Monday 18 April 2022

Bank Holiday Bonus

What to do with an extra day off? Well, I thought I'd compile a miscellaneous post of bits and bobs I've collected over the last week or so that might not fit anywhere else. Let's start with a little somethin' I've been meaning to put up for a while, I've talked about Sean Seanson a couple of times already this year - champion of old school Playstation soundtracks and a man of similar tastes to me, as evidenced by his mixtapes I've mentioned.

But this bit of the post isn't about him, instead we'll be talking about Dedeco (whom I found through Sean's feeds), another fine purveyor of soundtrack electronic. As I said last time I talked about Sean's mixtapes, soundtracks are an absolute goldmine of tunes for mixes and such: from cult classics like Ridge Racer Type 4 with it's blend of Drum & Bass and Diva House to the slightly more obscure like Mijk Van Dijk's chilled remix of a track from surreal Dreamcast survivial horror D2 I have plenty of examples to go at. But I have to concede to Dedeco's absolute mastery of the soundtrack world, as he is consistently putting out mixes with tracks sourced for a massive variety of titles and genres. I may still have a go myself, but in the meantime, I'll be studying these for ammunition. (aslo stay tuned for cat cameo at around 24:10!)



A couple of random tracks next - the other day I decided to un-shuffle some of the Touched Two compilation as I'm pretty sure I have still yet to hear all of it. The artists are in alphabetical order which helps a little when it comes to making notes for posts like this given that there are 256 or so tracks on show here. First is Temp Cadet, a surprisingly House-y number considering the vast majority of the Touched compilations err on the IDM/Experimental/Ambient side of things. It still has that feel to it though, it comes out reminding me more of the Karsten Pflum track I posted a little while ago.



In a surprise to no one, my next pick is again reminiscent of the Artificial Intelligence era Warp sound. I know I repeat myself but it might just be my favourite sound styles of all time, and I swear that I didn't know about this one going in! At any rate, you all know the score by now - hi-tech spacey electronic is the order of the day here, reminding me a little of Gerard Hanson's work under his E.R.P. alias, although less electro and very much rooted in that ambient techno side of things. Come to think of it, it's a little closer to some tracks from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 now I'm writing this, which while released at the same time as the Artificial Intelligence stuff, wasn't actually part of the series or on Warp! But I digress, get a load of this one for some smoothy techy goodness.



And now... switching gears to something not strictly electronic, as I like to do from time to time. I'd say I'm not super versed in the world of psychedelia, but thanks to Broadcast and a co-worker of mine being into all kinds of rare, eclectic and otherwise experimental stuff from New York and beyond, it is slowly creeping into my library. Enter this morning where I awake to a couple of tweets from Kongress - a group with real heritage that I vaugeley knew in passing from a compilation that Future Sound Of London did under their Amorphous Androgynous alias. The Broadcast comparison rings true, as I've been listening to a lot of their final live sets recently that were moving in a more freely structured improvisational route, and such is the methodology behind Running With The Wolves - to quote the description: "two improvs that turned into two amazing recordings - 'Running With The Wolves' & 'Wink of an Eye'.". I highly recommend watching the video to get the full experience, the audio alone doesn't do it justice!



And that'll be all for today, the most varied post I've done in a while! I've got some things to try and sort on the backed, and I'm back at work this week as well so things might slow down a little, but I'll be back soon enough with more, even if it means a couple of bite-sized posts to pad things out. Until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

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