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12 Jul 2022

Fill - broadcasting SOAK - Sunday, June 19 2022, @ 106.7PBSFM

Fill two for June 2022 - playlist linkage. Exploring textural ambient with some singer/songwriter artistry amongst the mix verging into some experimental ambient and sharing some now global community concerns. Big thanks to Hannah for the opportunity.

Opening with an ever so gentle couple of melodies from Claire Deak & Tony Dupe, For Bernadette, and following, the plaintive solo harp of Mary Lattimore covering singer/songwriter/composer Bill Fay's Love is the Tune. I am unfamiliar with Claire Deak's work and being a local artist, well - I've been lost elsewhere. Tony Dupe may be familiar to readers of this blog, he recorded as Saddleback on the quietly sublime Preservation label, in the early 000's. You will have heard me play a number of artists with releases on Preservation on In the Quiet then-ago. What a pleasure to see Clair and Tony on the superb Lost Tribe Sound label, they share both a roster of aurally scenic artists and a design ethos in keeping with the aforementioned Preservation label. Mary's take on Love is the Tune is lovely. Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore created Ghost Forests back in 2018 on the Three Lobed recordings label, I played Between Two Worlds. Closing the first set we heard another Bill Fay cover, this time from local singer/songwriter Julia Jacklin, as part of the 7" Bill Fay series. Fay's version on the A-side and the cover on the B-side. Wow huh. Julia's version is totally sublime - kinda like a magnificent soaring bird.

A step into the Netherlands - with a foot in Australia, in the second set, beginning with a collaboration between local instrument maker/composer-musician Tim Catlin and Dutch composer-musician, Machinefabriek. They have collaborated on three albums to date, all released on the Gareth Hardwick curated Low Point label out of England - Koan is from their 2015, Whorls album. Staying in the Netherlands, I was pretty chuffed to see the reissue of Soccer Committee's self titled album from 2005 recently. A nom de plume of Mariska Baars, Soccer Committee is poignant album  of quiet songs accompanied by equally quiet instrumentation - lots of natural, slow decay. Spacious and introspective. Better still, the reissue comes with a Machinefabriek and a Wouter van Veldhoven remix not featured on the original album - big thanks to Moving Furniture Records for reissuing this treasure. Piipstjilling is a project featuring brothers Jan and Romke Kleefstra, Mariska Baars and Rutger Zuyderveldt. They explore textural experimental ambient music featuring the poetry of Friesan language poet Jan Kleefstra, we heard Storien from the 2017 album Fiif. We closed this set with a short, chiming piece by Magda Mayas with Tina Douglas, titled Point 1, from the recent ROOM40 release Objects of Interest.

The closing set opens with the music of contrabassist and composer Nick Tsiavos. Genuinely visionary, Nick's music melds old and new compositional and musical forms and are truly sublime creations. He is a national treasure, I mean that. Not lightly. His 2012 release One Hundred months, North of East is a masterpiece, displaying what  an instrument is capable of in the hands of an adept. We heard Night Sweat. Then we visited two benefit albums in support of the people of East Jerusalem and Yemen to close the set. The plaintive vocals of Jawaher Shofani intoned the Palestinian traditional folk song, Flood of Tears. Jawaher performs for weddings and funerals in Galilee and is (sensitively) accompanied by amongst others, Bansuri player Steve Gorn. The song was lifted from the Norwegian record label Kirkelig Kulturverksted compilation, A Time To Cry: A Lament Over Jerusalem. We closed with a track lifted from the Salaam For Yemen compilation, a cover of  The Cars, Drive - by Part Timer and Heidi Elva. It's devastating to know that all of us who use plastics and cars contribute to all of the pollution and conflicts occurring in all of the oil producing nations of this world. That is a tragedy. Fuck this. Truly.

Closing (with apologies to Adam Casey  - I had to fade and cut it short), performing as photo(sphere), Adam has released what he says is his first intentionally ambient album. As you'll hear on this track, slowly ascending and beautifully layered, glinting pitches combine with organ like tones to create a blissful entry into a becalmed, choral glade. The track - Impression in the Dunes (your dream body once lay). I play this album often to calm my challenged nerves and general state of mind when driving. (Otherwise, I join the madness and play my "Flip" playlist - that's another story and a whole'nother state of mind)


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