In case you’ve been living under a virtual rock, ‘Bandcamp Friday’ is where the website waives their commision fees for a day each month.
On one hand, this results in every artist with an instagram account shouting further into the void. But on the other, labels and artists are now planning their release schedule around this day, to capitalise on releasing and pre-releasing new music. So it is certainly worth a dig!
Here’s our top picks from yesterdays busy, yet fruitful Bandcamp Friday (2nd April 2021).
Woodford Halse have been rather prolific with their cassette releases this past year or so, putting out a couple of releases a month with a consistent artwork style. Musically, their output is quite varied and ranges from experimental beat driven trax, to sparser, more ambient excursions.
In Mullands’s new cassette, he focuses on two UK locations for inspiration, Hob Moor in York and a trip to Cambridge. Utilising field recordings and dark, drawn out drones. The two long form pieces have a nice dynamic range and move across textures, gradually becoming increasingly smudged in vast swathes of reverb.
The press release refers to ‘hauntology’ (a term which appears to be adopted on various other labels lately). I’m not entirely sure what it means, other than to describe electronic music that contains a ghostly, spooky or gothic feeling (uneasy drones, minor keys and lots of reverb). I’ve heard it disparately referred to in (electro-acoustic) works by Pierre Shaeffer and more recently (garage) artists like Burial, hence my slight confusion. So I guess it’s a descriptive term for music that evokes a certain gloomy vibe?
Its electro frenzy this week in the flatlands, with so many great records coming it’s hard to cover it all. This however, is one that will get the you popping and locking on the lino quick sharp.
Quite sparse in its approach, with icy pads, reduced melodic elements and arpeggiations pulsating over the ubiquitous 808 beats.
Nice and cold production skills overall from Brighton’s Emile Facey (who also runs the label) and hats off to the mastering engineer too, the subsequent results are both crispy and weighty in all the right quantities.
Lovely stuff and well suited to those early evening DJ sets.
Very classic sounding electro from new launched LDI Records out of Holland. Deep and clean tunes from Frank Kartell, which nod to Kraftwerk (which all electro does I guess?) and more recent work of Anthony Rother.
The album pays homage to writer Philip K Dick and in the words of the label “Side A of Electric Sheep EP evokes scenes from future mechanised worlds. Electric Sheep kicks the 12” off with a melancholic and contemplative moment followed by a steel cold and brooding venture in Voigt-Kampff.”
With the backing of Clone Distribution, this will undoubtably reach the right ears and feet out there.
Only having just dropped the frankly ridiculous double LP, Super Rhythm Trax are back with one of our favourite producers and DJs.
Si Brown aka Dexorcist, has been tearing up the dancefloors for many years. From alleged involvement in Fear Teachers Sound System, to Bomb Dogs live PA, to playing synths in festival favourites Dead Silence Syndicate, his music has always leant to the darker side to the electronic sphere.
No surprise then, with his latest 4 trax on SRT covering some deep and dark acid house and electro.
The second release in the new Subconscious Series from Miracle Pond, a sister label, focusing on more long-form, deep listening concepts.
Stepping up this time round, prolific electronics wizard Polypores has “mind-melded with best selling author Gareth E. Rees to create Deep Motion Trips“.
The result of this collab is a mad concoction could be best described as 1980s new age meditation meets kitchen sink realism, which kept me hooked throughout the two 10 minute pieces.
Expect full previews of these on the next Flatland Frequencies Mutant Radio show, on the 13th March.
Eight tracks of lush electronics from Apologist. Moving from dub techno openings with ‘Architects Dub’, into expansive ambient soundscapes with ‘No Closer Than The Moon’ and an upbeat sunrise chugger in ‘Landfall’.
Although a wide range of styles are covered here, the sounds are not disparate and hold together nicely as an album. Individual tracks hold up from a DJ perspective too, so should be something in here for everyone. TIP!
AIR Niederösterreich and the Ernst Krenek Institut. Release: 26th Feb
After Benge’s quite fantastic Loop Series One reviewed last November, we didn’t expect to get sent any more music made on an original Buchla 100 system, simply because there is only a handful of them left in the world. How wrong we were!
The particular system used in this new release, sent in by Nicoletta Favari & Christopher Salvito, aka Passepartout Duo, was built by Don in 1967 for composer Ernst Krenek, who used the synth alongside piano.
Flash forward to 2021 and the (still operational) system resides in Krems an der Donau, a small town near Vienna. Lucky for local musicians Passepartout Duo (and by proxy, all of us), who have used the 100 system alongside piano in five considered pieces, inspired by the original works of Krenek, to great effect.
