RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Bandcloud 227
The rain has come, the nights are getting darker earlier.
FM Mix 001 - Japanese New Age (1970-1990) [Aug '18]
Indonesian artist Fahmi Mursyid has put together a mix of older Japanese New Age music that sounds fascinatingly current. Whether that's because our current mode is relentlessly nostalgic and regressive or because this music is beautifully timeless is a question for another day. It's beautiful and enticing, playful, comical at some points and brilliant at all.
M//R - Among The Methods
I first heard of M//R through a wonderfully sparse track played by Call Super in a mix some years ago. His latest came out in June and I've been meaning to listen but things kept getting in the way. It's a thunderous set of jams pitched between acid, techno, dub, electronica. It manages to sound singular despite all these varying sounds coming together. A fan review said this sounds "Like if Vladislav Delay decided to try his hand at making an album of electro and acid", but I think it sounds more like Donato Dozzy releasing on Hessle or Livity Sound.
DJ Popup - End Of Slippertime Mix
Who is DJ Popup? They shared this mix of deep and hearty jams that really nailed this classic house vibe I've been searching for lately. Seamlessly going from breaks and electro to more sumptuous sounds. I only knew one track, 'Notice Me' by Sandee, a screaming jam that I first heard also through Call Super, in his Dekmantel mix some years back.
V/A: 'Bad Taste vol.ii - another collection of sounds from the NZ underground' comp. (chemical imbalance.)
I follow the artist The Doll, whose work on Big Sleep I shared recently. They appear on this compilation from the Australian Chemical Imbalance. label, which brings together a variety of sounds from New Zealand. There's gauzy noise, screeching noise, dank ambient (I particularly like 'Trench' by OMIT and the tracks from Seht), lo-fi folksy sound, raucous guitar (not so much for me) and weird glitchy electronica. Get involved, get familiar.
Nina Kraviz Exclusive mix for U.Q.
I found another upload of this with thousands of plays but this is a new one with just a few hundred. It's from a collection of mixes released exclusively by Underground Quality in 2009, with one each from Jus-Ed, Levon Vincent, DJ Qu, Fred P, Anton Zap and, of course, Nina. This one is a delight, it's deep as heck, but switches lanes a few times, going down different dark avenues, opening up into the light towards the mix's end. There's a conversation at the mid-point about oysters and mussels, and a later one about ripping your head off with love, leading into Nina and Jus-Ed's 'CPT Time'. I'm listening to this and thinking about what I was listening to in 2009 with great shame. Fuck it, we're all on a journey. Would I have been a better person if I listened to "better" music then? Hardly. Incidentally, Jus-Ed is making his Denver debut this weekend.
HVL - Ostati
Like the M//R album it brings together seemingly disparate elements, with lots of ambient wash over crunching electro beats, rumbling techno and stargazing synths. It follows the vein that HVL has been mining in recent years across a variety of labels. His remix for Aleks (also on OA) was stunning too. On 'Sallow Myth', thick acid stabs lend portent while soft synths float like clouds overhead. Closer 'When Rivers Flow' seems to run on forever with its open-ended theme and rattling percussion. HVL is also resident at the now famed BASSIANI in Tblisi, Georgia.
VGV - Anti Pt. 2
This is only a minute long but I love it. It's like emotive prog house made by The Cyclist only without his warbling tape stretch. The Chile-based artist has a bunch of demos on her SoundCloud and I can only hope that they come to fruition somehow.
Liam van Ryn - Serendipity
Here's a nice release from Hull producer Liam van Ryn. It's a bit ambient, a bit beatsy, haunting all the way through. Kind of reminiscent of tracks by Rival Consoles with added crunch, it's beautifully put together but undercut by plenty of rough edges. 'Three X Prince' is a searing melodrama in itself, while 'Accident in Saga City' is a bouncing plod of terror and sadness.
AFRODEUTSCHE | NTS | BLACK FOREST | 4TH AUG 2018
This is the latest NTS Manchester show from Skam artist AFRODEUTSCHE. It's a sinister set with hip-hop beats by Autechre, chilling electro from the likes of Transllusion and Boris Divider and finally culminating with pounding footwork by the late DJ Rashad. Winter is coming. The owls are not what they seem/this owl is very expensive.