Dustsucker 7#: 14 Bandcamp Picks and 8 Notable Mentions (March/April/May Pt I)

Finally, a round-up of the releases from the past couple of months that have made the biggest impression on me.

I had promised my dear readers on here that I would do regular round-up posts featuring my favourite new releases - first it was going to be once a month, then it became bi-monthly, and now nearly three months have suddenly passed… My sincerest apologies!! On the other hand, you’re now getting two entire posts covering all the great music I’ve been listening to since February.

That said, it’s not because I haven’t been active. I’ve published a series of smaller essays, and recently a longer piece on Substack that brought in quite a few new subscribers. Thank you so much for reading!! I hope some of the music recommendations will be of value to you as well…

As always though, first a quick little update on what I’ve been up to lately with the label: Young Couple and This House have both finally had their releases pressed on vinyl. Wuhuuh. Bending Backwards released their debut single, while sssiv released their second EP with us this past Friday (available on cassette!). Super exciting stuff.

As for QS, there’s not too much else to report other than that I’m continuing to work on recording the new album whenever I can find time in between everything else, and that we’ll be playing a handful of small shows over the summer, which we’re currently rehearsing for (including a performance at a literature festival in Viborg in a couple of weeks).

Alright. On to the records.

Broken Social Scene - Remember the Humans (City Slang, CA/DE)

Genre(s): Indie Rock

Fav Tracks: The Call, Relief, What Happens Now

Rating: ****

I’ve been a gigantic Broken Social Scene fan almost ever since I started listening seriously to music. Their first two records and Feel Good Lost have basically been musical bibles to me. The whole idea of a massive indie rock orchestra, endless layers, overwhelming detail, absurdly rich production, is such a quintessentially 2000s indie aesthetic, and something I’ve had a suuuuuper hard time letting go of in my own music as well, ha ha, the BSS curse!!

But now that BSS are back working with their original producer Dave Newfeld, they once again prove that nobody does this aesthetic better than them…. And I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting old, but I still think (most of this) sounds quite fresh?? I honestly think this is their best work since their self-titled album from 2005. Broken Social Scene simply sound best when Dave Newfeld is behind the knobs.

Right from the opening track, “Not Around Anymore”, the album establishes a positive, almost euphoric summery mood that more or less carries through the entire record. It sounds unmistakably Broken Social Scene-esque: all the tiny sonic details, the horns, the sharp slightly chorus-soaked pick bass, the beautifully warm tube-amp sounding guitars, triple-tracked vocals drifting in and out of the mix, and those beautifully saturated drums constantly shifting between sounding somewhat organic and almost electronic.

The very first track proves that even if the core songwriting may not quite reach the level of their first two masterpieces, the wildly detailed and inventive arrangements, stunning production, and sheer level of musicianship more than make up for it. For me, when Broken Social Scene are at their best, they represent the absolute peak of post-2000s indie rock - there’s simply a breathtaking depth and richness to their work that, to me, none of their contemporaries ever really came close to.

Going through the songs one by one, it’s not necessarily an album overflowing with undeniable instant classics that will dominate all my playlists for the next six months. But taken as a whole, the record carries a fantastic lively energy, and it’s such a wonderfully nostalgic and joyful reunion with a band that has meant an extraordinary amount to me - and who can still teach today’s experimental and alternative rock bands a thing or two……

James Blackshaw - Fractures on the Horizon (self-released, UK)

Genre(s): American Primitivism

Fav Tracks: Fractures on the Horizon

Rating: ***½

James Blackshaw is also an old and deeply cherished favourite of mine. Especially “The Cloud of Unknowing” and “The Glass Bead Game” stand, to me, as two colossal masterpieces within the more post-rock oriented branch of american primitivism. Blackshaw is easily the fingerpicking guitarist today with the most heart and soul in his playing (just as he was twenty years ago).

So naturally, I was genuinely saddened when he decided to leave the music world in 2016, even if one can completely understand why given the dreadful conditions and overall state of the industry. But it’s such a lovely and heartening thing for us listeners that he has once again found a way to play and release music without it completely draining him of energy.

Sure, maybe the compromise is that the music is now self-released, doesn’t reach nearly as many listeners as it once did, and that he almost certainly works a regular day job these days. But at least it means not having to live under constant label pressure, being forced into touring, needing to sell endless amounts of merch, and so on….

And oh, the warmth of this recording?! What an absolutely beautiful room, microphone, guitar and musician…. “Fractures on the Horizon” is a contemplative and deeply intelligent piece of sensitive music that, while perhaps not the most immediately inviting piece of Blackshaw, contains an abundance of subtle and understated qualities, with an atmosphere that is simply impeccable. “Three Interlopers” then moves into something slightly occult-sounding, sort of dark ambient territory….

Sam Grassie - Where Two Hawks Fly (Broadside Hacks, SCT/UK)

Genre(s): Folk

Fav Tracks: Caol Rua, Sandwood Down to Kyle, Return to Fingal

Rating: ****½

Seriously, this is so incredibly rare. I don’t know how many years I’ve spent listening to endless new folk records in the hope of finding a few new guitarists - and maybe singers too - capable of awakening the same feeling in me that musicians like Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson and Nick Drake can evoke through those classic British folk records from the 60s and 70s… It’s hardly a coincidence that The Bert Jansch Foundation also chose to financially support this release.

Sure, plenty of contemporary artists attempt something similar, and many of them get surprisingly far. But Sam Grassie seems to carry this music in his bones, as though the musical language arrives completely naturally to him. The music feels unforced and unmediated, almost untouched by the heavy canonisation and romanticisation that so often makes contemporary folk revivalism feel overly self-conscious or performative.

1) no overproduction, 2) a good room, good musicians and good microphones, 3) the immense level of raw musical craftsmanship required when recording live directly to tape, and 4) above all, the sound and practice of immersion, dedication and genuine engagement with tradition (and, within that, to carry a tradition forward into the present and reinterpret it for the future).

Eeeeeeee - Picture (Short Span, DK/UK)

Genre(s): Dub Techno / Ambient Techno / Minimal

Fav Tracks: Keeeeeee, Tyyyyyyy

Rating: ***½

I don’t quite know what’s going on with sort of dubbed-out minimal techno this year - with a stream of incredibly exciting releases….. And this one comes from a Danish artist based in Aarhus! Released via the great UK-based label Short Span, who also have another release featured elsewhere on this list.

Jürg Frey/Apartment House - Clarinet Quintet (Another Timbre, CH/UK)

Genre(s): Chamber Music / Reductionism / Modern Classical

Rating: ****

Jürg Frey is one of the most respected living composers in the world today, closely associated with reductionism and the Wandelweiser movement, and also one of the contemporary active composers I admire the most.

At the same time, Apartment House are one of my favourite chamber ensembles, while Another Timbre is perhaps my favourite label for contemporary and minimalist-oriented modern classical music. So taken together, it really doesn’t get much better than this, and the album was what you would call an instant buy for me.

Frey’s own words from the official Bandcamp description:

“I work somewhere on the threshold, or in no-man’s-land between harmony on the one hand, and sound and colour on the other. These are questions of the presence and absence of harmony, and related to this is also what you mentioned earlier, ‘a sense of stasis that retroactively reveals itself as movement’. I want to bring a clear architecture and, at the same time, an organic form into balance. Harmony and colour stand in a subtle relationship to one another: allowing things to move forward, but also allowing them to stand still. Actually, it’s mostly stillness. It’s simply time passing, but in the end you’ve arrived at a different place.”

Nondi_ - Nondi… (Planet Mu, US/UK)

Genre(s): IDM / Juke / Footwork / Glitch

Fav Tracks: I Version Melody, Tree Festival, Broken Future 175

Rating: ****

I’ve been fascinated by Nondi_ ever since I heard her debut album Flood City Trax in 2023, which immediately made a huge impression on me. It’s a kind of dreamy, surreal lo-fi IDM blended with newer electronic styles like footwork, juke and related club mutations. Some of this is simply among the most beautiful electronic music I can possibly imagine. Honestly, there’s just not much out there that can rival “I Version Melody.”

Her real name is Tatiana Triplin, and she lives in Johnstown (according to Wikipedia, a town marked by a long history of catastrophic flooding, including the devastating 1977 flood that her family survived). She runs the net label HRR, releasing the music of friends and herself under various aliases.

From the official Bandcamp page:

“Though she hasn’t really experienced club culture where she lives, her impressionistic productions evoke the surreal, lingering sounds of a night out - the melodic haze that hums in your ears as you drift off to sleep. Lo-fi and melodic, yet fluid and free, her music carries a sense of flight and intuitive logic.”

Joshua Idehen - I know you’re hurting, everyone is hurting, everyone is trying, you have got to try (Heavenly, UK)

Genre(s): Spoken Word / House / UK Garage

Fav Tracks: It Always Was, This is the Place, Mum Does the Washing, Turn it Around

Rating: ****

The production and overall sound may come across as quite pop-oriented, while parts of Joshua Idehen’s spoken word - and especially the album title!! - might initially feel a little cheesy or perhaps just a bit too much…

But… if you let yourself give in to it!! It truly becomes one of the best, most life-affirming, euphoric and gloriously, gloriously poppy UK house records around, filled with messages that may at times sound cliché-ridden, but yet sincere, beautiful and important. And the lyrics to “Mum Does the Washing” is of course already legendary.

Station Model Violence - Station Model Violence (Static Shock Records, AU/UK)

Genre(s): Post-Punk/Jangle Pop/Goth

Fav Tracks: Learn to Hate, Cliffs, Immolation, Heat

Rating: ***½

This really sounds uncannily like a genuine lost Australian or New Zealand post-punk release from the 80s. They’ve absolutely nailed the production. Guessing there’s a whole lot of real tape machine warmth involved as well.

I was seriously through the roof about this at first, because I genuinely thought - or at least hoped - that the rest of the album would be as incredible as those first three tracks. But after that it drifts a little too far into goth territory for my taste, I think….

Henriette Eilertsen Trio - Moder (Mottvind Records, NO)

Genre(s): Chamber Jazz / Experimental

Fav Tracks: Fly Ikaros, Meeting Joyce, Darn Den Draumen

Rating: ****

Something is clearly in the water in Norway when it comes to jazz - and that’s been true for many, many years. So much of the best Norwegian jazz simply sounds fresher, newer and more adventurous… I guess a huge part of it comes down to cultural funding and long-term artistic support. Norway has spent decades creating conditions where experimental musicians can develop slowly without constant commercial pressure. Experimental music has become a legitimate part of Norwegian musical identity rather than some tiny niche.

Take this record, for example. You can hear traces of American spiritual jazz, the hip hop-informed grooves of Makaya McCraven, Norwegian folk music, the ECM Records tradition (which has always been especially strong in Norway), the almost jazz-rock leaning noisy experiments of Matana Roberts, and Hubro’s characteristic intersections between folk music, jazz, modern classical and ambient.

Easily one of the best records of the year so far (just listen to that distorted flute on “Darn Den Draumen”!).

Kareem Ali - The Essence (CosmoFlux, US)

Genre(s): Deep House / Spiritual House

Fav Tracks: Faith, Gallantry, Love Undoubtedly

Rating: ****

Kareem Ali is a super fascinating figure as well. A handful of his releases have received some attention, but only a very small fraction of his extensive discography has really broken through. He comes across as an intensely spiritual artist - something you can hear and feel throughout his music in the most wonderful way - almost like a kind of house music equivalent to Sun Ra or Pharoah Sanders, with a similarly cosmic and afrofuturist sensibility. He releases music through his own Arizona-based label, CosmoFlux.

I suspect Kareem Ali is somewhat overlooked because the quality across his output can be a little uneven (mainly because he releases SO much, I guess)…. But when he’s at his best, he creates some of the deepest, most emotionally resonant and spiritual house music I’ve ever heard. This album really feels like “The Essence” of his entire artistic vision. And just look at that iconic cover artwork.

Claus Mattheck - Chapter 8 (Cruel Nature, UK)

Genre(s): Noise-Rock / Post-Punk / Spoken Word

Rating: ***½

And now for something completely different. A truly eccentric release. I absolutely love when something like this suddenly appears. Discovered via the excellent music publication Monolith Cocktail, if I remember correctly.

This is one of those albums that somehow sounds exactly like its cover looks. Hard to explain. Just listen to it.

From the official Bandcamp bio:

“All things continue to grow. Age, responsibility, anxiety, monotony. All things pass through. Jobs, motors, people. Self-deprecation as a form of self-preservation. Find the humour in the hopeless and the absurd. Bury the sadness in the laughs. All in the same boat. Grow up or die trying. Stylistically, the same nods to post-everything can be heard; repetitious, simple, wonky-tonky, jingle-jangle, groove boots, splashes of mud and guts. As one chapter ends, another will surely begin.”

Waterbaby - Memory Be a Blade (Sub Pop, SE/US)

Genre(s): Chamber-Pop / Art Pop

Fav Tracks: Memory Be a Blade,

Rating: ****

Almost feels like a modern female chamber-pop version of Arthur Russell, mixed with something DFA Records might have released in the early 2000s - that slightly dry, ESG-like drum and percussion sound - while naturally also pulling from more contemporary hip hop, R&B, alt-pop and experimental music.

I actually heard “Beck n Call” for the first time on Swedish radio. And right afterwards they played Nico… I mean, honestly. I later discovered it was on Sweden’s biggest national radio. Sweden still plays a surprising amount of alternative, experimental and even underground music on major public radio channels. They still seem to take public service seriously.

It almost felt like Danish radio back in the early 2000s, but even better. It’s honestly depressing what has happened to Danish radio (and Danish media more broadly) over the last 20–25 years.

Photokem - A Mat in the Garden (Crafted Sounds, US)

Genre(s): Experimental / Art Rock

Fav Tracks: La Ciénage, Cactus Flower

Rating: ****

One of the year’s biggest surprises. There’s really not much out there that sounds like this. Experimental post-minimal chamber music - almost like a contemporary version of Rachel's - combined with a hip hop-inspired spoken word vocal style? Yep. Absolutely fantastic.

Wendy Eisenberg - Wendy Eisenberg (Joyful Noise, US)

Genre(s): Chamber Folk / Progressive Folk

Fav Tracks: Meaning Business, Old Myth Dying, Vanity Paradox

Rating: ****

Wendy Eisenberg is honestly a bit of a miracle musician. They have so many different things going on, and are so ridiculously talented…. Equal parts brilliant songwriter, improviser and hardcore guitar virtuoso. From art rock to jazz to folk to math-y experimental music and beyond. Artists like them almost feel slightly unreal.

There’s quite a lot of Jim O'Rourke and Judee Sill in this release. Which are, of course, two completely impeccable reference points, so…

Notable mentions:

Link3 - On the Outline (self-released, AU)

Genre(s): Slowcore / Indie Rock / Indie Folk

Fav Tracks: It Used to Be Fun, In Her Wake

Rating: ***

Yeah, it sounds fairly sketch-like and demo-ish, but such a gorgeous sound, lovely chords, melodies and voices.

Timeout Room - Celebration Station (Tough Gum, US)

Genre(s): Powerpop / Indie Pop / Lo-Fi

Fav Tracks: Don’t You Feel Better Off?, Night Eye, Keep Me Up, Mrs. McClintock’s School of Fucking Drums, Rolling Up the Map

Rating: ***

This is much better than I initially realised. Quite a handful of serious hits. This excerpt from the official Bandcamp bio describes the sound incredibly well:

“Think Guided by Voices in their prime lo-fi era, with Wire’s cool detachment somehow coupled with a breezy bubblegum pop playfulness. Add Alex Chilton and Bob Mould’s keen sense of melody, with the energy of Ramones, and you’ve got things fairly well mapped out.”

Swash - Powers of Ten (Hidden Bay Records, DK/FR)

Genre(s): Indie Pop / Indie Rock

Fav Tracks: Damage Control, Surface Tension, Serving the Shapes

Rating: ***

A pretty wonderful slacker rock / indie pop / punk release from Danish band Swash, who have been circling the underground here for quite some time now. Released via the mighty fine French label Hidden Bay Records. Engineered, mixed and mastered by the talented Danish indie wizard Christian Ankerstjerne. Easily some of the best indie rock coming out of Copenhagen right now.

Twisted Teens - Wild Connection (Chainsmoking Records, US)

Genre(s): Alt-Country / Slacker-Rock / Garage Rock

Fav Tracks: Is it Real, Wild Connection, Little Seed, 100 bill is gone!,

Rating: ***½

This record has almost made me like Rod Stewart. Or at least how I imagine Rod Stewart might sound. If he’d actually made something cool.

Avalon Emerson - Written into Changes (Dead Oceans, US)

Genre(s): Indie Pop / Alternative Dance / Synthpop

Fav Tracks: Eden, Jupiter and Mars, Written Into Changes

Rating: ***

I had seriously high expectations for this release. I LOVE that Avalon Emerson clearly LOVES The Magnetic Fields as much as I do. I also love the idea of a hugely respected techno DJ suddenly deciding they just want to make totally banging indie pop. And “Eden”, “Jupiter and Mars” and “Written Into Changes” work insanely well. But the rest of the album just never really comes together for me, unfortunately…

Ben Seretan / John Thayer - Sunbeam of No Illusion (AKP Recordings, US)

Genre(s): Ambient / Post-Minimalism

Rating: ***

Pretty nice ambient release (with a nice touch of cosmic jazz and cool new age).

Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl & Macie Stewart - BODY SOUND (International Anthem, US)

Genre(s): Modern Classical / Chamber Music / Drone

Rating: ****

This is pretty amazing, actually. Def more than just a notable mention. Need to listen more.

Iivana Mišukka & Arja Kastinen - Iivana Mišukka (Death is not the End, FI/UK)

Genre(s): Karelian Folk Music

Rating: ****

No words to describe how deeply in love I am with this (just like I was with Volume 1).

“Iivana Mišukka (1861–1919) was one of the Karelian kantele players recorded by the folk music researcher Armas Otto Väisänen on wax cylinders in 1916 and 1917. The wax cylinder recordings of Karelian kantele players are kept in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki, Finland. Copies were made of them onto reel-to-reel tapes in both the 1960s and 1980s. The sound of the kantele is difficult to hear in wax cylinder recordings due to its low volume, and it occasionally becomes completely obscured by noise. During the copying process, the cylinder sometimes rotates unevenly, resulting in breaks or jumps in the music (…) However, since Väisänen's precise notes are available in the archive, it is possible to deduce the melodies, their speed, and the tuning level of the kantele in the recordings (…) To enhance the listening experience, I have replayed the songs, which now partly overlap the old recordings on this release." — Arja Kastinen

Ok, that was part 1, thanks for reading!!!

Best,

Nikolaj