Tag Archives: bandcamp

Robert Dallas Gray – Missals (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Part of the practice of making music involves arriving at and maintaining a sort of coherence and continuity – a heuristic that defines personal rules and parameters, however loosely. These parameters can always be pushed outwards or arbitrarily compressed, but the shape of things needs to make sense, over shorter and longer spans of time and collections of work.

Missals represents something of a suspension of my own rules; it has its own internal language, although it exists in a dialogue with the other records.

There are some obvious entries in the lexicon – some technical, some iconographic. Every track uses my Dynacord tape echo; the overall shape of the record is a cycle; influences are left as pure colours, rather than elided and absorbed.

It is a (rather compact) concept album, in short, and a way both to get some musical ideas off my chest and to kick some of my personal parameters outward a little. Its conceit allows me to take the devotional aspects that seemed to emerge on The Vallum and push them as far as I can within my own worldview.

Missals is presented with heartfelt thanks to Kris Boyle for his extraordinary accompanying video works, and to LADYfingers for their beautiful artwork. Both of these feature in the attached digital booklet.

The opening track, Morning Portal, first appeared on the compilation One More Tune, and is dedicated to the memory of Keith McIvor.

Jarl – Nerve Cell Threads Electronics (Zoharum)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

We are glad to present the new album of Jarl titled „Nerve Cell Threads Electronics”. The Swedish musician refers to the themes that accompanied the creation of the trilogy on the brain and the nervous system, making the new publication an informal, fourth part of the series in which he touched on the topics of neurotransmitters, receptors and synapses. The album contains four tracks called „Electrical Impulse 1 – 4”, filling nearly 60 minutes. This time the tracks has a little darker tone/sound, but still psychedelic, melodic, restrained and sometimes intense with percussive layers and sequencer based with thick analogue sounds that slowly changes into other sounds.
The album is available on CD in a six-panel digipack, on cassette and in digital format.
 

Composed, recorded and mixed by Erik Jarl.
Cover artwork & design by Karolina Urbaniak.
Mastered by Peter Andersson

datewithdeath – Apple Tree Brightness (Poverty Electronics)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

composed and produced between October 2023 and January 2024


datewithdeath is Travis D. Johnson: field recordings, electromagnetic and otherwise; digital synthesis; springs; motors; objects; oscillators; drum machines; radios; glockenspiel
linktr.ee/travisdjohnsonwrites

Ursula’s Cartridges – Sleep Deprivation Cities (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Visiting the downtown life while under the sleep deprivation.

“Funky, largely upbeat take on vaporwave aesthetics that incorporates a wide range of other styles into the mix. Incorporating elements and samples of electro funk, hip hop. Chemical Brothers-style breaks and beyond, the artist pulls some pretty interesting stuff into the vaporwave space, and it mostly works.

Things even get weird and experimental at times, still anchored to the overarching aesthetic. Slushy vibes, smeary reverb, and making everything sound like a dying VCR works across a wide variety of styles! Definitely one to check out if you appreciate the Vaporwave Extended Universe.”

-Ether Diver, OPM: Hybrid Aesthetic

Ed Herbers – Season Cycle: Winter (Passed Recordings)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

It is remarkable how a small shift in the sun’s position has such a dynamic effect on the weather. The seasons are experienced differently around the world, and I am fortunate to have lived my entire life in a place that has four distinct seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn.

I find the seasons to be a great source of inspiration, and I set out to create a suitable soundtrack for each one. Beginning on Winter Solstice (Dec 21, 2025) and on each subsequent equinox/solstice through 2026, I will be releasing an EP of songs inspired by the corresponding season that “begins” on that date. Season Cycle: Winter is the first EP in the series.

I have mixed feelings about winter. I usually find the long, dark nights and freezing temperatures a little depressing, but I also enjoy the contrast of a warm fire and twinkling holiday lights. We tend to have at least one good snowfall each year, an element of winter that adds a little magic to the cold–there’s something difficult to explain about the way it soundlessly covers the earth, creating temporary, unfamiliar landscapes. I tried to channel the season through somber ambient drones and frozen soundscapes (while also trying to capture some of that winter magic).

I acknowledge that these songs are not representative of how everyone experiences the seasons (my Northern Hemisphere/American Midwest bias is a big factor here). Even if you live in a part of the world where your experience of the seasons is not like my own, I hope that, even if just for a moment, these songs immerse you into the cold of winter, the blooms of spring, the humidity of summer, and the blazing colors of autumn. 


All songs written, mixed, and performed by Ed Herbers. All songs produced in Renoise 3.3.2
Album art & digital booklet photos by Ed Herbers.

Mastered by Exit Chamber (exitchamber.bandcamp.com)

Full Moon’s Light on Fallen Snow first appeared on Passed Winter, from Passed Recordings (passedrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/passed-winter)

Nils Frahm – Wintermusik (Erased Tapes)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description: Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music. During his childhood he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski – a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. The three instrumentals, which make up his debut ‘Wintermusik’ are piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celeste and reed organ parts. The record’s equal measures of sorrowful refrains and uplifting passages, combined with a real intimacy that makes for an album you’ll want to return to again and again. The songs were originally intended as a Christmas present for friends and family, hence its winter release.

Olhava – Frozen Bloom (Avantgarde Music)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Frozen Bloom is our fourth album where we took some different routes compositionally(sic). Two of four tracks are traditionally storm-like blackgaze passages and another two are leaning towards more meditative drone experience.

It is about unfulfilled dreams. About how we sacrifice everything today for some abstract “tomorrow” which may never come. But tomorrow and yesterday don’t exist – only this very moment of static contemplation.

When winter is just starting to fade and give some space for a spring’s first steps, when first life starts to reappear and the very early flowers peek through the thawing soil a sudden shift in temperature can leave them petrified and frozen back again like being punished by the Queen of Fields. This statuesque dead beauty, being infinitely alive and dead at the same time is Frozen Bloom.

We got a chance to collaborate with A. Lunn (appearing courtesy of Bindrune records) who kindly agreed to record an electric guitar solo as well as acoustic parts and choral parts on Frozen Bloom I

Recording, mixing and mastering by Mihail Kurochkin
Cover art by Daniel Teisakowski (@daniel_tskwsk)
Guest electric guitar, acoustic guitar, square neck resonator guitar and choral vocals – A. Lunn (Appearing courtesy of Bindrune recordings)
Physical release via Avantgarde music
Cassette release by Slowsnow records

Zi iacchos – Fragments (Self-Released)

Posted by John Lithium on

Label Description:

Fragments is a series of short musical pieces conceived as breaths rather than songs.

After the album Ornaments, which was built around text, voice, and symbolic articulation, Fragments moves in the opposite direction:
less language, less structure, less intention.

Each piece is limited in duration (around two minutes), not by constraint, but by necessity.
They are not meant to develop or conclude — they appear, remain briefly, and dissolve.

The voice, when present, is reduced to a single word, a syllable, or a gesture.
Sound is treated as matter: grain, air, erosion, suspension.

Fragments was composed and recorded live, without overdubs, to preserve fragility and immediacy.
It is designed for saturated minds and quiet rooms — a space to breathe, not to explain.

This EP is not a continuation of Ornaments, but its decantation.