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Monthly Archives: August 2017
Adam Ant Facebook Live Q&A
SPC ECO – Calm (ELaB Records 24 August 2017)
Dean Garcia Releases ‘Calm’ EP for SPC ECO 10th Anniversary, Curve’s 25th Anniversary
Curve Co-founder Dean Garcia and Rose Berlin Drop New SPC ECO Album ‘Calm’
SPC ECO has released their new album ‘Calm’, which follows their ‘Under My Skin’ EP, released earlier this year.
If the demise of ground-breaking duo Curve was a storm-cloud in the musical skies of the 90’s, the silver lining was that Dean Garcia went on to form SPC ECO with Rose Berlin. This a coming together of an electronic musical maverick and a vulnerable yet tender vocal style and even more endearing is the fact that this is informed by the bond of a father and daughter exploring their relationship and the world around them through music.
TRACKLIST
CREDITS
Keep up with SPC ECO
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The Blue Hour – Always ( 27 October 2017)
Seattle’s The Blue Hour Announce ‘Always’ Album, Tease First Single ‘One More Mystery’
The Blue Hour Present Early 4AD-Style Ethereal Folk-Noir Par Excellence
Blending traditional folk melodies with dream pop, ethereal wave and synthpop, the result is ethereal folk-noir that is unique to them, charged with haunting ambience and some classical structures. This potent cocktail creates an otherworldly and hypnotic effect, focusing on texture and rhythm and beautiful discord … and most of all magic.
The Blue Hour was born of glamor and squalor. Brian and Marselle met as teenage street kids, sleeping in abandoned buildings and dancing the nights away in Seattle’s new wave clubs. After many lost years, they again reunited and began creating music together. The band has seen several incarnations since founded in 1993 by multi-instrumentalist Brian Hodges. Originally intended to be a side project to psychedelic goth band Black Atmosphere, The Blue Hour released several albums of “romantic ethereal neofolk” between 1998 and 2001 for European independent labels Perun and Big Blue.
Brian Hodges put his music on hiatus until 2016, when he again began writing in order to teach the craft to their daughter. That project became the band’s new single “One More Mystery”, which saw the addition of Marselle’s voice and melodies – creating the gold seam that ran right into their new album ‘Always’.
Over the years, Brian and The Blue Hour have played with numerous seminal goth, new wave and neofolk acts, including The Church, Sex Gang Children, Gitane Demone, Unto Ashes, Sol Invictus, and In Gowan Ring.
Co-written and performed by Brian and Marseille, the two also share vocal duties on the ‘Always’ album. Maria Grig also contributes strings on three tracks: ‘One More Mystery’, ‘Block the Sound’ and ‘Lost Landmarks’. Written and recorded between December 2016 and June 2017 at the Piksie Nest and Rabbit Hole, this album was mastered by Wade Alin at Standard Mastering.
The Blue Hour will be released on October 27, but is already available for pre-order via the band’s own Bandcamp.
Keep up with The Blue Hour
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Ummagma – LCD (Label Obscura/Somewherecold Records – 22 September 2017)
Curve Mastermind Dean Garcia Remixes Ummagma for coming ‘LCD’ EP
Track revealed ahead of 2 classic Curve releases
CURVE’S Dean Garcia summons dark wonder in Ummagma ‘Back to You’ Mix
Dave Wesley – Laranja Swadhisthana 67_5 – EPv1 (Arctic Dub (Sursumcorda) 18 August 2017)
Arctic Dub (Sursumcorda) New Dave Wesley Single is a Sacred Geometry-Inspired Dreamscape
Called “Laranja Swadhisthana 67_5 – EPv1”, this new single is comprised of two tracks, transmitted to us from a beautiful but “lonely ceremony place”. The spectacular single is, in his words, “constructed with the principles of sacred geometry and tuning… using parts of the north and the south… and with the fury.”
Dave Wesley’s music style integrates chill, dub techno, experimental, and ambient genres. His music revolves in the same realm as Michael Brook, Brian Eno, Passion-era Peter Gabriel, Deepchord (a.k.a. Rod Modell), output from Echospace Recordings and Basic Channel. It is also shares similar vibes as the work of Philip Glass, for whom Wesley even remixed ‘Why Are We Here?’ for the Philip Glass album ‘Glass: Glasscuts’, released on his own label Orange Mountain Music, in addition to DJing at the NYC release party for this album.
Using production techniques based on the principles of sacred geometry, Dave’s music is captivating, seamlessly exploring evolving soundscapes, iteration and meditation, and seducing the imagination forward into transcendental realms.
“This EP was born out of the sweltering summer heat of inland Portugal and a recent trip to Lisbon, where African tribal rhythmic influence is strong in the air and in the airwaves. I strive to create music that has multiple utility (i.e. for grooving, dancefloor, background ambiance, active listening, etc),” explains Dave Wesley. “I’m greatly influenced by minimalism and iterative process oriented art – and strive to create pieces that, on the surface, are repetitive, while deeper listening reveals a subtly evolving cinematic scene. I’m also obsessed with the contradistinction of contemporary clean digital sonics within beds and layers of lo-fi aural contexts and field recordings, which I think is apparent in this release.”
Arctic Dub (Sursumcorda) is the sister label to Sursumcorda Recordings. The latter is also a magazine. Sursumcorda is focused on finding and curating cool and interesting music and culture across genres through frequent posts in their online magazine, periodic vinyl compilations and other releases. Arctic Dub (Sursumcorda) releases deep, dark, lo-fi, ambient, cinematic, meditative and experimental music that germinates from dub techno origins. It also puts out monthly releases, and is becoming known for live streaming events. It has just launched a series of live stream events, called ‘Arctic Dub Continuum Live’.
1. Laranja Swadhisthana 67_5 Session v1
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Keep up with Sursumcorda Recordings
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68creep – Goodnight, Sweet Betty (Kiss/Kill/Repeat Records Release: 22 September 2017)
68Creep Announce Debut Album, Preview First Single ‘Black Cat’

Kimberly Seewald, John McRandle, Colyn Hunt, Patrick Casey
With melodic contributions from Sara Aridi, Anya Kaz, Fiona Silver, Carrie Slimski, and Anna Maliere
Managed by Tracey Keevan
Album painting by Calina Hiriza
Keep up with 68Creep
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Darto – Human Giving (Aagoo Records 8 September 2017)
Aagoo Records to release Darto ‘Human Giving’ LP and joint Darto / WAND 7”
U.S. release on September 8. U.K. release on September 22.
Aagoo Records has announced two releases to be issued simultaneously on September 8. The first is ‘Human Giving’, a full length album from Seattle-based four-piece Darto. The second is the ‘Follow Up / Hush’ 7” featuring Darto and WAND, who wrote and performed these tracks together.
The first LP is preceded by the single ‘I Am’, which The Big Takeover Magazine calls “a catchy sultry melancholic downtempo synth-infused psych-trip combining the best of Cate Le Bon, The Velvet Underground, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Black Ryder”.
The album’s mood is immediately clear from the first note of ‘GDLS’, enveloping the space around the listener. By the time ‘I Am’ enters, the sound and feeling transitions from lush and inviting, to focused and intentional with the keyboards and strings propelling the movement. The lyrics and accompanying melodies float along seamlessly like being lulled into a dream.
“Despite all of its catchy qualities, ‘Human Giving’ is a difficult album to pin down. The lyrical phrasing, and melodies have been stuck in my head for months,” says Alec Dartley of Aagoo Records. “It takes me to a place filled with light, despite the psych realms the band takes us”.
As the record progresses, splashes of Americana seem to emerge, painting subtle pictures of the American West, or a vast expanse that we would associate it with. It’s a momentary visit to those places as Darto keeps moving, exploring new worlds. The album closes in a cinematic soft way, where the constant is an emotional hook that dives into the human condition. This is an open story, suggestive but with room for the listener to fill in the blanks.
“We didn’t play shows or hardly go to shows for a year and a half so we could write and record the album,” says Darto’s Gordon De Los Santos. “The album comes from the places within us where hope and love exist. Where the focus is not on the self, and where everything is possible. Humans giving themselves to other humans. The power of listening on all fronts. The desired effect is and was to bring hope in some capacity.”
“We are extremely proud of this record. Writing, recording, mixing and mastering was the most intentional musical experience we have had to date. We took a lot of chances on it, and grew exponentially in the process,” says Gregory Flores. It felt, and feels like we walked through many doors while working on it, and the place we ended up is very similar to the place where we were as young people first deciding to create. A vulnerable first step towards something larger.”
‘Human Giving’ was recorded by Darto between September 2015 and January 2016 in a cabin in Cle Elum, WA and their home in Seattle. The ‘Follow Up / Hush’ 7″ was written, performed and recorded by Darto and Wand at Comp-ny in Burbank, CA in April 2017. It was engineered and recorded by Be Hussey. Both releases were mixed by Cory Hanson at Comp-ny and mastered by JJ Golden at Golden Mastering in Ventura, CA.
“We smashed together in Los Angeles and wrote these two songs; repurposed lyrics we wrote in the studio together. A lot of people got to sing who had never sung on record before,” says Cory Hanson of WAND. “All in all, this was a successful collaboration I think. The spirit of both bands made it onto the tape together, intact. We ate breakfast burritos the next morning, then Darto flew away. I went to go to the beach but our car died in Topanga Canyon”.
Aagoo Records is home to vinyl releases by Xiu Xiu, Lucky Dragons, The Use with Rachelm Mason, Philippe Petit and more.
Darto Members
Gordon De Los Santos
Gregory Flores
Candace Harter
Nicholas Merz
WAND Members
Cory Hanson
Robert Cody
Sofia Arreguin
Lee Landey
Evan Burrows
DARTO ‘HUMAN GIVING’ TRACK LIST
1. GLDS
2. I Am
3. Omniscient
4. Fell III
5. Truss
6. No Self
7: Human Becoming
8. Character Study
9. Guiding Light
10. Aging
11. Within Without
12. American Storyteller
WAND/ DARTO 7″ TRACK LIST
1. Follow Up
2. Hush
Keep up with Darto
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Keep up with Aagoo Records
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