Quirke Configuration OT

Slightly distant and cold but soulful and danceable. That slightly distorted vocal loop and bassy groove on “Undetermined” seduces me immediately, it’s beautiful

(And then there’s “Scratched Glue”, a bonus track which is completely different, jackhammer-like cold hypnotic repetition. I like it too but it’s definitely a drastic change!)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

:zoviet*france: The Gate Is Open

:zoviet*france: at their cleanest, most minimal and droniest, with a few nature recordings here and there too, all subtle and understated. I wish it were available in an affordable format, but it’s a welcome return!

▷ RYM

Bruno Duplant Le jour d’après

An equally pleasant and haunting multilayered ambient track with a lot going on.

When I hear city bells I think of my grandparents’ house in a small countryside town. I think most listeners here would pick up on something that sounds familiar to them; could also be the piano, seagulls or broken record player; but then the superpositions and eerie drones here makes it sound like it’s all part of a damaged memory, or an altered reality. Yes, everybody’s familiar with hauntology now, but Duplant pulls it off really well and in a way that doesn’t sound like other artists! It’s not just the complexity and impeccable sound design but also the constant tension and changes in the composition. Music for searching, being submerged with contradictory emotions and getting lost.

Thanks to velocifish for the discovery!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Mr. Fingers Leev Ur Mynd

Yeah, this isn’t new ground but it’s a fine spacey, futuristic deep house album (colder at the beginning, more emotional in the second half) that makes me happy and warms my heart; the deep house pioneer hasn't lost it.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Magogaio / Sadness Magogaio / Sadness

A blackgaze rainbow! Sweet hooks over howling noise, metal growls and pretty female vocals (Magogaio) or angry electrified screams (Sadness), sometimes electronic elements too, stylistically this combines and switches genres all over the place and it’s a split but I still feel like it’s cohesive in a sense? And the songwriting is good. It also feels like you’ve come to see a metal show and after a while they just drop the costumes and theatrics and play shoegaze because that’s what feels right at the moment.

Thanks to burpworm for the discovery!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Leif Elggren / souRce research / Matmos RGB [an audio spectrum]

Concept album based on primary colours: after a sparse black introduction, each artist plays a different colour-inspired track. Elggren’s red is brooding and electric, souRce research’s green is relaxed and a bit psychedelic, Matmos’s blue is agitated and rhythmic. All three are then played together.

Thanks to QuietWyatt for the discovery!

▷ RYM

purity://filter ҽɱραƚԋყ ρυɾɠҽ (empathy purge)

Hardcore hallucinogenic beat bullet hell
For me this is less about the beats or melodies themselves than the psychedelic feel, like there’s a paradoxical void/calm at the heart of the dizzying chaos

(The artist’s wife also made an album and both have matching covers! vertigoaway ZeRAi.3_conduit-V3RS3 {verti_dx} — it’s similar but more chaotic, sometimes jarring, I can’t get into it as much to be honest)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Nourished by Time The Passionate Ones

Not sure what to say about this one sorry, it’s good r’n’b and I played it a lot

Thanks to Mathilde for the discovery!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

平沢進 (Susumu Hirasawa) 救済の技法

Futuristic 90s Japan synths and beautiful melodies; I’m late discovering Susumu Hirasawa but I can hear why this is a classic, I’m looking forward to discovering his other works! (I just got Music Industrial Wastes 〜 P-Model or Die as well)

▷ RYM

Perila Intrinsic Rhythm

Dark, delicate, introspective and slightly mysterious sound pictures. I love mineral ambient (and I like that this one is longer than most too, I want to spend time with these sounds)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Seefeel Sol.Hz

Seefeel’s 90s albums progressively from dream pop × ambient techno loops to warm ghostly crepuscular beats and finally dark ambient, signing one of my favourite albums of all time in the course (Succour (later expanded in Rupt + Flex: 94–96, which is definitely worth picking up if you love it as much as I do)). If their self-titled was an interesting foray into another, glitchier sound (kudos to them for trying something else), it didn’t quite measure up to their earlier works.

This though? It’s a gem. There’s a definite similarity to Succour, but it’s rising back up from the depths, with a more futuristic sound. At first it’s slow going, but it reaches beautiful heights. Listen at night.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Lionel Marchetti Atlas (97 phénomènes…)

A nine-part, 12- or 15-hour exploration of the cosmos with two robots, from very close observations of humans on Earth to the solitary drones of outer space, taking detours to surreal, introspective and paradoxical places. Atlas took the artist thirty years to complete and holds no end of surprises (even as a fan who has listened to a bunch of his other works, this stands out as different). It’s not something you’ll get to the end of easily, and that’s part of the point: the vastness of it all. It’s an album you need a bookmark for, and the characters and soundscapes may stick with you just like with a good long novel or series.

This really deserved a nicer release, like a beautiful box set! It deserves more attention in any case, this is an important and cruelly overlooked work.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM