Spanish EBM, late Summer Italo, knowing New Romantic curveballs via Music From Memory, twlight tape loops from Basinski and ambient transmissions from Luke Slater’s Spacestation Ø.
Lewie Day is coaxed out of hiding for a self-titled record on the Music From Memory offshoot.
By now, we’ve come accustomed to Music From Memory delivering on-point reissues of obscure material that’s devilishly difficult to easily pigeonhole. While it would be fair to say that Jamie Tiller, Tako Reyenga and Abel Nagengast’s Red Light Records-affiliated imprint tends towards the Balearic, the very nature of that “sound” – arguably more open to individual interpretation than any other designated musical style – means that they can pretty much release what they please.
Another summer, another impeccable interpretation of the season from the increasingly masterful and ever-more distinct Music from Memory. The auteur this time is Michal Turtle, a Croydon-born musician and producer who spent the heart of the 1980s making subtle, enlightened music. The label unleashed Turtle’s Are you Psychic? earlier this year – I don’t know about you, but the ‘do bright lights bother you?’ whispered in a spooked-out domestic daze on the title has stayed with me ever since. Now here comes a full retrospective of his 1980s tracks which really does sound fresh.
The English producer’s public and private output will be collated on the upcoming 2LP Phantoms Of Dreamland.
There’s little doubt that Music From Memory has made a big impression since slipping out its’ first release back in 2013. While there has been the odd brand new gem – the Gigi Masin, Young Marco and Jonny Nash collaboration as Gaussian Curve, most notably – the label’s primary focus was to reissue the obscure and overlooked music that founders Abel Nagengast, Jamie Tiller and Tako Reyenega had collectively and individually discovered. While this remit leaves enough wriggle room for sideways moves – see the quirky lo-fi synth-soul of Napoleon Cherry, say, or the epic experimentalism of Michael Turtle’s brilliant “Are You Psychic?” – the label is often at its best when exploring baggier, looser, dreamier and more loved-up pastures.
The Amsterdam label will issue a blissful slice of late ’80s Japanese pop on 12″ next year – preview here.
A diverse range of archival releases profiled from Hawaiin electro-ritualistic music to sci-fi loveletters Jam City via post modern Philly funk, early Legowelt and Australian wizardry.
The oddball funk of the Philadelphia artist features on the upcoming retrospective Walk Alone.
Tako Reyenga and Jonny Nash are back together for a new Sombrero Galaxy record due on Second Circle.
In recent times, the art of crate digging has been taken to dizzying new heights. In an age when discovering something strange and unlikely is as easy as randomly browsing Discogs, professional record collectors have been forced to look deeper, harder and longer to discover genuinely unknown gems. This, of course, has always been part of the fun for those who run obscurist reissue labels – think Dark Entries, Emotional Rescue, Athens of the North and People’s Potential Unlimited, for starters – but you do sometimes wonder how much there is out there still to discover.
The Venetian artist’s label, The Bear On The Moon, will grant his sought-after LP Wind a new lease of life next month.
We excitedly present some 80-minutes of music pieced together by the Redlight Records and Music From Memory man.
The Amsterdam label focus on the early ’80s work of San Franciscan Joel Graham for the first release in their new 12″ series.
This month’s best picks head through downtown New York circa ’83 to admire the earliest Editions Mego offerings, highlights the latest Dark Entries discovery, peeks into the shadows of the American underground and celebrates troubadours for the age of surveillance.
Vito Ricci is not a name many people will recognize, yet highlighting the work of forgotten or overlooked artists is rapidly becoming Music From Memory’s raison d’etre. While Abel Nagengast, Jamie Tiller and Tako Reyenga’s label has not shied away from releasing fresh material – see last year’s superb Gaussian Curve album for proof – it’s their constantly on-point retrospectives for which the Amsterdam-based imprint is rightly renowned. Bar a smattering of heads and crate diggers, few had heard of Gigi Masin, Leon Lowman or Joan Biblioni until they got the Music From Memory treatment. All were musicians with a knack for making beautiful, emotive music, whose undeniably obscure records were criminally overlooked on their initial release.