#37: Sell Out, Maintain the Interest
Bandcamp Friday: Harlem Valley Dub, Danish Synth-Pop, English Jam Rock & More
Welcome back to the Ambient Audiophile—a place where the rock and roll hall of fame is completely meaningless.
Tons of new subs coming in and I’m forever grateful for that. I’ve just taken delivery of some CDs of a new release to give away to paying subscribers. This will be the first giveaway of many so I recommend signing up for the paltry price of 5 bucks a month to be part of all the future action.
We celebrate Bandcamp Friday today, October 4,so I got a bunch of stuff worth checking out and supporting down below. If you don’t know, BF is when the platform waives its cut on all sales, allowing your money to flow directly to the artist or label. Obviously, self-releasers get a bigger piece of the pie but hopefully the small labels I feature do the right thing and hook their artists up correctly.
Episode 148 of The Trailhead went off and out without a hitch this week. Contained within it’s digital walls you will find something off Trey Anastasio’s incredible Atriums album, a piece from Pure Waves’ most excellent, self-released debut, LA outfit Arthur King doing a great improvised film score, Future Museums and Jordan Christoff delivering the mellow synthy goods and Jake Acosta and Alan Licht keeping guitar music fresh and fearless. It’s a lot of good stuff.
Have a listen to the show here and peep the tracklist below. And if you haven’t already, please make a free Mixcloud account and give us a follow over there and like and repost the shows. It really helps spread the word.
1. Pure Waves - Spectrum of Light - Be Yourself Out There (Pure Waves, 2024) 00:00
2. Trey Anastasio - Phish Sphere Loop 3 - Atriums (Rubber Jungle, 2024) 04:58
3. Arthur King - Part Four - Five Summer Stories (Beacon Sound, 2024) 19:49
4. Wet Tuna - Gazintah > Azimuth - Sweet Pond Nugs (Child of Microtones, 2024) 27:10
5. Future Museums - Baba - Born Organic Vol. 1 (Aural Canyon, 2024) 38:50
6. Alan Licht - Five Chords and a Sword - Havens (VDSQ, 2024) 1:04:57
7. Jake Acosta - Hispid - Indumentum (Self, 2024) 1:12:10
8. Jordan Christoff - Hypnotic - Divination Systems (Pyramid Blood, 2024) 1:23:17
9. Hair and Space Museum - Heliosheath - Human Presence (Beacon Sound, 2024) 1:31:00
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I first heard Brendon Moeller’s work via his Constellation Tatsu release from a year or two back. I was very happy this past week to see he’s done one for Quiet Details. Mirage has got all the goods for me: warm atmospheres, percussion rinses and deeeeeeep bass tones. This release is fantastic and one of the best things ive put into my brain and body in a minute. Also just noticed Moeller lives and creates in Patterson, NY—a not-too-long choogle from my Hudson Valley home and also the site of a great Phish show in 1994.
Old friend Michael Hentz is probably best known for his amazing collage work but he makes music as well and has a new thing out with David Greening under the name Kindred Spirits Band. Movements comes in three pieces and shimmers and smokes a bit like Windy & Carl before a touchdown to a mellow synth-rock noodle finish. Hentz plays guitar and Greening handles guitar, drum and bass programming, synths & “other sounds” and it’s a real good ride for Sky Records and Manuel Gottsching lovers who also wish Flying Saucer Attack were more jammy.
England’s reigning titans of jamrock, Guranfoe, are back with a new live release. The fidelity on 2024-02-24 Norwich Rock Fest, Norwich, England is way better than the last one I featured some months back and it finds the quartet ever evolving but without losing touch with their prog/fusion roots. I don’t know how much the band plays together these days but they remain watertight and they seem to never miss a beat, change or peak. This is a good one to download and burn to disc for that slightly out of touch Zappa freak in your life who doesn’t know what a zip file is but is a stickler for ear to speaker to front wall ratios.
Tokyo’s Muzan Editions has become one of the most reliable sources for modern electronic music for me and their new batch does not disappoint. Out in a couple weeks alongside new ones from Günter Schlienz and Yuri Urano is Celestial Echoes from Belgium’s Owl. It’s no wonder this one hooked me instantly as promo materials mention the core of the album was in the Swiss mountains. Cavernous and consuming, Celestial Echoes really nails a mystical and enveloping vibe. My time spent in caves is limited but Owl’s work here captures the magic and wonder of subterranean exploration.
Am I really going to implore you to buy a digital copy of some 80s Danish synth-pop record you never heard of for 11 dollars? You’re damn right I am! To make matters even worse, you can only hear one of the album’s tracks right now. But that’s ok, this one track from pianist/singer Anne-Tina may be the sweetest earworm you consume today. It’s not that big of a risk to plop down your lunch money for her 1984 self-titled debut when you learn Frederiksberg Records are behind this digital reissue and Andreas never misses with his curation.
I hate to end the newsletter with a bummer but we must bid farewell to the Bay Area’s Michael Henning this week. Michael hosted a phenomenal show on Berkleley’s KALX and was one half of the ambient/acoustic duo Skyminds with Sean Conrad.
I didn’t know Michael personally but we did communicate a bit early on in the pandemic, sharing our woes as community DJs relegated to recording our shows at home in that long ago time of fear and uncertainty. One thing I know for sure was Michael was deeply into music and sharing it with others so his passing is monumental for many.
I’ve written them up before, but Skyminds has been one of my favorite projects since their very first release and I insist that you internalize their discography and go further into Henning’s solo works as Selaroda. I send my deepest condolences to those who Michael called friends and family and to anyone touched by his work.
Looks like Windy & Carl released a couple archive shows today. The one I listened to was fantastic.
thanks for the lovely words on qd24 brendon moeller 🙏 great edition as always