Schema - Schema - https://schemaschema.bandcamp.com/album/schema: I really should take a note of who posts these pointers. Turn of the century experimental fuzz that bridges the surprisingly narrow gap between Sonic Youth and Stereolab, with added experimental electronica. It feels like some friends getting together to make a record, but I’d happy to hear more. Listening to the Bandcamp Daily below I’ve just seen that the singer is Mary Hansen from Stereolab.
Sad Man - Dark Ambient Collection - https://sadmanband.bandcamp.com/album/dark-ambient-collection: Straight off, ambient this isn’t, unless you live in a dying post-industrial dystopia, but don’t we all. Samples and snippets are spindled, folded and mutilated and compiled into passages from which tunes or recognisable beats sometimes briefly emerge. It’s sounds chaotic but it’s cleverly manipulated and certainly intense. There are elements of Speedy J at his most extreme, DJ Beekeeper’s epic shed shows and Aphex Twin when he’s in one of those moods, which is pretty good company to be in.
Various - A History of Cascadian Psychedelic Music in the ’90s - https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/pacific-northwest-psychedelic-album-guide: A Bandcamp Daily from last weeke looking back on the less grungy parts of the north-west US music scene of only last week. I tapped into the Kranky/Constellation continnuum at the time, but this is a selection of similar and other stuff that was going on at the time in the top left corner of the US, and is more to add to the list.
Kosmicher Laufer - Track Club EP - https://kosmischerlaufer.bandcamp.com/album/track-club-ep: A collection of Martin Zeichnete’s other work besides the East German Olympic Programme. Five more tracks of beautiful period electronic kosmische from a world that really should have existed.
Polygonia - Living Patterns - https://polygonia.bandcamp.com/album/living-patterns: Organic, minimal techno that starts in forest floor mulch and evolves into speed gamelan, or a lost tribe’s ritual performed with a drum machine. Truly mesmerising trance music.
7xx7 - VGA - https://7xx7.bandcamp.com/album/vga: Two versions of the same short tune that sounds like a bit from a game. Could be Minecraft going by their icon. The second version could be a chiptune version but there’s very little difference in them. An interesting little diversion.
Not much yesterday, I was busy and really shouldn’t have looked at the news.
Xylander - Happy New Dystopia! - @xylander@mastodon.social https://xylander.bandcamp.com/album/happy-new-dystopia: New and aptly if unconsciously timed from Xylander, rattly but understated breakbeats, lush but brooding synths and found voices that form a soundtrack to the horrors of well, about now.
Syncbeat - Peel Session - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HIZZLpMwuE: A 1984 A Certain Ratio spinoff that recorded a single, several tracks under different names for the first UK Electro compilation and this Peel session. Funky digital breakbeat before breakbeat was a thing, driven by Donald Johnson’s slap bass, which still sounds amazing even if slap has mostly been relegated to Level 42 and 80s nostalgia now.
A.R. Kane - Up Home - https://arkaneband.bandcamp.com/album/up-home: Shoegaze or dreampop before those things existed. Fuzzed out guitars, stoned and wandering in caverns, an accompaniment to their debut LP ‘69’.
Drew Mulholland and Garden Gate - Night Blooming Flowers - https://gardengate.bandcamp.com/album/night-blooming-flowers-2: New from Subexotic. A hauntological soundtrack that is sometimes pastoral, as in ‘shadows in the woods’ and sometimes reminiscent of David Lynchian industrial noise.
Audio Obscura - Acid Field Recordings in Dub - @Audio_Obscura https://audioobscura.bandcamp.com/album/acid-field-recordings-in-dub: Audio Obscura returns with a collection of dubbed up environment ambient pieces that remind me most of late (mid-90s) Cabaret Voltaire and not just because he mentions Chris Watson in his notes.
Miles Otto - Desynclined - https://milesotto.bandcamp.com/album/desynclined: The debut full length LP from Otto and the first I’ve heard of his music, a sort of deconstructed electronica that verges on techno sometimes and abstract crunchy noise at others. Interesting for its approach but coming as much from an academic exercise as the dancefloor.
Haven’t got myself together to do this recently, so here’s a catch-up.
Snowbeasts - The Snow 2025 - https://snowbeasts.bandcamp.com/album/the-snow: A freebie from GetMusic - an industrial techno cover of Coil’s haunted 1991 track. I’ll be exploring what Snowbeasts do more.
Shirley and the Pyramids - Maid of Time - https://surelyicomequickly.bandcamp.com/album/maid-of-time: Also a GetMusic freebie - fourth LP from Saskatoon, Canada psych/shoegazers with a great early 90s sound, pointers Thee Telescopes, post-feedback Jesus and Mary Chain and Loop.
Create user using sudo adduser <user>. If you are using a custom location, use sudo adduser --home </<path>/<user>/ <user>
Enable linger on the account with sudo loginctl enable-linger <user>
Enter the account using sudo machinectl shell --uid=<user>
Create folder $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/ if needed
Create container file <application>.container in $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/
Create network file <application>.network in $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/
(optional) Create volume file <application>.volume in $HOME/.config/containers/systemd/
Run systemctl --user daemon-reload to create the systemd services
Check that the services have been created with systemctl --user status <application>. The network service is <application>-network.service and the volume <application>-volume.service
Underworld - Dark & Long - https://www.discogs.com/release/15659-Underworld-Dark-Long: Sometimes only a bit of Underworld will do. All the versions of Dark & Long collected from the EPs. There are a lot, but the variations between them keep it interesting.
Low - I Could Live in Hope - https://www.discogs.com/master/225930-Low-I-Could-Live-In-Hope: After listening to an early radio session last week, it occurred to me that I’ve never actually heard their debut LP, so I’m correcting that now. All the parts are there , perhaps a little primitive, but the same pace and intensity.
Whirling Hall of Knives - Blown Vestige - https://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/blown-vestige: Fuzzed out, largely beatless, ambitronica from a now seemingly inactive Irish duo. Switches between atmospheric blooms and distorted guitar keyboard textures.
GNOD R&D/Whirling Hall Of Knives - GNOD/WHOK - https://riotseasonrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gnod-whok: Going off down a rabbit hole, this is a joint EP with Paddy and Chris of GNOD marrying GNOD’s front end to industrial beats as opposed to their usual punishing grind, and creating something that sounds like it fell off an 80s industrial compilation. WHOK offer two variations on something that is both cranked up guitar riff and ambient drone.
Ordos Mk 0 - Buchla Experiments - @ordosmarkzero https://ordosmarkzero.bandcamp.com/album/buchla-experiments. The Buchla (Arturia’s virtual one I presume) is often used for experimental noise so it’s pleasing to hear it used for patterns and melodies here. From Ordos’s current offer of their entire discography for not a lot at all, which is worth a punt.
Audio Interface/James Aletsch - A Night Before Christmas - https://www.audiointerface.org/shows/james-aletsch/ A special Christmas show of ambient electronics, calm noise and distant pop (it says here), which would be a cosy hour of a lot of splendid stuff if my study was warmer—
Isan - Winter Chimes - https://isan.bandcamp.com/album/winter-chimes: Everyone’s favourite remotely collaborative analogue duo make a Christmas EP, a gentle mix of very analogue glockenspiel, bells and chimes, an ideal accompaniment to a glass of nog, egg or otherwise.
Hladowski/Hampton/Strachan - They All Were Looking for a King - https://maryhampton1.bandcamp.com/track/they-all-were-looking-for-a-king: A Scottish carol written by George Macdonald and performed by a small acoustic ensemble including organ, cornet and recorder, and some beautiful harmonies.
Meljoann - Bye - @meljoann https://boyscoutaudio.bandcamp.com/track/bye: Shiny modern ultrapop that my daughter would probably like. I think it’s pretty groovy too, and so should you.
Meljoann - Squick - https://faircamp.meljoann.com/squick/: From the last to the first, and it still sounds like the future. I am considering giving all my money to Mustics.