle rhythmic suggestions of Ambarchi’s shuddering guitar tones. Ambarchi’s performance also demonstrates the ever-evolving nature of his relationship with the guitar, making space for some of the more harmonically uneasy yet subtly lyrical playing (in a tone calling to mind the 80s guitar-synth work of Pat Metheny or Bill Frisell) that has emerged in his recent solo work. Ending with a remarkable coda where Guthrie’s bells and cymbals suddenly transforms the performance into something like Tibetan temple music, Knotting is an essential snapshot of the workof two musicians not content to repeat themselves.

Pancrace - (2019) The Fluid Hammer

 

Penultimate Press ‎– PP44

 Pancrace is a quintet from France comprising Prune Bécheau, Arden Day, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel, and Jan Vysocky. Pancrace began with a residence in 2015 at the Saint Pancrace church in Dangolsheim where the instrument inventor Léo Maurel resides. Pancrace's debut self-titled double-LP was released by Penultimate Press in 2017 and ended up on The Wire's best releases of that year. After the first record and subsequent tour the band were despondent that the main character of their story, the church organ, was not there. A series of meetings and chance encounters resulted in the band developing their own organ which they named "Organous". The approach of Pancrace is based on the physicality of sound, a choice of specific tone qualities within a given spatial contextual awareness. Therefore, the manufacturing and usage of the musical instrument are constantly reassessed. Consequently, playing with the mechanical aspect of the instruments is central to their musical approach and narrative. Designing an unbound pipe organ -- though emulating some of the mechanical idiomatics of the initial Pancrace church organ -- seemed the obvious way to gain more spatial control over a vast choice of places. This allowed them to approach their music from a totally new angle and work from within the organ. The results of these experiments are captured here, on their second opus, The Fluid Hammer. This new beast of an instrument, somewhere between a spider or an octopus, led Pancrace to compose from the frontality of the instrument as well as with the interactive tone possibilities brought by other instruments. With its six panels display (two bass registers, two treble, and a pair of crumhorns) the organ projects sound like the musique concrèt Acousmonium giving the listener a spatialized perception of a wide range of tones and harmonics. Fluid Hammer is the result of the research and experiments undertaken with the Organous and other instruments. Fluid Hammer is a more rhythmic and percussive affair than its predecessor, bringing to mind the experiments of Conlon Nancarrow as well as fairground barrel organs. The wide range of polyrhythmic patterns generates a constant tension between the machine and the human play. Music for Organous (spatialized and MIDI-controlled pipe organ), Uilleann pipes, Pi-synth, piano, motorised bow, boîte à bourdons, gaida, Baroque violin, hurgy toys, toy piano, componium, bodhran, low whistle, bird calls, AM radio, and shaker.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - (2017) Async CD

 

Milan ‎– M2-36830

 Japanese composer/demi-god Ryuichi Sakamoto presents an exquisitely oneiric and elusively spiritual new album inspired as much by the sound sculptures of Harry Bertoia as the magic of Andrei Tarkovsky’s seminal septet of celluloid classics.

It’s been some years since Sakamoto has placed his name at the top of a solo album proper - as opposed to his swathes of collaborations and film scores - and we can promise that the results herein are definitely worth the wait.

Imagined and realised after a period of fright with his health, Async captures Mr. Sakamoto at his most wistful and wonderful, meditating on the existentialist, ontological themes and atmospheres of Tarkovsky’s work from both a gauzily impressionistic aspect, and a quite literal one, employing readings of Tarkovsky’s poetry (poem transcribed in the liner notes) in a variety of languages from a coterie of contemporaries including long time collaborators David Sylvian, Bernardo Bertolucci (for whom he composed the OST for The Last Emperor) and Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), among others.

Embracing both the fluidity and flux of Tarkovsky’s water analogies as well as the harmonic chaos of Harry Bertoia’s lush metal rod clangour, Sakamoto melds feather touch acoustic keys with field recordings, shimmering electronic patinas and signature synthesiser flourishes in a suite that beautifully lives up to and even transcends its influences, revealing some of the most achingly emotive yet often abrasive and abstract work in a catalogue now spanning over 40 years of exemplary work.

Beyond maybe Scott Walker, we can hardly think of another artist who has continued to expand their oeuvre over such a long period of time, and with an appeal quite like this, albeit respectively unique to their work. But Sakamoto really is in a league of his own here, utterly absorbing us with the dappled keys, organ haze and stereo starting doom synths of Andata, thru the stark Sonambient emulations of Disintegration to the romance of ZURE and the almost Toshiya Tsunoda-esque sensitivity of his field recordings woven into Walker or Honj, with humbling moments to be discovered in the switch from disorienting cinematic dialogue in Fullmoon to the legit Ligeti style violence of Async, and again in the curdled chromatics of FF and the Gas-eous swells swirling about Garden.

The Caretaker - (2016) Everywhere at the End of Time

 

 History Always Favours The Winners ‎– HAFTW025  Part One / Two

EVERYWHERE AT THE END OF TIME (COMPLETE EDITION)

When work began on this series it was difficult to predict how the music would unravel itself. Dementia is an emotive subject for many and always a subject I have treated with maximum respect.

Stages have all been artistic reflections of specific symptoms which can be common with the progression and advancement of the
different forms of Alzheimer's.

Thanks always for your support of this series of works
remembered by The Caretaker.

Physical editions of all stages on both vinyl and compact-disc
are available now and are being distributed by Boomkat.
 
May the ballroom remain eternal.

C'est fini.

--

STAGE 1 - (A+B)
Here we experience the first signs of memory loss.
This stage is most like a beautiful daydream.
The glory of old age and recollection.
The last of the great days.

STAGE 2 - (C+D)
The second stage is the self realisation and awareness that something is wrong with a refusal to accept that. More effort is made to remember so memories can be more long form with a little more deterioration in quality. The overall personal mood is generally lower than the first stage and at a point before confusion starts setting in.

STAGE 3 - (E+F)
Here we are presented with some of the last coherent memories before confusion fully rolls in and the grey mists form and fade away. Finest moments have been remembered, the musical flow in places is more confused and tangled. As we progress some singular memories become more disturbed, isolated, broken and distant. These are the last embers of awareness before we enter the post awareness stages.

STAGE 4 - (G+H+I+J)
Post-Awareness Stage 4 is where serenity and the ability to recall singular memories gives way to confusions and horror. It's the beginning of an eventual process where all memories begin to become more fluid through entanglements, repetition and rupture.

STAGE 5 - (K+L+M+N)
Post-Awareness Stage 5 confusions and horror.
More extreme entanglements, repetition and rupture can give way to
calmer moments. The unfamiliar may sound and feel familiar.
Time is often spent only in the moment leading to isolation.

STAGE 6 - (O+P+Q+R)
Post-Awareness Stage 6 Is without description.

--

All stages featuring cover art imagined and painted by Ivan Seal.
All stages mastered by Lupo at Calyx in Berlin.
All stages were released on Vinyl and Compact Disc via
'History Always Favours The Winners'.  

 --------------------

First in a series of Six albums by The Caretaker to be released over the next 3 years, slowly cataloguing the stages of early onset dementia. Each album will reveal new points of progression, loss and disintegration, progressively falling further and further towards the abyss of complete memory loss and nothingness...

Embarking on the Caretaker’s final journey with his first release in four years, Everywhere At The End of Time sets off with the familiar vernacular of abraded shellac 78s and their ghostly waltzes to emulate the entropic effect of a mind becoming detached from everyone else’s sense of reality and coming to terms with their own, altered, and ever more elusive sense of ontology. 

The series aims to enlighten our understanding of dementia by breaking it down into a series of stages that provide a haunting guide to its progression, deterioration and disintegration and the way that people experience it according to a range of impending factors. In other words, Everywhere At The End of Time probes some of the most important questions about modern music’s place in a world that’s increasingly haunted or even choked by the tightening noose of feedback loops of influence; perceptibly questioning the value of old memories as opposed to the creation of new ones, and, likewise the fidelity of those musical memories which remain, and whether we can properly recollect them from the mire of our faulty memory banks without the luxury of choice

As the first in the series, and despite its typically frayed loop construction, this volume is the most lucid, as subsequent instalments will continue to move into faded obscurity and material erosion. We’ve only ingested this first volume so far, so we cannot predict whether the ensuing journey and results will be lush, tortuous or, perhaps more likely, an ambiguous weaving and unpicking of the two and all interstices between.

We encourage you to join The Caretaker on this, his final journey thru the endless haunted ballrooms and mazy corridors of his wasting mind...