- ProtoU – ‘Bridge Of Storms’
ProtoU is back with another brilliant blend of light and dark ambient. This time around she focuses on eastern esoteric traditions. Exceptionally crisp field recordings and deep soothing drones take the listener on a trip through Asia. Hinting at its use as a tool for deep meditation, the album cover depicts a massive monument of Buddha, towering above a tiny insignificant human figure. All the ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) goodness is still present but this time Sasha Cats delivers a more active and cinematic experience. Light your candles and incense, dim the lights, and sink into a dark meditative bliss. Namaste!
Michael Barnett
- Marie Davidson – ‘Naive To The Bone‘
All started around the thrilling Montreal underground scene of the early 2000 centred around the Godspeed You Black Emperor!’s Constellation label and the Italian-named ‘centre culturel’ Casa Del Popolo, the meeting with Xarah Dion and the formative experimental/ambient duo Les Momies De Palerme until 2012, then the amazing dark electro collaboration with Pierre Guerineau as Essaie Pas, that has delivered three albums, their most recent ‘Demain Est Une Autre Nuit’ (2016) even for the infamous NY’s DFA label, and at the same time Marie’s solo work with the stunning 2014 debut ‘Perte D’Identité’ and last year equally excellent ‘Un Autre Voyage’.
Curiously just when her fellow Xarah Dion is releasing the new album, Marie has premiered the new single ‘Naive To The Bone‘ that marks a slight shift in terms of sound and production from the analogue dark and dreamy cinematic soundscapes of her previous work, versus a more club-oriented Berlin-like electronic techno flavour.
With her intriguing and intoxicating spoken-word poetry, the Canadian producer and poetess, supported by a crisp, rough, minimal and propulsive dancefloor-filler electronic rhythmic, affirms “It seems like honesty is not so fashionable these days”…
Montreal, won’t be fashionable too (for its God’s sake), but is becoming a source of goodies for every synth electronic music gourmet.
The nine-track album ‘Adieux Au Dancefloor’ will be released in early October via Minimal Wave/Cititrax.
Fabrizio Lusso
- PLUM – ‘New Globe’
‘New Globe‘ is a 475 seconds long ambient synthesizer exploration from Chaz Bundick. New age meets ambient inspired mostly by legendary composer Laraaji. Get ready to get blown away into Stratosphere with this magnificent piece of art by PLUM. Lost, disorientated, hallucinated….Pure lethe…
Christos Doukakis
- Faunlet – ‘Grey Magic‘
I musically only knew about Romania for a very promising generation of electronic techno djs and producers and a lively club scene, but it’s the first time I’ve listened to a band from the alternative rock camp and my approach couldn’t have been better.
Faunlet is a Bucharest-based project started around 2012 with the release of its first 3-track debut single, followed two years later with a full length debut titled ‘Fauna Of The Heart Flora From beyond‘.
Initially a trio, Faunlet, a name coined by “Lolita” author Vladimir Nabokov that describe the young male counterpart of a nymphet, now has become the solo moniker of the androgynous singer/songwriter/musician Peter.
The music is not easy to categorize, often not a bad thing though, an intriguing mixture of post punk, darkwave, goth and shoegaze, or better a gloomy sensual ‘darkgaze’ as the band describes itself.
This stunning new single titled ‘Grey Magic‘ is introduced by the drum machine’s beat that will lead us on the path of a gorgeous bleak funereal hopeless love ballad, wrapped in a spiral of an obsessive and claustrophobic combination of guitar and synth sounds, with the haunting and Peter’s painful voice (one of the most compelling I’ve recently heard) singing detached ‘Grey magic will transport us/To the end of the world/Where we will stand before an endless sea/Your arms around me/We’ll inhale each other and we’ll see/That there’s no need for words/No need for anything’, in the end suddenly the atmosphere seems to reach its climax, the sound briefly explodes on the brink of… then it’s the silence, the void, the end?
Fabrizio Lusso
- Okkervil River – ‘Judey On A Street’
‘Judey On A Street‘ is the third video from Okkervil River‘s most recent album ‘Away‘ (ATO Records), following ‘Okkervil River R.I.P.‘ and ‘The Industry‘. The Austin band with its distinctive alt-country style, has released a wonderful video with the aid of director Gabrielle Demeestere. A man in the woods and a naked couple. Simplicity and directness of art.
Christos Doukakis
Compiled by Michael Barnett, Fabrizio Lusso & Christos Doukakis