This week’s Mixtape features Colleen — French composer Cécile Schott – as she overcame a 30-year fear of swimming, which she talks about to Harper Mahood in our latest interview, the 1940’s cover photo is dedictaed to her.
When I was a little kid, I absolutely loved swimming underwater; it came naturally to me,” she says, recalling memories of her mom accompanying her to the local pool. “But at school, we had to take swimming classes, and little by little, I started to lose my confidence.
We’ve also a track by Lines of Silence from The Silent Harvest Volume One (Bandcamp), a new album from Folk Police Recordings featuring ‘traditional songs and ballads in their modular, ambient and kosmische variants’:
Over a few short months between 1967 and 1968, folk singers and song collectors Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger recorded a ten LP set of English, Scottish and American variants of traditional folk songs and ballads, released by Argo Records as The Long Harvest.
The Silent Harvest is our tribute to this series of albums. We asked the artists we have featured here – various modulists, ambientologists and other electronic musicians from the UK – to immerse themselves in the arcane and sometimes unsettling imagery of the songs and ballads on The Long Harvest, and to each select one of them as the inspiration for a new composition. This is the result.
There’s music from the recently reviewed self-titled debut Amarante-Cerisier, on which Marine Debilly Cerisier and Mauricio Amarante deliver a fitting addition to the canon of Francophone double-acts. From The Final Painting, a posthumous album from the late outsider songwriter, painter and poet, Ed Askew (out July 31st – Bandcamp) which was assembled in his last years with producer Jerry David DeCicca, you can hear the lead single Gray Air-o-Plane, featuring Sharon Van Etten.
Plus, get a taster of Robin Katz‘s new album Hypnos (out May 29th – Bandcamp) which finds him at his most subtle, with deceptively intricate guitars paired to the new addition of Hammond organ, played by guest musician Nathanial Ledwidge.
Plus:
Music from Tokyo-based sonic artist, Akhira Sano with environmental music created in his grandparents house which was soon to be demolished (Fading – Bandcamp):
This work is a piece of environmental music created from the sounds and spatial characteristics of architectural structures or materials in the process of disappearance. The project began with the intention of documenting my grandparents’ house—soon to be demolished—as a formative personal memory, and of transforming the “spatial sound” of a place destined to vanish into a work of art…
Angel Pavements, the latest offering from D. Rothon on Clay Pipe Music (Bandcamp):
For years I’ve enjoyed hunting down novels of everyday London life – and low life – especially from the early-to-mid 20th century. It all started with James Curtis’s brilliant The Gilt Kid – a charity shop punt – then tracking down his other books and any others vaguely like them. I’ve already stolen a few titles for tracks on my other Clay Pipe releases, but thought it was time I did a whole set of pieces based around this theme. On Angel Pavements the track names are taken not just from book titles but also chapters or quotes lifted from the text.
The MerKaBa Brotherhood‘s (Roman Norfleet and Andre Raiah) self-titled debut on Mississippi Records, recently reviewed by Danny Neill.
Manivelles, the second album by composer Anadol and writer-musician Marie Klock:
…this record draws its material from lived experience and a lasting friendship. Its title, which means ‘cranks’, hints at the musical partners’ creative penchant for generating songs through friction and playful contradictions.
A track from Irish-born, Bristol-based artist Jenny Lindfors, who records as Sailing Stones. The track is from her sophomore album Slow Magic, due July 3rd. She is currently also offering the release on vinyl via Bandcamp here – I encourage you to get an order in as they will be limited.
There also music from Manhattan’s Nevaris; from Rexen‘s first fully realized studio album – The Chauffeur (a Danish singer, composer, with roots in the Arabian Gulf), Paris-based singer-songwriter Aure whose debut album, printemps, is out now (Bandcamp).
Playlist
- REXEN – I’ve Found 00:00
- D.Rothon – In The Racket Too 03:20
- Penny Arcade – Want You Around 06:10
- Sailing Stones – A Promise To Love 08:40
- Anadol & Marie Klock – La supériorité du nombre 12:02
- Amarante-Cerisier – L’Avenir 15:27
- Ed Askew – Gray Air-o-Plane (ft. Sharon Van Etten) 20:29
- Robin Katz – The Moon 24:29
- Aure – L’orage 27:27
- Lines of Silence – The Ghost Ship 29:54
- Akhira Sano – 2nd Floor 2 34:04
- Colleen – Antídoto 36:36
- Nevaris – Ninth Sun (Live) 42:59
- MerKaBa Brotherhood – Galgalim 47:44