Bandcamp Fridays: August 2021

Some Bandcamp Fridays purchase recommendations from around the world.

In under six hours, Bandcamp Fridays return for 2021, running from midnight to midnight pacific time. For those unfamiliar, Bandcamp Fridays are a day when Bandcamp waive their revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of 13 Bandcamp Fridays, fans have paid artists and labels $56 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 Fridays: August 2021, here we come.

Various Artists, Ambient Maladies (Strange Behaviour)

The second release through Paul Berrington aka DJ B.Lo’s Pōneke (Wellington) based Strange Behaviour label, Ambient Maladies is a compilation album of ten songs recorded by ambient, experimental and electronica-focused producers and musicians from across Aotearoa (New Zealand). When he was programming Ambient Maladies, Berrington took a cue from the cinema of unease film theory actor, writer, director and producer Sam Neill proposed in his 1995 documentary of the same name. Neill articulated this through the dark and brooding nature of many of Aotearoa’s most notable films, such as The Quiet Earth, Utu, Vigil and An Angel at My Table, which he considers a reflection of the nation's struggle to find, or form, its own identity.

This time around though, Berrington wanted to explore these concepts through the way established and emerging local music producers and musicians engage with the concepts around ambient music. It’s always darkest before dawn, and Ambient Maladies is one of those collections that makes sense in both the light of morning and the depths of night.

Various Artists, Out of Season (Theory Therapy)

Much like Ambient Maladies, Out of Season is a compilation album of ambient and downtempo recordings. However, as opposed to having a regional focus like Aotearoa (New Zealand), when it came to Out of Season, Eora (Sydney) based Australian label Theory Therapy opted for more of a global focus, bringing together artists from Sydney, Melbourne, Seoul, Austin, Chicago, Portland, Berlin and New Zealand. Out of Season’s conceptual framework is recordings inspired by place, environment and the passing seasons, and 100% of the proceeds will go to headspace, a national Australian youth mental health foundation that provides early intervention mental health services to 12 to 25-year-olds. Thirteen beautiful pieces of sound work that really sit very well with uncertain spirit of our times.

Li Yilei, 之 / OF (Métron Records)

‘’之 / OF is a word that can be used as a preposition to express the relationship between a part and a whole. It is an unfinished tone, a broken sentence, a start and a whole. It is sustainable, full of potentials and longings.’’ After giving Yumiko Morioka’s resplendent Synergetic Voice Orchestra a second run at life, Métron Records continue to knock it out the ballpark with the latest release from London based Chinese performance and sound artist Li Yilei. In a sense, it’s a COVID-19 record and a quarantine record, but that isn’t a red flag. 之 / OF is a special set of sonic studies of time, place, atmosphere and conditions. Say no more.

Cruel Diagonals, A Dormant Vigor (Self-released)

A surprise release from the Los Angeles-based vocalist, music producer and field recordist Megan Mitchell aka Cruel Diagonals, the internet’s thicc industrial wife, thicc ambient wife, strong female lead, etc etc. Mitchell describes A Dormant Vigor as exploring themes of destruction, emergence, and growth through her deep respect and reverence for geological, and especially, volcanic processes. Explored and articulated with voice, granular synthesis, eurorack/modular synthesis and field recordings, the album’s nine tracks juxtapose the rough and smooth in the signature style of a jazz and classical trained vocalist who can bear you up to heaven before smashing you down to the depths of hell and back again. In a word, it’s immersive.

Scratchclart, Afrotek (Hyperdub)

This one is a while away from release, but it is well worth a pre-order. London Don Scratcha DVA aka Scratchclart returns to Hyperdub Records with the Afrotek EP. The latest release in his ongoing exploration of UK Gqom as a hybridisation of South African and UK dance music, Afrotek sees Scratcha bouncing ideas and rhythms with Baltimore vocalist and producer 3LON, Nottingham MC Mez, DJ Polo and Scottie Dee and South African producer Mxshi Mo. In a time where nostalgia seems inescapable, Scratcha and his collaborators continue to look for new ways forward in rhythm and sound. It’s a beautiful thing.

BONUS:

Séance Centre is releasing INCANTATIONS, a collection of sixteen visual and sonic experiments centred around the idea of score as spell (here).

Second Circle has released Şelale, a special one-off album of music by Belgian producer soFa, German musician Houschyar and the legendary Turkish drummer and percussionist Okay Temiz (here).

Efficient Space and Fresh Hold have pre-orders up for one of Australia’s most mysterious jazz long players - Singing Dust (here).

Public Possession has released Melbourne-based New Zealand producer and DJ Nice Girl’s debut album, Ipsum (here).

Dennis Young (of Liquid Liquid) has uploaded his 1996 archival recording In Between the Comfort Zone on Bandcamp (here).

New York–based Moroccan artist and music maker bergsonist’s virtualité EP is up for pre-order on Bandcamp (here).

Frederiksberg Records has released a four-track EP of songs by the dearly departed St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands disco soca artist Hugo Moolenaar (here).

Te Whanganui-a-Tara’s Oro Records has released Bird Like Men by Tararua, the group project of Ruby Solly (cello, vocal ngā taonga pūoro), Ariana Tikao (vocal, ngā taonga pūoro), Phil Boniface (double bass) and Alistair Fraser (ngā taonga puoro). You can purchase it (here).

FIN.