qoa ~ sauco

qoa ~ sauco (leaving records, 2024)

SAUCO is a fertile and bracing voyage into the Argentinian wilderness, a journey both mournful and healing—an effort to trace what has been lost, what remains, and what might return. Each of SAUCO’s nine tracks draws its name and inspiration from a lifeform (be it plant, animal, lichen, insect) native to QOA’s homeland. These songs are carefully crafted offerings to their namesakes: attempts to study, honor, and convey the essence of the thing. ~ leaving

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Qoa is an example of how "neo new age" music differs from "classic" new age music in my understanding ~ when old new age looked for reuniting humans with nature, it was usually made through making inviting music to play along the sounds of nature and they could definitely go well together but were usually each a thing of its own. while neo new age tends to make music sound like nature itself, not imitating it, but revealing its truest form ~ free flowing, iridescent, unchained from the straight squared utilitarian forms which it usually has taken throughout the 20th century. not that it was never done in other types of music, but modern new age ~ well, actually Qoa here, on this record ~ seems to be closest to what can be called "ecological" music because instead of teaching a lesson about responsibilities, it makes the sound to express Nature with its very form and movement. instead of learning about some important facts, you're invited to feel it. to experience the world through how lichens do it. or trees, or a flower, or a bee ~ of course, imagined through a human abilities, yet, in case of Qoa, feeling quite authentic because her approach has something animalistic, shamanic, something which is hard to capture through any rational analysis. you simply feel it or not. but if you know at least a few words from a language which nature speaks, you will recognise the taste. you may experienced it on a hike on a starry night, on some open-air festival or maybe in your back yard while tripping on mushrooms and actually, truthfully touching grass for the first time in your adult life... or maybe you was born with this feeling and these organic languages of moving along with the sunlight, rooting towards the underground water streams and seeding, sprouting, pollinating... all are familiar to you. but even in this case you may find yourself in the midst of concrete walls, not seeing the horizon for days and wondering about some funny imaginary numbers through a little screen on your palm. and only because Nature speaks some weird, silicon languages as well. but they shouldn't be louder than others, than of those who inhabited this lovely plane(t) long before we started changing it. maybe music like this is our last chance to finally learn these languages because this music is a ultimate translator.

listen ~ support ~ cs rip

ozone

 

ozone ~ skyryks (golden ratio frequencies, 2022)

 "throughout skyryks, dark comes to light and the harmony of the cosmos reflects itself in an infinite recursion to find a mirror of your mind in the forms and sounds of music. So lay back, close your eyes, and feel your body dissipate and merge as one with the Ozone." ~ golden ratio frequencies

warped around all of the observable dimensions and inevitably going beyond them with buoyant acceleration, this sonic propulsion of an album gently takes your astral body by the scruff of the neck and throws it into an infinite ocean of melted bliss. carefully crafted with lo-fi samplers and tape-saturated synths, this album creates a world somewhere in the middle between Leaving Records' new-aged electronics and Not Not Fun's rituals from the fourth (or maybe even fifth in this case?) world. intense journey, yet, at the same time, relaxing and re-vitalizing. could've been an effervescent multi-vitamin pill, if it wasn't a cassette tape. but that's good ~ because that way you can enjoy it again and again, without any substantial side effects. and you just have to buy it once.

Skyryks is an obvious reverence to the golden era of new psychedelia, cassette revival, blogspots and mediafire links with new age tape rips, but made with so much love and dedication that it turned into a sonic hologram, where every part has something from all those other parts, influences and inspirations, yet remains a coherent whole, refracting all these sound streams just like a powerful gravitational lens ~ so we can see the whole galaxies inside it.

listen ~ support ~ cassette rip

 

tegu

tegu ~ owl island (not not fun, 2024)

Across 53 minutes, the music moves between séance and visitation, alternately lurking and expectant, bathed in a sheen of starlight and streetlights. Fellow voyagers Wave Temples and X.Y.R. join for a pair of smoky, cosmic cameos, but otherwise this is a solitary affair – locked in, looking up, mapping new constellations in the expanding void. ~ britt brown, not not fun

owl island is a place far somewhere in the universe which the US label Not Not Fun has been meticulously crafting for past 20 years ~ hazed fourth-world utopianism, full of exotic paysages which are more and more becoming a pure fantasy on our densely populated planet. though it's not necessarily Earth where Tegu sounds are taking us, since the music on the tape has no signs of humans ~ even the ever-present drums here sound more as natural phenomena in their monotonous propulsion, while well-rounded synth melodies which support them probably are metabolic product of some exquisite air-purifying plant family. there is no pathway in these thickets but nothings too dangerous as well, maybe only the possibility of dissolving in this inviting greenery. is this paradise gardens? (as the cover art suggests) or it's a fresh start for this spark of sentience once dazzled by its own greatness?

listen ~ support ~ cassette rip

 

never temple

never temple ~ throwing around an invisible ball (golden ratio frequencies, 2021)

An enigmatic duo that traverses the multiverse of time and space, Jaclyn Blumas (Doomsquad) and Alexandra Duvekot (Blue Crime) have been living in and presenting the world of the NEVER TEMPLE since 2018. We at Golden Ratio Frequencies first encountered their hallucinatory dream world during the 2019 edition of 24hr Drone festival at Basilica Hudson New York, where we were bewitched by their entrancing midnight ritual of haunting synths, ethereal cello, otherworldly voices and fantastical costumes and have been left hypnotised under their spell ever since. ~ GRF

british label Golden Ratio Frequencies is known for its love to all things drone ~ from guitar or analog rawness to digital new-agey bliss, quite often organically combined and always easily transporting you out of this realm. on this tape we have a documentation of url performance of Never Temple from 24-hour long drone festival which took place during the covid days (feels like forever ago). it has a taste of guided meditation tape, with the mesmerizing voice of Jaclyn Blumas reciting some trippy affirmations, though it's never reaches the level of cheesiness those old affirmation cassettes had. instead, it only makes you drown deeper in the thick overlays of synth and organ drones with some lysergic effects happening in the culmination points. the whole thing resembles a ritual which purpose is to reprogram your brain into a more dreamy state of functioning, to make the parking-lot-reality a little bit less persuading ~ as it has no walls after all, especially when you're throwing an invisible ball over them.

listen ~ support ~ youtube [cs rip]

lamina

lamina ~ sueños aquáticos (mappa, 2024)

under the mythical name Lamina, the aquatic creations of french artist Clarice Calvo-Pinsolle gain their own existence, free of any determinist norms and square-based logics. "Aquatic Dreams" is a very apt name for music like this ~ edited, collaged, re-composed recordings of water sounds indeed turn into dreams here, sometimes fairy-like, sometimes nightmarish (probably when they enter urban water supply systems) but never repeat themselves. even though music has a taste of electronics, it still remains organic and fluid, spahe-shifting phenomena so familiar and yet so strange. 

in connection to music, Clarise creates ceramic sculptures, which she fills with water and then makes recordings of their interaction ~ it's really captivating process, so i strongly recommend checking out her website and instagram, her installation work is a whole mysterious world of its own.

listen ~ support ~ youtube

osaki seichi

osaki seichi ~ the tale of a long forgotten sunken city
(the tidal charm, 2022)

this lovely ambient album from japanese artist was lucky to get picked up by the youtube algorithm a couple of years ago, which gained him immediate popularity in small circles of japanese-style ambient/environmental music. later issued on cassette by dutch Tidal Charm, it was sold out in mere hours (though there's a rumor about reissue). the album tells a story of submerging into the depths and sounds respectively ~ sparse aquatic tones get murkier as we go through these long-form compositions, even though never reaching dark ambient music territories. the mood here is rather melancholic and pensive, yet still melodic and relaxed, giving a good analogy of a sunken city being a symbol of subconscious regions, which our awareness is not always able to reach. probably the idea here is that one should follow a magical creature like a siren in order to reach those depths (i.e. following your intuition?). this mystical vibe permeates the album way more than resemblance to the classical kanyo ongaku examplesm even though their aftersounds are heard here as well. but this is music of inner environments, even though it's obvious they're always reflective of outer world ~ and vice versa again.  

artist bandcamp ~ youtube (original upload) ~ youtube (cassette rip) ~ label bandcamp

new mexican stargazers

 

new mexican stargazers ~ the oasis (self-released, 2023)

enigmatic (hypnagogic!) New Mexican Stargazers is a crepuscular cult of those who still deliver some juicy slices of the tropical utopia once discovered by Ferraro, Clark and Lieven Martens and many other heroes of this blog. a natural blessing, this project is a keeper of the portal to this fourth world dimension, through which our current cyberpunk dystopia doesn't feel that much overwhelming or forever lasting. there are oases in every desert, and you just found one. even if it turns into a mirage, your mana gets restored here.

direct cassette rip

+ 

be sure to check out two of his tapes for Not Not Fun
(sold out but some are up on discogs)

and the whole artist's bandcamp!

and if you're into vaporwave, then go here