Smote – Genog

What even is a Genog?

Well, duh, Mr supposedly university-educated Flipdog, it’s the name of the new album by Smote. What else need it be?

I have an earlier one of theirs also on my wishlist. Maybe I should buy one of them, they is clearly amongst the Gods of music. Said wishlist has gone beyond the realms of ridiculous into new levels though.

SO yet another collection of music where there are no words – I mean that descriptively not in the instrumental sense. There are words, and they are chanted, in amanner that puts me in mind of the wonderful Crow Tongue album, Ghost Eye Seeker.

Trancey, meditative with a definite sense of journey. One with a heavy end.

Sebastian Melmoth – The Dynamics of Vanity

For about the last week I’ve been obsessed with listening to NTS Radio and not just whatever is live but going back through archives of particular hosts, so much so I even put the app on my phone (which close friends will probably retort with ‘where is Jay and what have you done with him?’). I have mentioned them before but I originally only went there for that one host. I just had this desire one day to listen to dubstep for a while and I only have early Burial stuff so that made me wonder what would happen if I looked around here.

So the final track on this album – all 14 minutes of it – was featured on a show which made me go to this album and check it out. It is far from the only thing that’s happened with, and more posts may follow once I’ve checked out the relevant bandcamps, etc. But the reason I mention that is because – what is not to absolutely love about radio that plays 14 minute experimental tracks? This was far from an outlier, too.

I’m the last person in the world to go around dispensing descriptions. Sebastian Melmoth do experimental post-punk, according to the description on this page though it is a vague pointer at best. Art rock? maybe, whatever that is. That last track I mentioned is a classic but I would have no idea how to describe it. Ambient post-punk maybe. But the E.P. / album is all over the place stylistically. Not sure I can think of a meaningful reference point – at an absolute stretch, maybe one of the tunes reminds me of Faust.

Marlene Ribeiro ~ Negra Branca – N.B. + Touched

This was in my Bandcamp wishlist for years, literally. I finally bought it a couple of months back after playing it again, and it has done seriously hard labour on my speakers since then.

I want to type the phrase ‘Marlene used to be in Gnod’ because I haven’t seen her listed on their more recent stuff. BUT – you listen to Faca do Inberno on this here album, and then you listen to Faca de Fogo from Gnod’s recent collaboration with João Pais Filipe and you tell me that the one isn’t a proto-type for the other. Go on. Can’t do it, can you? So maybe she’s still in Gnod.

Kevin Drumm – MayorOfPosen

This piece does one thing and one thing only.

For 20 minutes.

It’s wonderful.

Autotelia – I

I love this album whenever I listen to it, but it’s bang on perfect for these semi-hypnagogic states that my first couple of hours of each day tends to be.

This is that kind of mellow motorik kosmiche type music that is just totally trance inducing. An altered state all by itself.

I understand one half of Autotelia is no longer with us, which is very sad. This is some legacy, however.

M. Takara – “música resiliente para pessoas e lugares”

Definitely a dice needed now, and there’s still a week to go.

How do you even describe music like this? Best just to listen to it.

 

 

 

Muslimgauze (untitled)

You may find this hard to believe, but once upon a time, there was a period we inhabitants called ‘the nineties.’ They were times, really they were. There was a lot of music made in these times, and life has later taught me that I didn’t get to hear it all then, either, so today is nothing new to me.

I didn’t get to hear Muslimgauze back in the day; never even heard of them. Having said that, I think I’d have been down with this as it would not have been out of place on something like the Crooklyn Dub Consortium compilations, which were woozy as all get go, just like this is.

Because these are also times, this was re-released last year by a label in Russia, because of course it was.

The Myrrors – Borderlands

The more artists you like, the harder it is to keep up with when they come up with new stuff, particularly when your head, like mine, is full enough trying to keep up with your own creative output, let alone anyone else’s (note to self: put some of your own stuff out again.There’s facking loads). Also known as having your head up your arse.

All I know is that this is 2018, so it is either nearly a year old by the time I first play it, or potentially nearly 2 years old. Whatevs, man, I’m really enjoying listening to it this morning. It is them at their tranciest.

I recently came to the conclusion that what I like isn’t psychedelic, it’s trance, although the two terms are not mutually exclusive. A lot of music that gets labelled as psychedelic is more like a pastiche of other artists labelled as psychedelic, or the new version of stoner rock, which was the new label for grunge, which was the new label for whatever they called Black Sabbath in the 80s (I didn’t read the music press back then). To my mind, that’s the opposite of head-expanding. But what do I know? I’ve got my head up my arse, me.

Even with ears surrounded by arse, though, this music sounds fantastic.

Josiah Steinbrick – Banana Live

I have a folder in my bookmarks toolbar where I’ve been storing links to stuff I want to listen to again, or even at all if I like the look of something but haven’t got time to listen to it or it hasn’t come out yet because of all this pre-ordering rubbish that labels still insist on doing (sidebar: I’d be interested to know if people like an album more if they’ve been hotly anticipating it than if it had just come out unannounced – it would be impossible to do a truly quantitative study of such a thing without cloning people, but nevertheless… personally, I would hope not and so we could tell labels to just put the damn thing out when it’s ready already).

So this folder has become unwieldy and long and has prompted me to spend time listening to the albums on the links in order, so that be sort of what I’m doing. A couple have now got deleted, a couple I’ve enjoyed but not quite enough to post because something about it might annoy me a bit, and this is the first blogging fruit of the exercise.

I don’t know whether to arm you for a swarm of posts or to prepare you for a(nother) period of tumbleweed because I have no idea how this exercise will pan out.

 

NYX Drone Choir

which comes because of this article I did read.

I don’t often wish to go to America, but it might be worth it to be at a performance like this.