Mellow pop 10

Stareside

Inner Citadel

'Transcend' by Respira & Atmøsphäre 
@respirabreathe
@atmosphare

Also on the 'Ambient I' compilation:
atlantearecords.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-i

Audio mastering by Seth Bellow.
Cover art design by Anthony Asher - Yates.

Ambient I

Transcend

Respira & Atmøsphäre - Transcend

These Days as covered by Matt Pond (feat. Laura Stevenson & Chris Hanson)
From the Wes Anderson film Royal Tenenbaums
Originally performed by Nico
Written by Jackson Browne
Published by Open Window Music (ASCAP)

Buy on iTunes

These Days - Matt Pond (feat. Laura Stevenson & Chris Hansen)

Taken from album Pastacas & Tenniscoats "Yaki-Läki Versions" (Õunaviks / Afterhours 2014):
www.ounaviks.ee/en/release/yakilakiversions/

Original song "Cup Of Freedom" taken from Pastacas & Tenniscoats' album "Yaki-Läki" (Õunaviks / Afterhours 2013):
www.ounaviks.ee/en/release/yakilaki/

Original music by Saya, Takashi Ueno, Ramo Teder, lyrics by Saya, remix by Fleckfumie

Yaki-Läki Versions

Pastacas & Tenniscoats - Yaki Udon (Fleckfumie remix)

Having released a dreamy album inspired by 60s sci-fi soundtracks, Swedish trio @death-and-vanilla were invited to live score cult horror Vampyr at a Scandi film festival and their slow, steady, swirling accent continued. 

Their new LP To Where The Wild Things Are,is a poppier affair; the warm analogue loops of their vintage instruments crying out for the sweet breathy vocals that Marleen delivers with a calm and enchanting ease. Named after the children’s book, the album celebrates imagination and the ability to delve into the less-explored areas of the mind. Exactly what we need to get us through today, we are pleased to present the premiere of album track, California Owls. Almost hypnotic, this is dream pop at its absolute best. Enjoy!

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Premiere: Death And Vanilla - California Owls

from 'HYMNEN UND HELDEN' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den387
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/sanktotten  


Alongside with the release of the new album “Tote Winkel”, Sankt Otten will be delighting us with another limited vinyl bonus release. “Hymnen und Helden” (hymns and heroes) is a collection of cover versions created over the last few years. As the album title suggests, it pays homage to self-proclaimed musical hymns and heroes from the seventies and eighties.


HYMNEN UND HELDEN – track by track:

A well-known Moog sequence leads us on the way into the cover album. Giorgio Moroders 1977 disco classic “I feel love” has been tackled here. Sankt Ottens instrumental interpretation starts out familiar, but ends in a slightly disturbing disharmony of mellotron and ebow guitar.

The instrumental version of the melancholy Wipers anthem from 1983 starts with a rather unusually fast 808 beat for Sankt Otten. The 80s electronic echoes suit the punk rock earworm “Doom Towen” surprisingly well.

Without Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, more unusual electronic music would hardly have been conceivable in Germany in the early 1980s. “Alles ist gut” tribute to this band and singer Gabi Delgado-Lopez, who passed away in 2020 and with whom they shared the festival stage in 2015. Gabi‘s lyrics are rendered by text- to-speech software with the voice of an unknown Claudia.

“Wishing (If I had a photograph of you)” was made famous in 1982 by A Flock of Seagulls. This record was regularly played on Stephan Ottens turntable back then. Reason enough to remember this with “Sehnen (Hät- te Ich von dir eine Fotografie)”. The recordings for this album were made in 2007 and have been updated and completed in the last year. Carsten Sandkämper, who was also featured on Sankt Ottens debut album “Eine kleine Traurigkeit”, contributed the vocals and lyrics.

The Swiss band Grauzone became famous with the NDW hit “Eisbär”. Instead of this title, they took on the B-side of this single with “Ich liebe sie”. A synthpop love song full of innocence, stylishly sung by Carsten San- kämper and refined with Kraftwerk-like choral sounds and an herbaceous motorik beat.

The band has enjoyed a personal friendship with Harald Grosskopf since their collaboration in 2013 on the album “Messias Maschine”. With “So weit, so gut”, they take on his little hit from the album “Synthesist”, which is one of the gems of the synthesizer albums of the eighties.

“Kriegsmaschinen, fahrt zur Hölle” is an anti-war song from 1974 by Günter Schickert, the Berlin master of the echo guitar. Unfortunately, the lyrics are still relevant. Oliver Klemm contributes the delay guitars and Stephan Otten puts the lyrics through a vocoder. Sankt Otten compress the 17-minute original to just under 5 minutes and move it musically from the 70s to the 80s.

Sankt Otten’s adaptation of David Bowies “Heroes” is equipped with warm Juno 106 sounds, ebow guitar and synthesizer pads. The German “Helden” version, known from the movie Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, is sung in a touching way by Carsten Sandkämper.


New York-based Rafael Anton Irisarri was responsible for mastering of the record. As part of the series with graphic covers, this die-cut artwork was also created by Mexican designer Daniel Castrejon. The one time only vinyl pressing, limited to 350 copies, comes in a beautifully designed die-cut cover and colored vinyl. The Osnabrück duo Sankt Otten, founded in 1999, have been releasing on Denovali since 2009. The band has dedicated itself to the holy trinity of Krautrock, Ambient and contemporary Electronics.

Sankt Otten - Doom Town

Some things could be attributed to chance, while others result from human [in]action. Reality has a way of unfolding, but we also can shape it, if we only try. We can create distortion fields in this world, both negative and positive. I prefer to do it with music [and also with these words], feeling the pressure levels of air displaced through this space, seeing my actions evolve our community. The key is to channel it into the right things. The key is to mould this reality by lowering suffering and not creating more insanity spun out by imaginary thoughts. Turkish electronic musician Siné Buyuka expresses her frustration, aggrievement and grief for the loss and devastation of the 2022 Turkiye-Syria earthquake on her latest album, Farewell. Producing under her Sinemis moniker, the music captures the visceral emotional maelstrom through sound shaped by organic pads, pulsating bass, and prickly stabs from semi-modular synths. Buyuka's music is "at once a love letter to the beautiful land that she once called home and a scathing indictment of the governing powers that have so harmed its own people, culture, and freedom." The tension of this cinematic expression is held together by beatless rhythm and sweeping noise that would appeal to fans of Caterina Barbieri, Alessandro Cortini and Helene Vogelsinger. Siné, of course, is more than an artist - she is also the founder and curator of an Istanbul and London-based boutique label, Injazero Records, which put out a benefit compilation two years ago (March 2023) titled re-LEAF with all profits donated to the Ahbap NGO in Turkiye for their wide-range relief operation in an ethnically diverse area home to millions of immigrants and Syrian refugees.

TRACK PREMIERE : Sinemis - It's Not Fate, It's You

From the album Layers of Afternoon, Available June 13, 2025 on Western Vinyl
Pre-order / Listen https://lnk.to/layersofafternoon

Bandcamp

WV283 - Goldmund - Before I Sleep

Suddenly/Big Empty Country

Big Empty Country (Edit)

Play On

Play On (Single Edit)

Tracklist

01. Ian Hawgood - No Walls To Contain These Fervent Spirits
02. Hadley Roe -  When I Look Back...
03. Celer -  Melancholy Movement III
04. Betts(JP) - Yosde 03
05. Samuel Regan - Tell Them I've Had a Wonderful Life
06. Lamasz & Thme - Lueurs
07.  Rhucle - In Haze
08. Pruski - Last Particle (feat. Tomasz Mreńca)
09. Aiko Takahashi -  Un Beau Matin D’Été
10.  Dalton Alexander - Modrý (Reprise)

423. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

I don't think I will ever forget the first time I heard m.=addiction. I can also confirm that every time I played out that record, folks waltzed over to me to find out the name. Something mystical and enigmatic brought them over to music, making me feel like I was a snake charmer enchanting a cobra with the sounds of a pungi. The music of Dictaphone often evoked hazy spaces, full of jazzy smoke, lo-fi textures, and noir voices, occupying those distant corners of your memory where you felt glamorous comfort, charming enchantment, and warming delight. Since the 2002 debut, the Berlin-based duo of Oliver Doerell and Roger Döring released five more albums, all of which I think I have covered on Headphone Commute. And, in my humble opinion, their latest upcoming release is the closest to that special aura I felt nearly two decades ago. Unstable is Dictaphone's 6th full-length, where Doerel and Döring are also joined by Alexander Stoze (on violin) to mesmerise us with that special scent of future-retro nostalgia that seems to drift in the air like thick incense in a temple of soporific ghosts.

TRACK PREMIERE : Dictaphone - Desplendor

Fort Mudge Memorial Dump was a band from Walpole, Massachusetts, that started playing by 1969, gathering a good number of fans. They got filed into the “Boston Sound”, among the Ultimate Spinach, the Beacon Street Union, Orpheus, Tangerine Zoo, ecc.

With good technique and better ideas, they recorded a very sought-after LP in which the voice of Caroline Stratton stands out to some Jefferson Airplane affinity.  Guitarist Dean Keady, with his jazzy effects, leads the band.

The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump - Tomorrow  1969

from 'The Silent Season' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den278
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/pacosala]

After the release of last autumn's 6 track "Ko Yo" 12'' on Denovali, Paco Sala return with a fifth full length album, their first since 2015. 
The Silent Season is the net result of a full tibiofemoral dislocation, a lot of surgery, a lot of really heavy drugs, a seemingly open-ended period of housebound isolation & a subsequent hazy regression to roots and influences. The Silent Season is a fever-dream, embodying the period of physical stasis & marking a shift from the outsider pop structures of previous releases. Here instead the duo employ delirious, morphing synth structures intertwined with semi-lucid samples and haunting vocals. All tracks were recorded in improvised sessions over the course of January 2016, before being shared for finishing touches in Berlin. Tracks are presented inclusive of the players' errors, recording mistakes & creative decisions made without reference to consequence. 

"fragmented, distorted pop music, and its melted concoction of influences – from 80s no-wave to contemporary R&B – is transformed into an inebriated haze of synthesizer and vocals" - FACT

"While without doubt deeply rooted in drone and forward-thinking experimental, kosmische-informed synth music, what we have before us as a result are some of the most beautiful and honest pop music we've come across this year." - No Fear Of Pop

"thoroughly serious and unique, and more than coherent enough to stand up without tacked-on signifiers" - Resident Advisor

The Silent Season

Paco Sala - MS2000R workout nmbr 1

The Durutti Column - Sketch For Summer

Been blogging, music sharing, etc. for a while now (see blog under this name) & DJing since 1982. I like all kinds of music.

Most of my playlists are not organized & just hold songs I'm interested in, many of which I haven't listened to yet. The "freeform current listening" playlist is as it says & will be updated regularly. Many of my reposts were unintentional, they were just random tracks I was trying to add to a playlist using my phone & I've got clumsy fingers.

Paco Sala - MS2000R workout nmbr 1

Denovali

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