RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
You heard what the man said. All up in your inbox. It has been A WEEK. Never-ending sigh. St Patrick’s Day was a nice break from work, we had a nice walk with the boys and they got ice cream and I got a coffee. We walked exactly 3.16km - if we’d walked an extra 10m we’d have matched the date.
“Subsequent edits and recordings in Chicago, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Cork, Kilkenny Social Welfare Office, Neil's leaky shed in Kilkenny.” Love an ould leaky shed. There are these cheers that permeate the sound of ‘Greetings’, the opening track here, and they remind me of these books my kids have, where you press a button and someone cheers. There are other sounds, almost like someone sweeping a digital floor, voices speaking in strange and unreal tones. But that one stands out. The final track features a voice uttering the following words: Yesterday it rained; today it rains; tomorrow it will rain. Rain forever.” Couldn’t really be more Irish. (To be fair it says the same words re: sunny but that’s not as dour and celebratorily miserable.)
Big Yawn - Reflex - (Tousist's Anti Pigment Dub / Bootleg?)
Big fuzzy squabby sounds here. Plod, soar, stretch. I love the question mark in the title, as if to say “I don’t know what this is and that’s okay”.
Dj Smithee - Mad As A March Hare
A dark banger for the month that’s in it.
Beyond / Below 43. Amber Amber
Beyond / Below is a seriously excellent mix series and you should be checking every one anyway, but a special shout here for this one. Based in Bucharest, Romania, Amber Amber is a writer and DJ, they would be a promoter if there were any parties to promote right now. This mix is a soothing entry for times when they can’t listen to music at all. It’s not just capital A ambient either, there’s piano, new age, “classical”, pop pastiche and so on.
Meemo Comma - Neon Genesis: Soul Into Matter²
This is brilliantly weird. To give you a sense of what Meemo Comma’s last album sounded like, allow me to quote my son, then aged four. “Is this for dancing in the forest?” he asked me, when I played Sleepmoss in the car. That perfectly sums up how the album was imbued with a sense of dark folklore, a reflection on the tumultuous and dangerous side of nature. Whereas that album’s cover featured the artist standing in front of rocks covered in moss, the cover of Neon Genesis: Soul Into Matter² sees her adorned in futuristic garb, silver skintight space clothes. Despite that it’s very much indebted to the past, the almost ancient history of Jewish mysticism. There are spoken passages over weirdly expansive ambient passages, a sci-fi score of Jewish travellers through space. Shuffling beats evoke space chases, sounds that could be archaic instruments or could be MIDI patterns. It’s a thrilling clash of ideas and sounds that really deserves your attention.
I found this earlier in the week and I’ve already forgotten how or why. It sounds pretty epic.
Risqué III - Essence Of A Dream
This ain’t for everybody. It’s pretty filthy. By 80s standards AND by today’s. While the second track here, ‘Risqué Madness’, is decidedly not risqué, the title track is wild. It’s classic 80s house, drum machine business that’s familiar and refreshing at the same time. The bawdy lyrics lend it even more shock value, however. According to the liner notes on this Dark Entries reissue:
“The session was coming to an end and I said I wanted to put the vocals on there. They said, ‘We got no time unless you can get your vocals right in one take’. I said, ‘Let it rip’ and went into the vocal booth...they just stood there with their mouths open. The look on their faces was priceless.”
Filth! I’ll let you listen yourselves.
The latest from Seagrave is properly exciting. It’s almost like 4/4 bouncy grime? It’s also got this early-00s broken beat feel to it, ‘Wormholes’ in particular. Solid start to finish.
Audio Obscura - Adventures In The Anthropocene
This is an interesting beast. It’s a kind of companion piece/expanded edition of its predecessor Love in the time of the Anthropocene. It features a live performance of that album, remixes from Scanner (him again), Belly Full Of Stars and Rupert Lally, as well as a selection of new tracks. ‘Alternative Futures’ is a very meta track title for such a collection. The sound is part ambient, part experimental, part sweeping electronica.
Data Cartrid - What's Wrong With This Picture
I’ve no idea who this is but I’m in love with this track. It’s really nice and vibey. Maybe too nice? But I love it. I just need it right now.
This is a nice weird mixture of fuzzy sounds, emotional beats, almost early-10s Mount Kimbie / James Blake-ish stuff. I believe these are tracks that have been drip-fed over the past year or so, together in one collection at last. ‘Thoughts Grim’ speaks to my soul.
Captain Backpack & ghost.slut - Soul Sonics EP
This four-track release is so good, it’s got a different approach and brilliantly different ideas. There’s a Summer Walker remix in an indefinable style, there are spacey chords throughout, breakbeats under lush vocals, a richly percussive track with spoken word, the final track is called Cleaver and I think it features the words of Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver (if not please correct me). It’s got a gorgeous trumpet sample too. Great stuff all round.
Fresh Éire Sesh 2021: Bandcloud
Indulge me! I was asked by Liverpool-based Irish collective Fly High Society to put together a mix of Irish music for a livestream on St Patrick’s Day. Here I present half an hour of music that runs from weirdly experimental (I opened the set with a track of my own), bouncy boogie-ish sounds, gentle electronica mixed with thumping drums, hard drum, anguished techno, folk, weird not-quite pop and field recordings. It was an honoured to be asked and included, and the sets that followed me showed just a slice of the great talent we have on this island and beyond.