Bandcamp Friday: October 2021

October? You're telling me it's already October?!

On the first Friday of every month since March of 2020, Bandcamp have waived their revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of these 15 days, nearly 800,000 fans have paid artists and labels $61 million dollars, helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more.

I’ve tried to make a bit of a tradition of putting together suggested purchase lists in advance of each Bandcamp Friday, sometimes over on Test Pressing, sometimes here. So, without any further ado, let’s get into it. Bandcamp Friday: October 2021, here we come.

Morteza Mahjoubi, Selected Improvisations from Golha, Pt. I (Death Is Not The End)

Wait, you’re telling me this is a collection of Persian-tuned piano pieces cut from Iranian national radio broadcasts made for the Golha programmes between 1956 & 1965? Okay, I’m listening. Morteza Mahjoubi (1900-1965) was a Iranian pianist and composer who developed Piano-ye Sonnati, a unique tuning system for the piano which enabled the instrument to be played in all the different modes and dastgahs of traditional Persian art music. Across the fourteen pieces that make up Selected Improvisations from Golha, Pt. I, Morteza pushes Piano-ye Sonnati to it’s limit, in the process expressing the unique ornamental and monophonic nature of Persian classical music through perhaps the most western of instruments. Although these pieces are mostly solo, some feature tombak, violin and poetry. I’m not just listening, I’m hypnotized.

Guy Maxwell, Outside My Window (Growing Bin Records)

The key word here is smooth. In 1980, European singer-songwriter and guitarist Guy Maxwell headed into a recording studio in the Netherlands with his old friend Serge Maillard and several members of the Chilean rock band, Santiago. Over the course of a nine-track journey through groove-based AOR, delicate jazz fusion, freewheeling cosmic folk and luxurious yacht rock, Guy rendered his memories of feelings, moments and moods and an elegant suite of songcraft. Although Outside My Window was underappreciated at the time, 2021 sees it returning as a more concise six-track EP, accompanied by new cover art, through Basso’s immaculate Growing Bin Records. Like I said, the key word here is smooth.

FRKTL, السَّمْت Azimuth (Self-Released)

After 2020’s expansive Excision After Love Collapses album, British-Egyptian interdisciplinary artist and classically trained multi-instrumentalist Sarah Badr aka FRKTL returns with السَّمْت Azimuth, the soundtrack to her self 3D animated short film of the same name. Over the last year (I think?), FRKTL has been regularly sharing snippets of profoundly alien biomorphic animations through her social media channels, and السَّمْت Azimuth takes those same impulses and transforms them into a whole new visual and sonic landscape; actually, scratch that, a whole new world. Textually abstracted visuals, textually abstracted sounds, a feeling of displacement, and more than just displacement, connection through that same shared feeling. You can watch the film version over here.

Germán Bringas, Tunel Hacia Tí (Smiling C)

Many thanks to Smiling C for delivering us this sixteen track compilation of unheard works by the Mexican jazz synesthete, Germán Bringas. They’re described Germán as playing with a delicate balance between experiment and pastoral spaciousness, sounding like Coltrane scoring a Tarkovsky film, and honestly, as Tunel Hacia Tí’s synesthetic compositions play out in dreamy yet richly tactile matter, the statement rings true. Saxophone, piano, trumpet, synthesisers, percussion, and whatever else Germán can muster up, spiraling together into an aesthetic that places the calm of the countryside inside the endless hum of activity of Mexico city and visa versa. Also, extra thanks to Smiling C for creating a documentary about Germán. You can view it here.

bergsonist, #61FFB3 (self-released)

Five new (old) experiments in electronic rhythm and sound from the New York-based Moroccan musician and visual artist, bergsonist. From what I understand, bergsonist found this unexpected material on a previously lost storage device. The funny thing about music is that sometimes it will find a way to dictate it’s own time of release, and I get the sense that this is the right time for #61FFB3 to arrive. Some of the work here feels very fragmentary, but sometimes fragments are all you need.

EXTRA:

Efficient Space has some copies of He Dark Age’s Ecce Homo LP up for sale on their Bandcamp page here.

Scratchclart has released a short EP of DRMTRK remixes, DRMTRK Re​:​Clarted.

Pōneke’s Alphabethead & Young Gho$t have just uploaded a new collaborative album titled BAD TASTE.

Street soul fans, rejoice, a new (old) V4 Visions label sampler has made it’s way onto bandcamp.

If you’d like some Māori thrash metal, Alien Weaponry’s new album Tangaroa should have you covered.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

I wasn’t going to include this section in the newsletter today, but an article came across my timeline (thanks Tess) that I absolutely have to share with you.

The New Yorker: On the Internet, We’re Always Famous, by Chris Hayes

But We Who Post are trapped in the same paradox that Kojève identifies in Hegel’s treatment of the Master and Slave. The Master desires recognition from the Slave, but because he does not recognize the Slave’s humanity, he cannot actually have it. “And this is what is insufficient—what is tragic—in his situation,” Kojève writes. “For he can be satisfied only by recognition from one whom he recognizes as worthy of recognizing him.”

What happens when the experience of celebrity becomes universal? Chris Hayes has been thinking. Read more here.

FIN.