RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Exciting news! On Sunday I’m going to be back in the Dublin Digital Radio studio for the first time since March last year. I hope you can tune in. I’ll be on for two hours from 9pm Irish time.
Myriam Gendron - Ma délire - Songs of love, lost & found
Sometimes I’ll just click any Bandcamp link I see on Twitter. Often it will be something I’ve no interest in, but sometimes, even if it’s not something I’d usually check out, it’s something that unlatches something in my brain. This is one such release. I guess you’d call it indie-folk? Maybe? It features a selection of new and traditional songs, with a terrifyingly maudlin edge. It really put me in a funk, but in a good way? This is music to feel.
VA - Save The Children (aquietroom)
When it comes to compilations raising money for charities, you often get slightly oblique titles. Not so here. German label aquietroom has released Save The Children, for the charity of the same name. Deep and fascinating electroacoustic music alongside slow-burning ambient, there are 28 tracks to enjoy and appreciate.
This is just sickeningly beautiful. Long, drawn-out ambient tones, at turns deeply melancholy, at others warm and comforting.
Temple of Urania - Banaszczyk/Popakul/Pietraszewski (POINT#42) - VHS soundtrack excerpt
I’ve listened to this about five times and haven’t been able to get a handle on it. It’s weird. It’s an excerpt from a larger work inspired by two artists who lived on the island of Jersey during the Nazi occupation. Apparently Claude Cahun (b. Lucy Schwob) and Marcel Moore (b. Suzanne Malherbe) were fighting the occupation by distributing anti-Nazi propaganda among German soldiers, attempting to sow discord and fear that there was some form of conspiracy taking place. They were discovered and sentenced to death, but rescued once the island was liberated. That said, their home had been confiscated and their art destroyed. Justyna Banaszczyk, Darek Pietraszewski and Tomek Popakul created an audiovisual art piece that began on Jersey before the beginning of the pandemic, and is coming to fruition with the release of a 28-minute film at the end of this month. The music here is unsettling and unknowable, moving and disconcerting.
Faar - 2nd Message From Ancestors
This is some seriously entrancing music from Kazakhstan. I believe the artist actually made the flute and didgeridoo used throughout this piece. It’s described as Oriental | Psy-Bass | World Music | Psybient on SoundCloud, so perhaps not for everyone, but I dig it. It’s got a slow acid vibe to it that I really like.
After releasing the XK3 EP on TRAM Planet earlier this year, D. Strange drops three tracks of signature electro business on his LO·TEK·NO COMM. label. Or is it electro? It’s fast and crisp but it’s heavy enough that it could be techno. It’s ace, anyway.
BIG DYKE ENERGY & DAYTIMERS: Celebrating Pride: For the Community, By the Community (PREVIEWS)
This is a preview because I haven’t been able to find where this is for sale! Daytimers and Big Dyke Energy have come together to release a comp from a bunch of queer artists, with proceeds going to charities who provide support to the LGBTQIA community. Manuka Honey, Darama and India Jordan all feature, contributing broken garage sounds, bolshy rave, spoken word and poetry and more. The snippets are great, so I look forward to hearing it in full.
A rather thrilling and exciting mix that opens up with our friend CCL’s ‘Mambo No 5’ edit. It shifts wonderfully between raucous energy and half-time sludge.
Mindy Meng Wang 王萌 - Phoenix Rising
Mindy Meng Wang is a composer and guzheng player. The guzheng is a zither or “lap harp”, a horizontal plucked instrument. Phoenix Rising, which sees the artist collaborate on almost every track, is a deeply arresting piece of work.
Utterly beguiling music from Joel St. Julien, a Haitian-American artist based in San Francisco. The music ebbs and flows, swirling with abandon and singing with focused clarity. There’s occasionally a wash of noise alongside blasts of sound, while ambient memories float next to gnarly squalls. It’s possible to get lost in the 14-minute ‘Full Moon’, while ‘Morning Light’ is springy and bouncy, offering the confusion of the early day rather than anything serene and blissful.
Binaural Space - First Three Years of You and Me
Last week ambient and electronic artist Binaural Space celebrated three years since his first release and marked it with a special collection of songs chosen by his friends and fans. What a lovely idea.
Marsha Fisher - Stolen Lighters
I love listening to field recordings and the like in the car. It’s like you’re outside, but you’re also inside. This is more than just field recordings, with sounds reversed and manipulated, but it’s all very much along those lines of items being dragged around, tools or other objects clanking and groaning, sounds sped up and slowed down to whatever degree for the sake of sonic excitement. Marsha Fisher’s tape loops are always excellent so this is no surprise. Goth Roosters.