RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
As I put this mail together I notice that my f key is acting up, so while I will be spell-checking this, please forgive me if there are any missing fs throughout.
Never Temple - Throwing Around An Invisible Ball
Throwing around an invisible ball - isn’t that what music is? One artist plays with the ball for a bit, passes it to someone else, they do what they want with it and around it goes. This is a live recording from DRONECAST 2020, an online pandemic iteration of Basilica Hudson’s 24-hour Drone festival. In this case, the invisible ball was thrown through the cloud and across the globe as different participants logged in from Toronto and Amsterdam to create a dreamy soundspace of sonic meditation.
More utterly dreamy music, this is a sublime piece of ~ambient~ on the wonderful Métron label. The artists apparently works seasonally on farms in the US, and this album was recorded in a refurbished cabin on one such farm. It certainly matches the title, offering total respite from the world and such challenging work. This sounds trite but it really is lovely. Funds will also go to support pipeline resistance efforts in the US, such as Appalachians Against Pipelines and Stop Line 3.
A short single track here, this accompanies a book and precedes an album due next year. It’s almost like deconstructed shoegaze? If you’ll forgive such a terrible aphorism. I haven’t been well this week so my entire writing function is a bit like that meme where there’s a picture of someone’s brain having complex thoughts and then a speech bubble that reads “brrr” or something like that. It’s a nice track.
dogs versus shadows - Fall Off A Log
Putting the mix in mixtape, this release is a series of varying sounds across two sides, lumpy and textured and rich and smudged.
A rich and sumptuous groover from Moroka on the ever-impressive Apron.
More music that conjures up words like rich and sumptuous, this time from Last Nubian on the Tiff’s Joints label. All broken beat and lush chords, phased sounds and crowd noises, simply joyous to put it simply.
Jacken Elswyth - Banjo With The Sound Of Its Own Making
Do you like your banjo music to come with a side of sawing and birdsong? If so, this is for you.
Rattling percussion and banging sounds from No sir, largely thumping but occasionally sneaking in deft bass lines and curious melodies.
Lovozero+Monekeer - "They" is here
A rather weird release from a Russian duo, it seeks to explore “the sonic space between human and non-human”. It’s got field recordings and strange distortion and really odd robotic sounds, just a strange garble of what is and what isn’t and what could be and what probably shouldn’t be.
More Russian music here but with an entirely different approach. Balmat is a new label from Albert Salinas and Philip Sherburne, who featured here last week with their interview with Call Super. The label claims to have a cloudy outlook, and this release perfectly captures that ideal. Sounds are quite literally nebulous, floating along with an unknowable feeling of time or space. It’s lush at times, foggy, confusing, beautiful. Hoavi recently released on Peak Oil, so check that out too.
Four Four Local Selection 144: Tr One
Eddie from Tr One is known for a particularly smooth and melancholic brand of techno, so this hard-nosed yet no less refined mix for Four For is quite a surprise. He’s got a massive record collection, regularly showcasing his finds in between memes on his Instagram page. In his own words: “Nice to let loose a bit!” So this one is fast and bangin.
Campout Series: Livwutang B2B Wonja Part I
Campout Series: Livwutang B2B Wonja Part II
Finally this week, two parts of a larger set from Livwutang and Wonja. They played a huge six-hour set to close out the Honcho Campout festival recently. The first half is largely hip-hop and muted, dubby electronica, featuring “Aquemini” and a load of stuff I don’t know at all. The second half starts off on a more focused thump, house jacking away, until things get silly and fun with a remix of J Lo’s Play as well as remixes of Sisqo, Brandy & Monica and even Lenny Kravitz. And there’s some Talk Talk in there too. Just… Excellence.