No Moss Here
Long grass inspired electroacoustics, off-world ambient, outsider folk meets white gospel, modern folk rock royalty, raw sample strewn beatdown house from South Africa and a DJ mix masterclass.
After the summer’s drama I took a welcome breather in September, but October’s dawn was a wake up call that my temporary accommodation was coming to an end, and a new roof would be needed soon. As Portugal has been in the throes of a speculatory property boom since it wobbled out of its 2010 debt crisis (fascinatingly by rejecting the EU’s austerity measures), the rental prices of small one bedroom apartments, even well outside of the Lisbon and Porto epicentres, now demand the country’s minimum wage. So I’ve been looking at alternatives.
Unsurprisingly I’ve been avoiding the estate agents that seem to be multiplying like late stage cancer cells, and who are currently gleefully informing their clients how much they can get for their properties whilst smugly rubbing their hands at the increased commissions and tenant finder fees, and have been trawling the similarly mushrooming community and alternative living chat groups that are springing up on Telegram and WhatsApp.
It’s been eye opening to see how people are helping each other out in these groups, it reminded me of the early ad-free days of the internet before the broligarchs took over. Whether it’s an enquiry and then offer of a piece of land to pitch a yurt, gifts of outgrown children’s items, seed swaps, social invitations, local workmen tips, or in my case a dog sitting gig enquiry which turned into an open ended offer to live rent free in comfortable accommodation. OK it’s in return for help with property maintenance and pruning the myriad fruit and olive trees on the four acres, but at my suggestion also allows me to fulfil a long held desire to establish a no-dig vegetable garden on one of the property’s terraces, which just happen to look down a wooded, sparsely populated valley to the Atlantic 3km away, and promise more sunset views than I’ll know what to do with. Bring it on.
Relying on the internet for my part-time online job and to develop TSMM, I’ve been in something of a www cocoon in recent years. It gave me an unremarkable, but relatively comfortable life and an escape from uncaring employers and efficiency obsessed middle management, but the last few weeks have really reminded me of the importance of personal connections and local community. It’s also been heartwarming and inspiring to see alternatives to dog eat dog capitalism flourishing; people willing to open their doors to strangers and give them a chance, bartering making a comeback and minds being opened before suspicions are raised. It’s partly due to the rural settings which require more social effort, as well as the varying degrees of counter cultural instinct intrinsic to city escapees (the locals are a different matter) who choose to defy urbanisation and the race race, but how nice to know that there is life beyond consumerism, populism, neoliberalism, probably a few other “isms”, rental contract servitude and household debt repayments.
I understand it’s not for everyone. With little or no preparation and meaningful savings I’ve left a comfortable one car home in recent weeks and exchanged it for temporary accommodation with (lovely) strangers and a new mountain bike with a child seat. But fingers crossed, next year is promising a rent free, honest toil earned living space, seriously reduced food costs( #prayforTSMM’svegtablegarden), the sound and sights of nature rather than cars and people, and a healthy outdoor existence with a grassy crashing landing for my now walking daughter. Onwards and upwards.
In other news:
A great article on AI music’s infiltration of Spotify in Pitchfork, from one of the most interesting new generation music journalists - Kieran Press-Reynolds.
A beautifully presented and well reasoned argument against AI art.
After experimenting with Chat GPT for a month to see what the fuss was about and to shamelessly generate some artwork for my playlists, I then stopped using all AI out of privacy and environmental concerns, but I’ve been lured out of retirement and been dabbling with Lumo recently. It’s a privacy focussed, lower carbon footprint alternative from the ever excellent Proton organisation. If you want to start divesting yourself from the Trump enabling, data scraping, internet controlling US monopolies and broligarchs then check it out, and switch your email, VPN, cloud storage and calendar over whilst your at it.
Right on to the music.
M. Sage - Tender / Wading (RVNG Intl)
Matthew Sage is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and intermedia artist, not to mention a great writer. I’ve been following his singular, more produced than played sonic visions for a while, he’s one of those rare artists I tend towards, who defy easy comparison and description.
Adversity is a creative and musical catalyst, and things took an interesting turn with 2020’s locked down and strictly online collaborative project Fuubutsushi, which resulted in a much more recognisable compositional and “musical” turn when he teamed up Chris Jusell’s violin, Chaz Prymek’s guitar and Patrick Shiroishi’s sax and wind prowess to augment his keyboards, voice and field recordings. It also set the bar very high for the myriad online collaborations happening at the time; few got anywhere near.
Tender / Wading is almost a solo extension of the Fuubutsushi project. Probably encouraged by the pandemic Sage has returned to the Colorado pastures of his youth, a setting which shines through in the pastoral vibes and sounds, real or intimated, that seep through the speakers. He also seems to have learned the clarinet recently and it’s a welcome addition to his fragile found sounds and thoughtful piano, guitar, accordion, synth and percussion work.
Setting the scene nicely is “The Garden Spot”, the sounds of insects soon overwhelming the electrical hum which accompanies the borderline twee clarinet, guitar and bells in a way that could only come from a man content with his life choices. “Witch Grass” is a good natured slice of gently trotting lounge music with otherworldly synth undertones. “Chinook’s” flute adds a new age, beatific aura to the percussive noise and breezy layered clarinet.
“Wading the Plain” is a soporific electroacoustic soundscape which lulls you to sleep before the relatively uptempo minimal meets jazz folk burst of “Open Space Properties” pokes you in the ribs with an impish wink. Energy dissipated, “Telegraph Weed Waltz” and “Fracking Starlite” then massage your temples once more, but get prepared for the glitching, scratchy, edgy ambient jazz of “ Field House Deer (Mice)“ which undoes the previous head rubs, but makes the album closing, cosmos contemplating “Tender of the Land” even more of a wobbling, undulating, lysergic new age treat.
o[rlawren] - Poiesis (DRONARIVM)
Discovering Orla Wren this week was long overdue considering he’s got a twenty year history of ambient endeavour; perhaps it’s more of a reflection on my relative late arrival to the genre? Born in the north of England, but now based up in southern Scotland, he works at “the intersections between sound, visual artforms, technology, science and incorporating interests in ecology, experimental geographies, resonant landscapes, site-specific sound installations and sensory immersion.” I’ve read a few such manifestos and quite often the reality never sounds as good as the theory, but on quick back catalogue inspection he seems to have quite the way with intimate and melodic electroacoustic works, which is mostly where my ambient heart lies.
I probably overuse the word otherworldly whist reviewing, I’ll question my psychiatrist if I ever get one if I’m using music as an Anthropocene escape mechanism, but I’m rolling it out again for Poiesis, which according to the release notes is, “a continuation in the artists ongoing research into modular synthesis and field recordings, informed by and in collaboration with the works ‘we wander in circles through the night and are consumed by fire’ and ‘physis’ by Portuguese photographer Carina Martins and the author Rui Ibañez Matoso.“
Electronic music sounded like the future forty years ago but now just sounds modern, yet Wren through his sonic palette and machine manipulation has managed to rectify that situation with his unusual synth sounds, found and handmade recordings and oddball effects, coupled with his idiosyncratic sonic detailing. Hidden in the electronic mists are dulcimer, wooden whistle, dilruba, clarinet and piano, but good luck with immediately recognising them most of the time. Machine sounds ape the dawn chorus, electronic static sounds like rain and synth tones intimate alien insect interactions with flora light years from here. Or is it the other way round? It’s a deep plugged in, hand crafted, ridiculously detailed journey through the minutia of an imaginary ecosystem, and a welcome temporary reprieve from reality.
I should also mention that he simultaneously released another, more restless, somewhat uneasier LP, also on the ever excellent Dronarivm ambient label, so if this one grabs you then you know where to go.
Weirs - Diamond Grove (Dear Life)
Regular readers might remember me tipping Weirs on the strength of this album’s first single, the white gospel strains of “I Want to Die Easy” a while back? Well I was somewhat non-plussed by the rather provocative choice of “Everlasting” as their second “single”, or maybe I should be giving them props, but the album is finally here, and all is well again.
Based around North Carolina, Weirs are an experimental, non-hierarchical collective that depending on what’s happening, number from two to twelve people at a gig, are rooted in age old tradition, with a DIY ethos and a pleasing fondness for giving things a twist or ten. The new album saw nine of the crew: Child-Lanning; Justin Morris, Libby Rodenbough, Evan Morgan, Courtney Werner, Mike DeVito and stalwarts Andy McLeod, Alli Rogers, and Oriana Messer squeeze into an old house on a dairy farm in 2023, and boy did those cows get a treat.
Whether it’s the aforementioned white gospel (it’s a thing you know), the outsider droning strings and age old folk tale “Lord Randall”, the field recording infused orchestra tuning discordant soundscape of “Everlasting”, the patiently building ultimately edgy pump organ and string soundscape meets early twentieth century tavern tale of “Edward”, the oddball autotuned and layered vocals of “Doxology (I)”, insect sounds meeting avant orchestral palette cleanser of “(A Still, Small Voice)”, the twenty minute uneasy ambient folk strains of “Lord Bateman“ or the circle completing ecclesiastical “Doxology (II)”, the album is an outsider folk meets leftfield white gospel one of a kind and deserves your close attention.
Joan Shelley - Real Warmth (No Quarter)
I almost didn’t include the Joan Shelley album as I had that nagging feeling again that she’s well known enough already and her sound is a touch too straight ahead, but damn she does what she does well. Incidentally and just for a bit of folk gossip, I found out in my quick research that she’s also the partner of Nathan Salsburg who you might remember from the last newsletter, now there’s a thing.
Originally from Louisville, Kentucky and now residing in Michigan, Real Warmth is, alongside numerous collaborations and side gigs, her ninth consistently fine album in a fifteen year long career, hence that aforementioned popularity I guess - the cream always rises, especially with such a solid work ethic to back it up. I first came across her with 2019’s stripped back yet resonating When The River Loves the Sea, before I dived back into more backroom folk folds, but I’ve returned from the roots music gloom and am smitten once more.
Real Warmth is a fuller bodied affair than normal. Recorded in a snowy Toronto last winter, it enlisted the likes of hubby Nathan, Ben Whiteley on Production alongside local musos and mates, Matt Kelley, Karen Ng, Philippe Melanson, Doug Paisley, Tamara Lindeman, Ken Whiteley and Talya Bloom Salsburg, most of whom I’m guessing, not that you’d know it by listening, probably never worked with Shelley before; a testament to Whitely’s sensitivity and production prowess.
I was also immediately sold by the album opener, “Here in the High and Low” with it’s propulsive drums and vintage folk rock fusion vibes to it, which also sets a nice loose feel to the album, something cemented by the jazz sax licks threading through the following folk strummer, “On the Gold and Silver“. Folk jazz? Yes Please. I guess it’s Mr. Salsburg, but make sure you also marvel at the free wheeling acoustic guitar picking on the gentle but cavernously deep, “Field Guide to Wild Life” - it’s heavy.
It’s not just the musicians going deep here either. Under Shelley’s sunny side of the street vocal warmth, the topics of home, communities split apart for political ends, motherly concerns, the upper echelons of humanity’s inhumanity and that largely and oddly overlooked topic of the earth’s destruction all get a look in. Wisely she doesn’t throw her worries in your face, she’s far too poetic for that, but peel back the blankets which make this album so comforting and you’ll discover a body chilled by 2025’s news cycle.
And so the album continues along its balmy, free spirited way. Check out the meandering nursery rhyme-like course of, “Wooden Boat”, the slide guitar infused country intimacy of “For When You Can’t Sleep“, the distinctive percussion and lightly stoned contemplation of “Ever Entwine“, the vocal forward “The Orchard” and Shelley at her most intimate on the album closing “The Hum”; there’s much to enjoy. So get out of the car and hop on the bus where you’ll be well entertained, and cautiously warned, whilst hearing how to resist and thrive. There is strength in numbers, and comfort in community.
Mag’oveni - NKATSANYETI (Self Release)
This one came to my attention because Andrew Jervis, who I’m following on Bandcamp, bought it and highlights how useful and important the social aspects of the site are, if you want to get out of your echo chamber then start following a few artists, labels, fans and tastemakers, you never quite know what you’ll find.
Details are thin on the ground, but I do know Mag’oveni hails from South Africa, which is where all of this new millennium’s meaningful house mutations - gqom and amapiano have originated from. Oddly enough, after a few random plays of his extensive catalogue built over the last five years, he seems to be more of a boom bap man, but he’s managed to squeeze out this impressive album of raw, sample strewn, beatdown house that although somewhat unpolished, has more fresh ideas than Traxsource’s top 100 house chart put together.
The sounds of THE motherland are there in abundance, overtly in the ritualistic field recordings but soaked in the tracks’ DNAs - tempos are refreshingly low but the urgency is high, samples are looped, loopy and hallucinatory and somehow there’s a comforting familiarity alongside the far outness. I might be doing Studio Mag’oveni a disservice, but there is that early house feeling here in buckets. The pioneers didn’t have much in the way of equipment, but they squeezed every last drop out of what they had, twisting the basic equipment’s sounds into machine music that encapsulated the black experience and which was infused with an innate funkiness and love for the dance, and this album does that too. House is a feeling not an expensive studio.
Call Super - A Rhythm Protects One (Dekmantel)
Having sold mixtapes (well CDs) of all descriptions on Camden Market for five years, just before Napster fuelled downloading hammered the last nails into the coffin of physical music (don’t believe the vinyl hype), I still have a soft spot for them, and although we’re now drowning in mixes and with my financial incentive to listen gone, I rarely check them these days, but I still know a good thing when I hear it.
It also helps that Call Super is at the controls, not to mention embedded in the speakers. They’re an artist who’s been consistently great from the off - both their productions and DJ sets go deep. There’s an obvious appreciation of house and techno’s roots as well as all the genre’s meaningful mutations, coupled with a desire to innovate rather than replicate.
So how do you go about making a DJ mix special these days? Well rather than look far and wide for music that shares your vision, you can start by inventing more aliases than a schizophrenic on meth, then hunker down in a studio until people start calling the police wondering where you are, painstakingly make each track from scratch and sequence them like a pro before cabin fever sets in. Easy.
Call Super starts slow - the age old sign of confident and mature selectors the world over, with a haunted slice of glitchy jazz infused downtempo that dissolves into it’s double timing minimal house cousin and so the journey begins. Bumping tech house, cosmic deep house, Afrolatin driven soulful house, star gazing tribal techno, ambient spoken word interludes and futuristic speed garage bass bin testers are all there, impeccably mixed and mastered, sounding crispy and propulsive, ready for the next time you want a pre-club livener or a living room rave up.
Don’t Forget TSMM’s Playlists and Podcast.
From ambient sound baths and wellness imbuing new age vibes to underground house via jazz, neoclassical, folk, dub and more, the twenty one TSMM playlists and podcast cover a lot of ground, and are updated regularly.
They’re available on Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon, Youtube Music, Youtube, Deezer, Soundcloud and Spotify (if you don’t worry about them not paying most of the artists on the playlists).