Media Diary: Early 2022

January · February · March · April
← Late 2021 · Media diary index · Lamuya @ RYM · Mid 2022 →

January 2022

	San Salvador La grande folie Amazed at how intense and complex this is. It’s only polyphonic chants, hand claps and percussions, but the melodic interplays and loud drums make the whole space vibrate. Did they modernize traditional music or was Occitan folk always this powerful? ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	AceMo FACT Mix 740 Super eclectic without being uncohesive, way off the beaten path (could you call it experimental?), grooves hard. The climax from 9 minutes onward when the rapping comes in is just insanely good, and so is the transition at 16-17 minutes when the retro synths and 90s diva vocals come in. That unaltered jazz ending too (it ends with a full Jackie McLean track)! ▷ FACT (free streaming + download) ▷ RYM
	Jana Irmert The Soft Bit Soft, experimental ambient — like stones, being inside structures, membranes. The compositions are structured and eventful enough that there’s a video with a full choregraphy for the title track. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Death Note (anime) sits weird, slouches and eats sweets L is such an inspiration to me! This really grabbed me like few thrillers do. (Probably no other even.) The premise might seem a bit silly but the detective work / battle of wits kept me on the edge of my seat; the first two arcs were perfect. The series took a big dip after L’s death though — I couldn’t bring myself to care much about the next couple of episodes, but it got better once Near really got a hand on the case. Episode 7 (with Naomi driven to suicide) was heartbreaking. And although the mood was cynical enough to make the whole anime about the plot (and how bad humans are) rather than the characters, some turned out to be really likeable. Especially the policemen. And L of course.
	TOWERS TOWERS Like a dark but strangely soothing dream. Floating/falling, exactly the colours of the cover art. I’ve been playing this one on repeat. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	PYUR Oratorio for the Underworld Like an oratorio performed in a futuristic city a night, often instrumental, glitchy, with a few elements reminiscent of The Knife or Gazelle Twin. Not as unique and impressive as Helga Pogatschar’s Mars: Requiem, but it’s cool. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Yazzus IT’S YA GIRL’S BOOTLEGS A 30-pack of instant energy boosts, based on tracks by M.I.A., Kelela, Britney Spears, Tyler the Creator etc, reworked for maximum effect. CLUB🍭 GHETTOTECH 💫JUNGLE💖 160❄️ FOOTWORK📟 RAVE🔮 VIBES!!! This rocks. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Drool Thumper Super intense rhythm game, on rails in an abstract geometric void/space (minimal but looks very cool), featuring ominous drones and drumming by Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt as the soundtrack. Each level also follows a time signature that corresponds to the level number! ▷ Official website ▷ Glitchwave
	Kikiyama ゆめにっき Yume Nikki You already know about it. It’s been one my favourite games even since before I played it, when I was just reading about it as I couldn’t run it. (The latest dream I can remember: A woman with green skin and red hair and the same name as me. A series of comic books about time travel, each book exists in two versions, one in which the characters travel to the past and one in which they travel to the future. But the story is otherwise the same. There are three versions of the woman with green skin now because of these time travels, each one from a different timeline. A picture of a broken stone pillar underground, bathed in blue light, turning to sand. Maybe I’ll draw this later, as I do with many of my dreams. I don’t think works of art have to mean something. Which is good because I don’t have anything to say really. No message, no point to make. I just like to experiment and express my feelings.) ▷ Steam ▷ Glitchwave
	Magdalena Bay Mercurial World Zingy synths and infectious melodies and cool transitions (the whole album even loops seamlessly), some of the best tunes from last year in case you haven’t heard them yet! Another French word I miss in English is “acidulé”, which means slightly tart in a pleasant way and is often used for candies but also for colours and other things by analogy. If I were to write a French review for this, I’d probably use it somewhere. I haven’t bought candy in years but just writing that kinda makes me want an Arlequin. ▷ Official website! (Check it out, it’s cool!) ▷ RYM
	Earth Trax LP2 (Ambient Dance) Somebody thanked me on Tumblr for making them discover this album — they must have confused me with someone else though because I hadn’t heard about it! I have now though and I indeed recommend it, it’s great. Warm, emotional and super comfy but not soft, the beats never rest and the samples give it a lot of energy too — the “ambient dance” subtitle is apt, it’s equally good for dancing and for chilling out. Listen to it at twilight or night. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	Psychic TV Cathedral Engine (This is just the band logo — the actual cover is sexually explicit and I’m not a big fan of it) Waves of drones, rhythms, melodies and other recordings. Loops. Often psychedelic with guitars, or verging towards industrial, sometimes atonal weirdness. There are elements from so many genres here, but the overall impression I get is a bit like an experimental drone album? My interest was piqued on my first listen, after five I think it’s my second favourite Psychic TV album after Dreams Less Sweet (though it doesn’t make much sense to compare Psychic TV albums, why compare this to acid house or psychedelic rock?). ▷ RYM
	M. Geddes Gengras Light Pipe Never mind the drab cover, this is great. 2½ hours of deep, slow, hazy modular compositions fading into each other, progressive electronic turned into ambient. Towards the end there are a few stylistic changes, like the couple of breaks and dissonances on “Pinnacle” and the fantastic “Irwin”, less ambient and more progressive electronic, with a truly mystical sound. Thanks to hoenir for the discovery! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Scion Arrange and Process Basic Channel Tracks Unmistakably Basic Channel, you can tell this was made with the utmost respect for the originals — but cleaner, sleeker, faster. 100% techno. Head bobbing throughout. ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	Rhythm & Sound Rhythm & Sound And this is a Basic Channel project, but with more dub! There are a couple of tracks I’m not a fan of towards the beginning (with the skank rhythms), but then they start to really play with the surface noise, the beats get sparser until they nearly evaporate (in “Distance” and “Roll Off” — the opposite of what the Scion mix above does). The one track with vocals is also really good. Thanks to Roganjoshua and rtdx for the discovery! ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM

February 2022

	Wendy Carlos Beauty in the Beast Makes me want to try learning music theory again, just to understand what she’s done here. Each track is partly inspired by the music of a different country, yet it’s also entirely recombined and reinvented — she even devised new music modes just for the tracks in question! And it sounds like travelling, seeing inspiration everywhere and building your own world out of it. Using synthesizer sounds that mimic real instruments as accurately as possible, which makes the whole endeavour sound resolutely artificial but in an interesting way. (That last part might turn a few listeners off, but I hope it doesn’t.) ▷ Official page with notes ▷ RYM
	Wendy Carlos Sonic Seasonings Long, subtle, slow, sometimes slightly dissonant ambient compositions that evoke nature in unfamiliar ways — not pastoral, not directly emotional either, to my ears it feels more like an evocation of all the shapes, textures, colours and details you might notice as seasons change. There are new age elements but it’s mostly contemporary composition playing with field recordings. I like how the liner notes warn you that “[a] great deal of what you will hear is illusory”! ▷ Official page with notes ▷ RYM
	La Peste Drug Store Core Boy Having listened to some of his EPs, I knew this would be intense and experimental — I didn’t expect it to also be spacey, peaceful and ultraviolent at the same time. It also feels like an original album more than a DJ mix, I can’t even tell when tracks change (did he rework them?). Outstanding. ▷ Soundcloud (probably unofficial) ▷ RYM
	African Imperial Wizard Isandhlwana War music — literally: this is a concept album about the civil war in Angola and its aftermath. Acoustic instruments, electronic production, clean, unexpected, powerful industrial music with roots in traditional genres. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	舟沢虫雄 [Mushio Funazawa] 夜明け前双つ [Before Twin Dawn] Minimal, sounds like it was made by a single person with limited equipment with its crude synthetic sounds and audible surface noise, and it’s so personal and intensely expressive. Evokes loneliness perhaps. Truly sublime at times. Thanks to Matt / lugubrious for the recommendation! ▷ RYM
	UA 泥棒 [Dorobou] Some of the best jazzy, crepuscular, catchy art pop I’ve heard — with nice experimental touches too, such as the short abrupt pauses on the title track or how stripped down and dissonant (but still jazzy and nice) 「瞬間」 sounds. Always lovely but rarely straightforward. ♪ 「泥棒」 (video) ▷ RYM
	Mount Shrine Shortwave Ruins Comforting drones, with the sounds of distant rain and radio transmissions. I like to imagine this is what a trip back from the Arctic to civilisation might sound like. Thanks to Traz for the discovery! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Alison Zai I don’t think this comic about a bee who wants to get rid of the sun has a title but I love it. (It’s a short read) ▷ Tumblr
	La Femme Paradigmes 1.19 from 8 friends’ ratings! (I’m the only one who likes it lol) I get it, it’s corny, it’s cringey, but it’s also so much fun. Picture a band of very French (very Parisian?) partygoers who think like teenagers and decided to record the most spectacularly self-indulgent record they could, along the lines of “Ooh I’m a scary sexy vampire!”, “Let’s get fucked up and destroy things!!!” and “I’m horny”. The hooks and production are good, the frequent silliness just gives me extra chuckles most of the time — and how could I hate “Disconnexion”, a cool dance track featuring a stuttering philosopher followed by a clown with a banjo and a supernatural diva? Or “Foreigner”, featuring a spurned lover wearing a fake moustache singing English lyrics in a zero-fucks-given French accent that’s funny by itself. If you’re not into that kind of thing, “Paradigme” (theatrical) and “Nouvelle-Orléans” (a nice, bittersweet synthpop song about leaving home) are just really good songs. Paradigmes does take a dip in the second half though — the most memorable track there is unfortunately “Divine créature”, in which you can almost picture the male singer drool as he sing-recites sexual domination fantasies turned into bad poetry. Yeah I’ll just skip tracks 10 to 12 from now on. Their first album might have been better in several respects, but it wasn’t as entertaining. ▷ RYM
	Govlink 10 Chambers This cute wizard dog knows insane spells that will just explode in your face and all over the place in dozens of bright colours. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Pépé Bradock Rhapsody in Pain Found on 1Chops’s list PSEUDO-PROTO: the accidental forerunners of various genres, where he describes it as “the weirdest house track I’ve ever heard” — of course I had to check it out. And it doesn’t disappoint! 2CB’s “Let Me Tell You Something” is still weirder but this is pretty close, and better. There are people groaning in pain throughout yet it sounds really funny in both senses of the word, and strangely catchy too. Could you mix it or dance to it? Maybe not but who knows. Thanks 1Chops! ♪ Youtube (unofficial upload) ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	Elizabeth Pich Fungirl Absolute chaos and absolutely hilarious. There’s so much blood and sex and nonsense and death and sex again and puking here (consider these TWs) but it’s not even too edgy or random for the sake of it, just… chaotic. With weird drawings that are minimal, colourful and kinda gross at the same time. You might know Elizabeth Pich as one of the authors of the War and Peas webcomic. Which is tame by comparison. ▷ Official Instagram with strips you can read (most are part of the book, a few aren’t) ▷ Official website
	André 3000 Look Ma No Hands André toward the end of his OutKast days (that feels so long ago now) often sounded like he wanted to turn that page and do something else entirely. Well here it is. The first song is a beautiful tribute to his parents, the second is a pretty cool experimental jazz track, there’s no hip hop anywhere but the whole thing sounds entirely heartfelt, like he’s not trying to prove or sell anything or entertain anyone, just say hello and share something that mattered to him. I’m glad we have this. ▷ Soundcloud ▷ RYM
	Kassel Jaeger Aster A reflected light on a rugged, grey stone or metal surface? Probably not the moon but that’s what I’m thinking of. The picture also reminds me of a nebula. A fitting illustration for these electroacoustic/experimental tracks, often distant, cold, sometimes dissonant, but with some warmer emotional drones in the background. (Not all tracks are like that, but many are.) Twice as long as Fernweh and it really benefits from the longer duration — Fernweh is good when I listen to it but doesn’t leave me with strong impressions afterwards, whereas this one does. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Tony Rainwater Fatal Fantazia There’s a sense of comfort and nostalgia in drum and bass (or breakbeat, I’m bad at telling genres apart), recognizing these familiar classic break samples even when they’re used in new contexts. This album amps up this feeling with a few more samples (hello “Butterfly”, it’s been a while!) and — especially — nice, warm piano melodies. A feeling like the sky clearing up and the sun shining right after the rain has ended on a spring day. It’s still very danceable (another thing I like about this genre is how it works on intense contrasts), but this is one of the most wholesome albums I’ve heard lately. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM

March 2022

	Perila META DOOR L A web of threads connecting distant points: 　aquatic – aerial 　hypnotic, repetitive – mysterious, unpredictable 　comfortable, hazy, warm ambient – dark, cold, elusive experimentation It’s “rooted in field recordings extracted from the wilderness outside Tbilisi, where a series of hiking expeditions led Perila to chance encounters with metal tubes, large rocks, and the ruins of an old house”, but I honestly couldn’t have guessed that! Except for the metallic sounds. The other Perila works I’ve listened to are different in the sounds they use — Attitudes to Senses in Reverse is a bit closer to dark ambient, Everything Is Already There focusses on guitar sounds, How Much Time It Is Between You and Me? on vocals. But all have a good balance between ambient and experimental music, consistently intriguing and satisfying. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM ▷ Pitchfork article + interview about her in general ▷ “ent i pse”( video)
	Perila Temple Mix 19 And this ambient mix is also great — soft, fluid, 　distant – sensual. ▷ Soundcloud (free streaming + download) ▷ RYM
	Tracing Xircles Gaia’s Requiem Feels like a warm bath after a long day. With bubbles and candles if you want. (I take showers but you know what I mean) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Signor Benedick the Moor El Negro Really dope hip hop album about one’s inner struggles, with baroque instrumentation (lots of pizzicato strings), electric guitars, great lyrics and rapping (his flow reminds me a bit of Danny Brown but less high pitched). Deserves more attention. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	SpaceGhostPurrp Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6 (1991) Lol at these Mortal Kombat samples used on every track, but they fit the sound — purple slime, heavy photo grain, horror vibes, fun, an unlikely combination that works way better than it ought to! (He sounds a bit like a prick on the lyrics but whatever, I’m only listening to this one for the beats and aesthetics.) ▷ RYM
	Carlton Heston Gods of the Dead Same vibe as the drawings — gothic, monstrous, twisted, fun in a dark way! I’m usually not into folk nor country but this is electric and distorted enough (= very much so) to change that entirely. Plus you never quite know what’s coming next, could be a dissonant ballad, a deranged folk song, even rhythmic noise loops. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ Artist’s website with drawings and stories and stuff ▷ RYM
	GPDF266 : Linguistics Poetry : 100 Linguistics Poems Out-of-context linguistics as poetry as shitposting. Out-of-context lingusitics as shitposting as poetry. Thanks to pearlblurringgg for sharing these! ▷ Download
	Dan Efex Plixx A pure 90s hard/acid trance mix, with a dramatic but tongue-in-cheek intro and not a single weak moment. The sound quality isn’t great because this was released on tape, but apart from that, it’s pretty much perfect. ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	Air Liquide Nephology (The New Religion) This sounds like it was meant to be a spacey, chill ambient techno album, but the artists were too restless and had too much energy to commit to that and added some angry acid, techno, even a quirky hip hop track to the mix. Given how exciting and eclectic the result is, that’s not a bad thing! (Can it still be listened to as a chillout album? … Maybe?) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Madonna 303 & Gizz TV Massturbator Madonna 303 is the same artists as Air Liquide, but this time they’re just going full-on acid madness! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM swic swiqt swiqktsz swi% ☆ ♪ ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	Pablo’s Eye You Love Chinese Food. A path of discovery in a strange yet comforting mood, as if I were revisiting an exotic place in a dream from time to time and learning more about it time and time again. Ambient, spoken word, I’m not sure I can explain it. It’s special in a special way. Thanks to y_z and jonabbey for the recommendation! ▷ RYM
	Buraka Som Sistema Fabriclive 49 Dance music from… Angola? Portugal? Both? From what I’ve just read kuduro is originally from Angola, but the “progressive kuduro” substyle was created by Angolan immigrants who have settled in Portugal (and yes, the history between both countries is one of colonization). I actually found this while looking for fidget house, but I will check out some Angolan kuduro too! Anyway I really like these rhythms and the mix is addictive — sustained high energy throughout, the transitions are mostly about the beats but the highlights add some really good melodies and vocals to it. ▷ RYM
	Doopees Doopee Time Hi Caroline! How are you feeling today? ▷ RYM
	Dennis Kelly Utopia (the original UK series, not the US remake) Ultraviolence! Paranoia! A worldwide conspiracy like you can’t even imagine! Bouncy electronic music with unsettling voices and saturated colours! I can’t even really tell what it’s about because that revelation only comes a few episodes in — but the starting point is drawings done by a patient in a mental asylum which suspiciously coincide with real-world events, specifically disease outbreaks. They somehow get published as a graphic novel, but when fans of it dig deeper and get their hands on the sequel, a shadowy organization who has their hands everywhere (and hires psychopath killers who just shoot people like it’s nothing) comes after them. It’s not nearly as geeky than you might expect though. It’s thrilling, very disturbing, stress-inducing and deals with current, legitimate fears we may have about our future. The way some of the characters evolve is impressive, and the visual aesthetics and Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s soundtrack are brilliant.
	K11 Cthonian Music Sort of an experimental all-stars project? Featuring Francisco López, Christina Kubisch, Seth Cluett, L’Acéphale and others still on long dramatic compositions, an approach which reminds me a bit of Gaspar Claus Jo Ha Kyū albeit with different genres and different results. This one combines drone, dark ambient, electroacoustic/concrète, metal, and it totally sounds like it should have been played in a vast, ancient underground church like the cover art suggests. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ Radical Matters (contains detailed credits) ▷ RYM
	Prizes Roses Rosa (p rosa) (panda rosa) The Kinspiral Best post-rock I’ve heard in a long time. Partly because it sounds inspired by the first wave (Bark Psychosis, Slowdive, ˙O˙Rang etc)! Without any drama nor sadness — no violins and cellos but synth pads and saxophones, no heavy crescendos but super pleasant, warm, rhythmic compositions. (Granted, it is very long (2½ hours) and sounds mostly the same throughout, but it’s also consistently good and I don’t get tired of it. If the length puts you off though, I just gave the shorter Orca a listen, it’s shorter and a bit closer to actual rock, very good as well.) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM

April 2022

	Material Girl i85mixx21–22 (These Are Tears of Joy) On repeat. It’s hip hop, it’s a sound collage, it’s jazzy and warm but not “cool” or laid back (it’s rather dense and fast-paced), diary-like in the way the artist just expresses himself in a sort of stream of consciousness — and whereas Tangram was seven pieces coming together in non-obvious ways, this one is really just a single long composition and I got into it immediately. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Lightwave Tycho Brahé Space ambient with strings, subtle dissonances, complex arrangements — observing strange phenomena, mapping the movements of stars and nebulae. The richness of the sound design and the fact that it’s not all synths make this one of the best I’ve heard in the genre yet. ▷ Official website ▷ RYM
	Unknown Damage Third Summer of Love As hedonistic and psychedelic as you’d like a trance album to be, but it also contains some serious or dark elements, a little eerieness even, plus influences from more experimental genres and media. Dancing with monsters. Tripping with bright colours among the darkness. Also the pacing is solid, it’s a short album with a clear trajectory. Thanks 1Chops! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Anne Simon Perséphone aux Enfers A surreal, silly and fun retelling of the myth of Persephone and Hades in hell with wacky monsters; it looks like this! My kind of thing. I bought this a while ago, turns out nobody knows about it: it hasn’t been translated, reviewed nor republished, the first edition of 1500 copies is sold out and it’s only available in public libraries now. Oh well. Good thing we have public libraries.
	Strawberry Hospital Data.viscera Empowering, not even just in the lyrics but sonically. This feels so wholesome and sensitive, and loud and powerful. A guardian angel protecting you out of love and destroying anything that would hurt you. (Similar to Grave Chimera but better.) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Five Star Hotel void injex And this… is sort of giving me similar vibes even though it shouldn’t? I’m not sure why — it’s a different genre, aggressive, less melodic. In many ways it’s crude but there’s something in it that grabs me. ▷ Official website (seems like she scrapped this album though) ▷ RYM
	16 Bitch Pile-Up Bury Me Deep Her terrifying beats for clipping.’s “Club Down” (on There Existed an Addiction to Blood) were one of the album’s strongest points, so I looked up what else Sarah Bernat had made and hey, check this out — story-driven horror noise concept album! Each track is a different scene. There’s a really cool 18-minute atmospheric drone/noise track, but don’t let that fool you into thinking you’d be safe playing this on speakers if anyone can hear you. Just a handful of seconds before, I felt “oh shit” — it wasn’t a gratuitous jumpscare, I heard it coming, but I still wasn’t prepared for it. “Through the Brown Earth” is so short but terrifying, and the following onslaught isn’t any less effective. Perhaps the album’s main flaw is how narrative and linear it is, your first listen is probably going to be the best one (when you know things are about to go down, the tracklist even tells you exactly when, but you won’t know exactly how until you’ve heard it). Still, even on subsequent listens, this is good noise. ▷ RYM ▷ No link for their music but here’s a funny interview
	Angélica Garcia Echo eléctrico Five intense and beautiful songs — nearly all vocals, the artist singing in chorus with herself to a dizzying effect. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	PinkPantheress to hell with it Lovely r’n’b with drum and bass beats — only 18:33 but it feels like a highly concentrated album, if you like Erika de Casier or Rochelle Jordan and would also enjoy something more concise and energetic, get this! ▷ RYM
	Shelley Parker Wisteria Shelley Parker’s early works were at a junction between purely experimental music (atonal, drone-adjacent) and electronic dance music — basically industrial techno or UK bass without the beats. Or with very, very slow beats you could not possibly dance to, only evoking a non-human rhythm. Or something close to Andy Stott if he had decided to ditch melodies and vocals altogether and focus on minimal drones and textures. Hostile, unidentified concrete buildings at night. Definitely interesting, but they also left me wanting for more as each track hinted towards something and then the record would just end. On Wisteria, though (and before it, on the Red Cotton EP), Parker just… adds beats back to the formula. (Breakbeats here, which actually works better than the techno or UK bass I expected!) Without losing that sense of concreteness, that focus on experimentation which made the previous works interesting in the first place. And it totally works! There’s a lot of energy here but what really catches my ear is what happens just behind the main scene, lurking in the background. (The only thing I don’t like here is the cover art. Cold, drab, square, in an aesthetic that reminds of me of old CG but without any of the futurism, only the uncanniness. Was this intentional?) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Monobox Regenerate I really like Robert Hood’s signature style of fast, intensely repetitive loop-based techno (the M-Print 20-year anniversary compilation has a lot of that and so does his Fabric 39 mix), and using that same approach for house music on “Funky Souls” as Floorplan was just insanely good. This one is different though. More spatial, more colourful, with slower progressions (though the basic rhythms are still pretty fast, each track evolves in subtle ways). And it’s also great! Consistently interesting, I liked it from the first listen but it only grew on me after that. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Kevin Saunderson X-Mix: Transmission from Deep Space Radio Solid 1997 techno mix from one of the pioneers of the genre! A shorter version of this was also released on VHS, with accompanying CG graphics. Of course there are giant eyeballs and metal heads. ▷ Video ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM
	sleepsucks.tumblr.com Daily comic diary by a French artist who’s also transgender and works in animation! I like comic diaries. (« Blogs BD » as we call them here, they used to be a pretty big thing, I don’t know if they still are?) ▷ Tumblr
	▷ Sometimes I also like to just open the window and listen to the birds outside.
	Juliette Porée Unfair Okay, I’ve known the artist personally for a while, so I’m not objective. Still, this hits me pretty hard. Her previous Hiss Album was understated, mostly haunted drones and distant field recordings, but this — while it feels similar in some ways — confronts you will all kinds of emotional wrongs. Sadness, despair, panic, running in circles until you get mad. And it feels disorienting in its structure, with unexpected changes and repetitions to the point that it really feels like living in the house on the cover. A home. But all wrong. Doesn’t look like it can hold. Doesn’t look like you should stay here. Perhaps you should destroy it or reconstruct it? (This might be just me, but the atmosphere sort of reminds me of Mortis Ghost’s OFF’s.) The one line sung in French, « les fondations s’effondrent mais les murs sont restés » means “the foundations are collapsing yet the walls are still there”. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ Faustine Software (her own website, free streaming + download) ▷ RYM
	Lily Soryu There’s Something Wrong with My House Which also reminded me of this one. Which can be a taxing listen because of how emotional it is (content warnings are on the page), but it’s also unforgettable and comes straight from the heart. Ten minutes long is the perfect format here. Why are robotic voices so haunting? ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Drown Утоплення Atmospheric doom metal without the metal = pure subaquatic atmosphere. No vocals, no rhythms, no progression, just murky underwater darkness. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Cio d’Or Ur / Uhr Ambient dub techno to listen to late at night, before you go to sleep. There’s still energy in there but you can tell it’s all becoming soft and hazy and evanescent in the most pleasant way. ▷ Discogs ▷ RYM

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