This has to be one of the most poorly tagged albums I have ever encountered on Bandcamp, and I’m happy for it. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I first played Quick Dreams, a release by Georgian composer Gacha Bakradze, but I knew about 20 second into it that it wasn’t going to be techno or house. It’s definitely an ambient record, and quite a shimmery and pretty one as well, but you find acoustic guitar, rock-ish structures, and a very calm, warm air around this disc.
Music
[Music] Ataşehir – AVM
Ambient as a cool breeze meeting a calming shopping experience. Oxymoronic, I know, but humor me a bit.
This description fits this release from Ataşehir (an alias of the ever-wonderful project and friend to this blog, Sumatran Black). AVM in a Turkish acronym for alışveriş merkezi, which translates into supermarket or shopping mall, though I might be mistaken. There is a nearly vaporwave aesthetic to their music in this release. It’s ambient, of course, but spiced with a touch of 80s or 90s cheese, the sort you may have encountered wandering in a mall 30 or 40 years ago. Modern Muzak. The music of my youth spent in elevators, escalators and fast food courts. Very pleasant, indeed.
[Music] This Is Wreckage – I Don’t Live, I Exist
I’ve quite enjoyed releases from Forbidden Place Records, as I’ve come to enjoy stoner rock and more advanced and interesting forms of metal, a genre I couldn’t stand some years ago. This Is Wreckage offer a rather brutal, bass-driven album which would remind a listener of groups like Pailhead (the collaboration between Ministry and Fugazi/Minor Threat lead singer Ian Mackaye) and the legendary Helmet, though more raw in sound and feel.
[Music] RRUFF – Impresiones
RRUFF are a band based in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Though they are tagged as “dungeon-synth,” there is a dark, rather pleasant, atmospheric, air about this two-track album. The work seems to come from a performance-oriented project focused on the ideas of Joan Fontcuberta regarding the state of photography and image.
From the band’s Bandcamp page:
Today photographs have ceased to be a memory to be ephemeral. The massification of photography has led us to a new situation in which it is not so important to own as to share. We live or perceive through the screens, which, like the shadows of Plato, are now our access to reality.
Perhaps it is because she was on my mind today, but the second track reminds me of American composer Pauline Oliveros, of blessed memory. RRUFF are in good company.
[Music] Yann Rouquet – The Silent North EP
Yann Rouquet is a composer out of Paris, France, who surprised me with a very short, but very relaxed, subdued and rather charming EP of ambient music with a cinematic bent. There seems to be a lot of it around, and I quite like that.
I look forward to hearing Yann develop these concepts further into longer albums.
[Music] Lalić – Post Mortal Gothic
We’ve had the pleasure of reviewing the work of Lalić before (in December of 2019, in fact), but this new release showcases them diving deeper into post-punk. This release sounds like touches of a The Sound, Suicide (without the reliance of electronics), and even bands like Berlin, though far less polished (and this is to the album’s benefit).
Another choice record.
[Music] aswekeepsearching – Sleep
A nice, mellow surprise out of India. aswekeepsearching are a post-rock band out of Pune. The band’s sound reminds me of something with a calming, cinematic feel which is complemented with a rock music structure underneath. Quite enjoyable.
[Music] Zan Hoffman & Hubert Heathertoes – Kaunastic Relapse of Idiosyncrasies: The Baltic Innoculation and other wayward ditties
Zan Hoffman and Hubert Heathertoes have been featured twice on this blog before (see here and here), and each time, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by their output. The good lads continue their tradition of splicing together drone, field recordings, and an aura of pleasantly calming weirdness together for well over an hour of headphone bliss.
[Music] VIA Original (ВИА Оригинал) – Sen Kaydan Bilasan (Сен Кайдан Биласан)
This Uzbek disco clip is pilfered from the late Soviet Union-era movie “Take Care of the Women! (Beregite zhenschin!).” Though I can find no information on the band, this track does but the “party” into “Communist Party,” no?
[Music] Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Say A Little Prayer
Surely we could use a few prayers these days, considering the damage being wrought by the Corona Virus (and by idiotic local bureaucrats hell-bent on caging populations like monkeys in a zoo).
The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Quintet included Ron Burton on piano, Henry Pearson on bass, Richie Goldberg on drums and Joe Texidor on percussion in this video.
