Breathy Drops/ Broken Heart

Florecer are a Californian duo who make dreamy, blissed out music that treads the beaches of Balearica. Their latest track is Breathy Drops, a tribute to the bioluminescence of the Pacific Ocean and about giving into the unknown- something they achieve with a few drums pads, some synths, a drip- drop melody and a whispery vocal, and an acoustic guitar. Label boss Chris Coco said it was a track he could imagine Alfredo playing if he was still on the decks at the Cafe del Mar and it does sound exactly like that. Lovely stuff- buy it here. 

The tonal flipside of Breathy Drops is this, a GLOK/ Andy Bell remix of have you ever had a broken heart? by senses (all lower case) that came out at the end of May and which I missed posting back then. 

Like Florecer's track there's a West coast USA connection but this feels like the dark side of the Pacific as opposed to Florecer's pastel/ dayglo haze. Andy did his remix while getting over some West Coast jetlag and the track sounds a bit woozy and jetlagged, slow mo drums and bass, slowly dripping guitar lines and the voice asking the question in the title over and over... You can buy the EP digitally and on green 10" vinyl here. 

An Hour At Tak Tent

Tak Tent Radio is a Scottish based internet radio station that broadcasts all manner of interesting, experimental, leftfield and niche shows by a variety of guests. I've contributed guests mixes for a few years now and last weekend the latest Bagging Area Tak Tent emission went out, my eleventh. You can listen to it at the Tak Tent website here or at Mixcloud here. It's a chilled out dubby/ ambient/ Balearic affair, mostly music released this year but with a vintage Andrew Weatherall and David Harrow track thrown in, their sole recording as Planet 4 Folk Quartet (for Warchild in 1995). 

• M- Paths: Emerge
• Planet 4 Folk Quartet: Message To Crommie
• Richard Norris: Pagan Dub
• Sewell & The Gong: Passing Oort Clouds (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s Remix)
• Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s: Minus Shadows
• Psychederek: Hapi
• Spatial Awareness: Dream Food (SA Dub)
• Timothy J. Fairplay: Centurion Version
• Coyote: Every Forest Has A Shadow (Vanity Project Remix)
• KlangKollektor: Midnight Express
• Florecer: Hidden Thoughts

Hidden Thoughts

Florecer are a Californian duo, Allie Schulz and Alex Pasternak, who both surf and have a small homemade studio overlooking the Pacific where they make music to go with their lifestyle of surfing, trips down the coast to Mexico, yoga and meditation. It sounds idyllic- I've never done yoga but I know people who swear by it. They've just released a 12" single on Is It Balearic?, the Notts label run by the Coyote pair of Timm and Ampo. The single is led by the track Hidden Thoughts which wafts in gently, lightly coloured washes of synth, a pitter patter drum machine and then an ethereal vocal courtesy of Allie. A surf guitar line appears, a woodblock taps away at the back of the mix, a one note topline comes and goes, there is acres of space and echo and the shimmering feeling of warm drift...

There are three remixes, one each from Hitchhiker, Das Komplex and Ken Fan. The Hitchhiker remix is a little more uptempo, more pushy and with more bounce but still pretty laid back. Ken Fan strips it down, changes the feel and adds a totally new drum track, giving it a live/ jazz club feel. The Das Komplex remix is the one that has me at the moment, nine minutes and nine seconds of deconstructed electronic sound, a cinematic sound with an acidic undertow and a sun- soaked, cosmische vibe, Allie's vocal reduced to the line, 'lay your hands on me', the last syllable reverbed and looped into infinity. Hidden Thoughts is available digitally and on vinyl. Find it here.