Simon Greenwood

You may have seen that Contabo are offering a one-click Deepseek server based on their VDS offering. These are semi-virtualised servers with dedicated processors and memory but shared storage, which makes them more capable than a regular shared VPS, but cheaper than a dedicated server.

Deepseek is, of course, the Chinese open source LLM provider that has effectively reduced the cost of AI by 95%, and its models will run on the open source ollama platform. I’ve been tasked by a client to set up a proof of concept for basically document munging using cough AI, and this seemed like a good way to do it.

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• pulu - millions of colors - @ahahi https://pulu.bandcamp.com/album/millions-of-colors: Back to the future with an EP made on an old PowerMac G4 running MacOS 9, for MARCHintosh 2025. It’s a suitably 90s tinged collection of beats that proves there’s still life in old dogs, sorry, Macs sometimes.
• jimxv - Omnia Bene - https://tryptophonic.com/omnia-bene/: Say ambient, kosmiche and drone and you have my attention. A collection of jammed meditations on modular synth, guitar and sarangi for an hour of peace.
• Meljoann - Status - Chartbound sounds from the fediverse’s finest creator of hyperpop and not-a-cult proprietor. Slick, shiny and stream friendly for the youth of today with just enough grit to make it interesting. Make this woman a star.

• Eko_Fisk - New Promised Land - https://www.zenapolae.com/zen304 - New from veteran under the radar Staffordshire synthesist is four 9-10 minute ambient but rhythmic pieces that evoke coastal calm in the face of a darkening world.
• Various - Aurora 2025: Passage - @auroramm@sonumu.club https://aurora-compilations.org/aurora-2025-passage/index.html: One of several annual free compilations from Aurora Compilations, a mix of styles from industrial to drum and bass to ambient to techno. There looks to be a community around the imprint and the compilations are all Creative Commons licenced and their site is a Faircamp, so they might be worth an exploration.
• The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always - https://www.discogs.com/master/2795-The-Sisters-Of-Mercy-First-And-Last-And-Always: It’s been pointed out that this LP is 40 years old, and I’ve been singing ‘Black Planet’ for some reason. This is the only LP that an actual band called the Sisters of Mercy made, and that band changed while the record was being recorded, finally imploding as they should have been celebrating its release. I was never a goth, I didn’t have the legs for it, but my copy lives in a frame on my study wall because it came at the right time, a stupid, melodramatic rock record that knew it was stupid and melodramatic, and that was how it should be.

• Flavigula - Stumbling Through Granularity on an Hourly Basis - @flvigula@sonomu.club https://faircamp.thurk.org/lilting-ululations/3/: Flavigula works mostly with guitar based sounds and this is a 26 minute exploration of what can be done with six strings and effects, held together by a subtle loop of what sounds like filtered string tapping. It’s a journey through many spaces and sounds with no destination in mind but a lot of sights on the way.
• Various - D AE XXV - https://deepaffairsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/d-xxv: House compilation from a German label called Deep Affairs Music that crosses a variety of styles with the most interesting being Michel Heukrodt’s more experimental takes on the form, but it takes a lot for something to stand out.
• orllewin - Pudsey Clough Radio - @oppen@merveilles.town https://orllewin.uk/pcr/: A stream of field recordings and music from Todmorden which has turned up some interesting stuff in half an hour’s listening. I think I might be buying an Audiomoth shortly.
• Low Gravity - 06:30 - https://mirlo.space/mirko-gastic/release/through-the-day: Post-rockish instrumentals that flip between bands like Blue States and Cinematic Orchestra and bands like Caspian and Tarantel, the sort of thing my collection is full of, and this might be another one to add.

• kel - CO2 - @kel@mastodon.social https://kelaudio.bandcamp.com/album/co2: Fizzing, warped lofi polyrhythmic techno concerned with our atmospheric decline. It wouldn’t sound out of place on Warp, and indeed Autechre themselves played a track on the radio, praise indeed.
• Various - Comfy Collaborations - https://music.futzle.com/comfy-collaborations/: New today, a five track tribute to @RadioFreeFedi’s Comfy Channel compiled by @futzle from tubes by well-known Fediverse musicians, ranging from ambient remixes to jazz tinged tunes. All nicely done (like the channel) and free to download.

• Reality Machine - Sam Aleums - https://samaleums.bandcamp.com/album/reality-machine: Digital, chippy, bleepy techno that rattles and rolls all over the place.
• Virtual Dreams II: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999 - https://music-from-memory.bandcamp.com/album/virtual-dreams-ii-ambient-explorations-in-the-house-techno-age-japan-1993-1999: Pretty much what it says on the tin, a restful hour of 90s ambient techno from Japan, like a nicely raked gravel garden.

• Rapt - Until the Light Takes Us - https://rapt.bandcamp.com/album/until-the-light-takes-us-3: Acoustic folk *-core from a London based ‘semi-retired black metal artist’. Inevitable Nick Drake comparisions for the personal lyrics and instrumentation with a calm. melancholy beauty.
• Mr G and Duncan Forbes - All Under One Moon - https://duncanforbes.bandcamp.com/album/all-under-one-moon: Early 2000s coloured techno underpinned by sampled breaks but with contemporary synth tones. This would probably fall under vaporwave these days too, if that means lofi samples.

• GUILD MERCHANT - 血の争い - https://underwater-computing.bandcamp.com/album/--59: HT to @clongclongmoo laid back vapourwave sampletronics, music to get trapped in a lift to. The label might be worth an exploration.

• orrionn - martyr - https://orrionn.bandcamp.com/album/martyr: Single from Paris-based experimental, err, noise/hip-hop(?) artist seems to fit it best. Dismantled hyperpop with distorted vocals that sound like Robert Smith lost in fog. Intense and brooding, in the same sort of place as Cindytalk.
• SEEKERSINTERNATIONAL - The GUNCONTROLLA - https://icslibraryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-guncontrolla-ics009: an intriguing collage of field recordings of firearms being dismantled, cut up and mangled and juxtaposed with dub effects, spoken word snippets, booming 808 bass drums, basslines and synth washes. Arguably on the far reaches of dub but more about the

• Albor Sereno - Boreal - https://alborsereno.bandcamp.com/album/boreal: An EP of short instrumentals which describe themselves as ambient, but are more drum machine propelled motorik breakneck rives through snowy landscapes.
• Barker - Utility - https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/utility: Largely beatless techno from 2019. Not ambient but fillig big spaces. The sort of sequences where everything is being modulated at once that Kraftwerk used amazingly on ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’, but more lying down and closing your eyes rather than racing up a mountain like a herd of cows. Cows on bikes.
• Tomorrow Comes The Harvest - Evolution - https://tomorrowcomestheharvest.bandcamp.com/album/evolution: Sprawling, hypnotic tabla, synth and drum machine improvisations from Jeff Mills, Jean-Phi Dary and Prabhu Edouard. The highlight is the interaction between the human sounds of tabla and Mills’ astounding mastery of the 808 and 909.