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Someone asked about this a long time ago. Properly hazy, conceptual and bordering on memory loss Hawaii music by James Kirby (The Caretaker).

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Xqui - Microchasm / Recent Wormhole World releases: Robyn G Shiels & Steve Nolan - Sky Drew Near/ Mzungu - With Seasonal Affect/ Outside The Glitsch - Cartography / Jewels Of Shame - Negative Dialects / Quimper - Dejado

Xqui's fourth full-length came amidst a storm of other recordings he posted on his bandcamp during the quarantine. At first I thought that this would be his most structured releases due to some beats here and there, but it reveals itself as the exact opposite. It might not have the utterly Lovecraftian subterranean feel of other releases (apart from "Scale"), but it is one of the most psychedelic ones, at it reminds at times of Coil's mid-90s phase and even other mind-bending Coil-related projects such as The Threshold HouseBoys Choir and UnicaZürn, and it has some weird fuzzy beats that sound similar to old video games!

You can buy it for a very small price on bandcamp, and it's always a good idea to support his music.

Wormhole World is a label with which Xqui is closely related and it has released recently some quite nice music.

First is Sky Drew Near by Robyn G Shiels & Steve Nolan, which is a nice change from the label's usual abrasive electronics output, as it is a dark pop heartbroken music album with a touch of americana. I really liked this one.

With Seasonal Affect by mzungu is an adventurous attempt at wintry ambient with very beautiful frozen synth washes that you really must hear.

Cartography by Outside The Glitch is one of the best albums of 2020 so far. It is superb imposing ambient . It has all the best elements of Basinski and Robert Rich shaped in a very personal approach that I would dare say incorporates also elements of elemental/primordial beatless ambient techno. I see that the artist has also done other releases on Wormhole World which I will definitely give a listen to immediately. 

A slightly older release is Negative Dialects by Jewels Of Shame, some guy wanting to be shrouded in mystery, as most of his tracks are titled by date of recording, and they have all been recorded during the 2000s. There's some primitive horror noise/ dark ambient with a mostly crude sound and an unfinished feel to it, which I like, as it presents a non-linear and anti-closure/anti-perfection approach that I find interesting as in other artists such as J.G. Sparkes.

The last one of the recent lot that stood out is Dejado by Quimper, which is fun dark synth-pop/ hypnagogic electronica, like a more electronic/beat-y Ariel Pink with dark house music lurking somewhere in there...

As always, both Xqui and the Wormhole World label are very-hardworking and cool people that really deserve some support, so don't hesitate to pay some little cash to get these very nice musics.

Shit Creek - Prozac Rainbow

Shit Creek became a household name to me through TQ#15, when the guy behind the project (and the Luxury Bucket label) Lewis Duffy was featured in an interview. The early Shit Creek material I head on his bandcamp featured fleeting/epic/fairytale ambient experiments for violin and loops. But it now seems that Lewis has moved into an entirely different territory, with several recent releases and this new album called Prozac Rainbow. Here we get hyper-modern hypnagogic electronica and soundscapes. There's a very fizzy and liquid feel to the sounds, which tempts me to label it as muzak for aquariums; it's kinda like the aquatic levels on Sonic the Hedgehog 2! One could find similarities to the more recent James Ferraro material, or even Vektroid; there's also a hint of labelmate Xqui's material; that said, there's a strong personal identity, not a rehash of said artists. Preorder it on Wormhole World and get lost in the waterworld.

St James Infirmary - Affidavits Of Unease

Isn't the guy on the cover identical to Lenin? St. James Infirmary returns with a fifty-minute epic and elevating journey of kosmische-inspired drone. 29-minute first track "The Great Anger Approaches" builds on an anthemic medieval accordion melody, with an unforgiving high-pitched guitar loop tuning perfectly with the accordion, and bringing to mind the finest moments of Ashtray Navigations, while also having perhaps a sense of Skullflower's latter-day obsession with sustained guitar noise. Track two, "Default Jazz Afternoon," is a completely different story. Based on a midi saxophone melody, and an additional synth theme, this is a weird Musick To Play In the Dark-era-Coil-meets-arcade-games-midi-music. I picture this either as a Sega Master System game theme, or background hypnagogic music for carpet commercials on a very early-morning schedule, that could easily be sampled by James Ferraro, were he to ever return to his earlier hypnagogic masterpieces. Lovin' this, and so should you, so go to Wormhole World's bandcamp and support!

Charles Barabé / Howl Of The Lacerated / Andrew Paine / Toucan Lifecycle ‎– 4-way split tape

4-way split tape featuring excellent hypnagogic psychedelic ambient by Charles Barabé (who I'll definitely explore more), horror industrial in the vein of early Throbbing Gristle focused on howling guitar noises and creepy synths by Howl Of The Lacerated (side project of Jamie Azzopardi, boss of the label putting this out), fizzy space psychedelic electronics by Andrew Paine (reminding a little bit of Ashtray Navigations in a live environment, if you've ever seen them in the act), and blissful psychedelic synthetic ambient by Toucan Lifestyle. Nice! 2017 tape on Shack In The Barley Productions.

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Posset / Trancers II / Hapsburg Braganza ‎– A Clutch Of Eggs cdr

Posset's high-frequency tape hiss is juxtaposed against Trancers II's nice old-school-industrial-meets-hypnagogic (think of a mix between Throbbing Gristle and old James Ferraro and early Dirty Beaches) and Hapsburg Braganza's two very different tracks; first one is a dreamy floating ambient orchestral piece a-la William Basinski and Stars Of The Lid, while is a dictaphonic piece mixing various old talk shows and old jazz music. Nice shit. 2011 self-released cdr

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