RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Bandcloud 248
Sorry for the delay. I did some work travel this week and that got in the way of everything. How about that Riverdale finale, eh?
Deru - Torn In Two
This is from last October and suitably wintry, but I only took the time to listen this week. Over the years I've been hugely affected by Deru's particular brand of melancholic ambient and this continues down that path. Listening in May adds a different kind of pathos, mopey sunshine feelings — think FOMO, regret, excited anxiety ...
ψ - Aruna's Golistan گلستان
This is a selection of Persian and Persian-affiliated/influenced classical music. I won't pretend to know or recognise any of it, but it's beautiful. Sadly, the artist seems pretty shadowy, with little information on SoundCloud. I came across it when they shared it into a Facebook group I'm in.
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Magick Box
This is a collection of music new and old from MSoTT, a guide to help you on your "path of study, discovery, practice, and enlightenment". Haunting and ghostly, like all her work. She was recently interviewed about combining music and motherhood.
Deep South Podcast 036 - The AM
Another Deep South podcast for you. This is from Ann-Marie Teasley aka The AM. She's Ash Lauryn's big sister, and was instrumental in guiding her along her path in the early days. But she's not just a mentor. She's a sick DJ too, as this set proves. It's intense, it's groovy, it's passionate and it bangs. Covers lots of ground. Nice hearing some Roland Clark in the mix too.
Ivy Barkakati - desarrollando la intuición
Ivy said this had been hanging around on her SoundCloud and she decided to put it on Bandcamp. I may have included it here before? Who knows. It's nice. A new-agey Popol Vuh-type stream of consciousness, recorded in Barcelona two years ago. Its title translates as "developing intuition", so I guess it reflects her improv techniques? Maybe.
Sophia Saze: Salome (სალომე)
Georgian artist Sophia Saze debuts on Francis Harris' Kingdoms. This track opens her release Self (Part 1), which is a dusty, crackly Burial-esque reflection on her life. It's almost a tease just dropping this track on SoundCloud as it's really part of an overall whole, but it certainly whets the appetite.
M. Geddes Gengras - I Am The Last of That Green and Warm-Hued World
What can I even say about this one??? M. Geddes Gengras is a bit of a legend. Hausu Mountain is one of the best and most interesting labels out there. This pairing? Perfection. MGG often makes deep and sonorous ambient drifters, slightly unhinged (like Ishi on Leaving a few years back) but always beautiful. This takes those impulses and drives them to their ultimate extremes. This album is five lengthy tracks that burrow down such different paths it's hard to reconcile one with another. I've dipped in and out and honestly it's like reading a comic book, picking up chapters here and there and gaining greater insight which each new experience. There's lots of deep, scorching droney stuff ('The Pump at the Way Station') and then there's unknowable liquid murk ('Cellar'/'Oracle'). I doubt he'd have dared to make something like this on any other label.
Aoife O'Neill - 003
Another sick mix here, this time from Irish DJ Aoife O'Neill for the Plain Sailing series. Pretty much gets a pass for playing the Walton dub of El Kid's 'Hypnosis', from one of my favourite releases of modern times (whatever that means). Lots of bassy, breaksy stuff. Also a late pass for me, but holy what, Kessler's 'Endura'!
Department of Forever - Unseen Pictures
Department of Forever is a great artist name. It really matches the terrifically maudlin yearning of the sounds heard on Unseen Pictures. DoF is Steve Fanagan, a sound designer and artist who has worked on Game of Thrones, The Little Stranger and Room, to name a few. On this album for new Irish label Wow and Flutter, he crafts wonderful noisy drone, slowly lurching distortion paired with glistening sounds overhead. My heart...
DNA - Cleadworkiet
DNA is a new duo made up of Ciaran Cochran and Helena Celle. Woodwind and biodata. They delete all their tweets so I can't remember quite how they described this — I think it might have been a sleep aid? It's nice and floaty, and one can easily appreciate its detail or simply let it fade into the background.
VA - Extended (Edited Arts)
Absolutely wicked collection of sounds, a really brilliant compilation that manages to sound coherent, like a discrete unit, while being assembled of a number of different artists. There are some weird abstract tracks, some clubby excursions (from the likes of Terribilis and Loraine James) and outré digital sonics from Keiken, AGF HYDRA + Suzannah Pettigrew. Proceeds go to YoungMinds, a UK organisation that aims to meet the needs of vulnerable and excluded young people, promote good mental health and work towards better, more integrated services.
Spaceship - Outcrops
This was recorded in CAVES. It "traces the geological history of the Upper Calder Valley from the formation of the Millstone Grit to the last glaciation". It's been on constant rotation for me since I received it some weeks ago. Like pretty much everything this week, it's long and languid, synthy spacey stuff, with the occasional dank crows heard in the distance. Deep and chasmic, like the locale where it was recorded,