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.

Wasted Cathedral – I’m Gonna Love You ‘Til The End Of Time

I’m probably the last person to comment on the incongruity of artist name versus album title. I actually have nothing useful to say, other than that, to me, the combination is incongruous.

Meh. Regardless, the album is really rather good, and by really rather good, I mean excellent. My only minor quibble is that the short pieces are good enough ideas in their own right to be fleshed out further than they are, but as long as they’re good, right? Right.

The longer pieces are well trancey, which is something I’ve rattled on about loads before so I won’t again, except to say that if you want to lose youself in some monging drone, then this here is for you.

Dude here also does other things – The Switching Yard, The Radiation Flowers, and Shooting Guns.

I actually meant to post this the other day with those other two posts I did, but my mind went blank. There was also another one too, but that isn’t actually released til the 23rd of this month and you all know how I feel about posting stuff that isn’t actually available yet. I’ll try and remember on the 23rd.

ZAÄAR – Magická Džungl’a

I think this might be my find of the year, saved right until almost the very end. But first I have to know – what is that accent thingy over the middle a in their name? Does it change how you pronounce said name? Me ignorant Englander. Actually, I don’t know how to pronounce any of it.

I’ve had at least three images evoked whilst listening to this – a kind of middle eastern bazaar (though I’ve never been to the middle east, or indeed a bazaar), the early stages of a long night dancing round a campfire when everyone is gradually getting into the sounds and rhythm, and a kind of sordid, late night carnival where the pleasures are unexpected and never subsequently spoken of (sadly, I’ve never been to that sort of carnival either).

It’s kind of jazz, I suppose, though very psychedelic and with regular, hypnotic pulses. Spacious, yet dense. Loads going on, but loads of room; an all encompassing sonic experience. There probably are reference points, though I know them not. Perhaps the nearest I can think of, albeit still distant, is Miles Davis’ Get Up With It, itself a very fine album and one I should listen to more.

And on that note, I wish you all a marvellous 2022. May the music you find be especially resonant to you.

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.

Dragontears – Turn On Tune In Fuck Off!!

Because literally everything is merely coincidence and chance, it logically follows that there is no such thing as causality.

I first discovered Dragontears back in 2010. I’d just had my then current PC for recording music die on me, and had a 9 month period without any means of recording music as the PC that was available laboured mightily with just the merest of tasks, and it was often all I could do to persuade it to let me at least surf the net a bit whilst I listened to music.

Just for the record, the album I’d just finished was Luna Takes Asylum.

During the last few weeks I’ve found myself listening to Dragontears’ three albums again, and remarking on just how bloody wonderful they are. I even found myself wondering what made me forget these albums even existed; it must be a good 6 or 7 years since I’ve listened to them. I realise that this sort of thing happens, I mean, how can it not when you have a sizeable collection of music and yet you still go looking for more? But still, this re-visit has this music really resonating with me this time, probably more so than when I first discovered them.

Just for the record, Luna Takes Asylum is now the album I wish it was back in 2010. It was also accompanied by the last rites for a PC, completely coincidentally.

So the other two Dragontears albums are 2000 Micrograms From Home (below) and Tambourine Freak Machine. I cannot recommend them enough.

 

sunn o))) – Pyroclasts and Life Metal

Now then, you know the sign of really, really good artists? They can release more than one really, really good album in a year.

Just saying.

Did you know ‘Sesquipedalian’ basically means really long word? I love that the English language contains this sort of nonsense!

Here’s an interesting post, not at all related to music, but very much related to living well.

 

 

 

Verstärker -Aktivität

In order to ignore the woes of the cricket for, ooh, some seconds, let’s type a random paragraph that bears no relation to the almost indescribable music that this post is bringing to your attention.

Of course, using the word ‘indescribable’ is in fact a description of sorts, albeit a meaningless one. Much like most music reviews (/snark).

1000 monkeys at a typewriter, etc. Dancing about architecture and all that.

Having said that, one of my posts that was filled with non-sequiturs when I was going through that phase of copying stuff out of my ramblings document was quoted on the release of that artists next release on his Bandcamp page by his record company. Now, to post that album I feel obliged to find another bunch of such ramblings. Takes my mind off the cricket, I suppose (all out for 67! Fucking woeful!)

Our Solar System – Origins

You’re only dead once

The only way forward is backwards

Can you call someone blind if they don’t see what they’re not looking for?

All that I do know is all that you know
As I was saying to myself the other night

Waiting for the punchline so that we can die laughing

She walked through the hall like an earthquake
I could tell things were about to get real

This time I decided to err on the side of gluttony

If you want to win the war on drugs, destroy all humans
oh, that’s what you’re trying to do

Seeing as it’s my blood, I suppose I should clear it up

Bardo Pond – Volume 8

Initially, we built a wall. It started off as a small wall, then it became a big wall and a thick wall and a wide wall and then people wondered whether or not we could build a wall that we couldn‟t climb or scale in any way, but we left that worry to the worriers.

One thing we did concern ourselves with, though, was just how boring the wall looked, so we started to decorate it (in practice, little people had been putting their little illustrations on already, many of them denigrative of the wall). So we split the wall up and sold off squares of it, and those squares were duly decorated with whatever the owners of those squares wished, plus that which appeared spontaneously, often in reaction.

But it was becoming apparent that the wall was costing a lot to maintain, so we started importing the bricks from south east Asia, as we had people over there, and they were able to manipulate things so that it actually became cheaper for us in purely monetary cost considerations (are there any other cons iderations to consider?) to import the bricks from Chinesia. This held for a while, and the wall grew ever higher, and its decorations became so elaborate that many observers didn‟t even realise there was a wall behind the pictures.

Soon, the pictures were all that remained in the popular memory, so we saw that as an opportunity to sell some of the more expensive bricks, as the projectors maintaining the illusions were of such high quality that they could project their nothing onto nothing itself. So we con tinued selling our bricks, slowly at first, and then more rapidly as they became more sought after, and the by now moving pictures reassured everybody that everything was fine and normal and the wall is as indomitable as ever.

But, in practice, the wall had completely gone, and the profits from the sale were draining away on keeping the projectors fed for the image parade, because, without those images, the people would realise what we had been up to, and we couldn’t let that happen, oh no, not at all.

So we made the images brighter and louder, repeating only the most successful images, and in the meantime, cast about for some new bricks

Earthling Society – England have my Bones

Well it isn’t often I post about the same band more than once in the same year , but this Earthling Society outfit are proving to be quite the find.

As is so often the case with music like this, words completely fail me. I’ve come to the conclusion that the easier something is to put into words, the less of an effect it has on you. But that may just be due to incipient stupidity on my part. What am I, a music critic?

As the blurb on the bandcamp page says, the centrepiece is definitely their take on the Alice Coltrane classic, but the accompanying material is also worth the price of admission on its own, which should tell you how highly I’m rating this. This is mighty, mighty music.

And it is also testament to those so many artists who keep plugging away and doing what they gotta do regardless of recognition. With no need to please a fanbase you have the space to grow truly. There’s loads of artists like this around who just keep getting better and better by simply remaining true to themselves, and the internet’s continuing decimation of the mainstream music industry* allows more and more of these to find some appreciative ears. Long may it continue.

*the mainstream music industry is now probably better decribed as the spectacle soundtrack industry. Music always seems to be of secondary concern to the visuals.