James Ferraro - Live at Primavera Sound 2012

Ye Holy Gods! Among all the fine outer limits music outfits that perform at Primavera Sound every year, James Ferraro’s set must’ve been one of the most hypnotic and dazzling. A strange combination of heavenly drones, New New New Age synthesizer noodling and a contantly looping somewhat IDM-ish mutant beat that has no end. Even though Ferraro was well into the “Far Side Virtual” era at this stage (2012), he managed to perfectly blend his earlier crystal healer ambient with the newer vaporwave phase of his oeuvre. 25 minutes of trippertronic bliss. Highly recommended!!

Упал В Муку - Monday Night Fever

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If you listen to this album more than three times in a row, chances are you will turn into the man from the cover: a wise, soul-travelling shaman with a large beard, slightly deranged, but enlightened. Like the bastard child of sound collage makers and Flying Lotus. Insane plunderphonic IDM excursions from the Russian wilderness.

Review: Noseph Janner / Levvels - Destroyed Minutes / Levvels of Death

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(Cassette, Metaphysical Curcuits, 2013)

The first release from the brand new label Metaphysical Circuits, a sort of the next venture after the end of A Beard of Snails label, presents the “split” cassette between the two different solo projects by Owen McLean. Both sides present radically different approaches to raw, analog electronics. One is a glistening ride through komische school of progressive electronic, the other is much more raw and abstract, with leanings to the academic experimentations of early synthesizer vanguards.

If you’re a more “melody-friendly” type of person, you should fall in love with the Noseph Janner side. The short tracks are more like impressions, brief vignettes than fully realized songs, something like short exercises in synthesizer bliss. Moods and atmospheres change at a kaleidoscopic pace, leaving the analog territory for some more “live” instruments, like the lazy, piano-driven “Solar Surfer” which sounds like a loose cover of Readiohead’s “Pyramid Song”. Cosmic and New Age imagery permeates both the music and the track titles (like “Satellite Soul Vision”, “God Vision”, “Star Ocean”, “Planet of Sirens” etc.) - many tracks have the word “vision” in them, making them into transmissions from the subconscious or psychedelic experiences. That was the visionary side.

Now the abstract side by Levvels. “Levvels of Death” is almost completely anti-melodic, with McLean pushing his synthesizer(s) to the limit with noise-laden, thick and often harsh walls of pulsing, wailing, droning sounds. If Noseph Janner was the more beautiful side of space with colorful galaxies and shining stars, Levvels is the sound of coldness, vastness and emptiness of cosmos - imagine you’re an astronaut and some part of your space vessel begins malfunctioning. Levvels is the soundtrack to the space travel gone wrong and the fear.

Machweo - No Way Out EP

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Indian Gold Records starts to become one of my favorite netlabels, not only because of the quality of music they offer (first SLZR, then Rancho Shampoo), but also because of how open they are to the music from outisde the designated “psychedelic” comfort zone. “No Way Out” EP from the Italian electronic youngster Machweo is not psych rock, but might be just as trippy. It treads the ground somewhere between slowed down, deconstructed hip-hop filled with dark undertones and field recordings to the cavernous, star-gazing minimal techno in the vein of Pantha du Prince. Plus lots of scary, super-echoing vocal samples, Holy Other style. The two remixes are ace too. Recommended!

Rakit Dibs - Human Energy

Multicolor, kaleidoscopic trippertronics from Perth, Australia on a more melody-oriented and less intense side of the man behind the Salamander project. Like a more psychedelicized version of Peaking Lights without the vocals. But the dubbiness and the summerlike atmosphere is still there, together with some head-bobbing beats. Highly recommended for the upcoming summer (well, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, sorry Australia, you already had your turn)! You can also buy the cassette if you enjoy the digital stuff.

Review: The North - Glaciers

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(Vinyl LP, Captcha Records, 2013)

Oh dear, oh dear, why on Earth have I been missing out on Captcha Records for so long!? One of the finest experimental/psych labels around and I haven’t checked them out even once. I feel like an asshole now. Time to make up for my ignorance, starting with a stellar new record (very soon to be released on vinyl) by the Norwegian producer Snorre Snøjøst Henriksen working under the very fitting (considering where he’s coming from and the nature of his music) moniker The North. Everything around this release is made out to make the listener feel cold, even the artwork itself, filled with white and blue colors, as well as abstract, jagged shapes made out to look like the surface of a weathered mountain glacier. But despite that, and the heavy atmosphere of music, it’s not that entirely cold.

The blurb on the label’s website brags about the album’s inspiration taken from both krautrock artists and the more modern-age technoid explorers, and I’m inclined more toward the latter group when listening to “Glaciers”. In fact, I’m really reminded abou the output of the UK’s dark techno label Modern Love, especially the work of Andy Stott or Claro Intelecto, althought with a slightly more ambiental - and sometimes, indeed! - kosmische musik edge. The first track, “Serpen’t Tail” is steeped in vast, endlessly reverbing ambience, evolving toward a lethargic, slowed-down techno beat in a glacial pace. Henriksen takes pride in fiddling with textures in moods - the track is alternatively uplifting and full of light, as if the spring sun was shining at the glacier, making it shimmer beautifully; but then the dark clouds come and cut off the sunlight, bathing the music in dark basslines and thumping, cavernous industrial techno aesthetic.

Second side’s “Night Train” begins in a more oldschool, proggy fashion. Some might think of the more synthesizer driven moments of 70’s progressive rock, others’ minds will surely wander towards the oeuvre of John Carpenter. It’s certainly less dark and more dynamic, driven with classical sequencers and rhythmic analog drones, divided into several movements, some being quieter, building up the tension before finally releasing the disco fever of Giorgio Moroder’s glowing moments of fame. It’s a time travel to the past, leaving behind the cracked, icy caves of side A in lieu of hot club nights, although with a bit of darkness and mystery still staying, expressed by reverbed, moaning vocals in the back of the relentless techno beats. It’s way faster than “Serpent’s Tail” and immensely dancefloor-friendly, as if crafted to be played at house and club parties. If the first track gave an impression of an introverted, headphone-based listening experience, the second track will blow that away and make you blast it away through your speakers at top volume.

Despite its name, “Glaciers” is a hot record - at least side B. While side A does exactly what it promises on the cover, freezing the listener and sending shivers through their body with its lethargic tempo and ghostly atmosphere, side B quickly melts all the ice and snow away and raises the temperature bar dangerously quickly. One of the most surprising, and interesting records I’ve heard recently. Highly recommended.

Adderall Canyonly - Btonal

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This album is an approximation of what would happen if the guys from Autechre in their “Untilted”/”Quaristice” era were devoid of state-of-the-art Max/MSP software and instead left with some shitty synthesizers and/or some ancient computer software. Strangely cut-up, often abstract, yet always beat-driven pieces call to mind the “mutant techno” aesthetic - it’s rugged, noisy, but strangely danceable (even if it would require a mixture of strange drugs in order to become danceable). Scummy, acid-soaked mutations of IDM and techno music reign here, leaving the kosmische version of Adderall Canyonly far, far behind. If you enjoyed Moon Pool & Dead Band, there’s quite a chance you’ll love this one. Highly recommended!

QUICK EDIT! Turns out that it’s from a split tape between Aderall Canyonly and a Texan brain-melter Kösmonaut  (real name: Patrick R. Pärk), who delivers side B in a similarly dancefloor-friendly fashion, except with less inclinations toward noisy bleeps and bloops and more towards endlessly unfolding classic prog-electronic epic suite much in the vein of Klaus Schulze or Harald Grosskopf. Check that one out, too! Top notch!

Co La - Rest in Paradise

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Matt Papich sure loves his samples. On “Rest in Paradise” he takes the catchiest, most vapid snippets of “easy listening” music and 50’s and 60’s pop music and turns them into constantly looping relaxing pieces treated with a ghostly echo and dubby basslines. It’s almost like listening to some early Amon Tobin without any looped drum breaks or IDM experimentation ever coming. Kinda like vaporwave, but it doesn’t take New Age or corporate muzak to fuck with. Instead, it uses the oldie vacation hits to create Technicolor vintage chopped&screwed time capsules that surround and devour the listener. Not sure if it’s briliant or horrible. Decide for yourself.

Co La - “Rest in Paradise”

Review: Samantha Glass - Rising Movements

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(Cassette, Constellation Tatsu, 2012)

The cassette synth scene can be divided into three basic “schools of thought”: one school follows the jagged, raw electronics of the earliest masters, providing punctured, difficult and highly abstract compositions - either with a rhythm or rhythmless. The second school follow the star-gazing Germans and New Age post-hippies in their journey to explore the inner self, with deep, sprawling tracks that often take up entire sides or even CDs. The third school follows the sunny, carefree happy synth psychedelia of Harmonia or later Cluster, making compelling, catchy, yet hypnotic poppy structures.

Samantha Glass, the alias of a Madison, WI resident Beau Deveraux, represents the third school. Despite the grim looking cover, there’s no cold, windswept ambience to be witnessed here. While I tend to fully agree with label’s descriptions of the albums they release, often praising their spot-on sense of writing, this time I have to disagree with Constellation Tatsu. The blurb on the website says: 

The abandoned lodge emerges from the dark, wet woods. It is warm and light inside – carpeted halls and wood banisters welcome your step, draw you deeper past branching rooms. What mysteries, forgotten treasure, and danger await within these decrepit walls?

 Now put the cassette in the player or play the first track from the Bandcamp page. Where are the dark, wet woods here? Maybe if we were talking about a rainforest in the summer or palm tree woods then it would make sense. But dark? No way! Actually, “Rising Movements” is one of the warmest, most sun-lit cassettes I’ve heard in quite a while. Listening to this tape is like taking a bath in the warm, calm waters during the summer evening, the soft light washing over you. The 5 untitled “movements” (named simply “Movement”, duh) are a soundtrack to a luxury yacht marina filled with relaxing, well-to-do people sipping drinks and having a great time in the hot, hot sun. And there’s nothing sarcastic or critical about this description. This album genuinely recreates the laziest, most mellowed out moments of hot summer told in a language of electronic krautrock and analog synthesizers. Fuzzed out guitar licks hover in the background, bass guitar joins the pulsing, rhythmical electronic train, the sun shines through the leaves.

To put it bluntly: Samantha’s Glass “Rising Movements” is pure, unlimited bliss. Don’t believe what the others tell you.

Goat Lightning - Sister’s Crystals

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“Sister’s Crystals” by the Boston beatific trippertronic unit Goat Lightning is a carefree glide through blissfully looped New Age zones, like a delicate, shimmering sequence happening over and over in a locked, eternalized state that you sometimes (in the right state of mind) wish they could repeat forever. Aquarian lo-fi workouts meet lazy, stoned beats and a hazy, woozy atmosphere somewhere between the early version of Dolphins Into the Future and the laziest chillwave. Good stuff for chilling in the early spring garden.