RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Bandcloud 264
I'm BACK in Paris for work. No Rinse this week BUT I'm back on Dublin Digital Radio on Sunday with a guest mix from Dublin artist Minos. Lock in from 9pm Irish time.
RROXYMORE - FORWARD FLAMINGO (DBALP006, FACE TO PHASE)
Rroxymore's album forthcoming on DBA is delightfully weird. Strange horn-like sounds, trippy percussion, stomping kicks and big synths, it's a really inventive release that continues her run of excellent and exciting records in recent years. Club music with a big question mark. This track features slightly uneasy synth melodies and spoken vocals swamped in reverb.
scanner - Unearthly Powers
"I was given access to tapes by a famous deceased British writer, and amongst recordings of his messages and notes were examples of him playing the piano. I took one of these hissy ancient portable cassette recordings and put it through the Make Noise Morphagene sampler and Strymon Magneto. In many ways the Morphagene and Magneto emulate old tape recorder technology. What you hear here is the slowly decaying material, disappearing into the distance, as the tapes collapse."
VA - cm007 (c-)
I'm never sure how these c- compilations operate — can you buy them? Or just stream them on SoundCloud? Is it a statement/playlist? Either way, this collection of sounds is gorgeous. Ambient, murky, schloppy, foggy, it's all wonderful. I don't even know any of the artists bar Moonbow. Shouts to you, Moony B!
Hi-Vis - Winding
Another c- entry here, this time a mix from Hi-Vis, the Chicago-based DJ behind the Beyond/Below series. It's ostensibly an ambient mix, but it's choppy and dense — she said she "tried to give a sense of always being in motion" and hoo boy it worked.
Friendly Rich & The Lollipop People - Pictures at an Exhibition
A rare inclusion of some instrumental guitar music. I took a notion to looking up every instance of the term "Pictures at an Exhibition" on Bandcamp. Well, the first page of results anyway. This is a recording of Mussorgsky's undying suite, it features harpsichord and horns and woodwind but it also features raucous guitars and other more "modern" instrumentation. It's great fun. There are also some pained wails and screams. While the crazed ferocity of Baba Yaga's Hut normally plays into a grand finale at 'The Great Gate of Kiev', in this case it builds up to a rendition that opens with softly played piano, which is a marvellously subtle inversion. Fun fact. I played this in the Royal Albert Hall in London once. I had tonsillitis and I was both very tired and very hungry while we performed so it was all a bit surreal but *James Murphy voice* I was there.
LCM071 - Ferg
This mix is so lush. It's a bunch of records Ferg found across the Pacific Northwest. Naturally vinyl crackle is in abundance. It's a lovely mix of deep and vibey house, airy and breaksy, mournful and powerful. There's one track I recognise from the Jazzy Jeff In The House compilation but other than that it's all new to me. The last segment is some high-tempo stuff that loses me but I just don't have time to spend on 10 minutes of 160 cause whatever. That's just me. Sure. Look.
Kobina - New Knives
I listened to this and really enjoyed it but was confused why the volume seemed to be so low. I messaged the artist. He said it was deliberate. "The idea is to listen to the track on a low volume so it blends with whatever your surroundings are." Beautiful.
Truth Radio - Loco Motive
I can't say I know much about this track by Lostlojic. It seems to be part of a compilation forthcoming on Copenhagen's Truth Radio. It's a vibey muted house track. I like it.
Lucid Sound Driver - Serenity in the Vast Darkness
Not sure this week has featured enough misty ambient loveliness. This is only half an hour long but it's gorgeous.
Excerpts From Dune By Rupert Lally
"Soundtracks for books on tapes. Sadly the name Books on Tape was already taken." This is Bibliotapes, a sub-label from The Dark Outside. Rupert Lally has previously written music inspired by High Rise, Lord of The Flies and Day of The Triffids and here he takes Frank Herbert's epic Dune. I got that for my Kindle some time back but I'm scared by the prospect of not finishing it so I haven't started it just yet. This music is incredible, however, glorious synth loveliness apparently inspired by Klaus Schulze/Wendy Carlos/Trent Reznor/Brian Eno/Deru/Haxxan Cloak (sic).
ELLES - emo_ecstasy_everything
Violet has long been a champion of her DJ buddy ELLES. Now she's giving her a platform to share her tunes. This release on Naivety Trax, the Naive sublabel, showcases some weird and wonderful sounds. They're wide-eyed and entrancing, with trance melodies humming over rugged, syncopated rhythms ('zero hour contract' reminds me of the Space Brothers Dub of Ascension's 'Someone'). Rnb vocals riff over expansive synth sounds, and acid floats over thunder and rainfall. It's all very "dw rain meme dot jpg".
Doowap: An AFROPUNK Mix
This one opens with a jagged double-time flip of Ginuwine's 'Pony' by Alamaki and Uki, with a similar flip of 'Paper Planes' popping up a few minutes later. As well as a song I won't name for personal reasons. The mix is a wonderful breeze through tough clubby sounds, smooth rnb and more, making room for 'Township Funk' and plenty of stuff I don't know. A particularly banging end to the week I think.