Please Stop Loving Me by nszcz
Not a lot to say about this other than to implore you to go and listen. A vast, glowing sun of a track that is yet more evidence that Nicholas Szczepanik is a remarkable talent.
Reviews for Nicholas' previous releases: Dear Dad and The Chiasmus.
So yes, the Mercury Prize nominations were announced yesterday, to the usual sighs of apathy and disbelief. Looking at the 12 selected records doesn't induce apoplexy as much as a kind of resigned shrug - the odd interesting choice, but generally speaking it's predictable and bland. Which would be fine if it were representative. But of course it isn't. The truth is that there's a huge amount of innovative, interesting and exciting music being made in the UK at the moment - music that deserves to be heard. So rather than just bollock on like a bunch of washer women, myself, Rich Hughes (TLOBF magus and instigator of the idea) and Scott MacMillan (aka Mapsadaisical, proprieter of one of the finest blogs in existence) deliberated for a while, produced a list of close to 30 albums and eventually came up with an alternative 12. The Uranus Music Prize (named for the fact that Uranus spins on a different axis to any other planet in our solar system, obviously) seemed the perfect title. The winner will be announced on The Line of Best Fit in September.
Vex'd - Disposition (feat. Jest) (from Cloud Seed 2010)
Guelewar Band of Banjul - Warteef Jiggeen (from Golden Afrique Vol.2 2006)
Troupe Majidi - Essiniya (from Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa El Fna 2010)
Gregory Isaacs - Public Eyes (from Slum in Dub 1978)
Olan Mill - An Obedient Ear (from Pine 2010)
Brave Timbers - Let's Never Go Back (from Music and Migration 2010)
Artist: Loren Connors
Album: As Roses Bow: Collected Airs 1992-2002
Label: Family Vineyard
Despite his massive output, Loren Connors has always remained slightly out of reach for me, like some great backgrounded mist or veil, everywhere and nowhere. Recently I came across this compilation of some his electric guitar work and have become bewitched by it. At some stages in your life, a piece of music, or a collection of moods such as this, fits so perfectly it feels almost preordained. On As Roses Bow Connors is ostensibly playing the blues, but it is so sparse and enervated, so light that it feels afraid to touch the earth - and unlike the blues, it feels rootless, ethereal. This is as much weather as it music: a pall of rain, shafts of half-light in the mist, a pocket of lightly damp air; and while it is melancholic it is not overbearingly so, the beauty coming from a slow and delicate weaving of lines and themes.
Listen/Download: Loren Connors - Child
Download/Listen: Loren Connors - Brigid's Air
Scuba - On Deck (from Triangulations 2010)
Food - Mictyris (from Inlet 2010)
Rhythm & Sound - We Been Troddin' (feat. Shalom) (from W/ the Artists 2003)
Dadawah - Run Come Rally (from Peace and Love 1974)
Emeralds - Summerdata (from Does It Look Like I'm Here? 2010)
Scott Tuma - Tiktaalik (from Not For No One 2008)
Richard Skelton - Green Withins Brook (from Landings 2010)
Alasdair Roberts - The Royal Road At The World's End (from The Wyrd Meme EP 2009)
King Tubby and Yabby U - Beware of God (from Prophesy of Dub 1976)
Etienne Jaumet - Entropy (from Night Music 2009)
Ikonika - Fish (from Contact, Love, Want, Have 2010)
Joe Henderson (feat. Alice Coltrane) - Earth (from The Elements 1973)
In a time like ours, when the genius of engineers has reached such undreamed of proportions, one can hear famous pieces of music as easily as one can buy a glass of beer. It only costs ten centimes, too, just like the automatic weighing scales. Should we not fear this domestication of sound, this magic preserved in a disc that anyone can awaken at will? Will it not mean a dimunition of the secret forces of art, which until now have been considered indestructible?
Claude Debussy, writing in 1913
I meant to post this last night but got buried under some drones so forgot. Anyway, you'll have to remember for next week: the mighty Mapsadaisical's gLASSsHRIMP radio show returns to Resonance FM on Wednesdays from 9.30-11pm. You can either tune into 104.4FM in London, or listen online (yes, that is a picture of Scott on the Resonance site).
So here's another list to add to the already ennui inducing throng. I think it's been a great year in all manner of genres and for all kinds of reasons. Which is why a) this list spills into two posts ii) isn't really weighted in any grand way and 3) is a bit of a mess. And I haven't stretched to a write up of these because, well, we're awash with words aren't we? Here's to 2010...
Extra mentions for The Village Orchestra's I Can Hear the Sirens Singing Again, Kreng's L'Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu and The Neck's Silverwater, all of which are too long to feature here, and for Oneohtrix Point Never and Jon Hassell - both of who's albums I've got into too late to feature here...
There Will Be Fireworks - 'Colombian Fireworks' (from There Will Be Fireworks - M*7 review here)
The Cave Singers - 'Hen of the Woods'' (from Welcome Joy)
Tortoise - 'High Class Slim Came Floating In' (from Beacons of Ancestorship - M*7 review here, M*7 interview with Doug here)
Mordant Music - 24 Million Or Sell Neverland (from Shackleton and Mordant Music - Picking O'er the Bones)
In all my days of writing on here, I don't think I've ever mentioned Fluid Radio. So here is a mention for Fluid Radio - a site that hosts a radio station for ambience, drones, weird folk and fridge noises, plus all manner of reviews and links out to free mixes and downloads. Go there.