The tenth Amulet is an exception: part hymn, part eulogy, part elegy. Against the harmonious backdrop of her musical selection, the voice of FH HF recites chosen poems, including those of Maya Angelou, Andrei Tarkovsky, Forugh Farrokhzad and of her own writing. The soft-spoken lyrical journey, guided by the novel Georgian artist, conveys a heartfelt search for truth in emotion. "I Saw His Plane Taking Off to the Clouds", the debut album of FH HF, was released under the label @eastern-nurseries in 2019.

Amulet of Tears 010: FH HF

Music: @kunuist

Artwork: @anasisana

Amulet 010: FH HF

This two-hour mixtape by Taylor Bratches—not only her first for enmossed, but her first physical release period—is a creature that slowly but radically evolves. Sometimes it’s left-field spa, others it’s more 7 a.m. dancefloor. The folkish string arrangements and big-room shoegaze make this tape an expansive and daring foray, with few pauses and natural transitions from one idea to the next. Optimistic and buoyant no matter the genre, Bratches explores the range of her musical interests with a lightness that also floats the listener.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t heavier moments, where bass is employed to move bodies. Ambient pads get laced with knotty breakbeats, while nearly everything is drenched in finely tuned reverbs. Bratches’ poetry and dance practices inform Lift & Kismet, making physical impressions on its hybridic sound. Her formal arts education and work as a music journalist may have something to do with the scope of her vision, but it’s Bratches’ emotional intuition that guides this infectiously positive, cathartic release.

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Taylor Bratches (she/they) seeks to explore and transmit an emotional experience through sound. A lifelong poet and dancer, her relationship to sound is intimate and ever-evolving. Her sets aim to fuse genres and find hybrid spaces. She aims to move people physically and spiritually, creating a dance floor experience that is both terrestrial and extraterrestrial. Sharing music comes from a need to express and experience emotional catharsis, and to connect with the body. 

releases April 2, 2021

artwork :: Joe Bastardo

all proceeds to Chab Dai - chabdai.org

purchase :: https://enmossed.bandcamp.com/album/lift-kismet

Taylor Bratches -  Lift & Kismet [Side A Excerpt] (ENMX13)

Bowed electric guitar with evolving percussion. Experimental, psychedelic, ambient. A dark and probing report from a jungle filled with mysterious rituals. Divinity meets dystopia. Peacefully rarefied exotica.
2024 remaster. Original release 2003

Message Service

I Once Was Me

Bandcamp

what it feels like when you find yourself. self-aware, and aware of this very awareness.
it feels dark. it’s always dark in the space of unrealized potential.
that darkness expresses itself as a hum — nothing can escape it,
yet so few can truly hear it. there. on the threshold.


wading through decay - unknown where it comes from

SolomonDaGod & Fifty Grand - Satan Worships Me

Having formed over ten years ago, as teenagers, Nantes duo Simon Puiroux (electronics and sax) and Charles Dubois (percussion) construct the music of Humbros on a semi-improvised framework. Rhythmic patterns, samples and melodic phrases act as marker points along each piece’s winding, free-flowing narrative, a musical communication honed over their years of collaboration to reach From 0 to 90’s clairvoyant levels of improvisational understanding.

The record’s wealth of exploratory sonics stems from Humbros’ unique combination of acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Puiroux and Dubois line up recogniseable toms, congas, bells, and exotic wind instruments alongside a cryptic treasury of more curious artefacts: sound-distorting mirrors, wood, skins, metals, voice processors, and percussive stringed instruments. Combined with Puiroux’s modular synthesis and treated saxophone, this journey from heady, pulsating polyrhythms to sparse, chirruping insects of tropical concréte digs deep into hypnotic, meditative textures (they are never “jams”) whilst maintaining a deeply philosophical, conceptual relationship with the energies generated.

Constantly positioned in an intersection, in balance between acoustic and electronic sound, Humbros acts as an exploration of the “in-between”, produced by the marriage of two distinct timbral approaches. They sit between repetitive minimalism and illuminative free-jazz; between angular patterns and lysergic, dripping textures; human fragility and sci-fi sound-design.

From 0 to 90 was recorded over the duration of a week at the end of 2019. Working in their own self-constructed studio, Piuroux and Dubois set about creating a record relatively lighter and quieter than their live performances. Stacking textures, landscapes, structures and “lots of objects hitted with stuffs of all kinds”, the album traces the evolution of living beings - the numbers of its title refer to the angles at which organic life has been orientated, from crawling to standing. “We have passed through different shapes, landscapes and elements (a wispy swamp, an aquarium, a wet skate park, a thick cloud, a medieval kennel…),” they write.

Spending much of their musical career more visible in concert than in recording, Humbros have experienced - and reflected on the theory and the form of - the live performance as a medium since their inception. They have performed in a multitude of concert formats: nightclubs, village halls, an empty highway bridge, abandoned factories, art galleries, vineyard cellars, festivals and across France’s vibrant network of DIY venues. Their first recorded works - the self-recorded demo Night of the Toacas - emerged on Bandcamp in 2018 and immediately caught the ear of Phantom Limb’s A&R department.

From 0 to 90’s will be released in July, 2020

Humbros - Bois Debout [radio edit]

"Je suis une âme solitaire

I did this mix years ago, at a time when I was still trying to find my way through Berlin and trying to figure out my own voice with sound. 2020 has been a destabilizing year for most of us and I find it a good opportunity for looking back at the past, what we've done so far and how we feel. Listening to this mix which explored the situation of solitude as a faint narrative background, I found it strangely accurate for the present times. I was always interested in rhythms and the process of catharsis, this year I also rediscovered how blues hold this same power. Beyond the harsh socio-economic conditions resulting from slavery it describes, it is also an outlet to sublimate the wanderings of the human soul.
At times, delving into our wanderings does not necessarily need to be seen as an expression of pure hopelessness but rather of the complex landscape of human emotions and experiences. One has to know their shadow to know thyself. As Eartha Kitt recites in the conclusion of this mix, in her rendition of All by Myself / Beautiful at Forty : "The taste of life has not been so bad / Between the tears and joys I've had / For with some good and a little singing / She always allowed me to get up again".
In the present days I find much hope for possible future positive developments in the fact that I see awareness raising around many social issues, and concepts such as community, solidarity, love, kindness or empathy infiltrating our collective consciousness, becoming increasingly part of a common vocabulary that is more widely used."

Nico - Le petit chevalier
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Variations sur un thème de Monteverdi
Colin Stetson (ft. Shara Worden) - Lord I just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes
Alva Noto - Xerrox Monophaser 2
Colleen - Please Gamelan Again
Tim Hecker - Chimeras
György Ligeti - Vertige (for Player Piano)
Vera Hall - Black Woman
Akira Rabelais - Aposiopesis
Rebecca Pan - Bengawan Solo
Eartha Kitt - All by Myself / Beautiful at Forty

Φ

https://soundcloud.com/jessica-ekomane
https://jessicaekomane.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/jessicaekomane/
https://www.facebook.com/jessica.ekomane

SI010 - JESSICA EKOMANE

Fractured continents of marble seek out their destination now that dreams of resolve are covered by the tactile vulnerability of the artist.

Tragedy tossed towards the clouds proclaiming a miracle, quiet scenes of exploration along the road to enlightenment. Violet skin and white chords possess a sensual function that is close to weightlessness. Temporary explanations for universal themes flourish at the heart of these stored emotions.

Individuality Is Also A Fetish

Anasisana - To Strive For Perfection

Anasisana - To Perform A Life With Functions Unknown To You

The air above a cityscape is never still. At sundown, the seeming emptiness envelops one in melancholy; as the night goes on, all the neon lights, looming structures and dancing smoke silhouettes come along to keep the company. The urban soundtrack put together by Alethe is a reflection of both the cold and the welcoming, the abrasive and the melodic, all of which makes apparent the dualistic allure of the city. The Russian artist's music has been released on tape labels such as Audio. Visuals. Atmosphere., Holy Geometry and Strange Rules. Alethe's mix for Amulet of Tears contains many of his recently favoured works and inspirations.

Amulet of Tears 008: Alethe

Music: @user-994250510

Artwork: @anasisana

Amulet 008: Alethe

Taken from the soundtrack to the New Dawn VR listening experience:
bokehtech.bandcamp.com/album/mars89-new-dawn
bokeh.tech/
by ZexyLab and Bokeh.tech

Out on March 11th on digi, poster and t shirt (by Patrick Savile)