We’re back again, in time for another Bandcamp Day (brought to you by Epic Games this time around). Here’s a few albums we’ve been digging into over the past month; hope you find something worth checking out and supporting.
Future Museums – Heart Pulp
Due to both the state of the world and personal circumstance, I’ve found myself less able to make space for new music over the past few months. Fully engaging with a work of art takes time and focus, resources that have felt particularly finite recently. I’ve found myself spending a lot of time with Heart Pulp, the latest album from Future Museums, largely because it’s an album that demands very little while offering a lot. Consisting of two side long compositions designed to “lower blood pressure and blanket the senses”, its undulating waves of sound create a world of pure tranquility. While it’s easy to let it wash over you (and I’ve certainly indulged in that mode of listening) it’s also richly textured music that rewards close listening. Reminiscent of the best from ambient masters like Brian Eno or Laraaji, this is sonic escapism at its finest.
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer – Recordings from the Åland Islands
Longtime readers are well aware of my obsession with the Gothenberg scene, in my humble opinion one of the most exciting in the world; I’ve often wondered if there’s something in the air that inspires their particular brand of ramshackle DIY folk. Recorded across multiple visits to the titular islands, an archipelago in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland, the debut album from duo Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer gives some credence to that theory. Though the sonic foundation of Chiu and Honer’s album is quite different (the influence of jazz and synth pioneers like Laurie Spiegel looms large, mixing with field recordings and ambient atmospherics) the end results have the same otherworldly, transfixing qualities that permeate the music coming out of Gothenberg. Perhaps it’s something about the landscapes or the weather; maybe it’s something entirely different. All I know is that the music it inspires is pure magic.
Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems
I generally try to use Undrcurrents as a platform to spotlight music that I feel won’t get its due elsewhere. While there have been no shortage of words about the excellence of Diaspora Problems, the latest album from Philly hardcore unit Soul Glo, it’s an album so powerful I’d feel remiss in not offering it some space here. One of the rare albums that lives up to its near universal hype, it’s a set of music that is intellectually and musically dense while managing to remain a completely visceral listening experience. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve had nearly enough time to digest it, but I can guarantee this is a watershed album for hardcore, one that will set the standard for excellence in the genre for years to come.
Julmud –Tuqoos
What’s most notable about Tuqoos, the debut album from Ramallah based producer/rapper Julmud, is its slipperiness; it’s music that defies easy categorization, feeling at once rooted and rootless. Perhaps the clearest reference points here are the Arabic pop flourishes that pepper the album, but they coexist with many other musical ideas and styles: damaged industrial rap, distorted soul groves, trip hop atmospherics and much more. It’s an audacious debut, one that uses the familiar to build something completely new.
Elkyn –Holy Spirit Social Club
When I was a kid, adults seemed to love to ask me “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’d generally respond with a shrug, to which they’d reply jokingly “That’s ok, neither do I.” Or at least I thought it was a joke, but now that I’m older I’m not so sure. In my experience you don’t really figure much out as you age, you just get better at muddling through. Elkyn’s debut album, Holy Spirit Social Club, is an album grappling with these sorts of realizations. On a set of melancholic folk-rock built around frontman Joseph Donnelly’s guitar picking and distinctive vocals, Donnelly paints a portrait of someone mired in uncertainty and regret; he misses the simpler times of youth and wonders whether he should have everything figured out by now. It’s an album that brings to mind the work of Elliott Smith, if only because few artists are able to make feeling bummed out sound so beautiful.
Cabo Boing – Real Gems For Little Jewels
Over forty years ago, Kraftwerk proclaimed “we are the robots,” and the impact of those four simple words continue to ripple across the musical underground. Though Cabo Boing’s pop miniatures are very different than a Kraftwerk kosmische epic, there’s an undeniable robotic through line from one to the other. For those in the know, this album won’t surprise you; Cabo Boing is one of the foremost purveyors of zany pop music working today, and the technicolor offerings on Real Gems For Little Jewels don’t disappoint. For those who aren’t, it’s a skewed little universe unto itself that’s well worth a visit.