Bandcamp’s final scheduled no-fee day is this Friday, July 3rd. If you’re looking for new music to pick up we’ve got you covered with another all star group of recommenders. You can find previous guides here and here.
Hopefully Bandcamp will schedule more of these days while the pandemic continues to prevent musicians from touring, but even if they don’t we will continue this series of articles. Bandcamp is one of the best places on the internet to support musicians, and special days or not we should all do our part to ensure that both musicians and labels can survive COVID-19 intact.
For me, the best part of these pieces is getting to chat with all the contributors and discover new albums from them. I’ve admired their work as curators for years, and it’s truly a thrill to have them writing something on this site. Like we said last time, if you’re interested in participating in one of these pieces (or doing any writing for the site) get in touch with us. We want to be as open a platform as possible to all voices interested in talking about music. Contact info is here.
For even more recommendations, check out this page which is an extension of the Google doc of Black artists we shared last time. The site makes it much easier to browse the music; you can filter music, artists and labels by genre and location as well as randomly shuffling selections to let the robots pick for you. It’s dope.
Trip Warner Along with his brother Doug, Trip runs Wharf Cat Records, one of our all time favorite labels (the inaugural label profile on this very site was dedicated to their discography). With a diverse roster that includes Sediment Club, Gong Gong Gong, Bush Tetras, Public Practice, Dougie Poole, and Macula Dog, they’re constantly releasing music that blows my socks off. Check out Trip’s Bandcamp picks below.
LOVE IN HIGH DEMAND | TOO FREE Awad Bilal’s vocals are totally sick and alluring on Too Free’s debut. The DC band is a dream trio also featuring Carson Cox (Merchandise) and Don Goodwin (Callers, Impractical Cockpit). The grooves are so good, the melodies so catchy and it’s really minimal with lot’s of space. I’m getting a second copy of this record on Bandcamp Day because I have a suspicion it will sell out before the holidays and want to give it to a special someone.
ECONOMIC IMPACT PAYMENT | THANKS GOD I saw Thanks God with ONO and Dreamcrusher a few years back at Holo and was blown away by the immersive world they created. Widescreen dystopian noise-pop with staticky drones, clicking beats and warped sung/spoken vocals. Thanks God also is part of the Post World Radio IG virtual shows that were so sick and ran consecutively for so many weeks in early lock-down – still in awe of the work that went into those and how great they were. Committed.
ANOTHER COUNTRY | DREAMCRUSHER Dreamcrusher is the best artist in NYC. This is one of 2 new essentials.
THE PASSION OF | SPECIAL INTEREST I’m late to Special Interest even tho friends have been telling me I’d love them for sec. A punk band with industrial beats and incredible, dynamic songs. You’ve maybe heard about this record (for good reason) recently. Can’t wait to get the wax.
S/T | CHUPACABRAS Heard about this on my favorite Instagram account. Gonna take a chance on this. On the dependably great and always interesting Long Island Electrical Systems label.
DEAD FINK ERA | DEAD FINKS Dead Finks is a new group based in Berlin and comprising past members of Sydney/Dunedin art punk band, Trust Punks. This ranges from ultra-catchy punk songs to synth-heavy pop, all with a very particular jagged vocal delivery.
FLOWER OF DEVOTION | DEHD Their songs sound familiar, almost like country standards and instantly stick in your brain. And then when you take the pieces of their songs apart you realize how strange and minimal they actually are. Truly exceptional band and no one sounds like them. I would recommend this band to almost anyone that likes classic indie rock, Paisley Underground or interesting country music.
SHAME | UNIFORM New Uniform! The first single “Delco” rips. Those drums are so heavy and Ben Greenberg’s guitars are irresistible. Can’t wait to hear the whole album on wax.
CRIMSON VAPOR AND SO MUCH MORE | SUNK HEAVEN Sunk Heaven is Austin Sley-Julian of The Sediment Club’s solo project that incorporates skewed beats, noise and his singular vocal delivery into other-worldly soundscapes that are sometimes terrifying and often beautiful. Miss seeing Sunk Heaven play live and stoked for this new release.
REPUBLICANS FOR BERNIE | LILY AND HORN HORSE Lily Konigsberg and Matt Norman’s ultra catchy skewed pop project with another banger EP. On the awesome new Dots Per Inch label, also home to the incredible Lucy.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS | VARIOUS ARTISTS New comp from CRUDE with 4 insane sonic installations. Hoping this replicates a night at Silent Barn (RIP) or The Glove (RIP) having your mind blown. CRUDE keeps it fresh.
HUMMING AMPS AND BROKEN STRINGS SING: SILENT MELODIES TO AN EMPTY FIELD | GROWING Zoned out guitar drones that hover and glisten and eventually unravel gracefully into what sounds like a nature field recording. Kind of amazing when a band takes a little hiatus and comes back with a dope, intriguing long track that makes you wonder what might be next.
Jake Saunders Jake runs Ramp Local, another one of our favorite labels (see a pattern emerging here?). In addition to our picks from their back catalog, they have two incredible releases announced in the upcoming JOBS and Godcaster albums. Don’t sleep on either of them, and see Jake’s picks below for even more recommendations.
DISTINCTIVE JUJU | BLACKERFACE Blackerface is an experimental punk band from Chicago that blew me away on this album. It’s got this largeness to it that feels all-encompassing, and yet it’s direct and intimate and it absolutely rips. The highlight on this is without a doubt the vocals; they’re jaw-dropping. The hardcore screamo alongside the belting gospel is just simply genius. It’s intense, passionate, and really prescient.
CORPUS MUTUAL AID EP – SIDE A | CORPUS I grew up seeing Show Me The Body, who later founded the imprint Corpus (full disclosure, I grew up with Harlan the bass player in Queens). I love these guys from the bottom of my heart, and I’m very proud of what they’re doing with the Corpus imprint. This is the A side to a compilation they’re putting out to support the mutual aid fund they’ve started and the Nina Pop mental health recovery fund. Oh and also…BUCK GOOTER AND ONO collaborating on a track?! YES PLEASE!
FOUNTAIN | LYRA PRAMUK This album just hit my right away when I heard it. Actually it was one of those albums that I read something about and was like “I know I’m gonna like this.” It’s full of these really pleasing vocal harmonies and hypnotic, swelling sound-tunnels.
FLANAFI | FLANAFI Flanafi is the strange alternative jazz/beats/rock hybrid solo project from Simon Martinez in Philly. He had a project called Pulgas that also has some amazing stuff out there. It’s clear that there’s a ton of thought put into the production, and it’s no wonder he recorded, engineered and produced the whole thing.
TOO NUMB TO KNOW | PROFLIGATE Industrial-noise-pop-synth-wave goodness from Wharf Cat Records?! YES PLEASE!
THOSE LITTLE DEVILS | TERRY TURTLE love u Terry! <3 <3
ROY AYERS JID002 | ROY AYERS, ADRIAN YOUNGE AND ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD JAZZ IS DEAD ! I don’t have words. Just listen.
Ben Parrish Ben works at Sahel Sounds, another long time favorite. Begun as a blog in 2009, it’s since expanded to be a record label, artist collective, film production house and arts organization focused on the West African Sahel region. We’ve previously recommended their “Music From Saharan Whatsapp” project, a series of EPs released monthly during 2020, but that only scratches the surface of their discography. From autotuned hip hop to Tuareg avant-rock, there are many amazing records to explore in their back catalog. Check out Ben’s picks below.
NEIL HAMBURGER | HOT FEBRUARY NIGHT A recording of comedian Neil Hamburger opening for Tenacious D at Madison Square Garden. The audience is not impressed.
THE LIGHTHOUSE | ANA DA SILVA This solo album by The Raincoats’ Ana da Silva was kinda overlooked when it was released on Chicks on Speed Records back 2005 and that’s a shame because it is FANTASTIC! Ana’s songwriting is just as good as it is on those classic Rough Trade records releases but less rocking and with mostly electronic instrumentation.
LOVE AT CAFE OTO | 75 DOLLAR BILL It seems like everybody that owns an Ikea Kallax already knows and loves 75 Dollar Bill, but I should mention them JUST IN CASE. This is a live album of the band as a 3-piece performing at Cafe Oto in London. Listening to them always makes me feel better about the universe.
Hugh Wilikofsky Hugh is a cofounder of Real Deep Radio, one of the most exciting internet radio stations we’ve come across in a long while. Hit subscribe on their newsletter for weekly schedules and excellent recommendations delivered right to your inbox. Find his picks below, and check out more over at his Bandcamp profile.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS | CARMAN MOORE Now this is what I call easy listening, and I mean that as the highest praise; unshowy, yet so instantly endearing and affecting. Moore’s sparing, warm piano motifs and sweet, bluesy grooves pair exceptionally well with the melancholic domesticity that’s become the norm for many of us. That it’s also a pitch-perfect soundtrack to Ishmael Reed and Bill Gunn’s fantastic “meta-soap opera” Personal Problems—a vital, overlooked piece of film history that examines African-American life in 1980 NYC in a vérité fashion that occasionally veers surrealist (in the way that life, not film, often does)—speaks to its remarkable versatility. Moore’s gorgeous 2019 improvisations on the original score’s themes that make up this reissue’s B-Side are a generous bonus.
FYAI DEMOS + DITCHED ALBUM | LORAINE JAMES James’ For You and I was one of 2019’s best albums, so it’s pretty wild that this collection of outtakes alongside a previously abandoned album reaches similar heights. These tracks further showcase the restless creativity behind her skittering beats. Hers is a sound that doesn’t fit neatly within any one categorization of dance music (I am choosing not to invoke the vague “IDM” tag here), instead setting grime, jungle, and dub sounds adrift within some lovely ambient spaces. This collection hones in on this sense of drift, dispensing some of the harder edges of FYAI in favor of something that still thrums with a nervy energy, but maintains a more meditative vibe.
THE SINGLE | CHILDREN OF THE CORN SIC Records has been doing the lord’s/devil’s work reissuing some classic, unjustly overlooked hip-hop, including this all-time favorite of mine from Memphis’ Lil Grimm and his group Children of the Corn. This release includes not only their debut tape The Single, but also a few absolutely essential bonuses from their album as Graveyard Productions, The Havoc. Grimm’s production is some of the most twisted of the era, achieved through warping soul samples into eerie loops, sometimes even incorporating sounds from a generic halloween cassette. The lyrics follow suit, with plenty of graphic threats of violence, but also some truly poignant moments of vulnerability, as on standout “Devil Shyt,” sounding like Grimm and crew’s answer to “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” While their indulgences in horror motifs and gruesome lyrics might be off-putting to some listeners, it’s worth considering the context before dismissing it. Grimm and his friends were still in high school when they started to record, and in an interview he noted that their music was a reflection of the anger, anxieties, confusion, and fear that they felt as they navigated the negativity and violence around them. “We was just talking about the inside struggle,” he says. “We were trying to figure out what life was about… We was making music for the hood and trying to heal ourselves.”
I HAD FORGOTTEN HOW MUCH LIGHT THERE WAS IN THE WORLD TILL YOU GAVE IT BACK TO ME | OTHERWORLD Toxic spill-wave. The latest from Scottish punk-turned-synth-builder and Anxious Music co-head Helena Celle captures the sounds of a poisoned environment still chugging along after we’re gone—or at least that’s what I’ve been hearing. That probably says more about me than anything inherent in the music, because this is some real deep, absorbing, tactile, loop-based ambient in the vein of Gas. It’s an impressively oblique listen in the best sense, one that feels almost like a sonic mirror, amplifying your thoughts rather than dictating them. I’ve heard so many different emotions and images in its alien burbles over just a handful of listens, and expect to hear much, much more as I return to it again and again in years to come.
KALOLI | NIHILOXICA Speaking of toxic, the kaloli—also known as the Marabou stork, sometimes called the “undertaker bird”—is a carrion bird commonly found south of the Sahara that gathers around landfills and other waste dumps. As the title of Kampala-based Nihiloxica’s debut album, the somewhat grotesque bird acts as a fitting metaphor for the groups electro-percussive sound—distorted and foreboding, but still capable of evoking a sense of reverent awe when things really take off. Stretching out into a full-length gives the group a chance to showcase the full breadth of their intricate, dissonant polyrhythms—the ever-mounting, unresolved tension of “Gunjula,” the muted, slow burn at the heart of “Mukaagafeero,” the heavy industrial stomp of “Bwola.” I hear they’re a group that must be seen live to get the full experience of their sound. Something to look forward to, however far in the future it may be.
THE SHADOWS AND THE LIGHT | QUIN KIRCHNER First off, gotta vent: Chicago percussionist and bandleader Quin Kirchner’s fantastic 2018 album The Other Side of Time commands $100+ price tags on Discogs these days, rather unheard of for a contemporary jazz record. Not trying to equate market value with artistic value by any means, but it’s at least an indication that the album struck enough of a chord with folks to alert the vultures. This new one lives up to the high bar the last set, sending listeners on a sonic voyage through Kirchner’s multifaceted creative landscape. Compositions cascade beautifully into one another, morphing from tight grooves to fiery free improv. Kirchner has assembled a crack team of collaborators and provides them with ample opportunities to take center stage, a testament to his savvy as a bandleader. Through it all he manages to pay homage to a number of major influences, blending faithful covers of classics from Elvin Jones, Phil Cohran, Sun Ra, and Carla Bley seamlessly into his greater vision. Yet another hit; get it before the vultures do.
JASON CRUMER | JASON CRUMER The latest from the Philly-based noise artist and co-head of our beloved No Rent Records is a richly textured, emotionally nuanced, often punishing listening experience, among his very best. For those unfamiliar with his oeuvre (and wary of the genre in general), Crumer’s sound has never fit any easy noise stereotypes. Yes, there are plenty of dizzying noise blasts here, but they’re scattered among muted, paranoid loops, perceptive field recordings, and uneasy drones. Taken as a whole it’s an extremely evocative listen, one where the line between bad dreams and our shitty reality is rendered more and more nebulous. The feel-bad hit of the summer.
David Wilikofsky Won’t waste much time telling you more about me, but as always feel free to head over to my personal Bandcamp profile for more stuff I’ve been digging.
SHAKA BUNDU | PENNY PENNY Awesome Tapes From Africa began life as a blog. Founder Brian Shimkovitz created it to share music he discovered while on a Fulbright scholarship in Ghana, mostly sold as cassette tapes at markets. Since then the blog has expanded into a full fledged label. This Penny Penny release is one of my favorites from them. A classic of Tsonga disco, the album mixes Western house music with traditional call and response vocal patterns and made Penny Penny into a pop star. ATFA is reissuing another Penny Penny album in August, so grab this one now to prepare yourself.
VEX | NAZAMBA Nazamba put out this single on Kevin Martin’s Pressure imprint in 2018, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. Over an insane industrial riddim provided by Japanese dub collective G36 (who also have their own EP on Pressure) Nazamba attacks political corruption and moral bankruptcy. He’s since put out a full album that’s a bit less experimental but equally great.
TELEVISE | ROMAN RADKOVIC COLLECTIVE This Czech group create some of the most out there soundscapes this side of The Shadow Ring. Landing somewhere between bizarro outsider folk, free jazz freakout and pure disjointed noise, the group turns out some of the most challenging and interesting music I’ve heard all year.
FREE ADVICE | CINDY Gentle, Galaxie 500 indebted dream pop confections that drift by slowly like clouds on a sunny day. It reminds me of living in San Francisco and going for runs through Golden Gate Park on a foggy morning. An absolute stunner.
CLOUD FACTORY #1 | CLOUD FACTORY A short blast of effervescent indie pop from France that hits the same sweet spot as the Melenas and En Attendant Ana albums from earlier this year. I’ll be the first to admit I know very little about the DIY scene in France but this is the kind of effortlessly fun record that will get anyone excited to learn more. Check out their label Howlin’ Banana for way more from that scene.
TIME STALKERS | TIME STALKERS A nine piece group centered around Old Table songwriter Will Moloney, Time Stalkers create orchestral pop music with a DIY spirit. It doesn’t hurt that the ensemble is a who’s who of NY DIY, with members of Sweet Baby Jesus, Eyes of Love, Dog, and more.
COMEDY ROCK! | DUMMY I’ve always felt it’s a tragedy that The Coneheads never followed up their now classic first LP. On this album Dummy hit the same pleasure points in my brain. An insanely fun frenetic punk workout.
CARPET COCOON | ICEBLINK Gentle, achingly beautiful psychedelia from this project by Lynn Avery. Captures some of the same magic as early Jessica Pratt records, by which I mean it creates a warm and inviting sonic universe that’s easy to get lost in.
SOUND BATH MIXTAPE VOL 1 | A SPACE FOR SOUND The musical project of Rena Anakwe, this release is billed as “a collaged soundscape of healing frequencies with intentions of relaxation”. That description pretty much hits it on the nose. Ambient soundscapes that offer a respite from the world; they will leave you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Plus, as a bonus it comes with a free PDF of The End Of Policing by Alex S. Vitale so you can educate yourself and get some great music.
FONGOLA | KOKOKO! For those who remember and love the Congotronics series on Crammed Discs back in the aughts, this ones for you. Easily one of the best albums of 2019, it shares the same DIY spirit as those earlier releases down to the self made instruments. As the band said in an interview with Red Bull Music Academy last year, “Our raw materials are stolen, all our riches are taken from us. They’re used to build technologies elsewhere…When the world is done with our products, they come back here worn out. We use the trash to create instruments. There’s no need for words, our instruments are the message.” It’s an album with a powerful message that remains compulsively listenable almost a year removed from its release.