RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
It’s hot in Dublin. Not hot hot, like some of you may be used to, but hotter than we’re used to. You may scoff, but I for one am not built for this.
TOO HOT. Nice lil’ improv thingy from memotone, apparently recorded “with sweat dripping from my brow”.
Boarding Gate 055 W/ DJ Gigola
DINA hands over the controls to DJ Gigola for an hour of proggy-trancey-spacey vibes. I won’t lie, one of the main reasons it features her is because Gigola plays the magnificent ‘Future!’ by Halo Varga. There are other gems too but that’s a personal favourite.
Tony Poland - It Takes Time (Sued Especiale)
Last month Tony P took a trip through the Sued catalogue and showed a glimpse of their fascinating output.
Marja Ahti - The Current Inside
Some people may want to dance in the heat. Some may sing. For me, the music that works best is not even music. As such. This was released last year on Hallow Ground but the artist just gave away some download codes via Twitter this week (for which many thanks). Some of the tracks here feel like screeching tape sounds, whirring machinery, insects hovering and existing nearby. Distorted guitar (perhaps?), played slowly, evokes everything and nothing. Imagine standing in a field with an empty mind, or under a tree falling asleep with only these strange unknowable sounds for company. Sounds like bliss.
claire rousay + more eaze - an afternoon whine
Another release that feels perfect for me in this heavy heat is the collaborative work from claire rousay and more eaze. I was listening to it while I changed the sheets at the weekend, a rather exhaustive task when you’re sweating in a sunlit room. The combination of languid field recordings and plaintive, heavily filtered dirges is perfect when your brain is a thick mush of fog and ooze. It builds through strange, delicate movements until actual, full-on songs emerge, yet it’s the interplay between these two modes that makes this release so fascinating.
czn. - Now that's what I call: Is that what you call music now
Finally, on the subject of not quite music but yeah it’s still music but what is music anyway, here’s a release that wears its approach on its sleeve/cover. “It’s a pretty silly one to be honest,” the artist told me over email. That said, its strange and murky waters are quite cool and refreshing to me right now. Take the closer ‘hydrated’. It features lengthy squibbles of sound that pan left and right without warning before coming together for a twin assault. Mixed frequencies, perhaps, radio static, or maybe even the sound of paper being rustled and shaken and then multiplied. It’s comforting like the endless sound of a waterfall.
Detroit-based DJ The AM drops her debut single, entitled ‘Vision’. It’s got the sound of classic techno while employing a variety of unexpected sounds. There’s a snarl at play here that truly has bite.
I was lying in bed thinking about what to feature this week and the words jelly and pelt started to roll around in my head. The first thing that came to mind was a coat made of jelly. Maybe a whole body covering, like a giant blob. Imagine how cool that might be on one’s skin, the slick refreshment of cold not-quite liquid. Then imagine it turning to a literal hot mess. Perhaps pelt is meant in a different sense, to hurl or throw something. Thick globs of jelly flying through the air. Maybe the artist can shed some light? Maybe he just chose two random words and this is all meaningless conjecture. This album could be considered a “breaks” or “dance” album but it manages to combine its samples and references in such a way that it stands beyond that simple constriction. Tracks are named after places (‘Gdynia’, ‘Coumshingaun’), culinary delights (‘Erdnussflips’, ‘Spicebox’) and space-related matters (‘Soyuz’ for a series of Soviet spacecraft, ‘2127 Tanya’ for a distant asteroid), showing a mindset that is at once worldly and extra-terrestrial, local and international. ‘Spicebox’ could be a cheery flip on a 90s Enigma track, while the rave stabs on ‘Fuck Da Taoiseach’ (the Irish Prime Minister) are nostalgic, reverential and ultra-modern.
DONIS - DWELLER SET AT NOWADAYS - JUNE 18TH
Some people are indeed clubbing again. Lucky them. I say that in all sincerity! This is a recording of Donis’s set at Nowadays for Dweller 2.5: The Reunion, “An abbreviated version of our yearly festival to tide us over until 2022”. Two hours of house, with sounds from MAW, Chez & Trent, Earth People, Jimmy Jones and plenty more. Shout out to Dweller forever.
John Sellekaers - Observer Effect
Tell ya what. I’d love some glacial movements in my back garden right now. This swirling, scorched sequence of ambient sonics is bombastic and terrifying. Calming too. Like standing up in the face of a natural disaster and looking in wonder. I find it hard to get into the specifics of the release, it’s a larger entity in itself and so deserves to be appreciated in its entirety without my focusing on any minutiae.
This is some proper foggy mushy unquantifiable stuff. The first track is like a drunken club track, while the third and final track is like a morning wake-up call rendered through misshapen and accidental filters and sonic expressions. In between we have all manner of approaches even just in about 15 minutes. It was sent to me with the subject line “pretty odd/electronic music, that you might enjoy:)”, and hey, they were right!
VA - Compilation Three (First Terrace Records)
First Terrace celebrates four years of existence with this wide-ranging compilation. As the blurb states, this album features artists who have not yet appeared on the label, rather than being a retrospective of previous releases. I played tracks by Bianca Scout, Chaotic Reality and Melanie Velarde on my show last weekend, and that’s just three of 20. Organ drone, delicate synths, strange ambient, outré experimentation and blissful, relaxed efforts, it’s truly eclectic.
The Psychedelic Waltons featuring Roisin Murphy - Wonderland (The S-Mans Dark Tribe Mix)
I saw an article celebrating 20 years of Roger Sanchez’s ‘Another Chance’ recently and thought “that wasn’t even his own best track from that year”. He’s long used the name S Man and I had a quick google while thinking about his remix of Faze Action’s ‘Samba’ and came across this remix of The Psychedelic Waltons featuring the voice of Roisin Murphy. It’s dark and chunky, isolating Murphy’s ghostly vocals over enormous drums and shimmering percussion. It gives the vocal a strange and unsettling air, completely at odds with the celebratory nature of the original track, with its orchestral disco flair. I’m baffled as to how I’ve gone two decades without it but I’m glad I found it.
Finally this week, this is a 16-minute slice of pure bliss. It ebbs and flows like waves on a California beach (I mention that locale because the producer is from LA). Gorgeous.