This is music that is more of a stretch, and probably more enjoyable when I am alone. I’ve been trying to use my downtime to my advantage, catching up on a lot of music I had acquired over the last year but never really had the time to sit with. A few of these tracks sent me down rabbit holes looking for other new artists, and several of those discoveries brought a pretty big smile to my face. That is always one of the best parts of digging through music: you start with one track and suddenly you have five more things you need to hear.
It starts out in outright weirdness with A Mouse Orchestra and Un-Kommuniti, then wanders into the more ambient touchstones like Mike Cooper the British lap-steel guitarist who went from folk-blues scene to experimental & exotica. That sits alongside Soul Whirling Somewhere and the hushed modern-classical world of A Winged Victory for the Sullen. The Trigg & Gusset track appears seemingly everywhere David Lynch is tagged on Bandcamp. There is a nice stretch of hypnotic and experimental stuff here before things start getting a little more restless. Imitation Electric Piano brings some movement, followed by Jackie-O MF’er, and from there the playlist starts taking some pretty unexpected turns.
The second half is where things really get fun. Kevin Richard Martin’s dubby dark downtempo leads into Julianna Barwick’s choir-loop style fractured via the Prince Rama remix, followed by the genuinely unexpectedly wonderful combination of Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois, which I learned was recorded in a former Buddhist Temple in Toronto. Then it keeps moving, with Lara Sarkissian and Valentina Magaletti who I had spent a lot of time chasing down all the projects she’d worked with. I kept the vibe going with Yu Su, Tolouse Low Trax, Tomaga (another Valentina project), which all would fit neatly with some Shackleton. Solar Lodge slows it back down a bit before Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy’s track which lovingly reminds me of Bryn Jones. Ending with another Lara Sarkissian track with Locust because I will blindly dive into any Mark Van Hoen project. There isn't really a comfortable place to settle in here, which is kind of the point.
01 A Mouse Orchestra – A Lump in Your Throat Pt 1
02 Un-Kommuniti – (Heavy) Sh!t at the Station 1
03 Five or Six – Aroma
04 Mike Cooper – A Pattern of Islands
05 Soul Whirling Somewhere – Opening the Ten-End
06 A Winged Victory for the Sullen – The Haunted Victorian Pencil
07 Trigg & Gusset – Krakau
08 Imitation Electric Piano – Progressive Rock
09 Jackie-O Motherf*ck3r – Skylight (Recorded Live at Cargo, London, UK)
10 Kevin Richard Martin – One Hundred Deaths
11 Julianna Barwick – Prizewinning (Prince Rama remix)
12 Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois – Best P54
13 Lara Sarkissian – Our Dead Can’t Rest (Old Jugha Flute Dance)
14 Valentina Magaletti – A Queer Anthology of Drums
15 Yu Su – Futuro
16 Tolouse Low Trax – Milk in Water
17 Tomaga – Tuscan Metalwork
18 Solar Lodge – Our Dead Steed
19 Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy
20 Lara Sarkissian, Locust – DBM
