It’s always comforting to hear new work from Amparo – an Arizona based artist who relocated to Sweden. “El Corral” contains much of Amparo’s characteristic warm guitar tone and arpeggios that ride that line between nostalgic and hopeful. A place where, according to her, she was when she wrote this song. Of El Corral, Amparo …
Tracks like “Depth” by Makato Nagata absolutely send me. There is something in this kind of hyper-detail oriented dance music that rely on organic percussion and lush ambient pads with rich auxiliary percussion that do it for me every time. Fans of downcast and quite beautiful dance adjacent music like Four Tet and Pantha Du …
The Oakland based shoegaze trio There’s Talk ride some golden ratio of downcast melodies, spectral build and wash and expertly done electronic percussion and synth shadings on their single “Golden”. Olivia Lee’s vocals take center stage here, a deep and rich pull into depths where a bottom cannot be certain, her lyrics focus on “family, …
“I dreamed last night of a beautiful bar last night / and walkable neighborhoods”. Formed during the Obama years Cincinnati, that line by the Chicago-landed indie rock band Upstairs absolutely crushes me. Perhaps it’s the longing for the simple pleasures that we take for granted now. Like walking a few blocks in either direction to …
With plenty of time on his hands, the Berlin based Hans Schmerz has distilled these improvised piano lines into a fully fleshed out, slightly melancholy piano composition. “Nur Eine Phase” is the requisite soundtrack for looking out a window at barren leaves after completing a load of tasks, just slightly before the next wave of …
The story behind “Release the Pulse” is all too familiar. A ramshackle warehouse is occupied by artists to live out their well-executed anarchy. They put on shows, do their own repairs, provide studio space and build a community. This often gives the area some kind of bohemian cultural cache after years of disinvestment. On the …
AMERICAN WATERCOLOR MOVEMENT – “RELEASE THE PULSE” Read More »
The Austrian group Lyra Sound Systems have created a gentle and cleansing ambient track that crests and falls on the wave of thick ambient pads coming and receding with some kind of holy lunar tide. A beautifully composed piece with synth sounds from classic 70’s ambient pioneers and post-modern design aesthetic, Lyra Sound Systems is …
It’s always comforting to hear new work A Winged Victory for the Sullen – the collaborative project Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O’Halloran. Their new album “Invisible Cities” will be out in February, but “Desires Are Already a Memory” is the first taste of their deeply felt compositional work. …
A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN – “DESIRES ARE ALREADY MEMORIES” Read More »
Cut from the same sonic cloth as bands like Girl Band and Black Midi, the Norwich, UK based Red Mar offer a deeply unsettling, deeply expressionistic dive into start-start melodies, intermittent blasts of feedback and swirling / pounded synths that chase the sublime through minimalism and fuck-all noise. “Hound”, while impossible to put into a …
The last we heard from Capital Moon the Paris based artist created a composition that I compared to the ballroom scene from The Shining where Jack Torrence finally loses his mind. With Capital Moon’s new track “Le Nouveau Roi” the party is over and we are facing the long drive home / come down. In …