Recent Music Heroes

Monday, February 18, 2019

Tidy Kid – One Week With My Casio (2008)

Test Tube

Froggi

Toytronica
Electronic music
DIY
Alternative
Indietronica
Lo-fi
Electro pop
Glitchtronica
Singer-songwriter
Breakbeat

Comment: one of the first netlabels I was honoured to meet was Test Tube. It might be the first impression of mine was highly piebald about the netlabel/webaudio scene and because of that I could not evaluate any single netlabel properly. However, by listening to the discography of Test Tube back now it is being a highly pleasant quality time. Brisbane, Australia-based Tidy Kid`s One Week With My Casio can be considered rather an unusual example within the discography due to providing no spot upon lush experimental/ambient music but instead of it experimenting with sounds and creating poppy songs on his own cheap Casio synthesizer. By the way, I have also a fancy Casio synth, a small monophonic Casio SA-1, my cordial relation with it has been lasting since 2000. Musically this 6-track issue is a great one by sharing expressive touch between sonic experiments, poppy song structures, and moody feeling hovering above it. From obscure lo-fi flickers and dreamy indie electronic patches to convulsive, glitched-out broken beat madness, littered electro pop and interrupted yet somehow catchy songwriting. By the way, the 6-track outing was also released as a tape release on the German imprint Froggi Records. Astounding lo-fi electronica.

[Teaser of the day] x.y.r. - Warm Pulsations

Organic electronica
Dreamwave
Electronic music
Exotica pop
Avant-pop
Ambient pop
Post-pop

Artist: x.y.r.

Release: el dorado

Label: Bandcamp/12th Isle/Illuminated Paths

Year: 2015

[Teaser of the day] Fla.mingo - Aliens

Electronic music
Future funk
Nu disco
Vaporwave
Post-chillwave
Electro pop
Synth-pop
Alternative dance

Artist: Fla.mingo

Release: Fantasy

Label: Business Casual

Year: 2017

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Digitalverein – Changes LP (2004)

Thinner

Electronic music
Dub house
Dub techno
Dubtronica
Ambient dub

Comment: Jörg Schuster (aka Lufth, and Sensual Physics) is an artist and a designer of graphics for computer software from Dortmund, Germany. He can be considered a main domestic artist within an acknowledged imprint called Thinner. In fact, Germany can be considered home for many outstanding dub and minimal techno labels and one of such cornerstones is certainly Thinner. One can just conclude from it the artist should be worthwhile. This 8-track outing is as emotive as it is hypnotic. The first adjective does not exclude the latter, and vice versa. The vibes just come in, starting to wobble around one`s head and soul and then keep mutating slowly, almost invisibly into something else. The format is mainly restricted with techno, dub, and atmospheric and nocturnal electronic developments yet at times one may perceive something punctual and iterative therefore creating a bridge between the aforementioned styles and krautrock. There is even up one track by employing exquisite vibraphone sounds and thereby resembling a bit of Tortoise. At times dub rhythms are replaced by more bold steps (proto-dubstep?) yet preserving its wobbly feel. Just listen to it, just feel the touch of it.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

[Teaser of the day] Neokyoto - Incubate Me

Electronic music
Synth-pop
Electro pop
Future synth
Alternative pop

Artist: Neokyoto

Release: Zero Transition

Label: Self-released/Bandcamp

Year: 2017

[Teaser of the day] Jan LF Strach - Cały Lipiec Słuchałem The Fall-a

Dada music
Experimental pop
No Wave
Psych-pop
DIY
Anti-pop
Freeformfreakout
Noise pop
Avant-garde

Artist: Jan LF Strach

Release: Wygaszacz Ekranów

Label: Self-released/Bandcamp

Year: 2018

Yuni In Taxco – Yuni In Taxco EP (2010)

Cakes And Tapes

New Weird America
Indie folk
Doo wop
Sunshine pop
Dream folk
Psych-rock
Alt-folk
Folk indie
Free folk

Comment: this 4-track outing (clocking in at a 12-minute) is a dodge into the discography of Portuguese imprint Cakes And Tapes Records from the year of 2010 which still did reflect upon the influence of the so-called New Weird movement and on the other side it goes even more backward in time to such experimental psychedelic rock combos as Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and glittering sunshine pop and doo wop harmonies from the 60s. In the first place, those occasionally loaded effervescent vocal appearances and fast changes in mood and structure remind of Panda Bear and Animal Collective and it is a blissful reverberation over the place by the Seattle-based combo. Strumming guitars and shuffly drumming are backed up by artsy electronics and woodwind instruments. And as we would see 4-5 years later Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper was produced by Sonic Boom. In a word, it is a decent issue which is very worth to be remembered even 9 years after the release. It is for your own sake to enjoy a true example of beauty in the middle of a vanity fair and chaos.