Major Napier - Major Soldier EP

I first introduced Australian artist Major Napier to you last November; a time when I was particularly enamoured with his cover of Sharon Van Etten’s Lovemore. Almost immediately after I wrote, he released a free download EP of bedroom-recorded songs entitled ‘Major Soldier’, which I was reminded of via an enthused post on Zen Tapes today. The slow, booming drum-sound prevalent throughout “Crowning Observation” (below) is idiosyncratic of the whole release, Johnny Ross careful to  keep the beat sufficiently organic-sounding and sunken in reverb to explicate the full aura of lo-fi ambience. There’s a new electronic dimension here; and a wide-ranging set of angular multi-layered harmonies which are decidedly direction-less. ’Amazing/ A Tribute to Jan Zajíc’ is a frivolous and swirling hip-hop influenced piece of folk-induced electronica, with a loose Kanye-style autotune (which works in the least obnoxious way possible) and Braids-esque psychedelic grandeur in the instrumentals. The limited-run CD will set you back just $10 Australian dollars, the download is totally free. Both options workable from Major Napier’s Bandcamp page.

New: StaG - Lived Like String

Some of the ambient music which I find most compelling is the kind in which reverb decorates a steady, driving percussion. Similarly, much of the value of music I find consists in what the musician chooses to leave out, rather than what they choose to include. On StaG’s newest single, ‘Lived Like String’, I’m hearing a sunken, Church-like drift suggestive of enormity, hinting at an reserved emptiness which is totally out of reach of the listener. The beat is slow, mechanical and restless but not at the cost of organicity, and a kind of spiritual solitude and richness displaying itself in the follow up to their first full-length album is consistently vast and flowing. Rifle Meeker was one of my top albums of 2011, and perhaps Lived Like String will be up there with my songs of 2012. 

New: Jordan Busson - Paperlight

Jordan Busson’s first appearance on these pages came several weeks ago; we reported on what were apparently his first uploads, a trio of unfinished demos of a sparsely classical persuasion, collectively known as ‘Swords’. Now ‘Coda’ has been renamed as ‘Paperlight’, expanded further in to the realms of sound art, and offered as a free download on Busson’s Sound Cloud. Best appreciated loud and in the early hours.

Jordan Busson - Paperlight (MP3)