Bandcloud 306

I got all confused and thought today was Bandcamp Friday, but of course, it is still July. I have an interview to share with you. It's with Lila Tirando A Violeta and Manuela Vilanova, two artists who collaborated from opposite ends of the earth. They've just released a tape entitled Sound Mirrors, which was initially due to be an installation that would take place in Antwerp, Belgium, but was sadly cancelled due to the dreaded virus. A shortened version of the 12 hours of music was just put out by Belgium's Dreamshore Tapes, and the artists answered some questions of mine to tie in with that. 

How have you spent the pandemic?
Lila: A week before quarantine my tour got cancelled & in Uruguay we had quite a flexible lockdown, almost no restrictions. So I spent most of the pandemic at home with my cat, recording as much as I could, reconnecting with ambient music, because I’ve been pretty anxious lately & producing that genre is very relaxing. Basically Sound Mirrors was the project I focalised more doing this last couple months. As well as several singles, preparing for my NAAFI album drop, & later on Manuela invited me to co-produce a score for a theatric play, which a friend wrote & played alongside 5 actors.

How did you first come to collaborate with Manuela Vilanova?
Lila: I’ll let Manuela answer to that since it was her who approached me :) 

Manuela: I love working with collaborations, for many shows during my fashion days & specially for performances, I’ve invited musicians to produce original music, as I began to explore my own sounds too. I was shocked by Lila’s work when I discovered Sentient. 

We met online sharing our work in process. During my last visit to Montevideo I searched for artists to take part on an exhibition I was curating at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Shared the concept with Lila and we began collaborating. We have a great creative flow and I trust her input on my visual work. Sound Mirrors is a kind of synesthetic process in which feelings have smell, sound, colours and shapes, like the sound of a flower cracking as the spring pass by.

Were you due to travel to Antwerp?
Lila:  I was supposed to tour Europe, and would’ve been lovely to witness the exhibition. But sadly it was impossible due to the global situation. Although we have also produced a soundtrack together for a theatre play that hasn’t premiered yet, so I hope I can go to Antwerp & collaborate in person soon. This second collaboration it was for both of us the first time doing dramaturgy with soundscapes, Manuela has experience with theatre but I am more of a loner when it comes to producing, it was actually pretty fun. Way darker (droner) than Sound Mirrors. 

How did you approach cutting the music down from 12 hours to 30 minutes?
Manuela: I had a clear idea on transitional loops, a sort of mantric experience that would shift from a meditative to a more radical experience. Last time I went to the Atlantic Ocean I did many field recordings for the installation. Lila took a lot of that material & shared with me lots of her own samples so we created a narrative combining both. The sense of time was also really important to me, one moment never identically repeats once it’s past. The show was meant to be 12hours, so we produced quite a long track & then looped it with samples being triggered from time to time. Cutting it down was a bit difficult but we had to stick to tape lengths!

What does the phrase "Sound mirrors" mean to you?
Lila: I’m a huge fan of weird or obsolete architecture, and found out about this WWI massive concrete radars across UK shores. Named Sound Mirrors. That concept struck with me. 

Manuela: Since Lila brought it up when we were building the installation, it also shock me up. Mirrors reflect landscapes, reflect a space but also in making sound. Mirrors are objects that are familiar to my work, they manipulate image and the perception of time and space. This concept is broather, there it lays our intention, to give the possibility of experiencing a journey to another dimension than the reality we live in.

Generally speaking, how do you approach online collaboration? I know you've worked with my fellow countryman Lighght before, for example.
Lila: Honestly, I spend so much time alone (no kidding) collaborating online in music seems like the easiest way of socializing for me. Regardless of many times not even knowing the collaborators face (still don’t know how many people I frequently collab with look or sound like) but that seems completely irrelevant, as sensing the music as a form of interaction means a lot to me. Every collaboration is different, Sound Mirrors meant a lot personally because it felt so intimate & cozy yet online, while being recorded on a moment that 99% of the world was sensing the same isolation I have felt for years due to my lifestyle & condition. 

You've got some tracks coming out on a release from NAAFI. How did that come about?
Lila: My NAAFI solo album is out the 21st of August ! On which I worked for almost two years. So yeah, couldn’t be more excited about that. And hopefully Sound Mirrors will continue as a form of online ambient duet until lockdown is over and we can play it live with all of our hardware synths :) 

Christina Vantzou - Multi Natural
I can't explain my reaction to Christina Vantzou's music. It's just something physical, that really feels lodged in my chest. I just kind of stop and sit in awesome wonder.

Lighght - Sorry I Can't Go Out Tonight, I'm Too Busy Going In
Lighght (mentioned above!) is an absolute gas character of a human being. He's very funny on Twitter and absolutely takes the piss all day long. His latest release features a track entitled 'i spent €4000 to install a subwoofer in my headstone so you better dance on my fucking grave'. His music itself, however, is no joke. This four-tracker is laced with absolute bangers, hefty beats, clever samples and gorgeous melodies. 'bad dads and autocads' features what may be a traditional Irish ditty but may just be something from his own big brain. When he goes in, he goes in.

CAROLINE MCKENZIE / COLDSORE [splittape]
A split tape from Glasgow artist Caroline McKenzie and Helsinki-based Coldsore aka GRMMSK. McKenzie's side, made up of three tracks entitled 'the temperature of the stars' in three parts, is clanky and unsettling and ominous. Strange reverberations abound. Subtle distortion is played like a piano with the soft pedal down. Coldsore's side, a single piece called 'wench with scythe', which matches the tape's cover, leans towards yawning chords and sonorous drones, crunchy sounds like fog enveloping all. 

Bulbils - 47. Ambient music of Northumberland and the Scottish Borders
I've seen the name Richard Dawson mentioned many times online, but since he doesn't seem to make the kind of music I generally listen to I've never actually given him any time. I came across this release when someone I follow purchased it on Bandcamp, and sure enough it's Dawson and Sally Pilkington, and as you can see by the number, the pair of them have released upwards of 50 albums over the past few months. The music is free to download with listeners encouraged to donate to charities including Black Lives Matter and the Women's Aid and the Royal National Institute of Blind People in the UK. It's pretty gentle stuff, as befits the times and all that. It's got simple track titles like 'The Milky Way above a bothy' and 'Thoughts of waves on wind' and the more wordy 'A hedgehog drinks dew from her own coat at rose-fingered break of day'.

Scott Grooves - Dark Blu ep 12'& (for those without tables)
Four sublime groovers (sorry but it fits) from Detroit's Scott Grooves. Beautiful colours pervade these tracks, from lush chords to strangely sad melodies. Techy, housey, minimal(ish), it's a range of moods, each with distinct flavours and ideas.

VA - Phase Contrast (Intercourse)
This is the first release on a new label based in Copenhagen. It features eight artists from the area, and I believe I've only come across one of them before. It explores a range of muted tones, from ambient to sleepy housey vibes, deep house that might in the Scandinavian midnight sun (okay so sunset is around 9pm at this time of year but you get my meaning).

Marcioz - DE​/​COLONIAL WRITING$
Three tracks that meld a host of influences, from Brazilian samba, flamenco, as well as trap and industrial sounds. It's quite unlike anything I've heard before and feel it's best to just lay it at your feet to enjoy, something like this image. 

A Space for Sound - Sound Bath Mixtape Vol​.​1
"Sonic structures for communal healing." This is the first release from A Space for Sound, the sound exploration project from Nigerian-Canadian-American interdisciplinary artist/performer/healer Rena Anakwe. She's been doing Instagram sound baths and this is release comes from those recordings. It's beautiful stuff, the gorgeous tones of her performance carrying into the digital realm. There's also a bonus track from Moka Only, which he created while he was tuning in to one of the IG streams. The release includes a free PDF of The End Of Policing by Alex S Vitale! If you didn't catch that one already. PS go read those anti-racist activist books you've been buying!!! 

☾SLPVR001—·—Dee Diggs
Finally this week, here's a joyous and exuberant mix from Dee Diggs. It's just a bunch of fun. Soulful anthems, an unexpected but no less exciting Bob Marley cover, some India Jordan, slower than usual but similarly perfect in this moment, that classic Sade remix (if you know it you know which one I mean), I must repeat, it's a bundle of fun.