Myrkur – Folkesange

It’s simply a folk album. And it blows my heart up.

I like many things that’s related to folklore as narrative, spiritualism, and different forms of art. I love tales, mythology, traditions, rituals, masks, songs of heroic deeds, folk artwork, traditional instruments, the spiritual connection to nature, Earth, blood, flesh.

I think people would assume me to be a full-on technocrat because I take stand on transhumanism, utmost use of technological advancements, and generally admire achievements of intelligence. And that’s true. But where I position myself is the intersection of these two worlds, sometimes referred to as technopaganism or technoshamanism.

As such I despise all forms of using technology against nature, including erasing wildlife to be superseded by the footprint of human civilization, industrialized farming to serve consumerist gluttony, and warfare where intelligence is exploited to fight against itself. However I have no problem for example with hunting or farming for food and personal consumption as a part of life, as an element of the cycle of nature.

These are thoughts I get when listening to Myrkur. It is an enchanting soundscape to close my eyes to and think that I am an eagle soaring in the bright blue sky, feeling the wind brushing my wings, looking down at a vast forest, seeing the dashing of deers, the wolf pack chasing after them, and finding the thin stream of smoke rising from a couple of chimneys of a small human settlement in the distance.

This kind of music keeps returning to my life occasionally and every time we meet I fall in love. The last and most memorable occurrence was when I got to know Heilung – the live recording of Krigsgaldr still gives me goosebumps any time I watch it.

Onipa – We No Be Machine

African world music meets afro-futurism. The essence of this tradicional instruments meet booty shake electronics shows well in the track Sohaa Gb3k3 – that’s a favorite, hilarious but in a good way.

Skalpel – Highlight

Easy listening nu jazz. I rarely listen to this genre nowadays but it’s nice to come back to something that brings back memories of the Couch Records of dZihan & Kamien, the !K7 of Tosca, the Sonar Kollektiv of Jazzanova. Smells like sitting on a terrace on a summer night with warm breeze moving around the little paper umbrella pinned to a slice of lemon sitting on the top of a gin tonic and having no problems at all in the world.

I remember travelling to Vienna, Austria with a group of music journalist to report from a concert and during the night ride home talking about what’s hot in music, and there was this guy saying that nu jazz is the best music genre in the world and will stay forever. It was 2006. I wonder if he was right: looking at Skalpel underlines that it’s indeed here even if not topping the charts although it never have done so. Being the cornerstone music of the ruin pub revolution in Budapest was never a Billboard chart defining attribute for a genre I guess.

I remember a guy from Byron Bay, Australia who I quite randomly met at a coffee place in a small town in Hungary and who told me he had a vinyl and surf shop by the oceanside. His main reason to travel to Central Europe every year was to seek out new nu jazz records. That and pretty Hungarian girls. Anyhow, his favorite label was Couch Records, we got along quickly. He ended up leeching most of my music collection and went on to Vienna with a long list of new record ideas to collect for his shop.

Many people were crazy about nu jazz 15-20 years ago, it was an underground music movement that I never understood why stayed underground. Probably the easy listening tunes are too perfectly fit for mindless chilling on a beach and in popular use it just stuck to that lounge setting and noone really paid attention.

Four Tet – Sixteen Oceans

Another collection of beautifully sophisticated downtempo electronics from Four Tet. At certain points I tend to think this record loses some of the uniqueness that I attribute to Four Tet, but at the end of the day these songs are still so full that love and soul that I feel pouring out of the headphones while listening to them. And in that sense I distinctly feel that I’m still listening to a Four Tet album.

Love Salad plays all the notes that I’m looking for here, this is what sounds like Four Tet in 2020 for me: long minimal beat prologue, heartfilling melody, shows the past, represents the present. There can be Bibios and Apparats out there playing along similar strings but this guy still takes it home best for me. Also and maybe most importantly the upbeat airiness that I feel so well in this track is what defines his sound right now, and it’s quite a long journey from when As Serious As Your Life was my favorite track in 2003. The triphop heavy thoughts and blue moods are overshadowed (or overlit rather) by a breeze of fresh air and the ease of motion that enables a carefree dance. Even in a track called Something in the Sadness it’s just rolling and moving and jingling and it’s dropping the burden and not carrying it around. I love this Four Tet now.

Harmed – From Day One

Ranging between metalcore, melodic hardcore, and mathcore. It’s like a little boy brother of Meshuggah who is still listening to some Slipknot and post-hardcore emo stuff. This album is acutally from 2017, I just came across this now because of a new single (Metacortex), which is way more all-out industrial infused metal, but both their earlier and new songs are fantastic. I wonder, which will be the future direction once a new record is out.

Tobias – 1972

Four mid-tempo techno tracks from four angles, very different approaches and sounds, what connects them is the trippy feeling of them all. First it’s bouncing back and forth between ears in stereo, then it’s a phaser modulating all over the place, later it takes an epic hallucinogenic journey ala The Orb with a spoken word meditation guide. A more chilled and easy to listen choice for an Ostgut Ton release.

Anti-Flag – 20/20 Vision

Good punk rock with a proper average track length below three minutes. And just like any politically charged punk rock in 2020 it’s an all around anti-Trump statement. Coming from Anti-Flag who self-admittedly “have actively chosen to not attack presidents directly”. It’s another record in the long list of such albums spanning now across so many different genres.

Phase Fatale – Scanning Backwards

It sounds like a classic industrial-EBM album from many years ago getting a remaster in 2020 with a techno heart. Sounds like an abandoned factory, heavy beats, greasy and steamy noises, distorted synths, slow marching rhythms. It is something not new but refreshing to hear. This could only possibly come from Berlin, has a cosy home at Ostgut Ton.