Tag: electronic

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Grant Chapman – Comedown

Grant Chapman’s new album Revisions starts with an anguished scream and ends with a breathy vocal repeating “it’s so sad” for a couple of minutes, but despite this it’s actually a joyful listen, and really not depressing at all (honestly). Calm and serenity permeates through the entire album, which makes that jarring start all the more surprising. It’s hard to pick out a highlight as all the tracks flow pretty seamlessly, but sometimes it really is “so sad”, so Comedown gets TPW seal of approval. Also, at the time of writing this currently has zero views on YouTube, so it makes me feel good to know that might increase to a dozen or so following this post.

https://grantchapman.bandcamp.com/album/revisions

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Stars of the Lid – Another Ballad for Heavy Lids

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.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/33863-Stars-Of-The-Lid

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Barker – Wick & Wax

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.

https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/unfixed

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Carmen Villain – Multicolor

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

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Yu Su – I Want An Earth

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.

https://yusu.bandcamp.com/album/i-want-an-earth-2

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Jessy Lanza – Limbo

I’m not quite as enamoured with Jessy Lanza’s new album Love Hallucination as I hoped I would be, but there’s no denying the infectious brilliance of Limbo. Deeply rooted in late 70s/ early 80s funk and with a bassline to rival the best of that era, its a ridiculously hooky earworm that I’m inevitably going to be hammering for months.

https://jessylanza.bandcamp.com/album/love-hallucination

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7038634357 – Winded

As a result of the deep calm I felt after the first few minutes of listening this, I was very much unprepared for its final third. I won’t spoil the surprise.

https://7-0-3.bandcamp.com/

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Apex Twin – zin2 test5

Lots and lots of fun music out today, but this is probably the biggest and funnest of the lot. The first new music from The Big RDJ in 5 years – the predictably functionally named Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 – includes this tight, sinewy little roller which dissolves into those trademark melt-your-heart pads in its final third.

https://aphextwin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760

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Cucina Povera – Naapurista kuuluu lattian natinaa

I came across this during a frantic Spotify cull of albums I’ve saved but rarely (if ever) listened to. Cucina Povera is the alias of the Glasgow-based artist Maria Rossi, originally from Finland, and this is taken from her 2021 LP Dalmarnock Tapes, throughout which she layers her own vocals to create a choir of one, with invariably intensely haunting results.

https://cucinapovera.bandcamp.com/album/dalmarnock-tapes

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Poppy Ackroyd – Pause (Reimagined by Hinako Omori)

Part of a run of singles featuring new versions of tracks from Poppy Ackroyd’s 2021 album Pause, Hinako Omori’s offering starts sparse and delicate before the tension resolves into something richer and more comforting with the addition of radiant and increasingly prominent pads.

https://3six.net/album/cold-ecstasy