Good to know - number 4. A place to highlight 3 upcoming releases listed on the website in the week or so since the last one of these, with the benefit that the pre order prices should be the best around - because everyone needs a copy of these. Admittedly, not the cheapest set of records this week, alas, they're too good to ignore.
If you have arrived at this feature through the website and not via the email - make sure to sign up to the newsletter! Along with a link to each new weekly post, you get a reminder of what is due for release this Friday, some selected back in stocks to perhaps prompt an impulse purchase.. and the main part - 10% off your next order, be that in store or online. That does indeed apply to the already low priced records below.. so taking your first punt does even less damage to your pocket.
See below for the past weeks podium:
When i get info on new releases through, sometimes they have little genre tags at the top of the description, for this we had 'Psychedelic/Folk/Experimental/Dream Pop', that's the kind of blend which i am more than partial to. A new compilation from the label 'Efficient Space', it has been put together by Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney who host a monthly show on NTS Radio, 'Time Is Away', which you can investigate on the link if curious.
The curators or labels behind compilations like this tend to be pretty good at providing a write up that equally confuses you as much as it intrigues you, for example, the following was provided with the release, 'Associative, intuitive, borderless. Emotional and mysterious. Endowed with the tactility of Braille. A private language that is both unknowable and understood. It is a record of the seasons, for the seasons.'. Somehow though, the more they say - the less they say? Can't say i don't enjoy ambiguity though. The idea of this blog however is to get people who won't have a release such as this on their radar to give it a try, so i'll try to translate. It's a comp for the daydreamers. True to those previously noted genres, if you like your ambience, it's a must listen. Elsewhere in the write up there are handy descriptions such as 'autumnal dreamscape', which fits it perfectly, so to keep it concise, i'll leave it there. This compilation is just in time. The full tracklist is in the description, but i've linked a couple here to check out: 'Let The Moon Get Into It'. 'Moments In Love'.
Now to a different kind of ambience, 'Gospel ambience', it's evidently ambient week. If those two words aren't for you then move right on. Only the one track released off this so far to give a listen, 'Violently Rooted', which is linked here. The South Carolina singer has released 5 tracks previous to this across an EP and stand alone singles, though none of the previous work features on her debut album, which i like! Don't know about you, but i really take issue with people putting out an album you've already heard half of, which tends to happen too often currently. This is especially more exciting given that, to my ear, 'Violently Rooted' is a big progression from the previous work, a lot more crafted and 'songy'. This by no means is to the detriment of experimentation though, i just mean that it feels complete, whereas in previous tracks you can still hear a style being refined.
Raised in a religious household, some of her earliest experiences helped shape the sound of this record, "My first experience with ambient music was church – slow songs of worship, with delay on the guitar... even if you don’t believe, you feel something.”. An ethereal experience is surely guaranteed, a blend of simmering ballads, R&B, downtempo gospel, and looped vocal improvisations has me sold.
Seems about time we added something latin to the mix. A collaboration between a Venezuelan composer (Hector Tosta) and Guatemalan experimentalist (Mabe Fratti). Already into it at this point. Track 'Cielo Falso' brought Black Country New Road fans loosely to mind - if you're one of those, i think you'll like it, push the boat out to South America and give that track a listen through the link. Another interesting comparison provided for this record was to the work of 'The Blue Nile', it's all good company to be in! Think it all comes down to the structure of the songs. Suppose you could call it post pop. A short write up for this indeed, but i'm struggling to add any words of value beyond those two reference points as they kind of do the job, it's just dead good stuff - again, click that listen link!