Random Article - Valley Sessions 'Unwebbed', May-July 2011 (2011)

Archive.org

9.0

/Psych-folk, Improvised music, Experimental folk, New Weird Europe, Trance folk/

Comment: 13 tracks for saz, bass, violin, voice and percussion, recorded at a cottage in the Broad Oak Valley, near Canterbury (UK) during May-July 2011. Behind these honestly cultivated acoustic improvisations are Tom, Miriam, Matthew, and assisted by Paul (playing drums sometimes), related to the Exeter-based Children Of The Drone collective and its subsidiaries (in principle, it is quite hard to draw the distinction line between them). This session is highly warbling and vitally organic in its magical hypnotism. By the way, all the titles are chosen accidentally. The Valley Session as usual - it has been their brand of quality.

Crash City Saints - I'm Only Looking EP (2011)

Bandcamp

8.8

/Shoegaze, Alternative rock, Post-punk, Fuzz rock/

Comment: above all, this 3-track EP is up here to constitute shoegaze, shoegaze, and - once again - shoegaze-ish graphs. In fact, the first and third notch represent a clear-cut tribute to My Bloody Valentine, it might be the second track only is an instance of more mainstream-induced and post-punk-ish attempts (somewhere inbetween JAMC, and Franz Ferdinand). More concretely, massive guitar walls will evolve into quasi-orchestrated outputs. And this is really fine.

The Slides (2008)

Mimonot

8.7

/Blues rock, Pop punk, Alternative pop/rock, Post-punk/

Comment: By any means, this is an eminent alternative pop/rock album. Firstly, it is irresistibly loaded with the galvanized sauce of infiltrated post-punk and blues rock influences including lots of guitar-based high-bow hooks and elating changes in song structures, secondly it is sung in Russian. The lyrics of the EP are about the disillusionment of ideals, considering some existential approaches either. The Slides, a quartet comes out from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a city locating in the Far East part of Russia (residing in Moscow now). By the way, a big part of musical groups publicated on the Mimonot label, does have their roots related to the Siberian cities.

EARLY TO BED & SCHLOCK! - WEATHERVANE (unrated)

EARLY TO BED & SCHLOCK! - WEATHERVANE (unrated) from EardrumsPop, the label on Vimeo.

Memotone – Bad Panda EP (2011)

Bad Panda
Free Music Archive
Lastfm

9.2

/Post-rock, Organic electronica, Experimental electronica, Art pop, Crossover, Sampledelic, Post-psychedelic, Experimental indie/

Comment: this 4-track EP offers a smorgasboard of synthesized breaks, colourful whiffs and instantaneous awakenings arching broadly over it (made up of chiming synths, piano snippets and circinately clanking xylophones). Recommended for fans of DJ Shadow, Four Tet, and Mice Parade. Music is made by William Yates, a solo perfomer/multi-instrumentalist from England being active since the mid of 00`s.

The Golf Sunshine Company - The Leper's Colony Has Drifted Away (2011)

Bandcamp

8.3

/Hip-hop, DIY, Lo-fi, Psych-hop, Avant-hop, Urban music/

Comment: a frenzied psych/lo-fi/hip-hop issue from Oregon, USA. It obviously seems to be a nihilistic, rusty, and abrasive, and amusing trip taken to come over to the unidentified realms of DIY. It is at times noodling, at times stuttering, at times being based on catchy loops and repetitions.

Richard There - If the world calls, please leave a message (2011)

Bandcamp
Lastfm

9.0

/Singer-songwriter, Dada music, Weird folk, Alt-folk, Spoken word, Experimentalism, Avant-folk, Neofolk/

Comment: no problems with locations. Richard comes from there, actually from There. Very simple indeed. As "simple" as his soundscape used to be. He is a part of the avant-garde group/movement Apskraft, representing proudly its off-the-kilter ideology and peripheral attitude. More concretely, he is an idiosyncratic singer-songwriter in his eccentrity, loving to bake from introspective fingerpicked acoustic folk to electronic buzz-laden guitar music to dada-ish spoken word snippets to experimental robo pop a la Kraftwerk to darkwave/neofolk a la Lycia or Death In June. In a more "usual" approach, his script reminds of the likes of Bill Callahan and John Fahey. Above all of that can be figured out for some off-the-kilter cover songs. In the first place, these are just some vague comparisons to be for. Do not forget about that!