Stadiums & Shrines

E62: Sleeping Beauty with Sound of Ceres & Sunset Diver

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We first met Karen and Ryan Hover in 2011; they were playing SXSW wearing animal costume hats as Candy Claws. The next year it was metallic cardboard constellation masks for the Portals backyard show. These days they realize an immense cosmic pop universe as Sound of Ceres with bandmates Jacob Graham, Derrick Bozich, and Ben Phelan. Following shows supporting Beach House, and the release of Demonstration Tapes (the original material for 2017 LP The Twin on Joyful Noise Recordings), they return to Brooklyn this September to host an immersive exhibition residency with AdHoc at Alphaville.

Their spellbinding music expresses wonder for the natural world and the vastness of what lies beyond. Naturally, they dream. Sound of Ceres’ contribution to the series, “Solar Shaded,” which they offered to re-record as a band for the LP, glides above the Austrian Alps.

More recently they designed the dusk of episode 62, an elegant and curious opening hour. The guest mix collects rare treasures — Rexy’s synth-pop, Belgium duo Carol’s proto-coldwave, Woo’s warm-blooded new age — with orchestral touches of Tchaikovsky and Liška, barbershop harmonies (The Chordettes) and perception harmonics (Dolores Catherino).

Hover & crew also reveal a keen ear for soft-sounds in the present. Among those is a self-described shaper of “star-projecting music” Samira Winter, fellow dreamer White Poppy, and former Broadcast member Roj. Particularly thrilling (to me) is the discovery of symphonic dream pop project Mohagany, whose early 2000s output feels linked to Sound of Ceres’ DNA today.

This episode’s second hour, the deep night, is supplied by Sunset Diver. The Los Angeles-based cinephile and aural excavator, known in the daylight as Devin Johnson, released a tape in 2017 with Patient Sounds (“a bright textural bath, fragmented and frothed”). His latest, Seagulls (out now on KMAN 92.5) is a fascinating piece of plunderphonics fusing film samples with woozy, nostalgia-inducing instrumental patterns. Selections for his S&S set include the underwater loops of Julia Bloop (Crash Symbols), an impressionistic mood suite from Leland “Ahnnu” Jackson (Leaving Records), and windswept field recordings from Tokyo (Rhucle, Adhesive Sounds). Johnson sets it all up:

“I’ve always loved falling asleep to music. It’s such a peaceful feeling to have quiet sounds washing over you while you drift out of consciousness. This playlist was created with that in mind. It includes some of my favorite bedtime tracks mixed with ambient highlights from my own discography. Turn off the lights, turn down the volume, and tuck yourself in.”

Hour One: Sound of Ceres
Roj – Home Telescope Kit
Roberto Cacciapaglia – Sparkling World
Annette Peacock – Sky-Skating
Ennio Morricone – La Bambola
Ken Griffin – Marea Baja
Tchaikovsky – The Sleeping Beauty Ballet Suite, Op 66 Panorama
Winter – Memoria Colorida
Rexy – Running Out of Time
Carol – So Low
Zdeněk Liška – The Black Sea
Woo – Hopi
Roj – Ludwig’s Children
The Chordettes – Soft Sands
Mahogany – Renovo
White Poppy – Magic Feel
Virna Lindt – Underwater Boy
Dolores Catherino – Temporal Parallax

Hour Two: Sunset Diver
Dedekind Cut – The Crossing Guard
Julia Bloop – Tenaya
Grouper – Come Softly
Sunset Diver – Nostalgia On Dangerous Ground
Ahnnu – Sugar In The Dark
Glassine – sunruse bench
Julia Bloop – holding hands on the precipice
Rhucle – Night Coast I
Sunset Diver – Sunken Treasure
Seth Chrisman & Nathan McLaughlin – I

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

E61: FLORA Mix & M. Sage’s Southern Exposure

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Taking over Episode 61 are two longtime friends of the site with two markedly different hours of music. The first is a drifter, courtesy of FLORA founder Jamison Isaak (Teen Daze). Equal parts pastoral and cosmic, the mix feathers unreleased material from his British Columbia-based label with the sounds of contemporary New Age, jazz, and ambient practitioners and pioneers (Hiroshi Yoshimura, Laraaji). There’s an appearance by Japanese artist and Orchid Tapes-alum Atsuhito Omori aka Ex Confusion, a rippling Melody As Truth-released collaboration between Suzanne Kraft and D.K, as well as フジネットワークシステム (Fuji Network Systems), whose trail since 2016 has all but vaporized (now abstractly related to Bedlam Tapes).

The set closes under the care of Gigi Masin. The Italian minimalist composer and Music From Memory vet prefaces the piano work on his 2018 self-release KITE: “This collection contains some songs that I’ve made in the past few years, written to talk about dreams and love while waiting for new colors and new music. It’s like looking back at a garden of roses and flowers, hoping the next lawn is just as beautiful and bright.”

In short time FLORA has bloomed a bounty of relaxation recordings. Isaak’s 2018 EPs 1 and 2 were recorded primarily on piano (such as the uplifting “Us” below), while his latest tape, Spring Patterns, splays out with meditative guitar loops (full stream further down). These generous and gorgeous sets are suited for golden hours somewhere, under a tree or beside a window, paused and watching the shadows move.

Hour two is “a journey through pastures and depots, liveries and bayous, parlors and front porches, barnyards and haylofts” with Patient Sounds (intl) head M. Sage. We can picture our host grinning at his living room turntables, pulling spontaneously from a collection amassed in travels: undisclosed country-folk and blues compilations and dusty dollar bin nuggets, both old and new, showcasing distinctly American — Southern, Western, Appalachian — songwriting traditions (from Connie Converse up through Daniel Bachman). Full tracklist N/A, but it’s easy to imagine a few Polish cowyboys, Rocky Mountain resort hustlers, moonshiners, and lonesome crooners.

Hour One: FLORA Mix
??? – forthcoming on FLORA
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Soto Wa Ame – Rain Out Of Window
フジネットワークシステム – 1に向けて
D.K. / S.K. – Burn
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Deep Echoes
Laraaji – All Of A Sudden
Ex Confusion – Lilac In July
Pat Metheny Group – If I Could
Jackson Milas – December 21st
John Klemmer – Waterwheels
???
Gigi Masin – Kite

Hour Two: Southern Exposure by M. Sage

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E60: Woodblue’s Gray City, Patient Sounds, and the Marilis Hour

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The cloudy, kinetic free jazz of Japan’s woodblue has held our curiosity for much of Spring’s confused bloom. On the last March’s episode, we featured a piece from the artist in collaboration with Hiroko Arima and Yudai Suzuki aka Multi purpose studio. Correspondence since yields a guest mix of original and unreleased work woodblue calls Gray City. At first blush, the 30-minute exchange is barely there, but as our mind’s eye calibrates to the fluttering improvisations, a metropolis of light percussion, found sounds, and whirling horns illuminate the atmosphere.

Stepping right into the fog, without introduction or city-wide alerts, Patient Sounds take over the last portion of the first hour (35 minutes onward), sharing an unmarked sampling from fresh releases.

Stitched into the second hour is a recent S&S guest set for the Marilis Hour on the wonderful Montréal-based internet radio station n10.as. A few Dreams appear, alongside snippets from Yasuaki Shimizu’s Music For Commercials, a striking ode to the natural world by harpist Mary Lattimore, some woosy “vertical listening” from 81-year-old luminary trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell, and the modular synthesis water memories of Emily Sprague, who recently joined us at Moogfest to render the first ever live Dream interpretation.

Hour One: “Gray City” by woodblue
Gray city #6 at Myou Den
Gray city #7 at Narayama SATY
Gray city #8 at Hirokouji am 1:00
Gray city #3 at Araya (Multi purpose studio remix)
Gray city #2 at Route 46 (Multi purpose studio remix)
Improvisation session at “studio” featuring woodblue, Multi purpose studio, and tko (omu-tone)
Gray city #9 at Minami douri
Tam Tech
Blue Tuesday next future
[34:50 – 01:05:20] Patient Sounds

Hour Two: S&S set on The Marilis Hour
Blithe Field – Prelude
Yasuaki Shimizu – Tachikawa / Seiko 1
Dip in the Pool – On Retinae (East Version)
Anenon – Open
Meitei / 冥丁 – Sankai / 山怪
Cuddle Formation & Emily Reo – Bermuda (Yoshi’s Story)
Emily A. Sprague – Your Pond
Alexia Avina – Glove
Mary Lattimore – Never Saw Him Again
Jon Hassell – Dreaming
Bing & Ruth – Quebec (Climber)
Yumi Zouma – France (Grands Boulevards)
Terekke – wav1

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E59: Here Appear with Sila Ptah

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Sila Ptahi makes abstract beat tapes which, save for two released with Nekubi Tapes and Haju Tapes, are shared anonymously on SoundCloud. For Episode 59, Ptahi assembled an hour-long block of dust-covered soul and hip-hop, heavily optimized for headnods. Selections traverse syrupy sampledelia, jazzy instrumentals, and time-warped balladry, with careful attention paid to texture and tempo.

The episode’s second block catches up with 2018. A pastiche of new modes, the set kicks off with Jon Bap‘s frenetic new jack swing, Akiko Kiyama‘s scattered percussion, and Meitei / 冥丁‘s mood tribute to 19th-century painter Kawanabe Kyosai. Onto Anenon‘s latest fusion (of soprano sax, piano, synth and field recordings) on Friends of Friends, spacious dream-folk from Montreal songwriter Alexia Avina (courtesy of Cuddle Formation’s label Never Content), followed by woodwind drone via Eve Essex‘s tape out today on Soap Library. Next is a Séance Centre-reissued 1987 cut by Mexican guitarist/synthesist Eblen Macari, a Balearic night drive from Sydney’s Angophor, buzzing free jazz from Japan (that’s woodblue on MPC, Yudai Suzuki aka Multi purpose studio on trumpet, and Hiroko Arima on stone), and, finally, a tender bedroom-pop outro from New York-based artist Grub (hat tip, Tyler).

Hour One: Mix by Sila Ptahi
Hour Two: Freeform
Jon Bap – Voice Memo from 2013 / _Stuck_
Aalko – Body & Soul
Meitei / 冥丁 – Kawanabe Kyosai / 河鍋暁斎
Anenon – Open
Alexia Avina – Bird
Eve Essex – Here Appear
Eblen Macari – Supernova en Macuspana
Angophora – Uncarved
Hiroko Arima, Multi purpose studio, Woodblue – re-flectionB
Grub – Baby in the Sea

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