Tag: experimental

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Music

Bianca Scout – Forest Spirit feat. Darkmarik

Blurring the lines between chamber music, contemporary dance, dark pop and ethereal ambience, Klein, Mica Levi and Space Afrika collaborator Bianca Scout distills a decade of multidisciplinary work with her new album Pattern Damage, moving between diaristic ephemera, demure post-punk and chamber ambient, and cracking open bewildering crypto-romantique wormholes in the process. And yes, this is pretty much a direct copy and paste of the release hype, but a) it’s accurate and b) it’s a bank holiday and I have better (lazier) things to be doing.

https://sferic.bandcamp.com/album/pattern-damage-2

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Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, Shahzad Ismaily – To Remain/To Return

I’ve been sulking about the woeful Glastonbury line-up for the last few days, but now it’s time I got over it and got on with my life. And even though there are so few acts I’m excited about seeing that it genuinely makes me sad, there are a few glimmers of light; Arooj Aftab among them. To Remain/To Return is from Love In Exile, an album I completely missed last year, with Vijay Iyer on pianos and electronics, Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog synth Aftab’s soaring Urdu vocals.

https://www.loveinexile.net/

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Music

Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer – Breathing In Three Orbits


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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Music

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).

https://nailahhunter.bandcamp.com/

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Music

aloisius, jaso – 2ndjune1

the unfolding rose is an ever expanding album mostly made up of improvised one-take songs, recorded, mixed and mastered by aloisius alongside various collaborators. If you’re in the market for an extremely challenging 4+ hour ambient/experimental LP, this comes highly recommended. Patience definitely required, but there are some truly extraordinary moments of beauty hidden between the sketchy snatches of conversation and – at times overwhelming – dissonance. This particular track also ticks the elusive ‘zero views on YouTube’ box, which makes me feel exceedingly niche.

https://aloisius.bandcamp.com/album/the-unfolding-rose

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Youth Lagoon – Lux Radio Theatre

Trevor Powers’ return as Youth Lagoon completed passed me by last year, the album’s inclusion on various end of year lists has prompted me to dive in. I really liked his last two albums under his own name, especially 2018’s Mulberry Violence, was a beautifully odd. Lux Radio Theatre isn’t the most exciting track on Heaven is a Junkyard, but it’s probably the prettiest.

https://osoleone.bandcamp.com/track/surfin

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Music

Lee Gamble – Juice

Continuing the trance revival theme today with this melancholy banger from Lee Gamble’s new album Models, which, when compared to some of his previous work, is surprisingly accessible. According to the PR, “it’s pop music, but it ain’t background music” and I’m not sure I entirely agree with either of those statements, but it is very good. Elsewhere on the album you’ll find him autotuning the fuck out of Lana Del Rey, which is also fun.

https://leegamble.bandcamp.com/album/models

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Lost Girls – Timed Intervals

Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls’ collaboration dates back more than a decade, with Volden playing regularly in Hval’s live band and two previous albums. In 2022, the duo were booked to perform a concert at Les Subsistances in Lyon, and decided to use the opportunity to create all new material, with Volden creating beats and guitar chord progressions and Hval restructuring the parts, creating melodies and adding lyrics. The resulting album, Selvutsletter, explores different territory than their previous work; shorter, more concise and melodic songs that border on alternative pop (kinda), with opener Timed Intervals one of the clear standouts.

https://lostgirls1000.bandcamp.com/album/selvutsletter

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Music

Maria BC – Lacuna

While Maria BC’s debut album Hyaline explored grief and anxiety through a series of character-led accounts, their follow-up Spike Field is more concerned with buried emotions and actions, positing that the past will continue to lurk below the surface until one decides to break through the soil and face what lies beneath. If that makes it sound bleakly gothic, then the music is anything but; it’s delicate, earthy and seemingly with an underlying note of optimism in even the most stripped-down of compositions. For fans of Grouper, detuned Steinway pianos and wallowing.

https://mariabc.bandcamp.com/album/spike-field

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Music

Devendra Banhart – Feeling

Devendra Banhart’s 11th studio album Flying Wig is a collaboration and “actualisation of a precious friendship” with acclaimed solo artist and Mexican Summer label-mate Cate Le Bon; a project somewhat prophesied by the mirror-image titles of their early solo albums (Banhart’s 2002 Oh Me Oh My and Le Bon’s 2009 Me Oh My. For fans of dreamy atmospheres, self-reflective lyrics and fully immersing yourself in deep melancholy.

https://devendrabanhart.bandcamp.com/album/flying-wig