Ohbliv - Let’s Explore
Shadow boxers, encased in mazes of oblivion, in naivety that nirvana exists in abeyance. Continually jolting their eyes from side to sides as they debate the weight of their lids. They explore. “Let’s Explore” is to be found on Richmond Virginia artist 0hbliv’s crisp New Black Renaissance (Side A).
Eyes like shadow boxers, colliding with dust crusted corners, springing like rocks skipping rivers. Looking for a woman though the woman she knew was now a girl at best. But they breathed to the same beat, like one tired person trying to debate the weight of their eyes. Which is what made it so easy to find the girl.
She didn’t have to see the water, she’d been dreaming it for years. Sobrenadar conceives an aquatic atmosphere. This video is an introduction to Sobrenadar, the Argentina based artist Paula Garcia. She documented the atmosphere which her music stems from through a chillingly warm performance of her track “Finales - filmed in Buenos Aires by Fernando Delssin. Her EP Physeos is available for free today via Absent Fever.
It is midday, low-pitched light outside; inside it isn’t. Dimness swallows her like a minnow as she steps into the water without footfall to introduce her. She didn’t have to see the water, she’d been dreaming it for years. Two dreams, rupturing and being swallowed. The people above didn’t hear a sound, but below them, outside, all around, the water went on and on and on. Amassing itself, engulfing itself. Steeper and deeper. Round and round, never changing direction.
Estasy - Wearhorses
Finally, she entrusted in he; her feet weren’t hurrying, she was still, loose as she’d ever been, and dependent in he. What views she could see through her windows when she wasn’t draining her feet. Depending on he was key to stillness, stillness was key to [finally] seeing. She was fatigued, allowed herself to be, and the breath that dove her into sleep was of falsetto sobriety. “Wearhorses” makes no apologies for it’s ebb and flow of inhale intake, the clicks in throat, strums with too much audacity. It is not sorry, as we all less often should be. “Wearhorses” is one of many wonders on Italian Estasy’s release Whitelaugh Blackcry.
She was walking past, on feet foretold to be stationary. To which he hushed in return, “ease onto me”. He held her by the feet, as she dove into his clasp. In time, she was loose, as loose as she’d ever been, plummeting into a dependency she and he could neither believe. And so suddenly, windows had a view, she was loose, and her feet weren’t hurrying.
Do While - In Circles
Your eyes are glassy and your dreaming, your eyes are spinning and your dreaming, your eyes are swimming, and we’re listening. Quietly, we wade your dreams. Wading through circles of subtlety, twisting mystification, riddles of privacy. Awaiting when the water will above past our heads. And when it does, we watch it like fireworks, or airplane displays, or balloons let go. We wade your dreams, sweetly. “In Circles” is on a split between Do While and Cache, called Hidden Houses/Spring Into, available on cassette via Culture Dealer.
“Who could miss a ripple in a cornfield on a quiet cloudless day?”
Elvis Depressedly - Crazier With You
You make it through the night, you’ll make it all the way. Relieved and easeful, he should have felt, like a traveler who’d made it home. The day had gone blue without the sun, and there was an apathy in his breathing room that made him not relieved nor easeful. It was hard to be thirsty anymore, as it all felt to last too long. His cadence was off, and he was tired of trying to convince otherwise. “crazier with ou” is off of Mat Cothrans last release as Elvis Depressedly, disgraceland.
Step//Ramble//Pace//Hide. And next move on. He’d never been able to wait in one place long enough. When he did it was just as much because there she was. His and her quietness thundered about the static white walls like birds in alarm. They spoke indulgent and wandering conversations, brimming with misunderstandings more tempting than understandings can be, half sentences, truths, and half daydreams. The thirst she saw in him was immeasurable, a begging barely in its own ascendancy. If you can make it through tonight, you’ll know how to make it everyday.
Teenhäze - Sea You
He had nothing much to say, really. He mumbled away, rumbling, muttering, making the sounds of leaves decay, synthesizing the warmth of a crimson autumn window in a room without windows. If I can’t sea you, I can at best believe I do. “Sea You” is the title track from Stockholm born Teenhäze’s EP release.
He made susurrus with the descending autumn tone. Babbling of drone, hum of rumble, muttering endlessly. He muttered about, whistling and humming as long as he could till his voice drowned hoarse. Waiting for his mimicking of the autumn to pronounce words, real words. He realized he had no windows. Gazing soft at the backsides of his eyelids. It felt soft in a waiting way. He muttered away through his waiting play, waiting for the sun spotted fall to freckle his eyes blinking. His eyes stayed shut and he made susurrus from nothing.
Eliot - Around
“Around” was found on soundcloud via LA’s 6BIT Collective.
Slow-moving eyes. She looked at nothing. And spoke so briskly I couldn’t see how she’d breathed. She had more secrets than anyone I knew - stories she halfway told true surrounded by things she told so fast they were barely consumed. She breathed more carefully than she spoke. As afraid of her breath skipping beat as she was of relying on anything. It wasn’t the whites of her eyes [stark pale, glacier white], the blackness of the insides, the valleys that roamed grey beneath her vision board. It was that the black looked like wax, the wax looked like it was melting. My steam engine respiration was the flame, and the drifting wouldn’t recoil again.
Cool Angels - Don’t Feel Like Holding On (Ft. Stef Hodapp)
For a girl exhausted from moving, there is something I’ve always revered in ghosts. Mountains move, seas expand and contract, people move the most, while their ghosts never do. But they are too fragile [like porcelain] for me to reach out to. An intimacy too porcelain to see. I felt like reaching out, and ever so I was to afraid to do so, in fear I’d hold on. “Don’t Feel Like Holding On (Ft. Stef Hodapp)” is off of Cool Angels’ Demure. Demure can be heard on bandcamp or through the tape hiss of cassette courtesy of Gnar Tapes & Shit.
There was a weight sitting at the doorway of my bed. In an atmosphere ambushed by highway mazes and the rapid eye movement of bustling boroughs, I always had revered how ghosts inhabit only one place. It was laden, staunch, obstinate, and I couldn’t move my toes. I tucked my hands under the one night mans respiring spine, realizing that I’d reach for it otherwise. I kept my hands there, gracelessly beneath, until eventually my toes were freed.
Composed by impulse and the stream of consciousness, seven juxtaposed artists came in union to create a collective vision; distinct and furthermore one. Seven of the Absent Fever (mine and Flashlight Tag’s digital label) artists collaborated to create one 7 minute song. Each was given only the previous artists 1 minute to base their 1 minute off of, and was told to compose from solely initial creative reaction. In result is a 7 minute long guide through the soundscape of Absent Fever. Videographer Library Voices then interpreted the entire stream of consciousness into a visual depiction of the landscapes visited. It sounds almost like an afterthought of a global-travel, and looks like it too. As if the sounds are soaring between the ivory coasts of the equator, wrapping their presence around the sphere. The travelers collected grains of sand and salt, blizzard and air-currents from each dwelling passed. Country, to corner, city, to village, without realizing, they’d had pieces of everything. And somehow, the diversity compiled itself into something more together than they could anticipate. Each had a map of their travels ingrained in the palms of their hands and the wiring of their subconscious; when each sat to make song, the song was together. Their were seven travelers, and their retelling of their voyage was one.
Order of appearance (1 minute each):
KYNAN
Gracie
Birkwin Jersey
Wonder Bear
Ra Cailum
Galapagos
Guerre
Listen to the song alone here.
Moons - Bazaar
Bloodshot eyes and lips, enticed by the eclipse of a new high-time. Immature pulse fluster, a flurry of luring pulse commotion and nervous upward bound lips. The moons took shape, and the electric blue pulled through. More Moons to be found here.
Lips swollen with chimera, chiming in with the first impression pulse. Bloodshot lips. Lilts and intonations, meteorites of the suburban light outlines. The door was shut. The light swept in under the hinge and through the key-hole. The lock was picked, kiss dismissed, and I walked the sidewalk with a bounce in my whistle, whistling away the bloodshot jitters in the womb of futurity.
Amen Dunes - Bedroom Drum
Windows down, throats cleared, for as long as the song we drove past our apathetic midnights; it took just a nap, a spin, and clearing throats to settle down at the summit of morning time. Finally we arrived, and it felt as alright as we’d idealized. Only a clearing of the throat, we thought, we wished we’d swallowed earlier. A humble morning was our muse; perpetually dreaming of even a peek; and we peeked, finally. Humble songs are all we need; allow “Bedroom Drum” feed your need. Amen Dunes Through Donkey Jaw is available via Sacred Bones.
Wrapping our arms around the coolest curves. We went swinging around the willowing peaks, pumping our legs restlessly. Our half-lived days were left in the previous frame, we cleared our throats and sifted the gravels away.
A Generation Gap: Music Purchasing to Music Downloading
My 11th grade Modern US History class assigned us the most unrestrained project I’ve ever received. I imagine they intended to see what we could do without their smothering guidance, and so the project was broad, vague, and tempting to a student like myself who is not always so keen on limiting instruction. The assignment was to make a 4-6 minute documentary on a topic that has evolved or developed over the coarse of modern US history. Without reservation I jumped to the verdict that I’d make a piece focusing on the way the music industry and music consumer has developed with and because of the digital transformation (or revolution, human apocalypse, whatever you may deem it to be). The brief documentary discusses the monetary development/downfall of the music industry, the music consumer of today and tomorrow, discovering music in this technological climate, the place vinyl has in society, the roles of record labels… the monotonous listing continues. For the piece I interviewed:
Justin Gage (Founder of Aquarium Drunkard)
Scott Cohen (Co-Founder of The Orchard)
Jenny Eliscu (Writer for Rolling Stone)
Neil Schield (Owner of Origami Vinyl)
Zach Shields (Dead Mans Bones)
Dana Meyerson (Biz 3 Publicity)
Share-a-tories - Cycling
Blushing strokes swell, and tap, so conscious of their brush. Caressing the high side of the sunrise and the crimson side of the rosy cheek beams. Share your stories. “Cycling” is a flushed story told amongst 7 others on Share-a-tories Dissolved in the Dark via kassette klub.
I say we take a nap, whistle on to sleep. Like sunflower seeds had been sprinkled across our arid unclothed bodies, and it was spring. There was a honey-comb daze and we had nowhere else to be. It was already broiling even before our skin brushed and hit scorching. It was a blushing oil painting and we were cycling round and round its framing.
Schoolcraft - Here in the Dark
Blue bloom swam through. She was sipping in with permafrost breath. Her breathing hushed past me, warmer than she’d believe. Here in the dark, her blue bloom enfolded me, nestling into the glaciers of her inhales, glaciers of her exhales. “Here in the Dark” flickers across the air waves of icy river veins, shedding the most unexpected//aching light across Schoolcraft’s sounds.
With a blue water bloom, the aqueous cloudburst swam through her lightening stroke electrical wires. Withdrawn from the ability to feel warmth versus melting, she let the lightening take motion, asking it, if only this, will you be my dreamcatcher. And as it caught the curve balls, fast balls, and whirring epilepsy of her whispering violet dreams, I saw her light the whole city. From skyscraper to cloud-rise, in a humming slow motion, the lights flickered awake. Her eyelashes flickering too, and the blue bloom swam through.
With a mix of live footage, and found, Chicago based Left Arm Single created a hypnotic depiction of “Feelings 4 U” in collaboration with Flashlight Tag. “Feelings 4 U” by Dreams is the title track off of the fresh LA-based beat-smith’s 10-track EP released today by my and Flashlight Tag’s free digital label Absent Fever.
Invitation accepted. The electric currents were bending, drifting and swelling. Flashbacks in motion. What a tease. It seemed like any minute now that we might be hypnotized. The fantasy is all we know, a chairlift into the peaks suspended over reality. The fireworks were too spastic and scattered, so we collected them all, plotted them into a grid form, and stormed away on our fireworks fantasy floor. Floored. The bulletproof neon stream ticked with our heart beats.
