Lunation Fall - NEAR (2021)

Lunation Fall, "sparkles and noise making band from Lyon, France", is a new thing on the dreamy music scene. But judging by the two labels they managed to interest in their material, it soon will be better known. And quite rightfully so, as NEAR shows some juicy and sweet music, perfect for the moody noisy pop they do.

As they point out, their music hovers somewhere between delicate dream pop and noisier genres, being "in a constant quest for the alliance between melancholic dream pop and unleashed noise rock". The vocals are beautifully airy but with this dose of pop-like catchiness that doesn't let them entirely melt within the guitar-based, thick backgrounds. In the artists' words, they seek "this fragile spot where the melodic sweetness is combined with the power of a wall of sound carried by a feverish and airy rhythmic". It seems to me that they found it, as the album ranges from lighter melodies with the elements of bedroom/indie pop to heavy guitar riffs and mesmerizing noise present in the backgrounds all over the release. This makes me think of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (especially in Reflections) combined with some more intimate and lo-fi indie pop project, good stuff.

NEAR costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Sweet Misery

Country: France

Genre: noisy dream pop

Label: Stellar Frequencies/Shore Dive Records

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Dronny Darko & Ajna - Radioactive Immersion (2021)

Dronny Darko a.k.a. Oleg Puzan is an artist from Ukraine (and the owner of one of the best musical nicknames out there) while Anja comes from New York. They both create very dark and kind of uncomfortable ambient music that can be admired on their album Radioactive Immersion.

The ambient here is called "dark and rusty", it certainly has very, very industrial vibes - with sounds that resemble those of an abandoned factory (or at least I would imagine they do). It is undoubtedly dark as well, creating this unnerving feeling of something lurking in the shadows, the feeling of constant danger. They put it together by creating a story told by the ambient sounds and by the description of the album: "Your headlamp sweeps the tunnel walls. Roots and moss stretch their tendrils out of the darkness in strange geometric patterns, mutated and fueled by water from the abandoned cooling chambers".

It sounds like something taken from Roadside Picnic or perhaps Annihilation. It is basically a chapter from a book or a quest from a video game if you will. But written with beautiful (and terrifying) ambient sounds.

Radioactive Immersion costs 7 USD.

Check: Uranium 235

Country: Ukraine/New York, US

Genre: industrial ambient

Label: Cryo Chamber

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Gonemage - Mystical Extraction (2021)

I'll be honest, chiptune is the music genre I appreciate the least to call it mildly. However, Gonemage is the first project ever that made me question this view. Garry Brents' works combine it with energetic and dark black metal and the result are great, available now for the audience on the project's debut album called Mystical Extraction.

Earlier this year I posted about Lorem Ipsum, the French neoclassical post-hardcore band, and I was pretty much shocked with that blend, Gonemage though is something even more peculiar. Brents is an artist who has an impressive resume of projects he's been involved in, this one is surely the weirdest (although it's just my assumption). The album is meant to be a concept album, the theme of which is, quite naturally, a story within a video game - more about it with some quite vivid details can be read on the album's Bandcamp Website.

The colourful midi sounds of chiptune here, after combining them with the metal pace and vocals, get a different vibe to them - rapid, dangerous and extremely engaging. Especially that the metal elements here are taken from its darkest and most violent subgenres and only the chiptune tones this down a bit. Still, this is the kind of music that gives the audience so much energy, it is impossible not to dance and/or pogo to it. And most certainly one that is very unique, a music born from a combination I would never even thought is possible.

Mystical Extraction costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: The Gullying and the Purple Hoax

Country: Texas, US

Genre: chiptune black metal

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Superdone - ▽ (2021)

It seems that a year on that blog is not complete without posting about the British band Superdrone. I did so about The Creation in 2019 and Solargaze last year and the artists get better and better so I can't really stop. 2021's mysteriously entitled ▽ brings the best from ethereal space rock out there.

The band's sound's specialty is the smooth, mesmerizing synths that make the audience go deeper and deeper this sonic world without even realizing. This is complimented with space rock attributes like the ethereal vocals and psychedelic vibes in their compositions, as well as, and that's not an obvious thing, being melodic and extremely catchy. There's a few songs here you can instantly catch up on, one being We Are One with its slightly retro form and dreamy atmosphere or the surprisingly synthpop-like Morning Light that really stands out within the atmosphere of the album.

The clue of the album, however, lies in its ability to create trance-worthy, mesmerizing compositions of the most psychedelic, even if toned down with the dreamy atmosphere, quality like Sperisphere for example or the ethereal blizzard of Eternala. And those craziness- and mood-rich storms are what you should reach for the album for.

▽ costs 7 GBP.

Superdrone - Solargaze (2020)

Superdrone - The Creation (2019)

Check: We Are One

Country: UK

Genre: ethereal space rock

Label: Sdrone Records

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Ambulance on Fire - Ambulance on Fire (2021)

Ambulance on Fire is a Lithuanian duo consisting of Jūra Elena Šedytė and Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė, musicians of jazzy and theatrical music backgrounds. They combine these artsy worlds with modern electronic music and it sounds extremely interesting on their debut EP simply called Ambulance on Fire.

The title of the first track says a lot about their work. The traditional music (represented here by a very folk-sounding flute) meets the modern music and world. The artists draw inspiration from a various music genres from IDM to synthpop and 90's electronica and those come to the stage with the heavy-bass-reach I Will Never in which the, again very much folk-inspired, vocals go together with coarse synths and soul-filling basses. This, often improvised and lyrics-lightweight, music talks about "anxiety, anger, or fear that can be felt even deeper in a specific musical atmosphere" and I would add the social aspects of those, perhaps it's because of the very vivid name of the project.

As well as the last track entitled in the same way. One that is filled with uncomfortable electronica, ethereal synths in the backgrounds and those unique, repetitive and mesmerizing chanting that closes the very promising debut.

Ambulance on Fire costs 4 EUR.

Check: Ambulance on Fire

Country: Lithuania

Genre: art synthpop

Label: Future Sound Scientists

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Knægt - Tragisk komedie (2021)

Led by the "anti-frontman" (and trumpeter) Malte Nordtorp Pedersen, Knægt is a project that sounds like something you know but adds some flavour to it. The new and, as it seems, debut album is an EP called Tragisk komedie with its heavily theatrical theme (and cover art).

When I first heard this album I was sure it was some new material from Efterklang, one of the best modern Danish music makers out there. And it has to be considered as a huge compliment. Perhaps it's the Danish language, something we are not very accustomed to in music. Perhaps it's Pedersen's distinct voice's colour that is somehow similar to what Casper Clausen sounds like. But most likely it's these art rock and slowcore vibes that bring a lot of intimacy and theatre-like approach to emotions and feelings, a unique sound that not many projects go with these days.

This atmosphere here goes very smoothly from the very beginning in the slow and beautiful Lysende Flammer, a song that sets the jazzy and artsy ballad-esque tone for the next couple of tracks with some mellower, dream pop-like fragments in my favourite track here Statistik. Something else starts to happen in Nu Går Det Godt Igen, in which the theatre sound gets even more noticeable with the quiet vocals sounding like a monolouge on stage while the finish in Regiones Rovfugl brings on a real orchestral crescendo. In every part of the album, the music sounds like a soundtrack for a play and it's super easy to imagine the artists on stage (with a prop motorcycle next to them).

Tragisk komedie costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: Statistik

Country: Denmark

Genre: slowcore art rock

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Simon Goff - Vale (2021)

The English violinist and composer Simon Goff on his first solo album (the two previous ones were collaborative works of Goff, Aidan Baker and Thor Harris) shows us a neoclassical view of what his home region, Vale of York, looks like.

Goff is an experienced musician and sound engineer who worked also with such huge artists as Jóhann Jóhannsson or Hildur Guðnadóttir. His music "conjures dynamic sonic landscapes where acoustic and electronic sounds meet". While the live gigs "merge these worlds harmoniously and shift effortlessly between intimate fragility to expansive cinematic soundscapes" - and this last phrase is the key to Goff's music. Although it is mostly string-based neoclassicism (that's supposed to be very intimate), the sense of being part of something big (like a movie for instance) is very tangible here. Especially that the tracks are so different moodwise with the unnerving feeling of danger in Wooden Islands, the soothing ethereality in Murmur, the peacefulness in Now. And the one combining all of it, I Filled my Lungs with the Necessary Air, and Yelled!. This is the soundtrack, we need a movie now.

Vale costs 11 EUR.

Check: I Filled my Lungs with the Necessary Air, and Yelled! 

Country: UK

Genre: cinematic neoclassicism

Label: 7K!

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