“Les Amourettes” by Robin Guthrie

Last month PopLib went off on a Dystopian music theme. Or, to be more precise, soundtracks associated with escape from Dystopia. The first post mentioned Grangemouth’s oil refinery and petrochemical plant with flare-offs lighting up twilight journeys in Scotland as a personal visual reference for “Dystopia” with the added paradox of being the town Cocteau Twins grew up in, developing their extraordinary musical imaginations, before escaping in the 1980s.

The quest for soundtracks for an escape from Dystopia lead logically to curiosity about Robin Guthrie’s current musical whereabouts, and whether he had a presence on Bandcamp. By happy coincidence he released his first new music in years last month (the EP “Mockingbird Love”) and is set release his first full length album in 9 years very soon, from which “Les Amourettes” here comes:

“Les Amourettes” is from “Pearldiving”, Guthrie’s first full length instrumental album since “Fortune” in 2012. Guthrie has released several albums in the years following the 1998 break-up of Cocteau Twins, most notably collaborations with American minimalist composer Harold Budd, who had collaborated in 1985 with Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, and Simon Raymonde on the album “The Moon And The Melodies“.

“Les Amourettes” is instantly recognisable as the music of Robin Guthrie. Over 40 years of experience coaxing extraordinary time-stretched sounds from guitar and effect pedals has refined the shimmering depth and atmosphere of his music. His association with Budd has perhaps also focused him on making more from less.

“Pearldiving” is released on Guthrie’s Soleil Après Minuit label on 12 November 2021. A significant chunk of Guthrie’s post Cocteau’s releases are available on his Bandcamp, including the collaborations with Harold Budd, so dive in and float in the sea of tranquility…

“Evergreen” by Nhung Nguyen

Playing David Bowie’s “Low” last week I got lost again in that second side of sweeping cinematic instrumentals. Those paths lead me back to Brian Eno’s “Music For Films” and the Fripp & Eno album “Evening Star” – but also started me off exploring forward to an ever-expanding universe of imaginary worlds created by new generations of musicians working with ambient music, combining instrument sounds, field recordings and textures. Here’s one stellar recent example of that universe from Hanoi, Vietnam musician/ sound artist Nhung Nguyen.

It is almost impossible to pick just one track, but “Evergreen” – hinting as much of early Tangerine Dream as much as ambient Eno – is as good an entry point as any.

Continue on to listen to the whole collection, particularly “For June (Forever Summer)” with its glorious combination of field recordings of birdsong mingling with other-worldly hypnotic chiming.

Her latest release “Music For Quiet Souls” is different again, taking a minimal piano composition approach, like an experimental Erik Satie ‘Gymnopedies’ collection, but mixing field recordings with the delay-effect piano.

So impressed by these works I’ve just bought the full digital discography.

 

 

 

‘Wellsford Video’ by Moppy

Day 14 of the NZ Music Month daily NZ music madness is ‘Wellsford Video’ from the dark imagination of Auckland sound-charmer MOPPY.

This from Muzai Records Bandcamp page: “Moppy (a.k.a Thom Burton) produces wonders of glitch and IDM that take their cues from the ambient works of Chris Morris and the soundtrack to television classic Jaaaaam. Cultivated through a period of fasting in a tin-foil hat, with a brief period of time working with Cute Banana (who appeared on the single “Big Bad Wolf” from his first album, Mokai), Seconds is more than mere electronic music and EDM.”

No idea what any of that actually means sorry but I do like this Moppy album. ‘Seconds’ reminds me in places of early Eno (eg: Music for Films) and Boards of Canada and in other places of the experimental side of Broadcast. But there’s also a lot of musique-concrete & avant-garde sound manipulation going on here too which means it is hard to pin it down to being any one thing.

It’s all very exotic yet accessible while also being fresh & a little challenging. Which pretty much sums up the modus operandi of Muzai Records really.