Playlist 16.06.19 (9:13 pm)
All Australian music tonight, as there's been quite a bit that's come my way of late! Classical composition, post-industrial electronica, experimental indie songwriting, club music bent out of shape...
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Erik Griswold & Camerata - Queensland's Chamber Orchestra - Humid hours [Harrigans Lane Collective]
Erik Griswold & Camerata - Queensland's Chamber Orchestra - Água do tempo [Harrigans Lane Collective]
Erik Griswold & Camerata - Queensland's Chamber Orchestra - Rock pools [Harrigans Lane Collective]
US-born musician Erik Griswold has been a resident of Brisbane for many years now. He's known for his wonderful prepared piano works, a number of which have been released on the Room40 label, but his newest release is a set of compositions which accompany his prepared piano with a string quartet, sourced from Queensland's Camerata chamber orchestra. Griswold's sometimes playful, sometimes contemplative prepared piano music is perfectly suited to the swooping gestures, harmonised legato chords and melodies of the strings.
Sebastian Field - To Your Arms [Provenance/Sebastian Field Bandcamp]
Sebastian Field - Chrysanthemum Stone [Provenance/Sebastian Field Bandcamp]
Canberran artist Sebastian Field used to play in a postrocky indie band called Cracked Actor, but has been putting together this solo work for some time now. He gained some renown for his falsetto solo cover of Björk's song "Unravel", and his new album Picture Stone - coming out later this month - is also primarily based around his shoegazey solo guitar and soft vocals. Each song was re-played into a characteristic (or unusual) space around Canberra - including Mt Stromlo Observatory, and also The Polish Club Men's Bathroom(!) - giving the album quite a hazy quality. The track I started with is one of the more upbeat ones, but I also love the somewhat more abstract loops and sounds of the instrumental I followed it with.
I've just discovered that this is being released on cassette as well as digital via Stuart Buchanan's recently-resurrected Provenance Records. Excellent!
skipism - Leon Meringue [Psychic Hysteria/Bandcamp]
skipism - Under a lurgie [Psychic Hysteria/Bandcamp]
the little hand of the faithful - Dark Digestive [Psychic Hysteria/Bandcamp]
the little hand of the faithful - As new as a new thing [Psychic Hysteria/Bandcamp]
Drusilla Jones (née Johnson) and Mitch Jones have been working together artistically for nearly 40 years now, with Dru involved around the traps when post-industrial group Scattered Order emerged in Sydney in the early '80s. Both have been members on and off through its entire history and reformation, but they've also worked on experimental, weird sounds in other configurations - including quite recently together as a duo under the name Lint! We recently heard Dru's collaboration with another Sydney experimental veteran Shane Fahey as whisker floater, and Mitch last year launched his solo project the little hand of the faithful with an album on Melbourne label Psychic Hysteria - digitally processed sampled beats, electronic textures, and sometimes guitars. The same label has just released this double cassette album Quiet // Disquiet, which finds Dru's Quiet / side (as skipism) a little quieter but certainly also disquieting, while Mitch's / Disquiet certainly edges into quieter territory now and then. And befitting a couple who've been working, living together and supporting each other for yonks, you can hear their creative processes bleeding into each other at times - glitchy beats, sampled double bass, spoken word samples and so on. It's lovely.
Joan Banoit - Pastoral Care [Lazy Thinking Records/Bandcamp]
Joan Banoit - Instigate [Lazy Thinking Records/Bandcamp]
Sydney artist Julian Bright aka Joan Banoit appeared a couple of years ago with some early releases, but has come into his own with this new album on Sydney label Lazy Thinking Records. Bright wrote, sang and played much of it, but worked closely with Lazy Thinking's Jim Flanagan aka Artefact, resulting in some pretty freewheeling sounds, drawing from James Blakeian glitchy vocals, footwork's fidgety beats, leftfield club music's bass and almost-orchestral brass (in the vein of These New Puritans) courtesy of Sydney stalwart James Greening.
Chokepoint - Break Our Teeth [Chokepoint Bandcamp]
Chokepoint - Heat Spy [Chokepoint Bandcamp]
Chokepoint - Scavengers [Chokepoint Bandcamp]
Nice to hear some very strange industrial/left-field electronics from Sydney. Chokepoint is the solo work of Joram Toth, who created this music from a software instruments & samples being randomly arpeggiated until he found configurations that sounded good to him. That said, it's still very thoughtfully constructed, and fits quite nicely with the deconstructed club music and vaporwavey sampling that's the go at the moment...
Air Max '97 - Xhrinicibles ft. LOFT [Decisions/Bandcamp]
Air Max '97 - Turgor [Decisions/Bandcamp]
The new EP from London-based Aussie artist Air Max '97 is released on the Decisions label that he co-runs with Jikuroux and SCAM. Deconstructed club music is the theme, but with Air Max '97 it's definitely aimed at getting the feet moving, with strange, twisted, skittery grooves that are somewhere between drum'n'bass, footwork, bass music and techno.
We only just heard from Mancunian artist LOFT with her new EP on Tri-Angle, and she's here inserting mashed breaks into the corners of "Xhrinicibles". Excellent stuff as always.
Daniel Arena - the museum [Daniel Arena Bandcamp]
Daniel Arena - we figured it out [Daniel Arena Bandcamp]
Sydney artist Daniel Arena recently released this album, which has the beautiful Borgesian title a map the size of the kingdom, began with productions inspired by an idm techno classic from LFO. It's got its fair share of maximalist techno tracks, but I've chosen a couple that are a little more downtempo/contemplative, including the lovely album closer "we figured it out". Daniel is launching this album at The Dock in Redfern next Sunday night, the 23rd of June.
Trovato - FM [self-released]
Sydney artist Antonio Trovato is influenced by drum'n'bass and sci-fi soundtracks, and his debut track is a little more dreamy than '90s jungle. A promising start, looking forward to more.
Tegan Northwood - Venus Conjunct Sun [Tegan Northwood Bandcamp]
Tegan Northwood - Klu [Tegan Northwood Bandcamp]
Sydney's Tegan Northwood has a couple of earlier albums under her belt that combine jangly guitar indiepop with electronics. Her newer stuff leans more on the electronic side - processed beats, electronic textures and her singing, producing something dreamy but propulsive, with one foot in '90s jangly indie and one in current day glitchy electronics. These tracks appear on the first of two EPs to come out from her this year, this one to be released in July and now pre-orderable at her Bandcamp. Tegan also convenes EMOM Sydney, which are Electronic Music Open Mic nights that usually happen at Hideaway Bar in Enmore - a fun thing to get down to if you're producing sounds yourself.
haddocks' eyes - thirty five feet [haddocks' eyes Bandcamp]
The mysterious project of Sydney/Adelaide/Aussie musician Benjow, haddocks' eyes can be almost anything - from electronically processed vocals singing beautiful songs with keyboard to fingerpicked folk guitars, outsider weirdness, and psychedelic freakouts like this one. The other most recent track, "your horrible little body", is over 22 minutes of catharsis, drum machines and distorted drone guitar.
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