Not much to say today and I suppose that should act as a warning not to say anything, but 2025 is not necessarily the Year of Darkness but also the Year of Being Totally Unhinged and Saying Things, so therefore here we are. Welcome to the end of January, a month which has felt both instant and interminable, as all time does. We look down and up and we have lost rights and functions of government and all traces of good spirit or common sense. It is still too cold outside.
As I was slogging through work this morning, I let the YouTube algorithm have its way with my musical choices, and it took me from an old Mountain Goats show circa 2008 to some incredible ambient work which I’ve decided to write a few hundred words about in order to fulfill my soul, as I am constantly trying to find ways to fulfill my soul these days. I am also working on ways to fulfill other souls, but my solutions have amounted to making soup for those wanting soup. But then again, soup is the prime mover. We came from soup, we eat soup, we return to soup, etc. etc.
To the music:
The great and underrated George Garside has a way with swelling and hypnotic synths and The Jester provides these in droves, showcasing Garside’s forward-thinking layering of synths to create these transporting soundscapes. All of the titles have to do with some kind of jest – “Triboulet”, “Feste”, “Yorick”, “Harlequin” and so on – but there is sadness as well, in the detuned instruments, the repetition of certain musical phrases, the emotional nature of the work as a whole. According to a Rate Your Music post, this album wouldn’t have even seen the light of day if not for the work of a fan and a blog; it was never officially released alongside Garside’s other works such as Oasis or New Land. And that’s a shame, because The Jester is a treasure.
Tim Stebbing has been active in the UK electronic music scene since 1979, and has been back on Bandcamp releasing some fresh stuff as of late. But his 1986 album Princess of Mars graced my ears this morning, and provided that ethereal outer-space ambience and atmosphere which surely influenced the work of Jón Hallur Haraldsson (the composer behind the great music of EVE Online, a space MMORPG with which I was furiously obsessed during COVID.) It certainly captures the feeling of walking on, living on, breathing on another planet, with all the trials and trappings that come with it. It is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars, and definitely evokes the sense of adventure and urgency from that story. It is not necessarily Berlin school electronic music; there are some Krautrock elements, but it’s more Autobahn deep cut and less The Man Machine if we want to use Kraftwerk comparisons (which I will always happily oblige.)
Meanwhile, the 1985 release Stellar Tunnel from Steve Brenner and Peter Gulch is more Trans-Europe Express, and consists of only two long tracks: The high-energy “Stellar Crossfire” and the ominous “Tunnel Wind”. The former is a great tune for a battle of the mind, of other dimensions, of a great conflict with inner demons and banshees. The latter depicts the plodding escape from the madness, the fight through the elements, the great strength needed to push through the utter darkness. Twenty-three minutes of pure spiritual meditation set to music at its finest. Brenner is also continuing to create electronic music on his Bandcamp page.
Of course, no walk down the YouTube algorithm halls of obscure music would be complete without something from an incredibly esoteric genre, and that’s where Händer Som Vårdar’s I Never comes in. This 2013 release from the Danish label Posh Isolation (which is no longer available on their Bandcamp) has a form of music called lowercase, where the musicians play very quietly but the gain is turned up so incredibly high that all you hear is the tape hiss with the smallest sounds blasting through your headphones at top volume every once in a while. It is jarring and strange and requires patience, and if the most basic noise rock isn’t for you, then this certainly won’t be your thing. But this is the shit that plays in my head nonstop. This is the music of anxiety: Impossible-to-bear static crackling into infinity, when every once in a while the resonance of a piano string screeches and the hum of a bass reminds you that something is always right above you, waiting. I Never carries that spirit with it: A scene of chaos in the background, metal and glass clattering in what can only be described as pure destruction, while a destroyed audio signal masks its true carnage. It is horrifying and beautiful. It is the music we do not want, but sometimes it is the music we have.
That’s all for now. I must go back to work. I must go back to coping with the day. Hopefully there will be more music to share later. Godspeed and good luck with everything.