2024 Music Enjoyer Pt. 14
Psychogeographic Exploration Radio
Welcome to Psychogeograhic Exploration Radio (PGEX) — Dedicated to delving deep into the mental terrain all around & within us via the medium of sound. Let’s dive in.
Graham Simpson - Electrical Storm at the Microstation
Although perhaps best known for their Dungeon Synth genre releases, Italian label Heimat Der Katastrophe (HDK) also releases a frankly staggering variety of other kinds of music, including this absolute gem of an album from synth maestro Graham Simpson. He’s got four (4!) albums out this year alone, each fascinating and different, but this one’s my personal favorite. A bit like an enchanted 80s fantasy film soundtrack you borrowed from a recovering jazz-wizard’s trans-dimensional VHS library.
Greg Foat - The Rituals of Infinity
This is the third time Greg Foat has come up on this 2024 Music Enjoyer series, and that’s not even everything he’s released this year. The Rituals of Infinity is a full-blown Jazz Wizard Fantasy in the best way. Several track titles & clearly loads of inspiration are drawn from classic fantasy stories (check the release notes on Bandcamp) — the sense of adventure & imagination shines through magnificently across the whole album.
H.A.N.K. - The Big Melt
Music From Memory continues to amaze me with every new release — truly one of the great labels of the world. In this case, we have a mind-blowingly good collaboration between Nick Hoppner and Alex Kassian (whose deliciously dubbed out reworking of E2-E4 with Mad Professor featured in the Balearic Beach BBQ episode of our 2024 Music Enjoyer series). The Big Melt is, appropriately, a big melty head-trip of an album that alloys elements of dub, psych, jazz, ritual trance rhythms, and reality-warping synth textures into an intoxicating sonic elixir.
Hari Sima & Minim - Fluvius
Dream-ritual synth-realms of wonder from Hari Sima & Minim on Abstracke Records (a reassuringly constant source of adventurous audio enlightenments).
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - The Closest Thing To Silence
Orbiting somewhere well beyond the Fourth World jazz aesthetics of Jon Hassell, I’m not sure whether to call it Fifth World or say they’ve skipped well past even that. Ariel Kalma, Jerimiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer have conjured up a psychogeographic odyssey for the intrepid adventurer of imaginary sound-worlds.
Precipitation & V. Kristoff - Zipair
Ranging from the vast glacial fields of alien moons to the bright realms of polychromatic light-beings, this album from Precipitation & V. Kristoff is magic.
Voyage Futur - Unseen Portal
This is one of those perfect examples of an album whose cover describes exactly what the music does. A portal into an unseen realm, gleaming with exotic worlds rich in wonders, beckoning & beguiling sojourners such as yourself into their depths. Even better, if you find delights within, there is…another whole album that’s honestly just as brilliant.
X.Y.R. - Middle Of Nowhere
X.Y.R. is one of those artists that I’ll always pounce on when I see a new release — it’s a policy which has served me well for years now, and one which this fresh album on Abstracke Records encourages me to continue for the foreseeable future. People throw the word ‘hypnagogic’ around, but there’s something about the sonic elements X.Y.R. tends to pick out that feel like nodding off during a train ride and suddenly you realize your existence is overlapping multiple planes of reality.
Raphael Roginski - Zaltys
Another masterful set of human-guitar mind-meld dream-retrievals from Polish composer Raphael Roginski. I first fell in love with their whole sound a few years ago with Talan (which is totally amazing in its own right, and Electron in particular is one of my favorite songs in recent memory). There is an intensity to the emotions in his playing that sounds wholly unique to my ears. Don’t sleep on this one.
Andy Aquarius - Forest Grimoire
Andy Aquarius is one of my absolute favorite discoveries of the year (as mentioned on the Empathic Overload Recovery Kit episode of 2024 Music Enjoyer). In Forest Grimoire, we follow the gentle harp-wizard into a hidden sylvan glade and idyll for a moment under the spell of forest wildlife with live-improvised harp & voice. Here I will leave you for this year, my friends. May your 2025 find you ready for whatever comes next.