Bandcloud 276

This is the penultimate Bandcloud of the year. We'll have one more next week, perhaps filled with donk remixes of Christmas songs, perhaps avoiding the C word entirely. It's also Friday the 13th. There are actually quite a few of these every year. Who knew?

D. Strange - Off World
D. Strange featured here some months back with a fiery two-tracker named for Philando Castile. He's back here again with a larger work, seven tracks of electro/techno snarl that really hit hard. It's part subtle bombast, part noisy apocalypse. The title track comes at the very end and it's almost like The Day the Earth Stood Still over kinetic electro beats. Magic.

This is technological resistance against the powers that continue to push us and people like us to the margins of society.

Submerged in the primordial mud that is the midwest, we explore and expound upon sonically, the themes of our predecessors and speculate on our presence in this world.

"Experiments must continue....til death."

Caution!Horses - Pod People (Versions) EP (BYO5) (excerpts)
I regularly rail against vinyl-only releases on Twitter, but what about CD-only releases? That's different... You can rip it... That sounds like I'm making excuses and I probably am, but this one bangs so... I make the rules here! This release features a single track originally produced in 2004, with three reworks from this year. The original is a swirling cacophony of noise, a single, haunting melody trying to make its voice heard over a barrage of braying synths. The other three tackle the track by isolating highlighting key elements. It's really fascinating work, and sounds positively timeless. You can buy here.

M​.​Bootyspoon - No. 1 Crush
When I first saw the name Martyn Bootyspoon in the title of a Sinjin Hawke track in 2011, I honestly thought it was a fictional character in SH's universe. Like Dr Octagon or Bobby Digital or something. Mr Bootyspoon is in fact a real person, but that's hardly a disappointment. His debut release came just last year on none other than Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones's Fractal Fantasy, and last month he dropped a powerful set of edits on the nascent Hot N Ready arm of Vanity Press Records. This one on Model Future is a stripped-back drum-machine affair, powerful rhythms chugging along under chunky processed speech. In plain English, that means it's a set of four sure-fire club bangers.

VA - Contours (Canigou Records)
This wonderful compilation opens with a soft folk song that devolves into a melted, mutated field recording, almost like watching a film burn up on screen. Other tracks feature gentle humming, strange vocalising, samples from political commentary. It moves into classic "ambient" territory with aplomb, showing a breadth of interesting ideas from a brilliant collective of artists.

Salt Lamp Sweats 9 - Cute Face, Chubby Waist Missy Elliott Special
ddr.'s Salt Lamp Sweats invites some friends on to pick some favourite Missy tracks, sharing their favourite lines and uttering them with giddy abandon. Plenty of bangers and some deep album cuts too. All fire.

VA - All U Need To Remember From This Year (KANN)
A collection of releases from KANN all for the bargain price of €10 (digital) or €20 (vinyl). Perm offers up atmospheric techno with an eye on the stars, not the spreadsheets. Innere Tueren's release is part dainty breaks, part mournful ambience. Adam Strömstedt has shades of SVN, while FOOOL is almost like Soulwax doing garage.

Speaker Music - of desire, longing
I almost didn't want to cover this because I don't know that I can do it justice. Speaker Music is the work of DeForrest Brown, Jr., and this dropped last week on Planet Mu. It's a release of two longform pieces, entitled 'with empathy' and 'without excess'. The music defies easy categorisation or understanding, dense with layers and layers of sound. 'with empathy' is made up of disassembled jazz and rattling industrial noise that merge over steady but still nebulous beats. It's smoky, foggy, unknowable, like an impressionist painting that reveals itself through intense concentration. 'without excess', meanwhile, features a steady clock-like beat, possibly in a 4/4 world but initially indefinable. Digital voices wail, thin air visible between each corroded element. "Music is always happening; and as perceptive, empathetic beings in time and space, I feel that we have a responsibility to move with the culture of frequencies that a moment or environment offers." Speaker Music said this in an essential interview, and this is borne out through the freeform yet very deliberate approach he's taken on this release. Make time for it. 

E#7 - Walkie Shiitake - Toad's Tools
This is just weird. Lots of noise. It's the end of the year, do I have to go deep? Swirling sounds like far off airplanes, quirks and jibbles that could be machinery or electric animals. Howling winds. Wrap me and up and put me to sleep baby. Caw. Caw. There's some nice drone towards the end too.

claire rousay - friends
After listening to the above mix I couldn't settle on anything for a while. This release from Claire Rousay hit the spot, however. All clanking noise and whirring electronics.

MWT002: Perila, 'Dust 22'
This is a really lovely sounding tape from Perila, who also put out a wonderful tape for The Trilogy Tapes this year. Say tape again. It's heavy with longing, deeply sad. I enjoyed it the other day but as I listen now I feel like I am being swallowed up in the murk.

Experimental Housewife - You Are Right About Everything
Fifty-four minutes of foggy synth wash bath stuff from ExpHou. 

Stamp The Wax 2019 Advent Calendar - in aid of War Child
Stamp The Wax have an aural Advent Calendar here, raising money for War Child, who work in post-conflict areas to provide education and cultural enrichment. It's a very mixed stocking. There's a swooning 16-minute opus from Central, a jumpy disco-y banger from Bjørn Torske. Different flavours of wistful pop from Elsa Hewitt and Ha Na. Special mention goes to DJ Absolutely Shit and their track 'Making A Better World By Chopping Up Boris and Mogg'. If only. Would be worth a shout if only for the title, but it's a groovy cut-up old-school electro number to boot. Yesterday's gorgeous track came from D.K. and today's isn't up as I type. There's more to come anyway.

Social State - Arcadian / Battle Axe
Apparently the first track here was originally entitled ’Where the fuck is Jamie Woon?’ It's almost like 'Night Air' if it was a bassy rumbler, more angry snarl than wistful emotion. There's much to ponder, but the tinges are of frustration rather than longing. The "b-side" sounds like the perfect foil for a battle rap, fitting as it's called 'Battle Axe'. 

Lost Trax - Out of Mind
I know nothing makes one reach for that little x in the top corner quite like the term "shadowy collective" and Lost Trax seem like just that. But don't skip on, this is worth your time. They've been making tunes for decades it seems, and it's often unclear if music is new or archival. This set of three tracks on the Frustrated Funk label could be either, and maybe that mystery adds an air of intrigue, or maybe it's a load of nonsense and the tunes are just excellent. Spacey, airy, emotive, crisp, beautiful. Perfect.