Music for Sunday Page Turning, Cosmic Voyaging or Jazz Tripping. Take your pick

Six great new albums from the independent artist underground.

My original intention with the newsletter was to use it as a long overdue email outlet for my daily tips, but it’s rapidly turned into my main focus as the engagement, feedback and discourse, not to mention the paying subscribers - who now cover my music subscriptions and website hosting costs, have blown me away. A BIG thanks to everyone who is taking an interest in my music meandering and wittering.

It’s really been a breath of fresh air after years of diminishing social media returns and the slow, sad demise of blogging. Newsletters might even be the new blogs, as most people still haven’t cottoned on, and probably never will, that RSS feeds and readers are one of the best tools for making sense of our information overload. Maybe one day, rather like the humble podcast, there will be a revival or awakening?

I soon realised, even before my own Substack subscription notifications got out of control and needed constant trimming, that a daily tip was a bit too much for everyone but the most hardened email users or app notification junkies. I’ll drop a survey soon to gauge reader preferences, but twice a week seems about right to me. Even with my constant time stress it should be manageable, although teething plus the impending end of my partners maternity leave, not to mention her now needing to find a new job after she was made redundant last week, are just round the 2025 corner. But I’ll try my best to keep you posted with my new finds in a reasonably timely fashion.

Anyway music is the new words so hit play on a few of these.

Civil Hall - the trembling line (Lost Tribe Sound)

Sorry if you needed some passive ambient listening for your Sunday page turning, you’ll really need to find thirty seven minutes spare, lock yourself in a listening room, close your eyes and immerse yourself in this.

Lost Tribe Sound are back aiding and abetting a new release from Craig Tattersall, who I should ramble on at length about but will resist the urge to for now. On this new release he teams up with another ambient notable and enthusiastic Substack scribe Euan Millar-McMeeken, aka

Glacismusic

to tape saturated, heart wrenchingly beautiful effect. It’s listenable enough just as a ferric distressed electroacoustic instrumental LP, BUT just wait for McMeeken’s vocals. If you were multi-tasking they’ll stop you in your tracks.

If you feel like a longer ambient listen with some of the best new tracks from the independent ambient underground then don’t forget the Slow Ambient Playlist.

Jake Baldwin, Zacc Harris, Pete Hennig - Boundaries (Shifting Paradigm)

This LP came out five months ago and I’m not sure how I discovered it or who any of the players are. I also have no intention of finding out and sharing that information today as I scurry to recommend as much music as possible, but I am now definitely following the trio from afar and with interest.

The LP stems from a recording session without a bass player which encouraged Hennig to adopt a more textural percussive approach, Harris to get his atmospheric guitar pedals out and Baldwin to swirl with, rather than pierce these lighter than air exchanges with his trumpet. Well until the last track, when all restraint is thrown out of the studio window and they let rip.

Nelson Devereaux - infinity (Youngbloods)

Speaking of jazz/not jazz/might be jazz there’s an exciting newish kid on the block, who the eagle eyed might have spotted lurking in the Slow Jazz Playlist for the last three months. Well Nelson Devereaux’s album on the ever excellent Youngbloods label is finally out and surpassing my expectations.

Adopting a similar, I appreciate the saxophone greats between 1955-1975 but I’m going to f*^k things up a bit approach, as Sam Gendel, Devereaux runs absolute stylistic riot veering between bedroom pop, madcap synth abuse, weirdo outsiderism and jazz futurism whilst questioning everything and being OK that he didn’t receive any definitive answers, only existential coping mechanisms. Expect the unexpected and go with the (very listenable) flow.

Funnily enough, despite stating I wasn’t going down a wormhole researching the players on the previous tip, I peeked the credits for Infinity, mainly to see if Devereaux was alone or not, and I noticed Jake Baldwin plays trumpet on track 7. Excuse me while I take a moment to let that cosmic connection sink in and put a note in my diary to research the obviously vibrant Minneapolis jazz scene at some stage.

Home Normal x Broken Chip (Home Normal)

If the last two recommendations are a bit too lively for your lazy Sunday then save them for another day and sink into this, especially those that enjoyed the Broken Chip LP I recommended a couple of weeks back. Ian Hawgood, the Home Normal driving force, has only gone and done a 45 minute mix of his favourite Broken Chip’s tracks, which is the perfect gateway to explore the artist’s work without doing all the hard digging first.

As you’d expect from the proprietor of one of the world’s finest ambient labels the track selection is impeccable and the mixing spot on; a smoother flowing ambient suite you’ll struggle to find. If ambient mixes are your thing then you should also explore the label’s Bandcamp page as a whole series of mixes dropped this year to celebrate the label’s 15th anniversary.

Message - Showcase II (A-Lone)

I stumbled Across A-Lone Records last year and if you like the classic reggae sounds of 1970s Jamaica then you should give their Bandcamp page a follow or speak nicely to your nearest record shop, you won’t find many of the releases on your streaming service. This Spanish crew from Santander, a small city in the somewhat forgotten, but oh so beautiful Cantabria region in northern Spain, are keeping things unfailingly deep and real deal

Live drums, bass, percussion, melodica, organ - tick. The northern Spanish musicians knowing their JA history and having the chops to recreate it - tick. Killer roots reggae - double tick. The progressives can turn away now, personally I’m going to turn it up.

Mark McGuire - Anhedonia (Self Release)

This one’s been sitting in the diary for a while and its time has finally come. Mark McGuire was 33.3% of Emeralds and since they disbanded in 2013 he seems to have hunkered up in the middle of nowhere with his guitars and is keeping himself busy self releasing the results on Bandcamp.

The music has been as erratic as the cover art, and it would take the most hardened of fans to go with every flight of fancy, but whatever your feelings there is no denying the guys guitar playing is top drawer. On this new release he sets off on a decidedly kosmische voyage, either soaring through or levitating above mystical realms, propelled by the mantric minimalism he teases from his acoustic/electric guitars and bass. It’s a trip.