In the cold grey skies of London lies the promise of somewhere else, somewhere warmer and filled with colour. That’s the offer from Raj Bhera on his debut Ferigo Skitolo EP from which featured track AM Call is taken.
Raj Bhera says he comes from London, UK and Varansi, India (also known as Benares, Banaras, or Kashi). And I assume that’s the destination for the mind’s eye holiday he wants to take us on. AM Call is the opening track on the EP. It starts with tablas getting a sinuous beat going. Then it’s a beach lounge succession of warming synths and chords. Just a little bit of dub. It’s all terribly holiday lazy. Everything is too much trouble. Let’s just sit around and enjoy the day. Why worry? Why rush off elsewhere? It’ll all be there tomorrow.
It’s certainly true that the nights are drawing in now that the clocks have moved back. So let’s settle down with the warming glow of The Gardener and Earlier Dusks.
The Gardener is from London, UK. And, yes, claims to be a gardener by day and musician by night. Earlier Dusks is taken from the Autumn Nights compilation on Aviary Bridge Records. It’s a gentle soul with wood block beats and a plinky plonky rhythm that smells of wet leaves and wood smoke. It has a lo-fi appeal that makes you want to hug the track ever closer. But like autumn sunlight it is soon gone.
Sun’s shining, lockdown’s here so let’s chill with Anthon Jean-Paul, and Poldoore x A N T I T H E S I S.
Anthon Jean-Paul is, perhaps inevitably, from France but is now based in the USA. He offers Spy Music on the Imaginary Friends label. This is a cast back to the 90s heydays of chill with a Zero 7 or Bonobo air. But there’s also a bit of Orbital’s The Box in here. Spy Music is a wonderfully loungey electronic track led by a superb twang from the double bass. It’s got all the strings you want and a certain sixties insouciance. Pour yourself a martini.
Let’s move from chill into something a bit more hip hop focused but still laid back. We have Reconciliation, a collaboration between Belgium based producer, Poldoore and A N T I T H E S I S (aka Georgii Speakman and Grammy nominated producer, Phillip Lewis). The original piano track from A N T I T H E S I S is essentially remixed by Poldoore. It’s given a head nodding underpinning, some sweet strings and a slightly sleazy sax overlay. Less study beats and more slinky beats.
As we wait for the results of the US election, lockdown to end, or the end of the world to arrive let’s have some soothing electronic escapist Autumn sensations from Vonpsyche.
Vonpsyche says his, “musical path began almost 13 years ago amid the West Siberian Plain as a hip-hop producer and obscure underground rapper.” There’s only a hint of that past left in this lovely chilled track. And that’s in the way that the beats have a slow head nodding quality.
Valley Days is half of a two track release with Rendezvous. It was originally called Valley Death and there is a bit of that isolation and even despair. But mostly it’s a dreamy hazy wander. Beats are stately and deliberate with a touch of dub. The breathing element adds to that sense of weariness at it all. As Vonpscyhe says this, “is a repetitive piece based on a hypnotic piano loop that unfolds into a shock-filled beat at the center of an almost disorienting delay canvas.”
A lovely track that isn’t disorientating of itself but comes over as disorientated and numb. Beautifully done hazy repetition.
A bit of romance is lovely once in a while. Here’s Germany’s No Time For Tapes with For Elle. It’s a lovely optimistic, romantic downtempo tune.
No Time for Tapes produces, “electronic music inspired by instrumental textures involving both analog and digital sound creation.” That means a mix of synths, beats, piano and guitar. There’s a fragile beauty to For Elle. It’s a paean to early romance. He says, “To Elle tries to capture an uplifting feeling and positive energy, combining electric guitar with classic synth sounds.” I say it’s soaring, uplifting stuff. All the synths set at higher registers reaching for the sky and stars. It’s all the promise of early love. That boundless unconstrained feeling that nothing will ever top this. Life may try to cut us down to size but while it lasts, enjoy.
A couple of dreamy tracks that explore the borders of techno, IDM and downtempo with Buhduzit and Curtis Maranda.
Buhduzit is Matt Mikovic from Glasgow, Scotland. He says he does, “strange spaces and compressed grains of time” but is otherwise content for the music to speak for itself. The track is Jungle from a two-track EP of the same name. It has more than a little Bonobo about it but with added IDM strangeness.
The track has woodblocks and distorted steel drums for that otherworldly feel. It’s all psychedelic and woozy. It vibrates slowly and strangely. There are far off jungle noises but set so far back and manipulated that you strain to make sense of them. The melody is there but its inner and needs seeking out. This is a lovely track that pays repeated listens.
Curtis Maranda is from Canada and offers the old school techno charm of Long Tailed Techno. Curtis is half of Tiger Suit, (with Renee Cross), who are a duo from Guelph, Ontario. They play an integration of synth pop, rock and electronica. This strikes out a long way from that base.
Long Tailed Techno is a spaced techno full of whooshing spacey sounds and synths. It’s a big epic track with an old school feel. Hardly surprising when you consider it was made with a Roland JD-XI. The beats are kept relatively soft and pushed towards the back to provide an unobtrusive undercarriage to the main synth action. This veers from techno to synthwave but without ever quite crossing the border. It’s techno with a smiley face.
If the start of the working week feels a bit of a bad dream I have just the thing for you. Some gentle acid flavoured IDM from Ireland’s Nick Coolroy.
Nick is from Dublin and is half of PolyGlove. The featured track, Kawasaki Dream, is from his debut album Palm303. It’s a beautifully warm and hazy track. The sounds are familiar and yet fresh. It has some electronics from the 80s and also some IDM and acid from the 90s. Perhaps that comes from its production which Nick says was, “Recorded directly to tape on an old Tascam 244.”
It’s all wrapped in that Boards of Canada style indefinably nostalgic glow. A sepia tinted tune of warm summer days lost to covid. The sounds wow and shimmer. Acid burbles away. The is a track with which to self isolate (again). The album is out now on Bandcamp and on cassette.
I don’t know what the Covid situation is where you are but last night the Government announced a month long lockdown for England (assuming enough English Conservative MPs will vote for it on Wednesday). The other parts of the UK have been in their own version of lockdown for a few weeks now. The pandemic is making the UK feel more federated by default. Anyhow, enough geo-spatial politics. Let’s have some ambient with Andrew Rothschild and Lake Union on the upside, and Anders Ekert on the we’re-going=to-hell-in-a-handcart side.
I’ve stretched the Ambient Sunday definition a bit to include Andrew Rothschild. But I could wait no longer. Andrew’s stuff is usually a downtempo thrill. Yorros is no exception. It’s taken from Andrew Rothschild’s forthcoming album – Forest Blue. I can’t wait for the album.
Yorros starts in a folktronica manner with some lovely plucked strings to give an organic, verdant sound. Beats shuffle along hesitantly behind. But as the track unfolds it becomes stronger and contains tinges of epic adventure. And yet the use of a melancholic cello reminds us that not all is right with the world. Andrew says, “Yorros was actually a song that was about expressing your apologies/condolences but not knowing how to properly put it into words. The name Yorros itself was actually something I came about the first day which I meant as sorry backwards, then later realized I added an extra ‘o’ subconsciously and just ended up running with it down the road. ”
In summary, this is quite, quite beautiful.
Next, remaining in the USA and also in downtempo but tending more towards ambient here’s Lake Union with Arriving. Lake Union is Ben Noble from Minneapolis and Arriving is taken from the Dark Matter release. It’s a groove focused track that has its central refrain roll over and over to a hypnotic effect.
The track has a slow dark throb to it. It uses drone in an almost ambient folk setting. It’s all terribly washed out, washed up but still dreaming. It has something ineffably sad at its heart. A secret from which it can never truly escape. It’s written into the bass that provides the central dark matter of the track, despite the best efforts of the strings.
You can always rely on Sweden for something awkward and gloomy. And that’s what Anders Ekert provides on Sot. He’s been part of the collective Pluxus. Anders has also been the main photographer for Flora & Fauna over the last ten years.
The track is taken from the album Vid sidan. If the previous two tracks were trying to be positive about lockdown, Sot is the grim reality. It’s a slow tolling dark drone, an experimental creak and groan. The track pauses to reflect but there’s no escape from this claustrophobic existence.
Let’s have a bit of a drum and bass morning with tracks from Aeneas.2020 and It’s A Trick.
Aeneas.2020 says he was, “Inspired by the greats of the first explosion of punk, new wave and post-punk (The Specials, PiL, The Clash, Joy Division and Gang of Four), Aeneas.2020 wants his music to make people dance AND think.” The track is Welcome To The New Night. It’s a strange drum and bass track in some ways. It has the skittering beats but is more of a chilled track than you’d expect. It’s lit by the flickering sounds of perfectly pitched strings that come like sparks in the night. And it wafts about with a trip hop loucheness. A dark syrup of a track.
From the album Without Others
Next, It’s A Trick is a London-based producer. And the track is The Warning, produced during lockdown. Which it looks like we’re going to need again.
The Warning itself is about only being in for exercise otherwise please go home. It’s A Trick says, “The warning samples the lockdown warning van that was in our local park early on in lockdown.” The beats are energetic and razor sharp. It’s a pumping claustrophobic explosion of a track. Brilliantly realises the contradictions of lockdown. A pandemic race through semi-deserted streets. A zombie apocalypse of a track.
The weekend forecast is for light cloud, heavy cloud and rain. Sun? Not so much. It’s therefore a pleasure to be reminded that the sun will reappear sometime. Here’s Apta with Sun.
Apta is from Manchester, UK and has the loveliest biography, “Apta works in Piccadilly Records in Manchester, one of longest running and respected record shops in the UK, if not the world. After work he makes music, and whilst sleeping he dreams about synthesizers and guitars.”
Synthesisers and guitars is what 20 is all about. It is a distillation of what was originally two six track EPs (Home and Sun) but ended up as an 8 track release. Sun is beautifully relaxed, which rather comes from the enforced idleness of lockdown. Or if not idleness then the space to create. Sun is a lovely wistful track starting with twinkly synthesisers. Guitars follow along in a lazy stroll. It’s all terribly organic and reminiscent of Lemon Jelly at their best (and there’s a cover of The Staunton Lick to enjoy).
A lovely track from a delightfully crafted album that tickles all your pleasure centres.
