Recent Music Heroes

Comment: this set of 7 tracks continues to unveil the madness of the artist whose first outing was Old Norse Mara (2013) being issued some months before. The title is appropriate, of course, I feel myself like being a witness of a live bed show directly coming out from the Brocken/Blocksberg mountain. I first thought the issue to be pigeonholed as lo-fi and DIY among other ones yet obviously lo-fi says very little about it – it might be it is a simulacrum of it yet on the other side, there is no obvious need to create it – it is an original synthesis which might be something between a new coming of Captain Beefheart, and Sun City Girls. Or it might be a five times darker version of Animal Collective's Campfire Songs. More profoundly, blackened dirges are up there to slowly change into abstract sort of slowed-down drones, then again trance-inducing rhythms are set up to create hypnotic loops and serpentine labyrinths in one's soul. Intensities are up there to get variegated – it is the true algorithm of it. From lethargic witch dreaming to exalting bipolar appearances to come in a way you will find eventually yourself in a state of mind where time and space as the parameters of our physical world are completely eradicated. The mind-provoking outing is a bit in the discography of Centipede Farm.

Reckless Kickers – Conquer EP (2013)

Lemari Kota

Skate punk
Pop punk
Hardcore punk
Skatecore

Comment: Reckless Kickers is not a North American band like Sum 41, The Offspring, Blink-182 and who have not sold millions of albums but instead of it coming from Indonesia yet playing an analogous punk style. More profoundly, high-energized melodic guitar riffs, fast drumming, invigorated and slightly happy singing is something which can be pigeonholed as melodic hardcore, pop punk, skatecore. By following the lyrics of one song regarding repulsive and desperate feelings related to urban life it might be more righteous to consider it eco-punk/agrarian punk. Just the failed joke of mine. In the first place, it is a sort of pop music rather than a bearer of early punk spirit in spite of the fact Sex Pistols was a business project by Malcolm McLaren. Undoubtedly it is produced very masterfully with some suggestive noise pop-inflected walls behind the refrains which can be considered the most arousing facet of the album. The 5-notch outing is a bit of the discography of Lemari Kota, a fine platform within the vast Indonesian music landscape.

Karras – Fernen (2006)

EKO

Electronic music
Experimental electronica
Organic electronica
Post-rock
Glitchtronica
Ambient
Art music

Comment: Manrico Montero aka Karras aka Linga has issued a bunch of issues under such imprints as Mandorla, Rain, and EKO. Although the 7-notch outing came out from the latter French one and it had happened already 13 years ago while it is still actual due to its atmospheric beauty and fragile yet enchanting rhythmic structures and an adept synthesised touch between an organic feel and artsy succulent progressions. If you analyse it even more thoroughly you can see very austere sounds like glitches and hisses and distant echoes and fading reverberations coming out from the very bottom to be added to the whole mix. Furthermore, the Mexican artist is also not indifferent due to the dichotomy of noise and silence by providing immersive, sustainable pauses. If you wish it could be called a minor brother of Slowdive's Pygmalion (1995) or an alter ego of Tim Hecker's Haunt Me Haunt Me Do It Again (2001). Of course, it contains more electronics and less guitars than Pygmalion but its production and ideological level is analogous. Another branch of the thought is to recognise Pygmalion as one of the most seminal albums out of the 90s (which later on obviously influenced the music of such transgressive post-rock/ambient artists as Labradford, Transient Waves). The aforementioned excellent albums constitute a different approach to post-rock as it usually used to be – their crescendos are build upon on subdued, even obtuse progressions by shedding stepwise more light and adding scintillating elements with the intention to call forth epic impressions and stretch the dimensions of the soundscape in different directions. The apparent emotive apotheosis and majestic highlight of the issue is Dawn Chords (I) where a magniloquent ambient layer with the pointed motif is pushed through a backdrop of slightly fluttering crackling and swirling static. In temporal terms – approximately ten years ago such a kind of album were not tagged as post-rock or somehow related to it yet but now it seems to have clear-cut connotations with an experimental rock scene (one can draw parallels upon a historical event which also can be considered adequately from the distance). Such a sort of description and intention and thrive could be attributed to the music of Fernando Corona aka Murcof, allegedly the most well-known Mexican artist. In a word, an impressionistic top tier as if it were aurally painted somewhere in a remote Pacific island in the past.