The Predatory Wasp
I’m glad I hadn’t listened to any of the singles from Slowdive’s new album everything is alive ahead of its release last week, as although it does mean I’m a little behind the curve, these tracks are undoubtedly more impactful as part of the whole than separated out. prayer remembered is the one that really got me on the first listen; a dreamy, melodic, instrumental slice of shoegaze perfection.
Brian Eno may have ‘invented’ ambient, but it was Stars of the Lid who refined it to perfection, creating some of the most beautiful, transcendent music ever to grace this world. With the death of one half of the group’s Brian McBride earlier this week we have lost a true visionary, and while surviving member Adam Wiltzie says there is unreleased music that may yet see the light of day, McBride’s passing in an opportunity to look back rather than forward, and to appreciate the work of a phenomenal artist and true original. Somewhat poignantly, there’s no music better suited to morn McBride than that which he himself created, and Another Ballad for Heavy Lids remains, for me, the highpoint of their extensive catalogue.
Sam Barker returns with his first solo EP since 2020’s BARKER002, this time on Oslo’s Smalltown Supersound. His 2018 EP Debiasing changed the game and remains one of my favourite electronic releases of all time, and while his latest Unfixed sees him reintroducing kick drums back into the equation there’s still an unpredictability to how the tracks are structured and progress. There are arguably more inventive, and certainly harder-hitting moment on the four-track release, but Wick & Wax get my nod for being 9 minutes of melodic loveliness.
The Canadian duo’s Steve Lind on the inspirational merits of an r&b icon
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
For more than a decade, Freak Heat Waves have been steadily amassing a cult following and earning acclaim from both critics and underground aficionados alike. Their music is a heady cocktail that defies easy categorization, blending elements of post-punk, psych, dub, ambient, house, and techno. Their eclectic sound has served as the soundtrack to countless DIY punk shows, outsider galleries and sleazy discos, establishing the duo as iconoclasts with a reputation for ignoring expectations and subverting genre conventions.
Their latest album Mondo Tempo exists in a hazy space between all these genres. Lead by Lind’s purringly nonchalant vocals, all the tracks on Mondo Tempo are various shades of “extremely chill”. From the barely-there, Nightmares on Wax-evoking Altered States to the spacious, breezy melodies of Cindy collab In a Moment Divine it’s one to be savoured, preferably while poolside somewhere exotic.
For their One Track Mind selection, Freak Heat Waves Steve Lind has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.
The latest album from Norwegian-Mexican artist Carmen Villain is comprised from parts of her score for Eszter Salamon’s two-and-a-half hour dance performance, Monument 0.10 : The Living Monument. Most of the track included here are edited down from the long-form versions that accompanied the ultra-slow scenes of the performance, which means that somewhere there’s probably an extended version of this incredibly lush album opener that I need to find and have on repeat for months to come.
https://carmenvillain.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-living-monument
Madeline Kenney isn’t Swedish, or Danish (she is, in fact, “a musician, baker, artist, sucker” who lives in Oakland), but she does very much remind me of some of my favourite bands from those particular countries, namely Wildhart and Lowly, respectively. And yes, I know they’re not the same place, but there is a shared atmosphere when it comes to alt-rock/pop from the region: a glassiness to the vocals; a particularly sharp thread of yearning evoked by the melodies – all of which is very much apparent in much of Kenney’s new album, A New Reality Mind from which HFAM is taken.
https://madelinekenney.bandcamp.com/album/a-new-reality-mind
The Toronto-based artist on the spellbinding power of a 70-year-old composition.
The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!
Formerly known as Clara Engel, Avi C. Engel is a prolific and multi-faceted Toronto-based artist whose music has been described as “folk noir,” and “minimalist holy blues from another galaxy.” Their influences span genres and media, amongst them Vasko Popa, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Roethke, Jim Jarmusch, Arvo Part, Robert Johnson, Gillian Welch, and Jacques Brel. In their own words, “I’m not writing the same song over and over so much as writing one long continuous song that will end when I die”, which is about as beautifully bleak a statement as I can imagine.
Their latest album Sanguinaria marries equally poetic lyrics with sparse instrumentation, building atmospheres that move beyond ‘haunting’ into territory that is almost unbearably raw and unsettling, but with a lightness of touch and attention to detail that draws you in completely.
For their One Track Mind selection, Avi has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.
Our lord and saviour Sufjan is back with – IMO – one of his finest songs for years, So You Are Tired; the lead single from his new album Javelin, due out in October. It’s absolutely vintage Suffers, with an outro beautiful enough to rival anything he’s ever recorded. I have enormous hopes for this album, which is described as “his first in full singer-songwriter mode since Carrie & Lowell.” Fuck. Yes. I love everything about this, with the exception of the deeply hideous title font on the artwork. But I forgive him.
There’s a lot of very interesting, gloomy music out today, including an EP called ‘murmuring chasms of nostalgia’ (come on), but it’s sunny outside and I’m going to a gig tonight so now is not the time for self-reflection and “thinking”. So instead here’s a bouncy indie disco thing taken from Girl Ray’s extremely buoyant new album Prestige to put a little Friday spring in your step.
Billowing ambient that builds into something more rhythmic and structured; like an optimistic take on Vangelis with all the sharp edges sanded off. Taken from the Kaifeng-born, Vancouver based musician and occasional chef’s new album of the same name which is well worth checking out in its entirety.
The Predatory Wasp 