While the Weirdo Rippers feature is loosely scheduled as a bi-monthly concern, to be honest, there’s been too much not to follow so soon after last month’s edition.
I know it’s said every month, but during the composition of this latest instalment, it may just be the best one yet. With this edition, it feels like there has been so many wonderful new finds from all parts of the world. And that’s the most crucial part to Weirdo Rippers. No borders. No limits.
Elsewhere across the site, it’s been another busy month for all things left field, where we’ve been very lucky to bend the ear of drone pioneer, Adam Wiltzie, and earlier this week with Liverpool’s shining beacon of experimentalism, Ex-Easter Island Head. Both lengthy features, but vital components to the story we are trying to tell throughout these pages.
Stay tuned for more of the same in the coming weeks, but for now, enjoy these new releases. Have a great weekend, and stay safe.
Audjoins: Light Breaks In
We, Here and Now!
The summer is almost upon us, and what better way to celebrate it than with a sunny, humid drone record?
Enter Audjoins: the project of Montréal-based sound artist Clementine Bourque. On their latest release, Light Breaks In, the warm rush of drones and synths are euphoric. Like the sun swallowing up the ocean, the soundscapes are big, but not intrusive. Think of lying in those green fields, eyes closed and face to the sky.
Echoing the kind of emotive soundscapes that Brock Van Wey comes up with quite often, Bourque creates the sound of hope. And in a world marred by conflict and division, Light Breaks In feels like a worthy combatant.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Celestial Trails: Lunar Beachcomber
Fluttery Records
The project of San Francisco artist Taner Torun (also Fluttery Records’ founder), on the project’s debut long-player, Lunar Beachcomber, the producer takes us on a journey inspired by the more traditional aspects of ambient compositions.
With a campfire crackle underneath the combination of glacial-like piano textures, analogue synth and bass guitar, Torun creates the kind of organic drones akin to Stars of the Lid. Furthermore, the Celestial Trails experience is tailor-made for those wishing to look outside the kranky remit.
There have been so many wonderful outsider labels that have cropped up over the last three years – some new, some operating for years. You can add Fluttery Records and, by extension, Celestial Trails’ Lunar Beachcomber to the list.
Matt Christensen & Nick Turner: 6 Pieces for Guitar & Piano
Self-released
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Matt Christensen (well, about two months which is an age in his orbit).
With a Zelienople album in the offing later this year, in the meantime, Christensen teams up with fellow Chicago musician Nick Turner for 6 Pieces for Guitar & Piano. And what a delight it is. Together, the pair create a beautiful noise of languid guitars and sparse pianos where the residue seeps into the world of, say, Labradford.
There’s more hope on 6 Pieces for Guitar & Piano, though. A little bit more homespun warmth, and while Christensen has been dealing in this heavily for years now, he brings Turner along for the ride in what is a seamless collaboration that produces lovely results.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Jim White Interview: “Music is a dream and so are memories.”
Days Like Television: This Will Have Been the Past
Bonambi Records
Days Like Television is the brainchild of U.K. born, Berlin-based Daniel Bryden, who delivers the project’s debut LP, This Will Have Been the Past.
There’s a lot going on here, as Bryden delivers a dark, bourgeoning sound collage record that draws from the vestiges of noise, ambient and drone. It’s perilous terrain, but Bryden covers it quite emphatically.
It’s the juxtapositions that make This Will Have Been the Past. That tunnel of hope with moments of dread along the way, it’s a cerebral record that is well produced and equally well thought-out. All told, Days Like Television’s This Will Have Been the Past is an album quintessential to a feature like this.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Diamond Gloss: Golden Mountain Tales
Fluttery Records
The second of two releases from San Francisco label, Fluttery Records, Diamond Gloss is the project of Lisbon artist, Gonçalo Pereira.
On Golden Mountain Tales, his fifth album and first since 2020’s FLK, the Portuguese producer moves from pummelling synth-heavy soundscapes to more piano-based compositions. The results are beautiful, with dense, whirring textures and pulsating drones that build into something uplifting, making your mind wander to far-out places.
Just by looking at the wonderful artwork, it tells you a story about Golden Mountain Tales, and with a piece such as the eponymous track, Pereira has produced one of the sleeper experimental records of 2024.
Dynamo: Lift
XtelyonRec
With processed voices, keys and strings, on dynamo’s latest full-length release, Lift, the Austrian producer captures something fit for these times.
Blurring the lines between ecstasy and sadness, Lift is filled with glitches, fluttery dreamscapes and the kind of majestic vibe their fellow countryman, Christian Fennesz, has built a career on.
This isn’t pastiche Fennesz, though. Exquisitely produced in something as crisp as you’ll hear in the world of experimentalism this year, dynamo occupies the kind of landscapes many of the kranky and Touch alumni have yet to explore. Like most releases in this latest Weirdo Rippers edition, it’s a must listen.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Robert Logan: Explode the Rose
Trouble In Mind
On Robert Logan’s debut solo full-length release, Explode the Rose, the Chicago experimentalist bottles up euphoria and hands it out in spates.
With a track title like Prescribed Optimism, it’s hard to look past it without coming to the conclusion it encapsulates the experience that Logan offers on Explode the Rose.
Also a member of Desert Liminal and Midnight Minds, Logan explores further afield here, with sampled joyscapes built for sweaty festival tents and good times. Explode the Rose could have featured in our next Albums Quarterly dispatch set for next month, however it just feels too good to wait. Get it in your ears. Now.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Lola de la Mata: Oceans on Azimuth
Self-released
Conceptual sound artist, Lola de la Mata, releases her debut album, Oceans on Azimuth, in what sounds like an army of voices melded together from a lifetime of fever dreams.
Having been told to give up music after developing severe tinnitus and vertigo, the French/Spanish Liverpool-based artist decided to tackle noise with a new ear, exploring tinnitus at depth with the likes of sensory lab operator A.J. Hudspeth and various biophysicists who offered recording her tinnitus.
Oceans on Azimuth is the result in something that almost sounds like Wolf Eyes trading blows with another Liverpool-based experimentalist, Kepla. Impenetrable at times, but that’s the whole point. Art is to unsettle and from themes to sound, Lola de la Mata accomplishes the mission here.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Daniel Jack McLennan: Thou Canst Turn thy Organ While I Sing of Woe
Cruel Natural Records
The sound Daniel Jack McLennan expels when his fingers touch the piano keys is like a faint echo from another room. Another place, even.
Following 2022’s Unfurling Redemption, the Why Patterns member returns with Thou Canst Turn thy Organ While I Sing of Woe. A series of short piano sketches that contain the grainy textures of The Caretaker and harbour the emotional intensity of Grouper’s more skeletal compositions.
Thou Canst Turn thy Organ While I Sing of Woe is slightly removed from its predecessor, and that’s actually the beauty of it. And speaking of, it’s a term you wouldn’t associate with many of the artists under the Cruel Nature stable, meaning this is another skin that has been shed.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Nový Svět: DeGenerazione
Quindi Records
Vienna veterans, Nový Svět, have been altering minds in the realms of minimalism for years. Soundscapes purely for the outlier, the collective return, this time on Quindi Records, for their latest dispatch, DeGenerazione.
It’s the kind of sonics that Blixa Bargeld would be proud of. Twisted folk with tin-can electronica, all through the lens of minimalism. The result is something that should be a soundtrack in the dark alleys during the Cannes Film Festival.
Described as “Combat Folk” and “Cabaret”, DeGenerazione is the kind of record that pricks the ears in different ways every time you listen. It’s something that simply takes you to the far corners.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Poppy H: To the Dead, We Failed
Self-released
It’s been quite a year for British producer, Poppy H, self-releasing several albums as well as another two via Cruel Nature Records.
To the Dead, We Failed was recorded in one night last month and continues the producer’s elastic-like journey that stretches to the ends of the earth. This time, an acoustic thread runs through these eight compositions, echoing the kind of dread kranky’s ’90s catalogue is filled with.
In our interview with the producer earlier this year, there was an inherent self-awareness for the current state of society, and on To the Dead, We Failed, Poppy H has gone to new depths in exposing the world’s truths.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
REKK&KUTOBOY: REKK&KUTOBOY
Attention Management
Hailing from the Moscow underground, REKK&KUTOBOY are Katya Rekk and Ilya Kutoboy, and they create the kind of noise that breaks through the ceiling.
On their self-titled EP, the pair orchestrate the kind of noise where the worlds of IDM, techno and feel-good electronica clash, resulting in something immediate and pure. It’s sweaty, it’s pulsating, and it’s designed to wash the grimy floors of an abandoned industrial warehouse.
There have been many outlier releases through these dark, stained portals that have evoked an escapism required for these times, and REKK&KUTOBOY is the latest. Lights out, volume up, and the rest is history.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
Todeskino: Black Patina
Cruel Nature Records
Under the Todeskino moniker, Dusseldorf producer, Peter Lersch, returns with his latest instalment, Black Patina.
In 2022, Lersch released the slow-motion IDM-infused pop of Debutante, however Black Patina goes further afield, with elements of glitch and techno becoming part of the Todeskino DNA.
Unlike its title, Black Patina is electronica for summery, poolside endeavours. Yes, there’s a dark thread that weaves through these songs, but the defiance prevails in the end with something that feels joyous. For those who like their sounds slightly skewed but with a pop sheen, look no further than Todeskino who is fast becoming the master of subtlety.
Listen / Purchase from Bandcamp
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