The Predatory Wasp
I’m off to Glastonbury tomorrow (wallop!) and time is tight, but here’s a lovely, meandering slice of cosmic ambience for you, and the opening track from UK jazz keyboardist Greg Foat and Venetian downtempo electronic maestro Gigi Masin’s collaborative new album Dolphin. See you on the flipside!
Released as a Bandcamp exclusive in April and now available everywhere, Romance’s Fade Into You is descrived as their “first album proper” in the press notes, which is a little confusing, as there are at least a couple of what I’d consider full length releases out there already, as well as their collaborative albums with Dean Hurley. So who knows. But anyway… Fade Into You is a beautiful, delicately textured ambient album loosely inspired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 film The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant – “an unforgiving dissection of the toxic relationship between a haughty fashion designer and a beautiful but icy ingenue” – and continues the mysterious producer’s penchant for warping well known records almost beyond recognition, creating at times eerie but more often than not deeply emotional soundscapes from the resulting wreckage. Presumably there’s some Mazzy Star buried deep in here somewhere; some of the other building blocks are more explicitly labelled.
https://youmustrememberthis.bandcamp.com/album/fade-into-you
Released last week, Anthony Naples fifth full length album orbs is described as “a moody portal of shoegazed and slo-mo songs suspended in thin air”, which is about right, although key missing words include “ambient”, “dub” and “lush”. It’s similarly paced to DJ Python’s peerless Mas Amable from 2020, but while that was often sinister and claustrophobic, orbs is all brightness and warmth. Ackee itself is delicate, atmospheric and soothing; ideal Monday listening, basically.
Spencer Doran takes us back in time with his appreciation of an “outsider’ Renaissance composer
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!
Described by Bandcamp Daily as “Video Game Music’s Most Valuable Outsider”, Spencer Doran is a composer, producer and contemporary sound designer who makes up one half of the Portland duo and Italian minimalism enthusiasts Visible Cloaks.
Composed and produced over the course of nearly three years, his latest solo album is the original soundtrack for SEASON: A letter to the future, which underpins the highly-anticipated meditative exploration game in which the main character must save memories of a civilization on the verge of collapse. A lush collection of transmissions from this warmly fading world, we hear a culture and ecology through the sentimental ear of their last witness.
For his One Track Mind selection, Spencer has picked an entire album from Tobias Hume, focussing on a particular performance from Jordi Savall.
I’ve spent an awful lot of time searching for “artists that sound like DJ Healer”, and the only one that’s really come close in term of delivering the hazy feels I need is Croatian Amor, especially his more recent work, which seems to be leaning ever further into dreamy breaks and nostalgia-heavy meanderings. These two tracks close his latest album A Part of You in Everything – a companion piece to last year’s Remember Rainbow Bridge, and dedicated to the memory of his younger brother who died at birth. Despite the overwhelming sad genesis of the 8-track collection, the overall effect is more reflective than desolate; a hopeful catharsis beautifully expressed.
https://croatianamor-poshisolation.bandcamp.com/album/a-part-of-you-in-everything
Loraine James released two of the best albums of last year, so news of a new LP is real welcome on this blog. Landing in September on Hyperdub – her third for the label – Gentle Confrontations will feature collabs with George Riley and keiyaA and others, and has been touted as “a teenage Loraine would like to have made” and described as “positively languid”, which is excellent news. Lead single 2003 certainly fits with this description, and has echoes of Tirzah in both the haunting, loopy simplicity of its production and low-key vocal delivery.
https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/gentle-confrontation
Everywhere I look, Mandy, Indiana’s new album i’ve seen a way is getting glowing reviews. A four-piece experimental noise band formed in Manchester, the group was initially comprised of vocalist Valentine Caulfield and Scott Fair after they sharing a bill with their former projects, and were subsequently joined by Simon Catling (synth) and Alex MacDougall (drums). Their debut LP is noisy, chaotic and at times overwhelming, with a raw urgency throughout, even in its less full-on moments. 2 Stipe is arguably one of the most conventional tracks, even though they’d surely rail against the use of that word.
Natural Beauty Wonder Concept is the new project from DJ Python and Ana Roxanne, both of whom I love. There’s an album due out in July, primarily recorded during covid days, and this is the first single. It’s great, and not even the press release describing the LP as “two artists learning to be alone, together” (🤮) can dull my enthusiasm.
https://naturalwonderbeautyconcept.bandcamp.com/album/natural-wonder-beauty-concept
Continuing the theme of floaty electronica this week with this beautiful track from Doc Sleep’s recent album Birds (in my mind anyway), in which soothing, ebbing waves are firmly pinned to earth with subby breakbeats and crashing snares. It’s very good, as is the entire album. TPW recommends!
Here’s some highly atmospheric, beat-driven ambient for you courtesy of Agus Mena, who also records as Warmth and runs both the respected Archives and Faint labels. His latest album as SVLRBD The Waves arrived on the latter of these a couple of months’ back, and if you like The Lighthouse is very likely to appeal.
