RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
Bandcloud 275
There's so much to do. So much to write, to share, to read.
Pechblende - Apathy and Silence
I assume this label takes its name from Blade Runner. Doesn't everything link back to that? At least everything I like. BR, Boards of Canada, Twin Peaks. Apathy and Silence sums up the mood of this album. Sad swirls of synth, decaying drum patterns, eerie themes, it's a sorrowful affair that won't leave you in a happy place. Does it end on a high note? Kind of. The final track evokes end credits with its wistful, elegiac "strings", sending you off into the world with more questions than answers, mainly about what the point of it all is.
Retreat Radio - Moonilena #4 (01/12/19)
This is wistfully beautiful in a much more traditionally pleasing sense. It's Moonilena's latest radio show, and its overall aesthetic matches the image she shared with it, in which she stands overlooking a snowy, mountainous vista. Ambient abounds. Bells, wobs, voices, all the sounds you can expect from this kind of thing.
place : the netherlands
place is a label set up by Air Texture in association with Kompakt. It partners with curators in a given location to select music from the area and raise funds and awareness for relevant causes and charities. For the Netherlands, place teamed up with Jasmin Hoek and Axmed Maxamed (the latter of whom offered his roundup for Bandcloud's 2018 EOY series). The cause in this instance is Open Closet LGBT Netherlands, an organisation that works with incoming LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers, offering food and community as well as logistical support for the procedures involved in seeking asylum. The compilation features a range of styles, from wispy ambience and emotive rnb to stomping techno sounds. There's a rattly banger from DJ Bone. Cuboid Kiss offers a frosty number that overflows with unresolved tension. Proper modern electronic rnb from Jarlentji. There's politically-charged techno from Global Mind Surveillance. There's even a haunting, epic number from Ireland's own Blusher, who contributed to the Bandcloud compilation. You can read an interview with Jasmin and Axmed here. Zwarte Piet is racisme.
Yakui - Omni *READ DESCRIPTION*
Tagged #EULOGY, this is Yakui's encouragement for you to follow her elsewhere. SoundCloud recently announced the rather bizarre policy that free users can upload up to three hours OR 15 tracks. I know they're broke but that just makes no sense to me. Anyway. This eulogy is mushy and sludgy and yet quite beautiful. Follow her work here, here and here. (Since writing this, SoundCloud went back on their decision regarding upload limits; you can read about it here.)
Rojin Sharafi - Urns Waiting To Be Fed
Deconstructed anything is a bag of shite, sure. This one really feels like deconstructed techno in a way, however, as it seems to be made up of various elements of heavy dance-floor music without ever treading anywhere near 4/4 territory. It's squidgy and noisy, abrasive and welcoming. As the blurb states: "Makes you form your own image from the event, story and built up history." Couldn't have put it better myself.
Carnivorous Plants - Mammon
Big ol' slamming searing shredded guitar sounds, like the glacial end of the world or a wave the height of Burj Khalifa. Nothing can prepare you for the sheer magnitude of emotions evoked by this piece of nightmarish drone. That's track 1. Track 2 features gentle piano, not a world away from say, 'Songbird', with added literal birdsong in the background. It's quite the release after the terror of the preceding track, fittingly enough entitled 'The Second King of Hell'. The final track, 'Blood Orange', seems to merge the guitar sludge of the opener with the more staid approach of the middle track. It's a lovely salve, and when it ends I feel a slight disappointment that it's over, but happiness that it was there.
JEM - December 19 (FRKTL Guest Mix)
Another wonderful ambient mix here. FRKTL put together an hour of gorgeous sounds for JEM's show on Rádio Quântica. For the first hour JEM runs through some trippy techno, deep and rumbly. Then FRKTL steps in with music from the likes of Carla dal Forno, Lucrecia Dalt, Christina Vantzou, Roly Porter and Dean Hurley (back to Twin Peaks eh). It's beautiful and heady, brimming with ebbs and flows of emotion.
AceMo - Existential
More stunning dance-floor bangers from AceMo. Existential goes for the emotional jugular (if such a thing exists) with its chords and melodies. It's tough and punchy, slightly rugged even, and definitely borrows from a trance aesthetic without going towards cheese or unnecessarily fast areas.
liam o. - where you wait
Hazy ambience from Liam. He's shared a few things this week but this is the one I've returned to again and again.
SnP 500 - Treasure
I saw big Willy B tweet about this record some months back and it's finally come to digital. The opening track is floaty and delicate, hi-hats buzzing while bulging synths eke out melodies. 'Reduce Something' is deep and rolling, the kind of track that on first listen feels like something's missing but reveals hidden depths. The kind of track that the right DJ could turn into something magnificent. 'Treasure', finally, sounds like a recording of a disused car park next to a motorway. It's unsettling, uneasy, unknowable.
FEMIX 16 // PAM JONES
Have you ever heard a mix that moves from deep and soulful house to MIA over 'Greece 2000' to slower rhythms and back? This mix is inspired by "Caribbean; black Diasporic Voodoo energy".
Yamaneko - Spirals Heaven Wide
This came out a few weeks ago now. I should say that I first heard this album several months ago, so the question of a release date didn't really come to mind until I came to buying it (which of course, I did). This latest album for Local Action is quite different from the two that came before. Gone are the eski clicks and deep bass lines of Pixel Wave Embrace, the strange clattering drums of Project Nautilus [Keygen Loops]. This is full ambient now. If you liked Afterglow, with its huge rumbles of trance-laden synth wash, this is the perfect album for the morning after. Sadder, more subtle, less bombast, more pathos. 'Fading Embers' revisits the melodies of 'Forever, We Weren't Here', an older track released under the Talbot Fade name. I don't know that I like it any better, the sounds are quite drastically different, but it's an illustration of how the artist has changed and rearranged his sound in recent years. 'Balstonia' features a shred of guitar. 'Fall Control' sounds like 'O, Holy Night' by way of beatless trance. 'You Envied The Stars Their Height' could be the perfect closer except for the playful '(True Ending)', a hidden track that's in plain view (remember hidden tracks?). Gorgeous melodies on a music box give a feeling of intimacy and hushed secrecy. What is truth, anyway?