RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Hello! Ready for some music? Let’s dive in.
This is a new one on the Huntleys + Palmers sublabel Belters. That’s surprising to me because while these are definitely dance floor tracks, I’m not sure I’d class them under the raucous umbrella of “belters”. They’re far too nice for that. And I don’t mean nice in that underhanded way, I really like them! They’re not rough, or heavy or hectic, they float at their own pace. Airy synths, thick bouncing bass, beautiful keys, delicate claps.
Scanner - Colofon + Compendium
I’ve been listening to the audiobook of the Beastie Boys Story and that’s led me on a bunch of musical tangents lately, not least revisiting the Mo’Wax Headz compilations, the second of which included an instrumental of BB’s ‘Bodhisattva Vow’. In the process of all this searching and googling, I learned that Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner, recorded a series of interludes that were due to be used on *A* Headz comp (it’s unclear if it was for one of the ones that was released or a third series that never came to pass). That never happened, and in 2012 he put these together with some other tracks from his archive on a release entitled Colofon + Compendium. A colophon is a piece of text that often appears at the end of a book giving information about the book’s authorship and other such publishing details. That seems to be a rather meta title for a body of work in itself. I’ve written a lot without actually mentioning the music yet!!! It’s a rather weird selection of strange muted noises, delicate melodies and smudged artefacts, all topped off with phone calls about weird subjects like dogs the size of Shetland ponies and whatnot.
“Ki Oni is the pseudonym of ambient artist Chuck Soo-Hoo named after a creature in a Japanese monster movie – a tree with a human face that spews flower petals from its mouth.” This is a beautifully weird creature to invoke, and the music matches it perfectly. Soft, gently, glistening ambient that almost feels like a locked groove.
Aaron Paar - Warriors Of The Mountain (Teflon Dons Mix Tape 1998)
This is a mix from 1998 (I think) from Teflon Dons, a duo of Aaron Paar and Dave Fogg. They released a bunch of 12s in the 90s, including a collaboration with Gregory Porter, who’s since gone on to have quite a successful career (I first saw him on Graham Norton’s couch, if that’s any indication). The mix is an 88-minute b2b trip through the pair’s record collections. Deep, dubby house, inflections of garage, soulful house and lots of danceable moments.
Una Hamilton Helle - Becoming the Forest: A sound installation celebrating the oncoming winter
This is not exactly seasonal but yolo. Who knows if we’ll see next winter. I was going through some older stuff in my Bandcamp wishlist and jumped from one thing to another, in this case ending up with a strange collection of history, stories, poetry, spoken word, reflections on language and odd sound experiments,
Shady Glyphs - Meditations On Caligari's Shadow
Another find from the wishlist archives, this has a wonderful title. Apparently it was recorded on the summer solstice in 1997, at a time when I was finishing up in primary school. I think I’d just been on a trip to Northern Ireland with my class, visiting the Giant’s Causeway and the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, where they have an actual DeLorean on show. Across the Irish Sea, and across the north of England, some musicians got together in a disused hospital, wandering about and recording a “free form freak out rite”. I can’t be sure but there are recorders, flutes, guitars, maybe some synths, definitely some kind of feedback through machinery and plenty of vocals, breathy and guttural. It’s fascinating.
Moving Still Feat. Minos - Moroccan Mint Tea [Jive Hive]
Moving Still has just dropped a 12” on Jive Hive, and this is one of the tracks, a collaboration with fellow Irish producer Minos. It’s a moody, broken chugger of a track, a zippy synth line buzzing about over incredibly deep bass sounds. If you read the blurb on the above SoundCloud page, sadly absent from Bandcamp, you get a sense of the artist’s intentions.
Drawing its name from a form of welcome typical in the Arabian peninsula, the record presents itself as a musical invitation (Tafadal) into the Madjliss – the central hosting room of an Arabian household. In isolation, Moving Still looks forward to inviting people to come to the dance floor once again, inspiring prospective guests with the warmth of the Arabic hosting tradition.
There are tracks named after various foods and drinks, from ‘Batata Charmer’ named after sweet potatoes, the mint tea of this track and ‘Shatta’ named for a regional hot sauce. Closer ‘Khalas Habibi’, which translates as “beloved salvation” is warm and bouncy, joyful and celebratory. Let’s dance soon.
This is a piece commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, originally envisioned as an installation but sadly that did not come to pass. It’s a recording of a tree. Georgia Rodgers looked at this ash tree in the communal garden at the back of her flat for the past year, recording it and its surroundings, the variety of birds and animals that come nearby. She layered together a year’s worth of locked-down sounds, adding in the sounds of her cello and violin. It’s wonderful, deserving of deep attention and focus. The mixture of birds, rain, nature, electronics and more create a rich banquet of sounds, and it’s a tantalising thought trying to imagine what the installation would have been like. Yet another COVID casualty eh.
Kitsuné Musique Women’s Day Mix in partnership with shesaid.so | Banga
Given all my blog house ramblings lately I still found it surprising to see Kitsuné pop up in my SoundCloud feed. They did so because they had a full 24 hours of mixes from 12 artists to mark International Women’s Day. This mix in particular comes from Banga, born in Gabon and based in Paris. Two hours of music from Afro-leaning music, from Angola and South Africa, Portugal and the US.
Colin Muir Dorward - fostexDubs ONE
Whenever I see the name Yukon I think of the Calvin & Hobbes book I was given as a child. In one particular story, Calvin (6) decides to leave home and travel to the Yukon. It’s never stated where Calvin lives but the Yukon is a good 2,000km+ from Seattle, so if we imagine that Calvin lives in the Midwest, that’s… pretty far away. Anyway. Colin Muir Dorward is based in that region and says he improvised the recordings on this release by the fire during this winter just past. Dark bubbly synth wobbles and squibbles, it’s a far from traditional fireside music but hey, it’s 2021 right?
Rimarkable- Do Not Speak At The Same Time As The Operator
An airy and spacey techno jam, wild yelps of sound lending disquiet to what is already a very tense atmosphere. Not sure if this is part of a release or just a SoundCloud drop, but it’s ace.
dj_2button - Cellular Disconnections Volume 1.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, this release was mastered by Larry McCarthy. I believe that is the artist also known as Bruce but I haven’t been able to confirm that just yet. Anyway. Impressively, the tracks on this release were recorded on a mobile phone app. Hence the title, I suppose.
dj_2button developed these songs using a self proclaimed looping technique called 'Situational Mind Tracking'. Live streams of consciousness. Observing the environment around you, like putting pen to paper...using every note, FX and knob like a paintbrush. Usually not being able to, or allowed to return and edit the track.
There is a freedom and looseness about it all, but also a kind of restriction; sometimes tracks are a bit too long, lingering beyond their point of resolution. Sometimes they float along beautifully. There’s always a point where you stop and think “is this good? Am I appreciating it because of its novelty? Am I giving it too much leeway? Should I be more critical?” But this has enough genuinely objective positives that I can step outside of these thoughts and simply enjoy the music. There’s a jagged bounce to ‘Save It For Later’ that’s truly fun, while ‘If People Were Ants’ creates visions of automatons, workers milling about brainlessly. Remember that video for Röyksopp’s ‘Remind Me’? Something like that.
Sone Institute - Memory and the Sea
I listened to this a few times the other day, no mean feat for a 10-minute track. It’s fascinating and haunting, organ sounds calling to mind Carnival of Souls. Water lapping, bells clanging, synths murmuring. “Where music of the spheres reigns freely in a world turned upside down.” Oh yes.
Finally this week, some self-promotion
bandcloud if bandcloud were a thing in the mid-to-late noughties
blog house mix 2 because why not
I made two blog house mixes recently, kind of on request, kind of for the laugh, mainly for fun. All the usual suspects appear, from Justice and Boys Noize to Switch and Van She, DJ Mehdi (RIP) and Crookers, Hervé and Simian Mobile Disco. Remixes of Feist, Princess Superstar, originals by Annie and Kid Sister and Yelle, three hours of my favourite tunes from 2005~ to 2008 or so. Someone suggested I write up the tracks as if I was writing about them in Bandcloud, which I may do. If I have the time.
Also, if you’re not already aware, I’ve been working on a podcast called Orange Hexagon Son for the past six months (seems appropriate to mention it now doesn’t it). The latest edition is here. The premise is that I find free tracks on SoundCloud or Bandcamp (or indeed pay for them), outside the remit PR and promo. Maybe a friend has shared it but it’s not from some third party. I hope you like it.