Bandcamp Roulette is a feature from contributor Secat that scours Bandcamp for interesting, new, and under-the-radar releases. This edition features albums from Tunnel One, Agus Garcia, and Midpoint Union.
Bandcamp Roulette is back on the lightwaves after a brief break! I’m easing back into the usual workflow with some short and sweet projects. Here, have a look:
Tunnel One – skattag
Of all the projects I’ve heard that self-describe as “braindance,” skattag might be the closest in sound to the kind of hypothetically fussy and intellectual music I audiate when I see the term. It’s awkward, uncanny, and unsettling – a barrage of intimidating, offset clickfuzz and halogen flares – it does very much feel like it is designed to be tapping into some weird higher order of my cognition. 5 minutes of activation. My brain is doing the Lindy Hop. I might be a sleeper agent now. Keep a close eye on your REM sleep patterns.
Listen if: you have the courage to say the phrase “intelligent dance music” out loud amongst your peers
Favorite Track: “sjwip sjwap”
Agus Garcia & Eme – Hypnosis EP
Supremely slinky, blessedly uncomplicated house beats to stick your head out of a sunroof to. Works in a fantastically esoteric sense; I hear and I do not question. I have no interest in dissecting. Whatever parts there are to this assemble behind closed doors to create an inscrutable whole. Intoxicating. Cool. Mood-setting. Smoke a cigarette, interestingly. You are sitting in the darkest corner of the nightclub. You are an informant for a nosy private eye who doesn’t even know the half of what they’re getting into. You flash a coy smile. You’re holding all the cards; everything becomes a means to your end.
Listen if: you are on a posh (docked) yacht and trying (unsuccessfully) to gracefully fish the olive out of your 3rd martini of the evening
Favorite Track: “Hypnosis (Rowlanz Remix)”
Midpoint Union – New Turn
Dreamy, creamy, sweet dreampop nothings from Portugal. A pound of cotton candy (which weighs exactly as much as a pound of steel, a pound of feathers, a pound of . . . ) that melts and diffuses when exposed to water. It exists for a reason, and that reason is to make me feel OK about where I’m at and how my life is going at 10 P.M. on a Tuesday night. Joyous in a way that lots of things have the potential to be; the pleasure of eating a snack cake you used to love as a kid and finding it every bit as good as you remember (maybe a little sweeter, though). Maybe it’s a little disposable, a little slight; but, good grief, must everything linger?
Listen if: you’re flying into Seattle in the mid-afternoon; you pack your clothes in a guitar case
Favorite Tracks: “Forgotten Places”, “Perfectly Unfinished”, “Making Bounds”
That’ll do for today. Try to keep your socks on, O listener!
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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