Here we are, nearing the end of the trash fire of a year that will be remembered as 2020. One of the few bright spots of this calendar year has been the advent of Bandcamp Day, a monthly celebration we can get behind. We celebrate here at Undrcurrents by putting together a Bandcamp guide.
As per usual, we have a stellar lineup assembled to do the honors. Thanks to all the folks who participated; as I’ve said before, putting these pieces together and learning about new music from all our contributors is the highlight of running the site.
If you’re stumbling on the site for the first time, check out parts 1-5 of our Bandcamp recommendation series here after looking at today’s offering. It’s quickly turned into an essential resource to help me discover new music, and hopefully it will for you too.
If you’re interested in participating in a future iteration of this series, get in touch.
Joshua Frank and Tom Ng Tom and Joshua play in Gong Gong Gong, a Beijing based guitar and bass duo whose debut album on Wharf Cat Records was a favorite from last year. Both have been making music in China for over ten years (as part of groups such as The Offset:Spectacles and Hot & Cold). They released an excellent live album earlier this year and have a radio show on CAMP that I’ve been enjoying as of late. Check out their picks below.
LIVE AT TUBBY’S | 75 DOLLAR BILL LITTLE BIG BAND At its core, 75 Dollar Bill is the duo of Che Chen on microtonal pawn shop guitars and Rick Brown whacking a large wooden crate, creating grooves that draw connections between Bo Diddley, tranced out Saharan wedding music, and the Velvet Underground. This release features an expanded lineup with saxophone, bass, viola, and additional drums and percussion, and is the first in their steady stream of incredible Bandcamp Day output. A beautiful recording of people making music together in a room, in front of a crowd, before the pandemic hit North America. The energy is palpable, and for anyone who’s witnessed their performances, 75 Dollar Bill is undeniably one of the best bands ever –Joshua Frank
HONG KONG | TONSTARTSSBANDHT Another great live recording, this one from the guitar n’ drum duo of Floridian brothers Andy and Edwin White. They have a psychic sibling connection that lets them turn their sets into amazing freeform medleys—and they also sing like angels. The “Hong Kong” tape was released in July, but was recorded in Hong Kong in 2016, when they toured Asia together with Gong Gong Gong. –Joshua Frank
MYSTERY 秘神 | MONG TONG 夢東 This duo of (once again) two brothers from Taipei just released their first LP on the cult Dutch/ Japanese psychedelic label Guruguru Brain. Slithering basslines and warbling synths, collaged with sampled clips of 1980s Taiwanese UFO stories and tales of the supernatural—the effect is totally out-there and bizarrely funky, all the better for its evidently warped sense of humor and fun. –Joshua Frank
PERSON | P.E. A catchy and unabashedly weird debut from this synth/sax/bass/electronics group comprised of some of the New York experimental “rock” scene’s most active players. Jonathan Schenke, one of the main brains behind the group, also recorded and co-produced Gong Gong Gong’s Phantom Rhythm LP. –Joshua Frank
DEBUT ALBUM | NAN YANG PAI DUI I came across N.Y.P.D. during my pandemic stay in Hong Kong back in March and I fell in love with their album right away. Great tunes with loads of humorous Cantonese lyrics which I wish more people could understand the stories behind the songs. It also reminds me of some interesting Canto-pop back in the 90’s. –Tom Ng
FASOKAN | LUKA PRODUCTIONS This surprising and fresh “New age music from West Africa,” is the work of Luka Productions, a producer, rapper and multi-instrumentalist from Bamako, Mali. Released in 2017 on Portland’s Sahel Sounds, it has a more polished feel than much of the label’s discography—all of which is incredible. The label makes their releases “name your price” on Bandcamp Day, so you really can’t go wrong. –Joshua Frank
MAS AMABLE | DJ PYTHON Grooving, slowed-down reggaeton techno, or something, from Queens, New York. The album flows seamlessly as a single track—somehow feel-good, wistful, and desolate in equal measure. An early pandemic classic. –Joshua Frank
IMMORTALITY | ZALIVA-D Beijing electronic duo Zaliva D’s second release on Dutch label Knekelhuis sounds undeniably evil and but also cathartic and joyous, a good choice for dancing when you’re locked in a room alone. –Joshua Frank
Christopher Tipton Christoper runs Upset the Rhythm, a show promoter and record label based in London. A quick glance at their back catalog shows a label with a pulse on the international DIY underground. We’ve covered recent releases from Primo! and Vintage Crop here on the site, but their back catalog is a bounty of riches. Check out Christopher’s picks below
CANTUS, DESCANT | SARAH DAVACHI Davachi’s eleventh album is a phenomenal 80 minute, 17 track meditation of pipe/mellotron organ drones worked up into mists of shifting harmonic rapture and abandon, a celebration of the hushed tone, sheer ambient grace.
THE KEY [FULL DYNAMIC RANGE EDITION] | NOCTURNUS Re-mastered full-freq sci-fi occultism from Floridian death metal progressives. This classic album from 1990 is pummeling and mysterious, brimming with rampant riffage, spillages of guitar solo hubris and eerie keyboard drapery. Now given a sonic spit and shine it sounds more massive than ever!
NEW GORBALS GABBER | LADY NEPTUNE Totally bangin’ hardcore techno from Glasgow sugar glider Moema Meade. Late night NRG thrills refracted through the PC Music prism, spun-out samples, air horns a-plenty and some of the most chronically addictive melodies going.
FREE HUMANS | HEN OGLEDD Unabashed, heartfelt other-pop beamed into your cerebellum from another solar system. If there’s any justice in the next world they undoubtedly pack out stadia in that parallel dimension with Sun Ra and Hall & Oates also on the bill. With songs about the Loch Ness monster, playing golf in space, Gaia, wild swimming and Welsh bogeymen what’s not to love?
DESIRE | MOPE GROOVES Ramshackle yet exquisite lofi experiments in sing-song from Portland. Sometimes loungey with its broad keyboard chords even jazzy at times meanderings into the post-punk mire ala Flaming Tunes. All the songs are real keepers, gem-like with Stevie Pohlman not so much singing as echoing the lyrics into your own stream of thought.
RE-ORDER OF THE TOAD | ORDER OF THE TOAD Conspicuous, cryptic psych pop courtesy of Gemma Fleet (of The Wharves), Christopher Taylor and Robert Sotelo. Total all-stars project informed by a medievalism magick at heart. Breezy flourishes of baroque subtly that bring to mind The Dukes Of Stratosphere doing a taro reading for Jefferson Airplane.
CUCKOO | ELEANOR CULLY Huddersfield-based sound artist secretes her quietened Cuckoo song vocal into the close mic-ed room recordings of nine other artists, capturing the peace and delicacy of the original song in each embedded environment. These recordings are the very nature of time frayed in the middle. Like watching the sun trace shadows across the floor, immersive and serene in its lightness of touch.
SING HIGH! SING LOW! | THE SILVER FIELD Equally haunting as haunted cloaks of song from Coral Rose, tape loops, scattering of rhythm and layered vocal pools of evocation and exploration. Fully entranced listen, an album that cradles you close in its own world of sound.
DEMO 2020 | STAR PARTY Fuzzed-out, dream punk demos from Washington. Keen-eyed, up-tempo thrash with a dash of Black Tambourine or The Vaselines, but no jangle, more smudged at the edges clouds of fried frequency.
RENEGADE BREAKDOWN | MARIE DAVIDSON & L’OEIL NU I loved Marie Davidson’s ‘Working Class Woman’ album so was really looking forward to this new record from the Montreal artist. Renegade Breakdown sees her team up with her husband and a friend to waltz through a pantheon of majestic future-pop anthems, genre-hopping glee and world-weary infatuation galore.
TAPE 1 | R. AGGS Check out this shiny new solo album from Rachel Aggs (of Trash Kit, Shopping, Sacred Paws), storming it with her plain-spoken wonder vocal, cascading sequencers and acrobatic guitar slink. All recorded at home, all another incredible chapter in this artist’s huge book of talent. Let’s hope there are more tapes to come
Jeff McMurrich Jeff is a veteran producer/engineer and co-founder (along with Alex Durlak) of Idée Fixe Records. The decade old Toronto based label’s most recent release, Shabason Krgovich and Harris’s Philadelphia, is one of our favorite albums we’ve heard all year, and we’re eagerly anticipating their next release from Jennifer Castle in a few weeks time. Check out all these projects, along with Jeff’s picks below.
CLIPS | THE BRODIE WEST QUINTET Brodie is a Toronto stalwart. He spent a few years living and studying in the Netherlands where he hooked up with The Ex subsequently touring with them and Getachew Mekuria. He has also performed and recorded with Han Bennick. He calls Toronto home and we are all the better for it. I encourage people to check out his many projects on Bandcamp. This is the quintet and perhaps the most rooted in tradition but I use that term loosely. The band’s members are all TO all-stars with deep discographies of their own. Worth the deep dive.
ALL IS | MATTHEW ‘DOC’ DUNN Matthew ‘Doc’ Dunn has been on a tear as of late releasing 3 records in his singer/songwriter guise within the last few years and posting his archival releases originally released on tape and CDR to Bandcamp. All Is is an older work and acted as a kind of proto – Cosmic Range (the Dunn led electric jazz octet). Space drones and maximalist Sun Ra inspired organ and vibes jazz workouts are filtered through 1/16 “ headspace. Very specifically Doc Dunn.
GATHERING | MAYBEL Based in Montreal. This is their first record and is unequivocally a folk record. The vocal harmonies are extraordinary. Mature and accomplished well beyond their years.
DROPOUT CITY | TRUMMORS Late to the party on Trummors. Scratches my freak country itch so entirely it’s uncanny. You instantly can sense that their music is perfectly woven into their life and it comes off as a completely pure and natural musical expression. The bio states “They believe in peace, love and good dope” I mean come on. I’m in.
DIALECTIC SOUL | ASHER GAMEDZE So the cat is out of the bag on this and deservedly so. I wanted to include this because it was the perfect example of Bandcamp’s recommendation engine working for me. It had just been announced as a pre-order and I was scrolling Bandcamp on my phone, awake at 4AM, lying in bed as one does and this was recommended. I pressed play and a few minutes later I purchased. Highly recommended. Shape Of Jazz To Come era Ornette sound and feel. My favourite Jazz of 2020.
Owen Ashworth Owen has been writing & recording melancholic, electronic pop songs for more than twenty years, first with his now-retired Casiotone for the Painfully Alone project & more recently as Advance Base. He also runs Orindal Records, a Chicago-based DIY music label specializing in vinyl & tape releases for experimental songmakers, gentle weirdos & melancholic introverts from Caliornia to Maine.
Maybe you’re like me & your anxiety has been through the roof since quarantine began back in March, & you’ve been relying on gentle & immersive instrumental music to soothe & distract you from the horrors of the world outside. Well, buddy, have I got the Bandcamp picks for you.
PRATI BAGNATI DEL MONTE ANALOGO | RAUL LOVISONI & FRANCESCO MESSINA I first heard Francisco Messina’s music on Light in the Attic’s wonderfully cosmic compilation set The Microcosm: Visionary Music of Continental Europe, 1970-1986. Searching Messina’s name on Bandcamp brought me to this gorgeous 1979 new age album, reissued in 2018 by Superior Viaduct. Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo was recorded in collaboration with another Italian avante garde composer, Raul Lovisoni, with production from electronic music pioneer Franco Battiato. “Pratibagnatidel Monte Analogo,” the 23 minute track that takes up all of side one, is a slow glide of lush synthesizer pads, rolling piano chords & a creeping organ melody that wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Goblin’s scores for Dario Argento’s giallo films. It’s beautiful. I ordered the last vinyl copy from the link above, but you can still buy a download from Bandcamp & LPs are available from Superior Viaduct’s website.
THE HIRED HAND (OST) | BRUCE LANGHORNE I’ve never seen Peter Fonda’s 1971 western, The Hired Hand, but Bruce Langhorne’s home-recorded score has been a favorite record of mine since I stumbled upon the Scissor Tail Records Bandcamp page earlier this year. Banjos, Appalachian dulcimers, fiddles, recorders, pianos & acoustic guitars (all played & overdubbed by Langhorne) drift by like clouds over a dusty, minimal landscape. Some of the tracks are so slight that you barely notice them until they’re over, but the cumulative effect is wonderfully lonesome. I guess I’d describe it as ambient Americana? If the first track doesn’t get you then I don’t know, man.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS | CARMAN MOORE Another soundtrack, but this time I’ve actually seen the movie. Personal Problems was an ultra real, no-budget experimental soap opera that was broadcast on New York public television in the early 80’s & is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. Carman Moore’s instrumental jazz score is full of wonderfully somber & memorable melodies arranged for woodwind, string & piano. The b-side is a suite of contemporary piano improvisations based around the original soundtrack’s themes, & it’s gorgeous. Bless the New York label Reading Group for releasing this thing.
DREAM EROSION (SYNTHESIZER SONGS) | FRED THOMAS Fred Thomas (formerly of Saturday Looks Good To Me & His Name is Alive) recorded this instrumental synthesizer album at home during quarantine & self-releasing a limited vinyl edition through his Bandcamp page. The ten tracks are a wonderful blend of gentle & damaged, with just enough blissful melody & warm, surprising textures to keep the predominantly beatless collection interesting. It’s a beaut.
BETWEEN WORLDS | SPACE GHOST This mixtape lived in my car all summer long. The 23 tracks were predominantly built from looped, slowed down & cassette-warped instrumental sections of 80’s & 90’s “quiet storm”-style slow jams. I love to hear those big 80’s snares slowed down with the thick digital reverb all stretched out. It makes for wonderful windows down, aimless driving around music.
Hugh Wilikofsky Hugh is an occasional contributor to Undrcurrents and co-founder of Real Deep Radio. Head over to their Substack to subscribe to their newsletter, which delivers their schedule and music recommendations to your inbox once a week.
ON A MOONLIT HILL IN SLOVENIA | LORI GOLDSTON A short and soothing live set from a favorite cellist, recorded at a house show in the titular setting. You can hear the crickets as she teases out these delicate improvisations, and Goldston shows such admirable deference to her soundscape, never taking much of an overbearing tenor and somehow managing to amplify her environment. It’s a remarkable feat that lends all the more power to her richly layered crescendos. My late night listen of choice these days.
SINDIBAD EL WARD – سندباد الورد | SHABJDEED Inspired trap and drill influenced sounds from Palestine, already ubiquitous in rapper Shabjdeed and producer Al Nather’s hometown of Ramallah, now getting a vinyl release via Hundebiss. While I unfortunately can’t speak to much of the lyrical content, I’ve seen it been hailed as the Illmatic of the Arab world for its frank depiction of daily life in Ramallah. Sonically, however, it’s completely of the moment, with Al Nather’s sparing, chippy production acting as the perfect compliment to Shabjdeed’s autotune massaged vocals, and the latter has flows for days. I could see most of these tracks soundtracking a party or a gloomy late night drive and not feeling out of place for either, kind of like Future at his more reserved moments. Check out the pair’s BLTNM label for more forward thinking hip-hop and electronics from the region.
HERE COME THE BATON | STICE This is kind of the only music that makes sense right now. Filthy, furious, and fucked up, it’s a sugar-high that leads to infinite knowledge and fetid gum disease. Gabber for Simpsons kids; Fry drinking 100 cups of coffee and becoming a heroic orange blur-core. Not enough artists share their lyrics these days and the transparency here is a real gift given the density and frantic pace at which they’re hurled at you. I’m a sucker for the kind of manic, (self-)referential wordplay splattered all over here. “Baton Down the Hatch” might be the 2020 theme. You also must (as in you are required to) watch all of their videos.
PORTRAY HEADS | PORTRAY HEADS Little-known Japanese synth-wave band Portray Heads had a short run in the mid-‘80s, recording two 7” singles with two different singers before disbanding. This compilation brings together those releases along with unheard demos from sessions with both singers. Flavors run the gamut from classic minimal wave chugging to twisty no wave arrhythmia to gothy brooders. The different singers’ ranges seem to dictate the moods to a degree, but it’s all held together by Tohru Tomita’s dramatic compositions. I could see this soundtracking some dark, hyper-stylized ‘80s thriller, but let’s be real, movies just ain’t that cool.
VERGANGENHEITSBEWÄLTIGUNG (CRATER SPEAK) | SLAUSON MALONE In her book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, scholar Christina Sharpe employs the term “wake” in all its definitions as a conceptual framework to examine “the paradoxes of blackness within and after the legacies of slavery’s denial of Black humanity.” A visceral invocation of the term running through the text is the path of The Middle Passage, the consequences of which have ceaselessly reverberated through the lives of Black Americans. The final track of producer Slauson Malone’s (aka Jasper Marsalis) latest release, “The Wake Pt. 3 & 2,” is largely bereft of the gauzy atmospherics he’s excelled at in the past, instead centering on a dexterous guitar passage and lyrics that strike me as plumbing similar depths as Sharpe (“Throw you in the water / Turn your life to a martyr / Staring at red and blue lights / Blood from the sky / In the waves, in the waves / Learn to swim, learn to sink”). It comes at the end of a stunning, pointed EP, one in which Malone employs his voice more forcefully than ever before, bearing/baring a righteous sense of fear, mourning, and rage over systemic oppression and its deep personal impacts. The titular German term here translates to “coping with the past,” originally coined to denote the nation’s reckoning with the Holocaust. Sharpe argues for the necessity of “wake work,” a way of inhabiting and rupturing slavery’s painful, ever-present history (what she dubs “the afterlife of property”) “with our own lived and un/imaginable lives.” With this lyrically frank and sonically honest set of tracks, Malone adds to growing vanguard of Black American artists bending existing forms and genres to perform that vital “wake work,” coping with a horrific past and present, attending to it, seeking some form of healing through transformative creation that can only be done (and fully understood, I reckon) by those living in the wake. Rambling interpretations aside, it’s a downright gorgeous blend of folk, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop from a young artist who continually outdoes himself.
David Wilikofsky Finally, a few recommendations from yours truly. As always, head over to my Bandcamp profile for more recommendations.
HEADSHOTS! | ANGRY BLACKMEN Deathbomb Arc has not one but FOUR releases planned for Friday. It’s truly going to be a good day. HEADSHOTS! was the first one they announced, and it’s one for the ages. A searing set of political art rap that takes you on “a savage journey to the heart of the American dream”, the group feels equally comfortable examining racial inequality in America and throwing out pop culture references. Also worth being excited about is J Fisher’s THEJEREMYFISHER (DA’s other announced release), a sprawling experimental hip hop opus.
FANIMAL ARMS | GAD WHIP Gad Whip, a (mostly) Lincolnshire based band, make music that falls under the wide umbrella of “post punk”; however, that term does their music a disservice. On Fanimal Arms, they create wildly unpredictable experimental rock music that is at points abrasive, sludgy and danceable (and sometimes all three at once). It reminds me a bit of The Cool Greenhouse album from earlier this year, if only because of the spoken-sung vocals and shared sense of adventure.
HANGING GARDEN | COREY FLOOD Corey Flood, a Philadelphia based trio who released their debut album last month on the ever consistent Fire Talk Records, create off kilter guitar rock. Mix the pop instincts of early Flying Nun releases with 90’s alt-rock textures and you get some approximation of their sound. It’s a short album (about twenty minutes) but I constantly find myself hitting play again after it ends.
ALL THE STARS THAT NEVER WERE | LINDA SMITH Inspired by bands like The Raincoats and Young Marble Giants, Linda Smith starting writing songs in the early eighties and began self-recording those songs at home in the middle of that decade. All the Stars That Never Were complies a selection of those recordings from 1987-2001. The whole thing sounds like a lost classic, a perfect collection of etherial pop songs; highly recommended for anyone who likes shambolic, homespun pop even a tiny bit. Also worth checking out: a covers album of Linda Smith songs that includes a contribution from Locate S,1 mastermind Christina Schneider.
COLLATERAL | COLLATERAL Bug Incision is another label that has four releases scheduled to land on Friday, all of which are worth checking out if you are into experimental music and free improv. This album by Collateral was my personal favorite of the batch. The album is dominated by one long improvisation. Moving from melodious passages to skronk and back again, the piece mutates and transforms throughout its nearly fifty minute runtime. Also notable is the instrumentation which includes the oud, giving some sections a distinctive Middle Eastern vibe. It’s a musical journey well worth taking.
LOST RECORDINGS | HYSTERIC PICNIC An archival release from the always excellent Call and Response Records. Tokyo-based Hysteric Picnic formed as a duo in 2011. They released two EPs before changing their name to Burgh, releasing a single album under that moniker before breaking up in 2016. This EP consists of five tracks from the early days of the band, originally intended to serve as their second EP. It’s a short set of brooding post punk that’s equal parts noise rock and 4AD-style art pop. Definitely worth digging into along with the rest of the Call and Response catalog.