Sollbruchstelle

Jas Shaw (of Simian Mobile Disco) has released three EPs this year, each seven tracks long and each named Sollbruchstelle (German for breaking point). Due to lockdown as a result of Covid and a diagnosis of a rare disorder which leaves him without properly functioning antibodies he has shut himself away, eating, sleeping and producing music in one room. The result is twenty one tracks written and played using synths and keyboards, minimalist and ambient (foreground ambient not background ambient), repeating patterns and motifs, detours into neo- classical, mechanical textures but emotive too. 

You can buy all three at Bandcamp. Sollbruchstolle 1 Become The Scenic Route is here, Sollbruchstolle 2 Absent And Incorrect is here and Sollbruchstolle 3 Snacks Of Carelessness is here, only £3 each. There's a lot to take in in one sitting which is why I suspect he's split them across three separate releases over three months but there's much to get out of them too- introspective and reflective as you'd expect given Jas' situation but outward looking at the same time. 

Love And Illusions

Daniel Avery has recently added some new tracks to his already extensive back catalogue. I'm a big fan. Walking round in the dark recently, getting my government endorsed exercise, with last year's Love + Light album in my headphones has given me a new appreciation of the album, it's sounds and textures and all that cavernous reverb. 

There's a Jas Shaw remix of Think About What You Love (from 2018's Song For Alpha album) available for free at Bandcamp. Jas was one half of Simian Mobile Disco. He worked on the track, left it unfinished and unlabelled on his computer and found it a couple of years later and used it as the starting point for a new drum sound. Strange, dusty, minimal techno, bent out of shape. 

To go alongside this Daniel's also made this available at Bandcamp, a Teodor Wolgers reworking of a song from his Illusion Of Time album from this time last year, an album he did with Alessandro Cortini, and which soundtracked the descent into the first lockdown for me. This remix is a beautiful, soothing blur of white noise and piano.