I loved Tariq Ali on Johnson and Thatcherism’s legacy and I love this one hour mix from Martyn. They pair well: disdain and syncopation. Martyn’s description of the mix says you will “hear influences from Drum ’n’ Bass, Garage, Detroit, Chicago or Dubstep.” Ali has slightly different influences:
Veronika Petrova is my favorite critic of colonialism this week.
the volume settings folder is an “ambient-drone-post rock music project developed by M. Beckmann.” Recording at his home in Padova since 2011, he’s made a billion little EPs and albums, many of them great. His description of the music says “sketch and improv attitude to get sudden ambience, ” which sums it up well. These recordings will relax and invigorate you, and most of the titles are pay what you want.
My friend, Elvia Wilk, has a magical brain and, because of her new collection, Death By Landscape, she is doing interviews like this one, and now everybody knows about this brain.
Sahel Sound’s Music from Saharan WhatsApp series was a highlight of 2022. Now those releases have been culled for something of a greatest hits compilation. Highest recommendation here. I’m not sure if this stuff was really being recorded by phone or simply transmitted that way, but the guitars are bright and active, like tuned drums.
Joe Levy put me on to a band from Austin called Water Damage. Here is their band page with some pay what you want live shows and a demo, and their full-length, Repeater, on 12XU. They have two or three drummers, usually, and the guitars burp and drone until the tape runs out, a length of time that varies between seven and twenty-five minutes. Lumpy and thick, like a big eggplant of cable whiplashing around on the deck of a dead tanker.
Why not listen to me discuss Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele on the Dad Bod Rap Pod?