More electronic alt-pop whimsy from Discovery Zone’s forthcoming album Quantum Web, with the hypnotically lo-fi music video directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford.
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Discovery Zone – Pair A Dice
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Mk.gee – I Want
Ever wondered what a cross between Joji, Omar Apollo and Paul Simon would sound like? If yes; you, my friend, are in luck!
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Helado Negro – Wish You Could Be Here
I’m not entirely sure how many Helado Negro albums there have been – maybe 10? – but I do know they just keep getting better. His latest PHASOR is “an homage to going outside again” and a “returning to life record” concerned with beautifully evocative, hopeful imagery like remembering what the sun feels like and letting it warm your skin. I saw some early spring flowers out the other day, and putting aside what this ultimately means regarding the rapid warming of the planet and ultimate death of everyone on it… it was nice; just like this album!
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36 – Imagine The Truth
My dude 36 is back with yet another album, hopefully the first of many this year. Reality Engine is the third and final LP in 36’s synth trilogy, concluding the melodic, melancholy machine sound started with Wave Variations and continuing with Symmetry Systems. See how it glimmers! Feel better!
In August 2022, Ariel Kalma, a renowned fourth-world (nope, me neither – but apparently it’s a thing) music artist, joined BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction for a special collaborative project, pairing with artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer. This partnership, led to the creation of twenty minutes of music through a back-and-forth exchange of ideas and contributions. After fulfilling their initial commitment, the trio felt compelled to continue their collaboration, expanding upon their initial creations, which ultimately culminated in an album The Closest Thing to Silence. The album’s title, inspired by a Kalma quote and echoing an ECM Records motto, emphasizes music’s profound connection to silence – so expect plenty of ambient, experimental meanderings, and quite a lot of space.
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/the-closest-thing-to-silence
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Discovery Zone – Mall Of Love
In a first, and hopefully last for this blog, I’m posting something that I absolutely cannot stand and wish didn’t exist. Orbital’s Belfast is a really special record; not only one of the best electronic tracks ever produced, but one that remains utterly timeless and never fails to elicit an emotional response in me. This new version is none of these things. It’s trite, cliched nonsense, and I have no time for it at all. Rather than rehashing classic records, perhaps everyone involved should focus on doing something genuinely creative.
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Naliah Hunter – Bleed
There have already been some banging albums out this year, Naliah Hunter’s Lovegaze not least among them. Depending on which publications you trust this has been labelled as ambient, experimental, folk or a combination of all these and more. If you trust this blog, I’d just say go and listen to it and make your own mind up (but it’s definitely not ambient).
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Avi C. Engel – Hold This Flame
Avi. C Engel’s new album Too Many Souls lands 23 February digitally, with additional formats including cassette by Cruel Nature Records (UK) and on CD by Somnimage (US). Lead single Hold This Flame is a spectral delight; sparse and haunting with Engel’s ghostly vocal contrasting with the gently rising dissonance of strings and percussion.
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The Smile – Teleharmonic
Unsurprisingly, two of the guys from one of the world’s most acclaimed band of all time, plus another guy, make some pretty astonishingly good music that sounds enough like their other band to be comforting, but different enough to make middle aged men very, very excited and feel as if they’re at the cutting-edge of the scene once again, you know, the same way it felt when their first band made all that amazing stuff in the 90s.
The Predatory Wasp 