RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Hello and welcome. The sun is shining right now. For me. In this tiny corner of Dublin. How are you? My life’s been up and down since I walked from that crowd. Been watching It’s A Sin and bingeing on Superstore, returning to Fire Walk With Me on international Twin Peaks Day. Enough about me. Here’s some music.
Sltryp Ursuit - Fragments of Life Arrested (How Much Are You Paying..)
Kicking off this week with a strange and lumpy robotic number, I believe this is Sam Karam’s new guise Sltryp Ursuit. Not much to say other than that it lurches along angrily, stomping and squeaking along the way.
The three pieces on this release are titled 'My Breath is Not Indifferent to Itself', 'Shapes of Missing Things' and 'One Day the Sadness Will End'. Will it? WILL IT??? C. Vadi calls herself a "chiaroscuro drone pop artist" and while there's plenty of light, shadow and drone, I'm not sure I sense much pop here. But I'm willing to explore her back catalogue based on this release, with its winding not-quite melodies and searing hums.
ItTakesTime037ft. The Social Lover(BAKK, Rubber)
Tony Poland just passed the three-year mark on his Netil radio show, and he’s invited The Social Lover, who runs the BAKK label, along for a mix. It’s a strange and lovely hour, with great tracks in there throughout. The one that really tickled me was ZNR’s 1970s oddity ‘Le Grande Compositeur Vu De Face’. If nothing else, check that out.
ATT - Cuimhní Andrew Weatherall mar DJ 17.02.21
Last week Irish DJ Cian Ó Cíobháin dedicated one of his nightly shows to the late Andrew Weatherall on the first anniversary of his passing. With a bit of crowdsourcing, he asked friends on Twitter and Instagram for specific memories of tracks they'd heard the great man play. For me it was Erotic Discourse by Paul Woolford under his Bobby Peru guise. This two-hour show brings together all the aspects of Weatherall's career, from his production work with Primal Scream and Sabres of Paradise to his djing, be it playing classics like Spastik and Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass and 20Hz or early championing of bangers like Puzique's Thomas or the aforementioned Erotic Discourse, not to mention his penchant for tongue-in-cheek show closers like a 70s disco version of Benny Goodman's 'Sing, Sing, Sing'. Gone but not forgotten.
Angel Bat Dawid - Transition East
Speaking of radio, Call Super appeared on Bake’s Rinse FM show this week and among other great music played the super first track on this release. I honestly thought it might be him and his dad, but for the bass clarinet, but it’s actually Chicago clarinetist and artist Angel Bat Dawid. This release features two very different tracks, both excellent in their own way but ‘Transition East’, which Super played, is the standout for me.
Nun Gun is an audiovisual trio made up of visual artist Brad Feuerhelm and musicians Lee Tesche and Ryan Mahan from the band Algiers. Mondo Decay consists of a 144-page book of photography and a 12-track cassette tape. The album is inspired by and focused on horror and giallo films of the 60s and 70s, and that comes across with their dark, strident sounds, ominous whispered vocals and ultra woozy wavering tape effects. It’s crunchy and oppressive and downright horrifying. There’s a super track called ‘Excusable Homicide’ that features a maudlin sax solo over dank drums and rainfall and submerged synth squelches. Serious nightmare detective stuff.
A wholly different kind of squelch, the first release on Triangle & The Snitches features a sound “rooted in the early 00s rough edged club music”. It makes me think of stuff from the likes of Bushwacka!, you know, tech house but good. Label boss Excpt takes the original squelch and layers it over breaks and deep expanses. A great intro to the label.
The people behind Rye Wax, who recently invited me to takeover their Balamii show, have kicked off a new mix series. First up to the plate is Niamh. One of the tags for the mix is “chaos” and that seems fitting. In an accompanying interview, Niamh says she was practising in a studio in Dublin last year and ended up playing standard techno felt empty and she ended up messing about with tunes that were “almost too fast / too crusty and quite ridiculous overall”. That led to this mix, which is raucous and hilarious, not in any comedic way, just one of those sets that has you laughing at the audacity and fun of it all. Fists in the air, yelps of delight and recognition. Honestly I only recognise one track (I’ll save the surprise) but the overall vibe is “yessss” and “woooo” and “urghhhhhh”.
I started reading the Pauline Oliveros book on Deep Listening this week and searched the phrase on Twitter. I noticed a mutual use the phrase in relation to this recent release from Atlantic Rhythms. Across nearly 80 minutes, over three tracks, Dura whose bio on Discogs reads "Taking naps to make music to take naps to", combines longform drones, gentle melodies, hissing feedback and muted field recordings to fascinating effect.
This one has distinctly BoC vibes from the off, yet manages to incorporate strange and unexpected sounds so it’s far more than just a ripoff. Who’s to say the artist even likes BoC, it’s just a vibe I get. I’m always wary of ascribing influences like this sometimes things just happen. I had to stop listening to this halfway through the eight-minute ‘Grain’ because it was making me feel quite sad. It’s brilliant, but I was not in the right headspace. I look forward to returning at another time, I just can’t deal with this particular brand of sorrowful and uncomfortable electronica at this present moment.
On a completely different tip is the bright, colourful and energetic Lucy Lui, a name-your-price loosie from Tomu DJ and Zaida. Glorious!
Brandstifter & Diurnal Burdens - Miraculous Seepage
I was tickled by this release’s title at first, not to mention the opening track, which is called ‘The Crazy Sandman's COVID Coughdrops Swallowed by a Flock of Seagulls’. I’m almost at a loss to describe the music. Furious looping, collage, crunchy samples, swirling noises that could be a slowed-down sample or just the sound of the kitchen ruined by effects. I saw a great tweet this week from Cologne label Strategic Tape Reserve:
StrategicTapeReserve @Strategictaper
Some people fear that the rise of field recording will render nature completely obsolete. Why go out to hear the ocean if one can do so from a sofa? The entire concept of what we understand now as “a babbling brook” could be solely regarded as “an ambient intro” within 15 years.
February 25th 2021
7 Retweets26 Likes
I feel like this album is the kind of thing that could render “the outside” redundant.
VA - DTH for Brave Space Alliance (Don't Trust Humans)
Don’t Trust Humans. Solid advice! No please don’t delete this mail. DTH have gathered 11 tracks for this compilation that’s raising money for Brave Space Alliance, a “Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ Center” on the South Side of Chicago, “designed to create and provide affirming and culturally competent services for the entire LGBTQ+ community of Chicago”. Only two tracks available to play as I write but it should be out now. The track from Grey People is squelchy and piercing on different ends of the spectrum, and I’m imagining it going OFF in a club. Sigh, clubs.
Chevel - Bromine (Yamaneko's Irusu Mix)
Chevel has just dropped a single on Houndstooth, featuring remixes from Nathan Micay and Yamaneko. Yamaneko’s take is a lush and airy nine-minute reflection, swooping and soaring through misty, foggy space. Utterly gorgeous.
There’s a surprising amount of club music this week, perhaps I’ve been energised by listening to lots of blog house but either way, I’m feeling the beats in a way I haven’t lately. This release features three tough tracks, varyingly described as the producer’s take on the classic Chicago club sound, an homage to 90s rave and an obligatory deeper cut. The title track features wonky synth lines and robotic zones, industrial sonics coming from the factory floor of the future. ‘mw raver’ to me feels like a deeper cut, with the tension between the track’s twinkling synth melodies and its bass line left unresolved throughout. ‘polyternity’, a word seemingly invented by ike release, thuds and groans with strange and non-repeated percussion patterns, all the while yearning for release. A bit like all of us out here! Okay now you can go.