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.

Flowers Must Die – Återbruk

Okay, I’ve just hypnotised myself listening to this.

When you do boring spreadsheet stuff, which involves a lot of repetition, then trancey minimalistic music involving a lot of repetition is really the thing. I mean, really the thing.

Of course, I like that sort of thing anyway. Maybe that’s why I ended up doing the sort of work I do.

Their ‘Greatest Hits‘ from a while back does exactly this too, especially the 55-minute closing track.

I want to live in a universe where a 55 minute trance is genuinely a greatest hit.

 

City of Djinn – self titled

The Universe/God/Random Coincidence (delete as appropriate to your deity of choice) doesn’t half have a sense of humour. The next album I find myself wanting to post is only a self titled album.

They’ve been on Soundbergs before, when they first put something out, back in the days when I had disposable income and bought it. If I had disposable income, I’d buy this too.

 

 

City of Djinn – Ether and Red Sulphur

It’s just possible that when I’ve said that what I really like is psychedelic music, I may have meant what I really like is music that puts you in a trance. Trance music. But not as it is popularly understood. See, this is the problem with labels…

This is proper trance music, as in, music that puts you in a trance. I’ve been here before with people like Alif and Malayeen, and I also like to think of Hamza El Din in these contexts. This is a much more lo-fi take, as it sounds like it was recorded in one take in someone’s living room, fluffed and flat notes included. But I love it. I hope they do more music, and that I may get a chance to hear that too.

City of Djinn (link is to F***book page, sorry) is two geezers, Marwan Kamel and Micah Bezold, who frequently sound like more. They use a variety of instruments, possibly not at all the same time but then I’ve not seen it, merely heard it. It is a very spacious sound they make; very meditative. But these are not short pieces, so do set aside a bit of time in order to grok this fully.