With the release of Star Dream FM approaching via Phantom Limb, Dylan Henner has returned with new track, ‘We Ditched School and Climbed Over the Neighbour’s Fence to Swim in their Pool All Day’. Another cut for which the title says it all, embracing not just a sentimental fondness for the specific moment but one wider in scope, longing for the kind of curiosity and carefree spirit which marks youth. Similarly, the result feels personal, though there’s the undercurrent of something different. The sense Henner is not so much tapping into his own memories but a kind of collective yearning. One developed not through individual experience but the culture itself. The cinematic version of youth delivered to us so steadily we come to mourn it as our own.

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Now Rival Consoles is back with Landscape from Memory, a brand new full-length due to be released this summer by Erased Tapes, and the sense of evolution continues. The record developed slowly, following an uncharacteristic dormant period for the usually prolific artist. But perhaps that period of stasis was just what was needed, because the end result might be the project’s most impressive to date, focusing in on small details while retaining the grand sweeps of melancholy and euphoria too. This is due in part to the process of its creation, which saw West dive into ” a scrapbook of discarded audio snippets,” breathing life into the flashes of potential he discovered in primordial shards of melody. “There is a kind of strange beauty to [the process],” he describes, “because it involves the past, present and future in a very strong way.”

Lead single ‘Catherine’ illustrates this perfectly. Ostensibly a dance track, but suffused with far more nuance and emotion, the song is dedicated to his partner, and sounds more like the lonely memory of a dancefloor than a sweaty, packed one. “It’s extremely open, just like a naked melody on drums, so exposed as an idea,” West explains. “I think because she was so excited by it, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m excited too, actually, I just didn’t realize.”

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The record comes from a lived history. A gradual understanding that words are never enough. Career changes, failed attempts at grad school, SSRIs then no SSRIs. Different homes, different communities, different years. A “spiritual crisis” which led to a silent retreat, from which Miller emerged to find “any word she uttered seemed to fall short” and with a new understanding of music. “Every song came from a place of great surrender,” she says. Giving oneself up to whatever exists beyond the surface of things, and thus working within a space which feels both removed from reality and, paradoxically, somehow like reality distilled.

You might think of lead single ‘Parallel Place’ as an introduction to this space. The drifting synths and driving beat evoking the hauntological branch of UK dubstep, Miller’s vocals at once wispy and plainspoken, their soft and seemingly abstract style hiding blunt questions, the tone never too far from flesh and blood. “This is a parallel place,” she sings, “the spiral of time, a line on the face / or was it just a way to get to first base?”

Cover photo by Vy Pham

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The music of old man of the woods […] is a forest of its own. One often still and quiet, mournful in the way woods can be, but quietly powerful too. Because the systems of life and consumption within the natural world are different to those of our own, and within the lonely forest and its constant regrowth lies a humble secret. A comfort, a humble triumph over death.

Fast forward a year and Old Man of the Woods is preparing to release its debut full-length album, Votives. Out via Totally Real Records, the album develops the style introduced on dissolve, pushing beyond the natural world and into that of dreams, thereby inviting us further into Elliott’s distinctive imagination.

To introduce the release, Old Man of the Woods has unveiled the title track. It proves a fitting choice, as the album took root in the image at the song’s heart. “I wrote ‘Votives’ after seeing friends that had coincidentally ordered love candles from the same witchy shop,” Elliott explains. “I imagined lighting one and watching my last relationship reignite. I’d regret ending it for too long, but envisioning it play out again, I realized I’d end it again. There was so much relief in that realization. I held that flame in my mind and blew it out.”

With a sparse synth line suspended upon an ethereal depth beyond, the track throws us into the deep end of this newfound dreaminess. Elliott’s vocals swing between soft and plainspoken, invoking the bittersweet confrontation mentioned above, as the song gradually builds into a languid electro pop hit.

This development mimics the intuitive logic of dreams, where the subconscious strips away layers of complication and instead presents feelings as images abstract and strange. “That night, I dreamt that peoples’ minds were little churches filled with votives burning for everyone they’d ever loved,” Elliott continues. “That image really stuck with me and played a large role in bringing the rest of the album together.”

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This extends to the lyrics, which are written and performed in the fictional Mondoneoh language. Where ‘Mondo-‘ refers to a Buddhist search for truth, while ‘neo-‘ situates it within a contemporary effort to transcend outdated conventions, and the final ‘h’ links these past and present to unite a whole. Such in-depth and metaphorical meaning is typical of The Allegorist style, and is suggestive of the complete commitment to the vision that Jordan imagines.

Latest album Hybrid Dimensions II is no exception. The second instalment of a series started in 2018 with Hybrid Dimensions I, the record pulls the reader into a carefully built world that straddles sci-fi and fantasy, feeding off of the past/future dualism that sits at the heart of The Allegorist aesthetic. Jordan provides a storybook to provide proper context, but essentially the songs see a protagonist travel great distances and confront great dangers, its mythic connotations allowing the exploration of themes of solace, redemption and loss. All realised through a blended sound that incorporates classical, electronic and ambient styles.

Single ‘Dark Forces’ indicates how such an ambitious project might sound. Emerging from a flat, shadowed void, the song gradually comes to life in all of its scope and space. But from within the track’s vacant expanses, something large and ominous shifts out of view. Something that approaches gradually, creeping ever closer as the song unfurls, eventually revealing itself in its surreal, sublime form.

Hybrid Dimensions II is out on the 7th May and you can pre-order it now from The Allegorist Bandcamp page.

Photo credit @annajordanproject

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As if to prove this versatility, Moog have recruited seven renowned artists for a brand new EP, each heading off in a different direction. From the chiptune-centric work of Bonobo, to the lush pop of Peter CottonTale and Jamila Woods, the songs were all crafted entirely with the equipment provided in the new packages, and highlight the versatility of the Moog set-up. Dan Deacon‘s ‘Green Heart’ races into life like a 16-bit game set on fast forward, Madame Ghandi’s ‘Bending Time’ offers a moody, attitude-filled beat, and both Martial Canterel and Ela Minus take on retro synth pop, though from opposing ends of the spectrum.

All of the tracks stand in contrast to Julianna Barwick‘s ‘Open Master’, a song that swaps out the harsh edge and frantic beats to exploit a different side to the Moog Sound Studio entirely. Drifting into life from a clouded swirl, the song balances ambiguity and focus to great effect, its ethereal tone fogged and strange yet shot through with light. Barwick’s vocals serve as another layer of this gauze, conjuring an ever shifting collage marked with a devotional edge.

Explorations in Analog Synthesis is out now and available to stream on the Moog Soundcloud page.

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This sentiment is central to her latest release, Cheap Emotions. The songs in effect serve as a bridge between the high art sensibilities of classical music and something more accessible, electronic samples and spoken word segments lending a real immediacy. And the balance between the familiar and unfamiliar extends beyond style too, with the meaning of the pieces emerging ambiguous but intuitive, leading the listener into something strange yet undeniably rooted in the human experience.

Lead track ‘The Inevitable Withdrawal’ is the perfect example. A collaboration with the writer Phoebe McGowan, the song represents a melding of two separate pieces—those of music and writing, the personalities of Zarabozo and McGowan—blurring the boundary between two discrete entities if only for a moment. Rising from thin and feathered electronics, wisps of spoken word glide across the sonic canvas, always fleeting and always removed, concerned with the end of things. This sense of transience is fundamental, as though illustrating that nothing can exist for long within such a commingled state. A reminder that things are always fading, and that with impermanence comes both tragedy and beauty.

The others songs on the release follow the thread set out by ‘The Inevitable Withdrawl’, probing down the avenues it opened and seeking out new ground. ‘Mind the___Gap’ continues further into ambient pop, crooned vocals swirling beyond a flurry of apologies and garbled talk. But even within the moments of rising energy, a sense of distance remains, as though it is all but an echo. ‘Do You Remember?’ finds further levels of vigour, possessing that scrambled-mind volatility that comes in the aftermath of things, that moment in which the end has arrived but the realisation has not.

Cheap Emotions is out now and available from the Darlene Zarabozo Bandcamp page.

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Perhaps the defining characteristics of Shaw’s music is its ability to transcend its own themes. He may be singing about hating his job, about going nowhere fast, but in doing so colours these things with meaning. To create art is to communicate, and as such the songs represent the antithesis to their own concerns, the simulated happiness and artificial connection punctured through their ironic presence.

The last few months have seen Shaw return with two new EPs, released under the moniker Megadead. Put out back in the summer, Screams, Banging, etc. arrived first and put to bed any worries that the change of name signaled some radical change of direction. There’s a casual heartbreak to the opening sample, a mood that could be said to capture the Megadead spirit. Life is awful and all that.

But more than depressed bummer music, Megadead explores the specific cruelty of our times. The undeniable laughable quality amid suffering. The juxtaposition of the chilled beats on ‘There Must Be a Problem’ with the repeated titular refrain gets to the heart of the record. The sense that something is drastically wrong but there is no space to show it. Smile, think positive. Try meditation. ‘OH NO’ follows through on the uncanny unease, its vivid 80s soundtrack style rippled by wavering glitches, the sampled female voice offering nothing beyond “oh no” or “oh crap” with a kind of exaggerated playfulness. Disappointment and disaster as packaged on the Shopping Channel.

The result is a sound that mimics our culture. One which refuses unhappiness, and by that very refusal transmogrifies it into something hellishly odd. The jazzy pep of ‘Almost Self-Sufficient’ teeters between energetic and maniacal, wellness messages echoing through the clamour. A constant escalation that stress tests every vessel and connection. Closer ‘HELL YEP’ continues the feeling, pre-packing the religious exaltation of fitness videos and demanding you smile and shout along. After all, if a room is noisy enough, there is little difference between a face seized by joy or pain.

The second EP, Audio Visual Metro Computers, opens with a more explicit ominousness. The sleek beats of ‘Slowdead’ have a nocturnal creep, an inherent meanness. But ‘Maximum Enjoyment’ slinks into the slow dawning ‘Out of the Woods’, and the sense that we’re perhaps breaking free rises. But rather than some new hope, what emerges is strange and enveloping—some electronic interior baffling intricate yet oddly repetitive. A sense of movement that goes nowhere new, progression as a circle through the same backdrops again and again. ‘Out of the woods’ not as some escape, but a full retreat into the digital space.

So ‘What a Difference!’ lands us back where we started, the too-white teeth of self-help advice closing around our heads. Again jazzy flourishes radiate a kind of false positivity, small wisps of chaos sparking in every direction as palatable voices offer their help and the beat continues unabated, as though fired by the tension of the whole experience.

It’s left for ‘Breaking Open the Head’ to offer the only real human experience on the record. There’s a resignation to the beat but a sense of continuation too, and Shaw’s vocals make their first proper appearance across the two releases. There’s no final triumph, no hope beyond the shallow consolation of keeping on. “It made me feel sick,” he sings, “but I tried.” What else is there to do?

Screams, Banging, etc. and Audio Visual Metro Computers are out now and available from the Megadead Bandcamp page.

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The journey from her mother’s CD collection to Uttarkhand is more than an interesting anecdote to flesh out a bio, each step is intrinsically linked to what has become Ana Roxanne’s distinctive and evocative brand of music. “It was [in India] that she began to see the singer – the Diva – as a symbol of divinity,” explain the liner notes of her EP, ~~~. “That the unique power of one’s voice comes from the vulnerability of using the body as an instrument.” Viewed in this way, Roxanne’s life has been less a linear journey and more a gradual uncovering of something more profound, each new experience unveiling a wider network of interconnection and meaning.

Swirling within the smoky ambience and subtle drones of opening track, ‘Immortality’, the first words on the release make this clear. “I was only dreaming,” Roxanne says in a plain, spoken-word delivery. “A past encounter resurfacing / from deep violet water.” In keeping with the meditative aims, the track never rises beyond its subdued sound, and indeed neither does follow-up ‘Slowness’—the background drones never making good on their threat to push through the digital babble. That the lack of crescendo is conspicuous and acknowledged by spoken word lyrics quoting Milan Kundera.

“Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared?”

‘It’s a Rainy Day On The Cosmic Shore’ presents tidal field recordings pocked not by natural drizzle but rather a static buzz, a natural world melded to the digital, while ‘Nocture’ explores the stasis of late-night worrying, the body’s solitude matched by the soaring breadth of the mind’s wandering. The track is a good example of the sensitivity of the record, Ana Roxanne dropping guard and caution in order to more fully delve into the unseen. “Be it romance, love, or worship of a deity,” explains the album description, “in order to access such depths of emotional expression, one must be willing to be intensely vulnerable, lay one’s heart in the open air, expose what is kept hidden.”

The hauntological tone of ‘I’m Every Sparkly Woman’ evokes a version of reality that never came to pass, before closer ‘In a Small Valley’ draws things back the the present, finding beauty and meaning in the quotidian. The song highlights the true purpose of the album, Roxanne’s art not some linear quest toward a higher level of existence, but rather a considered attempt to understand and explore that which is around her.

~​~​~ is out now via Leaving Records and you can get it from the Ana Roxanne Bandcamp page.

Photography by Tammy Nguyen, cassette art and design by Jen Shear

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Amparo is back with a brand new record, Palm House, which continues this meditative style. The release is something of a sonic journal, using warm guitar loops to capture moments and memories that might otherwise be lost, preserving them in the fondest light. Opener ‘Hounds’ makes this clear from the off, bathed in warmth and displaying a sense of natural rhythm. Indeed, the songs on Palm House can be said to have an organic sensibility, each its own ecosystem of calm melodies.

‘Oakwood’ has a more reflective vibe, though is coaxed into an uplifting rise, and ‘Coastal Dusk’ excavates the wistful imagery of its title, finding beauty in the small sense of loss that accompanies every change. With its shimmering energy, ‘Gardermoen’ plays like a tropical evening, the sun dipping below the horizon to cast pastel spectra across the water, while the slow unfurling brightness of ‘Strangers’ feels like a dawn awakening, the sun warming the land into life.

Closer ‘Dalslands Honey’ is perhaps the most spacious track on the release, though again finds poignancy amidst serenity, great sweeping strings that might otherwise be mournful instead offering an affirming sensation. The track is indicative of Palm House, and indeed Amparo as a whole—melancholy not as some personal sadness or woe but rather a curious wonder, something to do with being a small part of a huge world, and something to do with the passing of time.

Palm House is out now on Modularfield Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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