28 Sep 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Another beautiful audiovisual piece made by Berkeley-based NFOP regular Paul Skomsvold aka
Former Selves who's got his new tape
Hope out now via
Bridgetown. After his splendid DVD release
Fait Accompli,
Hope is more contemplating than ever, containing five mellow tunes meant to take you to your happy place. With sprawling layers of synth pads and restrained guitar plucking, "Common Years" is a perfect example for Paul's latest creative direction and a meek preparation for the cold season.
You may check out Bridgetown's complete fall batch of releases with the sampler that's up for free download
over here.
Former Selves - Common Years
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27 Sep 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Not presumptuous in the slightest, the folks over at
Bathetic praise
Lee Noble's new LP
Horrorism as nothing less than a "game changer". We've already loved his cassette releases for
Moon Glyph and
Bridgetown, and in particular the stunning
No Becoming which was released by
Sweat Lodge Guru in March, but it's only now that the LA resident's full-blown magnificence comes to light.
Horrorism is a marvelous album, a vastly coherent and mature work of eerie drone and gentle ambience that never loses touch with pop, music that's comforting yet sophisticated without ever slipping toward pretentiousness, resulting in a true masterpiece. We'd already head the wonderful "Indian Princess" way back
in January (writing about a different release), and now here's the album opener "Your Privilege", a superb gem full of warm haze wrapped in a soothing melody, a beautiful introduction into Noble's most amazing effort to date.
Horrorism is out October 4 on
Bathetic.
Lee Noble - Your Privilege
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27 Sep 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Though Tallahassee, Florida's Taylor Ross, the man behind Dream Love, appears to have obliterated
just about every digital trace we knew of him
since we posted his fun-time deranged italo-disco madness collaboration with
Zak Mering in May, it turns out that the dude is still very much alive and kicking, as this heavily grooving, brand new off-kilter synth marvel ingeniously named "Be My Man, Woman" proves.
The track will appear on his self-titled LP, out on October 25 via
Two Syllable Records. You may pre-order your copy right now (which will include a remastered version of
"Love Juice")
over here.
Dream Love - Be My Man, Woman
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27 Sep 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Full Of Nothing, the rad cassette imprint based in Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, has already been introduced on these pages twice after releasing tapes full of brilliant psychedelia-induced ambience by Wind in Willows and a split by Ous Mal and Bedroom Bear, yet we hadn't been aware that the label founders themselves are deeply involved, astonishing pursuers of musical experimentalism. Enter Love Cult, the project of Ivan Afanasyev and his wife Anya. Their latest tune "Place to Get Lost In" is a stunning excursion into slow-burning, immense drone that drowns in a sea of gentle noise, aptly and beautifully mis-en-scène by fellow Karelian video artist Nikita Hilko.Love Cult - Place to Get Lost In
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26 Sep 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Ever since we featured
Teaadora's marvelous video for "Pre-Agriculatural Languageless Culture"
back in the earliest days of 2011, we've been eagerly and impatiently waiting for Ms. Nikolova's proper album debut
À Jamais Vierge / Virgin Forever to finally be released. In January, we wrote that it would happen "soon", but it turns out that we couldn't have been more mistaken. For reasons that lie well beyond our knowledge, it will have taken another full year before the record will have been dropped eventually. The word is now that
Hot Releases will have the vinyl ready by January 2012.
Be it as it may, till then let us reassure you that it will have been worth the wait. From its unsettling first track till its disturbing finish,
À Jamais Vierge is a breathtaking effort, a demanding yet immensely rewarding listen that shows Teaadora at her finest, which means a young artist provided with presumably infinite talent for songwriting and composition. The songs are densely arranged pieces of haunted folk, eerie yet frail, seldom optimistic in tone or sentiment. "Wake Up Call" may exemplify the singer's approach, as its perfectly sweet melody, carried by a crystal-clear acoustic guitar, gets constantly compromised by dissonant sounds and Teaadora's pretty yet unearthly layered vocalization, thwarting what otherwise could've been an immaculate folk ballade. Beautiful it still is, but the music's twisted edges together with the lyrics evoke an uneasy feeling that won't leave any listener untouched, and this is exactly what constitutes the true magic in the artist's work.
Teaadora - Wake Up Call
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