Category: track of the day

Sabbatical – Sojourn North

So often when writing these I look up an artist that I’ve really been digging but don’t know much about and find a wealth of releases to dig through. While that is always a pleasant surprise, there’s a part of me that kicks myself for not finding them sooner. I’m pleased to announce that this is the opposite case. Sojourn North comes off Sabbatical’s debut, Sundown, which was put out on the label Love All day in January of 2016. Of course the result of finding a group this early is that there is not much information on them, so this comes from the description by the label:

Recorded over a six year period, Sabbatical’s Sundown germinated in the cracks that separate the disparate moments of a life, and found its rhythms nursed in the openings that emerged between other projects. In those spaces – periods of exception from the flow, journeys, downtime, lacunae – Sundown waited for its creator, gathering energy, until it grew to become the centre point around which Sabbatical’s other activities would begin to orbit.

Cheers for usage of the word lacuna! Love All Day has only put out a few releases, including a cassette from Panabrite, but those who are interested in warm, synth-driven ambient drones should keep their eyes on them and Sabbatical in the future.

Wil Bolton – Wishing Well

Wishing Well exemplifies Wil Bolton’s hypnotic blend of guitar, synths, and field recordings, looping, and other effects. I had to pick one track, but this whole release is pure ambient pleasure. Wishing Well comes from Bolton’s most recent release, February Dawn put out by elian rec. as a CD. In addition to recording music, Bolton also contributes site-specific sound art works for places like the Tate Modern Museum in London. Though I couldn’t find a video for any tracks on February Dawn, he has released videos in the past on his Vimeo page that are as blissfully beautiful in image as the audio work which accompanies them. In addition to his solo work he has ongoing collaborative efforts with Lee Anthony Norris under the name The Ashes of Piemonte and Phil Edwards under the name Ashlar. You might be too late to snatch up the CD release of February Dawn, but I’d encourage you to give the whole album a listen.

Antn Hrkwk – Inside Feelings

A few years back a buddy of mine turned me on to Antn Hrkwk and unfortunately for everyone around me I find myself trying to hum these melodies (poorly) almost involuntarily. It’s only fitting that such idiosyncratic music should have an equally idiosyncratic process behind it, and Antn Hrkwk doesn’t disappoint in that department either. His work consists of pre-recorded material chopped up and stitched together using Final Cut Pro, an application typically used for video editing. Truly the grooviest type of Frankenstein’s monster. Thoroughbred was released on vinyl by Life’s Blood records and is available on his Bandcamp site. His first release, Mutually Assured can also be found there and it’s also a delight. For physically-minded folks you can snatch a CDr from the netlabel Recycling Records, who specialize in this type of experimental re-use of recorded material.

Alex Archibald – Queequeg in His Coffin

Alex Archibald is an American Primative-style guitarist, but he hails from Vancouver, Canada though I suppose we shouldn’t hold that against him based on how he plays. Dry Leaf Into The Sea comes from his most recent release, Early Suburban Terrorism, which came out on Halloween of 2015. He has two more releases up on Bandcamp, Accidental Waltzes and Western Life May Suit You Less. I had a hard time picking a track, but I think choosing the best album title of those three is equally challenging. As far as I can tell these are only available digitally, though you can get more information about Archibald’s work on Facebook.

The Tonettes – My Heart Can Feel the Pain

The three members of The Tonettes travelled to San Antonio from the wilds of Odessa, TX with their English teacher-turned-manager Virgil Johnson to record this and another single for Abe Epstein’s Dynamic Label. Despite its mild reception in the mid-1960s, its one of the strongest tracks on a great Numero group compilation, Eccentric Soul: The Dynamic Label. “My Heart Can Feel the Pain” was penned by Johnson, who also formed a male soul group called The Velvets when he heard some male students harmonizing in the hallway. While the Tonettes only recorded one 45, The Velvets lasted a bit longer and were eventually signed to Monument Records. I’d recommend picking up the compilation because it’s good from start to finish. It’s available on vinyl, CD, and digitally on the Numero Group website.

BEAST – Ravenous

 

The driving force behind the drum/noise project BEAST is Daniel Menche, though he is often accompanied by Joe Preston and John Haughm. Both Menche and Preston have been active in the experimental scene in the Pacific Northwest for many years. Menche has released a ton of material under his own name, much of it based in field recordings and other ambient noise. He recently put out a split release with William Fowler Collins on Sige Records. Use of natural recordings in Menche’s work goes all the way back to his earliest releases, although the processing techniques have shifted over time. Preston appeared on some of the earliest releases from Earth and Melvins and contributed to one of my favorite records of all time, Altar from Sunn O))) and Boris. Not to be outdone, Haughm is a member of Agalloch and has a few split releases with Matthias Grassow, another favorite here at Orion’s Bastard.

Bröselmaschine – Nossa Bova

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5ezF501C4

Nossa Bova comes from Bröselmaschine’s self-titled debut, but is also featured on the excellent Soul Jazz Deutsche Elektronische Musik 2 compilation. Their debut was produced by Rolf Ulrich-Kaiser, who was an influential music critic and label owner in 1970s Germany and who also produced Tangerine Dream’s Zeit as well as Sergius Golowin’s debut record, which was featured as a track of the day a few weeks back. Like Golowin, Bröselmaschine’s founder Peter Bursch was a folklorist who has published a number of books about German folk music as well as guitar instruction books in Germany. Despite vocalist Jenni Schuckes really making the tropical vibe here, she only appeared on this album with the group and as far as I can tell didn’t record anywhere else, which is a shame. I’m gonna take another opportunity to plug that Soul Jazz comp because it is really excellent.

John Fahey – On the Sunny Side of the Ocean

Since he passed away 15 years ago today, it seemed fitting to devote today’s track of the day to John Fahey. As I touched on in my post about Robbie Basho, Fahey was a foundational figure in American Primitive Guitar. He was born near Washington D.C. in 1939, but it was after his family moved to Takoma Park, Maryland that he first became interested in guitar, buying his first from the Sears catalogue for $17. His first album was self-released in 1964, and he recorded it while studying philosophy and religion at American University. He then moved out west to study Musicology at UCLA, where he completed a master’s thesis centered around the blues music of Charlie Patton.

He was a longtime admirer of delta blues musicians such as Patton, Mississippi John Hurt, and Bukka White. In many ways Fahey’s career ran parallel to some of these blues greats, though Fahey was able to record and release music to varying degrees of success for most of his life. Starting in the 1970s he struggled with alcoholism and other health conditions, and while he recorded throughout that time his career appeared all but over by the 1990s. He was destitute, living in cheap motels, and pawning guitars or records to make up sagging income from performances. Similar to the blues legends he helped to revitalize in the 1960s, admiration from popular musicians like Sonic Youth and Jim O’Rourke, led to renewed interest in his work that has remained constant, particularly in experimental music circles, from then on.

Even this post feels a bit lacking, but I’d encourage you to listen to as much Fahey as you can find. He was not only an incredibly talented guitarist, but unlike some virtuosos he was not showy unless the occasion called for it, although just to be clear he apparently wrote Sunny Side of the Ocean when he was 14. Rather, he honed his talent and created some of the most beautiful, complex, and timeless music I’ve heard. I only wish I hadn’t discovered him after his passing.

For those interested, there’s a concert from 1978 on Youtube that shows the man in action. I’m particularly fond of the rendition of Poor Boys Long Way from Home.

Indigo Aura – People of the Trees

People of the Trees comes from Indigo Aura’s Deep Dreaming in Minecraft release from July of 2015. Along with three beautiful ambient tracks, the release also features a 75-page PDF booklet of images created by Google’s Deep Dream Generator, which uses neural network computing to analyze images and classify them according to their contents. The computing side of it is certainly beyond my understanding, but try to tell me these pictures don’t belong in a head shop right above the incense and Tibetan prayer flags. The images associated with this release were created from Minecraft screenshots, and Indigo Aura has found a way to get images that don’t just look like weird dogs.

Much of Indigo Aura’s music can be placed pretty firmly in the new age camp, which certainly has its share of misses. Much of Indigo Aura’s work focuses on demonstrating the benefits Pythagorean tuning. Attributed to Pythagoras, the thinking behind this system, at least in modern times, goes something like this: much of western music, starting in the 20th century, tunes their instruments to “concert pitch” of A-440Hz, meaning that the A above middle C on a piano, for example, would be tuned to a frequency of 440Hz. While this standard is in widespread use,  it’s interesting to note that well-known orchestras like the New York Philharmonic use 442Hz for A above middle C. There are conspiracy theories that accuse Nazis of supporting adoption of tuning A to 440Hz because it is more likely to induce feelings of fear and aggression. In any case, an effort to come up with a standard which started in the 19th century eventually led to widespread adoption of A440Hz as a common concert tuning.

Because Nazis and their evil tunings have to be stopped, some claim that tuning the A to 432Hz and tuning the other notes around that frequency puts an instrument in alignment with the vibration of Earth and the rest of the Universe. Indigo Aura has a webpage which discusses this concept in a more in-depth way and has in fact an entire release, Mathemagical Music Production, which demonstrates this slightly different scale and comes with a booklet about Pythagorean tuning. People have uploaded a shocking number of versions of popular songs that have been tuned to 432Hz. Maybe this is musical Wind turbine syndrome, but since nobody’s making you buy a peasant shirt, get one dangly earring, and start learning the didgeridoo, I’d encourage you to take it for what it’s worth. Like a lot of new age stuff, you gotta separate the wheat from the chaff and I think Indigo Aura is more wheat than chaff. Or chaff than wheat. I don’t really get that expression/know anything about wheat separation. Just listen to the music.

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One example of the many fun things that new age musicians get to do. Photo Source

 

Nervous Patterns – You Can’t Change

You Can’t Change was the b-side of the only single released by Nervous Patterns, which was a collaborative project of Jay Reatard and Alicja Trout, who is perhaps better known as the owner of Memphis’ Contaminated Records. The duo released one self-titled album on both Cochon Records and Contaminated, which had a small pressing of hand-decorated LPs. Good luck tracking those down! The two first worked together as members of Lost Sounds and based on the chronology of that group I get the sense that the Nervous Patterns material was recorded around the same time (early 2000s) that Lost Sounds was still active. According to Discogs, the material for the Nervous Patterns album was recorded at Trout’s home studio, the Tronic Graveyard. Before Lost Sounds formed, Trout was a member of the group The Clears, which has a cool blend of the aggressive pop-punk vocals with synths, which is a pretty good combination at least to my ears. Trout has also released a few singles under the alias Alicja-Pop, the most recent coming in 2011. Sadly, Reatard passed away in 2010, but lucky for us he was active enough in the Memphis scene that new great projects of his keep surfacing.