Sunday 30 October 2022

Bandcamp Recommendations (Oct 22)

Here's my latest roundup of awesome Bandcamp recommendations. If you like what you see/hear, please consider buying these albums and supporting these wonderful artists directly.

I'd also really appreciate it if you could share this post on social media, or wherever else you feel may be fitting.

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The Lonely Bell - Kingdoms of the Deep (2022) 


GENRE : dark ambient, drone, noise, shoegaze, modern classical, post-rock
RECORD LABEL : Shady Ridge Records

Let's start off with some deep dark oceanic ambience album from a cold little Scottish island. This is the long-awaited new album from The Lonely Bell (a.k.a Ali Murray), and the first full-length release since 2015. 

'Kingdoms of the Deep' is an epic underwater adventure down into the unfathomable depths of the sea. It's an album of deep dark murkiness, subsonic watery rumblings, muted rippling tones, funereal drones, with moments of sweet liquid dreaminess to break up the unrelenting coldness and terror of this watery wilderness.

In this album, Murray has masterfully constructed enormous sprawling soundscapes of impenetrable darkness and aquatic wonder that evokes both the terrifying vastness of the ocean and the loneliness of existence. Musically, it's a dark ambient/drone album...but some other styles are mixed in there, like shoegaze, noise, modern classical, sound art and post-rock.

Just like all of Murray's music - this album is frighteningly lonely and laden with a profound sorrow. It's the soundtrack to slowly sinking into a cold hopeless abyss with no hope of rescue... yet it's oddly comforting and undeniably beautiful. A deep dark oceanic masterpiece. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Sulk Rooms - Viewers (2022) 


GENRE : electronica, dark ambient, techno, soundscape
RECORD LABEL : Werra Foxma

This album is a dark panopticon sound journey through a dystopian sinking city in ruins - an undeniably relatable metaphor in this present time. 'Viewers' adopts the concept of eyes, lenses and screens being used as observational surveillance within this haunted apocalyptic dreamscape. 

Sulk Rooms is the solo music project of Yorkshire-based artist/composer Thomas Ragsdale.
In this new album of his, we drift slowly through ominous buildings of unknown purpose, dark eerie passageways, haunted corridors, strange airless rooms and all other kinds of vacant spaces - devoid of human presence, or joy.

The atmosphere of this album is stifling, suffocating and riddled with anxiety and paranoia. Dark shimmering drones fill the soundscapes like shadows drifting through vast empty theatres. 
Listening to this album from start to finish feels like blindly and desperately navigating your way through creepy smoke-filled passageways and murky abstract environments, not knowing if you're ever going to make through to the other side...while feeling the ominous and invisible presence of the watchful eye.

'Viewers' is haunting and unnerving, but it's also melodic and beautiful, and a pure joy to listen to. Great album.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Mt Fog - Spells of Silence (2022)


GENRE : art pop, electronica, folktronica, synthpop
RECORD LABEL : self-releasedGhost Mountain Records

Seattle's foggy art-pop princess returns with a new album of delightful synth-pop folktronica songs to blast away the dusty cobwebs and open up the dark pathways to the heart. 

In 'Spells of Silence', Mt Fog (aka Carolyn) successfully weaves her weird and wacky magical spells upon the unexpecting listener with her unique blend of psychedelic art pop and minimalistic synthscapes. This album is a surreal yet fun journey through haunted places and impossible spaces - full of ups, downs and everything in between. 

The music is haunting and sweet, dreamy and joyful, infectious and absurd. Her vocals and words paint vivid images of mystical landscapes, full of strange wonder... and her sparing use of violin flourishes help elevate and add a nice richness to the songs. A great alternative pop album. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Kayla Painter - Planet 9 (2022) 


GENRE : electronica, ambient, bass music, experimental
RECORD LABEL : self-released

Here's some celestial electronic ambience to transport you to a strange distant planet beyond the stars - a sweet and baffling musical journey through otherworldly atmospheres and surreal terrains.

Soft glitchy dub techno beats, rippling ambience, wavering dreamscapes, floating swelling textures, snippets of fragmented voice samples, fuzzy synth basslines, and various other tinkles and twinkles comprise this delicious slab of minimalist experimental electronica from Fijian/British artist, musician, producer & lecturer Kayla Painter

In 'Planet 9', Painter has created a unique and complex sound palette of mesmerizing rhythms, ethereal synthscapes, fractured field recordings and minimalistic synth melodies that dazzles, intrigues and allures. A wonderful album. Highly recommended. 

Stream/Download the album here...

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Cindytalk - Subterminal (2022) 


GENRE : experimental, noise, electronic avant-garde, post-rock
RECORD LABEL : False Walls

Cindytalk are a Scottish experimental project that dates back to the early 1980s, and has existed ever since then, both as a band and as a solo project of Cinder - the only permanent member of the group since their initial formation. 
Cindytalk have had a strange and colourful career that have taken them all around the world. Cinder contributed guest vocals to This Mortal Coil's debut album 'It'll End in Tears' and the 1983 EP, 'Sixteen Days/Gathering Dust', and has shared stages and bills with the likes of Ray Davies (The Kinks) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth). In more recent years they have been based between the UK and Japan. 

'Subterminal' was recorded between 2020-21 upon Cinder's return to Scotland. This album consists of four long-form compositions - four abstract sonic meditations that magically blur the lines between everyday mundane reality and surreal hallucinatory dream worlds. 
Musically, it's a strange but satisfying amalgamation of electronic avant-garde, industrial noise, psychedelic ambience, abstract sound art and subtle/minimalistic post-rock.  The arrangements are sparse, and melody is used very sparingly amidst intriguing sound collages of birdsong, falling rain and synthetic noise. 

A very unique listening experience and a brilliant album from this legendary experimental music group that a lot more people should know of.

Stream/Download the album here...

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RUBBISH MUSIC - Upcycling (2022) 


GENRE : sound art, drone, field recordings, experimental noise
RECORD LABEL : Flaming Pines

This is Rubbish! Garbage! Crap! Total Waste!!! Ugh sorry, I couldn't help myself...

RUBBISH MUSIC is the collaborative duo of sound artists Kate Carr & Iain Chambers, and this is their stellar debut album - full of foreboding atmospheres, thick with unbearable tension and dread... which is very fitting for its theme of the detriment and destruction of the planet through our carelessly discarded waste. Our own ignorance and apathy about matters of waste will ultimately destroy us in the end, but let us concentrate on the music for now...

In this album we hear the rustling of plastic bags, the thumping of hollow containers, the draining of stagnant water, the squeaking of toys, the crackling of food waste and the rattling of various household items, which are used to create a glitchy animated sound foundation, over which drifts dark sinister drones and experimental electronics. These soundscapes are claustrophobic and haunting, grim and unnerving, yet at the same fascinating and strangely enticing. 

This album may be rubbish, but it's certainly not crap. A wonderful debut album from this talented and unassuming sound art duo.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Blanket Swimming - A Quiet Vision (2022)


GENRE : ambient, drone, soundscape, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : Cruel Nature Records

Here's an album of softly flowing drones and mesmerizing field recordings, swirling and drifting through peaceful dreamscapes. The music breathes slowly and deeply, enveloping the listener in its sweet poignant sound. 

Blanket Swimming is the solo music project of prolific Nashville artist/musician Nicholas Maloney. In this album, he has used improvised electric guitar loops and manipulated field recordings to create three wonderfully minimalistic long-form ambient pieces...with the emphasis being on the shimmering textures and harmonic tensions within the soundscapes, as opposed to the actual melodies or compositions. There's a dreamy innocence about these pieces that is alluring and captivating, and deeply immersive.

'The Quiet Vision' is an album of subtle beauty and peaceful introspection. It is impressionistic ambient music in which you must build your own thoughts and extract your own meaning from. It encourages a sense of calm contemplation. Something we all need to do more of in this mad world. Glorious stuff.  

Stream/Download the album here...

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Jo Bled - The Metallic Industrial Other (2022) 


GENRE : experimental noise, sound art, drone
RECORD LABEL : Histamine Tapes

This album by percussive artist/improviser Jo Bled is a one-take organic recording of a Balinese gamelan nipple-gong, enhanced by some subtle digital manipulation. The artist began assembling and working on this gong during his time in rehab, preparing the instrument with bells and chimes, and exploring ways of playing it to reach altered states of consciousness - free of drugs and alcohol.

'The Metallic Industrial other' is a fascinating and meditative piece of experimental sound art, blending hypnotic tribal rhythms with deep resonant drones that takes the listener on a strange and compelling aural journey. For a single percussive instrument, the sound and dynamics of this piece is deceivingly large, dramatic and complex. Making it all the way through this mesmerizing musical journey is a rewarding and cathartic experience. A brilliant album.

Stream/Download the album here...

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NRV - Blue Roofs (2022) 


GENRE : ambient, drone, downtempo, electronica
RECORD LABEL : See Blue Audio

NRV is the ambient/drone music project of Sendai-based Japanese musician Nerve. This album consists of two captivating long-form ambient pieces of whispery drones and softly floating dreamscapes. The title 'Blue Roofs' refers to the blue sheets used as roofs on the houses in Sendai that were devastated by the 2011 tsunami, and the music itself is a poignant reflection of the sadness and beauty of life that followed the tragedy.

The delicate airiness and sweeping melancholy of 'Blue Roofs' instantly conjures up memories of driving through the Japanese countryside - past hazy mountains, rice paddies and blue sparkling rivers. And like these rivers, this music ebbs and flows slowly and gently towards an unknown horizon, with subtle shifts and changes to the atmospheres and melodies along the way. 
This album is a beautiful mixture of light and dark, hope and despair. It is reflection of sadness and hardship, but also an expression of a deep appreciation of life. Great stuff. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Glacial Anatomy - Northern Peace (2022) 


GENRE : dark ambient, drone, soundscape, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : self-released

Glacial Anatomy is the dark arctic ambient music project of Greg Nunn, and this is his latest album. It's a freezing cold dark drone album based around the concept of all the skeletal remains of abandoned man-made structures that lay scattered all around the Arctic. A very intriguing idea, and the music certainly does not disappoint.

This album is filled with the sounds of cold ambient noise, darkly drifting and sweeping over vast frozen expanses, devoid of human activity or civilization, other than the grim derelict wrecks that are left behind - hollowed out and abandoned to the natural elements, inevitable decay, and the harsh and unforgiving winds of time. 
These dark and engulfing noisescapes are wonderfully immersive - ideal for walks or drives through long stretches of barren land. An excellent album that will scream out to the world of dark ambient fans and noise enthusiasts.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Hiram - Immersion (2022) 


GENRE : sound art, ambient, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : Home & Garden

Here's an album of ecological ambient sound art by Minnesotan experimentalist Hiram. The main focus of this project is to help promote the development of personal connections to water and the natural environment around us. Composed over the summer of 2022, these intriguing recordings capture a live outdoor performance one Saturday morning, in a beautiful shared public space.

This album is a meditative and serene listening experience. Various microphones and recording techniques were used to capture the deep and intimate sounds of moving water, which is the central focus and theme of these long-form sound pieces. It drips and gurgles and flows in its natural element, peacefully reminding us of its sheer beauty, and its importance.
Around these immersive watery centerpieces we are lulled and serenaded by gentle flourishes of ethnic wooden flutes, shimmering abstract drones, melancholic synth ambience, subtle soothing electronica, the whooshing of cavernous wind-like noise, omnipotent cricket chirping and sweet birdsong - all drifting and resonating within these gorgeous tranquil soundscapes. A great album, and a wonderful watery sound journey.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Peter Gilroy - Light Dreams (2022)

GENRE : psychedelic folk, cosmic country, guitar music
RECORD LABEL : Perpetual Doom

Here's some gorgeous cosmic folk guitar music for slow aimless wanderings through hazy cornfields and sleepy meadows. This album from Californian artist/musician Peter Gilroy is full of mesmerizing melodies, dreamy acoustic arpeggios, contemplative whispers, psychedelic soundscapes and rural field recordings - backed with some subtle and tasteful flourishes from accompanying instrumentation.

The gentle and minimalistic atmospheres of these songs are quiet and contemplative, meditative and dreamy, weird and wonderful...while the performances themselves (and the overall sound) is very organic and raw. You can hear the creaks of the wooden guitar, the soft breathing and humming of the artist, the echoes of the recording room...and it all makes for a calming and immersive listening experience. Beautiful stuff. Fans of Robbie Basho and John Fahey will surely dig this album.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Hydra Transmitter - The Birds (2022) 


GENRE : experimental noise, electronic, industrial, improvisation
RECORD LABEL : Anticipating Nowhere 

An album of electroacoustic improvisations performed on keyboard and guitar, surrounded by wailing walls of creepy unsettling sound textures and abstract atonal noise, and strangely interspersed with field recordings of birdcall and other miscellaneous nature sounds. 

Hydra Transmitter is the solo music project of Karl Pelzmann. These raw improvised instrumental pieces of his ring out with a dark dissonant beauty amidst the menacing atmospheres and unnerving abstractions that shudder and shift around them. The feel of this album is claustrophobic and suffocating, yet at the same time meditative and serene. An interesting juxtaposition, and a wonderful listening experience. Listen to this alone in a dark room, or when you're setting out on a long drive in the early morning gloom. Brilliant album.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Blush To The Snow - Nightfall / The Golden Hour (2021) 


GENRE : ambient, drone, electronic, soundscape
RECORD LABEL : Not Yet Remembered

This is the perfect soundtrack to the come down after an intense psychedelic experience. It's got that hazy surreality of the feeling you get when you've been up all night long, and you find yourself alone in a strange yet familiar world. You witness the first glimpses of daylight break through the thick darkness of night, and hear the first sweet birdsong of a new dawn...and you struggle to adjust to the idea of the day that lies ahead.

This is a gorgeous minimalistic ambient/drone album from Blush To The Snow (a.k.a William Creason) - an excellent artist whose body of work is well worth exploring.
In this album, bare (yet deceivingly complex) synth chords ring on and on throughout the entirety of these songs - some short and fleeting, some long and drawn-out. 
Dreamy textures shimmer and drift through lonely barren soundscapes, slowly lulling the listener into a introspective trance-like state. It is simultaneously haunting and calming, like a lot of the best ambient music. An excellent album.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Sunday 2 October 2022

Bandcamp Recommendations (Oct 22)

Here's my latest roundup of Bandcamp recommendations from this past month...

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Mollbury Medical Research Centre - The G4 Project (2022)


GENRE : experimental, dark ambient, drone, sound art, noise art, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : Sensory Leakage

Mollbury Medical Research Centre is a top secret medical facility that's situated in an undisclosed location - somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It's an eerie and ominous-looking building that sits in an otherwise desolate stretch of wilderness. Or perhaps it's located on the outskirts of some quiet little town - right under our noses, hidden in plain sight...I don't know what it is, but Mollbury Medical Research Centre remains to be one of the most baffling and intriguing music projects out there.

'The G4 Project' is the second album by MMRC. The debut album was actually one of the first albums I wrote about in this blog - a great album, but this one (released through the great experimental tape label Sensory Leakage) is even better!

It's a creepy, unsettling and mysterious affair. Musically, it's a troubling yet wonderful amalgamation of organic medical lab sound samples, ominous drones, dark ambience, glitchy demented electronica, anxiety-inducing noise walls, creepy voices (both human and non-human) and field recordings of other strange miscellaneous sounds, which is blended together in such a cohesive and brilliant way. 

This album is full of sounds of medical equipment being rattled around, devices bleeping, erratic electronic pulses, paranormal suggestions, waves of white noise, empty corridors and various vacant spaces within this mysterious facility. Brilliant experimental sound art - full of mystery and intrigue. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...
Buy the tape here...

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 Post Doom Romance - Aggregate (2022)


GENRE : sound art, experimental noise, abstract, soundscape
RECORD LABEL : Somnimage

This album is full of restless ghosts - spectres that slowly rise from the earth. You don't see them, but you know they're there. You feel them...

Abstract audio manipulation, dark rippling tones of ominous ambience, haunting waves of static, unsettling dread-filled soundscapes, unnerving frequencies, pulsating subsonic vibrations, ghostly murmurs, unbearable tensions and quiet unease...

Post Doom Romance is the experimental sound art duo of Mykel Boyd and Sea Heikes (a.k.a seah), who are both exceptionally gifted sound/visual artists in their own right, but together make conceptual noise art that explores the inner and outer vibrations of the landscape we inhabit, and are a force to be reckoned with in the sound art world. This album is pure sonic desolation and auditory engulfment. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Conducive - Hidden Canals EP (2022)

Intriguing experimental sound artist Conducive is back with a fantastic little EP consisting of four abstract sound collages, specifically inspired by the dark undercurrents that exist in large European cities - the crimes, the dangers and all the ominous menacing things that are hidden in plain sight.

Although 'Hidden Canals' is shorter and a bit easier to digest than its full-length predecessor, it is by no means softer or lighter in its delivery. It is in fact incredibly dark, noisy and unsettling. It makes me feel like something awful is going to happen in the midst of ordinary mundane existence and loud busy places.

The entire EP is alive with the abstract mingling and merging of French voices and busy street sounds, dark rumblings, ominous forebodings, melancholic drones and frightening squalls of fierce noise. It makes for an incredibly strange and unsettling yet wonderfully captivating EP from an exciting and shamefully unknown sound artist. 

For those who may not have had the patience or endurance to make it all the way through Conducive's sprawling debut album 'Global Makeshift Wounds', this follow-up EP would be a great place to start.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Elizabeth Crompton - A Warning EP (2022) 


GENRE : songwriter, modern classical, electronica, ambient
RECORD LABEL : Werra Foxma Records

Here's an EP of dark and delicate balladry from Manchester-based electronic artist/vocalist Elizabeth Crompton. 

The four songs that comprise this little EP are minimalistic piano-led compositions backed by soft glitching ambient electronica, laying a fitting sound foundation for Crompton's stunning voice to rest upon, and soar over... 
These songs are dark and dramatic, heartfelt and fragile, stripped and bare, dreamy and haunting... They drift slowly and sadly through the ether of the mind, evoking all kinds of deeply buried feelings and emotions - revealing ugly scars and sad truths, but also exposing a stark vulnerable beauty.

The title track 'A Warning' is taken from Crompton's forthcoming full-length album, 'Problems of Other Minds', which is out in November on the wonderful alt-electronica label Werra Foxma Records. If this EP is any indication of the quality of the full-length - we're in for a glorious treat.

Stream/Download the EP here...

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Floating Shrine - Growth And Decay (2022) 


GENRE : ambient, drone, noise, soundscape
RECORD LABEL : Decaying Spheres

This is the deeply mesmerizing and engulfing debut album from Australia-based artist Floating Shrine. I don't know anything about this artist, but I always look forward to any music that Decaying Spheres puts out into the world, and this latest offering is certainly no disappointment.

This album is like a hazy bleary-eyed reverie. Expansive cinematic dreamscapes shimmer and ripple and pulsate - over which enormous swells of fuzzy plaintive noise and sweeping melancholic drones expand and contract, almost like the music is breathing... 

'Growth and Decay' is an intense and emotional affair. It clutches at the heart and squeezes tightly. The juggle and balance of emotions portrayed throughout these six songs is breathtaking. The music itself is warm, affectionate, luxurious and euphoric... but at the same time it's undeniably introspective and lonely. This whole album feels like someone desperately moving towards a distant horizon that's way out of reach...like a deep longing for things that are not of this world. Powerful stuff.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Karen Vogt - Little Pink Fluffy Clouds A (2022) 


GENRE : ambient, modern classical, female vocals, minimalist
RECORD LABEL : self-released

This is a beautiful, hypnotic and trance-inducing album of improvised vocal performances from Australian artist Karen Vogt. Soft and soothing, delicate and dreamy, wispy and wonderful - the thirteen pieces of ethereal choral singing that comprise this album gently float through one's psyche like a succession of clouds. Hence the title.
These songs are minimalistic and intimate, yet they conjure up images of celestial dreamscapes and majestic skylines, stretching infinitely before our eyes.

This album is the first in a four-part series of 'Little Pink Fluffy Clouds' albums that Vogt is planning on releasing over the next few months. All vocal improvisations (layered, looped and sampled) that she recorded for her radio show. 
This music is a soft soothing balm for the weary and troubled soul. If the rest of the series is of this caliber, we are in for more delightful treats ahead. Beautiful stuff.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Lalén Ríos Luna - Bateyes (2022)


GENRE : avant-garde, abstract, sound art, electronica, musique concrete
RECORD LABEL : self-released

Delving into the vast discography of Lalén Ríos Luna (Porous Collective) is like entering a strange hallucinatory dream world of broken jaggedy avant-garde sound art, fragmented electronica, free-from improvised jazz and all manner of bizarre sonic abstractions that both baffle and intrigue the human brain.

This album consists of eleven fragments of one long winding mysterious whole. The gurgling darkness rumbles and shifts in the background, while the foreground is busy with the frantic activity of mysterious unknown lifeforms - scratching, pulsing and bleeping away, desperately fighting to get to the surface of this strange abstract environment that they find themselves trapped within. 

The atmosphere of this album is haunting, menacing and confusing...but within the walls of these demented dreamscapes are fleeting moments of melancholic beauty and peaceful serenity. The best way to enjoy music like this is just to surrender yourself completely to its complex and alluring flow.


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Precenphix - Off-Axis (2022)


GENRE : electronica, techno, cinematic, industrial dark ambient 
RECORD LABEL : Not Yet Remembered

This is an anxiety-ridden and anxiety-inducing dark trip through an intricate web of glitchy techno, fragmented brooding electronica, abstract post-industrial noisescapes and distressed ambience. It paints the picture of a maddening maze of mental instability and frustration. Errors and warning signs flashing in every direction.

Precenphix is the solo electronic project of Ben Rabenold. This album is at times eerie and subdued, and at other times demented and frightening... However you want to describe it, this is powerful industrial techno music - full of tension and suspense, shrouded in a thick heavy blackened atmosphere that's consistently shifting shape and form. And there's even a couple of songs with vocals in them (by Nicholette Hope) which adds some nice intimate yet ethereal beauty to the mix. Although many of the individual sounds contained within these songs are disjointed and erratic, the album as a whole is a cohesive and emotional musical journey. Great stuff.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Lee Baggett - Anyway (2022) 


GENRE : psych rock, cosmic folk, indie rock, Americana
RECORD LABEL : Perpetual Doom

Sometimes I love a record so much and feel so attached to it that I'm fearful and hesitant to check out the artist's other works, in the chance that it doesn't live up to my expectations, or disappoints me entirely.
This is how I felt upon approaching this new Lee Baggett album after being so sentimentally attached to his wonderful lost (and eventually exhumed) classic record from the 70s - 'Just A Minute'.  

It took me a long time to summon up the strength to listen to this new album, but I'm so glad I finally did, because it's a thoroughly enjoyable record. It'll undoubtedly appeal to those who loved the style and sound of 'Just A Minute' whilst treading on some new delicious territories. 
Right from the opening seconds of the album, the listener is treated to Baggett's signature blend of lethargic beach rock, jangly guitar pop, cosmic Americana psych folk and wistful balladry... over which drifts his unmistakable raw apathetic drawl. 

Musically and sonically, it's really difficult to avoid comparing Lee Baggett to On The Beach-era Neil Young, or 70's Bob Dylan...but it's fully justified in this case. Fans of 70s Neil Young, Bob Dylan and psychedelic folk/rock will love this. It's raw, dirty, mesmerizing and melancholy... and fun as hell.

This album is a gorgeous slice of gnarly world-weary beauty, and a brilliant comeback for Mr Baggett. I highly recommended this...though I do suggest you check out Just A Minute first.

Stream/Download the album here...

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The Gateless Gate - Primordia (2022) 


GENRE : ambient, kosmische, new age, post rock, drone
RECORD LABEL : self-released

The Gateless Gate is the solo music project of prolific Canadian artist/musician/novelist Allister Thompson, and this album is his latest offering...

'Primordia' is an album of deeply meditative and vast sprawling ambient soundscapes, influenced by early 70's German kosmische/krautrock. It's delicate and mystical, raw and rampant, dramatic and haunting, peaceful and elegant...

The serene breezy whistle of the mellotron, the soft dancing swirl of the organ, the trance-inducing psychedelia of drifting synth melodies...punctuated now and again by the gentle tinkle of piano keys. It's a great album to allow yourself to sink deeply into... a wonderful aural antidote to the persistent and depressing uncertainty in this increasingly stressful world we live in. A beautiful journey of deep contemplation and self-reflection. Highly recommended.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Una Lee - From B With L (2018)


GENRE : sound art, field recordings, spoken word
RECORD LABEL : Plus Timbre

In this album, Korean-Irish sound artist Una Lee takes us on a narrated soundwalk through an unknown city. Throughout these ten sound pieces, we are aurally guided through busy shopping malls, dark narrow alleyways, footbridges and various crowded public areas... but this is not just a soundwalk, nor your average album of collected field recordings - it is also a spoken sound letter to a friend...a relationship that (I assume) has grown distant and sad.

Lee's spoken narration is a mixture of the mundane and the profound. It's a beautiful poetic blend of everyday observations, personal confessions and intimate anecdotes. Lee tells us what she sees on her walk around the city, and how these things make her feel - both in connection to herself and to the distant friend she's addressing. Her voice is soothing and dreamy to listen to, and the field recordings are captivating - instantly transporting us to these particular places. A fascinating and engaging listening experience.

Stream/Download the album here...

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Taavi Suisalu - Noisephony of Lawn Mowers (2021)


GENRE : sound art, experimental noise, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : Staalplaat Records

This album is a score for lawnmowers - yes...that familiar, mundane and ubiquitous noise that most people know so well (and many despise) turned into an experimental musical score of sorts. 

'Noisephony of Lawn Mowers' is divided into two parts. The first part is exactly as the title suggests - it's a cacophony of chugging, humming, buzzing, rumbling and vrooming away. Combustion engines and spinning blades making their all-too-recognizable intense racket. A strangely alluring sound study of  mechanized noise.
The second part is a more abstract and unsettling sound collage of subtle vibrations, drips of liquid, scattered beats and miscellaneous clacking and clanging. A very interesting sound experiment. The noise of lawnmowers has never sounded so fascinating to me. I can smell the grass as I'm listening to this.

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Boban Ristevski + Philippe Neau - 21 (2021) 


GENRE : experimental, noise, sound art, industrial, drone
RECORD LABEL : Mahorka

Thunderous rumbling, atmospheric birdsong, ghostly drones, eerie hollow field recordings and damaged glitchy audio make up the fabric of this distressing noise art record from Boban Ristevski & Philippe Neau.

It's an unsettling and unnerving listening experience...but it's also really captivating and utterly engulfing. I found myself completely immersed in its haunting soundscapes filled with dark drones, industrial noise, fluttering frequencies and broken audio abstractions. Excellent stuff.

Stream/Download the album here...

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