Sunday Selection

London meets Brazil as chamber music for orbiting space stations floats through the speakers, whilst murky underground soul from Baltimore rubs shoulders with low gravity ambient electronica.

It’s been a long week. A plague hit the house for the first time since the little one came along. The nipper was down and out first, closely followed by me and finally my partner. It was like a viral relay race with those pesky virus particles expertly passing the baton just as their current vessel had fought them to a standstill. You’ve got to take your hat off to them, viruses know what they’re doing.

Consequently it was all I could do to hold it together for my day job and parenting duties and the midweek music missive had to be shelved. Hopefully today’s selection will make it up to you. Oddly for a Sunday there isn’t an ambient release as such, but they’re all pretty mellow listens.

anaiis & Grupo Cosmo (5dB)

Today’s pre-dawn rise to go through my neglected Bandcamp feed paid dividends when I unearthed this Anglo-Brazilian gem from anaiis & Grupo Cosmo. Inspired by a previous artist residency in Salvador, anaiis returned to Brazil in 2023 to resume where she’d left off, fusing her nu-soul and futuristic singer songwriter tendencies with the joys of Brazilian music.

Staying at producer and percussionist Biel Basile’s house, further south this time in Ilhabela, she got into the local rhythm, not just the intensive writing and recording of working musicians, but communal dining, trips to the beach and late night tales, and you can certainly hear that sun kissed, informal and convivial atmosphere throughout the LP. This was an album made by friends, not an artist surrounded by studio mercenaries.

By the end of the week, without a computer in sight apparently, the bones of the LP were recorded and then presumably fleshed out back in London, if the subtle electronic embellishments and names of the string players are anything to go by. It’s classic Brazilian fare on the whole, but anaiis leaves her soulful and forward looking mark as she curiously explores and toys with the worlds of orchestral assisted MPBs, dream samba, acoustic roots and old and nu-bossa, even finding time for an afro-futuristic interlude. Great stuff.

Aus - Fluctor (Flau)

Apparently waste not want not can be applied to music as well. With his new LP Aus has dusted off some film project demos, enlisted Takahara Kumi on violin as his main cohort and toned down his genre blending exploits to devise what sounds like futuristic, low gravity chamber music for orbiting space stations.

If that wasn’t enough there’s some impressive guests as well, most notably Julianna Barwick and Meg Baird on vocals, with further spectral assistance from his local Japanese crew. I said earlier that there wasn’t an ambient pick today, but with its drum-free compositions and ethereal aesthetic this comes pretty damn close at times. Most tracks float effortlessly through the speakers and hang in the air like your wayward uncle’s cigarette smoke, though with its cinematic roots there are moments of suspense and mild drama; Kumi’s violin ably assisted by the cello of Danny Norbury to pull them off.

The album’s a lovely ambient neoclassical listen which will sound great on a Sunday evening.

Dawuna - Naya (Sun Royalle)

Dawuna’s singular, self produced debut Glass Lit Dream, which despite being a a slow burner is now widely recognised as something of an alt-soul classic by the heads, was a big album at TSMM HQ when it dropped.

Three years on he’s back with a follow up full length, and I’m happy to report he’s still going strong. The distinctly underground aesthetic is still there, but at times it’s taken on slightly more recognisable nu-soul forms with the throwback nods via a couple of choice samples, and the Prince vibe on several cuts.

Don’t get me wrong though this boy’s not going to be troubling the charts anytime soon. The LP is littered with loose cable crackles, vinyl static, distortion and an unflinching lo-fi vibe, which adds a shadowy, THC saturated mood to the deep rooted soul and low slung funkiness. Start here, then head straight to his debut and get with the underground soul program.

Leif -Liminal Pieces (Self Release)

One last quickie for today and that’s this mighty fine collection of ambient saturated electronica from Leif, who I’ve been following with interest since his excellent Loom Dream release on AD93.

If you know you’ve probably already hit play, but if not then sink into his soft edged beats and ambient drift, where even the club constructs are designed for the start of night or after the after party.

Apparently all the tracks are previously unreleased or under-the-radar / vinyl-only tracks spanning from 2003 - 2023, but all deserving this second wind, nudge into the digital limelight and a wider audience.