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.

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.

Songs Of Green Pheasant – self titled

And this is why I hate describing music. The fan who put a thing on this ones page said it sounded like Simon & Garfunkel, which almost put me off even trying it, even though I quite like Simon & Garfunkel when I’m in the mood, but, man, its just so sixties.

And the crazy thing is, well, not crazy actually, crazy is a whole different thing, in fact, this isn’t even odd really, the thing is, Simon & Garfunkel actually are a very decent reference point for this music, although I would say with added hypnagogia, haziness, possibly extra substances (don’t know how clean living S&G were and can’t be arsed to look it up; equally, am making assumptions here based on the hypnosis in the music but I might be wrong).

Yet this music on several occasions made me all but weep with joy (where have I heard that phrase before?)

Looks like I’m going to be tossing a coin next Bandcamp Friday. Or, at the rate I’m going now, rolling a dice.

 

 

If you’re going to buy from Bandcamp…

…buy today. I’ve released my ‘thou shalt not buy anything non-essential’ shackles just enough to buy the Haress album.

Bandcamp is foregoing their usual cut to help artists, see.

I will shortly be working from home, which does have some positives. The one big one is that I can catch up on some of the almost infinite amount of music out there that is really worth listening to, which is more than I can imagine.

I could invite you to go through my post history for some wonderful music, and indeed you have that option. But, you know what? Use serendipity. Find something by just looking round. And tell me what it is; I might even get a chance to listen to it.

Be not afraid, and look out for each other. Compassion should be your go-to state of being. We’ve got this.

 

 

Haress

This is unbelievably good psychedelic folk, for want of a better term. There’s elements of americana in some of the tracks and most of the reference points I can think of are probably US based, but Haress is based in Shropshire. Also, someone from Hey Colossus plays somewhere on this album and I fancy I can hear that influence but maybe I is trying too hard. Lurgee still lurking, see.

The artist picture they use at the top of their bandcamp page is well good, too.

Kato Apo To Dentro – Kato Apo To Dentro

Enter the drastic marathon in fading light the tortuous circuit
with no disregard for the losers in the crush of the titanics
semantics to battle, semantics do battle their eyelids
I’m not sure if I believe my eyes now as I know they’re only filters
descent begins, crawling at a time when there are no beginnings
and there are no times so relativity is perceptual
is anything actual? any thing total? anything factual?
this argument is a hologram and by its nature it’s perpetual

The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band – Planet Lam

This is quite unlike anything I’ve heard before. Caveat: This is only the second example of  Thai music I’ve knowingly listened to, the first was an album of traditional music by Pong Lang.

This is apparently a reinvigoration of a traditional style known as Molam. Also, there is quite clearly at least one westerner in this line-up. Look at the dude on the right, who may have at least some reponsibility for the obvious western influence in some of the tunes, The Adventures of Sinsai especially combining a fairly standard rock beat and bassline with a wonderful Thai style melody played on an instrument I cannot guess at to marvellous effect. They also incorporate dub stylings very well indeed at times. My favourite tune, the indescribably wonderful Namtok (Waterfall) is impossible to put into words, really laid back with a sparse backdrop and meandering guitar over the top. Indeed, there’s a passage of tunes in the middle of the album that really, really, float my boat. The narrative of the album seems to get more and more traditional as it continues.

It doesn’t sound a million miles from folk music at times, which might be a silly thing to say because Molam is probably a folk music by definition. In fact, there might be a clue there. I wonder how much similarity there is across the various folk musics across the world? Then perhaps, supposing you’ve already clocked the strange similarities in mythologies across the world, and for the sake of argument may have noticed similarities in certain rituals from different parts too… well, makes y’think. If thinking is your thang, anyway.

 

Rusalnaia – Time Takes Away

So seeing as I surfaced from my bedroom studio to take in the new Big Blood album, I had a scan round some other crannies of the real world. This one grabbed me, gently mind, but the last song also grabbed my soon to be 7-year old daughter so much that she demanded I play it again and again.

This is folk rock in the early 70s style with a psych-tinged witchiness to it, a lazy description but I don’t like descriptions because they tax my feeble mind. The nearest reference point I have to this is Espers, but with a more lullabilic (neologism alert!) feel, particularly the aforementioned last tune. Also Horse Cult.

The album was recorded over the span of some years and is made by two witch sisters who live in different countries.

Mixpost 4

Because 2016 was so very, very interesting in so many ways, I am now in the position where I am unlikely to be buying much in the way of new music for a while. I mean, my finger and the pulse are better described as acquaintances rather than friends under the best of normal circumstances anyway, but it’s going to be straying far and wide as I do the next best thing to finding new music by rediscovering stuff I’d forgotten about.

Equally as much fun is music that other people recommend because they get a platform on which to do so; Dusted’s Listed feature is such an example and I recommend it to those who don’t reckon their music taste in terms of genre.

And, completely without planning, I’ve somehow made the following flow quite well…

I’m going to start with something poppy and popular because I love it. We did a kind of stoner version of it in my old One Dog Clapping band back in 2005 which was riotous fun to play (I ‘sang’ it an octave lower), but I make no secret of my love for the mighty Goldfrapp:

It is disappointingly hard to find any music by Appliance over the web – Mute Records, aren’t you supposed to playas? What are you playing at? So you’ll just have to take my word for it that if you spot one of their albums somewhere, snap it up. Amongst the very best artists from the turn of millennium.

I first discovered Kaophonic Tribu on MySpazz back in the Noughties (do peope call it that?), and I downloaded a song from their page which I played many, many times. Sods law, I can’t find it now, but I have found the album éliso déli, a delicious mix of electronics and ‘ethnic’ (i.e. not your standard dadrock bands instruments) sound sources. There’s a few of their tunes on the Googletube, this is one and rather good:

Because of this Listed, I found this, which I subsequently found is also on Bandcamp, and has been added to my hopelessly long wishlist:

It seems a bit lazy to then put the next song from the same feature, but damn this is good:

Henry Flynt is my kind of outsider, having rejected places in some ‘cool’ crowds over the years. I could wax on about why I personally think that’s a good thing, but I don’t think he did it to impress anyone, least of all me. Listen to this, though, all 15 minutes of it:

Words cannot describe Catherine Ribeiro’s wonderfully true singing, and since I’ve brought you into the realm of the epically hypnotic, then let’s finish with this: