Shall we do it again, five more? The Five music things thing for whatever it still might still be worth. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? and why do we do all this? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A cure for pulling cats out of hats? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever? What do reasons make? Five more, same as last time (and the time before) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) picky about what we actually post on these pages or play on the radio or hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut to the damn chase, who needs an editorial? Here’s your five or so pieces of music for today….

1: Bloodmist – Toby Driver, he of Kayo Dot and such, is involved in this rather delicious dark rather insular electronic improv trio, they have a new album called Arc out in June, although you can find it on Bandcamp right now, their own blurb is down there underneath the music that really does all the talking for itself. Pretty much everything Toby Driver is involved in is worth an eye or an ear and this in no exceltion, it does arc and spark and bend in the heat in a rather refined rather beautiful way, it does sound like metal contracting in the sunlight or the darkness, like a train slowlyeasing around a carve, like

“You may have heard me talk on the socials about my trio with Mario Diaz de Leon and Jeremiah Cymerman, Bloodmist, a lot in the past year and a half. It’s all because of this album, Arc, which we recorded in Novermber 2020 and is just about to be released. We came up with a new sound for this one through some serious chemistry and situational vibrations, and I walked away from the session feeling like this band was a huge missing piece of the puzzle of my musical life. Making this record set my mind in a new direction and I haven’t yet realized the affect it’s going to have on all the other music I make– but it’ll be huge” said Mr Driver .

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“NYC-based electroacoustic improvisation trio Bloodmist presents Arc, their third full length album.

Since their inception in 2010, Jeremiah Cymerman (clarinet, electronics), Toby Driver (electric bass), and Mario Diaz de Leon (synth and drum machine) have been steadily forging their unique approach to free improvisation, drawing from the realms of dark ambient, noise, and metal to craft surreal explorations of otherworldly sound. As individual artists, Cymerman is widely known as an improviser, record producer, and experimental music evangelist through his 5049 Records Podcast. Driver is celebrated as a solo artist and as the longtime mastermind of the endlessly eclectic band Kayo Dot, while Diaz de Leon has been recognized for his work at the crossroads of modern classical music, electronic music, and metal.

With their 2020 sophomore album Phos, the group established their signature sound, a wildly evocative exchange between Cymerman’s elegiac clarinet melodies and colorful electronic processing, Driver’s invocations of the outer realms of distorted bass guitar, and the anchoring element of Diaz de Leon’s sparse and shifting drum machine and synth riffs. Building from this foundation, Arc was recorded in November of 2020 at the venerable Pioneer Works artist center in Brooklyn, with engineers Justin Frye and Federico Escalante. Over two evenings, the group set the cavernous acoustics of the 19th-century iron factory in motion, resulting in nearly 4 hours of recorded material. The four selections that encompass the album were then collaboratively curated, with final mixing handled by Marc Urselli at East Side Sound.

Drawing from the cinematic and expansive sound of the album, individual song titles on Arc are names of meteorite impacts, with the years of impact corresponding to key events in the band’s history, including their first meeting in 2007, their first show under the name Bloodmist in 2012, and the release of their second album in 2020. At just under an hour in length, Arc is pervaded by the primordial resounding of Diaz de Leon’s Moog-synthesized bass drum, tuned to a low B flat, which is transformed throughout in contrasting articulations and shapes. The absence and presence of the bass drum serves as point of gravity for a cosmos of densities and colors, encompassing melodic modal passages, sparse electroacoustic atmospheres, and feral hellscapes, all showcasing finely attuned sonic dialogues between three longtime collaborators. 

2: Avawaves and more mellow dreams of electric sheep or whatever you have on offer, do you dream in colour, what colour do you dream. Avawaves are from London, they’e3 jsut released a track called The Wave, I’ve got a press release about this track somewhere, in the inbox with the millions of others demanding time and the price of fish, “I didn;t know you were a painter” said one band who’ve we’ve covered five or six times in the last couple of years, they were demand I come to a gig on Saturdsay, told them i was busy, I mean come on, the Art Car Boot Fair is happening on Saturday, don’t any of these bands read the Organ besides the bits that are about them? Do like Avawaves, this is very painterly, filmoid, it is actually some kind of film soundtrack, I’ll find the press release in a moment, hang on, “Avawaves announce documentary soundtrack ‘Savage Waters’” reads the now found press release, the soundtrack album is out on OLI, they’ll be happy to tell you more, or go here or find this the track on Bandcamp

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More from that press release if you want more?

AVAWAVES (Anna Phoebe and Aisling Brouwer) have composed an original score for Savage Waters, a feature documentary about a mission to find and surf a spectacular big wave in the Atlantic Ocean. 

The first single, ‘The Wave’, utilizes the contemporary duo’s full pool to portray the beauty and ferocity of the wave; distant rolling drums inspire awe, euphoric melodies crest and trough within natural surges, and synth stabs glisten while the tidal strings rise with sublime intensity. An epic soundtrack that will pull you in and carry you away to sea.

They tell us; “This is our first feature film we’ve scored together as AVAWAVES and we are so excited to release it. This is a truly cinematic documentary centred around the sea, so there was a natural affinity between our music and the film. We felt immediately connected to the narrative and intention behind this film – the story of obsession with the sea, these epic journeys, and experiences. Also, the stories of individual resilience and the importance of family and community. It is truly a special film with unexpected twists and turns, and we hope the music reflects its depth. From soaring strings and deep bass and synths to atmospheric soundscapes. This first single The Wave is a cue which celebrates and accompanies beautiful and powerful shots of the waves.”

There’s a whole load of Avawaves line dates

12th May – Brighton – Fabrica (The Great Escape Festival)
15th May – Glasgow – Hug & Pint
17th May – Manchester – Low Four Studio
18th May – Cardiff – Acapella Studios
19th May – Bristol – Bristol Beacon
21st May – London, UK – Omeara

The press release goes on but hey we won’t, we do have places to be and this music stuff is just a sideline these days. Did you catch last weekend’s radio show by the way? Marina’s weekly show on London’s rather unique station Resonance 104.4fm with Bubblemath, Bess of Bedlam, 5UUs, Odd Fiction and many more…

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3: Traams – ‘Breathe featuring Softlizard’, from Traams new album ‘Personal Best‘ available July 22nd 2022. Amother taste of what promises to be a rather fine new album, not that wer’e here as part of the marketing plan or anything like that you understand. Do like the mellow motorik clightly Krautrock flavours of this one, definitely in the slow lane taking their own sweet time here. no burning up the autobaun 9or the A27 just outside Chichester) on a nice day, probably a Wednesday, how yer feeling? just refining here, this Organ monster ca nbe such a time eater and what with the Art Car Boot Fair happening this weekend and we should have packed in all this damn music stuff by now, no time to look out of the window, it does keep on coming around. This is the first album for quite some time for the rebuilt band. You can find two or three pieces from the new album on their Bandcamp page at the moment. There’s some very uncluttered and just enjoyable about the way Traams breathe, about the space thay allow themselves and their music, about how they leave time and space…

I guess we could take the time to park the bandcamp thing here for you, it goes without saying that if something is on this page it really is because we think you should check it out, for what any of this is worth, we did already cover their return back in April – ORGAN: Five music things – The impressive return of Traams, a new Starsha Lee video, the beautifully relaxed sound of Widowspeak, the old school kiss kiss bang bang of London Plane, Jon Spencer and The HITmakers and another slice of that new album…

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4: Blue Luminaire have announced details of their debut album, Terroir, which is set for release via Bella Union on 12 August 2022 on ltd edition clear vinyl, CD and digitally, a rather lush taste of it it just landed here when really today I should be painting and beautiful distractions like this really aren’t needed, there is no time for music in this of all weeks. “Blue Luminaire is a new project from Copenhagen-based, British-born composer, Nick Martin, marking a transition from their previous EPs – where they were composing and directing – to step into the spotlight as a performer, creating a sonic universe stretching across time to create an ever-moving, cyclical experience”.

I’m pretty sure no one ever reads any of this, you just coem here listen t othe msuic on offer and then hit the links don’t you? I know talking to you like this is like clapping with one hand, and a line from an Anthrax song is lost with the rest of it, here’s some about the blue ones…

They explain, “’Let Go’ is about the difficulty of nurturing healthy, adult ways of relating to others – where one doesn’t smother the other, but rather lets go and each allows the other to be autonomous. As I sing at the end of the song, ‘Help me, and I’ll help you’, I think this is something that we need to practice together in relationships.”

Nick Martin wrote Terroir while working as a cleaner and assistant at a music venue in Copenhagen. Inspired by the performances they witnessed, on nights when no one was scheduled to appear, they took to one of the hall’s pianos and started sketching out the melodies and lyrics that would soon become the album. The album was recorded two years later, with 14 instrumentalists and sound engineer Pape Arce, at the music venue where it all began.

For Martin, writing a song is an act of catharsis, a way of untangling the uncertainty of a new beginning, while honouring the shadow of the past. It’s a route into the next phase: the rise of the moon, and the glow of dawn. Terroir utilises Martin’s classical music training – they grew up in Bedford surrounded by classical music and studied in London – to create a unique and otherworldly sonic experience where past selves collide, and the universality of heartbreak, familial patterns and grief permeate.

The album title stems from the word terre (meaning soil) and is used to describe the natural environment in which a specific wine is produced. Connecting to this idea that we carry the weight of our original, formative environments and relationships, Martin wanted to interrogate how they shape our sense of self, and impact our ability to connect with one another. While navigating a new path in the wake of a difficult break-up, and confronting their complicated relationship with their family, Terroir is the result of leaning into vulnerability in search of self-compassion and growth. 

Terroir’s expansively meditative, mantra-like exploration of the self opens a soothing portal that urges connection in a world that aims to distract and deter. While working on the album, Martin was focused on the beneficial effect of music for mental well-being, and found a certain solace through Terrior’s benevolent and exploratory nature. “Many of us are drawn to music, art and writing because of the need to get something out,” they explain. “That thing you might carry around and feel like is this huge, dark, horrible thing you don’t want anyone to see or hear. And yet when you do it, it feels good.” 

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5: Saajtak – “Detroit/Brooklyn based art-rock unit Saajtak (pronounced: sahje-talk) today shared ”Concertmate 680,” the third and final single from their debut album, For the Makers, out June 3, 2022 via American Dreams Records. The track arrives with a music video by Saajtak’s own keyboard player Simon Alexander-Adams, who used a 3D camera to capture data points and software to generate, edit and link the visuals directly with the song’s audio”. There you go techheads, don’t ask me about capturing data points, there is an animator over there in the corner who will probably yell you what it means and will probably paly something on the radio this coming weekend.

Here’s the track (and video), we do have the full album here, dare we say it tastes a little of Going For The One period Yes? A touch of Pure Reason Revolution maybe? We know Yes were always cool back there (not so sure about what the current Yes line up are doing). There is something indefinable, something rather adventurously clean cut and forward looking and indeed, catch tastes of all kinds of things im there, bites of prog rock, glitch electronica, dream pop, and experimental chamber music without ever sticking the band in any kind of pigeonhole. This is really good avtually, this is a first listen, an initial reaction, but this is very good, digital future-glitch built on top of organic goodness and just a touch of soul, we’ll digst it a little more before we write about the whole thing, for now here’s the one track and the details of the album via Bandcamp

And that’s it until we emerge on the otherside of the Art Car Boot Fair and those fast interpretations of album covers painted during just one very loud listen to a very Electric album – The first ten of an ongoing series of Electric paintings, pieces painted during the time it takes to listen to a very electric album just once