Simon Greenwood

Listening Diary 20241216

  • Dace Merryweather - Magnapinna/Phantom Jelly - https://dace.bandcamp.com/album/magnapinna Epic (11 minute!) prog paen to a squid, it says here. It goes many places and does many things. The b-side sounds like a soundtrack for jellyfish swimming in a tank.
  • D-Fried - “Images Sur la Mer” - https://www.phonocake.org/islm: Via @clongclongmoo: Long form sea-themed ambient piece that drifts in remarkably descriptive movements. Restful and beautiful.
  • Salisman Communal Orchestration - Of The Desert EP - https://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/of-the-desert-ep: most recent release and name from Chicago via Newcastle psych/shoegaze experimentalists. 60s harmonies and sun-bleaches tremelo guitar. A band who should have much more recognition than they do.
  • Salisman Communal Orchestration - A Queen Among Clods - https://salisman.bandcamp.com/album/a-queen-among-clod: 40 minutes of similar bleached out, blissed out psychedelics, like that time you took what you thought was a Nelson’s travel remedy tablet to get the coach to the coast, only it wasn’t.

Listening Diary 20241213

  • Tomoroh Hidari - 12 Months of Mornings - https://ivorybunkerrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/12-months-of-mornings Final release from Hidari, whose death was announced yesterday. A two year long project in which he took pictures of the morning sky, posted them to social media, selected the ones that got most engagement and used the images as the basis for tracks using assorted methods. The result is noisy but not without structure and some interesting parts.
  • Tomoroh Hidari - Live in Tokyo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWZnx6lO0-g: A live set from September that explores more melodic and rhythmic areas than the LP above, rises and breaks down like a techno set.
  • Ian Boddy - Options - https://ianboddy.bandcamp.com/album/options: Reissue of his third cassette LP from 1981. Very much of its time, but as its time was that of Jarre, Schulz and Tangerine Dream at their best, it stands up remarkably well against them. The live set on the b-side is equally accomplished, with excellent sounds produced from minimal kit.

Listening Diary 20241212

Listening Diary 20241211

  • Ordos Mk.0 - Sunset Shore - https://ordosmarkzero.bandcamp.com/track/sunset-shore: An evening walk along a stretch of water, lost in thoughts.
  • Ordos Mk.0 - In My Watery World - https://ordosmarkzero.bandcamp.com/album/in-my-watery-world: a thematic EP from a composing jam that evokes a video game set underwater. Gentle and dare one say, immersive?
  • Black Tempel Pyrämid - The Hierophant - https://submarinebroadcastingco.bandcamp.com/album/the-hierophant: Squally, looping experimental lo-fi kraut/psych jams from a prolific Colorado, US band. I saw that Cruel Nature had released one of their LPs and found I didn’t have it, but I have this one from SubCastCo. Not what I expected from the description but pretty good all the same.
  • david a. jaycock - Music for Space Age Shopping - https://davidajaycock.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-space-age-shopping: New from Subexotic, part of their Shopping Centre Trilogy, all released last Friday. Like Carlisle City Council’s The Lanes Re-Development, it plays with electronic soundtracks and library music, in this case evoking the concrete shopping centres of the 60s and 70s that have often since been redeveloped or demolished. Some tracks have a dynamic hopefulness that would accompany a promotional film and others evoke the windswept bleakness of Sunday afternoons in them, or complete abandonment.

Listening Diary 20241210

  • Stuffed Foxes - Standardized - https://stuffedfoxes.bandcamp.com/album/standardized-2: Newest LP from French psych-rock/shoegazers, dynamic epic squalls of guitar that evoke all the bits you like in the recent history of (alt)-rock.
  • Keygen Church - Tenebre Rosso Sangue - https://keygenchurch.bandcamp.com/album/tenebre-rosso-sangue: Saw this last night and thought I’d give it a listen. Italian electronic instrumental death metal, which of course must exist according to the Unified Theory of Metal, which posits that all musical genres have a metal state. Rather bracing, like having your head in a threshing machine is bracing.
  • Various - Zenapolae: Compilation 24 - https://www.zenapolae.com/zen294 Ambient, drone and downbeat compilation from a veteran German based netlabel. A collection of tracks from recent releases on the label, ranging from neoclassical drone, to layered guitared ambience and straight(ish) instrumental electronica. Worth a listen and all free to download.

Listening Diary 20241209

  • The Heartwood Institute - Forgotten Futures - https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/forgotten-futures: Cumbria’s Heartwood Institute turn their attention to affairs 250 miles south, to events in the Capital, where something is afoot. Music for washed out prints of lost 70s SF series.
  • Navigator - Flame Is Slow (Singles etc. 1996​-​1997) - https://wrongspeedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/navigator-flame-is-slow-singles-etc-1996-1997: Navigator were a band I missed when they were around, even to point of not getting to the Garage early enough when they supported Mogwai there, so this was exciting to see. This collection of their singles starts as low key post rock inspired by Slint or Codeine, and drifts towards and past Bark Psychosis ambience and experimentation. I’ve certainly missed something. Hopefully Wrong Speed will put out their LP ‘Nostalgie’ as well.
  • Navigator - Nostalgie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NNHGgP_uN0: Of course, it’s on YouTube, and it take where they were going with the singles even further, almost to pure silence and noise at times, like an industrial winter landscape.
  • Lehto - Northbound - https://lehto.bandcamp.com/album/northbound: Lehto’s tracks have been standouts for me when listening to Radio Free Fedi, and yesterday was the first anniversary of the release of this LP. It’s that downbeat dance like Royskopp or Simian, with with folk, jazz and African influences as well as environmental sounds. It certainly deserves a wider hearing.

Listening Diary 20241206

Mostly Bandcamp listening for #BandcampFriday, if you posted them, thanks.

Listening Diary 20241205

Listening Diary 20241204

Continuing a wander through Subexotic today.