SEVEN NOISES

Soft Power is a Scottish record shop famously known for the fact they only sell vinyl (as all the record shops should be) that last year also turned into record label with the release of their first reference, an LP by Theoretical Girls. The second reference was finally announced last month and it's going to be a split single by personal favourite Dirty Beaches and Brave Radar's Conor Prendergast. The split single will contain at least three tracks. Dirty Beaches's side will have a Johnny Cash cover of the singer more in the key of Nick Cave's version (well, actually is exactly as Nick Cave's version but as lo-fi as you can expect is going to be a Dirty Beaches track) and also an instrumental track called Gone to Hell Come Friday dedicated to the memory of Broadcast's Trish Keenan.

You can listen / download Dirty Beaches The Singer and Conor's Great To Be Here here:

Dirty Beaches 'The Singer' by Soft Power

Conor Prendergast Great To Be Here by Soft Power

I haven't mentioned Beko for a while now. It's hardly impossible to get track of all what they put up as every Monday you have a new (virtual)free single, compilation, boxset, etc.. and if you get distracted for a while, you've missed some weeks and have lots to catch up. This last Monday though, is obvious that I would mention, taking into account the previous post, the free 11 track compilation they put together on collaboration with La Station Radar. 11 artist that have previously released something for this label hands out a new / unreleased track for our enjoyment, including some personal favourites like Ela Orleans, Dirty Beaches, Jeans Wilder or Archers by the Sea. You can download the whole thing (and many more free great music) here

Dirty Beaches has us used to his incredibly lo-fi sounds that his two upcoming 7 inch releases sound extremely hi-fi in comparison. I discovered him not long ago, with the release of the Night People C22 Tape and had it on repeat, completely hypnotised with his blend of styles, from blues to rockabilly, cave rock and crooner music, performed and filtered through repetitive loops that sound like a background soundtrack he uses to sing over them.

Golden Desert Sun is as hypnotic and cinematographic as the stuff on that tape, bluesy, dark and repetitive. It's out on Italian Beach Babes on Monday.

Dirty Beaches - Golden Desert Sun.mp3

True Blue is not a cover of the Madonna song although it travels through time to those 50s and 60s tracks she wanted to recreate with that song, to those Ronettes and Roy Orbison ballads that sounded familiar from the first listening. He's more crooner than ever before and the song escapes from the darkness he usually chooses but keeping the mystery he surrounds with everything he does.It's out next month on Zoo Music.

Dirty Beaches is Alex Zhang Hungtai, originally from Taiwan, but spending most of his life in Canada, moving from Montreal to Vancouver recently. He's released some records, most of them on Fixture Records and most of them still available for download, combining melodica, guitars, drones, percussion and voice and the recurrent system of using the Lo-Fi DIY as if it was another instrument on his recordings separates this project from other obscure dark ambient bands. The songs are pretty cinematic, if you can imagine a movie using this music as background. Although sometimes it's really dark it's never too dark to be intimidating or uncomfortable. He plays with dub sounds, drones, repetition and textures mixing them to get an hypnotic, floating and original result difficult to tag. On his last release, the unnamed cassette for the prolific and interesting label Night People, Dirty Beaches has moved a huge step forward. Now percussion and rhythm are at the center of the compositions making them slightly more hypnotic and a bit less dark although the essence of his sound is still there and it's even his most Lo-Fi recording yet, and I would say he uses samples and voice in a more present way. It's definitely his best released yet and he's putting out a 7" split single with US Girls anytime soon on Sibling Sex Records, a label that according to their still not launched website it's not on the works yet.

Dirty beaches - White Sand.mp3