i take way too many flights for someone who is not a famous touring DJ, and i’m honestly not proud of it. it can be a pretty humbling experience though—enough time on air to look out the window and ponder. once you do it a handful of times, and more frequently, it strips the excitement. no need to pack a bag days in advance, no itinerary to follow, no people to meet. just raw-dog it instead, especially if you’ve got a busy mind like mine. carry a book you can pretend to read at times so you don’t look a little too crazy.

growing up, i hoarded everything: every first plane ticket to a new place, hotel check-in cards, lighters, tissues from cafes, coasters from bars, new decks of cards bought locally and used during trips, media files. i’d write down phrases friends would comment during a trip, thinking they were pretty funny and i dare not forget them at 60 years old. i definitely believed i’d need them to laugh about when we hang out at 60, our wrinkles and grey hair laughing at us.

the notes in my notes app are still fresh as if written yesterday, perhaps now a decade old, and those friendships don’t exist anymore either. i still giggle when i remember them, however. the absence of the person doesn’t make it less funny, and age shows you how to laugh at your horrors.

anyway, jotting this on an Aer Lingus flight, Berlin to Dublin. just popped out of a stormy, grey cloud. the surface beneath my wing looks dark grey, colours of the gloomy evening setting in. there’s a mixture of blues above with a slight twinkle, about five colours of the setting sun at the edge of the earth. the air hostess rolls in with her trolley and i’m eagerly up to get that Bewley‘s Irish breakfast tea for EUR 4. the tea is warm. this month of May has been colder than most Mays in the last five years.

for your pleasure

1/5 Belly Up by Moin
(alternative/ experimental)

what an excellent, excellent piece of work. i cannot stop listening to this album. it is absolutely on repeat. Moin‘s new capsule record serves as an antidote: chaotic, not subservient, and rebellious in a healthiest way. especially those percussions from Valentina Magaletti, layered atop the electro-acoustic magnetic forcefield that is Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead, who also perform as Raime.

playing with an undercurrent of characteristic dissonance, they come from the valley of the architects of future sound. tasteful amounts of aggression in the belly of the beast. (i missed their recent show in Berlin‘s Silent Green. an electroacoustic Berlin-based local band called ‚First Body‘ opened for them. i‘ve only heard rave reviews.)

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2/5 >>> by BEAK>
(experimental / post-rock)

slightly disrupted, slightly agitated. there’s a sci-fi pulse, apocalyptic overtones, krautrock-infused funk on this 2018 album from the Beak> and it is having a moment in my daily routine. the title itself ‚>>>‘ visually resembles three beaks lined together and on the album cover they sit inside a red hazard triangle like a cryptic warning.

three figures wearing a sort-of doctor beak masks appear in a handful of their artworks, definitely suggesting the presence of something sinister. if you don’t know about the outfit already, it’s a high-quality indulgence brought to you by Geoff Barrow (of Portishead), Billy Fuller (of the Sensational Space Shifters) and Will Young (of Moon Gangs). their discography is all off-kilter hits with the touch of nerves and you know by now where that sits on my tastebuds.

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3/5 An 424 (Expanded) by Trá Pháidín
(experimental, jazz, psychedelic)

scorched folklore bleeds into ghostly synths, seeping in disjointed, acrid, and ecstatic waves. distortion courses throughout this beautiful album by the nine-piece ensemble from Galway, Ireland. ‚An 424‘ takes its name from the bus that follows the Bóthar Chois Fharraige (R336), a route etched into the hearts of those in the South Conamara Gaeltacht. every composition on the record offers a playfully reimagined, absurd, psychogeographic rendering in sonic form of the landscape surrounding this journey as it hurtles along remote Galway’s coastline.

the disoriented Gaelic vocals sound like stripped-down revolutionary speeches or, at times, perhaps regular bus announcements. a countryside adventure collides with urban dread as electric tension simmers beneath the surface. the rhythms pick up and drop off, resembling the bus making its several stops along the way. for those who have only seen Galway in pictures, this politically and emotionally dense record dutifully helps paint images of Gaelic lives. (i have so much to say about this one but i will stop here for now, perhaps get a coffee with me in Ireland, where i kind-off reside at the moment, and i will tell you more about what i think)

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4/5 Get Serene by Lampland
(alternative/ indie rock)

a lovely new release from New York-based band Lampland, this one earns a sweetheart-shaped spot on the list for its unpretentious lyrics and soft-haze atmospheric instrumentation. band frontman Tommy Bazarian crafts sugary words of adolescent yearning, binding that lo-fi powered intimacy to carefully woven narratives of loss and transformation.

shimmery guitar riffs cascade through the mix while low-ends swell gently beneath, creating textures as supple as they come. the production breathes warm, each track unfolding like a half-remembered dream, floating effortlessly over the edge, never pushing too hard.

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5/5 The Devil by Flux Vortex on/& the Fresh Faces Part I
(electronic / breakbeat/ bass)

i’ve always been a devoted fan of the enigma that is Asha Putli, especially the jazzy singer’s hot and famous number The Devil Is Loose. set in very different altitudes, New Delhi’s Flux Vortex creates a twisted club-floor heater that captures the energy of its original source. the bass hits heavy on this one, holding onto the vibrant, vintage glamour of Asha Putli herself and that’s exactly what I love about it.

Prague’s YUKU is notorious for dropping some of the wildest sounds known to man, so I’m not even slightly surprised to find a collection of fascinating creatives featured in their newest Fresh Faces compilation. please dig your nails deep in.

emergency release on a Friday evening before the month ends and i just had to get to it. been so so so so busy with things you‘ll hear about in time. for now please enjoy. thank you for reading. write me a note. xox =)