In the solo parent zone this week, riding high. In-progress projects are moving forward and coming together (more on that soon, or right now if you’re on the Patreon), new ideas are sparking left and right. It’s a strange time because I’m always completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the world. I had a great conversation about this with Lawrence English last night, actually, during an episode of Songs of Our Lives (stay tuned!) – there is simply never enough time. Anyway…
I hope you all will humor me for the next couple of weeks as I drum up support for Foxy Digitalis’s operations, and find ways to raise a few bucks to keep the lights on. Every single person reading this is certainly feeling the squeeze and the way that simply living costs more and more each day. That, of course, means keeping the site and all its ancillary parts humming takes more. Foxy Digitalis certainly isn’t going anywhere, but any support you all can throw this way will keep those lights shining a bit brighter and will hopefully make things like a semi-regular-ish physical zine a closer reality.
In that spirit, next week I will release Clarities, a new compilation via Foxy Digitalis and The Jewel Garden, with all proceeds going toward the site. It’s 40 tracks from the likes of Lawrence English, Stephen Vitiello, Catherine Sikora, Eric Mingus, Domenica Diavoleria, Polypores, zaké, Yann Novak, and more. The cover is below (plus a recent album I made for Jewel Garden subscribers).
And of course, there’s Patreon, Ko-Fi, and The Jewel Garden. Again, those of you who have been able to sign up for any of those various things, it is appreciated greatly. And anyone who spreads the word, shares things, etc – many, many thanks.
Alright, enough of my appeal, let’s get into some excellent tunes.
Silvia Bolognesi / Dudú Kouate / Griffin Rodriguez Timing Birds (Astral Spirits)
From the beginning, Timing Birds feels like being dropped into a distant past in an unnamed jungle. Flutes effervesce within earthbound rhythms, a choreographed meditation by Silvia Bolognesi on bass and Dudú Kouate on percussion. Textural shimmers grow into bouncing escapades distilling a timeless sense of wandering into flowing expressions. “Music is a mother,” Bolognesi intones. The world moves forward, celebratory trancestates emerge. Griffin Rodriguez expands the sonic palette with searching electronics and vocal incantations, expanding the sound beyond into alternate planes. Timing Birds speaks with precision but drives forward on infectious, sturdy grooves tinged with organic reverie. Once the dub-inflected title track bounds toward the midnight sun, Timing Birds becomes entrenched and eternal. Highest recommendation.
Adam Wiltzie Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal (kranky)
Harmonic essences hold a metallic glow like a paean for future decay on Adam Wiltzie’s latest opus. There are mountains of ephemera hidden within these melodic swells, blurred sonic castles stretched across resonant dreams and lost spellbooks. Quiet passages feel like luminous, dislocated memories scattered inside worlds of opaque fog. Restraint comes in the form of chord progressions that stretch beyond view, in clouded visions made immortal by steel-cast timbres and imperceptible vibrations. String arrangements are the echoing silhouettes of each extended note where detailed flashbacks are mementos of tranquility. Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal manages to hold the edge between a death grip on our last threads and the endless void of forgetting, and as its shadows linger, we succumb to stillness.
Lisa Ullén Heirloom (fönstret)
The spaces between – our lives, our inner worlds, the specious outside – are attuned and in focus on Heirloom. Lisa Ullén’s first work pressed on vinyl is a pointillistic, three-part suite explored in two different ways, one per side. This synchronous expression heightens the sustained moments between thresholds, pausing to give voice to the perceived nothingness separating fixed ideas. Piano preparations mold familiar timbres into unexpected toneworlds, filling gaps with textures that cut through glossy resonance, showing restraint as the music moves in unpredictable cadences. Opposite ends of Heirloom carry different weights, with the June 6 progressions lighter in shade while June 8 feels more tethered. But, as this work suggests, it’s the connections between those points where we uncover the place we are.
BLAKMOTH Restless Wanderings (Self-Released)
Cold movements scratch charred surfaces looking for answers, wondering if there’s any reason to hope for more. BLAKMOTH’s latest synthesizer investigations are stark. Bare-faced loops act like sonic ghouls, drawing secret messages in the dust on the floor. Vestigial melodies die in the electronic debris like memories of decay long past their due date. Even the air around these sounds is fetid. Spacious views are suffocated by fog, the layers dense and endless. BLAKMOTH’s restrained movements and sharp focus find a comforting way to push us to the brink. This is the sound of growing darkness.
Sissi Rada Aporia (STROOM)
Sissi Rada is a Greek harpist, singer, and songwriter and Aporia is a magical treatise on wonder and simplicity. Electronic accouterments fragment the ethereal character built by Rada’s harp and voice. The subtle tension in these sonic intersections amplifies the vaporous beauty at the heart of these songs. Golden choirs break apart in bright light, voices disappearing behind quiet plucks and Rada’s whimsical whispers. Everything here shines and pulls us close. Minimalistic palettes and mosaic rhythms hint at skyward club fantasies, but layered vocals swirl in ghostly configurations to keep us partially adrift. Romance blooms in the quietest passages, another lever in this ever-growing vulnerable soundworld. At its most tender, Aporia is a luminous beacon, but how Rada fuses uncertain moments with these sweet reflections pushes it into the highest reaches. Incredible.
Malle Voss Life Is Hard (katharsis)
At least if we’re crying, we’re feeling something, right? Malle Voss spills blood on Life Is Hard, transmitting sweet, heartbroken spells from the inside of a lab-grown diamond. Over-saturated synths scream at the top of their lungs, swarming auto-tuned, pitch-shifted vocals and crystalline ephemera. We’re rocked over the head with crushing, frenetic beats and abrasive bass lines, but Malle Voss softens the blows with snowy arpeggiations. Every sheen is dulled with claustrophobic atmospheres. Cutting through it all, though, are bright-eyed leads. Melodies trace pathways through broken neon corridors, guiding us beyond the midnight sky to a place where we can dance forever.
Lyli J Majje (See Blue Audio)
Whispy melodies and dynamic rhythms underscore the ephemeral nature of Lyli J’s voice. Momentary flashes spirit through the lilting soundscapes, fragments of dreams come to life in synth patterns and glassine arpeggios. Whimsical undercurrents thread through the emotive chord progressions, adding hints of timeless melancholy to the foundations of Majje. Lyli J becomes ghostly in moments and lets her voice float away on silvery, ambient clouds. Lush arrangements accent the aqueous field recordings and clear-eyed timbres with a longing for wide-open, magical landscapes, and dreamworlds. It’s beautiful and timeless.
The Electric Nature Plastic Mind (Already Dead Tapes)
Something is gnawing away at the roots. We can’t see it, but we feel it’s obsessive churn. The Electric Nature is Michael Potter on this recording and with Plastic Mind, he mines the archives for a series of charred, tripped-out kraut infusions. Gilded neon electronics outline cryptic patterns on disintegrating dancefloors, leaving traces of radiant loops in the periphery. Potter spills tape-mangled guitar grit on the midnight sheen of emotive anthems and futurist rhythms. Plastic Mind is bleak but still fun, driven forward by killer basslines that slither beneath the surface.
Mark Vernon The Dramaturgy of Decay (Futura Resistenza)
Listen closely to The Dramaturgy of Decay, and we hear traces of lives left behind. Mark Vernon crafts elaborate sonic vestiges, as though voices adrift in the howls of the wind are caught in an imperceptible net and assembled into narrative soundforms. Hollow tones echo against burnished metallic surfaces, feeling empty and resonant. We search for messages in the static and dust, the textural shapes Vernon weaves into these pieces. The way these sounds sit in their haunted essence and soak up the microscopic movements rotting in the margins heightens this feeling of impermanence at their core. Even the voice samples are surreal remnants, simultaneously familiar and strange. The Dramaturgy of Decay may seem fleeting, but its aural language stays around long after the last whisper.
Quick Hits:
Julia Gjertsen “Midnight Sun” (Moderna)
Intermingling piano explorations and electronics flicker into view like long-lost memories of place. Wistful, spritely, and steeped in melancholic nostalgia for somewhere we can’t return to.
Hailing from Mexico, Lara finds the midpoint between scorched earth electronics and obscured, melodic synthscapes. Harsh drones clear the air, leaving us time to bask in the effervescent glow of exploratory sequences and sharp harmonics.
Midori Hirano, Nils Mosh Kaleidoskop Münsterland (Self-Released)
An underwater world that was once shrouded in darkness, but now bathed in bioluminescence Glowing sonic forms swim in electronic seas, moving so fast they seem still. Elegiac drones and field recordings, the sound of life.
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