Stadiums & Shrines

 

Resident Dev Sherlock tells us he’s been putting tracks aside every so often with this return set in mind, his first transmission in nearly two years. The resulting 80-minute drift threads various styles and eras in service of high-altitude mood. We begin with the ’60s radiophonics-inspired work of Throbbing Gristle founder Chris Carter, then enter an Ethiopian orthodox hymn (and recent guest-mix motif) from Sosena Gebre Eyesus. Next, we pan over a high resolution sunrise from London’s Yamaneko, into Christophe Chassol’s birdsong-filled ulstrascore and the improvisational healing tones of Chicago’s Natalie Chami aka TALsounds. Makoto Matsushita’s “September Rain” and plenty more October language follow, cutting a trail across the sky.



Chris Carter – Cernubicua
Roedelius – Wahre Liebe
Sosena Gebre Eyesus – ድንግል ባንቺ አፍሬ – Dengil Banchi Aferie
Yamaneko – Oslo House Sunrise 4K
Chassol – Birds, Pt. I
Arve Henriksen – Bird’s-Eye-View
Fools – Aeg Old
Truly Holy – Always Wanna Go
TALsounds – Muted Decision
eventual infinity – purity (good night)
Makoto Matsushita – September Rain (Japanese Version)
Orlando – Free 2 B Whoever
stillefelt – Half Life
Raaja Bones – Lightlids
vcr-classique – ecco transmission (excerpt)
Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – Albatross
Hesitation – Etruscan Rooking
Laura Allan – Passage
Rejoicer – Neo Drive Knows You
Leon Thomas – The Creator Has A Master Plan (Peace)

 

Montreal-based French-British producer Jean Cousin has appeared in these pages as johnny_ripper and Triste Marker. In 2017, he found the lasting pseudonym of Joni Void and label home of Constellation Records. Two acclaimed avant-electronica LPs later, we find our friend in full swing, wielding total control of his abilities and aesthetic, a master collagist of sound and sculptor of tone. Naturally his ear for source material lends itself well to the mix format.

Here, Cousin collects outsider art — a wild style of drone, rap, classical, and the sprawling sampledelic et cetera — revolving around his trip to Japan last year. “The music I was listening to at the time, some that I discovered over there and have been listening to on my return. The name of the mix is Life Is Living You which was written on the side of a temple in Kyoto.”

The artwork comes courtesy of Nathaniel and his daughters, ages six and three, who are making fine use of their homeschooling at the moment.



Wendy Eisenberg – Time Machine
ana roxanne – immortality
middle cow creek falls – nostalgia of when you opened the door
Masahiro Takahashi – Sky, Ocean and Weapons -空と海と兵器-
scallops hotel – discussing lanquidity with the moor (ft. SB the Moor)
UCC Harlo – Queen Anne’s Lace
Sometimes, People – 2019
Jim O’Rourke – I’m Happy
Tanya Tagaq – Snowblind
After Dinner – Glass Tube
alphabets – dreaming about losing your keys
Susumu Yokota – Rose Necklace
志人 x DJ DOLBEE – 円都家族
Colleen – Swimming Pool Down the Railway Track
Teams + Noah + Repeat Pattern – miminashi
RYECROFT – Providence
Metoronori メトロノリ – Peindre ou faire l’amour
katie dey – solipsting
jangmyungsun – 일기장 Diary
Pink Navel – dunevhs-neverwatched.dev
Nuno Canavarro – –
Kahimi Karie – Blue Orb
Anabasine + Holobody – Milky Road
Hoahio – Less Than Lovers, More Than Friends
P-Model – Cyborg (Live)
Mister Lies – Always In The Garden
Tomoki Kanda – Safari
Phew / Seiichi Yamamoto – Sora
Osamu Sato – Eight Beat Infinity (Original Tape Version)
Haco – Kusui
Page Vide – Vagues
Shun – Landscape #3
Wendy Eisenberg – Once Before

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.

 

Sui Zhen sent us this mix last month; we have migrated inside since then, and are finding ways to exist, to create, to adapt and hopefully thrive within limited and uncertain formats. May this mix offer a spacious place to lean into.

Sui Zhen is a musician and performance artist based in Melbourne. Her latest album, Losing, Linda (released last fall on Cascine), examines the disembodiment of digital life and internalizes loss across a series of surreal and highly inventive experimental pop songs. Zhen has a knack for arranging myriad musical ideas into singular moments while never losing hold of the rhythm. Like the way flute & clarinet mingle with bossa-nova bass lines on “Being A Woman,” emphasizing her candid questions about gender expectations, which toggle between melodic phrases, self-harmonies, and robotic sing-speak.

Behind the AI alter-ego preface of Losing, Linda, it is deeply human. As is the message of this mix, presented in her words below. She also penned a piece today on resetting expectations in the age of isolation.

“Over the last couple of years my listening tastes have moved toward more textural, expansive, contemplative soundscapes that could accompany me whilst I am thinking & reflecting about all manner of things at home. Or whilst I am preparing my studio space. Trying to quiet the mind. This could be because I’ve been creating soundscapes and music for listening in art galleries for work in this time period. But I think it also has to do with the rise of internet radio and mix series reaching a point where there is so much choice. Mixes can be life-changing or just a really positive way to collect musical ideas and references into an hour-long listening experience. Ambient is not the right word, but there is a sparseness and fragmentation to a lot of the pieces here in this mix. I love to try and continue a thread and draw links between other artists working with similar sounds or techniques. For me, this kind of music is highly evocative and good for the soul. It doesn’t always sound familiar and you might not know where it is leading you, but it can open the mind and be a cleanse of sorts to all the noise elsewhere in the world. I am always so impressed and in awe of the power of sound and music. What a privilege to have my hearing and to be able to participate in this way.”



FM3 & Dou Wei – 四
Meredith Monk – clusters 2
Félicia Atkinson – The Flower And The Vessel
FM3 & Dou Wei – Fallen Flowers 落花
Sam Mallet – Wetlands
Log(M) & Laraaji – Sundog Suite
Ana Roxanne – Slowness
Meredith Monk – strand (gathering)
Sosena Gebre Eyesus – 03 ባየነውም ጊዜ – Bayenewem Gize
FM3 & Dou Wei – 八
Brenda Ray & Scientist – Rejoice For The New Born
Hydroplanes – Grand Central
Pontiac Streator & Ulla Straus – Chat Two
Primal Astrology – Primal Astrology
Log(M) & Laraaji – Sruthi Dub Resonance
Pete Namlook & Bill Laswell – From The Earth To The Ceiling (Part 07)
Sheila Chandra – Not a Word in the Sky
SQÜRL – Blue and Grey
A Gethsémani – Cheree

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.

 

Since closing the metaphorical doors to Patient Sounds Intl. on the last day of the decade, Chicago-based “ambient humorist” Matthew J. Sage has refocused his open hours into a new hobby: ceramics. Somewhere around the edges of spinning clay, recording, and teaching college students about cinema, he put some time towards this somnolent turntable set designed for winter. As he frames it:

“This mix — 100% vinyl — is a postmeridian fantasy suite built to transport you, fair listeners, out of your bundled days and woolen dens through your ears and into an after-hours reverie. The holidays are long over, but we are still in the throes of winter here in Chicago — Late-January/February is by far the cruelest time in the Midwest, having just wrapped a record-challenging stretch without the sun breaking through cloudcover, and now descending into a week of cold and snow — so I created what could be considered a fairytale. A story built to be heard near a crackling hearth (or the 4k facsimile of a hearth). This is what narrative is for in some cases, a flash of escapism. Consider it starting in a leather-couched living space where, after a rich meal of fresh bread and baked root vegetables from the cellar, and maybe a strong glass of wine or two, you float off into the words of a kind friend about their wanderings in the woods of those past warmer months. You spiral into an unfamiliar kingdom that is still uncannily comfortable. Light from those flames in the hearth dance about the room, throwing shadows like flitting fairies into your drooping eyelids.”

“Again, if you don’t have a real fireplace, I highly recommend cueing up a little crackling birchwood while you listen (we run this video in our house quite often in the winter and it has become a much loved cold-season tradition!). Stay warm and imaginative out there (or in there), and have a good tale on me.”


Emily A. Sprague – Piano 1
Josh Mason – Cracking the Juice Code
Billy Gomberg – Openness
Nick Butcher – Cozy Kitchen
Rene Hell – Metaconcrete
Charlie Morrow – Wave Music III – 60 Clarinets and a Boat
Wendy Carlos – Variations for Flute & Electronic Sound
Forest Management – A Smell so Sweet
Robert Casadesus (Faure) – Prelude in Gmin by Gabriel Faure
Sean McCann – Nightfall
Theodore Cale Schafer – Hunter
Tomita – Dawn at Bermuda
Tom Van Der Geld and Children at Play – Alison
Ernest Hood – Saturday Morning Doze

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.