Bandcloud 269

I got really stuck yesterday. Everything I listened to was dull, boring, awful. It happens sometimes. So you can rest assured only the VERY BEST stuff will feature here.

Linda O'Keeffe - Silent Spring
This week I'm covering two releases on Flaming Pines. Often when labels drop a bunch of things at once I'll just cover one. Maybe that's because I don't have the energy or maybe it's because some of the stuff just isn't as good. In this case, I felt compelled to write about both of these pieces! As the cover suggests, Linda O'Keeffe's Silent Spring is a reflection on the impact of renewable energy sources on our landscapes, both in terms of physical consequences as well as economical and societal. It's built around field recordings from a hydroelectric dam in Iceland, wind turbine farms in Terra Alta, Spain (where the album was composed), and acts of sounding and listening in the Brazilian Amazon. 'Icelandic Reveries' seems to feature strange, processed vocals that range from whispers to cries, while the title track is an eerie space, floating winds and chilling sounds representing the shifting patterns of sound in our changing surroundings. 'Strange Birds' is the most ostensibly "musical", its modular eddies rumbling over crickets and footsteps, leading to screams that could be anguished or could simply be an expression of being alive. It's an album for reflection and consideration, time to examine what we lose with every step of progress. That's not to say that progress is an enemy, or that the economy is a kind of body that deserves protection. Reflection is all...

Sanr - Kesif
Kesif in Turkish means discovery, and the blurb says that this album is inspired by wordplay. With track titles meaning things like mole and corridor, it's easy to see that they're searching for something. The album is quite abstract, long stretches of soft sound and strange noises leaving me breathless, afraid of impinging on this sonic world. The backbone is the cura, a stringed instrument, although broken records, recordings of gas heaters, dishwashers and heating pipes are all used as well. It's so brilliantly captured that it's hard to imagine these sounds came from such quotidian objects. Like Silent Spring, it demands attention and is another stellar release from Flaming Pines.

Opheliaxz - Mimicry
In which Opheliaxz serves up a wonderful slice of "dub electronica", almost nine minutes of choppy, gated sounds over half-time beats. Something to get lost in.

cacero lazo - regime of calm
A cacerolazo is a particular kind of protest originating in South America and making its way across the world. Basically, it means banging pots. Philip Sherburne recorded one out his window in Barcelona about two years ago. This album, even its title, seems to be a world away from that exuberant clank, however. It's a really broad album of varying styles, from strange ambient to dubbed-out echoes reminiscent of Kruder & Dorfmeister or Raime (especially the dub-ble whammy of 'Leith Wept' and 'Drumk in Love'). There's a particular strand of languid bliss in the latter tracks, the final triptych of 'Canoskar', 'Noamno' and the brief 'Okyr' making sure you have a real lump in your throat.

venetta - Live @ New Forms Festival 09-28-19
New Forms looked like the absolute business. When I saw the lineup my jaw dropped. Here's a set from Vancouver's venetta, a DJ and producer who is co-founder of NuZi Collective, a platform focused on uplifting and representing black & brown womxn, trans womxn & gender non-conforming individuals in the Vancouver electronic music scene. This set is great, a thoroughly enjoyable, exuberant set that makes me want to use the word rollicking. I can only imagine the power this would have had live.

Mischa Lively - More
This release is on a new label called New Love Unlimited, based in Nashville, Tennessee, and established by Mischa Lively. I played the opening track, 'Phuhkwiddem', on DDR a few months back. It's a deft, subtle track that feels like minimal garage (if I may) — the kind of stuff coming from Christian Jay of late. It's also got these really playful synth riffs going on. 'Pain In The Vein' is bouncier, with an equally playful and irreverent buzzing bass melody. The title track then, takes elements of both, making use of a range of percussive sounds, be they drums and squidges or what could be whispers and breaths. Its synths are subtle, restrained, hinting at ... more, but never quite yielding. If I could compare the sounds of this release, especially those of closer, 'Wip Limits', to anyone else, it would be Errorsmith, with his springy sounds that are at once thoroughly serious and tongue in cheek. Ten per cent of all profits will go to the Equal Justice Initiative — a US organisation that works to confront racial injustice and challenge mass incarceration.

LSP005 - Kikelomo
The latest Leisure System mix is a stormer. Coming from Kikelomo, a "London gyal, outchere in Berlin" (as it reads on her SoundCloud), it combines some of the freshest and most interesting sounds of the current moment with some absolute classics. Think 'Ha' crashes over 'Clear', gqom beats, LSDXOXO's Sophie edit into 'French Kiss', Minnie Riperton given the bmore treatment, 'Spin Spin Sugar'... This is all alongside a thoroughly intriguing opening section filled with sounds I've never heard before. Whopper stuff.

Hesam Kardan - Taarek
From what I can understand, this was made for a festival that's both on and offline, the wrong biennale. Nearly 2,000 artists are taking part across the world, and anyone is free to participate. Kardan, who's based in Tehran, composed this 30-minute piece of dark ambient, slow movements and sludgy synths. It's dank.

HOV - Synthposium_EVN_05.10.19 [live set]
Not DOC, but similar to those letters... HOV is a Lebanese DJ and producer and this is a live set of his from earlier this month. He performed it at the Synthposium festival in Yerevan, Armenia. It's a swirling chunk of hypnotic techno. It's fast and pumping, but it's not business techno. At least I don't think it is? It's definitely not dull. It's colourful and nightmarish and fascinating. There's prolonged use of syncopated ravey 303 sounds, all building up to an understated, subdued finale. Serene. Unsettling.

VA - Puzzles EP (Microfunk Music)
Big up chuan_p for sending me this. It's a four-track release of liquid dnb, a hybrid of dance-floor sounds and IDM-leaning intricacies. Barf. Sorry! It's really nice though. Microfunk Crew's 'Bikini Bottom' (presumably named after Spongebob's home town) is like Boards of Canada with beats, while Nuage's 'Parallel' puts beautifully complex percussion under the kind of muffled synths you expect from Burial. Dissident's 'Sparkling Lake' is muted yet enlivening, unexpectedly marrying two moods and styles.

Drooping Finger - Centre Peace (Linda Buckley's Samhain Remix)
It wouldn't be October without some spoop. Samhain is the Irish or Celtic festival that predates Halloween, marking the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter. This track opens like the wilds of a moonless night, but enters into dank, digital territory, strange bleeps terrorising while synths wobble as if a tape is running out. I've used the term "whispers" a lot this week, but they feature again here, in the same vein as Suspiria or Berberian Sound Studio. Pure Italo horror, in a traditional Irish milieu.