Dynasty At Ghost Town - Bathetic Records

Surely if you're someone who takes a look at this page every so often, then you're aware of this. Massive 11 tape set from Bathetic Records, compiled under the name Dynasty At Ghost Town. I'm about half way through this haul and have yet to find something I don't love, and I assume the rest will follow suit. Plenty of names you'll recognize; William Cody Watson, Planning For Burial, Lee Noble, High Aura'd, Panabrite, Aquarelle, Zac Nelson, Ekin Fil, Padang Food Tigers, M. Geddes Gengras, and my favorite thus far an achingly beautiful drone take on Primitive Americana from Scott Tuma.

Art from Simon Fowler that runs in vertical line connecting all 11 in order (an order I failed to capture in my photo). Beautiful design throughout, from the stock to the font choices to the shell colors. It's a pretty stunning achievement, and at 50 bucks for the set, it's less than 5 dollars a tape. You might be able to find a few individual copies floating around on artist pages and Bandcamp, but I highly recommend you grab the whole thing direct from Bathetic.

Earn - Hell On Earth

Bathetic vinyl and Matthew Sullivan's Earn project, so pretty much automatic purchase. I find Hell On Earth a pretty strange title for this one. Not that I always understand the intent of all this, more often than not, I think I don't, but here, these sounds aren't hellish, in fact quite the opposite. Not menacing, to me, not tortured, but just a complete reaffirmation of why we all spend time opening our ears to this type of noise. Destructed, massively damaged walls of emotion. On the surface, any descriptors I'd choose wouldn't do much to set this apart from the field of ambient recordings, but there's something here that's alive with feeling. Four tracks of stunning melody, garbled to the brink of disrepair and presented, open and raw for interpretation through your own set of filters. Each movement a bold, confident display of repetition. Which is another way of saying, Sullivan seems to know the power of the sounds he's created and doesn't succumb to the temptation to cluter them unnecessarily. Maybe someone has found the hellish feeling inside this, but in my ears, this is perfection.

Edition of 300, crisp white on white, digital download included. I grabbed direct from Bathetic.

Lee Noble - Ruiner

You know what this is. I'm guessing you don't need me to tell you either. But of course I will. New (relatively) Bathetic vinyl, and it happens to be Ruiner, the anticipated Lee Noble follow up to 2011's Horrorism. Sad, beautiful, damaged pop noise. The direction of the record is exceptional. Everything I like about Noble's work, the grit, the delicacy of the soundscape, the vulnerability of the vocal. At times, a less obtuse and more accessable sound and structure emerge. Pieces that seem to tempt your innate desire for pop song structure, but never fully succumb to that temptation. Always challenging, always obscuring. It's an evolutionary and differentiated record, but done without sacrificing the comfortable, honest feel of his prior work. Melancholy and joyous all together, this is a massive record that will wear you out emotionally.

Black vinyl, neon orange liner insert, simple and clean. Grab a copy, as I did from the excellent Tomentosa, or directly via Bathetic.

Villages - Theories of Ageing

Beautiful, nostalgic, cinematic tracks from Villages with Theories of Ageing on Bathetic Records. Things take a no rules approach to composition where everything seems free, and at ease to come and go as it pleases. Long sustained rusty drones that just hang in the soundspace, swell, and give way to reverberating ghostly noise. Sparingly composed piano echoing backwards into the vastness of your consciousness. An incredibly open, accessible, enjoyable composition full of slightly cloudy organic instrumentation. When a recording can sound so comfortable in it's own skin, and still so tremendously emotional, thats just magic. And it's on this record in spades.

I don't suggest things very often (maybe more like describe), because of course to each their own, but I really do highly suggest this record. Grab directly from Bathetic.

Padang Food Tigers - Ready Country Nimbus

Simple, delicate, vignettes drenched in piano and strings from Padang Food Tigers with Ready Country Nimbus on Bathetic Records. Each of the fifteen tracks plays in my mind like an unfinished painting. Raw pieces of guitar, untreated keys, unexplained bits of static and field noise. As if each track is an elegant canvas onto which you must imbue your own images. Powerfully nostalgic and poignant beyond description. I found the second half particularly captivating as the tracks For Esme, and Hey, Relaxer close the album with a gentle sigh.

A patient and evolving listen without a single misstep. Available directly from Bathetic, housed in a glossy single sleeve on elegant black vinyl. Great pressing, clear clean backgrounds.