Brief mentions each Sunday of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ When Arckatron released blango! v. 1.0 last year, his fantastical (and fantastic) instrumental hip-hop set, he promised an update that would make good on the 1.0 nomenclature. That update has arrived, blango! v. 2.0, breaking the original track, nearly 13 minutes long, into six constituent parts (with “actual track names”), and adding a bonus five-minute track, all lolloping downbeats and kitchen-clatter percussion, at a sedate 80 bpm.
https://arckatron.bandcamp.com/album/blango-v-20
▰ Karen Vogt’s album Losing the Sea is due out toward the end of February. The opening, title track, featuring the heavily concealed guitar of Guillaume Eymenier, is available for an advance listen. It blends shadowy drones with diaphonous vocals.
https://marenostrumlabel.bandcamp.com/album/losing-the-sea
▰ A beautiful live rendition by guitarist Jamie Stillway, abetted by a small pedal collection, of “Wood and Windows,” off her recent Lullaby for a Stranger album, one of my favorites of 2022.
▰ Spencer Tweedy’s drumprints vol. 1: 2301 collects 10 drum parts, ranging in length from 16 sections to just shy of five minutes. They’re funky and spare, and available for creative reuse thanks to an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons license — and they’re entirely listenable to on their lonesome, too. I’d love to hear DJ Krush go to town on the opening of track two, “DP2301 Contact Sheet 167.”
https://spencertweedy.bandcamp.com/album/drumprints-vol-1-2301