I’ll start this edition with David, one of my favorite Tweeters. He leads the always solid Calling All Astronauts and tweets…a lot. But he’s always fun and/or interesting and has lots of nice interactions with his followers. CAA posted a new video recently for their really catchy single “Life As We Know It.” They always seem to come up with something interesting and new for their videos but, honestly, mixing CAA and some shuffle dancing would not have occurred to me. I’m glad it occurred to them:
Another nice surprise was the New Year’s Day release of “Drone Echoes” by the talented and prolific Wolfgang Merx. I’m a big fan of Wolfgang’s consistently compelling output. This collection includes some tracks recorded during work on his “Drone Trilogy”; some were “starting points” for songs there and some are newly released. Overall, it’s a nice mix of sounds; it starts with a longer form “classic” drone track “Interstellar” (which, for me at least, brings to mind early solo Klaus Schulze) but also has tracks with other noises including more spacey keyboard noodling, pipe organ, and even a track with some more harsh industrial/machine sounds. More good news if you like this one: The similarly sourced “Drone Variations” will be released later.
Related family side note: When I was playing the track “Forest” my son Rhombus said it reminded him of “Sequential Circuits” by Panda Bear. Definitely different, but I can hear it.
The newcomers to me in this little group today are 57 Down. Think of them as the revenge of the rhythm section. Two basses, one drummer and a singer; no “cheesewire monkeys” as they refer to guitarists. They come hard and heavy on two tracks posted to SoundCloud. We need more…but more is promised on a future debut album on Blackened Death Records.