Sunday Reflections

Ambient exploration, MPB comes out of the bedroom, astral Americana via Copenhagen, old school house purity, crate digger holy grails get respectfully covered & Celtic folk meets Malian blues.

No intro today, just some great music. If that’s not enough then don’t forget the playlists which I’ve been heavily updating recently. There really are so many great singles floating around and that’s where you’ll find them. All twenty playlists are available on Tidal, Apple Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Youtube, Youtube Music, Amazon and yes Spotify, if you don’t mind that they probably won’t pay the lesser known and alternative artists.

Will Samson - Songs Of Beginning And Belonging (Dauw)

Will Samson has been floating around the gentler end of the folk, chill-out and ambient worlds, often fusing all three, and is no stranger to TSMM’s blog and playlists. Songs Of Beginning And Belonging was commissioned by Belgium’s ambient HQ - Dauw Records, and is his latest foray into electroacoustic ambience. It’s also without doubt this week’s ambient winner.

The ambient universe is vast, but Samson has done an admirable job of mapping the warmer, solar blessed end of it in just six tracks. To keep him company on the journey he wisely invited Ben Cashell on Cello, Thos Mason on Violin, Lim Orion on Saxophone and Julian Sartorius to assist on abstract percussion during “Loshult”.

As you’d expect with cello and violin players onboard there are classical infusions, but they sit in that: is it/isn’t it/certainly not if you’re a purist, classical realm where the bowing melts into the drones to imbue the interstellar atmospherics with an emotive quality that only stringed instruments can provide. The waters are further muddied with the precision placement of all sorts of shimmering tones that have zero gravity siesta written all over them.

If that wasn’t enough Samson also occasionally leaves his synthesizer console, dusts off his trusty guitar and provides some melodic minimalism to bucolic, earthly effect. Having already upset the classical purists he can’t resist teasing the ambient aficionados too, dropping the gentlest of beat patterns during “For Now” on which to hang its ethereal folktronica. I’m certainly not complaining, it’s a beautifully crafted album from an ambient sage.

Nyron Higor - Nyron Higo (Far Out)

Oh Brazil I love your music and your land. In 2006 I needed to decompress after nine years of London life and headed over to Colombia for a look around and snag some vintage vinyl. I didn’t have much of a plan, so when I bumped into a cool couple who were heading to Brazil down the Amazon river via a cargo ship servicing the remote villages and towns along its banks, I thought why not?

A few days later I was sleeping in a hammock on the ships deck, eating river fish, pink dolphin spotting, on the receiving end of a commando style boat raid by Brazil’s DEA who found 65kg of cocaine on board, and generally soaking up the incredible beauty and natural grandeur of the Amazon jungle. After that I spent a few weeks working my way down the coast via the country’s record shops and venues small and large. I soon came to the conclusion that Brasil is the world’s most musical country. There really is music floating through the air from all directions and I’ve never come across a people so ready to start beating out rhythms on bar tables and singing along.

Higor comes from the country’s North East, is honed in its regional styles, but has an obvious love for the country’s MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) that fuses the country’s more well known traditional sounds with further flung influences.

If you listen to his 2022 debut it has a real bedroom feel: one man, his computer some budget mics and his impressive instrument collection, but most importantly it had a vibe. Check it out for some instrumental, lo-fi MPB and home spun exotica. His next step was to take some demos and unfinished tracks to São Paulo and hook up with some old mates from up north to flesh out the sketches and evolve his sound.

The lo-fi vibe is still thankfully there, especially on his one man band tracks (he plays a lot of instruments), but there is now a more vocal element from the city’s pool of talent, alongside his own rather unnecessarily shy efforts, and the arrangements are richer, again due to a concerted, well chosen, team effort. The sun also peeks through the curtains a bit more; the previously unchecked, somewhat gloomy introspection now mere thoughtfulness, his studio companions naturally forcing him to look around more, not just within. It’s a great sophomore effort and a genuine progression, it looks like there is another safe pair of hands guiding the MPB continuum.

Blue Lake - Weft (Tonal Union)

Blue Lake is an American now living in Copenhagen, where he packed his fondness for Americana but ditched the baseball cap and pick up truck for a more nuanced, hygge imbued, Samsøe & Samsøe clad sound. The new album is his lushest and fullest realisation of his constantly morphing, gently experimental, string rich sound.

Shop bought and admirably sounding home made instruments bring out the best in each other and he’s ably assisted by some old musician friends that come pre-tuned to his wavelength. The LP is also notable for some first take recordings, alongside the stunningly detailed arrangements and astral vibes. The LP is a thing of start to finish beauty.

Will Long - Long Trax 4 (Self Release)

Will Long is an American musician, writer, and photographer living in Tokyo, Japan and better known for his ambient work under his Celer moniker. He’s also got a fine line in deep, analog driven house music. Long Trax 4 is his latest transmission and it’s got a real old school, stripped down to essentials vibe that harks back to house music’s software free dawn.

With the exception of “You cannot reform a sin” which has a bit of added acid-house bounce, this is house music for the head rather than the hips, with each track clocking in at 10+ minutes. Simple, but impeccably programmed beats have a metronomic swing just in case you fancy a sway, and his ambient experience coaxes the minimal but atmospheric best from his machines. If that wasn’t enough he’s thrown in some choice spoken word samples, again harking back to those early recordings that were so fond of inspirational sound bites, often from civil rights leaders. If house music purity is your thing or you just need some chilled beats then look no further.

Medline - The Edge (My Bags)

Medline and I go back to 2013 and he hasn’t let me down in all that time. A multi-instrumentalist with tight production chops and a love for old school and golden age hip hop, he’s been fusing original compositions with some heartfelt tributes to the hip hop greats and the records that they sampled for a while.

A lot of the big samples in the early days from came from relatively easy to find reasonably priced records, but as the art of sampling developed so did the search for unique breaks - rare Italian jazz, obscure library music and off into other genres well detached from the original soul, jazz and funk favourites.

With this new collection Medline has covered the holy grail end of the digging spectrum, those tunes that sit on the walls of well stocked record stores for three figure sums and that every digger hopes to unearth for a dollar at a thrift store.

Don’t ask me what the originals tracks are - they’re out of my budget and scope, but just kick back and sink into these beautifully crafted, cinematic, jazzy and funktified interpretations, and keep half an ear open for those magic moments that were transformed into some of your favourite hip hop bangers.

Sam Grassie - Jarabi, Winter has Gone (Self Release)

Sam Grassie is a nomadic fingerstyle folk guitarist from Glasgow. I first came across him as part of the sadly short lived Avocet, who TSMM supported and even persuaded to provide a track for my well received Future Folk compilation, which even got props in The Guardian newspaper - tip!

This EP is part of his solo evolution and quite the surprise. Out of nowhere he’s invited some Malian blues to his normally more Celtic rooted party, aided by his old Avocet pal Iona Zajac, Joshua Cobb on bass and also surprisingly, the young forward looking jazz drummer Moses Boyd.

The single is a joyous, beautifully played folk fusion tune and further confirmation that Grassie is a talent on his way up the folk ladder. If in doubt just ask Ryley Walker, who he toured around the UK with in January.