jaxcheese

screenshot of the bandcamp app showing albums I just purchased: - About Ghosts by Mary Halvorson - Music Has The Right To Children by Boards of Canada - ASTRONAUTILUS loopbreaker by neozoid - Type Expert Volume Alpha by Maxo - Stress Fracture [Celeste - "Resurrections"] by DiscoCactus - Tulpa by Charmaine Lee - will the media depict us as lovers? (from the film Divine Hammer) by smiling broadly - The Magic We Invented by You Are Something True - Almatetra Original Soundtrack by Saria Lemes

it's bandcamp friday!

segagaga and moonlight syndrome patches in 2026 is going to change the game. that was like #1 and 2 on my wishlist

lightning round. great classics I heard for the first time this year that made a big impression on me:

Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic
Suicide - Suicide
Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
Squarepusher - Feed Me Weird Things
Regina Spektor - 11:11
Sweet Trip - velocity : design : comfort
Joanna Newsom - Ys

that's all, thanks for reading! bandcamp friday is coming in just a couple days, and that's where you can buy almost all of these albums and directly support the artists!!

next year and every year, you can take control of your own experience of music and make your own memories...

proggish rhythmic wonkiness, skillful free improvisation. kind of astonishing that it all comes together! "myanx" is the track I've been showing everyone that has a concise and potent dose of it all.

honey from a winter stone, by Ambrose Akinmusire 5 track album

Ambrose Akinmusire - honey from a winter stone ambroseakinmusire.bandcamp.com/album/honey-...

really deft integration of some things that should be incongruous--grooving new-jazz-hip-hop, electronic ambience, strings (beautifully recorded again) & piano arranged a la modernist chamber music--

Disquiet, by The Necks 4 track album

The Necks - Disquiet thenecksau.bandcamp.com/album/disquiet

ok, it's rymcore & I'm one of many posers who just discovered this group. but I'm also a noted minimalism enjoyer and this pushed my buttons. beautiful textures. so thoughtfully paced--the improvisation stays compelling over v long tracks

excitingly, on this record, this physicality collides with some great digital post-processing, reconciling the electronic and the bodily poles into a sort of noise music like nothing I have ever heard before. (though I admit I have no idea what the state of the art is in this area)

captured the sounds of her mouth/throat/chest as she virtuosically exercised them. it is a sorta neurotic habit of mine to alienate my Dry, Calculating Mind (& thus my music listening) from the terrible hot wetness inside of my body, which was briefly made impossible at that show. really horrifying!

Tulpa, by Charmaine Lee 8 track album

Charmaine Lee - Tulpa charmainelee.bandcamp.com/album/tulpa

& this is "thrillingly physical" in a different way. I saw a memorable, profoundly visceral (I mean this word more than any other time I have used it) performance from lee at another non-event last year, in which an array of microphones--

I saw @sarahhennies.bsky.social, the percussionist on this record, perform a couple years ago at my first @non-event.bsky.social shortly after I started working in boston. a really memorable occasion, and it has been a joy to follow her work since then. hoping for more from this group!

I read this album was assembled from pieces recorded & shared remotely. the cohesion of the results is impressive (way beyond much of the "covid music" I can recall) & appeals to my affinity for "internet musicking".
all this aside I ordered a record partially because the cover design is so cool.

Bitterviper, by Bitterviper 4 track album

Bitterviper - Bitterviper bitterviper.bandcamp.com/album/bitter...

this one too is thrillingly physical, its drones punctuated softly by string rearticulations, harmonic resonances, little fluctuations in the response of a cymbal or bar (and at other times more harshly by percussive interjections)

the drummer-bandleader was once my professor, and I got to witness this being recorded in my old college's chapel after a frantic after-work drive-and-dine through the pouring spring rain.

perfs here is a compelling reminder that microtones also belong in the domain of flesh and improvisation. breathtaking!
"the fallen leaves" reminded me of some favs by waking vision & alfa mist--ostensibly more "accessible" works, but the groove, the stark motivic clarity, the drama, it's all here.

Hemlocks, Peacocks, by Will Mason Quartet 7 track album

@willmasonmusic.com et al - newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/hemloc...

I guess I tend to think of (western) microtonal music as programmed or else intricately, painstakingly laid out and performed in the manner of automatons. the boldly evident physicality of the (v impressive, understated)--

once again the live violin bits are beautifully played and recorded. don't want to downplay the originality by making comparisons, but "grummuth" sounds like it could be a lost golden-age mitsuda track.

Wyrmhall: Brush and Banter (Original Game Soundtrack), by Tancla 20 track album

@tancla.dog - Wyrmhall: Brush and Banter soundtrack tancla.bandcamp.com/album/wyrmha...

this is the other soundtrack I really enjoyed this year. wonderful orchestration with a totally distinct instrumental palette. really pretty themes and strong harmonic sense.

shogo nomura is such a perfect pick to take the helm of this series. perhaps not every game can sound like this or use music this way, but I wish this level of care & invention was more common. don't miss rolling live ost just because the game's apple exclusive, it might be the stronger of the two!

Katamari Damacy Rolling LIVE & Once Upon A KATAMARI soundtracks

what a surprise & a blessing to get two great new katamari soundtracks in one year. rich+eclectic arrangements, sweet melodies, great performances, clever+loving treatments of classic themes. indie ingenuity with aaa production values

"tower" and the closer were instant hits for me. it seems this year's theme is nicely arranged and recorded strings which I could not be happier about. in may I got to see her live too! she was solo but it was a lovely performance nonetheless.

Luminescent Creatures, by Ichiko Aoba 11 track album

Ichiko Aoba - Luminescent Creatures ichikoaoba.bandcamp.com/album/lumine...

it's a delight that she's carrying on with the expanded instrumentation. the arrangements are pleasingly simple+natural extensions of her (truly exceptional) harmonic and textural language on the guitar.

I don't think it's super groundbreaking and maybe people who know this genre better than me would not see anything extremely remarkable here. but I was quite charmed by it and by their unassuming stage presence

Half Life, by Collars 8 track album

Collars - Half Life collarsband.bandcamp.com/album/half-l...

on that same trip I saw this band open for exciting!!excellent!!, a wonderful lineup for a much too small crowd. impressive debut album! great performances all around, really cool and catchy guitar parts, fun heartfelt songwriting

an album for fm lovers and nonbelievers! there's something profound about it getting a run on analog media.
"ships passing" might be the prettiest melody I heard all year. this summer I hauled my viola across the country and hacked through it with him at the piano! unforgettable

singularly chiptuneishly concerned with Pushing the Hardware--everything is there to serve the compositions. it both reveres and transcends its chip: I love how plain unabashed opna drums often poke through impossible textures, to which the lame pcm channel is fearlessly made an equal contributor.

Past Future Present Memory, by Hunter Van Brocklin 10 track album

@samplemance.rs - Past Future Present Memory h-v-b.bandcamp.com/album/past-f...

my dear friend HVB brings warm sentimental melodism to the cold cold YM. these are some of the coolest sounds I've ever heard made by an fm synthesizer and yet I think I'm most impressed with how the album is not--

pretty original sound! it has the diy spirit but it's actually a quite sophisticated production, executed pretty convincingly. more great string arrangements too. thanks for showing me this one go to the author of the next:

Apiary, by Gingerbee 6 track album

Gingerbee - Apiary gingerbee.bandcamp.com/album/apiary

here the genre blend is intense enough to be played for laughs a few times. they hit a lot of gradations between samba-infused songwriter pop & screaming chiptune rock but they also like to jump from one extreme to the other, smash em together

I like that her samba pastiche seems v studied. great performances. a genre blend gentler than others on this list but still convincing. thanks @cakophon.bsky.social for the rec. not to get all negative but if laufey was writing like this maybe I would understand what all the fuss was about