#23: Welcome to The Machine
Are CDs Really Back Plus Three Amazing New Releases You Need to Hear
Welcome back, sound searchers. A big thank you to all who upgraded their subscriptions this past week. It’s greatly appreciated when you guys take that extra step to show support. Of course, sharing the newsletter and the radio show with interested parties goes a long way as well.
I suppose it’s officially summer here in the Hudson Valley and I was able to get my first hike in of the season so that’s great.
Generally, I hit up the record shops less when the weather is good but I have been (for the first time!?) using the wantlist feature on Discogs to replace CDs I once had or get very hard to find albums on the resurgent format. Again, the Schiit Urd has completely transformed my home CD experience. I honestly never heard them sound this good. So a-digital-hunting I go to replace the many many many titles I lost in the ill-advised great CD purge of 2010. In my defense, I was in the midst of my 7th move in 7 years of living in Brooklyn and just gave up and gave them to some neighbors (while keeping my LPs, of course).
Pictured above is my most recent acquisition, a reissue of the self-titled debut album from Swedish minimalist psychedelic rock collective Träd, Gräs och Stenar (“Trees, Grass and Stones”. Released in 1969 on the Silence label, it has only grown in stature in demand in the last 20 years. This is the 1995 issue and it sounds really good and it’s a lot easier on the budget than it’s vinyl predecessors. It’s unfathomable that there has not been a vinyl reissue of this one to date.
Had a fun radio show this week. It started off in its usual mellow electronic fashion with great new works by Willow Skye-Biggs (Inner Islands), Norwegian legend Erik Wøllo (Projekt Records), Olma & Michael Grigoni (Nettwerk) before we busted the guitars out and heard from the UK’s Nick Jonah Davis and a live ripper from favorites Elkhorn (Eiderdown Records). In between sets I lamented the state of cover art being used by legacy New Age artists before launching into an hour of jazzy Krautrock that still swims somewhat under the radar. We heard a dizzying take on Zappa’s ‘King Kong’ from short-lived quartet Odin, an epic, flute-heavy piece from under-documented large ensemble Kollektiv, a total groover from the hilariously named Electric Sandwich and a true, Allmans-in-space epic from Agitation Free.
If you listen to the show regularly and aren’t a paid sub here, please consider buying me a coffee. Preparing and hosting a 2-hour show every week is wonderful work but it is work. Thanks!
Listen to the show here and check the tracklist below.
1. Willow Skye-Biggs - Suspension 3 - Dreams In Suspension (Inner Islands, 2024) 00:00
2. Erik Wøllo - Innerland - Crossing the Equator (Projekt, 2024) 04:35
3. Olma & Michael Grigoni - Caven Song - Tusk I (Nettwerk, 2024) 09:50
4. Mahti - Pala 7 - Konsertti 1 (VHF, 2024) 13:50
5. The June Carriers - Pastoral Epigraph - Equanimity (Youngbloods, 2024) 27:24
6. Nick Jonah Davis - In Peaces - In Peaces (Self, 2024) 30:30
7. Elkhorn - Summerfield Raga - Live At The Milwaukee Psych Fest (Eiderdown, 2024) 35:58
8. Electric Sandwich - China - Electric Sandwich (Brain, 1972) 1:01:12
9. Odin - King Kong - SWF Session 1973 (Long Hair, 2007) 1:09:30
10. Kollektiv - Gageg - SWF Sessions Volume 5 (Long Hair, 2001) 1:20:00
11. Agitation Free - Laila II - Last (Barclay, 1976) 1:40:10
Discovered some real amazing new music this week. The quest for new sounds never pauses and these days with information coming at us so fast and furiously, it sometimes seems impossible to remember to check everything out that we deem interesting while doing a scroll by. I’ve been getting better about using the Wishlist feature on the Bandcamp app to come back to things I check out. It’s been really helpful. I’ll also take screenshots of interesting records, tapes and CDs I see on social media and when I find some time, I sit down and see what I can hear. Very thankful for all the great record shops and fellow DJs who share amazing sounds with the internet daily. It really helps to temper all the other horrific things the internet serves us.
I’m also very thankful for readers and listeners sending me their music or someone else’s to check out. I’ll gently ask and remind you that untagged WAVs are a nightmare and end up lost or accidentally trashed before I get around to listening to them. A Bandcamp download code is the best but a link to a stream is cool. Honestly, I don’t click on links to Spotify so please don’t send them. I may have broken down and started streaming but Spotify sounds like shit and operates solely to screw over musicians.
Leading the charge of recent new favorites is III Of Pentacles, the debut from the UK’s Thought Leadership on Darkly Inclined Tapes. Within a microsecond of hitting play you’ll be whispering Durutti Column and that’s ok. Rays of Vini Reilly certainly shine brightly here but the tape is no worse off for it. If you love something, try to copy it and make it your own or find more of it and that’s certainly what’s happening here. There’s a playfulness and hopefulness on the first side that’s never been really sustained on a Durutti LP so that’s a major win right there. Side B is even better as it slows down and spaces out. There’s a Sensations Fix feel happening and 80s dutch DIY pop antihero Spike was also coming to mind. Really great stuff that I’ve been playing a lot.
This next one—Here’s Where You Understand It’s Only Dreaming by Shelter & Orion—was tipped by UK shop All Night Flight. When I see “jams that skirt the fringes of krautrock, fourth-world ambience, free-jazz and post-punk all imbued with a heavily stoned psychedelic aura” written, my wallet and mind are wide open. Unfortunately the album’s physical manifestation is now vapor—100 vinyl copies via the Les Disques Omnison label—but FLAC will transport you nicely to the hazy rhythmic and tonal worlds Shelter & Orion are summoning without having to get up and flip the side. The most conventional piece on Here’s Where You Understand It’s Only Dreaming is the aptly and cheekily titled ‘Slalom Autobahn’. It’s a beautiful drive between Faust IV and Neu! but don’t sleep on the harder-to-triangulate rest of the album, it’s deeply rewarding to focused, closed eyes listening.
I have a very simple question/test for modern electronic music these days before I let it in the house and that is:
Does this make me feel the way my first listen to Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra did?
An almost impossible feat considering I was stoned and in college but I am reminded of that momentous event when listening to PJS’ new one. Alchemy is freshly released via the VILL4IN label (supposedly based in China) and it features some of the most gorgeous deep spacemusic you are likely to encounter in these troubled times of ours. PJS are Patrick Dique and Jordan Christoff—two master technicians and synthesists who are insanely prolific not only in this configuration but with a host of other projects and monikers. On Alchemy they go deeeeeep and start the journey with ‘Spice’ a no bullshit, right to the point 20-minute exploration of tone and texture that weightless, free and transportive. The stereo imaging on Alchemy is deeply three dimensional and holographic and it’s stuff like this that needs to be used to audition amps and speakers. Breathtaking music here.