Wild Card, The Shovel Dance Collective and Precipitation+V. Kristoff.
Long form improvised ambient sound art. History laden doom folk. Blissed out ambient electronica.
Wild Card - Foray 1: Outside Music (Cascadia Tape Music)
So are Wild Card three times better than Paul Dickow, Marcus Fischer and William Selman’s celebrated individual projects? No, and if they were I’d be amazed as they’re all consistently great and have all been recommended through the blog. Am I disappointed? Hell no!
I guess it was their Portland postcodes and electronic music that brought the artists together. Fischer & Selman are the more consistently “ambient”. Dickow the wild card, who I was surprised to find when researching him that I already knew under his Strategy moniker, which tends to more rhythmic and dub inclined electronica, although on quickly digging his back catalogue I discovered some beatless, experimental endeavour as well.
So what of the sounds? As well as hipping me to the project, I learned from
’s Substack that most of the sound recordings you’ll hear were recorded by Dickow and himself whilst in this nice looking local tunnel.
As the title implies the recording was performed and recorded in an outdoor location, and although details are scant I’m guessing it’s a one take improvisation, or at least an edited version of a longer recording? It’s certainly a sprawling, continually morphing soundscape, never resting on any serendipitous laurels for long, before continuing onwards in search of the next magical moment.
I guess the recording is improvised ambient, but much of it is borderline sound art - the differences between the two I’ll leave for more navel gazing outlets. There are certainly more familiar melodic moments, although they’re usually quickly absorbed by more abstract sounds, whose provenance will keep you guessing throughout.
If you enjoyed Sunday’s long form tip by Blanket Swimming, and want to delve deeper into this rare discipline then this is your grade 2 entry exam. See how you fare on this slightly less paved path.
The Shovel Dance Collective - The Shovel Dance (American Dreams)
The Shovel Dance Collective are a leaderless collective, a fitting social structure for a group whose sound has an uncompromising intensity and politically charge.
They’ve also managed the impressive feat of distilling 500 years of British folk music tradition and peasant/working class tales through the ages into 2024, even amplifying the short lived and hard done by tales with their own Anthropocene angst and 99% concerns, breathing new life into ancient instruments with their experimental inclinations and a few crafty twenty first century tricks as they go.
It’s not all existential gloom and glowering - the collective take a mid-album trip down the pub after a hard day in the fields to swig some ale and dance a jig or two, but they don’t hang about for long before returning to their darker and at times downright doomy tone. Even when the strings, drones and wind instruments aren’t uniting to dramatic and stirring effect, the quieter drone accompanied vocals have a mournful air, as if remembering those that passed too soon - you’ll be hard pressed not to drop your head and have a moment too.
Don’t hit play if you need cheering up, but if you’re in contemplative or indignant mood, then these elongated tales of the forgotten and forsaken, carried through the speaker by a revolving cast of eight voices and twenty five instruments with an earnest intensity and rare ability will hit all sorts of spots.
Precipitation & V. Kristoff - Zipair (Jungle Gym)
If you need an easier, breezier recommendation today then look no further than the new LP by Precipitation & V. Kristoff. Not that the recording lacks any depth, it’s a deeply satisfying, possibly wellness imbuing exercise in electronic purity.
Recorded in a single session somewhere in Tokyo’s urban sprawl, the artist’s minds were obviously elsewhere, possibly dreaming of a hitherto unexploited Pacific island, where the footprints on the beach are the ones you left earlier; the warm, turquoise waves seemingly in no hurry to wash the away the first ominous signs of human interference.
Field recordings and ubiquitous bird sounds are refreshingly absent so as not to distract from the shimmering, sparkling modular soundscapes and their minimal mantras that will surely melt the coldest of hearts, ease the most stressed minds and make the overly aggressive consider their life choices.
If you need some pure of purpose, blissed out ambient electronica then look no further.
This all looks wonderful - thank you! I’ll enjoy spending time with these today :)
Shovel dance. Real.