A recurring series, featuring mesmerizing songs for one to lose sense of time and space, mind and body. Three acts today, including tracks from solo electronic musicians Co La and Mister Lies, as well as a bootlegged live session from Portland’s Swahili.
Co La
By regurgitating a whole slew of influences past and present, solo artist Matthew Papich, aka Co La, creates pastiches that might fall into the trappings of electronic glitchiness if it weren’t for their frequently analog source materials. Hands In The Dark records have just unlocked Papich’s upcoming EP, Soft Power Memento, for us to stream in its entirety, below. The album single is “Love Nest”, and were it actually a love nest, it’d be a strange one — certainly a bungalow, though possibly outfitted with a surround-sound speaker system that plays alongside grooving jazz musicians and drumming natives.
The EP is being released by Hands In The Dark and NNA Tapes, in limited quantities, on CD and tape.
Swahili
Bootlegged the other night from their live show at The Know with Eternal Tapestry is this 12-minute clip from Portland experimental electronic musicians Swahili. If these songs are your jam, you should know that they’re available now on vinyl via Seattle’s Translinguistic Other), and that this set was Swahili’s last time performing this older material, at least for a while. They are now moving on, to show the world the new era of their music, full of dub- and disco-influenced takes on psychedelic electronic music.
Swahili – “Soma” and “Contact” (Live) – DOWNLOAD MP3
[audio:/mp3/downloads/Swahili_Soma-Contact_Live.mp3|titles=Soma + Contact (Live)]
Mister Lies
Mister Lies definitely lives in the now played-out world of minimal electronic beats fraught with manipulated vocals and watery ambiance, but there is something about 19-year-old Nick Zanca’s works that warrant a bit of attention. Here is a sample of his mellow track “Cleam”, and you can grab a free EP below as well. Ah, the beauties of modern-day youth, as they explore what it is to be alive via what they apparently call “ambient gospel” music. More details on that at the EP link.
Stream Mister Lies & A Different Sleep – Mass EP
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