Hailing from Norway, Hans-Peter Lindstrom has delivered a four-song album (the shortest track is 8:49) of ambient-disco-lounge music that is almost more of a feeling than a genre – On a Clear Day I Can See You Forever.
The title track (which was mostly improvised, and the rest of the tracks, while pre-planned, were done in one take) opens the album with synthwave subtlety that floats from your speaker like a three quarters-filled helium balloon moving across city rooftops in a low breeze. The rave synths and beats of “Really Deep Snow” move in so effortlessly that they catch you a bit off guard.
“Swing Low Sweet LFO” is the soundtrack to a 1980’s crime film set on Venus. The closer, “As If No One Is Here,” almost sums up the entire album. Lindstrom creates musical soundscapes that seem to be perfectly at home if no one is listening. They are songs of synth dreams that come to you as you sit in a train car warmed by the rising sun. They are strange yet pleasant visions you can’t explain. They are the sound of an artist enjoying free expression without limits.
Moon Duo shares the final pre-release single, “Eternal Shore,” from their new album, Stars Are The Light, out September 27th on Sacred Bones. It follows the previously released title track and “Lost Heads.” Across “Eternal Shore,” Sanae Yamada’s hazy vocals drift over reverberating synth and flitting guitar licks. She says, “The lyrics are about the search for a sense of belonging and for the truth of one’s inner being, beneath the masks we’re conditioned to wear in order to function in society.” “We were experimenting with a lot of different rhythms for this record, and this one is in 5/8ths time, which is a real departure for us,” continues Ripley Johnson. “It moves us further away from the classic motorik beat. And it’s special because it’s the first song on which Sanae wrote the lyrics and sings lead.”
Stars Are The Light has a sonic physicality that is at once propulsive and undulating; it puts dance at the heart of an expansive nexus that connects the body to the stars. These are songs about embodied human experience rendered as a kind of dance of the self, both in relation to other selves and to the eternal dance of the cosmos. Johnson’s signature guitar sound is at its most languid and refined, while Yamada’s synths and oneiric vocals are foregrounded to create a spacious percussiveness that invites the body to move with its mesmeric rhythms.
“We have changed, the nature of our collaboration has changed, the world has changed, and we wanted the new music to reflect that,” says Yamada.
After playing dates in Europe, the duo will bring a new live audio-visual show across North America. All dates are on sale now and can be found below.
Beginning with thirty-six seconds of mindless chatter recorded in a place that sounds like every pub, airport, coffee shop, and busy street on Earth, Blanck Mass‘ newest album, Animated Violence Mild, is a scathing rebuke on consumerism, the dehumanizing nature of modern technology, and the culture / love of fear permeating a majority of society.
“Death Drop,” with its screamed, Ministry-like vocals, is an industrial nightmare and amusement park ride mashed together for over seven minutes of sonic assault. It’s no coincidence that some of the synths in it sound like video game samples, as the album’s title references video game rating systems. Many see the world, their career, or their love life as games to be won, unaware of the perilous chasm that such a path can drop you into with little hope of escape.
“House Vs. House” has an intriguing title. Does it refer to different styles of house music? House elements are certainly in the song, but perhaps the title refers to a theme of “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Benjamin Power (AKA Blanck Mass) has stated that a majority of the themes in the album revolve around mass consumerism – which he likens unto a snake “which now coils back upon us. It seduces us with our own bait as we betray the better instincts of our nature and the future of our own world.”
Drop that mic, Mr. Power.
The video game-like beats return on “Hush Money.” We burn through money in vain attempts to suppress (hush) our fears and truth we don’t want to, but need, to hear. “Love Is a Parasite” is a somewhat bleak way to look at what the world needs most, but I have a feeling Power is referring to how media, corporations, and mass consumerism tend to make us feel about love. Love is fleeting, they may say, love can be found more in things than others. Love will only make you weak, so its better to avoid it and take solace it what you can consume. Things do not break your heart, but they do keep you trapped in the past. The song is a solid electro cut that builds fuzzy beat atop fuzzy beat until it’s a beautiful cacophony.
“Creature / West Fuqua” is a lovely, harp-led oasis from the danger Power has created (and reminded us of) throughout the record so far. “No Dice” has a great call-and-response “Hey!” throughout it as Powers rejects the lure of consumerism and the temptation of falling into a deep, dark place due to personal loss. The last track is “Wings of Hate,” a bold track that bubbles and roars like a volcano. It almost demands you hear it live, as a recording can barely contain it.
“I believe that many of us have willfully allowed our survival instinct to become engulfed by the snake we birthed [consumerism]. Animated — brought to life by humankind. Violent — insurmountable and wild beyond our control. Mild — delicious,” says Powers in the liner notes sent to me by his label (Sacred Bones).
He’s right. We’ve allowed our love of things to become a delicious poison we gleefully drink instead of finding love in nature, ourselves, and others. Powers is telling all of us to wake up before it’s too late. We need to heed and hear his warning – Animated Violence Mild.
[‘No Dice’] sounds like heaven and hell locked in an arm wrestle, jockeying for attention.” – Stereogum Blanck Mass – the solo electronic project of Scotland-based musician Benjamin John Power – shares the final pre-release single / video, “Love Is a Parasite,” from his forthcoming album, Animated Violence Mild, out August 16th on Sacred Bones. The video, directed by Craig Murray, reflects the track’s chaotic energy, and depicts scenes of a commercial shoot that takes an absurd turn. “I wanted to speak to Craig Murray about making the ‘…Parasite’ video as his work definitely bridges that gap between the grotesque and the beautiful that I am so keen on,” says Power. “Presenting the darker theme of global mass consumerism whilst poking fun at the ’80s and starring a Drag Queen overseeing chaos wasn’t going to be an easy task but he nailed it.”
“It was great to be asked by Ben to work on this which instantly led us to bizarrely mirrored ideas… I decided to set the film in 1983 as a nod to Cronenberg and in order to do that everything from the costumes to the shooting and post production needed to fit,” says Murray. “I have a deep nostalgia with this time period and its video formats, so to honour it we shot on a transmission feed which we glitched by plugging and unplugging the cable. I find emulated effects offensive.”
Animated Violence Mild is Power’s fourth full-length as Blanck Mass, and his most emotionally direct statement yet. The album was written throughout 2018, at Power’s studio outside of Edinburgh. These eight tracks are the diary of a year of work steeped in honing craft, self-discovery, and grief – the latter of which reared its head at the final hurdle of producing this record and created a whole separate narrative: grief, both for what Power has lost personally, but also in a global sense, for what we as a species have lost and handed over to our blood-sucking counterpart, consumerism, only to be ravaged by it. Watch “Love Is a Parasite” Video – https://youtu.be/pmMY35HlTAo
“What is your wish? What do you expect?” begins Cross Record’s self-titled album, due August 2nd via Ba Da Bing! Throughout, Emily Cross attempts to answer these questions as she guides the listener, delivering a textured soundscape of meditative curiosity. The album is primarily anchored by Cross’s singing, as she pushes her range and engages with a multitude of different approaches, detuning her voice and obstructing its clarity in specific moments. Cross Record presents the lead single, “PYSOL My Castle,” and an accompanying, self-directed video.
Since the release of Cross Record’s last album, 2016’s Wabi Sabi, the Austin, TX-based Cross has divorced, quit drinking, become a death doula, started the observational podcast “What I’m Looking At,” and toured and recorded with Sub Pop’s Loma, the trio she formed with Dan Duszynski and Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater). Having recorded Wabi Sabi at home between work and sleep hours, Cross did the opposite for Cross Record, writing the album while living on a secluded part of Mexico’s coast. The album was recorded with musician Andrew Hulett and co-producer Theo Karon, and the songs realized their ultimate forms at Hotel Earth, Karon’s studio in Los Angeles. The collaborative atmosphere of Loma challenged Cross to experiment with her sound, leading to a collection of fully-developed songs with percussion, string arrangements, and an expanded production. Though her voice is always central, the instrumentation is equally nuanced and experimental.
In her songs, Cross reconciles her present state of being with her experiences of the past few years. Themes of departure and separation were inspired by her new role as a death doula, which helps clients navigate decisions and hardships at the end of life. Cross’s work in helping others face their greatest fears inhabits the same space as her art, which has always explored the metaphysical in the everyday. Across the album, she looks inward and observes the transcendental – framing death as a spiritual departure and considering the fragility and resilience of the mind. The eerie experience of listening to Cross Record and the unsettling sense of songs slipping from coherent grasp share these same sensibilities.
Lead single “PYSOL My Castle” is immediate proof of Cross’s introspection. Inspired by a visit to an overstimulating Mexican street market, the track describes her search for an unencumbered mindspace: “Walking through the plaza in a dream // All these people reaching out // touching me. I cannot take what you are giving // You cannot break the bubble I’m living in.”
Watch the Video for “PYSOL My Castle” – https://youtu.be/5s4-B4h6ANQ
Pre-orderCross Record – https://bit.ly/30MqQjK Cross Record Tracklist: 1.What Is Your Wish? 2. Licorice 3. Face Smashed, Drooling 4. PYSOL My Castle 5. I Release You 6. The Fly 7. Hollow Garden 8. Y/o Dragon 9. An Angel, a Dove 10. Sing the Song 11. I Am Painting
Keep your mind open.
[Put your shoes on and walk over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
