SINGLES CRUISE 03.22.19
OSA7029 - "OSA15"
"Osa15" creates channels wherein acoustic instrumentation like the flute and trumpet flow into droning ambient passages with minimal effort and maximum listener satisfaction. It's hard not to get totally swept into the undertow of this gorgeous track as these instruments cross currents into and through each other.
SKAI LOUNGE - "DETACHMENT FT. GLAMATICUS X FLUORA
Creating moving, orchestral post-rock in the vein of Joy Wants Eternity or One-Mile North, the Cape Town S.A. artist tackles the "soundtrack for a film (never made)" approach to writing music quite admirably. It's not hard to imagine this track suffusing some moment of poignant discovery or character arc. Skai Lounge is joined by Glamaticus on harp and Fluora on guitar on this gorgeous track.
ALEX CUBA FEAT. SILVANA ESTRADA - "DIVIDIDO"
There is something undeniably beautiful and sad gilding the edges of the Latin Grammy Award winning songwriter's new single. A track that pulls from ska, mambo and cha-cha to create an understated melody that cuts through with sweet and singular clarity. Silvana Estrada's - a young Mexico based artist - contribution pulls the track closer into beauty while still maintaining the track's core message that while divisions are culturally manufactured, differences are beautiful and celebratory.
OBSTACLE - "AFTER IMAGE"
"After Image", the first single from Obstacle's "First Light / After Image" is an overtly and deliberate techno track spun through several permeations and mutations borne out of three artists playing out their dance floor proclivities from a decidedly skewed ear. Flowing from extended improvisations into decidedly on-the-grid workouts, this experimental slice of Tech House is wide-open and engaging.
ØRDOP WOLKENSCHEIDT - "SNOW IN AUGUST"
Imagining an empty metropolis where memories of former glories and former lives are constant companions, the Denmark-based composer stakes out prime emotional real estate by looping ghostly vocal samples and reverb-drenched piano lines to evoke a feeling of nostalgia for time that is passed, but its memories and markers are an ever-present companion.
MARBLE ARCH - "GOLD"
The feelings of being young, alone and very much under the spell of a city like Paris permeate this hopeful, yet gloomy, post-punk / dream-pop leaning track by Yann Le Razavet's Marble Arch project. The slice-of-life video that accompanies "Gold" is a loving collage as it is a homage to the people and places that influence the effortless cool that Marble Arch exude.
REALIZER - "SUN SET"
Realizer plays the kind of sound-bending, mournful, but somewhat bright around the edges guitar-based drone music that accompanies most of my waking hours. The way Realizer is able to sculpt distortion, feedback and the pure golden tones ringing through hit a particular sweet spot in ambient music. An unobtrusive sea of sound that offers itself when you are ready to dive in.
TYLER JOHN ARNOLD - "BLEED"
Yes, I realize that this track is an hour long, so not necessarily a single. But this track by Tyler John Arnold is the perfect invitation to bask into some arching, grand tones that cover a huge breadth and evolution in tone, volume and treks a pretty vast emotional landscape over its run time. Taken as a whole or skipping forward, this track builds, swirls, dives and doubles back on itself never standing in the same aural river twice.
PALMS PALMS - "NECK"
Sometimes electronic music of this nature has the tendency to sound like a roomful of people talking over and around one another. Intersecting synthesizer melodies, bubbling bass lines and overlapping rhythmic phrasings stalking and stepping on one another's sonic territory. Palm Palm's IDM-centric track is anything but. All of these proclivities are marshalled and set in movement with one another creating a mass movement than independent conversations.
EX. VIOLET - "DOCUMENTARY"
Ex. Violet is a Beijing-based trio that create straight-forward ambient music that is serene and beautiful as it is terrifying. Creating massive volume swells and suspended tones caught in some haunted stasis, the group strives to use their music to "reflect the anonymous life of a Chinese citizen in the 21st century". To this end they succeed at painting a picture that captures the complexity of this existence. Caught between multiple forces, paralyzed by wonder and fear.
SONO KOLOYAN - "PLEASE SAY HELLO TO ME"
Crafting a warm and hymn-like track that calls down the end of the day, this simple Grouper influenced melody is the aural blanket needed for the comedown. The Armenian-born, London based songwriter wraps these repeating phrases like a mantra against the existential dread of coming home alone.A simple acknowledgement of human connection needed to keep the demons at bay.
JTS - "SALUTE"
"Salute" is as much an homage to as well as a product of the vibrant heavy bass scene that burst upon the public consciousness with acts like SBTRKT, James Blake, Mount Kimbie. JTS's own brand of 2-step with flourishes of Juke and Footwork is immediately engaging and pulse-quickening. The young producer perfectly captures the transient nature of when a sound reaches a tipping point and plays it back on itself.
JOSEPHINE WIGGS - "TIME DOES NOT BRING RELIEF"
Best known for playing bass in the Breeders, Josephine Wiggs has been crafting these lovely, delicately stated instrumental tracks in the vein of Brian eno's "Another Green World" and Harold Budd's meditative piano tracks. "Time Does Not Bring relief" takes us into a minor key guided journey into self reflection on the cruel passage of time and its inability to soothe the ache that loss brings.
