Taken from 'I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night' LP/Download [ELP063]

Sublime debut of lilting sketches for guitar x synth by manc bosom buds Celestial, quietly resplendent in a classic vein of soft touch Balearic blues and kosmische hues that comes very highly recommended if you’re into anything from The Durutti Column to Vincent Gallo’s classic ‘When’ album or even the instrumental splendour of HTRK at their most diaphanous.

Bathed in moonlight, ’I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night’ is the gorgeous debut by childhood friends Celestial, arriving in the glistening wake of 2021 gems on the same label by Romance, Not Waving, Spivak, claire rousay & more eaze. Convecting a richly sanguine sound gleaned from a Sequential Circuits Sixtrak synth and Fender guitar with the results mottled to frail AGFA tape, it’s the modest and warm soul on display that speaks to a quieter side of the rainy city psyche, picking up a fine thread of etheric inspiration that leads back to The Durutti Column via Ry Cooder’s ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack and Iasos’ intoxicating new age, with a fragile, gauzy vision of instrumental songcraft ripe for getting lost in dappled fantasy.

Practically synaesthetic in their spatial sensitivity and psilocybic tactility, the six songs make a real virtue of reverb, echo and tender hiss that swaddles their lyrical phrasing with a cottony texture. Subtly but crucially favouring analogue enigma over digital clarity, their sound unspools with a kaleidoscopic, nostalgic quality surrendered in shimmering waves of bliss and back-of-the-eyes swirl between the hash haze of ‘Endless’ and northern gothic tone of ‘Lonely Weekend.’ Tape hiss resembles drizzle outside in the lowlit langour of ‘Hat Full of Rain’, and we can practically taste the petrichor in ‘The Perfumed Garden’, leading to ASMR levels of synth tingles with an unmistakeable northern melancholy of ‘At The Rivers Edge’, especially in its gloaming coda.

A reel low-key stunner.

Mastered by Alessio Natalizia

Buy!

CELESTIAL - THE PERFUMED GARDEN [ELP063]

Baptismal

Immersion

All Life Long

Moving Forward

La Lisana Lah

Muqata’a - Zyadet Naqs زيادة نقص (from La Lisana Lah, SOUK012)

We're so happy to announce the Ground Hum Mix Series. For our initial mix, we've got a very special contribution from Ground Hum's own IVVY featuring tracks from past and future Ground Hum artists.

Typically known for visceral live techno sets, Seattle’s Madi Levine (IVVY) blends their background in jazz and electronic synthesis into hauntingly beautiful atmospheric compositions. Their ambient works are cathartic expressions of healing, navigating the past and hope for the future.

Follow IVVY: @ivvyseattle

Join us for Ground Hum on March 2, 2024.  Tickets are available now at https://groundhum.net

Tracklist:

Arovane - skyline 
Patricia Wolf - under a glass
Lori Goldston - we miss you and wish you well
IVVY - closed gates
Strategy - the wet room
Sarah Bell Reid - underneath 1
Lucy Liyou - some form of kindness
Ben Bondy - aphelion lash 
Piotrek Markowicz - if the sun had a sound it would be huun hurr tu
Hollie Kenniff - quell
Nils Petter Molvaer - presence
Garth Stevenson - the southern sea

Ground Hum Mix Series 01: IVVY

solo modular

Flickering memories and faded feelings — “the same old story: tape 1” by instagram.com/ubilam is a liminal four-track EP filled with melancholic moments, like forgotten recordings from a dream you once lived.

ubilaM - we had a good time

A haunting wave of nostalgia and emotion slowed into infinity, reverb echoing like memories you can’t escape.

Immersion

Laraaji

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