Itasca – Grace Riders on the Road

I hardly ever post something where the full tracklist isn’t available to listen, but the 6 tracks that are on this one are sooo good, particularly the experimental one at number 6 but I love whole caboodle. I’m even tempted to buy it on payday, despite the fact I hardly ever buy stuff where I haven’t heard the whole thing first but, as I say, these are just sooo good.

This is described on the page as the solo project of Kayla Cohen, so maybe she’s also involved in some other projects though a very lazy google search just now yielded no results (I’m an information professional, I am. Really).

So it’s largely a lady and acoustic guitar, really chilled, reminds me personally of Nick Drake in guitar style. I have heard music of some of the names mentioned on the review quoted on the page but I can’t actually bring them to mind so I don’t know whether they are also accurate descriptors, inasmuch as anything descriptive can do justice to the ineffable. I mean, how do you describe a language using a different language? But anywho, if chilled acoustic music with an experimental vibe sounds like your thing then give this a whirl. It is particularly appropriate for a Sunday, for it was last Sunday afternoon when I heard Milk Tea on a show on NTS.

As I type this, I’m listening to her first release and it is proper experimental, addled tape music, not at all like this. But I’m strongly liking that too.

Paisiel – Unconscious Death Wishes

Whims, eh? There’s actually a fair bit I’ve discovered lately, but I’m on the wrong PC and have bad memory. Otherwise I suspect I’d bombard you with another buses series.

How often do I need to post the work of Julius Gabriel? Probably as often as he does it. Dude is properly on it. So is his partner in this maelstrom, João Pais Filipe, who you will also hear in the next post, equally maelstromic. Neologisms, eh? I love ’em. This is the musical equivalent.

This be the second Paisiel album, so I hope it means there will be more.

Big Blood – Deep Maine

Big Blood return with a rather mellower offering than usual, but one still infused with their specialist production techniques (Caleb has the fortune to possess synesthesia).

 

 

 

Meadowsilver (self titled)

A younger me would probably have reacted with disbelief at the thought that folky music would end up comprising so many very favourite releases as my life went on, although hopefully said younger self would have had the sense to imagine the gradual opening of the mind, both musical and otherwise (well, the one usually insists on the other following it).

So Meadowsilver join with Espers, Horse Cult, Laughing Eye Weeping Eye, Haress, The Iditarod, etc in making really good folk inspired hypnosis. I like being in a trance.

It may be that they or some of them used to be The Hare and The Moon, not an artist I was previously familiar with so I’ll probably hunt and listen at some point.

 

Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky – Droneflower

And this is from a similar folder on my home PC which is nowhere near as unwieldy (yet) but since I’m on a mission…

And their version of ‘Estranged’ is worth the cover price alone if I had it, but the whole thing is mighty fine.

I’m about to go to bed, as it happens. This is very good music for just before you’re about to go to bed.

 

Timber Rattle – The Veil Beneath The Mountain Beneath The Veil

I’m sorry, I couldn’t be with you tonight to accept your sycophancy, I’ve sent my body as a substitute; I hope you find it adequate. First of all, I’d like to thank me for doing what I did, the universe for giving me a place in which to do what I did, and everything in it for tolerating my doing what I did. May I continue to say that those who were offended by some or all of the content were offended by intention, primarily their own, and I have no misgivings whatsoever about the nature of what I did, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. Hindsight is simply an excuse in disguise, and therefore, does not exist, like so much else that doesn’t exist. And finally, I just want to ask why you’re all so keen to kiss my arse? It’s just an arse. Why not create your own stuff? Life isn’t a competition, it’s a festival. So, thank you again, for this award, I will now use it in a sculpture of meaninglessness. No, really, thank you.

The Iditarod – The Ghost, the Elf, the Cat and the Angel

Of course, when I say classics, I mean my kind of classics.

Kitchen Cynics – Apardion

 

Laughing Eye Weeping Eye

I really don’t know where to begin with this.

And that is a good thing.

This is where drone, folk, what is probably a harmonium, and tarot cards meet. This is particularly good for me, as these are all some of my favourite things, although by way of a disclaimer, I should point out that I have many, many favourite things. It’s one of the very best things about getting older.

I mean, I’ve labelled it ethereal, and in many respects it is, but it is also an amazingly material sound. There’s a density which complements the obviously etheric inspirations. If I was a ‘proper’ music critic, I’d be trying to think of a new genre name now.

And it sounds like absolutely nobody else I’ve ever heard. Again, in a good way.

The website of the main player, Rebecca Schoenecker, is here. She’s about a lot more than the music. Have a look at this video for a tune that isn’t on the album I’ve embedded:

Probably the best thing I can do is stop typing. Probably the best thing you can do is listen.

Crow Tongue

I promised loud, and actually this is… intense.

Much like the album from Valerio Cosi that I bigged up some posts back, Ghost : Eye : Seeker doesn’t seem to be fully listenable online anywhere so you’re going to have to take my word for it, although you can listen to a couple of the tracks here and here.

For those of us who have some experiences amongst altered states of consciousness (although technically watching TV is an alteration of your consciousness, albeit reducing its scope; I mean in the way our culture currently understands the term) this album is a route into a different way of seeing that requires no extra inputs. Playing this album in the background is a waste of electricity; you have to engage and listen to it. It will put you in a trance-like state every time. Well, it does me.

Other people have used words like raga, drone, avant-garde, free noise, improvisation in trying to describe this. Certainly those words make sense once you’ve heard it, but they are not complete descriptors (can any words be? This attempt by Julian Cope, much as I respect him and his music, represents exactly why I don’t want to try too hard to describe music myself… although I am fully on board with the sentiment). All I can say is thank the lord for random fans putting up songs on Youtube so that you can listen to at least some of it, although the second clip I linked has to have pretty much the least relevant image to accompany a song I’ve ever seen.

As for why I’ve categorised this as experimental psychedelia, I personally ‘define’ music as psychedelic due to the effect it may have on my consciousness rather than whatever stylistic conventions it may follow. I shall get more into this on part 3 of my ‘passion or pastiche‘ series.