This song may sound familiar to anybody who has watched Adam Curtis’ latest film HyperNormalisation, and its hardly the only great tune in the soundtrack. You can find a playlist of the full soundtrack on Youtube and Spotify. The Vanishing American Family is the title track from Scuba Z’s only full length release from 2001, though they put out a number of singles and EPs around the turn of the millennium on Odd Records, their own imprint. Though I couldn’t find much information about these guys, it seems they were based out of the UK, which would fit it nicely within the storied British tradition of breakbeat music, right up there with colonial counter-insurgency, bad teeth, and cultural chauvinism. I suppose compared with many of the fashion trends of the time they deserve some credit because this holds up a lot better than the fashion of the period does.
Ages is the latest in the Echomancy II series from Gnome Life Records. The term echomancy is defined as “divination through music,” and even if I can’t be sure what spell Harris is conjuring here I certainly know that it has worked on me. As far as I can tell this is the first release from Harris, hopefully the first of many to come. This track was constructed using a multi-synth setup and field recordings fed through a series of delays and tape loops, though the sparse technical set up really belies the magic in this release. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact it combines was recordings done during both the vernal and autumnal equinox. Even though I had not tracked Gnome Life before coming across this release, I shouldn’t be surprised that they put out a top notch release like this considering they’ve re-issued a number of Robbie Basho records in the last couple years. As they mention in the write-up for this record, New Age can be thought of as a form of American folk music, even if it doesn’t sound anything like Pete Seeger or Leadbelly or even Robbie Basho. It’s hard for me to put my finger on how, but this type of music seems to amplify an American tradition of transcendental thought in a world consumed by cold electricity and Big Data detachment. Using complicated technical setups to achieve a sound that is so warm and inviting is no small task, and when executed this well it is difficult not to be caught dreaming of an electric City on a Hill.
This track comes off what might be the best volume in the Air Texture compilation series. For each volume of the series, two artist curate a CD of contemporary ambient work, and perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that I like Volume IV so much because Steve Hauschildt (formerly of Emeralds) was one of the curators. Schleinz performs on synths be built himself, the schemes of which he shares on his website, which is well worth checking out for anybody interested in technical details of synthesizers and electronic music. He started building standalone circuits from various books and sites and soon graduated to assembling modular synths by putting his “toys” into larger modular cases, with an eye towards portability (no easy task with modular synths). As an amateur musician myself, I’m so thankful for the great resources he’s assembled on his site, including links to DIY synth designs, CD printing services, and resources for live visual effects. Schlienz has released quite a few solo tapes/CDs on labels like Sacred Phrases and Constellation Tatsu, which have released material by otherartists featured on this site. As if that weren’t enough, he also runs the label Cosmic Winnetou, which has featured some of my favorite artists including Pulse Emitter, Matthias Grassow, and TALSounds of Good Willsmith. I am always very pleased when in the process of writing these posts I learn that someone who I’ve previously just admired as a musician has been involved with a bunch of other artists who I also admire greatly. To hear more of solo work head over to Bandcamp. He also put out a series of collaborative tapes/CDs starting in the late 90s under the name Navel which have their own Bandcamp page. Just in case there weren’t enough Bandcamp links on this page, you can hear the rest of the Air Texture series here.
My Red Dog appears on Lukas Read’s debut self-released record Ramble Man, Ramble, which he put out in late 2013. After releasing one more EP on his own, Read just put out another record Neo Age with the German label Dying for Bad Music. Though his latest release is all instrumental fingerstyle guitar and experimentation with effects, his first record is a nice blend of instrumental guitar and original singer-songwriter material. You can check out a video for the title track of Neo Age here. I knew that I was going to like this album as soon as I saw there was a tribute medley to John Fahey’s Poor Boys Long Way From Home, which is one of my favorite Fahey tunes. You can find his EP over at Bandcamp and purchase a limited edition CD from Dying for Bad Music here.
666 is the title track off Sugar Candy Mountain’s third full length release from People in a Position to Know. Ash Reiter and Will Halsey are the core of the group, but they are often joined by Jason Quever and Matt Adams, among others. As if you couldn’t guess by the combination of sun-drenched guitar and occult fascination, they’re based out of California, Oakland to be specific. Before their release on PIAPTK, they put out two records on their own starting with a self-titled in 2011 followed by Mystic Hits, both released on cassette as well as digitally. For anybody who ever wondered what Camera Obscura would sound like if they came from somewhere that wasn’t notorious for dreary weather, it seems we finally have an answer. Or, as the band puts it:
If Brian Wilson had dropped acid on the beach in Brazil and decided to record an album with Os Mutantes and The Flaming Lips, it would sound like this- all psychedelic pop Wall-of Sound and beach balladry
Those interested in tracking down vinyl should head to the Discogs page for the release. While the pink vinyl is sold out, downloads, CDs, and black vinyl can still be had over at Bandcamp.
If I was writing this post based on what I’ve been listening to the most, I’d have to use Us and Them from Dark Side of the Moon, but as that is one of the most well known and re-issued releases of all time I don’t think I need to convince anybody to listen to it. The ancillary artists are perhaps less well-known, however, which is too bad because they provide some of the most memorable parts of the record (think Clare Torry’s vocal solo on Great Gig in the Sky). Another bit player on Dark Side of the Moon was saxophonist Dick Parry, who recorded the solos on Money and Us and Them as part of his long career as a session musician. One lesser known entry in his discography is this track from Phil Trainer’s debut Trainer, released in 1972. This certainly didn’t get the same exposure as some of his other appearances, which include Rory Gallagher and Marc Bolan. Another oddity about that release was it was put out by the German chemical conglomerate BASF, who began releasing classical music in the mid-1960s and put out records in a variety of genres for around a decade before ceasing operations in 1976.
Since The Valley of Giants is such a fitting sonic tribute to the desolate grandeur of the American West, you would be forgiven for thinking it emerged from some Utah crossroads or West Texas county seat. In fact, Valley of the Giants is a Canadian group within the constellation of projects associated orbiting Broken Social Scene. The Valley of the Giants’ only release is a self-titled album in 2004 put out by Arts & Crafts. I typically try to find videos which show the album artwork, but made an exception for this both because it fits with the music and was unofficially sanctioned by one of the artists, Anthony Seck, in a comment on the video. He described the vision of the song thus:
The loneliness of our place in the cosmos, landscape as a metaphor for the soul, and a hope that even after the apocalypse, life can begin again.
You don’t have to be driving through red desert to empathize with that feeling. Liner notes point to another slightly menacing inspiration:
We sat back on the couch watching Yul Brynner all in black, with lifeless eyes and jingling spurs strutting across the mechanized psycho-desert landscape. Deirdre pulled out a pen and began to write lyrics based on the lonely murderous robot cowboy.
This may be the only release from Valley of the Giants, but its component parts remain active. The lyricists for this release, Deirdre Smith and Scott Garratt, were part of Strawberry, and Sophie Trudeau founded A Silver Mt Zion with Godspeed You Black Emperor!’s Efrim Menuck. This song reminds me a lot of William Tyler’s Impossible Truth release, which was inspired in part by the book Cadillac Desert about the development of water infrastructure in the American West. If I’m lucky enough to take another trip westward, I’ll be sure Westworld is on my road trip playlist.
Virna Lindt recorded her first single while working for “in an indirect way, the secret services of at least two nations,” according to her bio at LTM Recordings. That single was Attention Stockholm, which became an indie hit in Europe and Japan upon its release in 1981. This was the first record put out The Compact Organization and, lucky for us, it wasn’t the last. Underwater Boy comes off Lindt’s debut album Shiver from 1984, which tells a story of espionage and treachery that wasn’t at all informed by her biography. One more record, Play/Record, would follow before Lindt (presumably) returned to her humdrum life as occasional spy and translator for various media outlets.
Talk about selling out! Both of her records have since been reissued by LTM, which was founded in England in the early 1980s and, after a brief hiatus, resurfaced in 1997 and began reissuing many New Wave records as well as avant garde audio works by William S. Burroughs and Marcel Duchamp. Check out their full catalog here.
Mike Gangloff has been camped out, fiddle in hand, at the intersection of drone/psychedelia and folk music since the mid-90s. He started his career as a founding member of Pelt along with Nathan Bowles, Patrick Best, and Jack Rose. Though Pelt has not released anything since 2012, Gangloff has released a number of stellar records, including Melodies for a Savage Fix in collaboration with Steve Gunn. I typically roll my eyes at colored vinyl because a)I’m a smug piece of shit and b) it kinda seems gimmicky, but I’ve gotta applaud the design of Poplar Hollow because it’s a treat for all senses (ed: I haven’t eaten it but I bet it’s delicious). It comes by way of Blackest Rainbow Records whom I had never heard of before looking at this release but, upon snooping their Discogs page, I learned they’ve put out a number of things by artists I really love, including Nadja’s Aidan Baker and the excellent Expo ’70 tape Beguiled Entropy. I may not have known about Mike Gangloff before I bought his record, but I’ve leapt into the deep end of the pool, and the water is just the way I like it. One other thing this record really reminded me of that comes by way of Japan is World Standard’s Country Gazette record, which I also recommend if you dig Cat Mountain.
It’s as if someone opened a time capsule and found a whole new Fripp/Eno record for me to put in my ear holes. Transcendence comes off the groups 2013 release Bitchitronics put out by Drag City. The group coalesced as a solo project of CAVE guitarist/organist Cooper Crain and primarily comprises Crain, Rob Frye, and Dan Quinlivan. All three are active in the psychedelic/experimental scene in Chicago, with Frye and Quinlivan contributing to releases for Chandeliers, who came to WNUR when I worked there and rocked it, as well as appearing on small-print releases for Circuit Des Yeux, who appears on Chicago label Thrill Jockey. Crain is also an active recording engineer, working on records for Heavy Times and Circuit Des Yeux. Given that the earth is rapidly heating, if you’re not gonna get out there and try and shut down Exxon Mobil then I’d recommend loading up on fuzzy guitar drones and blasting the hell off.
Orion's Bastard 