It’s been a busy January, but we’re back (just in time for another Bandcamp Friday) with some albums that have been spinning here at Undrcurrents HQ for the past month.
In honor of today’s festivities, we also have a longer, nonexhaustive BNDCMPR playlist of recommended releases. Some are upcoming albums we’re either excited about or have already heard, while others are old favorites that we just want to show some extra love. And, if you still find yourself scratching your head about what to buy, you can also look back at our Bandcamp recommendation series. We hope you discover some new music today, so dig in and please enjoy.
Partner Look – By The Book
Partner Look originally came together to write a song for a family friend’s wedding, but what could have simply been a one-off collaboration between sisters Ambrin and Anila Hasnain and their partners Dainis Lacey and Lachlan Denton ended up becoming an ongoing proposition. Recorded in a home studio amid the lockdowns of 2020, their debut album is a quirky, charming take on Australian jangle pop. Songs hopscotch from poignant to surreal to funny; one minute they’ll be talking about trying to grow up and find yourself, and the next they’ll be describing an accidental insecticide in excruciating detail. Luxuriating in the small, absurd details of life, they’ve put together one of the most delightful rock albums of the year thus far.
The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Summer At Land’s End
Uncommon Weather, the last album from Glenn Donaldson’s jangle pop project The Reds, Pinks & Purples, was one of our favorite albums of 2021. All of the qualities that drew us to that album are present on their newest one: hazy, narcotic melodies, ethereal vocals, flawless songwriting. There are a few successful experiments here (such the drifting seven minute titular instrumental), but by and large Summer At Land’s End doesn’t stray too far from the winning formula of its predecessor. And why should it? There’s no need to mess with perfection.
La Roche – Liye Liye
Nyege Nyege Tapes continues to be one of the most essential labels operating today, and their latest album only extends a long running hot streak. The first in a planned series of releases highlighting artists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liye Liye is the debut album from producer La Roche. Mining musical traditions of the DRC and filtering them through contemporary sounds from grime to chiptunes, he comes out with something swirlingly psychedelic and wildly unpredictable. It’s one of the strangest sonic journeys you can take right now, but also one that’s well worth the admission price.
Silent Speech – 不穩定的規律/有序混沌
The best parts of year end lists is discovering the music that may have slipped past you. Silent Speech wasn’t on my radar until Radii China mentioned them in the same breath as Undrcurrents’ favorites The 尺口MP; naturally I had to check them out. The Beijing band has been together for over a decade, but their seventy minute debut album only landed late last year. I’ll be frank: there is a lot of Radiohead in their DNA. Lead singer Wu Xiaoran’s falsetto is a dead ringer for Thom Yorke, and a few tracks could easily pass for Ok Computer outtakes. But is that really a bad thing? You can also hear the same sense of atmosphere that made Hiperson’s Bildungsroman a favorite in 2020, skronky jazz-prog breakdowns and other spins on the sound that keep things interesting and prevent the album from feeling like mere pastiche. Definitely worth a listen if this sort of thing tickles your fancy.
Soshi Takeda – Same Place, Another Time
Soshi Takeda’s latest album (which arrives courtesy of Constellation Tatsu) was inspired by looking at photographs of places lost to the sands of time, and there’s a deep, aching sense of nostalgia embedded in the fibers of his imagined sonic memories. Takeda largely sticks with a synthetic, vaporwave tinged sound, occasionally allowing fragments of the natural world to encroach on it. Those moments are the most powerful; for example, the intro and outro of the title track features a brief appearance of chirping birds and lapping waves, giving the impression that you’re standing on the beach, looking at the remains of some lost tropical discotheque and remembering better times. Evocative and transportive stuff.
Deathcrash – Return
Black Country, New Road’s Ants From Up Here may be the buzziest album to come out the UK so far this year, but fellow Londoners Deathcrash deserve just as much hype. I happened upon an interview crediting Deathcrash with informing Black Country, New Road’s current approach to dynamics; listening to Deathcrash’s debut album, it’s not hard to hear why. Gradual builds and releases of musical tension are the core of their sound; loud riffs become towering when buttressed by whispered melodies, while quieter moments are made more intimate when surrounded by noise. The two groups’ musical touchpoints are clearly different (though both seem to have an affinity for post rock bands like Slint, Deathcrash’s glacial tempos and riffs are much more indebted to slowcore), but both make a huge, emotional impact by putting dynamic tension front and center.
Iceboy Violet – The Vanity Project
While listening to “Urban Ambience”, the opening trace of The Vanity Project, I was instantly reminded of Honest Labour, Manchester duo Space Afrika’s homage to the nocturnal buzz of cities. It turned out that was no coincidence; the duo produced the track, one of many collaborators on Iceboy Violet’s debut mixtape. Located somewhere at the nexus of avant-garde electronics and weirdo rap, the project takes a schizophrenic approach to genre. At times I was reminded of Le1f’s twinkly masterpiece Dark York (“VANITY”), at others the pure intensity of Backxwash (“DEATHDRIVE”); still others pull from more extreme styles like metal and noise. The entire mixtape is a wild ride, one that heralds the arrival of an incredibly exciting talent.