Bandcamp Roulette is a feature from contributor Secat that scours Bandcamp for interesting, new, and under-the-radar releases. This edition features albums from Col. Warren, Indistinct voices over PA, and shauni (name might change).
Three genres, three moods, three very un-SEO-friendly artist names: just another day in the life here at the COUNTERZINE underground headquarters in Undisclosed Location, U.S.A.!
Col. Warren – ecco cemetery
Plunderphonic sewer vaporwave: as in, it crawled out of the storm drain and now it’s sitting on your front porch daring you to look away. Extremely direct in tone and style; refuses to pull a punch; undulates between your two earbuds, incessantly: what a wiggly little creature! I think of it like I would an old-fashioned telegram punctuated by the word STOP. Very interested in showing you its nooks and crannies, its chops and seams; will lead you down numerous fractal alleyways if you don’t watch your step. ecco cemetery is content simply to bask in the luxurious warm glow of the samples it is recontextualizing rather than waste your time with soupy overproduction. It is the panda: it eats, shoots, and leaves.
Listen if: you are standing on the deck of a cruise ship at 1:30 A.M. in your négligée and looking all windswept and interesting
Favorite Tracks: “you’re such a thing”, “en chemiqlés”
Indistinct voices over PA – Closing credits // Patterns OST excerpts
Four tracks scraped out of context from a full soundtrack made by the artist for an unreleased immersive VR dome horror film, Patterns, that apparently featured cymatics, ferrofluids, photogrammetry, and “pioneering ambisonic sound processes”. These concepts can all be felt palpably in the final musical product: the noises are freakish and all-encompassing, sweeping murderously around the stereo field in a manner clearly designed for intensive headphone listening. It’s all achingly close to being totally immersive; the mystery of the full VR experience that accompanied the music lingers heavily over this music to varying effect, and, occasionally, I found myself quite frustrated at not having any visual context to what I was hearing. Well worth a listen, because it is very good; but, it is also difficult to detach from some glorious vision of what might have been.
Listen if: you’re a haunted house employee and you’re finally on your crummy 15-minute lunch break but you can’t afford to lose your immersion in the spooky character you’re playing
Favorite Track: “patterns III (first draft)”, “ghouls (a séance)”
shauni (name might change) – Demos
Firstly: I hope shauni (name might change) never changes that name.
Secondly: What is this? What is this doing on a nondescript Bandcamp page? This is impeccable. Forlorn, dark, romantic trip-hop-y glitch pop (trip-pop?) from Paris: a cauldron full of still, glassy crude oil. Think Baths; think ODAE; think Junior Boys, but melancholic. An excess of black bile. Quite expressive. Might be in need of a haircut.
Sometimes, the really excellent stuff I find leaves me a little lost for words, which is annoying, of course: but, it’s a fun process to fumble, to hunt around for what phrases might somehow transcribe the way the music makes you feel. Without adornment: Demos is good, and I like it a lot. Give it a few spins.
Listen if: the wind is howling
Favorite Tracks: “Wolfskin”, “The Hooks”
Another three down . . . How many more to go? Sheesh, your guess is as good as mine.
Secat is a musician and writer based in Houston, Texas. To see more of their work, you can follow them on Twitter (@secatsecat) or check out their personal blog at secatsecat.home.blog.
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