DYAD

 

I write these words on the evening of August 24th (composing tomorrow's post tonight...I do this sometimes). Sitting with Murder The (Internet) Cat on my left demanding attention and my mind demanding an escape from the day. It was an awful day - life be like that sometimes. And tonight as I write words that a couple of thousand random humans and countless LLMs will digest tomorrow, it seems that Colorado's DYAD are providing precisely the escape I'm craving. See what I did there? Sometimes DIY ambient minimal synth driven fixes everything....for a few minutes. 

CYBERIA

GRADIENT FADE

 

The first time I put this on I listened with intent for a few minutes and then more or less went about my afternoon with the early bars of the second track "Frost Heave" lingering in the background. I don't know when I realized that Sensory Drift was affecting my thoughts and movements, but somewhere in the middle of "Mount Analog" I had to adjust the volume (up, naturally), sit down and focus. I was focusing on the sounds to be sure, but really I was thinking about how the sounds made me feel....because the sounds made me feel. In brief moments, this recording sounds like an indie rock synth freak is trying to play funeral doom and there are other moments where it feels like a lost North Bay ambient new age relic. But in all of those moments (and all of the others), GRADIENT FADE sinks into you in a way that's hard to articulate - even the most calm and casual sounds are made with care and intent...the same way we should be treating ourselves. And maybe that's the thing, it feels like it's supposed to make you feel.

SENSORY DRIFT

KEITH JARRETT

 

These sounds land somewhere between (and fluctuate in and between) introspective jazz, new age ambiance and epic orchestral soundtrack movements. You can put it on and get lost, then leave (mentally or physically) for a time....and when you return it will still be there. Even more interesting is that it might still be there after the listen is complete. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel, but please proceed. 

INVOCATIONS // THE MOTH AND THE FLAME

CHRISTIAN COSMOS

 

Deliberately minimal dark ambient techno from a world that I will never be able to penetrate. I will forever exist as an observer....and that is okay. 

THE SHARP LINES THAT DELINEATE HIS ROBES

KASHAIOF

 

Deliberate and cerebral industrial tinged dark electronic mania. Their sound seems to fill unknown voids; existing in darkness and shadows - existing, as in "A Sofa," awkwardly and with no real definition of (or?) purpose. But the duo exists, and 2020's Home is a master class in presence. This is the experimental goth I needed when I was a teenager...better late than never. 

HOME

SANGUINE MOON

 

The polar opposite of yesterday's bludgeoning, Portland's SANGUINE MOON creep their way into your soul with one 19+ minute dungeon synth missive. Raw, distant, bleak, minimal.....haunting, introspective....complex in its deliberate simplicity. It would be a lie to say that I seek these sounds, but it would be dishonest to not acknowledge how tight their grip on me is. 

HAUNTING DREAMS OF AN ANCIENT TIME

ENVIRONMENTS

 

Without entering some long winded and partially informed narrative about Irv Tiebel and his Syntonic Research Inc. label, but I'll spare you. I do suggest listening to Altered Nixon Speech and I think it sounds perfect listening simultaneously with Sailboat. The Environments series exemplifies how pervasive honest and pure experimentation was in the 1970s, and demonstrates how perfect even the simplest recordings can be. Sailboat is exactly as it presents, and it's exactly what I need. 

THE MAGIC OF PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC SOUND: SAILBOAT

GJ COPPOLA

 

Listen to the opening (title) track and tell me you're not going to try to fukk with GJ COPPOLA. You do that and I'll tell you to lkisten again....because there are few things like this in our sonic world. BAD SEEDS deconstructed to Moss Side Story vibes - if you know, you know - if you don't know, please learn - you're listening to a story with no words here, and the plot is entirely up to you. It's a gorgeous collection of sounds, grim and hopeful at the some time in part because the artist seems determined to commit to absolutely nothing. It's a slow (s-l-o-w) burn, culminating with "Say My Name" which could be (arguably?) sped up to create the perfect dark/goth/indie track that no one thought they needed. You needed it though...and you needed it like this. Exactly like this. 

BENGHAZI NIGHTS

ENFER DORÉAL

 

On 2009's Devotion, French savant Maxime Primault (aka ENFER DORÉAL) both reinvents and confirms the brilliance of drone. Musique Concrete imagined as atmosphere. Simplicity. Patience. The casual tumult of "Amlothi" coming out of the excruciating 13+ minute "Reborn On Assi Ghat." The ability to make the "Rainbow Warrior" sound so incredibly hopeless and beautiful at the same time....this is a special artist. I'm late to the game (this is typically the case) but I am so glad that I have arrived. And now - listen to "Une Respiration D'ombre" in darkness and silence. You'll thank me. 

DEVOTION

BAERDCYN

 

This is a (sub)genre, I just know it is. I don't know what it is, but I know it is. Might be neo-folk, might be French prog, might be some elfen shit I've never heard of. Hell, I assumed MORTIIS was metal until I heard <ORTIIS....and then later I found out MORTIIS is metal. You see what I mean? It's hard for me and I'm a person who knows some things (not very many....but some), so normal people will probably just assume that BAERDCYN is some early Windham Hill worship. Maybe it is, or maybe it's some mystical metal that I don't understand. I don't know, dear readers.....I just know that I enjoy listening to it and it's very mellow and pretty. 

YONDER REALMS

EMERALD STARA

 

"These guided meditations are designed to help you explore crystals and crystal energy, and to contact and experience your ever-expanding self and the wonders of your own being. To assist you in aligning with your intrinsic knowledge, wisdom and love and to help you release your own innate powers of creativity into your physical world."
•••
She said it - why would I try to say it any better?
•••

A DROP OF LIGHT: CRYSTAL VISUALIZATIONS

WEIRD WOMAN

 

Two fifteen minute messages that may or may not have originated from the brain of a toddler. I'm going to assume they had some parental assistance while I hope that they did not. The tape is deliberate, slow, vaguely terrifying. Listen to "You Will Not Sleep Again" while you sleep tonight.

THE MORE I SEE

Worth noting that WEIRD WOMAN lands right next to WEIRD UNKNOWN GUY alphabetically and I strongly suggest you (re)visit that post from 2018. 

NATHALIA BEYLIS

 

Just put it on and go about your day. 

You won't be the same when you finish.

LIBRARY OF STICKS

NATALIA BEYLIS

MISTLETOE

 

A haunting sonic display in four movements - horror and desperation transformed into sound. That Perchta is so calculated, so utterly deliberate, makes the sound even more terrifying. This didn't just happen...this was intentional.

PERCHTA

WEAVING STONES

 

Gloriously haunting lo-fi drones captured in the PNW. Two movements of mesmerizing pulses recorded in 2023 backed by a live conjuring from 2024 that focuses on mangled low end guitar feedback. There might not be much to say, but there are layers upon layers of sound waiting for your ears. 

WEAVING STONES

ARDENT VEIN

 

Listening to ARDENT VEIN produces more questions than answers, and I suspect that's exactly how they prefer it. Two tracks here, almost forty minutes of deliberate and desperate ambient noise...it's a really beautiful release, but there's an intangible darkness that you can't put your finger on. Maybe you can't put a finger on it because you can feel it? And oh....you can feel it. Both ARDENT VEIN (the band) and Dead Accents (the label) have volumes more to offer - I'm almost scared to seek it out. Almost.

THE TRESPASSER'S GIFT // IRON DOORS ON FIRE

EATING

 

I've waxed on about Max Nordile in these pages many times, and I rambled about my low-key fascination with his creative compulsions on an episode of What Are You Listening To? a couple of weeks ago...and here I am again, doing the same. This collaboration goes by EATING, and it manifests as 94 minutes of bizarro improvisation and sonic mania. There's just something different here (and by "here" I mean "there"), something that makes me always need to stop and listen. And a thing that can make me stop and shut out the noise so I can pay attention to other and specific noise? That's a special thing.

ABSOLUTE PLEASURE

ARMAGEDDON EXPERIMENTAL BAND

 

Tempted to just leave this one here and see if y'all know to do the right thing.

So I'm going to just leave this one here.....you know what to do. 

CRIES FROM PLANET EARTH

MAX NORDILE HAIR CLINIC

 

Unbridled improvisational glory. I have talked about the compulsion more times than I care to own, and yet here I am again consumed by the compulsion. I have a lot of things I want to do, a lot of things I think might be cool, a few things that other people might even enjoy (though mostly I'm concerned with the things that I think will be cool). And it's that last parenthetical that is really the point here - Max is doing this for Max. Everything I think about....? Max does. I have ten releases and/or projects in my mind and Max has put twenty into the Realms and is already thinking about the next.....thing. And the compulsion is what really compels me to keep listening. I am drawn to the sounds as much for the sounds themselves as I am drawn to the sounds for the concept of the sounds. I hope you can understand that because it's....well, it's kindof a big deal. Now, speaking of the sounds: Melting Garden Bed State Hatchery is unbridled improvisational glory. There are damaged synths, found sounds, discordant horns, manipulated percussives, alien electronics...it's 34 minutes of mystery presented as sound. It's listening to worlds you don't belong in. Worlds you don't deserve. Worlds you are grateful for. 

MELTING GARDEN BED STATE HATCHERY

WHITE DOG

 

I have two options, and both are correct. I can either spend a lot of words trying to dissect sixteen minutes of guitar bursts and blurts and applying a deeper meaning to the sounds on 2009's Beer Guzzle. Or I can just say that WHITE DOG offer made ten minutes of droning, meandering guitar blurts and then played one of the sides backwards because I guess that's what you do when you're from Texas because drugs. You know how good it can be to put on a music and then forget that it's even there because it becomes a part of your environment? That is what Beer Guzzle does. I guess I had a third option, and I chose it. 

BEER GUZZLE

Members of: TOTAL ABUSE, THE SNOBS, MENTAL ABORTION, RAYON BEACH, MUTATING MELTDOWN, BREATHING PROBLEM, CAPTIVE, ARCHITECTS, FINALLY PUNK...but somehow it sounds like this tape was made by two-and-a-half stoners.