Category: Music

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Music

Factor Eight – A Voice (II)

Composed entirely using his voice, Canadian-based artist Andrew Bennett aka Factor Eight explores mental health and creates a platform to relay his experience with bipolar disorder, with all proceeds being donated to Canadian Mental Health Association Saskatoon. “I hope that through this project, my music might help to inspire a feeling of connection in those who struggle, and sense of compassion in those who struggle to relate.”

https://soundcloud.com/factoreight

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Steve Fors – (good enough) for now

There are very few things I enjoy more than discovering an artist I love for the first time; a feeling that is undoubtedly heightened when said artist is also relatively unknown. It’s pretty much the entire reason for this blog: claiming a minute fragment of credit for highlighting incredible music that would otherwise remain unappreciated. Appreciate me, please! Sickening really, but I can’t help who I am. Anyway, If – like me – you hadn’t previously heard of Steve Fors, his new album it’s nothing, but still is some of the best, wistful ambient I’ve heard this year. And I’ve listened to a lot!

https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/steve-fors-its-nothing-but-still

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System Olympia & Tom Sharkett – Jealousy

“She lay by the poolside, dipping her hands into the water as she wondered where her lover might be. It had been three days since he’d left her in the baking heat, stuck in a motel on the wrong side of town. She’d never dreamt it might have turned out like this? What with all the money, the wild nights and the excess. How had it all come crashing down around them all so horribly? Why was she the one all alone?”

www.melodic.co.uk

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Elaine Howley – Silent Talk

The product of an audio diary kept on a 4 track cassette machine throughout 2019 and 2020, Cork-based musician Elaine Howley’s new album The Distance Between Heart and Mouth is quietly obsessed with memory and nostalgia, painting a sepia-tinted picture across nine richly atmospheric and at times disquieting tracks. Opener and lead single Silent Talk sets the scene perfectly.

https://touchsensitiverecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-distance-between-heart-and-mouth

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Rafael Anton Irisarri – Limbering Slumber (feat. Hannah Elizabeth Cox)

The latest release from the phenomenally talented Rafael Anton Irisarri, Sacred Variations, includes some new remixes of tracks from his Sacred Hatred LP, along with some previously unreleased locked-penned pieces. Limbering Slumber features layered, ghostly vocal contributions from Hannah Elizabeth Cox, and is both stunningly beautiful and utterly absorbing.

https://irisarri.bandcamp.com/album/sacred-variations

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Tomu DJ – Spring of Life

A very sad banger from Tomu DJ’s beautiful new album Half Moon Bay. That’s all I’ve got to say about this one: it’s a busy day over at TPW HQ.

https://tomu.bandcamp.com/album/half-moon-bay-3

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Mall Grab – Hand In Hand Through Wonderland

The opening track on Mall Grab’s new album What I Breathe, Hand In Hand Through Wonderland is exactly the kind of broken beat, melodic, melancholy stuff I want from him, and while arguably the album doesn’t quite hit these heights again, it’s still an enjoyable listen, despite what Pitchfork’s remarkably sniffy review might say. On the other hand, I still don’t think he’s done anything that competes with the sublime gloom of 2015’s Guap. So maybe I’m not to be trusted either.

https://bleep.com/release/307334-mall-grab-what-i-breathe

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Kokoroko – Ewà Inú

London based 8-piece band Kokoroko released their debut album Could We Be More via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings last week; an LP that deftly moves through afrobeat, highlife, soul, and funk across tracks, taking inspiration from a plethora of influences from within the West-African and Caribbean communities that the band grew up listening to. As with many of the tracks, Ewà Inú’s infectious energy is due to both its semi-improvised genesis and the passion of the players involved.

https://kokoroko.bandcamp.com

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Kyle Kidd – Scars Alight

A member of Cleveland’s multi-generational Mourning [A] BLKstar collective, Kyle Kidd’s debut solo album Soothsayer is a deeply moving, highly personal exploration of many of the themes that have defined their life so far, including blackness, gender nonconformity, American history, community and more. Their vocal performance throughout is extraordinary: you can hear that this is not just sung, but deeply felt by the artist. Scars Alight – which explores the damage done by Kidd not feeling as if they were not truly accepted for who they are – is a highlight, but this need to be listened to in its entirety to be properly appreciated.

https://kylekidd.bandcamp.com/album/soothsayer-3

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Pan Amsterdam, Damu The Fudgemunk – EAT

Last seen collaborating with Raw Poetic on Laminated Skies – without doubt one of the finest albums of the year so far – Damu The Fudgemunk has now teamed up with Pan Amsterdam on EAT, which is a similarly brilliant collection of usually chilled and always well-considered hip-hop. The title track mixes the sublime and the absurd incredibly effectively, with triumphant piano chords and choral backing vocals rubbing up against lyrics like “Chicken and rice, going down nice with a side of tomatoes / Cuttin that spice, gonna pay the price on the toilet lil later”. What we gun EAT??

https://damuthefudgemunk.bandcamp.com/album/eat