RIP. A weekly roundup of releases on Bandcamp and Soundcloud selected and delivered by Aidan
I had a “moment” earlier this week: I was listening to a dance music promo and thinking “god this is dull, simply functional nonsense with nothing to it”. Breaks and bangs and simple and straightforward structures. What else is there. So I went off and listened to lots of swirling ambient sounds instead. I also went to see Sing 2 with my family on Sunday, and spent a lot of this week watching the amazing comedy Girls5Eva, so my headspace has been far away from dank clubs.
ExpOSe Mix 004 - Kiernan Laveaux & Call Super
As usual with these declarations, the problem wasn’t the music; it was me. Well maybe it was the music, but that track or release shouldn’t be seem as emblematic of any kind of whole. This mix, or rather pair of mixes, rejuvenated me and my interest. Pittsburgh-based DJ Kiernan Laveaux is part of a wave of US DJs who can’t quite be tied down to a particular style or sound, other than perhaps by using the word psychedelic. The approach is one of range and colour, presenting an experience rather than those rigid structures I mentioned above. This mix for The OS Community isn’t even all “dance music” as we might call it. Jazzy funk and broken beats alongside spiritual house music, with utterly wild percussion the major connecting point. This all prepared me for Call Super’s mix, which seems to build on an early hip-house and bleep only to jump into the future with Scratchclart & Scottie Dee & DJ Polo’s mind-bending ‘Banx Skanx’. His own ‘Eye Flow Wide’ signifies a disregard for cohesion, a world away from those other tracks mentioned. In the end it was a welcome respite from my own self-enforced disillusionment.
Another super mix, this is straight-up glorious, sumptuous house music. Think Ron Trent, Trinidadian Deep, that kind of effervescent, almost ethereal house.
Fossil Aerosol Mining Project - Predicament Recordings Volume I 3.2020-5.2020
This is one of those things I listened to when I was in a mood early in the week. I listened to it twice actually. Weird sounds created from field recordings.
Clanks, whirs and buzzes. Crackles. Drones. If I haven’t lost you yet, keep reading. This selection of short pieces comes on the Pakapi Records label from Argentina. Back in September I featured a compilation on that label entitled Urbanismo Primitivo, and there’s a note on the Bandcamp page that this is the first in a series following that release. I’m not sure if that means there will be artists following that style or if Wamani are going to release more things like this but we shall see. Anyway: “Wamani is fruit of collecting old records from flea markets, looping tapes they found in the garbage and an oblique but steady evocation of Andean folklore.”
Four dense tracks that move between heavy techno and swirling, immersive ambient, it’s the first release from Jaclyn Kendall under the name Arae. I look forward to more.
Oui Ennui - Running In A Dream
Bit of a double-whammy here, as Oui Ennui released a rather stellar album last week and also contributed a Drone Special for Crack’s Black History Month coverage. That mix features contemporaries and luminaries such as Alice Coltrane, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Yves Tumor, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, KMRU, Laraaji, Actress and more. The album is a rich collection of drones that range from comforting to hypnotic and unsettling. Truly a marvel.
Steffi Baron-Neuhuber - there are gloomy days
The first track here sounds like a busker warming up in a train station tunnel that’s also, somehow, a transdimensional doorway. The second sounds like a sax player blowing through their mouthpiece without creating a traditional sax sound, just different breathy tones. The third is almost like someone took elements from a club track and just replayed them with no regard for rigid time structures. The last track is a combination of hummed tones and foggy sound. It’s experimental but also fun and free. Messing around but with serious results.
Another kind of double-whammy, if only because I’m not sure what to call it. This week Matchess shared ‘Huizkol Sound Walk’ on SoundCloud, a 49-minute piece that doesn’t so much ebb and flow as dig and burrow down a particular path. It drifts in and out at points, but it’s basically the same sounds from start to finish, with careful and meticulous embellishments. I then learned that Huizkol was performed in early 2020 (pre-lockdown!) and released in November of that tear on Trouble In Mind Records. It’s made up of 14 tracks, each seven minutes in length (so a total of 98 minutes). Perhaps the ‘Sound Walk’ is a more digestible version? I’m not sure. I listened to both quite a bit this week.
I’m not sure I’ll ever come across a better name for a reissue label than Arís. It’s the Irish for again. This release features two originals from ’92 and a remix from present-day Irish artists Brame & Hamo. The Banana Mix is interesting in that it combines the sort of progressive house sounds heard in Leftfield’s ‘Not Forgotten’ and Gat Decor’s ‘Passion’. It also features a gurgling noise reminiscent of Cajmere’s Percolator, which came out in the same year. Could it be a sample? Who knows. The Hard Mix is, well, harder, and features a squawking sound that eventually opens up into a kind of traditional Irish melody, albeit synthesised. Then bam, out it comes in full trad mode, I think it’s a flute. There’s also a moment that features the same kind of almost jazzy chords as you’ll hear on Jaydee’s ‘Plastic Dreams’. It’s quite an astounding mixture of elements. The modern-day remix really ups the pace, taking choice elements and giving it a modern prog-trance rub. All in all a wonderful start for Arís and I am very excited to hear what else they have in store. ‘Unlimited Dreams’, anyone?
Charles.A.D regularly pops stuff on his SoundCloud in a variety of genres. At just under four minutes this is a relatively short track but it packs a punch. It’s a gorgeous swirling jam that I would put in the house sphere, but it’s almost electronica in its sonic arrangement. It’s the title track to an album that’s available on Bandcamp but I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet.
Trentemøller’s come along way since his exemplary dancefloor tracks of the mid-00s, moving sideways into melancholy shoegaze territory. Perhaps signs of this were visible in 2006 when he reworked Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’ for his Essential Mix. Then in 2009 his Harbour Boat Trips mix CD featured Grouper, Beach House, Suicide and The Raveonettes among others, showing his penchant for emotionally charged guitar-based music. Over the past decade his own music has moved firmly into that territory, and Memoria continues successfully in that path. Think everything from My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins and The Cure to Interpol and you’ll have some kind of idea. All through a particularly electronic Danish lens.