Here's my latest list of Bandcamp recommendations....
I've been absolutely overwhelmed and inundated with amazing new music this month, and I've only got the chance to write about a fraction. Hopefully some of these recent discoveries will make it onto future posts. but for now...
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Joseph Blane - The Spider Room (2022)
GENRE : experimental, avant-garde, improvisation, noise jazz
RECORD LABEL : Submarine Broadcasting Co.
This album has a wonderfully unique backstory. You can read the blurb in its entirety on the Bandcamp page itself, but it basically came about as the result of the artist breaking into the music room of an old derelict school building in his local vicinity (at night) and using the various broken and rotting instruments at his disposal to create and record two 15-minute long improvised performances on a cheap Sony sound recorder, later mixing the tracks together into this breathtaking avant-garde masterpiece.
Joseph Blane is an avant-garde musician and experimental improviser from Scotland, and this is his incredible debut album - released on the ever-intriguing and consistently wonderful record label Submarine Broadcasting Co, and is (in my opinion) one of their best releases to date.
'The Spider Room' is a creepy and haunted sounding album. You can hear the background creaks and echoes of the desolate vacant space in which it was recorded, whilst the foreground is filled with the sound squeaking violins, an old reverberating piano, a broken glockenspiel, a percussive egg and (most importantly) Blane's electric guitar... puncturing through the sound with his unique brand of smooth jazz flourishes and wild avant-garde wackiness.
Musically, this album is hard to define. I think it's some form of improvised avant-garde noise jazz...but I'm really not sure. The songs are structure-less and free-form. The music can be quite challenging and difficult at times (a.k.a utterly hideous!)...but there's also moments of fleeting melancholic beauty and sweetness in there, along with all kinds of weird demented ebbs and flows, if you're patient enough to listen through these pieces. The whole performance is constantly on the verge of total collapse, and sometimes it does... A strange and wonderful improvised masterpiece that begs for repeated listens.
Stream/Download the album here...
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Lalén Ríos Luna - Like A Memory Lost (2022)
GENRE : avant-garde, experimental, drone, abstract ambient
RECORD LABEL : self-released
This album is a calm and somber affair from avant-garde experimentalist Lalén Ríos Luna. It's full of sorrowful audio murmurs and dark rumbling tones that stretch across the empty soundscapes like a soft sea on a dull winter's day...
Compared to some of Lalén Ríos Luna's other releases, this album is pretty minimalistic and bare... but it's certainly no less powerful or unique. In fact, it's probably one of my personal favourites of his. The titles of the four pieces that comprise this album are taken from a John Clare poem titled 'I Am', and the music is as evocative and melancholic and beautiful as the titles suggest.
Sonically, the album mostly consists of low-end frequencies and funereal drones that beg to be listened to through earphones or powerful speakers. Musically and artistically, it remains abstract and baffling... but it's also peaceful and serene, and a wonderful aural antidote to the hectic, noisy and overcrowded world in which we live.
Stream/Download the album here...
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Andrew Heath & Seigo Aoyama - North by North East (2022)
GENRE : ambient, drone, modern classical, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : Shimmering Moods
Gorgeous reverberated piano drifting gently upon a glistening sea of swirling cinematic ambience...
'North by North East' is the beautiful and fascinating collaboration album of British ambient artist Andrew Hearth and Japanese musician/composer Seigo Aoyama. It was inspired by the seasons and native topology of their native landscapes, which is very evident as you embark upon this splendid aural journey of an album.
Throughout these eight songs, the plaintive piano melodies and flourishes gorgeously complement the haunting swells and undulating electroacoustic drones within these vast expansive dreamscapes. The music is full of light melancholic airiness and ghostly whispers. Ethereal ambience and fragmented and manipulated field recordings lay the wonderful sound foundation for the piano to rest and drift beautifully upon, tinkling gently and dreamily along...
A great album. Highly recommended. If you're a fan of Ryuichi Sakamoto & Christian Fennesz's collaboration album 'Cendre' - you'll very likely dig this.
Stream/Download the album here...
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Ali Murray - Spectral Birds (2022)
GENRE : ethereal folk, dream pop, psych folk, ambient pop
RECORD LABEL : Dead Forest Records
This is the latest album from shadowy Scottish songwriter Ali Murray. It's a dreamy mixture of dark alt-folk, psych-folk and ambient pop, striking a beautiful balance that is intimate and soaring, peaceful and haunting... a perfect soundtrack for walking through grey barren fields or dark rugged coastlines.
Anyone who's already familiar with Murray's immense body of work should be well-acquainted with his signature amalgamation of sorrowful alt-folk, ethereal ambient dreamscapes and existentialist pop. It seems like he's on a constant pursuit to unveil the sad truths of this world.
This particular album is very organic and stripped-down, with the central focus of the songs being Murray's plaintive breathy tenor and raw acoustic guitar... but it's subtly and beautifully accompanied by dark ambience, soaring strings and psychedelic electric flourishes in all the right places.
'Spectral Birds' is a lonely grey dream, a melancholy journey into the unknown, and a wonderful winter treat of an album that I'll be listening to a lot in the days ahead. Highly recommended.
Stream/Download the album here...
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Anna Yarbrough - Sojourn EP (2021)
GENRE : modern classical, neoclassical, minimalist, solo piano music
RECORD LABEL : Rhodium Publishing
Here's a short EP of soft delicate piano compositions from musician/composer Anna Yarbrough. Recorded in her apartment in not-so-ideal circumstances during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, the three songs that comprise this EP seem to encapsulate a certain tension and longing that was prevalent in the artist's life during the time of its making and recording.
The music is gentle and fleeting, intimate and comforting, poignant and sweet...full of incidental room sounds and natural reverb which adds to the wonderful atmosphere and immediacy of the recordings. The dampened felt piano notes swirl slowly and dreamily in the air, before landing softly in quiet resignation.
I'm a sucker for solo instrumental piano music, and this little EP (and the rest of Yarbrough's work) seems to quench the particular thirst I have for it. Find a window with a nice view to look out of, and let the quiet delicate beauty of this EP envelope you entirely.
Stream/Download the EP here...
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Dane Law - blue forty-six (The Map Room) (2022)
GENRE : experimental, acoustic, lo-fi ambient, sound art
RECORD LABEL : Blue Tapes
This is an album of beautifully crafted acoustic guitar music that's been deconstructed and meticulously rearranged on a computer in a way that makes it sound digitally programmed and ''unplayable by human hands'', in the most wonderful way. The sound is minimalistic, fragile, and gorgeously evocative.
Dane Law is the solo music project of Adam Parkinson who is a sound artist, lecturer & musician, and this is his debut release on the gloriously eclectic and experimental
Blue Tapes label. Inspired by literature of polar exploration, Parkinson has crafted an album of glistening harp-like notes, dancing icicle-like melodies, swirling melancholic beauty and minimalistic cold desolate atmospheres. Ideal soundscapes for dreaming, fantasizing and all kinds of introspective wanderings. Fantastic album.
Stream/Download the album here...
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socool - Ephemera (2022)
GENRE : lo-fi electronic, ambient, drum & bass, trip-hop
RECORD LABEL : self-released
Here's some beautiful moody ambient trip-hop music to immerse yourself in. It sparkles and drifts, it shimmers and shifts....it floats through the ether slowly and dreamily, lodging itself firmly into the quiet corners of your mind.
This album is fairly minimalistic, allowing all the individual instruments and components to breathe at their own pace, and fill out the ever-expanding glorious atmospheres that the artist has created with such delicacy and finesse. The sound is ethereal and airy, combining ambient soundscapes with instrumental dream-pop, IDM and trip-hop. Even though the music is generally beautiful and calming, there's also a subtle yet noticeable tension and dark unease that taints the album, giving it a certain unique and mysterious quality which is wholly welcomed. A wonderful album to drift away to...
Stream/Download the album here...
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Henry Dagg and Evan Parker - THEN THROUGH NOW (2022)
GENRE : avant-garde jazz, experimental, electronic, abstract, noise
RECORD LABEL : False Walls
Here is a strange and mesmerizing hour-long improvised performance by Henry Dagg (composer, improviser, sound sculptor & builder of experimental musical instruments) and Evan Parker (tenor/soprano jazz saxophonist & improviser).
In this collaborative album, Dagg & Parker bridge raw organic earthiness with abstract avant-garde electronica - beautifully captured in this live recording. For this particular performance, Parker plays the soprano saxophone while Dagg experiments with a new electronic instrument he developed called 'The Stage Cage'.
The stark minimalism of this music and the emptiness of the room in which it was performed makes for an eerie and unpredictable performance. The notes, melodies and harmonics resonate and ricochet off the walls of the venue, and lay scattered across the confined soundscape, shimmering in their own broody dissonance before disappearing entirely...
'THEN THROUGH NOW' is an intriguing and immersive listening experience, and the backstory and description of this performance makes for interesting reading. See the Bandcamp link below...
Stream/Download the album here...
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Heavy Cloud - atal mor (2022)
GENRE : sound art, noise, sound collage, musique concrete
RECORD LABEL : Falt
This is an album of four beautifully immersive sound collages of scratching, thumping, bleeping field recordings, found sounds, fractured street noises and whooshing watery textures, accompanied by bizarre and delicate segments of broody abstract ambience.
Heavy Cloud is the musical project of Ryan Hooper, and if you're wondering - 'atal mor' is the Cornish term for ''flotsam and jetsam'', which describes the feel of this album very well.
The entire listening experience is like sifting through the mundane debris of our existence, holding onto the interesting stuff and discarding the rest. No particular moments of this album last long. There are constant abrupt changes in the atmosphere and tension of these pieces, highlighting their fleeting effect, and also the absurdity of the collected sounds of everyday life when artistically compiled and collaged.
This is gorgeous sound art, and another brilliant release from tape label
Falt. If you like this kind of music (or ''non-music'') you should definitely explore the rest of their catalogue.
Stream/Download the album here...
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Karen Vogt - I've Been Waiting For The Longest Time (2022)
GENRE : ambient, drone, shoegaze, vocal ambience
RECORD LABEL : Superpang
Here's a gloriously mesmerizing EP of quivering drones and slow rippling ambience from Australian-born/Paris-based musical artist Karen Vogt. The two long pieces of live improvised music that comprise this EP are plaintive shimmering dreamscapes of floating synth pads, post-rock guitar and ethereal voices that spread and swell throughout these immersive environments in which they solely exist.
This music makes me think of the slow changing of the seasons, and the passing of time. I personally don't think that there's enough ambient EPs out there in the world, so this is definitely one to cherish and revisit again and again. Beautiful stuff.
Stream/Download the EP here...
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black_ops & The Creeping Man - Dust EP (2022)
GENRE : experimental, noise, drone, field recordings
RECORD LABEL : self-released
This EP is an enticing collaboration between two dark wizards of the underground experimental noise scene. It is an introductory release to their musical amalgamation, with their forthcoming full-length album due to be released next Spring on
Wormhole World.
'Dust' is an EP of grainy textures, growling industrial black noise, pulsing machinery, atonal dark ambience and abstract electronica. The sound whispers and blows, and at times erupts into frightening yet fleeting cacophonies. Its overall effect is eerie and unsettling, yet the artistic intent and purpose remains unknown. It lingers inside your brain long after it's over, like a vague ominous dream. A great little EP, and a good indicator of what's to come next....
Stream/Download the EP here...
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NV-9 - Any Glow EP (2022)
GENRE : ambient, abstract, improvisation, drone, soundscape, dark ambient
RECORD LABEL : Drale Records
This is a stunning debut EP of minimalistic ambient dreamscapes from NV-9. It's a simple, subtle and quietly captivating work of art... beginning with warm gentle fuzz and slowly evolving into more dark and intricate territories, layered with rippling tones of serene beauty.
These immersive ethereal drones are perfect for early morning wanderings, hazy reflections and late night introspection. For me, it conjures up images of shimmering deserts, still lakes and sleeping cities. I really admire the restraint that the artist has shown in regards to constructing this music. There is no overcrowding or desperation. Its delicate tones and dreamy atmospheres make me want to listen to it over and over and over. Beautiful stuff. Highly recommended.
Stream/Download the album here...
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