An ambient/minimal mix for a friend

Consumed by spring fever, Not Unloved compiled a mix for a friend. It's by no means the sort of overtly melodic pop music that usually gets posted here but if you're needing a lullaby, then it could be worth a spin. 

Tracklist and approximate timings:

1:  Intertoto - DSK8 (00:00)
2:  JJ + JS - 6am (05:46)
3:  Blackwater - L Line (09:08)
4:  Tacita Trjj - Non-Human Year (16:13)
5:  Deepchord w/ Convextion + cv313 - Vantage Isle (Spacecho Dub) (19:04)
6:  A New Line (Related) - Belle Ile En Mer Dub Night (Perfume Advert Remix) (21.59)
7:  Unearth Noise - Sleep Well, Sweet Friend (26:07)
8:  Hollie Kenniff - Shifting Winds (31:56)
8:  Seefeel - Industrious (36:04)
9:  Oliver Coates - Caregiver Part 2 (4am) (42:39)
10: Marlene Ribeiro - Toque No Sol (48:19)
11: Mary Lattimore - Princess Nicotine (53:59)
12: O Yuki Conjugate - Discrepant (57:48)
13: Dania - Whale Song (1:00:53)
14: Princes Diana of Wales - Fragments of Blue (1:04:44)
15: HTRK - Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones (Eurodance version) (1:08:27)

Various Artists "Music Over Distance" (Signal Records)

"Collaborations during lockdown to raise money for personal protective equipment for NHS workers."

"Music Over Distance" is raising money for a good cause and features a host of ace artists working together remotely. Having road tested it today, Not Unloved can vouch for its suitably as a working from home soundtrack. That is in no way meant to demean it as mere background music! No, there is so much to admire among the 22 tracks including a touching finale. If you've ever cocked an ear to the kind of music sold or championed via boomkat or Norman Records, you'll find much to enjoy and a fair few familiar names including a bunch from the Hood orbit. It's only 8 quid and if you download it you'll get the rosy glow that comes from knowing you did a good thing. Plus, if, like Not Unloved, you were looking forward to seeing The Declining Winter on their mini-tour next week, track 15 goes a little way towards making up for its postponement.

Correction: The Caretaker

In my previous posting I somewhat rashly claimed:


"I haven't been so excited by a record that could be considered ambient since I first heard Grouper's "Way Their Crept""


In retrospect, this isn't strictly true.  The last ambient record that got me all steamed-up was actually The Caretaker's "Persistent Repetition of Phrases" (History Always Favours The Winners) which I plundered for cheaps from the boomkat.com winter sale earlier this year.  It's a wonderfully evocative, spooky record which takes Sabres of Paradise's "Haunted Dancehall" and transports it from the West Indies to Manchester, in the process converting it into more of a haunted tea-dance hall where damp, discarded dancecards litter the floor and the rain pours in through holes in the roof.  Each of the 9 tracks is liberally dusted with reverb, static and antique surface noise which lends them a lonely air which is deeply moving.  Any one of them would be suitable for the soundtrack of a psychological horror.

The Caretaker'

M.S.o.T.T.

Motion Sickness of Time Travel's "Luminaries and Synastry" (Digitalis) just wasn't the right record.  I had been looking for something relaxing to listen to in the bath, something that wouldn't get me all over-excited or in full-on evangelising mode and although "Luminaries..." is soothing, it's such an exceptionally pretty record that as it unfolded I got ever more wild-eyed and excited and all chances of zoning out for half an hour among the bubbles were gone.  At times, probably due to Rachel Evans' in-the-next-postcode vocals that only just carry on the breeze, it has the distant glide of the most abstract passages of Northern Picture Library's wonderful and misunderstood "Alaska" album.  In that respect it also recalls Slowdive's dazzling "Pygmalion"; another record which was largely ignored and unjustly derided on release.  I haven't been so excited by a record that could be considered ambient since I first heard Grouper's "Way Their Crept" and the fact that afterwards I was mad keen on lining up and listening to everything I own by Wolfgang Voigt's seminal Gas project is something to thank M.S.o.T.T. for.  "Luminaries and Synastry" also sports the best album sleeve I've seen so far in 2011 (just look at it...it's so romantic!) so it's a winner all round.