:Episode One Hundred Ninety-Eight: 8.21.2020
| Artist | Title | Album |
|---|---|---|
| The Switching Yard | Endless Fever | Brent |
| Spaceslug | SpaceRunner | Reign of the Orion |
| Lamp of the Universe | Beams of Ra | Dead Shrine |
| This Heat | Horizontal Hold | This Heat |
| Gunther Wüsthoff | Alien Crosstalk | Total Digital |
| J. Zunz | 33:33 | Hibiscus |
| Spiral Galaxy | Tragique Mechanique | Spiral Galaxy |
| Byard Lancaster | Drummers from Ibadan | V/A: Soul Love Now: The Black Fire Records Story 1975-1993 |
| Young Marco | Kalapa Garden | Bahasa |
| Okko | Pointed Sails On Ganges | Sitar & Electronics |
| Joseph Allred | Aeolian | On Whatever Ground |
| Dallas Acid (ft. Laraaji, Ariel Kalma & Bill Callahan) | Peace I | Bubble Club, Vol. 1 |
| Less Bells | Brooch | Mourning Jewelry |
| Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek | Waltz (a Lonely Crowd) | Bird, Lake, Objects |
| Markus Floats | And | Third Album |
Open playlist in Spotify
* Not on Spotify:
The Switching Yard - Endless Fever
The Lamp of the Universe - Beams of Ra
Spiral Galaxy - Tragique Mechanique
Description
Among the highlights of this week's show:
As someone who came of age in that decade, I think I can state fairly assuredly that there is something ineffably 90s about Brent, the latest album from Saskatoon, Canada's only band (I mean, I'd assume), The Switching Yard. It's not just the cover art, either, a blurry photo (a staple of 90s indie records) decorated with an MS Paint signature/doodle. I think it's the sort of "end of history" survey of styles so common at that time: a little garage rock, a little space rock, a little shoegaze. There are even a few "skits," (one of which cleverly mashes up Cheech and Chong's "Dave" routine with 2001: A Space Odyssey) which were more a 90s hip-hop thing, but whatever.
Hibiscus, the second album by J. Zunz (aka Lorena Quintanilla of Mexican psych duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete) which, if I didn't know better, could easily believe was a lost avant-garde minimal-wave album from the early 80s. But not the mechanical, herky-jerky synth-punk exemplified by Bureau B's Sowas Von Egal series. More the dubbed-out, space-y meanderings of Pop Group/Slits supergroup New Age Steppers.
Three sleepy-eyed titans of ambience - Laraaji, Ariel Kalma, and Bill Callahan - join with Texas ASMR-core trio Dallas Acid for the first single from a collaborative album they're calling The Bubble Club, Vol. 1. There are a few other notables from the ambient/avant-garde world involved (including members of the Pixies and Gang Gang Dance) and all proceeds from its sale (you name your price on their Bandcamp page) go to charity. It's our era's answer to the Concert for Bangladesh, I guess.
Plus, the potentially Star Wars-referencing Spaceslug with some proggy stoner metal, the sitar-rock of New Zealand's Lamp of the Universe, the Kraut-y strangeness of Spiral Galaxy, and the MIDI-fied minimalism of Montreal's Markus Floats.