Bandcloud 235

I read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite yesterday while flying to Athens. It is a banger of a book. Would recommend.  

Nivhek - After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house
New Grouper! Kind of. After its own death was a collaborative project made by Liz Harris and visual artist MFO, commissioned by Unsound Festival, the Barbican and Goethe-Institut, with Murmansk partners Fridaymilk. The visual aspect featured lengthy shots of desolate Arctic snowscapes followed by frosty urban settings and the people therein. The music was largely what you might expect from a Grouper project, while maintaining its independence from that name. Ghostly vocals, glistening bells, an air of dolorous defeat throughout. I was lucky enough to see it performed in London in late 2017. Delighted I can relive it and add my own experiences to the sound.

Katie Gately - ~ hole, home, urn ~
I was on Katie Gately's SoundCloud the other night looking for a Popol Vuh track I thought she played on a radio show once (I then realised it was actually Will Bankhead, and found it). Then the next morning this track popped up. It's tagged ambient but within three minutes it's distorted and drenched in layers of dense distortion. Sounds great though. It's also strangely soothing, all that noise. 

Sarah - -_______-
There's a tiny snippet of something in here, an instrumental cover of Britney's 'Everytime' (her best song) that's cut short way too soon. There's also some trancey gloop around eight minutes in too. Whatever this all is, it's wild.

Jay Glass Dubs - Epitaph
Since I'm in Greece it seems right to give this one a shout. Debut album from JGD on Bokeh Versions, it's freaky and weird, just don't call it outré dub. Screwed up vocals, everything swamped in reverb, sax from Ben Vince, it sounds like Twin Peaks and Blade Runner if everything was very slow and the colours were very bright but very blurry. 'Laid Down' features a haunting melody played by the kind of synth sound you'll hear in ~deconstructed club~ tracks over a stilted half-tempo jerking rattle. "Ballads for River Styx crossings and echoes that never end," the promo reads, which is appropriate! Greek mythology! Full circle. 

Bartosz Kruczyński & Poly Chain - Pulses
This is on a Greek label but the artists are from Poland and Ukraine. It's a really interesting album of modular experiments (that sounds super awful but it's good!!!) with explorations into different territories. There's one banging acid track that feels out of place, but the next track brings in a strange acid bass under a gorgeous vista of melody so it feels like the previous track was paving the way for the next.

Sage Caswell - Walter Reed HD
Forthcoming on 2MR, this is a wonky, trippy number that comes with its own headache-inducing website. Off an album due at the end of next month. The concept for the album is a world where an imagined house where the producer's doppelganger is at the door and each room is a track on the album. It calls to mind Robert Aickman's Inner Room for some reason. Creepy weird not-quite building. 

U​-​Udios 3: Doubler - Lines of Force
Woof. The latest tape on U-Udios comes from Doubler, the duo made up of Jason Letkiewicz (aka Steve Summers, Confused House et al) and Mike Petillo (of Ocobaya, Protect-U etc). It's a gloriously murky collection of jams, with some tracks being bright and boppy, others lurching like evil secondary characters in Dickens or something. 'Snow Eaters' and 'Raft' in particular deserve that description. Then 'Urban Heat Island' is a sprightly number that feels like it's ready to pounce and soar, while Ash Ritual is the perfect closer, all groaning shuffle and melancholic synth ideas. 

Shit Creek - Leaky Sun
The artist behind this release tweeted that this album is "big, bright noise, none of that dour stuff". Which is pretty apt. Glorious swirling music, drifting into your ears like sunlight sieved through clouds. 

AYBEE - Future Reference EP
House that's both utilitarian and heavenly, working as straightforward bangers and also spiritual odes to something greater than ourselves. Inspiring vocals over driving house beats, it's powerful stuff. I love 'Escaped Drum', but really the whole thing is excellent.

Burial Wreaths - More Trash (Split with Les Temps Barbares)
I got really frustrated with a lot of things as I was trying to put this mail together. This was the perfect palate cleanser. It's just a load of noise at different pitches and levels, sounds droning and broken. It helped me a lot.

Grey Frequency - Ufology
I've been dipping in and out of this one for a few weeks so it's about time I shared it here. It's a nice collection of weird sounds that seeks to explore UFO sightings in Britain over the past half-century. Naturally it sounds dusty, eerie, incomplete and subdued.