Skyminds – Shapes & Traces (Internal Rhythm)

Here we have the second release from the Bay Area duo, Skyminds, and the first for their new collaborative label called Internal Rhythm. Apart, Michael Henning and Sean Conrad compose blissful ambient and new age sound arrangements under their respective solo monikers:  Henning as Selaroda and Conrad as Channelers and Ashan. Together, they strike a nice balance between their more meditative tendencies with a broader, higher-key psychedelic approach that, at times, recalls the output of another former Bay Area group, The Alps. On Shapes & Traces, this sound can range from trippy percussive ragas like “Sand Patterns” to more laid-back, post-rock grooves as heard on “Guduud”. The appearance of vocals in the middle of both sides, though, provides a positive disruption that perks up your ears and reels your attention in. I keep mistaking the gentle harmonies on “Beneath the Lake” for the stacked voice of Charles Bullen’s on the sole Lifetones record, and I’ll be damned if the added hiss coming outta my shitty tape deck doesn’t inject a little Flying Saucer Attack/David Pearce into “The Atmosphere”. It’s no wonder why I’ve been flippin’ this tape over-and-over again.

Silver Scrolls – Music for Walks (Three Lobed Recordings)

Back in the 90’s when the monthly music budget was pretty lean, I’d regularly find myself combing through the small boxes of new promo CDs that several local record shops would put on the counter and sell for a few bucks apiece. On one such occasion, I happened to come across Polvo’s Exploded Drawing (the scuffed copy still sits on my CD shelves) and bought it without hesitation because, well, it was on Touch and Go Records, a label that was my benchmark for quality in that era. Polvo went on to become a band I admired greatly. They weren’t flashy; their complex, ‘math-y’ rock sound was never going to place them in the upper echelon of indiedom, but damn they are/were a solid band. I’d always make an effort to at least check-out their various offshoot projects too like Black Taj, Libraness, and Helium (a solid band all their own), so I was pleased to see the arrival of Music For Walks, the debut full-length from Silver Scrolls, a new project of Polvo’s singer & guitarist, Dave Brylawski, and drummer Brian Quast (formerly of the garage rock unit The Cherry Valence). There are some moodier, vaguely pop moments (see “Q Scrolls”) and psychedelic interstitial passages throughout this new album, but by and large this hits with Polvo-ian(?) precision and force that stretches out quite a bit in places. Quast’s drumming is especially intricate and powerful. Hell, “Old Solace” has what I’d describe as a bona fide drum solo in it!! Brylawski follows suit and is able to switch time signatures and launch into epic guitar heroics in a blink of an eye. As walking has been one of the few activities that I’ve done consistently throughout the past few months of lockdown, I’m glad there is a proper soundtrack to go along with those strolls through the neighborhood. Yes, we now have Music For Walks or the Silver Scrolls for strolls!!

Malvern Brume – Tendrils (Alter) | Gaps In the Persistent Hiss (Takuroku)

Another album that is reportedly inspired by the idea of movement, not walking specifically, but a journey of sorts through a given space or environment. Tendrils is the first LP release from the London-based bedroom synthesist, Malvern Brume (aka Rory Salter). He’s issued a few tapes and contributed tracks to a few compilations in recent years, but he came to my attention just a few months ago through his excellent release, Gaps In the Persistent Hiss, on Cafe Oto’s new digital imprint, Takuroku. With sections of that 20-minute piece featuring spoken vocals in a thick British accent, it’s tempting to throw around comparisons to The Shadow Ring or maybe even contemporaries like CIA Debutante, but closer headphone listens reveal that there is a greater degree of sound sources and sound manipulation at play: sounds are slithering, groaning, rustling, chirping, chiming, breathing. At points, you have to check yourself to make sure that something isn’t actually rooting its way into your ear canals. Ah yes, Tendrils, an appropriate title for this new one that features shorter variations of some of the ideas that play out on …Persistent Hiss, but there are a few key differences: synthesizers play a more prominent role in several of the tracks making for a somewhat cleaner sound overall and there are no vocals on the album at all. If we go all nerdy and Venn Diagram the hell out of the contemporary experimental music landscape, then I’d reckon Malvern Brume would fall somewhere in the overlapping sections where the somber vignettes of Blue Chemise meets the post-industrial motion of Alter label head Helm meets the recent tape and electronic works of Mattias Gustafsson. I know, I know, there are deeper historical linkages to be made here, but the takeaway all points to this: Malvern Brume is an exciting new artist/project in this nebulous area of experimental music.