RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
I thought today was a Bandcamp Friday but it’s not. It is, however, the start of Pride month. Full support to all my queer friends. I saw a video from Bloomberg asking if LGBTQ were the right letters, and honestly I don’t even know! Full inclusivity for all! But I won’t be going to Bloomberg for the answers! As I saw in a tweet earlier, oversimplification is harmful; don’t generalise experiences. PS No Bandcloud next week. I’m going away.
Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis - May Sounds
We’re almost at the halfway point of 2021 and Laura Cannell and Kate Ellis continue to bless us with their sounds. I shared their February edition a few months back but this one is wonderful so I’m happy to feature them again. It’s a wonderful blend of ~organic~ strings (sorry) and electronic tinkering, increasing the vibes and reverb and all that.
Isolated Community - Recycled Atoms
Last year Isolated Community put out a release with the title Everyone in the Village Hates You. I haven’t listened to it yet but I love its name. This album is dark and evocative, haunting and horrifying.
My friend Tim chided me all last year for being unable to connect with “beats”, mainly due to being confined to my home and lacking any sense of urgency or … pep. This year I’m trying to really listen to more “dance” music, and one of the styles that’s speaking to me most is what you might term classic house. Or classic-minded. This release from Detroit’s Malik Alston combines “get on up” vocals, looped horn sections, organs and flutes, richly intricate percussion and a darkly wobbling bass line. And that’s just the first track, ‘Halftime’. ‘Feel the Music Dancing In My Soul’ sounds like a classic funk track transposed to the 21st Century, primed and ready for Bandcamp and Spotify. The title track, with its plaintive vocal and muted trumpet, is beautiful in its melancholy.
_DS is Dominic Smith, ambient artist, photographer and zine maker. This 10-minute ambient piece is simply divine.
The blurb for this release refers to ‘Talk Show Host’ as a Radiohead B-side, but I came to know (and love it) after its use in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. Twenty-five years later, I certainly didn’t expect to hear it when I pressed play on the new release from the LA-based harpist without even looking at the track titles. I was delighted, honestly. It’s sparse and powerful, vocals raw and straightforward. The other tracks are her renditions of folk songs as seen in The Twilight Zone and sung by Donovan. I look forward to enjoying them just as much.
f5point6 - KaleidoSound: Time, Shape & Space Vol. 2
Late last year I featured f5point6’s first KaleidoSound release for See Blue Audio. Here’s round two. Not so much more of the same as an expansion on an initial set of ideas. The track ‘It’s Perfect Here’ is just that, a slow ebb of a track with soft, undulating synth swells that drift in and out over a pulsing bed of sound. It’s dreamy and hypnotic and comforting, sounding great as I look at the sunshine outside (hey, I burn easily). ‘Logan’s Still Running’, meanwhile, matches the terror of its title, with gurgling sounds that recall robotic speech and siren-like blasts of energy.
Avon Terror Corps x Exist Festival - Resist To Exist قاوم لِوجودك
Avon Terror Corps have teamed up with the Palestinian Exist Festival for this 36-track compilation in aid of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. Titles like ‘Violent Inequal System of Assholes’, ‘The Destruction of a Legacy’ and ‘The Queen Sleeps Silent While Her Maggots Sell Arms For Israeli War Crimes’ are matched by music fizzing with searing energy.
11-04-94 Mr. Fingers Music Mix- Larry Heard- "Unique sounds for unique people"
Every day is a good day to listen to Larry Heard. This week I dug out my turntable for the first time since it got moved into storage (ie a cupboard out of the way) when lockdown and working from home began last year. The first three records I listened to were Lowtec’s release on Blundar last year, OCH’s Autoreply Twenty, which I bought at the same time as the Lowtec 12”, and Larry Heard’s 1996 album Alien (the 2014 reissue). I can’t find out the specifics behind this particular mix, and I don’t know if the dates are accurate, but thank you Black Sun 1111 for sharing it with us. It’s a sumptuous hour+ of deep house.
LT w/ Mr. E Gary & WAKAPLATE: Tech House Special - June 2021
Two hours of tech house (the good kind [I think]).
“The work is based on a process where I have translated field recordings into graphic scores, which I then interpreted into new music.” Well, that’s novel. The music here, from Denmark-based Jaleh Negari, combines crunchy recordings with drifting soundscapes, anxious speech with unnerving ambient themes and synthesised uncertainty, rolling and rattling growths and cascading shrieks. Good craic, basically.
Sh6rl6s6 (Sharlese) - World Goth Day 2020 Mix
Seattle DJ Sh6rl6s6 put together this mix to mark World Goth Day last year, which takes place on May 22. You’d think it might be in November or something but I guess it would stand out even more at this time of year. I don’t know a single artist on this list but it’s all quite engaging, covering lots of dark, angry, synth-laden songs. Post-punk, EBM, Italo, coldwave, I think these are the right words. It snarls. Incidentally, a friend tweeted about finding a name generator with a goth setting and I asked for a random goth name and I was given Garbage Bag. Fitting.
Outsiders: One Eye Witness w/ EMA @ Kiosk Radio 20.05.2021
Wicked mix from Dublin’s EMA (well technically Wicklow’s, but she’s based in Dublin now). Bassy. Wubby. Woozy.
Soramimi - The World Trembles In My Hands [OSL018]
Intense, driving techno from Soramimi here. Well, the one track that I can play at the time of writing fits that bill. It’s got a suitably portentous title too: ‘The World Trembles In My Hands’. I’ve enjoyed her brand of serious yet enlivening techno in the past so I look forward to enjoying the rest of this release upon its release (today).
VA - Music for queuing at the supermarket (SØVN Records)
Finally this week, SØVN Records celebrates its sixth birthday in brilliantly inventive fashion. Since they can’t have a party, they thought, where can we all meet? Bingo! The supermarket! So they asked all the artists whose work they had previously released to contribute a track that would soundtrack such a meeting. Think modulated wobbles over self-checkout systems, boogie by the crisps, an RPG-esque soundtrack to your journey as you get all your items into your basket or trolly, chilled ambience, the terror and anxiety of picking the wrong queue and so on. What a concept!