RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Bandcamp Fridays are back baby, at least until July. Bandcamp waives their usual revenue share of 15% (10% for digital). Of course PayPal still takes their cut, and PayPal in itself comes with a raft of problems, say for artists living and working in Iran, for example. All that said. Here is some music.
A lovely gem of a track, this one is something you can easily play on repeat. That’s not even something I do, but I really like this track.
To quote Danny Dyer, it still freaks my nut to this day that ELLLL went from making crunchy, indecipherable noise to making crisp, clean techno bangers. I guess the talent shines through whatever she makes, but the trajectory seems kinda wild. I should clarify, I’m here for it either way. This one is a return to BC friends First Second Label (full disclosure: I was part of the First Second night in its infancy and wrote up press releases for the label’s first releases). ‘Housebreaker’ is a startling track. Chasms of sound open and shut with drum breaks falling like droplets from icicles. Loops spin and repeat like broken fairground rides, then stacking on top of one another and spreading out in different directions at the same time. The Alantis dub builds slowly, descending melodies careening around while muted drum rolls give a sense of movement. Finally, Parris is on hand to take these elements and fold them in on themselves, filling the air with confusion and uncertainty.
Sure it’s Bandcamp Friday but we love a good mix. This is the first show from LORA on Kindred. It’s a lovely selection, ranging from Minnie Riperton to KiNK and Yak and Octo Octa and a wonderful jam from Earl Jeffers.
Another beautiful addition to the Silent Season catalogue, this one sees Owl return to the label following 2017’s Blackstone 12”. As one might expect, it’s deep, expansive and atmospheric. Part ambient, part dub, part technicolour dance in a snowy landscape, it is a trip. Staring into the infinite horizon of the title, glued to the ground by fear and wonder. Birdsong looms large (this is a bird-friendly zone).
KYREKYREKYRE - I DON'T HAVE ANY KIDS, BUT IF I DID...
This is a gorgeous and beautiful electronic track that collapses after three minutes as a tape starts to play. That lasts but a moment before the original instrumental returns, albeit in a more sparse and spontaneous manner, along with a field recording of "passengers of the big blue bus line 3".
Jugaar • جگاڑ (noun) - A flexible approach to problem-solving using limited resources in an innovative way.
This is some wonderful acid electro from Pakistan. Jugaar Records is run by Rudoh and Sameer (Soundistan) and the co-owner really sets out their stall with this one. Just straight up bangers. ‘I Feel U’ is perhaps more sedate and emotive than the rest, but on the whole it’s relentless and direct.
cosmo is my friend Cormac from DDR. These two tracks are some gnarly and twisted slabs of crunchy drone and noise. It’s janky and uncomfortable but refreshing in its raw energy. Take it in and feel like that refreshed meme guy.
The People's Avant-Garde w/ Séverine Feb '21
You may know Séverine from her uncanny blend of Barker and Ariana Grande last year. Here she goes down a less aesthetically pleasing but no less fascinating route. What appears to be slowed-down gabber and hard techno comes up against samples from films and rap vocals, rave sirens come up against eastern instruments. Whispered screams meet chipmunked adlibs. The SoundCloud description says that in the mix Séverine “takes a dizzying hellride thru the outer edges of the club universe”. Hellride is right.
HÉLVIOFOX X ALBERFOX - LOST IN SPACE
A haunting and dizzying track, where rattling drums and ghostly synths collide.
War Vs. Sleep - It Came From The Wine Cellar EP
Beaner - A Happy Birthday
Beaner - Baby's 25 First Steps (Demos 2006-2010)
It’s hard to know where to begin with La Mission. The label, which seems to be the project of one man, Beaner, puts out a frightening amount of music. There’s a very palpable sense of humour here, from the release and track titles to some of the artwork, but once you dig in you can see it’s backed up by serious musical chops. The It Came From The Wine Cellar EP features videogame artwork and bizarre titles but the music is heads-down sounds, somewhere between minimal and tech house? A Happy Birthday features similarly vibed music but originally recorded at a certain point in the artist’s life. The backstory is tearful. The music is hypnotic. The tracks are mastered using different approaches, one of the being SoundCloud’s own system, making for a variety of sounds using the same material. Baby’s 25 First Steps features a selection of demos from when the artist was resident at the Bar25 club in Berlin. A similar stomp appears here, with vague jazz samples stretched to fit the beat while things float and shake. These three offer a taste of what’s on offer, feel free to explore.
Cacero Lazo - love in the time of lowercase
Don’t you love that title? Better than “in the time of corona”. I wrote about CL in 2019, explaining that a cacerolazo is a protest involving the banging of household pots and pans. The music here is remote from that idea, an ambient excursion through “the ecstasy, uncertainty, and dread of the years just preceding adulthood”. At times it features muted techno beats, (‘Wrapt, Bee’), at others muted, repeated sounds (‘Chinga Deyra’). ‘Preverberate’ sounds like a moment of epiphany or catharsis, ‘Goodbye’ a study in disillusionment.
Ali Berger - 3 Natural Aspects
Imagine three jazzy house bangers made in a graveyard. Scattered, untethered percussion and restrained yet focused keyboard solos, these tracks are a study in the capabilities of the Boss DR-5 drum machine and of course, the artist’s own abilities.
Helena Celle's Imaginal Designs - Copy Music
I signed up to Helena Celle’s Patreon last year, and the monthly drones are worth the entry fee alone. You also receive Bandcamp codes for her releases, such as this recent one. Quite unlike those drones, this is a collective of short numbers that could be the sounds of a TV quiz show closing credits. Apparently inspired by The Residents, the artist said that the titles are meaningless (but amusing) and “I think it’s a dance album”. It is what it is! Thirty-three tracks in an hour (or thereabouts). Her work is always interesting be it two minutes or 90.
Underscore - on the finality of picking sides
I like to think this title refers to tapes, not the binary nature of many of today’s arguments/issues etc. The A side here opens with some soft, unobtrusive hum. The track builds, with the sounds of tapes stopping and starting and music coming in and leaving as the buttons are pressed. I’d love to stop there but I should really balance it out with some words about the B side. Gurgling swamp sounds meet childlike repeated melodies, snarling synth sounds evolving into reverbed swooping piano. Dusty whistles precede digital birdsong, everything devolving into blissful cheer.
Title gives it away but these are some raw drum bangers, in tribute to the musical heritage that shaped the artist. A gombey is a Bermudan tradition, a group of drummers and dancers that goes back hundreds of years. Not always seen as a respectable tradition by the powers that be, you can read about them here. Obeka mines his culture, blending these sounds with international 4/4 club rhythms. Rastronaut blends these sounds with those of his own city, Lisbon, on a remix of the title track.
Following singles on labels like Technicolour, Arcane and PPU, as well as a tape mix for the now defunct Wichelroede crew, the fascinating and talented Yu Su drops her debut album. It’s a joint effort from her own label bié and Music From Memory, on whose Second Circle she released a single in 2019. The album ranges from the propulsive opener ‘Xiu’, which I think uses Chinese stringed instruments as well as her own vocals, seeming like a kind of modern-day post-punk number, to the beautifully melodious ‘Touch-Me-Not’, the biggest disconnect between track and title since Kara-Lis Coverdale’s fluttering ‘Touch Me and Die’. ‘Gleam’ is a chonky stomp, while ‘Melaleuca’, which shares its name with a wellness company, features stock drum samples, lazy synth washes and delicate melodies, feeling like the soundtrack to an inspirational video sent down from corporate.
Yesterday I tweeted about Jenn Green’s Bandcamp library. I found a bunch of great stuff browsing through her purchases, and this is just one of them. dj.Blackoly is a Tokyo-based producer and this album is hugely varied yet uniformly accomplished. It’s all thick and stompy techno, but it’s at turns bright and wide-eyed, at others hypnotic, evoking images of smoky, laser-filled rooms. Oh the memories. The title track drives forward with intensity, while ‘Leo’ darts ahead with purpose and ferocity.
Brilliantly squidgy and wonky techno from Blamhaus. Both tracks are only three-ish minutes long, eschewing lengthy intros and outros, showing brilliant ideas in a short time frame rather than outstaying their welcome. More like that please. Back in the day I used to hate radio edits but this approach makes quite a bit of sense I think.
1000PA are “two insectologists based out of Tehran”. Without knowing that you’d almost guess as much from the fizzing, buzzing sounds created and displayed on this release. The music, or rather sounds, hiss and gurgle, bubbling up with the very best.
Ilha Malebranche is a fictional island, devised by its creator. A sonic landscape, one can hear strange voices and rumbling tectonic plates, rattling fruit hanging from trees and eerie whispers from caves. Strange melodies play like the non-diegetic score accompanying the protagonists of this world, MIDI choirs meeting the natural song of the island’s wildlife.
Mor Air - Double You In Powder Blue
‘British Tradition of Numb’, is that something to do with the stiff upper lip? Carry on? The track features an unwavering note surrounded by hiss and outer melodies, recordings, swirls. The artist describes the release as “a small gathering of ideas and styling exercises”. Perhaps I seek too much meaning in titles. When I make music myself the titles are generally related to samples or the time I made them, so I shouldn’t pay too much attention to that of others unless advised expressly to do so.