N̷̛̺̫̼̱̝̜̿͒̉̓͑͐̇̚̕i̸̟͎̗͔̪͈͆̃̑̐̓̓̾́ͅc̴̨̜͆e̶̤̼͉̟͈̲̤͆̆̓̀̇̓͐̽͜ ̸̼̣͂̅̂t̵̮̀͐̋͝ṟ̵̮͕̲̞̪̘̾̆̔ͅa̵͇͚̱̹̗̖̓̒̈́̾͑̓̿̃͠c̵̛̮̰̊̆̑̊̒̾͘͘͠k̷͖̠̖̳͎̀͑̋̆͐͌̈́̓͘͘

Already one of my favorite albums of 2020.

Ether

Never The Right Time

Never the right time (feat. Alison Skidmore)

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]

Taken from 'Fringe' LP/Download (E064, Ecstatic 03/09/2021)

A gorgeous swell of intimate soundscaping from Felisha Ledesma on this simmering stunner for Ecstatic, despatching two extended, richly absorbing pieces weft from everyday detritius; synths, strings, voicemail, found sounds - hitting a similar spot for us as Ulla’s diaristic 'inside means inside me’ but with a more defined play of sound-as-light that gently and memorably tugs at the earlobes and heartstrings. 

Exploring a music of presence and ultra subtle inference, ‘Fringe’ is the 2nd release by Ledesma, student of Berlin's estimable Universität der Künste, following from a debut for Enmossed x Psychic Liberation earlier this year. Using AMQR - a software synthesiser built by Ledesma together with Ess Mattisson - both pieces here shimmer with elusive timbres that occupy a realm that feels lost between worlds - neither electronic nor acoustic, but more a sort of observational sound that radiates togetherness and warmth. 

Operating at insightful levels of synaesthesia, Ledesma poetically turns ostensibly humdrum sources into clouds of smoke - emails, voicenotes, walking along the water, a poem attached to an email, walking alone in New York during lockdown, going for a swim at sunset in the desert - all turn into a smudge of memory. When ‘Beamsplitters’ opens with a tangible human presence - a voicemail from a friend - it startles with its earthly pull, eventually getting lost in a tangled spool of found sound leaving just a trace of iridescent, intimate reverie. 

On ‘Golden Mirror’ Felisha gently diffracts a lonesome guitar phrase into a humming thizz with a steeply uncanny ability to jog the memory in a similar way to how olfactory stimulus can conjure feelings of nostalgia. It’s a trick familiar from an emergent new realm of lower case composers creating something like submerged, small scale symphonies that work counter to notions of classical excess or anodyne ambient, instead focusing on microcosmic, highly peronalised sort of worldbuilding that’s impenetrable, yet somehow entirely open.

Felisha Ledesma - Golden Mirror [E064]

extr : 8’35’’ -  1978 – CD: Cultures électroniques 14-27° concours international de musique et d’art sonore électroacoustique -
                                                  série Imeb / UNESCO / CIME 2000 - voix : Mercedes Cornu

Echos - extr : 8’35’’ - 1978

Manhole

sphere

ulla - table

recorded in early 2016 with the latvian radio choir  🕊🐚

Andy Stott - Song For Chance

Glory Bitch

https://sequel-label.bandcamp.com/album/append
@ullastraus

[SQ016] Ulla Straus - "Air"

"Red Velvet Or Nothing" by Belong from the definitive "October Language" LP reissue due out Spring 2018.

"Red Velvet Or Nothing" by Belong

track 2 from "tumbling towards a wall"
LP out now
https://boomkat.com/products/tumbling-towards-a-wall

DIGITAL DIRECT: https://ullastraus.bandcamp.com/album/tumbling-towards-a-wall

soon at a store near uu

tumbling towards a wall

leaves and wish

Written, recorded and mixed by Janek Sprachta at Einraum Studio Berlin.
Violin played by Susanna Lundgren. 
Mastered by Nils Frahm at Durton Studio, Berlin. 

Novembre

Watching The Snowflakes Fall

Buy Novembre

Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country

Track from the upcoming DE NOR 2020 compilation LP/DL, out on January 11, 2021!

Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt : The Monster Of Yesa

Taken from Not Waving & Romance - Eyes Of Fate [E065, Ecstatic]
 
Not Waving combines with Romance on the free-floating grandeur of ‘Eyes Of Fate’ : nine tracks of mythological, Old Testament ambient.

The first new music from Not Waving since 2019 and the first pairing with label mate Romance 'Eyes Of Fate’ explores the fertile territory between secular and religious music that has long fascinated artists, allegories on the divine and existential bliss and terror in equal measure. 

From the curdled invocation of opener ‘I Bowed On My Knees’ to the enrapturing devotional of ‘While My Heart Still Beats’ to the final judgement of ‘Kneel For Mercy’, the album wrenches highly emotive textures utilising a blend of centuries-old chant styles and orchestration consisting of  chamber strings, tape loops and plangent processed sounds.

BUY!

Not Waving & Romance - While My Heart Is Still Beating [E065]

☆

by @specialguest-dj

booking inquiries 💌 refillmadness@gmail.com

leaves and wish

3XL

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