We have lots of miscellaneous experimental beats tonight, and different experimental versions of song, plus sound-art and noise, and kinds of ambient. I’m catching up on some stuff from when I was overseas, but also looking ahead to things not released yet. I’m also exploring the eternal present – all of now.
ROMÆO – All Of Now [ROMÆO Bandcamp]
Eora/Sydney singer/songwriter/producer ROMÆO has a new EP called Eternal Recurrence coming, and out now is the first single, “All of Now“. In the wake of a relationship ending, the song – in all its evolving 7 minutes – is an invocation of nowness. From a swung trip-hop feel, it slips into drum’n’bass-influenced beats and then just keeps going. Put it on repeat to stretch the moment even longer.
Sharpie Smile – So Far (Feat. Leng Bian) [Drag City/Bandcamp]
Previously art-rock-post-punks Kamikaze Palm Tree, Dylan Hadley & Cole Berliner have just released an album of sometimes-experimental electronic pop as Sharpie Smile. “So Far” is a super pretty, emotive song that skitters into light-weight jungle with added twinkliness from harpist Leng Bian.
Eli Keszler – Ever Shrinking World [LUCKYME®/Bandcamp]
The remarkable new album from Eli Keszler was released on the 2nd of May, the day I left for 6 weeks in UK & Europe, and got lost in the flood of… stuff… But I can’t let it go unplayed because it’s a wonder, even among Keszler’s many brilliant releases. Keszler’s earliest material used his skills at fast-paced, complex percussion to experimental ends, but he’s also a longtime collaborator with Oneohtrix Point Never and Laurel Halo, among others. His 2018 album Stadium, released by Shelter Press, heralded a change in focus along with a move to Manhattan. Here, the skittery beats resembled IDM and jungle, and came along with electronic textures and small melodies. This has continued to be Keszler’s modus operandi, but with LUCKYME® as his more recent home, more pop elements have crept in, evoking trip-hop and noir jazz, with various guest vocalists. “Ever Shrinking World” has no guests listed, so maybe it’s Keszler himself intoning the phrase. In any case, this is a richly-produced album of late-night moods, somewhere between elegance and paranoia.
Mark Van Hoen – No-One Leave (feat. Clare Dove) [Dell’Orso/Bandcamp]
Mark Van Hoen – Shine (feat. Rachel Goswell) [Dell’Orso/Bandcamp]
Sometime around 1997 maybe, or 1998, I was introduced (by Seb Chan, no doubt) to the 1995 album Truth Is Born Of Arguments by Locust, the sometimes-used pseudonym of Mark Van Hoen. I guess I would’ve known some of Seefeel‘s work already, so I knew Van Hoen had been part of the lineup early on, and some of the vocal samples on that album were from their singer Sarah Peacock. But the massively overdriven beats, which stopped and started and shuddered with fragments of female voice and very sparse electronics, were enough to blow my tiny mind – not to mention the weird world-beat and disquieting ambient found elsewhere on the album. It’s still an album I happily go back to anytime I get an excuse. For some time (at least 6 years, maybe more) Van Hoen has had a subscription available on Bandcamp with heaps of exclusive music, some of which leaks out as Bandcamp-only releases (and then slips back behind the wall), including really early experiments, live performances, and essentially demos of tracks that later appear on “proper” releases, like the one that’s just come out: The Eternal Present. The second Mark Van Hoen album on the Dell’Orso label, it follows last year’s Plan For A Miracle, and for folks like me there’s now a double CD collecting both albums. The material on these releases spans three decades, meaning it reaches back as far as that seminal Locust album, but it’s totally cohesive, and in many ways as contemporary as anything – or as timeless. The Eternal Present indeed.
Molly Joyce – August 9 1999 [130701/Bandcamp]
Composer, instrumentalist and singer Molly Joyce was in a car crash at age 7 which almost amputated her left hand. Over the following 8 years she experienced multiple surgeries, and still has an impaired hand. This trauma is imbued in all of her work, and ableism / disability activism is a constant theme. Her latest album State Change is her most directly autobiographical piece yet, poetically presented though it is: words and phrases taken from the actual medical reports from each of her surgeries form the lyrics, which are accompanied by synths played on keyboard and also through various gestural controllers. The results can be harrowing, with clusters of noise and vocal processing knocking the songs out of balance. It’s a beautiful example of abstraction as storytelling.
DJ DIE SOON – SAQ4IME ft. Sara Persico [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp]
Dadub – Hunger for Oblivion ft. Sara Persico [OPAL/Bandcamp]
Sacred Lodge – Wa Wa Ke Wa Wa Yi (Feat. Sara Persico) [Avon Terror Corps]
Somehow in the last couple of weeks, Berlin-based Italian musician & singer Sara Persico has turned up on three separate releases – two of them pre-release singles, one on a new release. Persico’s debut album Sphaîra came out earlier this year, following the excellent Boundary EP in 2023, both of which showcased her experimental vocals and an array or production techniques.
First up, a new single from Berlin-based Daisuke Imamura aka DJ DIE SOON, who did an absolutely off-the-charts album last year with Japanese rapper MA, and now the same label – the Jordan-based Drowned By Locals – is set to release his new solo album My Brothel The Wind. Among the guests are Senyawa’s Rully Shabara and WaqWaq Kingdom/King Midas Sound/Dokkebi Q’s Kiki Hitomi, but from Sara Persico we have mangled vocalisations accompanied by mangled beats.
Out this week was a full album from Berlin-based Italian duo Dadub, following EPs on the likes of Stroboscopic Artefacts and Ohm Resistance. Industrial bass is one way to describe them, but industrial techno and… industrial ambient too? Among the many guest vocals, Persico here is singing a little more tunefully, but this is still dark stuff, from a dark, evocative album.
AND also this Friday, Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps announced a new album from Paris-based Matthieu Ruben N’Dongo, under the alias Sacred Lodge. Ambam comes out of his ethno-musicological studies into the Fang people of Central Africa, from whom he’s descended via his father. On top of his dubstep-influenced beats, his own voice is central: he “uses the scream as a vocal act of liberation in the face of oppression”; but Persico adds distorted yelps and auto-tuned interjections. Can’t wait to hear the rest.
RSD – Push [RSD Bandcamp]
Hailing, like Avon Terror Corps, from Bristol is Rob Smith, who with Smith & Mighty was instrumental in the birth of trip-hop, melding dub bass with hip-hop, house and r’n’b in the scene which birthed Massive Attack, Portishead et al. Smith was also one half of the jungle originals More Rockers, and I’ve mentioned the jungle archive collections Smith put up on his Bandcamp back in 2023 – essential listening IMHO – but Smith was also there as dubstep spread in the mid-2000s, and still enjoys the 140bpm realm. In May he released four 140bpm tracks on the Warm EP and another four have just followed on Warm Pt.2 – just lovely dubby, breaky stuff.
Measure Divide – Stretchlike [Air Texture/Bandcamp]
S.A.T.I.N. – Break [Air Texture/Bandcamp]
Berghain-resident DJ & producer JakoJako is an afficionado of hardware production, so when NY label Air Texture asked her to curate a compilation, she pulled in artists who she’s felt connected to through hardware. The result is Hardwired, a 23-track compilation that’s mostly pounding 4/4 beats, but also takes in pulsating ambient and scurrying micro-beats at times. As JakoJako recently released a mostly ambient EP on Mute, it’s not surprising to hear an almost beatless track from sunroof, the label’s Daniel Miller & Gareth Jones; The Field also contributes 6 minutes of churning midrange. But tonight, Toronto’s Measure Divide brings a syncopated bassline to his fast-paced 4/4 beats, while UK duo S.A.T.I.N.‘s track begins with thumping kicks so syncopated that it takes the ear a few bars to catch up when the crunching snare & hit-hat drop in – industrial techno at its finest.
Jay Glass Dubs – Mirror In Decay [Jay Glass Dubs Bandcamp]
Dimitris Papadatos, the Greek producer known as Jay Glass Dubs, has forged a unique path through bass music for a decade now. It’s rare to find any clear genre designators, granting that dub is always a reference point, but the slippery nature of the music, hinting at postpunk, ambient, techno and who knows what else, is very much the point. So this Bandcamp-exclusive EP is doubly outsider stuff: music from an unpigeonholeable artist that didn’t quite fit in his other releases between 2020 and 2024. My favourite piece here, “Mirror In Decay”, is a little less slow-paced than his norm, and is pieced together from little more than a never-changing chord, fragments of percussion and almost-melodies sent through a dub delay, with a sinuous bassline dropping in & out of the mix.
Facetoucher – The Great Mutator [Burnt Seed Records/Bandcamp]
Dr Trousers – Wickerman [Burnt Seed Records/Bandcamp]
Next to FBi Radio here in Eora/Sydney, Borloo/Perth’s RTR-FM is a station very dear to my heart, even though I’ve never lived there. Of course Melbourne, Brisbane etc have great community stations too. But RTR are absolutely nurturing and passionate, and look! Now there’s a second RTR. RTR2 is online-only and maybe more freeform, an outlet for artists, labels, fans etc can put music together and anyone can listen back on demand. As the station launched, one of the groups who contributed were Burnt Seed Records, and if you look at their first podcast, you’ll see there’s quiiiiite a bit of overlap with this here show’s interests. As part of their four-episode residency, they put a callout to artists to contribute, and now the fruits of that can be found in the 13-track Bandcamp comp RTR2 Sessions. As nice a selection of under-the-radar experimental music from Australia as you could ask for. Randomly, the two tracks I’ve chosen are both from Naarm/Melbourne artists – well, not too randomly since I know Facetoucher, and incredbily talented, incredibly prolific artist under many different aliases, some of which I know I can’t reveal. Suffice to say that whatever they do is brilliantly crafted, thoughtful and – most likely – bonkers (well, look, here’s SOME of it). The 2 minutes of stretched glitch here appealed to me before I checked the tracklisting. Also from the same vicinity is Dr Trousers, who I didn’t know, and whose track is clanking industry and rumbling drones, with near-hidden vocal snatches until it clambers out of the basement for the last 45 seconds, a flickering, crackling menace.
Amuleto Apotropaico – Albedo e Rito [Perf/Bandcamp]
Just last week I played a track by Portuguese drummer & producer António Feiteira released on Eastern Nurseries. Amuleto Apotropaico finds him in a duo with Francisco Pedro Oliveira, who plays flutes and electronics – and on tonight’s track, Ricardo Jacinto drops some lovely cello into the mix. Feiteira’s drums clatter and tumble more like natural phenomena than beats, and everything floats around them. Add Perf label to the list of creative, uncategorisable Portuguese labels.
Family Ravine – Dense crowds under too hot cameras [Death Is Not The End]
Last year, UK label Death Is Not The End released an excellent album titled (I’ll) waltz in and act like (I) own the place from K.W. Cahill, the multi-talented artist behind Family Ravine and many other projects. Now comes the equally quirkily-titled Wet Lands Dry Me, a set of abstract texture-works for various guitars, melodica and thumb pianos. These instruments could be describing some twee indie-folk but it’s nothing of the sort (no shade at twee indie-folk). These are lo-fi, low-key pieces like out-of-focus photographs or blurred scenery flitting past a train’s window. But it’s not background music either – check the constantly wailing distorted notes sliding up and down in “Only one way to hit the threshold”. So good.
Aho Ssan & Resina – Egress VII [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
Aho Ssan & Resina – Egress IV [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
When Paris-based producer Aho Ssan (aka Niamké Désiré) put together his 2023 album Rhizomes he assembled a list of collaborators to die for, from Northern English emo-drill hero Blackhaine to Iranian experimental duo 9T Antiope, Moor Mother to Valentina Magaletti to name a few. One of my favourite tracks, “Till The Sun Down”, featured perennial favourites clipping. as well as Polish cellist Resina (aka Karolina Rec). Aho Ssan & Resina first met at a virtual Unsound Festival during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns, organised by Nicolás Jaar – and it was Jaar who released that album on his Other People label (as well as appearing on a track himself). Now the duo’s full album Ego Death has been released on the redoubtable Subtext Recordings, and it has the beauty of Resina’s cello multitracks and loops, and the glitchy, heavy immersion of Aho Ssan’s electronics, with heaving bottom end and even some percussive, rhythmic elements at times. This is some of the best work of both artists, emotive and bombastic and smart.
Siavash Amini – Maculate [Room40/Bandcamp]
Caligo is the latest work from Tehran’s master sound-artist Siavash Amini, returning once more to Meanjin/Brisbane’s Room40. Here he’s in dialogue with some old, mysterious piano recordings from Iran – Amini doesn’t give us much more info about these recordings, but they’re fed into some pretty intense processing. At times the piano source is obvious, at other times it’s distorted and twisted into new, anguished forms. There’s an emotional depth to Amini’s work which makes it compulsive/compulsory listening.
Shugorei – The Charm (feat. Shêm Allen & Karin Schaupp) [4000 Records/Bandcamp]
Brisbane percussion & electronics duo Shugorei continue releasing collaborative singles, one at a time, and here they are with another gem. This one almost sounds “post-classical”, and when you realise the song sits in a bed of beautiful classical guitar from Karin Schaupp, that starts to make sense. It’s an achingly pretty love song with vocals – in English and Japanese – from Shêm Allen as well as Camille Barry’s violin and frequent collaborator Dan Curro on cello, so yeah… classical-ish! And for me, at least, gorgeous enough that I listened to it three times in a row when I first heard it.
Caimin Gilmore – MVE I [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Some more crossover-classical now, from Irish double bassist Caimin Gilmore. As well as being a member of contemporary classical (and crossover) group Crash Ensemble, Gilmore has lent his double bass to many well-known artists including Leonard Cohen, Damon Albarn, Sam Amidon and Dirty Projectors. On his forthcoming album BlackGate Gilmore brings in the brilliant cellist Kate Ellis (who’s also in Crash Ensemble and has worked extensively with Laura Cannell) and Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer. Gilmore’s background in pop and folk as well as classical informs the compositions, which are also enhanced with the distinctive FM synthesis of his Yamaha DX-7.
Yearns – Washed on the shore [Room40/Bandcamp]
We finish tonight with the gently desolate sound of Meanjin/Brisbane duo Yearns, featuring Joel Saunders of A Country Practice and Spirit Bunny, and Andrew Foley of An Heirloom, who records solo as Grids/Units/Planes. Between them, the pair work with various kinds of analogue & digital electronics, from circuit-bent Casio keyboards to archaic software to tape loops. For Room40’s A Guide To Saints series, Yearns have released Fata Morgana, which takes its name from the visual phenomenon that can happen when light is bent from over the horizon, creating a shimmering mirage. And this music is oceanic and shimmering and slightly out of focus.