So after getting up at an ungodly hour, whizzing through a ton of music submissions, doing some exercise, cooking a week’s worth of soup, putting in a shift on the bill-paying job, I want to get the newsletter out so I can have a snooze and crack on with developing my new TSMM project that will hopefully combine job satisfaction with financial security. Oh, and if I get time, I might even resurrect TSMM’s podcast - although realistically it will be an evening next week, being as it’s been a year since the last episode. Luckily, there’s over three days of great music interspersed with my whisperings in the archives to keep the interested occupied, including a few chilled DJ mixes at the podcast’s inception that I’d forgotten about. If you’ve got a long weekend to spare, check them out.
And if that wasn’t enough, here’s some brand new music that I suggest you have a listen to as well.
Neuro… No Neuro - MemLoss (Self Release)
After the Romeo Poirier release a while back, I didn’t think albums could get much more poignant, but this one from long-time TSMM fave, Arizona resident, animal technician, abstract electronic aficionado, painter and graphic designer Kirk Markarian aka Neuro… No Neuro is something else.
It certainly seems to have been a year for musical accounts of artists’ struggles with serious health issues; see also the Autorhythm album which takes its inspiration from the artist’s seemingly successful battle with Parkinson’s Disease and Piksel’s neoclassical music inspired by her cancer treatment, both of which I’ve just lifted from the website and added to the end of the newsletter for the curious (and TSMM blog-deprived).
Although the issue is not named, in Markarian’s words “MemLoss is about my speech and memory becoming noticeably inconsistent. Day-to-day, I am forgetting words when I speak (not when I write), as well as forgetting various steps in whatever task I’m supposed to be doing. Because of this, I’ve begun using my music, animation, artwork, etc., as a method of documentation. Not so much documentation of speech and memory loss, but of the confusion it leaves behind.
The most interesting part of this issue, to me, is the amount of proof it takes to get those around me to actually understand what is going on. From having to use descriptors instead of the actual words I need, to inadvertently missing parts of the processes I perform every day. While it is audibly and visibly apparent; rather than trying to understand, it’s discounted. Most frustrating is the decline. Of course this is glossed over, because it’s like watching an hourglass - change is happening slowly - faster now than before, but still glacial to the outside observer.
MemLoss will be my opening statement on what is happening. Going forward my style will both be pulling from the past and becoming more and more like what is happening to my mind. Fragmenting and reiterating.”
But this is no pity review. The music is great. MemLoss continues Markarian’s well-honed line in post-glitch ambient minimalism. His music is unrepentantly electronic, and somewhat refreshingly, I believe, no birds have ever been recorded for his creations. Oddly though, there is a somewhat bucolic air to his ambient works, but more in a violence-free platform video game through lush alien flora soundtrack sort of way.
Markarian hones in on machine-generated tones, oscillations, echoes and pads; isolating fragments, enlarging then sculpting them, before shrinking and rearranging the newly shaped pieces into traditional arrangement eschewing soundscapes, that despite the lack of obvious refrains and the plethora of irregular pulses, bleeps, clicks, pops and whirs, have a chaotic yet cohesive flow, cosmically attuned nature and rather blissful audio texture, that will please both those requiring an otherworldly backdrop for life stuff, and the headphone-clad sonic explorers looking for a deep dive into painstakingly crafted ambient soundscapes.
I’m curious, although I’d like to think not in an accident rubber necking kind of way, to see how the series develops, and can only wish him well.
Or Sobre Blau - Making Friends (Stroom TV)
Or Sobre Blau were conceived in 2017, just at the end of Lisbon’s heyday as Europe’s trendy city for the young and restless to move to. I know, as fashionably late I moved there in 2018, just as it was becoming the digital nomad and ruthless property developers’ city of choice, Europe’s latest oversaturated tourist hell hole and prohibitively expensive for the poorly paid locals - all at the same time. I don’t miss it, and certainly couldn’t afford to rent there these days.
It’s where two guitarists - Andreu G. Serra and Kiran Leonard met and hit it off socially and musically, resulting in The Piri Piri Samplers, a meeting of Serra’s sometimes raucous, more experimental electrocoustic inclinations, and Leonard’s gentler acoustic ways, and let’s face it sweet and sour always tastes good. They were then encouraged by Stroom TV, who reissued the album, to record a follow-up, which they did in London’s Lewisham, oddly a borough where I also lived.
The album is a wilfully meandering, compositionally playful, yet artistically serious slice of lysergic folk meets oddball, unhurried, stoner post-rock (alternative genre suggestions welcome in the comments), that was born from weekly improvised recording sessions over a six month period, so it’s a wonder it sounds as cohesive as it does. Whether it’s entirely a collage, or they played over a painstakingly assembled musical mosaic made from the recordings, I’ll leave that to you and the far geeky corners of music Reddit to discuss. What I do know is that you need to go on this journey; it’s tender and abrasive, curious and crafted, sweet and occassionally grating, live and sample-strewn, intense and soothing, but always intimate. Like they’re playing just for you and you alone, which is how I suggest you listen to it.
Parasite Jazz (Disque De La Spirale)
I got very excited when I saw that Parasite Jazz had just dropped a follow-up to their killer debut LP, and it’s pretty good. I honestly recommend you take a listen. But I insist you listen to their debut, which you have before you, it’s raw, edgy and oozing attitude from every track, and as much as I admire them for expanding their sound, their debut just kicks a whle lot more arse. I just noticed I left a review of it on their Bandcamp release page, which still sums it up nicely:
“The UK gets a lot of attention for mutating the jazz continuum in interesting new directions but I'm currently transfixed by France's gilet jaune wearing Parasite Jazz whose self titled debut LP is a hard hitting, freewheeling, deviantly dubbed, post punk, krautrock, jazz not jazz fusion that simmers with discontent & righteous anger. The revolution will most definitely be televised and this gets my vote for the soundtrack.“
So get stuck in. Oddly Parasite Jazz don’t have their own Bandcamp page, but whilst you’re over in their label’s Bandcamp having a listen, check out the SQ Mice album as well if nu-new wave, lo-fi ambient and general scuzziness are your cup of tea. It almost made the newsletter a while back, and now seems like an opportune time to mention it.
Love Is Yes - Ghosts and More Ghosts (Kit)
Love Is Yes have just dropped their sophomore album on the ever quirky and quality Kit Records. If you didn’t know, they’re a Dutch duo names Dax Niesten and Sander van der Toorn and, from a quick listen to their debut, this is something of an evolutionary leap.
Their sound palette has broadened, and there are all sorts of welcome new electroacoustic elements popping up, often in unusual and unexpected places. The first album ploughed a similar furrow, but the new approach is gentler, makes better use of space - ditching their debut’s heavier drones,they’ve upped the playfulness - albeit in an opiated fashion, flirted again with twee but stopped just the right side of the fence, generally spent more time obsessing over sonic details and the vocals are content to haunt the music rather than worry about drawing attention to themselves.
It’s an odd release in that I can’t pick any favourite tracks - none of them really leapt out at me, but instead all the tracks huddle together for the greater good, and provide a really lovely start to finish listen that will work a treat noodling away in the background of your administrative tasks, as well as providing some soothing audio enrichment for your quiet moments.
Helen Franzmann and Nick Huggins - public holiday at you yangs regional park (Brierfield Flood Press)
This is a curious release from a curious label - Brierfield Flood Press, who in their own words, “are a small Australian label. who release music and publish poetry, when the time feels right.” I can’t attest to their poetry, but I almost recommended their last musical release from Field Commander Alli. If intimate alt-folk is your thing, don’t delay, and this, their latest release from Helen Franzmann and Nick Huggins is definitely too good not to shout about.
I’m classing it as ambient due to its gentle, calming and transportive nature, even though it’s got a rhythmic, albeit resting, pulse at times. The songs are saturated in field recordings that bring oft-ignored ambient sound, whether natural or urban, to the fore and to your attention. An old piano is tinkled every now and then, synth tones are played and looped from another room; in fact it sounds like everything is done from rooms adjacent to the microphone, which, to compound the distant, lo-fi vibe was quite possibly situated next to an open window on a farm. I can’t find out who did what, but the distressed electroacoustic ambient atmospherics provide a threadbare, but cozy rug for Franzmann’s painfully shy vocals and occassional conversational snippets from the pair to rest on, as they probably discuss which household object to start rattling, clanking or squeezing next. It’s a gloriously lo-fi, quietly eccentric, oddball ambient, refreshingly timorous singer-songwriter album that, rather like its label home, is curious and defies easy comparison.
bookend - Hi, hi not goodbye (Bookshelf) [Alt-Pop]
Bookend are a new alt-pop duo from London’s fertile cultural and musical melting pot, consisting of Brazilian songwriter and poet Michelle Ricciardi and Japanese producer Masaaki Yoshida, better known as Anchorsong - a wholeheartedly TSMM approved supported project. The duo have previous history, with Ricciardi having previously helped out to great effect on Yoshida’s solo work, but this is a whole new chapter.
It’s a pretty fresh-sounding project too. First off is Ricciardi’s vocal delivery. She kicks off with a half-sung looped refrain on “30 degrees” - the EP opener, probably just to ease the listener in, but it’s not long before she narrates her refreshingly honest tale in her preferred sweet yet sultry, gently delivered, spoken word style. Masaaki for his part provides an equally distinctive, stripped-back, minimal house reminiscing rhythm, with little in the way of melodic adornment so as not to distract from the musing. Next up is the twee, tropcial dancehall riddim of “lighthouse” and more honest thoughts and reminiscences from Ricciardi as she continues her reflection on the modern living minefield, personal affairs of the heart and their aftermath, with the chorus piano infusion providing a rare, mainstream hook.
More quirky, playful digi-tropical beats drive, “summer love”, an ode to warm weather dalliances distinctively told in spoken, sung, English and Portuguese style. Last but not least is the EP’s, and probably live show, closing “vinyl on the wall”, a nice slice of leftfield dance pop, with the project’s telltale minimal beats, subtle hookiness and more mid-Atlantic - almost ASMR-like at times, musing from the leading lady. It’s a cool, quirky project with leftfield pop appeal, that refreshing doesn’t sound like too much else. Hopefully, it’s not a one off.
arc rae feat. Mathhilde Vendramin - Bow and Arrow (Mystery Circles) [Electronic Music]
Morgan Vergnol aka arc rae is a French-born producer currently based in Berlin, and no stranger to TSMM's blog and playlists. Over the last five years he's developed a nice line in gently restless, playful yet cultured sound design and post-glitch cosmictronica, often with gentle ambient undercurrents for the ever interesting Mystery Circles. I heartily recommend you explore both his and the label's back catalogues.
His new album is something of a departure though, and takes the restlessness to a new, more agitated state, but fear not, despite the lack of familiar form, the ultra-broken beats and future minimalism are threaded together with an abstract grooviness which will appeal to black belt beat heads as well as the more experimentally inclined, and shouldn’t cause too many spasmodic reactions.
This more adventurous transmission evolved from a series of freely improvised cello and vocals improvisations by Mathhilde Vendramin, who currently seems to be making moves of her own - flitting between her classical upbringing and jazz, keep an eye on her. Rather like a sonic serial killer, Monsieur rae then chopped up the recordings into little pieces, largely destroying the evidence by manipulating, layering and rearranging fragments of the original recordings into new forms, augmented by his own electronic music creations.
The opener, “Lo and Behold” is a blend of haunting cello moments repurposed as sample refrains and propelled through the speakers by futuristic broken beats and deep house pads that disintegrate near the end of its short existence into skittering modular fragments, paving the way for the scurrying glitchiness of “Rubicon” that initially teases, then opens up to showcase Vendramin’s heart-wrenching bowing - it’s a neoclassical gem.
“I See You” takes a plucked sample and repurposes it to help drive the twinkling, borderline twee beats and is something of a palette cleanser for the schizophrenic, initially darker and dramatic post-classicism of “Imago” that suddenly switches the studio lights on in the latter stages. The aptly entitled “Mosaic” patiently loops and layers the cello samples before sprouting broken-beat credentials that would meet with approval in West London. “Nope” will appeal to fans of rae’s previous works, with its more sedate and fluid nature - drones and cello melting into each other, lightly anchored by some static hiccups. The album then rightly ends on a boundary-reshaping blend of dub techno pads, free cello, angelic vocals and percussive smatterings to remind you of the recording’s forward-looking and pleasantly experimental credentials.
Piksel - extreme stillness (Self Release)
Piksel is better known to her family as Leva Vaiti. She’s a Lithuanian-born artist and long-time London resident who learnt classical violin at a young age, but inspired by the capital’s vibrant electronic music scenes, soon deviated into sound creation and machine-assisted music composition, often blending the two disciplines.
Curious as to why such a cultured artist has released so little music, I headed over to her website where I discovered she’s been anything but slack, and her discography goes far beyond recorded music. Vaiti can be found involved in, and instigating, all sorts of multi-media work; whether questioning music, movement and image blending projects, or providing music for all sorts of visual applications, both artistic and commercial. If that wasn’t enough, she’s also currently a lecturer in electronic music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Her latest work, the start of a series apparently, continues her thoughtful approach to music creation, but the medical circumstances that inspired the series give the music a particular visceral resonance, that go beyond the somewhat intellectual inspirations for much of her work. Whilst undergoing chemotherapy — and I can only hope that the treatment went well — she underwent long periods of enforced quietude, and alongside the existential reflection I imagine, her perception of pitch was affected too.
The resulting music is a wonder. The sounds of our feathered friends provide a familiar yet welcome introduction to the music, their seemingly carefree chirping soon consumed by the droning, bowed and effected violin, which spark a more ambiguous series of field recordings that then crackle away under the more traditional sounds through the song’s course. The electronic swathes that swaddle the sampled strings also have a pleasing depth to them; tired pre-sets and overused sounds are replaced by a collection of variously playful, hopeful and more understandably stately and sombre tones that melt artfully into the ancient instrument, culminating in a cultured slice of electroacoustic neoclassical ambient music that deserves your consideration.
AUTORHYTHM - Self Help Manual (Artist and Repertoire)
Joakim Forsgren flits between the audible and visual artists with ease and admirable quality in both areas - just hit play and fire up his website; his art is genuinely impressive. Despite being a relative newcomer when it comes to releasing music, although I suspect that there are a few hard drives full of earlier experiments, he's already evolved a pretty distinctive, minimal - in both compositional, instrument and equipment senses. Less is sometimes more.
This album is a double achievement, being completed at the same time as a life-altering, possibly saving medical intervention, with most of the tracks recorded in his home studio and family surrounds, and then edited in his bed of all places; not that you can detect any yawns or eye rubbing in the recordings.
The album sounds like all your favourite proto-genre recordings: no-wave, digi-dub, synth pop, post-punk, krautrock, hip hop. You know that sort of sound where a young musician decades ago, who was full of ideas and attitude but still learning his instrument (or not), picked up an early drum machine and one of those new-fangled synths to unleash their creative energy; started jamming and pushed those basic machines past their intended limits and aims. That sort of sound? Except Self Help Manual was mastered by Rashad Becker and sounds amazing.
If you’re a verse, chorus, verse, catchy melody sort of listener, turn away now. The album kicks off in crunching, bass speaker-testing vintage sci-fi hinting fashion, and plots a stripped-back retro-anchored course throughout. Dub references and reggae-inspired bass simplicity (and effectiveness) abound. Synths variously evoke musical history with sly nods and knowing winks; add edge to already insistent rythmic patterns; or float through the speakers like it’s a televised performance from the base of an Egyptian pyramid.
Perhaps due to twenty years of music retromania, or perhaps because it’s such a welcome rejection to the overpolished generic DAW-driven productions of today, there is a present-day vitality and urgency the LP as well, akin to downgrading your smartphone to a dumb flip phone, and starting to read books rather than social media posts. It’s simple music for smart listeners.
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).
Oh man, i do miss the podcast, but i’m so happy to find you here. I’m late to substack… so there’s that!