Jay Glass Dubs – New Teeth For An Old Country

Although that there image you see is a picture of yer actual cassette, I suspect such a thing is not available to us now as the page itself only sells the digital album. I don’t have a working tape player anyway.

THis is quite earlier in his career but I heard one of the tunes on a show that Bokeh Versions did which took me to the album, and this did really impress me, it did. I think this may be the first artist to whom you can apply the term ‘glacial’ that I have posted here. I may be wrong; my memory tends to be less reliable these days.

So it’s dark, cavernous dub/dubstep/dubtech/dub techno/ambient dub (call it what you will) and it knows where its groove is, particularly in the latter half.

I have occasionally listened to some of his other works and they’ve always intrigued me. I think this may be the prod to dive in a bit deeper.

Elsewhere VXIII

Many years ago – about 15, I think – I was chatting with someone who was guesting at a library I was working at and the subject of the fact I make music came up. When describing his own approach to music, he said that unlike me, he only consumes music…

It is impossible to consume music. You can engage with it or you can ignore it, or somewhere in between, but you cannot consume it. The music will remain unchanged, although your perception of it won’t.

Imagine thinking like that? I was too nice to debate with him about it, plus I think my thoughts on it took a while to become coherent even though it jarred me immediately. But it speaks to a mindset that believes it is only in existence to consume things because of much larger sociological factors that are not even wrong, that would be giving them waaay too much credit.

I was reminded of this exchange by all the giddy hype about what AI (sidebar: it’s all A, no I) can do for us to save us from the drudgery of, like, leisure and stuff, and reading, and writing, and creating, and making, and, and, and… all we have to do is give some prompts and it do all that for us! And then what do we do? More free time to merely consume things, I suppose.

A compilation like what I bring to your attention today simply could not be made with that kind of approach to music and discernment. There is a thread running through this that can only be done with human judgement. And indeed, DJ soFa, for it is he who has compiled this, has made several compilations and all of them have a particular feel to them though it would be an insult to insinuate they are in any way the same as each other; they are not.

This is why an algorithmic approach to music discovery will never throw the surprises at you that other humans can. You simply could not build in the coherent unpredictability required. In fact, all the best compilations, DJ sets, mixes – what they have in common is a coherent unpredictability. And probably all great art, for that matter.

If you want merely functional, then go ahead and knock yourself out with your AI approach to creativity and novelty, which will be neither creative or novel unless you assign a depressingly low value to what you consider creative or novel. But if you want the great, the sublime… you need the human touch.

Sula Bassana – Loop Station Drones

Sula Bassana is part of Electric Moon and therefore needs no introduction, and yet what you have just read is an introduction, albeit quite a lazy one.

Sula, or possibly also known as Dave, put the first track of this out a bit back with commentary on the page that this would just keep getting added to until finished, and now it is finished. Well, it was that one track that did it for me, but the fact that it’s now an album, and a nice long one, well, what’s not to love?

So when he do solo he do motorik, electronic, kosmische-y stuff with loops and drones an’ ting, and when he do solo, I do like to listen. It’s very possible that I’ve missed posting some of his stuff from the last few years; not purposely but because I just keep forgetting I have this blog thing. The point is, though, that all the things are worth listening to.

Spring Temples – Live at Shining Path

This is ambient, very mellow but also very trippy. I discovered it by a chance I now can’t remember and played it to accompany spreadsheet catatonia at work, and it was very complementary to that state. That isn’t a recommendation? Why on earth not?

Spreadsheet catatonia, sadly, is the only mind-altering state I do regularly these days. Actually, the only one I do at all.

Dead Sea Apes / Black Tempest / Adam Stone – Dataland

This does not come up easily in a bandcamp search, let me tell you. As a librarian with some cataloguing nous, I suspect the metadata needs to be enhanced somewhat. Fortunately, you now have a handy link here, courtesy of me.

There is much to love with this, and much to resonate with despite the fact he keeps talking about TV and I haven’t watched TV in years. The deadpan vocals over the laid back motorik mid 90s vibe – no, we’re not talking Underworld, though I do like Underworld; it’s a way more hazy approach.

Apparently it was all done over data transfer rather than physical collaboration, yet it sounds very coherent.

Tengger – Spiritual 2

I had a thought nag me that I’d posted their first album, and indeed I had.

This one is nice and mellow, and was a perfect one to start the day whilst my brain still tries to remember what I do for a living. I’ve allowed my schedule to become such that the alarm goes off at 8.15 and I stumble downstairs, turn the pc on, make a coffee, begin work. I must admit I do miss the walk in in the morning, but I don’t miss getting up at 7ish.

 

 

Thomas Dinger – Für mich

I’d set my alarm for Now, and it had gone, as described, so I upped, as necessary. Pausing only to sip on a PowerJuice® I embarked and began, the flow led me towards Mash, in Logovila. A big swine was going down, seeping. My job, such as it was, was to ease its stupor, and for this, I required a tardis. Having entered the reverential code of confidence, the entry slipped and I was forth, spread across the problem like a one-being solution. I smiled, which isn’t easy when you’re being spread across a problem, although it was actually quite an amenable problem, we had met before, these encounters had by way of a ritual about them. Ritual writ large, and with social consequences.

Who am I to care about consequences? Here’s a pillar, suffering, righteous, full and tottering, and if I don’t attend to it, I won’t attend to it and the vibrations will cause an event, much like creation, but not as good or as longlasting. Time, I suggested, for some monotony. Interesting times, indeed.

The judge sat me down, where I was resting, and began his instruction, regarding me as he regaled me, interpreting me as he introduced me to the subject I was to occupy that day. Metapillars were needed to counteract some very obvious dangers, many of which were manifesting internally in all sorts of interesting ways… remember, we’re aiming for tedium! At least you know what will happen with it. So I was to be the foreman on the Metapillar Construction Ethos, a new team of engineers with skills so obvious we should brook no bargaining. Don’t let the ice in…

The Redundant Architects™ have been moaning again, it seems… they knew the nanobuilders were coming, and they could have got on board, but no, they insisted their outmoded ‘Innovative Technique’ was the right way for building buildings, even though most of us had cottoned on to the fact that universal harmony was better adhered to, so designing builders that could be naturally attuned to such harmony seemed the most reasonable way of achieving these effects. Why they still insist on training these new architects who will never design a real building.. I overheard some of these talking the other day. They tell of a fantastical island in the middle of the ocean where human beings design a building before its built! Yes! And these are the rationalists…

“You’re on,” I said to your honour, just as he was leaving.
“You’re just swapping one kind of hassle for another, and calling it progress,” he replied, in the shape of a wandering interlocutor, dressed as an agitator, acting like a riot.
“So you say. I’m off hunting for buried pleasure.” I love a good ritual parting, and began my treatment. Today, we dowse with the electronic tonic, that which renders us not as we would otherwise be, but isn’t everything? By which logical proximity we can but surmise: all is as it should be, except for that which isn’t, and maybe not even that. I am not to say, for I don’t know, as knowledge is only transiently useful. I ordered the cringe, hardback edition, publishers discretion, subject to criticism – no work of art is complete without the stain of criticism. Fuck the purists, they have such sweet orgasms, god I want to fuck a purist.

The Bug vs Earth – Concrete Desert

I have long loved both The Bug and Earth, obviously for very different reasons. The Bug’s London Zoo in particular was righteous in its wrath and groovy in its execution, whilst Earth’s catalogue (particularly since the comeback) is one often inducive to deep relaxation and meditation. You might not think they would make obvious collaborators, in other words.

Of course, if my finger ever came out of its shell-like and went and tried to find the pulse, then I might have been aware that this has been brewing a while since they did a single a little way back.

On this release, Kevin Martin seems to work to Dylan Carlsons’ strengths, letting the guitarist dictate the pace whilst he complements the tones with a sound that I find myself calling glacial paranoia. The grooves are there, but they’re dialled back. It’s about the atmosphere, which is dark and resonant. Ambient industrial grime, if you want a label.

Despite the fact that the times we live in are frankly a riot of chaos, I could imagine this as a surreal soundtrack to them.

 

 

Sula Bassana – Shipwrecked

Sula Bassana is the guitarist in Electric Moon, who are probably my favourite practitioners of the ‘jam-band’ aesthetic. He’s a busy boy, as not only does he run Sulatron records, he actually has quite the back catalogue of solo releases, of which the above mentioned and pictured is the latest. He also plays in Krautzone and Zone Six.

He’s dropped his guitar for this one as this one is almost entirely electronic using mostly vintage (therefore analogue, presumably) instruments. The tunes have that propulsive rhythm associated with that area of the world that we’ve come to know and love, but also a really deep, meditative and trance like feel. I’m not talking Ibiza here.

Now for a bit of a rant – until the end of last year, I was happily using the word ‘krautrock.’ But now I actually think about it, I’m not going to use it. Given that the term ‘kraut’ was a derogatory term for Germans used by their enemies in the world wars, I should think it would be obvious why. I’ll stick to ‘kosmiche’ instead, for now, even though that’s in danger of getting nearly as overused as ‘psychedelic.’ Genre labels, eh? Can’t live with ’em.

Now, I wonder how the Germans actually feel about the word? I mean, one of Sula’s projects is called Krautzone. Perhaps they’ve decided not to be offended, simply decided to use/reclaim the word and let things be. Maybe the word was never offensive to start with and we weren’t imaginative enough to come up with a more offensive insult. Any Germans out there like to offer me their thoughts? There is always the distinct possibility that I’m being an over-sensitive, privileged middle class wanker here by trying to impose a ‘thou-shalt-not’ that isn’t actually necessary. But there’s always the possibility that I’m not.

Rant over.

Sungod

It is one of the ironies of doing this blog that nearly every post is written whilst at work, usually in an environment when I can’t listen to the music that my researches throw up alongside my subject of the day (in other words, on the service desk in a library in between enquiries). 

So I (re)discovered Sungod as a result of trawling the 2015 year end lists, I can’t remember which – I don’t think they had a place on said list, more that they were referenced. The album that I checked out was Contackt from 2013, and I am here to tell you that it fair blew my mind much more effectively than the howling winds that have been such a feature of the UK’s weather these last few months. My particular favourite track is ‘Smell of Physiqal’ which marries monstrous riffing a la Sleep with late 90s Goa style trance-techno, and definitely ranks as my discovery of the year so far. In fact, that description could be profitably used for much of the album, inasmuch as words have any value at all when describing music.

Turns out that buried somewhere on my hard drive was Cuts from the Ether which someone must have copied for me some time back. Turns out that’s nearly as good.

May I also commend to you Vision Space which features extra free jazz into the mix, as they cover a composition of Sun Ra, and which is also a very pleasurable listening experience? I can? Good.

So going back to my opening paragraph, I learn that Sungod now release music via Holodeck records, the home of a previous subject of mine, the marvellous Thousand Foot Whale Claw. So this makes the dipping into of their catalogue a task which I now add to the many other sonic tasks ahead of me, most of which I’m trying to accomplish back at my desk whilst at work, because home life is almost exclusively One Dog Clapping now once the kids are in bed. I also find the now neglected but nonetheless containing of intriguing links which is Sungod’s blog so there be some other stuff that my instinct tells me I must check… fun times! As I mentioned before, this is a brilliant problem to have. Would I rather there was a dearth of good music just so I could keep on top of it?