Pulse Emitter, aka Daryl Groetsch, is a Portland-based creator of electronic music, primarily ambient synth works both improvised and composed. This is the lead track off his Equinox album, which was initially released on cassette through Constellation Tatsu in addition to Pulse Emitter’s Bandcamp. On September 23rd, the autumnal equinox, he made it free to download for a day. It was truly an equinox miracle. His music also appeared on the tremendous 4 Way Split release from Immune Recordings, which featured Expo ’70, Date Palms, and Face Plant. He records most of his music on a modular synthesizer he built himself. He discusses his instrument in process in this interview:

I want to start taking data from nature and patching it into my synthesiser. I have done that a little bit with photocells, you know, I can stick it out of the window and the sun setting will go from a higher voltage to a lower voltage and it can control the synthesiser. But I want to be able to take a topographic map of Mars and convert it into a voltage… and then have entire pieces of music based on data. I just like the idea of taking the human element out of music. Lots of times when I play at home especially, I’ll set up the synthesiser so that its playing by itself. Really complex patches, using really slow oscillations, that aren’t synchronised with one another so that they change over time really slowly, and it kind of creates this long- form type of piece where you could listen to ten minutes of it and never realise that no-one is touching the instrument.

Cassettes and LPs can be purchased from his Bandcamp. I’d check out Longing Thresholds, Crater Lake, and Lava Lamp if you’re looking for a place to start.

The Sea and Cake formed in the early 1990s following Sam Prekop and Eric Claridge split from Shrimp Boat. These two joined forces with Archer Prewitt, whose earlier group The Coctails was splitting at the same time. Rounding out this quartet is John McIntire, who is also a founding member of the Chicago post-rock group Tortoise. “Parasol” comes off The Sea and Cake’s sophomore release, Nassau, which came out in 1995. They would go onto release four more albums after Nassau before going on hiatus in 2004. The group reformed in 2007 and has released four more, also on Thrill Jockey. Both Prekop and Prewitt have released solo records on Thrill Jockey, which Prewitt focusing on more traditional songwriting and Prekop venturing into more electronics-based ambient and experimental works. Prekop’s most recent solo release was The Republic, which came out earlier in 2015.

Expo ’70 is the recording name of Justin Wright, who began recording his own experimental material while performing with the now-defunct Living Science Foundation. Today’s track comes from Belgium’s Aguirre Records and features two long form improvisations recorded live during a 2010 tour. Hypnotic Brain Cloud Float was recorded live to accompany footage from a 1973 animated film Fantastic Planet. I was lucky enough to see him perform in a similar style accompanying the Kenneth Anger short film Scorpio Rising. He releases many of his recordings on his own imprint Sonic Meditations. Though much of his output has been solo, he has begun performing on occasion with bassist Aaron Osbourne and drummers Jim Button and Mike Vera. He creates his unique drone sounds with a combination of guitars and synths and also creates most of the album artwork for his releases. Digital downloads are available on his Bandcamp page and physical releases are available through Sonic Meditations. I haven’t heard a release I didn’t like, and he’s got plenty of stuff to check out. If I had to recommend one release in particular it’d have to be Beguiled Entropy which I bought from the man himself and have proceeded to nearly wear out.

Electric is the lead track off Föllakzoid’s third release, the aptly titled III. The album arises out of a collaboration between the group and German-born electronic musician Atom^tm, who is responsible for many of the synth sounds appearing on the record. According to the album page on Bandcamp, they recorded and mixed the album at BYM studios, which also released their self titled debut, and then brought it to Atom^tm to add various electronic and synth sounds. One of those sounds was a Korg synthesizer used by Kraftwerk in the 1980s. In many ways their third record is a study in repetition, or as the band puts it, “a four-part minimal sound voyage” but is a continuation of the space rock and krautrock influences that have persisted throughout their career. Check out the hypnotizing video for Electric here. Their catalog is available in digital download form on their Bandcamp while physical copies of this and their previous release, II, can be purchased through Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones records.

Hailing from Barcelona, 1886 burst on the hard psych scene, at least for me, with their self titled debut EP. Today’s track comes from their first full length debut, Before the Fog Covers the Mount which is available now on CD from their Bandcamp. It was announced in May that Helmet Lady Records will be releasing Before the Fog Covers the Mount on vinyl later this year. Here’s a link to their webstore.

Robbie Basho was one of the pioneers of American Primitive Guitar along with John Fahey. He was born Daniel Robinson, but at the age of 19 he, like many young college students, became immersed in Asian culture and changed his name to Basho to honor the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. His aim for much of his career was to elevate the steel sting guitar of he and people like Fahey, Leo Kottke, and others were exploring in the early ’60s into a concert level instrument in the style of the Indian Raga system. As part of this goal he developed an esoteric chord system that was published in the liner notes of his first album The Seal of the Blue Lotus.

It makes for fascinating reading. He not only charts each chord that he uses but also the color, mood, and “concomitant properties” of that chord. A D chord, for example, was green in a quiet pastoral mood with the concomitant property of “Runnymede, Irish meadowlands.” His interest in Eastern philosophy infused much of his work and as a result his recordings are often filed with New Age or Folk material. Fahey’s Takoma label or the New Age/Folk label Windham Hill were responsible for releasing much of his material.

This particular version of Moving Up A Ways comes off Rainbow Thunder: Songs of the American West. He also released a version on The Voice of the Eagle a few years earlier. Both albums signal a shifting focus from Eastern influences towards the indigenous cultures of the American West. The text of the track is based on a Navajo ritual signalling the upward movement from lower forms of life to higher. It was Basho’s focus while recording both albums to tap into the intimate relationship with nature that indigenous American peoples had in order to bolster the American songbook with a sort of musical landscape painting. He touches on this idea somewhat in this live performance recorded in 1978 at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

Similar to my post on John Cale’s Summer Heat, I’ve just scratched the surface of a really fascinating period in American music. The Robbie Basho Archive is a great resource for those who want to learn more. Considering how much I love this kind of music I’ll probably be sharing it more in future tracks of the day. Enjoy!

Sacred Harp was the performing name for finger-style phenom Daniel Bachman before he began releasing music under his own name around 2011. “Rappahannock (JR)” comes off his debut LP, Apparitions at the Kenmore Plantation put out by the French Label Hands in the Dark. Though he primarily performs and records as a solo artists, he released Taman Shud with jazz/experimental percussionist Ian McColm, who releases his own material under the name I.G.M. As a teenager, Bachman befriended fellow guitarist Jack Rose, who died at only 38 years old. Soon after, his final record, Luck in the Valley was released by Thrill Jockey with cover art by Daniel Bachman. Check out a great live performance he gave for NPR in the family estate of Robert E. Lee. His most recent release, River, was released in May on Three Lobed Records and can be streamed on Bandcamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76SCHW6k1Jg

Infinity Window represents a sustained collaboration between Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin and Taylor Richardson, aka Prehistoric Blackout. Both Lopatin and Richardson have collaborated often with other drone/ambient/experimental acts including Emeralds’ Mark McGuire, Boredoms, and Keith Fullerton Whitman, who also produced this Infinity Window release. Taylor Richardson performed with Boredoms as part of their 77 Boa Drum concert (later released on CD and DVD by Thrill Jockey) in which the group organized a concert where 77 drummers performed simultaneously in Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Y1lloS5m8

This Britpop gem comes from the first full length record of The Alan Bown Set (or simply The Alan Bown). Alan Bown himself was an accomplished trumpet player by the time he started the group, having joined the successful instrumental group The John Barry Seven around 1963. He would oversee the group as they toured and co-wrote songs with John Barry including “Seven Faces.” John Barry is perhaps best known for composing the “James Bond Theme” which debuted in 1962’s Dr. No. Although John Barry and Marty Norman both claimed to have written the song, it was released by John Barry as a single to tremendous commercial success.

The group could never replicate the success of the Bond theme and eventually disbanded, leaving Bown to start his own group with a few John Barry alums. The group originally continued in the blues/R&B-influenced style of John Barry before moving towards more psychedelic material in the late 60s. This track encapsulates this transition and the group would continue in this vein into the 1970s. In 1969, the group brought in Robert Palmer to record vocals for their album The Alan Bown!, though his tenure with the group was short. The group released a few more albums and disbanded in the early 70s.

Though they were not successful in their time, many musicians who got their start in the Alan Bown Set would achieve great success as solo artists or as part of groups. Robert Palmer scored a nauseatingly successful hit with “Addicted to Love” and “Simply Irresistible” among many other better (imo) songs. Saxaphonist Mel Collins would record with prog giants King Crimson and the Alan Parsons Project and Dougie Thompson would later join Supertramp.

“Unknown to the I” was first released as a cassette single before appearing on Drab Majesty’s full length debut, CARELESS, both released by Dais Records in 2015. Their first cassette, Unarian Dances, was self-released in 2012. The driving force behind the project is the 6’4″ androgynous Deb Demure who stars in the above video and was created by Marriages drummer Andrew Clinco. Along with the synth sounds of the 80s and analog video manipulation, a major influence on the creation of Deb Demure was the iconic industrial group Throbbing Gristle, specifically Genesis P. Orridge. From a recent interview at Noisey:

There’s very much a Genesis P. Orridge influence. She’s an extremely big hero for me. All of her projects are things I’ve really gotten into and strike me as some of the highest art out there. Her pandrogyne project is something that I wish I could actually have the balls to do—or not [laughs]—but I do love Genesis in that she’s had lots of looks over time. At one point, after the whole Lady Jaye merging, I really thought that was interesting—the crazy polarity or tension she creates between the masculine abrasiveness of some of the music she makes combined with the feminine touch of the reciting of lyrics and poetry. I love that. I’m not evaluating Genesis as a man or a woman. I’m seeing this genderless vessel delivering the sounds and the message. It’s really powerful.

CARELESS also has appearance by fellow Marriages member Emma Ruth Rundle, who has released a few solo records over the last few years. Andrew Clinco can also be heard with Black Mare, the solo project of Sera Timms. Drab Majesty is playing shows along the west coast currently and if this video is any indication, it should be quite the show!