I’ve recently started to do album trades. It’s a fun way to discover new music and get in touch with other musicians.
Through such a trade I got this lovely album, by the Portuguese musician João M. Santos, who goes under the name The Daily Misconceptions. It’s exactly the right amount of dreamy moods, bell-like sounds and intricate looping I was needing right now.
Through a previous trade I got a vinyl titled LITIO by these three Italian musicians: Alberto Boccardi (electronics), Antonio Bertoni (double bass) and Paolo Mongardi (drums). I recommend to listen to track #2, a phantastic, hypnotic and psychedelic trip. One of my all-time favourites!
This is a wonderful short film which I had discovered some time ago on Tim Prebble’s wonderful blog musicofsound.co.nz. Not new, but worth a repost! It’s a documentary about people making music, mostly experimental in nature, using vinyl records and turntables. Very much in the spirit of this blog!
The festival Analogica, now in its 9th edition, took place in Bolzano/Bozen (Italy) two weeks ago. I managed to attend on the last day. The Polish group kinoMANUAL performed their audiovidual piece Milky Medium. The musical part of the performance was a mix of analog synthesizer (EMS Synthi AKS), tape and livelooping, arranged around recordings of the duo’s daughter talking in her sleep. It did a great job at conveying a highly hypnotic, dreamlike mood.
Analogica is always an experience. I’m not really up to date with what’s going on in the experimental film scene anymore, so the festival is a good way for me to catch up.
He’re a little taste of what it has to offer. More can be found on the festival’s Vimeo channel.
Marcus Fischer has a new album out. It’s a bit different from his last ones but just equally wonderful (full disclosure: I’m a fan!). The employed process makes this a listening experience closer to his live performances. We’ll have the chance to dive deeper in the future, as I’m currently interviewing him for a longer article.
Talking about Marcus Fischer, here’s a great podcast interview with him:
The modular act Lucid Grain, who we had the pleasure to talk to some time ago, have a new album out. It’s called Rise and Fall and marks quite a few stylistic developments for the duo. Among the dreamy synth textures and vocal samples, which we’ve come to expect from them, you’ll also find an incursion into minimal music territories, tape wobble, and timbres vaguely reminding of Tim Hecker. Here’s the official release text:
Morphing through dreamy and beautiful seamless patterns, listening to Lucid Grain’s soundscape feels like gazing into the clouds. As soon as your brain has identified a shape, the sky has already changed. Snuggling into a blanket of warm melodies – trying to catch a dream before it disappears. A unique mixture of Ambient, Electronica and Krautrock attitude fused into a whole new mix of soundwaves.
In case you’ve missed it, Lucid Grain’s Martha Bahr released her solo album as Panic Girl only a month earlier on the same label. You can find it here : store.modularfield.io/album/cake-on-jupiter
Finally, since this article will be the last one for 2019, Happy Holidays everybody! See you in 2020!
Cover image: Poka Bjorn (which is a moniker I use for this kind of illustration style)