RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
It’s a big number eh. For this edition I invited anyone who wanted to write a few words about something they were into. There’s a wide range here, from brand new techno ideas to finger-picked guitar, summer wafters and early trance and acid pop. Thanks to everyone for their time and effort, I hope you enjoy these sounds as much as I have!
aheloy! - load (no longer online)
“I woke up at 5am this past Sunday, dizzy from a pandemic-proof party the day before. As I tried to find sleep again, I instead found this song somewhere in the SoundCloud abyss. Closed my eyes and imagined many happy returns, to dance floors, dreams and distant futures, all of which aheloy! has captured in this 5-minute wafter.”
I’m Kaitlyn Davies! A Canadian in Berlin, via London and NY, where I co-run the interdisciplinary collective CO:QUO and host a breakfast show on Cashmere Radio. my desk job finds me at SoundCloud, where I try to make sense of the aforementioned abyss.
undantem is the project of Irish producer Ronan Considine. Originally from Limerick, Ireland and now living in Sofia, Bulgaria. Undantem explores the integration of electronic sounds and field recordings, and is currently working on his debut album. Rock Shelter is a term used in archaeology to describe some prehistoric settlements, and the track is influenced by notions of refuge and escape.
Ronan Considine
ROMsets is an ambiguous figure within the sampled arcade game scene. LAGG is like a slice of Tiramisu full of layers, flavour and kicks of beautiful fragranced beats and glitches. For the lovers of Actress, Tiramisu and processed arcade samples in Ableton 9.
I’m Machine Woman who released this beautiful track on my own label Take Away Jazz Records
VA - Schwitzen in der Kernzone 100 (Vienna Underground Traxx)
»This is exactly what you want to hear during those »Hundstage« (dog days) while getting trapped in an overcrowded U-Bahn with hundreds of people sweating buckets. Pretty much reminds me of the good ol’ clubbing nights — stomping feets, grinding jaws, everyone dancing for themselves but all in a bulk, totally in tune with everyone else until the light goes on. As always, Vienna Underground Traxx is dead on time with a round-up on the Techno scene of the Austrian capital. Melodies blur, the 909s march like hippos on speed, eight tracks guide you through the night. This is Vienna at its best. This is what you’ll get when clubs open up again.«
My name is Christoph and I’m from Vienna. I work as a freelance journalist for magazines like Groove, HHV and mica, at a radio station with a program on experimental music from Austria — but also doing my Masters at the department of contemporary history. I love reading your newsletter and skipping through the tracks. Always on point, always great! :)
William Tyler & Luke Schneider - Understand
William Tyler is one of my all time favourite artists so I’m hyped by anything new that he’s involved with. Over the past 12-18 months I feel like his work has shifted slightly, perhaps through the many collaborations he’s been a part of over that time. The First Cow film score was phenomenal and an obvious shift from his previous solo projects, Director Kelly Reichardt told Tyler before they started the project that his music was too whimsical, and it feels like everything he’s made since has more shades of grey. He’s got a great sounding collab with Marissa Anderson on Thrill Jockey coming soon, and now here with the excellent Luke Schneider (whose work I did not know until I heard this project), Tyler drops an incredibly balmy, melancholy filled four track EP for the eternal deliverers of goodness, Leaving Records.
I confess to being an absolute sucker for pedal steel guitar, and Schneider’s work fits so well with Tyler’s ‘picking’ there was no way I wouldn’t love this. If ever there was music to sit in the sunshine and let it wash over you, this is it for me.
Best Track: No Trouble
Jack Hardwicke of Métron Records.
Various Artists – Planet Love Vol. 1 – Early Transmissions 1991-95 (Safe Trip Records)
This latest compilation from Young Marco’s Safe Trip is an absolute treasure trove of early trance (and beyond) gold. The vibes range from slinky, mysterious pensiveness (Hawke, Glam) to rolling down a hill after the most joyous night out (Extasia, Human Beings) to shimmering heads down business (Holy Ghost). The feel of these tunes is pleasingly dynamic and vast-ranging, holding a finger aloft to those who have a tendency to box and malign genres into a corner. But crucially, they all come back to the same blissful centre. Equally as enjoyable in both rain and shine.
My name is Jack Mckeever, a freelance copywriter, sometime music blogger and general dreamscape enthusiast from Bristol and long-time fan of Bandcloud.
Musique Chienne - Salle d’une Fête
Musique Chienne: dog-on-the-furniture acid pop from Marseille. Percussions of every flavour you can lick are flicked at you pretty relentlessly; stick, fizz, ricochet. The ricey crisp of bass guitar from the post-punk disco. A detached voice in the downcast synth-pop register, anchoring the wriggling acidics with mundane moods: I think I need a shower, I learned to look at the Earth. It’s lots of wide-eyed fun and there are lots of bright colours and trippy things happening but it also somehow feels calm, pragmatic - in a good way. The plastic looks cheap, but it’s durable!
My name is Matt F, I live in Oxford, I am eating a biscuit and I edit CHEWn zine
Garrett Gleason & Ethan Snyder - House Up There
L.A. ‘collective label’ TAR began as a footwork outpost, though its back catalog has moved beyond that genre and is stuffed with underground gems. This recent EP from D.C. guitarist Garrett Gleason and Brooklyn drummer Ethan Snyder (Moon Hooch) is miles away from dance music, though it shares some liberatory impulses found in fast body movement. ‘Free rock’ springs to mind as I hear these ecstatic songs, like if Black Midi were still a bedroom act recording rehearsal jams. Some light digging suggests the two attended Berklee together—here’s hoping this is but the beginning of a very fruitful team up.
Ryan works as a survey programmer for a research nonprofit in Chicago. Willing to give most everything a couple tries, he writes Crow’s Nest to document recent media consumption highlights, primarily post-punk and experimental dance music, broadly defined. He also spends a bit too much time on Twitter @embirdened.
100% of the proceeds of the Entrainment EP go towards music/art programs in under-privileged areas, mainly in areas of Chicago, my home city.
The original mix is all percussion. I wanted it to be all about the type of rhythm progression you hear in drum circles. The remixes each vary in styles. In fact, all four tracks could be used in the same DJ set and nobody would notice that it’s the same song.
This is a global effort with Owen Ni from Huntsville, AL (US); Distortion Inc from Chicago (US); Mark Ryal from Barcelona (ES) and rhythmrobot from Chicago.
Ryan Gilhooley
A couple of weeks ago I was attending the excellent “Women In The Machine” exhibition in my hometown of Carlow for its yearly arts festival. Brilliant Dublin DJ Kate Butler featured in a performative video in which ‘Phoenix’ from Americhord’s 2004 Enter EP was the track playing. I was instantly taken back to hearing and buying this record as a teenager. I was obsessed then (and now) with the “D1” sound and its gateway to pioneering Irish electronic artists like Donnacha Costello, Rob Rowland, Decal and many more including Americhord.
Americhord (Maura O’Boyle) is quite simply one of the most talented producers ever to come out of this country. This entire record is sonically perfect, musically rich and brings you away to a different place during each listen. A perfect take on the “Dublin/Detroit” sound. Try not to rush during the build and sumptuous drop of the pad/string during ‘Sunray’. Divine music.
Tr One
VA - Profondo Nero (compiled by Cinema Royale)
I’m living out the summer I never had through Profondo Nero - a compilation of ‘leftfield Italo’, where familiar faces like Galvanica and International Music System sit with charming curiosities to knock out the nostalgia.
Enjoy the urgency of Dreamland, the super fun Night Ranger or the sultry No Estas to make you feel like you are sipping peach bellinis in Rimini. Standing out is Robert Sandrini’s cover of a Billy Idol track - as one YouTube comment says “I wish I was sitting on a bench at my prom watching couples sway to this”.
Rachel presents Not The High Street on Dublin Digital Radio.
VA - It’s Not Complicated (Ma3azef)
It wouldn’t really be a Bandcloud without something from me? This is a compilation raising money for Medical Aid for Palestine and Grassroots Al-Quds and awareness about the situation in Palestine.
Few ask the right questions about Palestine, yet they are answered time and time again. They are shouted and written and drawn and thrown at the world. They are hacked into the digital sphere and sprayed onto every wall. Every single question has already been speculated, thought of and answered. When your very existence is disputed, negated and denied, you don’t learn the answers, you know them. For them, those questions, however complex for the privileged mind, are simple, and the answers could be spoken in a single breath, or they could fill volumes. For them, it’s never complicated. And to them, we humbly dedicate this work.
This is an 19-track collaboration between Ma3azef, Heba Kadry, and a group of musicians who carry the fight from the streets to their studios. We offer a sonic tale of occupation, colonial violence and resistance in the face of an attempt to erase a land, a people, a history and a future.
Brian Eno, Lee Gamble, Bergsonist, LAFAWNDAH, Liliane Chlela, Kelman Duran and Sarah Haras all feature alongside many others.
Aidan, 36, Dublin, Ireland, Europe, Earth