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| Photo by Ivan Mani |
Kurt Leege - A Cephalopod Rebellion
ambient
Guitarist Kurt Leege has a storied past. From studying jazz at Swarthmore, populating New York's thriving indie scene in the bands Curdlefur and Noxes Pond, to starting a family and relocating to the island of Ireland, we find him purveying lapping and looping guitars to hypnotic effect on "A Cephalopod Rebellion", the recent release from a cycle of songs called Title Pools, which conveys "the sound, feel and experience of the sea." Indeed, these guitar lines are fluid, ebbing in and out of the stereo field like the tide on a full-moon night. The overall effect lands between sedative and inspiring, like treading a warm ocean at sunset, dazed as you drift back to shore.
Baby Schillaci - Blunt Force Trauma
post-punk
There's a potent punch to "Blunt Force Trauma", a thumping and blazing new single from Welsh upstarts Baby Schillaci. However, it's not all look-at-me bitterness and the band flits between fetching radio-friendly alternative rock to more teeth-grindingly inflammatory expressions of politically-charged rock angst. Taken from the upcoming album "The Soundtrack", this song will please those who like variety in their compositions, with its emotional dynamism displaying the extremes of turmoil.
Darkstates - Rest My Hands (feat. Clara Pople)
alternative
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With droplets of percussion and a mist of ambient textures, "Rest My Hands" is an atmospherically comfort-giving offering from London-based electronic Darkstates and vocalist Clara Pople. Sounding like rainfall over the city at nighttime, the dreamy electronic music provides a palette for Pople's vocals, all brooding with a deep richness, while her restrained approach produces something romantic and yearning, though always in control. Not all her lyrics are easily comprehensible, creating an air of elusiveness, but the ones that stand out "sometimes I forget to know where I am", communicate the difficulties of being present in a world as predictable as the weather.
Distjead - Solace Place
experimental electronic
US painter Ed Sanz doesn't stick to one medium. His oil paintings play with abstractions and create a retinal curiosity that ruminates on culture and identity. He also produces music, and his recent single "Solace Place", released under the moniker Distjead, is a delectably smooth and delicately balanced excursion in digital-audio-workstation world-building. The track's unfolding intro, all ambient with rickety percussive strikes, develops into bop-inducing IDM-inspired electronica. There's a haunting quality to the icy and melodic synth strikes, though Sanz doesn't dwell on the emotional aspects of his craft, turning to more high-minded intentions through cool indifference to the emotional weight to which he alludes.
Alterity - Ur Safe With Me
