Perseid - Out of the Blue (2021)

Perseid is an ambient music artist based in the Italian city of Torino. There's next to nothing about him on the Internet except for the debuting (most probably) album called Out of the Blue. 

The album is served with a cover art depicting some particularly ethereal state of nature and it may be a perfect description of the artist's music. Just like the island on the cover, we are being covered by a thick and airy sound cloud. The drones we are presented with are heavy and airtight but they feel extremely sad and melancholic at the same time. You know that there's no place for hurried, careless movement here - everything stays in the state of beautiful, motionless noise. For the drone lovers.

Out of the Blue costs 5 EUR.

Check: Silvaplana

Country: Italy

Genre: moody drone

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The Dreamless Sleep - A Breath of Colour | 2016​-​2020 (2021)

I know Matthew Chastney's project from the absolutely outstanding single Until the Sea, one I posted about almost exactly a year ago. Since then, the British artist gathered a good amount of material from the last four years and produced an album/collection called A Breath of Colour.

I knew what to expect and I am not disappointed at all. The artist's music makes a dense and dark take on electronic pop music with very noticeable traces of trip-hop. The compositions leave impressions of warmth and cosiness; they are all about feelings with the quiet love and painful melancholia seemingly accentuated the most. Until the Sea definitely remains my favourite one here, it's just too good, too dreamy and moody to say otherwise - this song slowly disappears in the sea of noisy electronica and this parallel with the lyrics is precious. 

In his work, Chastney is helped by a multitude of talented artists. The lyrics are sung by such people as October's Child's Britt Warner, “Songland" (NBC’s talent reality show) contender Axel Mansoor or singer and actress Faye Nightingale while other guest artists add the neoclassical vibes to Chastney's compositions with violin, cellos and trumpets all present in the atmospheric backgrounds. This makes the album rich and complex in a very artistic way.

A Breath of Colour | 2016​-​2020 costs 6 USD.

Check: Until the Sea 

Country: UK

Genre: dark electronic pop

Label: Through the Static Records

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ソーベ - dreamer's end (2021)

dreamer's end makes the London-based artist ソーベ's debut in a niche music label Broken Camera Records. Previously released earlier this year, the EP presents a good dose of noisy music that can be considered as shoegaze without vocals.

It focuses on the shoegaze-like noise, one that very often accompanies ethereal voices in various MBV-inspired projects, this time served alone as the main dish. This means that we deal with a heavy and thick-layered noise music that swallows the audience within distortions and various effects, making it very easy to put a spell on the ethereality-seeking listener. While it does feel lo-fi and slightly undercooked in some places, the overall quality of this psychedelic studium is satisfying, especially in no longer human with its powerful torrent of loud guitar sounds. Perhaps this is what it really is: a studium, a presentation of the possibilities within the reach of the artist. As such, it's a good listen and I'm curious about the project's next moves.

dreamer's end costs whatever you want to pay.

Check: no longer human 

Country: UK

Genre: shoegaze post-rock

Label: Broken Camera Records

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Anoice - The Hidden Forest (2021)

It's no surprise for anyone reading this blog that I'm a fan of everything that comes out from the Japanese Ricco label. And my special feelings go to the label's artistic collective Anoice. After two other releases already appearing here, it's time for the band's sixth long play called The Hidden Forest.

And just as the title, as well as our experience with the previous releases, suggest - the music here is beautiful, airy and moody. There's hardly many music projects out there that can compete with the level of atmospheric vibes with the Japanese, that's certain. The tones here can be ethereally light and gloomily dark and they can be experienced almost simultaneously and no, it's not impossible. It first happens in a perfect day for a funeral, a track the title of which already suggests it, with the extremely beautiful strings filling souls with calmness and the last notes damaging it with unnerving anxiety. The album goes from the barely audible neoclassical and ambient beauty up to the post-rock-like might wherever it's necessary.

Due to the pandemics, the creative process for the release took longer than usually but perhaps that's why the album feels so thoroughly thought-through with its cinematic properties making me think that each song was prepared for a particular, detailed scene. Perhaps not for a movie but for lives of each of us. In reality, the songs were inspired by Naoko Okada's paintings (one of them is featured as the cover art too). Those show the powerful nature and its forces shown through fantasy/fairy-tale-like lenses and I find it very suitable for Anoice's music indeed. This nature is also present in the music itself with the multitude of field recordings making the backgrounds of those captivating compositions. 

The Hidden Forest costs 8.99 USD.

Anoice - Ghost in the Clocks (2019)

Anoice - nothing there / missing / unknown error (2019) EN

Check: the storyteller's music

Country: Japan

Genre: atmospheric neoclassical

Label: Ricco

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WatchCamp September-October'21 with Lumari, Midsommar, The Never Not, stars on fire, XIX

Lumari - Doors and Corners

A Minnesota-based debut; the noisy pop band shows that they know how to create melodic and loud music with their first single delivering some interesting airy and atmospheric pop with super fun chorus and angelic-like vocals. The single costs 1 USD.

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Midsommar - Summer's Over

This new Polish band released two singles so far and one thing is certain: the capital city-based band already enriches the fairly narrow dream pop scene here, with the extremely ethereal compositions with thick atmosphere and Alia Fay's beautiful vocals. The debut EP is coming very, very soon. The single costs whatever you want to pay.

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The Never Not - Thorn Resistance

A well-crafted guitar post-rock music, this is what the audience can find on the Russian project's third single ever. Artiom Kurylow shows here some interesting instrumental sounds with particularly mighty guitar and a good piece of noisy finish. The single costs whatever you want to pay.

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stars on fire - Ready, Steady, Go!

Lo-fi bedroom gaze without much of the twee-like happiness but with tons of atmosphere enchanted in the whisper-like vocals and lively but non-overwhelmingly noisy instruments. Listeners will find the melodies very charming and that alone can be the best point about the South Korean artist's music. The two tracks cost 5 USD.

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XIX - Arcobaleni / Neve

The young Italian electronic music artist Marco Anulli gives us his new single with two tracks created with the experimental and noisy vibes in mind. They both feel fresh and curiously complex and at the same time present moody, almost ethereal, atmosphere. The two tracks cost whatever you want to pay.

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Good Weather for an Airstrike - Kenopsia (2021)

Tom Honey or Good Weather for an Airstrike is a respected name on the ambient electronica scene, there's no doubts about it. I posted about his album Little Steps back in 2017 and it's been way too long for that good of an artist really. This year's Kenposia is a brilliant opportunity to come back to the British musician.

The album consists of mild electronica music with neoclassical elements all over it. In his music I find some of Sigur Rós' carefree mood of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust - a similar nostalgic but happy memories expressed with music that is not too dark yet still slow and moody. There's tons of acoustic, not too imposing sounds that together create a perfect amalgamat of beauty and sadness. But the farther the album goes, the gloomier it gets, the less of sunny autumn and more of the rainy fall it becomes. This kind of dying out is incredibly sad, but also, not very surprising, isn't it?

Kenopsia costs 5 EUR (8 AUD).

Good Weather For An Airstrike - Little Steps (2017)

Check: Run

Country: UK

Genre: ambient electronica

Label: Valley View Records

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Ghost Patterns - Infinite (2021)

A year ago the London-based band debuted with a very short EP called Oracle (or maybe it was a single as the songs are now used again). Now they finally show their first ever LP Infinite and as they have it in their modus operandi, they filled it with a blend of ethereal noise and post-punk coldness. 

We are led to this black and white madness by a very post-rock-like instrumental intro but it is joined by vocals soon enough. These are so characteristic for the project: they are perfectly balanced as far as the distanced post-punk and distorted shoegaze characteristics are concerned. And in fact, this withdrawn, hidden in the backgrounds but also well audible style of singing makes the band's music extremely curious. In songs like Oracle or House of Lies, they sound also very, very catchy like it is the case in the best post-punk releases. Another thing is the music around the vocals. There's a clear bass line, but unlike in "real" coldwave, there's so much more going around it. The guitars create some pleasant noise that can lead to considerably loud finishes (again, in Oracle).

One other aspect here is important: the band's ease at creating mesmerizing passages that swallow the audience whole. There are fragments of the albums that were meant to be less catchy and more psychedelically engaging, sometimes in the style of 10 000 Russos' pure psychedelia, sometimes more like the KVB's dreamy noise rock - but always hypnotizing and making the time less important for the listener.

Infinite costs 7 GBP.

Ghost Patterns - Oracle (2020)

Check: Oracle 

Country: UK

Genre: noisy post-punk

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Ruby Haunt - Watching the Grass Grow (2021)

I know that I post about the Californians next to every year. But it's not my fault they release so many new albums and the new ones are usually very, very good. It's no different with this year's Watching the Grass Grow, the duo's sixth in their discography.

They don't change their style much and it's good; if something's not broken, don't change it. There are, however, fragments that draw the audience's attention particularly strong - like the organ-like keys in Roman Candle or the beautiful piano works in Penny. Still, the clue of the band is its ethereal potential. As every time I write about them, I have to say about the massively dreamy vocals, the moody, slow pace of the ballads, the melancholia-infused lyrics. It's no surprise that the band's music sounds best in autumn, when the reality needs those kinds of warm and sad vibes. So this is less of a review and more of a reminder that autumn tastes better with a new Ruby Haunt release.

Watching the Grass Grow costs 7 USD.

Ruby Haunt - The Middle of Nowhere (2019) EN

Ruby Haunt - Blue Hour (2018)

Ruby Haunt - Nevada (2017)

Check: Roman Candle

Country: California, US

Genre: slowcore dream pop

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Linalab - Desire Paths (2021)

Lina Bautista, visual and audio artist from Barcelona, is better known as Linalab and, under this moniker, she released a very post-rock album that may be a bit of surprising considering she's a solo musician. Nevertheless, Desire Paths presents some quality and modern take on the genre.

On this album, the Spanish artists joined forces with Rafa Camisón who is responsible for drums, but otherwise, it was all Bautista and her musical inspirations from Vladislav Delay to Mogwai. The fresh sound of this music comes from the fact that this post-rock comes from guitars as well as from synths use which adds to the experimental and very artistic vibes on the album. The weight put on guitars is actually somewhat new for the artist and it seems that betting on this was the right move. The whole thing sounds very post-rock-like but there's also this beautiful, clean order of sounds, you can feel that everything is in its right place, there's no place for chaos, it is this kind of clinical beauty so characteristic for electronic music.

This doesn't mean that Bautista's music is emotionless. Quite the opposite. The compositions are almost programmed to evoke intense feelings within the audience and songs like Far are the best example for that, while other compositions are more into the quietly melancholic ambiance (so good in A Hard Rain Has Fallen). It may be a surprising title, but it has to be said that Linalab's new album makes a perfectly good post-rock with a twist.

Desire Paths costs 7 EUR.

Check: Far 

Country: Spain

Genre: electronic post-rock

Label: Synth Vicious

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SALTO - Cappuccino (2021)

Saying that I'm not huge on jazz music would be an understatement. There are, however, projects clearly inspired by the genre that I enjoy to say the least. One of them is SALTO, debuting band from Poznań, Poland, who make this tasty blend of jazz, noise, post-rock and music improv I find particularly attractive. 

The trio released their debut album Capuccino last summer and it's a release with a lot of potential. Coming from behind such Polish bands as Lonker See or Ciśnienie, SALTO captured their music during live performances and now it's used to make the debut album. In their music, there are parts that are chaotically psychedelic, perhaps even bordering with instrumental ambient, ones that clearly set up the mood towards emotional contemplation. However, they do give place to guitar-based, high-paced compositions soon enough. Those are carried by the jazzy, very clear bass line with guitar riffs that are both noisy and artsy. And the whole things ends with a loud and guitar crescendo in a very good post-rock style.

A worth mentioning addition to the music makes the cover art by Ania Cywińska - such a beautiful and psychedelic image that combines the classical painting with modern distortions. No wonder SALTO's members say it "brilliantly captured and visually communicated" the music on the album.

Cappuccino costs 3.5 EUR (15 PLN).

Check: Cappuccino

Country: Poland

Genre: noisy instrumental

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zarr. - sojourn (2021)

Kamal Manzar, the British artist known under the moniker of zarr., appeared on my blog three years ago with his album Cloudform. Now his back with the new one called Sojourn and fills it with heavy and beautifully droning ambient. 

The release is meant to be the reflection on the process of getting and losing inspiration with the changing atmosphere and "moods mirror[ing] the initial feelings of contentment when inspiration strikes followed by the feelings of deliberation and despondency when it escapes [the artist's] grip". Perhaps that's why it took him two years to finish writing the album. To be fair, it is also a very long release: well over an hour of good quality, mysterious and thick-layered music. He admits that this album presents his somewhat darker side and I can definitely see that, the drones here fit the nostalgic autumn time so well, it wouldn't be a surprise if a listener shed a tear when listening to this music, especially when the super airy backing vocals come to the play.

sojourn costs 7 USD.

zarr. - cloudform (2018) EN

Check: Liminal

Country: UK

Genre: thick ambient soundscape

Label: Stereoscenic

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Non Somnia - Stella Meae (2021)

Carlos Herrera Quifes is a Spanish artist who creates his music under the moniker of Non Somnia. The project's names is quite deceitful as it translates to "Don't Dream", while the music he shows is all about dreamy feelings. Herrera Quifes has just released his debut album called Stella Meae.

In his music, the Spanish artist combines virtually neoclassical instruments like piano keys and strings with space/sci-fi vibes of progressive electronica and post-rock. The mix here sounds as if Tides from Nebula decided to play some moody and slower pieces with beautifully sounding instruments. As could be guessed, eventually the compositions end  up more into the post-rock realm with very guitar-fueled and loud crescendos. But even then, the music doesn't go away from the piano/synth nature, these are not only ornamentation, it's the core of Non Somnia's sound and it feels very well done. This combination of genres creates a dramatic and dynamic soundscape with words like epic and cinematic that have to be uttered here.

Stella Meae costs 5 EUR.

Check: The End of the World

Country: Spain

Genre: piano-based post-rock

Label: Post. Records

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Giorgio Fazer - Gdy rozum śpi (2021)

"The third and the best album" by the Warsaw-based duo Mateusz Franczak-Miron Grzegorkiewicz known as Giorgio Fazer, is called Gdy rozum śpi. This is not my assessment, it's what the artists stated on their own. After some impressive experimental music-infused poetry on Gorzki to chleb jest polskość and 2020's Odarci z godności, the duo is back with yet another mark on Polish music.

The artists are known for their poetic expression; they include recited poems all over their music and one could argue that the improvised guitar and electronica sounds around them are only a background, an experimental arrangement to extend the poetry's meaning. This time the poetry is represented by what is called "a mysterious voice on the tape in a found dictaphone", a voice of a man who is clearly delusional and follows some kind of borderline mad conspiracy theories. The voice samples open and close the album. The artists comment that "in the stories we found, we discovered the spirit of our times - the progressive, overwhelming madness" so their goal is to tame it by closing it in the form of music.

It is unnerving, especially that the album's title Gdy rozum śpi translates to the first part of Franciso Goya's masterpiece's title The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. One can only wonder what will eventually happen, in the reality around us as well as in the music while going through the album. The improvised sounds create a calm but psychedelically complex soundscape that is only made more attractive when the dreamy vocals appear and even more poignant when it gets swallowed by industrial noise in Czas decyzji. 

Gdy rozum śpi costs 8 EUR (1000 JPY).

Giorgio Fazer - Gorzki to chleb jest polskość (2017) EN

Check: Czas decyzji

Country: Poland

Genre: psychedelic electronica

Label: mAtter

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Transmission Zero - Bridges (2021)

One of the best Polish post-rock bands of the new generation has officially matured by releasing their second album. After the brilliant debut with the self-titled release in 2019, the Kraków-based trio follow up with at least as good Bridges.

The title's bridges are a good metaphor here, as the band combines the real, down-to-earth sound of guitars with sci-fi leitmotifs with the spacious, hard-to-comprehend atmosphere in the first place. The beautiful video for Still No Sign shows this well too: the familiar landscapes of the reality around us are contrasted here with a man out of this world, maybe a time traveler, a dreamer who waits for a sign to... It's not certain to what, but it doesn't matter as, the title suggests it, there's no sign whatsoever. Still, the music may be one of the bridges to cross from the real to the dream, is it a risky interpretation? I don't think so, post-rock is always considered an escapist music genre.

As they are known for already, the band creates some involving and impressive compositions on the new album. Most of the take their time to fully develop from rather peaceful, slower passages towards noisy crescendos to finish with. There are some nervous moments of anticipation (like the end of A Piece of Home) but everything ends in the most satisfying way in the title track Bridges. I love it that the guys from my city are able to create such a good post-rock music and are acknowledged by some of the genre's prominent media.

Bridges costs 5 EUR.

Transmission Zero - Transmission Zero (2019) EN

Check: Still No Sign

Country: Poland

Genre: atmospheric post-rock

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Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic (2021)

The British electro/post-rock collective is one of my favourite bands since their brilliant album Every Valley and their live gig down in the Guido mine in Zabrze. The artists are devoted to "teaching the lessons of the past through the music of the future" and accomplish this motto by creating concept albums that are almost like documentary movies but expressed by their exciting music. They are finally back with another LP called Bright Magic and it's a blast. Again.

This time it is slightly more difficult to find the theme behind the album. The artists moved, quite literally, from the Welsh small towns and valleys to Berlin, one of the biggest and liveliest metropolia in Europe, and the notion of moving as well as the history of the city is the album's main concept. It is still very much different from previous releases, being "less linear and narrative, instead it’s an impressionistic portrait of a city from the ground up" while in music it's reflected in the less usage of voice samples (with the exception in Der Rhythmus der Maschinen with its tasty reference to Every Valley). You could say it's a situation when a band looses their main characteristic trait, but perhaps it's something they needed to, nomen est omen, progress.

The move to Germany is also reflected in the guest artists on the album with Einstürzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld or Berlin-based Andreya Casablanca for instance. There's also a change in the music's vibes but while Every Valley, due to its theme, had a gloomier, bleaker atmosphere, the British artists have always created rather lively and even danceable electronica. So it's not much of a change, in fact it's more like an emphasis on the character of their music, reflected best, of course, in People, Let's Dance. No wonder that the brain behind the project, J. Willgoose, Esq., stated about the album: “I started to get a feeling for where the title of Bright Magic wanted to take me, towards ideas of illumination and inspiration, electricity and flashes of light and colour and sound" and it feels.

Bright Magic costs 7 GBP.

Check: Der Rhythmus der Maschinen

Country: UK

Genre: electronic post-rock

Label: Test Card Recordings

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Green Horizon - The Place I Buried Memories (2021)

I discovered her already four year ago when she released her album 沉睡 , now the Taiwanese artist known as Green Horizon is back with this brilliant release called The Place I Buried Memories. And as always, she brings with her music tons of borderline ethereal and noisy ambient pop.

Her take on the genre is simple: very slow melodies with her beautiful, distorted voice and minimal arrangements in the backgrounds. Those can involve heavy basses and very, very noise guitar drones as it is in the opening track Once, but more characteristic for the artist is basing the compositions on piano keys that dance around very subtle noise in the backgrounds. The way the tracks here are made, makes the audience pay attention to every word the artist utters, every note the piano enchants and every bit of noise.

It's no surprise that her lyrics are filled with heavy and hopeless melancholia, "The rain has fallen all the day/Outside my room and inside me" is just an example, but such a beautiful one too - the songs are fairly simple and yet poetic enough to hide the pain within an artistic form. For me, it makes them only more poignant and telling a lot about the artist's melancholic soul.

The Place I Buried Memories costs whatever you want to pay.

Green Horizon - 沉睡 (2017)

Check: When the Pure Exploded (The Weight II)

Country: Taiwan

Genre: noisy ambient pop

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Ben Haskins - Oh Believers, Run! (2021)

Ben Haskins is an artist from Canada, who creates instrumental music from the borders of post-rock and instrumental ambient. Oh Belivers, Run! makes a beautiful comment on today's world in which there's so many things to worry about.

The album contains music from the "sightings series of soundscape videos, peppered with some new material" and is said to be darker and heavier than Haskin's previous works, made so to reflect what is going around us in the world nowadays. This is music that is a tone lighter than post-rock and a ton heavier than instrumental ambient, something that gives the sense of urgency (the pace of Oh Believers!) and inexplicable nervousness while at the same time enchant the audience with the ambiance. In the artist's words, it also is meant to have the cinematic vibes that affect the listeners with the sound grandeur and I can definitely hear it in some places.

As mentioned already, the album has a pretty harsh messages regarding the condition of our world and it's audible in the bleak Absence of Colour, nervously pulsating Pyramind Scheme and Our Nature - it can't be a coincidence that the gloomiest track on the album is entitled like this. Also, let's not forget about the cover art that I found especially climactic and aesthetically pleasing at the same time.

Oh Believers, Run! costs 5 EUR (7 CAD).

Check: Absence of Colour

Country: Canada

Genre: ambient post-rock

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MONO - Pilgrimage of the Soul (2021)

Even people not very much interested in post-rock music usually know who MONO are. The Japanese band is one of the best recognizable one within the genre and there's little point in explaining who they are here. However, I couldn't not mention their new album Pilgrimage of the Soul on the blog, it's too big of an event this year to skip it.

MONO have also one of the most recognizable and characteristic sounds in the post-rock community. It's easy to guess you are listening to the Japanese band when you here the long compositions that usually slowly grow in power to have the whole might finally released on the listener while at the same time can be shockingly beautiful thanks to the use of piano and string instruments. They have also this peculiar vibe of being slightly lo-fi - and this is the only thing I don't like about their music. I'd rather enjoy their sound in the highest quality possible. Still, their music is nothing less than phenomenal and on the new album they only prove it for the 11th time. 

It starts with a real earthquake in the rapid audio storm in Riptide and its continuation in Imperfect Things only to die down to the subtlest levels in Heaven in a Wild Flower. This shows how versatile the band is, what a multitude of emotions they can express with sound on a single album and even within a single track, especially well-audible in the album's longest Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand. And everything they do feels so massive and crushingly important, no wonder every piece of new music from MONO makes me excited.

Pilgrimage of the Soul costs whatever you want to pay.

MONO & A.A. Williams - Exit in Darkness (2019)

Check: Riptide 

Country: Japan

Genre: massive post-rock

Label: Pelagic Records

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Van Gogh Season - Versus (2021)

The Italian post-rockers from Van Gogh Season for the first appeared on my blog back in 2019 with their second EP. Now they are back with more material. Although it's called an EP, Versus is considerably longer and contains some fresh and exciting instrumental music.

They admit to take inspirations from bands such as Maybeshewill and sleepmakeswaves - very guitar-oriented music with tons of energy and excitement. No wonder they describe their own music as "combining energetic riffs with vigorous build-ups and calm pianistic sections" - the part about piano sounds may be even an understatement: all of the compositions are based on the beautifully composed piano passages with guitars adding the post-rock's dark energy to the mix. The tracks are quite complex in every aspect: the melodies and pace change often and with great results, there are also precious details like voice samples (sometimes from quite unorthodox sources like Emma Stones' lines from La La Land) and electronic tidbits from time to time. 

From my perspective, Kracovia is the most interesting track here. Not only is it the fastest and the most powerful one here, not only is it finished in an impressive and surprising way, it's also somehow about the city I live in and it makes me curious. I would love the band to come here, that's for sure.

Versus costs 7 EUR.

Van Gogh Season - Van Gogh Season, Pt. 2 (2019)

Check: Kracovia 

Country: Italy

Genre: piano-based post-rock

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Pia Fraus - Now You Know It Still Feels the Same (2021)

Pia Fraus is a huge deal and it's been like this for 20 years now - until the dawn of Holy Motors, they were the only Estonian dream pop/rock band present within the world offstream audience's mindset, not to mention that they also run the resourceful music label Seksound. Now, to celebrate the impressive anniversary, the artists released the debut album Wonder What It's Like from 2001 in a new, reworked version cleverly entitled Now You Know It Still Feels the Same.

The track list is not exactly the same as the original release, but all the songs were written between 1999 and 2000 when the artists were still in their teenagehood when "most things happened by accident". This re-work is supposed to propose an agreement between the youngster's happy and enthusiastic music with the more experienced artist's workshop - it doesn't only sound great, I bet it must've been a fun and nostalgic trip down the line for the artists. And you can easily hear that there's no dissonance here, the, probably, almost 40-years-olds sound so energetic (which is so well audible in  the almost punk-like Obnoxious) and cute, definitely having fun (re)making those songs.

As all Pia Fraus' fans know, listening to their albums means dealing with dream pop/twee atmosphere of carefree melodies and sunny vibes with slightly louder, guitar-based attire. I feel like those compositions are a bit faster and livelier than what the Estonians do these days, but the signature dreamy vibes are surely there. Especially in those, rare here, moments of slower and more atmospheric music, In Mind or the second part of Swim in Eyes are a reminder that there's still a place for melancholy in youth. Or maybe it's how we see it from our perspective?

Now You Know It Still Feels the Same costs 10 EUR.

Pia Fraus - Field Ceremony (2017)

Pia Fraus - Empty Parks (2020)

Check: Obnoxious

Country: Estonia

Genre: twee dream pop

Label: Seksound

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Sonmi451 - Seven Signals in the Sky (2021)

Bernard Zwijzen, better known as Sonmi451, is present on the ambient scene for a decade now. To celebrate this fact, he released a brilliant album Seven Signals in the Sky with the help of people from the LAAPS label.

This is this kind of ambient music that strikes with peace and subtle atmosphere while at the same time presents a lot of things going on around the listener. It reminds me of a summer meadow where there's tons of tiny sounds around you which together create a symphony of peacefulness and beauty. In Zwijzen's music there are electronic samples with piano keys with ASMR-like whispers with ethereal backing vocals - and this is this kind of blend that makes me instantly fall in love with music. The whole album shows a variety of relaxing and beautiful sounds that together make a perfect whole.

Seven Signals in the Sky costs 6 EUR.

Check: Seven Signals in the Sky

Country: Belgium

Genre: relaxing ambient

Label: LAAPS

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10 000 Russos - Superinertia (2021)

Two years after their brilliant album Kompromat, the Portuguese psychedelic warriors of 10 000 Russos are back with their fifth album called Superinertia and, as always, they mesmerize the audience and touch vital problems with their music.

Their music has always had those mesmerizing qualities that made the lively and repetitive compositions lead the listener into a kind of trance, so tangible especially during live performances. Now, with the addition of Nils Meisel who plays on synths, it got only emphasized with a bit of this so attractive grandeur that I feel every time I hear those organ-like keys. Those trance-inducing segments of their music (especially important in the longest tracks here: Spuer Inertia and Mexicali/Calexico) are really what the band does best: it's difficult not to loose oneself within the guitar, synth and electronica-based psychedelic compositions here. 

The album tells the story of the "state of inertia that humans live in the West nowadays. It isn’t a record about the past or future. It’s about now". That's an interesting theme, especially seen from the perspective of the Central European, fairly steadily developing country, I'd be glad to hear more about that in the future. The theme corresponds with the way the vocals sound: they are more spoken or even shouted out than sung, sounding more like a rally speech than artsy trills, making the whole thing even more emphatic. It's worth adding that the band is currently on tour and is supposed to come to Poland in two weeks, can't wait for that! 

Superinertia costs 6 EUR (5 GBP).

Check: Super Inertia

Country: Portugal

Genre: trance psychedelic rock

Label: Fuzz Club

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