Author: The Predatory Wasp

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Music

Elori Saxl – Wave III

Wave III is the second single to be released from NYC-based musician, composer and skateboard enthusiast Elori Saxl. Half composed in the Adirondack mountains during summer amid lakes, rivers, and moss-laden forest floors, and half on a frozen Lake Superior island in deep winter, The Blue of Distance – unsurprisingly given its genesis – takes many of its musical cues from the vastness of nature, and Wave III itself is glassy, expansive and sparse: a quietly shimmering lake under an infinitely but almost reassuringly black sky.

https://elorisaxl.com

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Music

Quinton Barnes – Switch

Quinton Barnes is just absolutely fucking brilliant. Not only did he put out one of our favourite albums of the year with Aarupa, he recently announced a new LP As A Motherfucker which will be landing in January to buoy us all when we’re skint and miserable after one of the weirdest festive periods of our lives. What a dude. Switch is stripped-back but punchy as hell replete with eerie pads and crisp drums, and further reinforces the fact that he’s a thoughtful, outrageously talented artist surely destined for greatness.

https://quintonbarnes.bandcamp.com

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Music

Coolgirl – Gaussian Blur (Varsity Star Remix)

Varsity Star is a Brooklyn-based electronic musician who grew up in the suburbs of Boston, but relocated to Berlin after a “biblical flea infestation” made his apartment uninhabitable. His remix of Coolgirl’s Gaussian Blur amplifies some of the more retro-leaning electronic elements of the original, upping the tempo and adding furious, Squarepusher-esque drums to run alongside the neon synth lines. By turns franticly glitchy and soothingly warm, it’s an assured reimagining of what was already a strong record.

https://varsitystar.bandcamp.com

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Music

HIRA – Eclipses

HIRA is one of the artists that has come up through Jai Paul and A. K. Paul’s Paul Institute, something that will come as no surprise to anyone who listened to Eclipses: an achingly chill R&B cut that bears a striking resemblance to much of the Pauls’ respective bodies of work. Sparse and downbeat with fleeting shimmers of guitar and occasional drums providing a skeletal backing for HIRA’s gorgeous falsetto, Eclipses is so confident in its own ability to beguile it barely needs to bother trying.

https://www.instagram.com/hira.world

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Music

Bad Flamingo – Dead Man’s Hand

I would love to tell you a little more about Bad Flamingo, but they seem pretty happy with their anonymity: their website bio reads simply “Vocals, Guitar. Bass. Banjo, the one on the left. Vocals. Banjo. Autoharp. Tambourine, the one on the right”, and aside from a 2019 interview with Tinnitist they’ve said very little publicly. So let’s just focus on the music, which is great. Dead Man’s Hand is pretty unclassifiable – alt-country? prairie-rock? – but incredibly evocative, powerfully delivered and unquestionably vital: a seething cauldron of reverberating guitars, pummelling drums and enigmatic vocals.

https://www.badflamingomusic.com

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Music

A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Desires Are Already Memories

To my shame, I only recently found out that Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie made up one half of A Winged Victory For The Sullen – the other half being L.A. composer Dustin O’Halloran – which considering how much I love SOTL, I really should have been more aware of. Desires Are Already Memories is taken from their forthcoming album Invisible Cities, which is a paired-down version of the score to Leo Warner’s acclaimed theatre production. Like much of their work it sits somewhere between hope and despair, with choral voices and aching beautiful strings combining to tremendous effect.

https://awvfts.com

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Music

LAMBERT – one x one

LAMBERT is a London based songwriter, producer and artist with a background in baroque and classical music and now creating some rather striking electronica. one x one is her latest release and pairs her granulated, ethereal vocal alongside starkly beautiful production. The track was produced while “coming to terms with the reality of losing someone close to me”, with LAMBERT aiming to make something that was both painful and beautiful to capture the feelings of that time. She’s undoubtedly succeeded.

https://soundcloud.com/grace-lambert-207283757/one-x-one-2/s-IlN9um8m0HU

https://www.instagram.com/grace.lamberrt

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Interviews Music

One Track Mind: Loma

The band’s Jonathan Mieburg celebrates the work of Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khatchaturian.

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!

Following the inaugural feature from Nation of Language’s Ian Devaney, we’re with another of my favourite bands for round two: Loma.

Loma released their second album, Don’t Shy Away, earlier this year: a stunningly brilliant body of work the moves from the propulsive, dream-pop of tracks like Half Silences and choral theatrics of Elliptical Days, to the ghostly, folk-like strains of the title track: undoubtedly one of the most crushingly beautiful singles of the year.

For his selection, Loma’s Jonathan Mieburg – who many will know from his work with Shearwater – has picked out an epic, haunting piece of classical music from one of the most celebrated films of all time.

Continue reading “One Track Mind: Loma”
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Music

MIYNT – A bite of papaya

It’s all been a bit serious on the blog recently – lots of moody electronic stuff which obviously has its place, but still – so here’s a big refreshing wallop of positivity for your ears courtesy of Stockholm-based-artist MIYNT that’s the result “a slow disco jam and too much fruit”, apparently. A bite of papaya is an immensely wonderful record, with the hushed, lo-fo vocals contrasting wonderfully with those big, open chords and ebullient percussion. A joyful, infectious triumph.

https://soundcloud.com/miynt/a-bite-of-papaya-1/

https://www.instagram.com/itsmiynt

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Music

Sea Oleena – Lost Song

There’s been a gap of six years between Shallow – the last Sea Oleena LP – and Weaving A Basket, which was released last month. So long in fact that I’d forgotten just how brilliant an artist she is. Weaving A Basket, though, may be a late entry for album of the year: it’s certainly one of the most beautiful, with vocals acting like ambient textures rather than narrative or rhythmic devices, often accompanied by little more than a mournfully strummed guitar. It’s honestly hard to describe just how lovely this album is, so probably best just to go and listen to it.

https://seaoleena.bandcamp.com