Love Magicicada. One of the few electronic music artists who is original and always interesting in progressions.

Notes from Left of the Dial: May 23

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Ben Khan - Youth

Announcing the onset of night, Driftmachine —a Berlin-based duo comprised of Andreas Gerth (Tied & Tickled Trio) and Florian Zimmer (Saroos)— have created Nocturnes, a psychoactive, dream-inducing stimulant of sorts: Evoking and maintaining a trancelike state, the duo’s six-part journey into the dark was originally inspired by reading The Rest Is Noise and listening to the music discussed in Alex Ross’ seminal book. The resulting soundscapes, written and recorded since 2012, redefine the lines between insomnia and slumber, between wraithlike dub grooves gone awry, the dancing flicker of a slack-joint bedside lamp, and eerie electronics.

Nocturnes is essentially comprised of six studies in precision: perfectly symmetrical structures that slowly spread their bass-heavy wings, sprawl like digital fungi, shift shape and – paradoxically – seem to drift and to obey the two captains at the helm. It’s an album of hypnotic and mesmerizing electronic landscapes based on various interlocked layers of rhythm. “Getting deeper into the world of modular systems introduced us to new ways of creating music,” they say, and it also allowed Gerth and Zimmer to redefine and rearrange styles and genres they generally feel drawn to – dub, riddims, anything with bass really –, so the heavy bass and percussive elements of Nocturnes don’t come in the colors you’d expect them to: Driftmachine’s palette stays true to the colors of night, a massive scale of gray.

With its meticulously displaced details and intricate harmony layers, Nocturnes also evokes the electronic avant-garde of the mid-70s, think Cluster during the band’s Zuckerzeit era. Nocturnes keeps the balance between intense, dramatic metrics and rather complex, modulated melodies. Also nodding to Krzysztof Komeda’s compositions (especially his score for Rosemary’s Baby) and the haunting, uncanny vibes of Raime, Nocturnes won’t let you sleep: “To us, the album sounds like staying awake the whole night; it unites all the different moods one might go through.”

All songs produced by Andreas Gerth and Florian Zimmer. Mastered by John Tejada.

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Driftmachine - Call Mr Moriba

Contact: Alyssa at TeamClermont dot com
Out June 17, 2014 on Mission Trips
Press materials: http://teamclermont.com/roster/18026/magicicada

::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  

Magicicada is the long-running noise-drone-collage project of Chris White, an unhinged auteur based south of the Mason-Dixon, where experimental music belies any contextual cues, be it cultural, contextual, temporal, or geographic.
Magicicada’s aural approach is a unique & indiviualized display of absurdist technique and frazzled mania. Listen and give the intial hit a chance to permeate your system and see the bigger picture: everything is here for a reason.

The 1.5-decade-young project has seen White deploy experimental distribution methods (hiding editions in Tower Records CD bins, newspaper stands, and public restrooms or taped to the sides of buildings with a phone number that went directly to an answering machine, whose messages later appeared as source material for other recordings) and listener participation extremes (hiding clues and interactive maps around Atlanta for listeners to experience sound with their own devices.) These artful guerrilla techniques culminated in 2006 with the release of Magicicada’s psych-electro-ambient masterpiece, Everyone is Everyone, issued via Public Guilt.

Wrack is arguably White’s master work, primed by years of ceaseless curiosity and mischievous glee executed both in home studios (be it a bedroom, back porch or cramped laundry room) and in front of bewildered audiences (from Atlanta’s sprawling noise scene to eccentric spaces abroad). Through this dual persona Magicicada wove the compositions on Wrack. Live, White is an unbridled force of clear and present improvisation, writhing around an array of electronic ephemera and acoustic accoutrements. The chaos is cathartic; a disarming disarray of sound. At home and behind the curtain, White carefully plots the production, picking out each arranged piece with a surgical precision.

The resulting fifteen tracks of Wrack with Ruin are wholly White, with much of the non-obvious instrumentation having been derived from White’s private library of personally-recorded foley sounds and field recordings developed specifically for the LP. Haphazard rhythms and dense sonic fogs balance the exploratory harmonies and entrancing aural realms on the spectrum of music presented by Magicicada on this set. Wrack is a testament to White’s virtuosity, mania, and his relentless devotion to the possibilities of sound.

Magicicada - "Once I was a Little Light"

OUT NOW. 

iTunes: http://po.st/DOMLiT 
Spotify: http://po.st/DOMLsp

Produced by Stefan Ponce and Vic Mensa

http://www.facebook.com/vicmensa1
https://twitter.com/VicMensa
http://instagram.com/vicmensa
http://www.youtube.com/vicmensa
http://cakemensa.tumblr.com/

http://vicmensa.com/

MistaJam Presents Big Beats

Down On My Luck (Radio Edit)

Parquet Courts "Sunbathing Animal" out June 3 on What's Your Rupture?/Mom+Pop (US), June 2 on Rough Trade (UK/EU).

Pre-order on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/sunbathing
Pre-order on CD/LP: http://sunbathinganimal.com

Parquet Courts - Instant Disassembly

In a Cloud (b)

OWEL MERCH: intheclouds.io/owel

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Razors

I Don't Smoke

Sea Legs

Dawn light breaks through the eastern blinds
The ice has lined the roads
The bitterness of bitter things is made a little more bitter by the liquor in your drink

The spire looms above the stagnant fog
His silence speaks in tongues
Well I’m hanging on the trouble that tomorrow brings and every step I take shifts the ground beneath my feet 

You ask me why I ain’t been home in so long
You just sigh with your Indian eyes
I lost my time in your Indian eyes

Salt trucks scrape the decaying streets
I think it’s time to leave
Well snowy old New England guess you’ve had your fun but I’m running back to Georgia ‘cause I want my money back

You ask me why I ain’t been home in so long
You just sigh with your Indian eyes
I lost my time in your Indian eyes

You ask me why I ain’t been home in so long
You just sigh with your Indian eyes
I lost my time in your Indian eyes
I just can’t hide from your Indian eyes
I just can’t hide from your Indian eyes

Indian Eyes

It's A Start

Run For Our Lives

"Hollywood Signs" single releases August 15th 2025
As the summer scurry fades and autumn winds drift eastward, the days grow shorter, the lights dimmer - Kramies makes his timely return. And “Hollywood Signs”, the lead single from an upcoming new LP, is a clear departure in sound for the cult Ohio songwriter. 
Seeking to expand his creative world into new dimensions, his upcoming work finds him collaborating with Grammy-winning producer Mario J. McNulty (David Bowie / Prince) to conjure dusky soundscapes shaded with nighttime colors and a nostalgic melancholia.

Song and Words by Kramies
Produced and Mixed by Mario J McNulty
Mastered by Dave McNair

Kramies
vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, synths

David Goodheim
electric guitar, bass guitar

John Panza
drums, percussion

Dave Eggar
strings & string arrangement

Captured by 
John Panza, Chris Keffer, Davis Goodheim, Dave Eggar, Kramies

Hollywood Signs

Coyote

Cain / Able

Cain / Abel

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Magicicada - "Once I was a Little Light"

Team Clermont

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