Triple R Soundscape: 19 October 2020
Soundscape is a weekly look at local and international releases making an impression on our musical radar. The list offers a cross-section of EPs and albums arriving at the station.
We have been busily scouring the Soundscape! Check out some of our favourite finds for this week 19 October 2020.
Machinedrum - A View of U (Ninja Tune/Inertia)**Album of the Week
The ninth studio album from the acclaimed LA producer Travis Stuart explores the concept of the out of body experience. “The feeling of being out of your body feels infinite. It feels like time has stopped. It feels like the birth of creation,” explains Stuart. A View of U latches onto this theme of the infinity through a fusion of IDM, UK rave, jungle and bass culture, blended with a myriad of US regional hip-hop and club variations. “As I became aware of my OOBE through song creation, choosing what songs should go on an album as well as through my meditation, I realized that this was meant to be the central theme of the album.”
Various Artists - Blue Note Re:Imagined (Decca / Universal)
The UK in recent years has seen an explosion of young, talented jazz musicians, who have created a scene and sound both entirely their own and indebted to the great musicians and labels of the twentieth century. Blue Note Re:Imagined finds these two worlds fusing in the ultimate establishment endorsement of the UK jazz scene. The iconic label Blue Note of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman has granted the new British breed unfettered access to raid their archives and complete an album of reworked classics of their choosing. Hyped new names such as Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings and Ezra Collective take on the legends of Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson and Wayne Shorter.
Chloe Alison Escott - Stars Under Contract (Chapter Music)
Hobart’s Chloe Alison Escott, one half of the cult post-punk outfit Native Cats, releases her solo debut Stars Under Contract. Recorded on a single day in February, the album is stripped down to solo vocal and piano, allowing Chloe’s lyrical incisiveness and dry wit to come into sharp focus, like a Tasmanian Dan Bejar. The album’s concept is that of a fictional band leader revisiting her back catalogue as a solo singer. Escott has said. “I wanted it to be like John Cale's Fragments of a Rainy Season, except that the haunted, spacious piano versions are the only versions.”
The Green Child - Shimmering Basset (Upset The Rhythm)
The Green Child is the project of Raven Mahon (Grass Window) and Mikey Young (Total Control, Eddy Current Suppression Ring), making retro-futurist tunes out of the seaside town of Rye in the Mornington Peninsula. Shimmering Basset finds the duo writing under the same roof for the first time since Raven Mahon relocated from the US to Australia, and the impact is clear. The band sounds more assured and organically developed, with lyrics exploring life after relocation, dealing with distance and staying connected. Musically Shimmering Basset is both spacious and dense, with the duo effortlessly packing disparate 80s pop influences into a meticulously crafted synth-pop record.
Black Thought - Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane and Able (Universal Music Australia)
Cane and Able is the third chapter of the Streams of Thoughts series from The Roots rapper Tariq Trotter. As with the 2018 chapters, Trotter values energy over structure, with long, meandering and often fierce verses delving deep into issues of police shootings, racial politics, personal relationships, and Black Thoughts' own personal legacy. Offering support are the likes of Pusha-T, Killer Mike, Portugal. The Man, and Schoolboy Q.
Mary Lattimore - Silver Ladders (Ghostly)
The LA based harpist Mary Lattimore recorded her newest album at the studio of Neal Halstead (Slowdive) in Cornwall, following a chance meeting at a music festival. Like much of her work, Silver Ladders takes the expressive and transportative range of the Harp to express and dissect fragments of inspiration: scraps of overheard conversation, brief moments in time or clippings of history. Her signature sprawling layers of harp are somewhat reigned in and tightened on her latest, backed by broad strokes of low end synth and the lift of Halstead’s reverb soaked guitar.
Mama Odé - Tales and Patterns of the Maroons (Five Easy Pieces)
Brothers Reginald Omas Mamode IV and Jeen Bassa, both celebrated musicians and producers in their own right, release their debut full-length as Mama Odé. At its core a hip-hop format LP, the duo find inspiration from funk, jazz, blues and reggae, and a range of Creole and African influences. There is a core spirit of diversity that runs through the album, with the duo subscribing to “a positive future drawn from historically multi-ethnic ancestral lines.” Vocals carry messages of unity, love and well being as well as “a conscious questioning of humanity’s ill practices and ideas.”
Surprise Chef - Daylights Savings (Mr Bongo)
Written in the Spring of 2019, Surprise Chef’s Daylight Savings was inspired by that hopeful and rejuvenating moment at the end of a long Melbourne winter when wattle blooms and the clocks move forward. What they couldn’t have known was how much more such a beacon of hope was needed with the album’s release a year later in the Spring of 2020. Daylight Savings is an ode to vintage funk, designed to nourish a hunger for sunlight, connection and hope.
Christopher Port - Ritual Music (Pieater/TwntyThree)
The latest from Christopher Port finds the Melbourne producer allowing his musical heritage and education take the lead in his signature textured and rhythmic compositions. “I grew up learning and playing Jazz and a wide variety of World music from Brazil, India and Africa.” Port recently told Mixdown magazine. “Immersing myself in these different styles of music has left an indelible mark on my subconscious. I wanted to get out of the way of myself and let these subconscious influences come out in the music.” With this intention, Port has allowed a more organic quality to come through in his songs, led chiefly by his live kit drumming and mix of analogue synths.
Future Islands - As Long As You Are (4AD / Remote Control)
As Long As You Are is the sixth album from the Baltimore quartet. Like much of their work, the new LP is an exercise in sincerity, built on Samuel T. Herring’s baritone soaring and tripping over a wave of synthesizers and plodding bass lines. There is a tempo and urgency here, as Herring grapples with the aftermath of toxic relationships with unflinching honesty, ultimately finding hope and catharsis.