#52: Vantage Point
Perception is mediated by our placement relative to the phenomena we observe
Currently listening to: Unfold by Melted Form
“Unfold” is a piece being used in a friend’s new art installation this weekend. It was originally created several years ago as part of an imaginary film score.
***
Hello, friend.
Two nights ago, the sky was freshly dark from the sun’s departure, and I found myself walking up the path to the top of the dune that formed the threshold of the beach.
As I reached the summit, the rocky sand flattened out and the ocean opened before me, in both sight and sound. I noted how well the low wash of the waves—a constant sound that swelled and retreated endlessly—had been blocked by the dune when I was at its base.
In the north distance, just beyond the crashing waves and hundreds of feet in the night air, a cumulonimbus cloud hovered invisibly like a whale in the depths of the Atlantic. I was staring into near total darkness, save the pale street lights off to the left that were swallowed by the sand, sea, and sky as soon as they hit the dune. Something compelled me to hold my gaze long enough to see the distant cloud flicker with a new source of light.
The massive formation was pregnant with an evening storm. With every handful of seconds that passed, a bout of electricity sparked and sputtered, illuminating every billow and crevice of the storm cloud in fleeting moments of fury. Listening closely to the layer of sound behind the ocean waves, barely at the edge of my ear’s perception, I could just make out the rippling texture of scattered thunder.
I contemplated the scale and power of the thing, that coalescence of water vapor, dust, and air. The crackling, organic power of that electrical imbalance, realized in sound and light let viciously loose, capable of brightening a dark horizon.
All of that power, defanged by distance. From my vantage point, that roaring, raging wonder was little more than a low rumble and a flash of light.
The Living Music List
Hello again, friend. Ready for some new music? Take a look at today’s inventory, chock full of warm tape loops, dark and textured drone, downtempo electronics, instrumental guitar and piano, and so much more.
Happy listening.
Ambient
Reel Landscapes by Isostatic (album / drone, tape loops) [Exosphere]^
“With Reel Landscapes, Isostatic invites the listener into a world where texture, memory, and imperfection intertwine. The warmth and organic movement of tape and the unpredictability of analog recording give the album a sense of life, both fleeting and timeless. Whether serving as a backdrop for quiet contemplation or a portal to deeper sonic exploration, Reel Landscapes is a meditation on the beauty of impermanence... an ever-evolving portrait of nature, nostalgia, and the magic of tape.” — Bandcamp description
Breaking by Philip Aitman (album / ambient piano, classical crossover) [Independent]^
Writing in a post on Reddit’s r/ambientmusic community, Phil Aitman shared this: “I started Breaking primarily to help with my mental health but also as an exercise in completion, something having severe ADD makes extremely challenging. I’m also struggling with progressive hearing loss (more than just age and too many years in punk bands related) but I still decided to go with it and mix this myself, warts and all.”
Going on to describe the album further in the Bandcamp description, he writes: “It started as memories of so many different first lights witnessed after nights spent under the stars. It also started as life during the darkest days of my life. I was struggling with the world, who I am, who the world expected me to be.”
Sylvan Library 3 by Johan Fotmeijer (EP / lofi electronic, downtempo) [Narouua]^
“The third chapter of Sylvan Library dives deeper into my personal memory,” wrote Johan, the musician and graffiti artist from Sweden behind the Sylvan Library series who shared this new release in the HB&H Discord this week. The newest iteration in the series “blends early Warp influences with flickering CRT screens and dusty hard drives,” and feels liminal in its position somewhere within the hazy region between ambient and something more solid.
drone Madness II: decay so slow you’ll mistake it for growth by Ritual Madness (album / drone, dark ambient) [Independent]^
Over the last winter, padfoot, the artist making music under the name Ritual Madness, created a large volume of drone music which they eventually released back in January. Sharing it this week in the HB&H Discord community, they gave some background on the compilation: “I have been revisiting it over the weekend for… reasons. The title comes from a line in Gravity’s Rainbow, from a passage about living in a world governed by individuals with a fascination, or even love of destruction. My ambient music making, and listening, has grown out of searching for a productive outlet for my anxiety. This drone dump was like recording my meditations.”
I Will Wait Until My Mind Dissolves by Buried Marie (album / drone, dark ambient) [Neotantra]
“I Will Wait Until My Mind Dissolves is the eighth album by Buried Marie, and it explores the concept of waiting as both tedium and blessing. It is not an album that aims to teach a precise moral, but tries to resonate, with a universal concept, differently depending on who listens to it. Every soul remembers waiting differently, every soul awaits a new life, or hopes that it will end as soon as possible...” — Bandcamp description
All Genres
FIRST 5:
CL // 50cc of Calming Melody by Nicholas Kasko (single / electronic) [Independent]
“50cc of Calming Melody was created to be a place of peace and tranquillity,” explains Nicholas Kasko. “The name of the song is supposed to reference a doctor injecting a patient with some sort of serum. The three main goals I had when approaching this piece were to: 1, have a loop that repeats the entire song while simultaneously having melodies that are constantly changing and dancing on top of it to tell the story that the track was intended to tell; 2, remind yourself that dreaming and pondering questions is such an essential part of life hence the “to live is to dream” sample that is chopped up in there; 3, have nice and pleasant ambient noise to calm tinnitus down. Sometimes, if it flares up, I feel like I need 50cc of Calming Melody stat!”
The dual single also includes another track titled CL that is a more upbeat, gooey, dubby electronic dance.
Only Birds Know How to Call the Sun and They Do It Every Morning by Kaj Duncan David (album / experimental electronic) [Hyperdelia]
Berlin-based British-Danish composer Kaj Duncan David has released this work of “sui generis [unique] avant-garde electronic music made w/ Danish contemporary ensemble Scenatet.” This is “sci-fi chamber music exploring language, human development, machine intelligence, altered states of consciousness, and more,” and I admit that it didn’t click with me on first listen. After a revisit, though, I’m continually fascinated by the quirks of this out-there record.
Distracted by Villainous Nature (single / drum & bass) [Dragon Trax Recordings]
Dragon Trax head honcho Andy Stockton shared this catchy little tune with me this week and my brain was instantly hooked. Andy said, “I love the gritty pirate radio vibe, hypnotic female vocal sample, dirty-as-Dillinja drums and gliding bass drops. [Villainous Nature] has got some serious chops—watch out for his increasingly assured productions.”
I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away by Hayden Pedigo (album / instrumental Americana) [Mexican Summer]
“Taking cues from John Fahey’s weed-and-whiskey infused, tape-loop-heavy 1966 record The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party, I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away is, Hayden reflects, not a straightforward solo guitar record, but in a sense ‘a micro-dose psychedelic album. I wanted it to be this tangible feeling, as if somebody had cut up a tab of LSD and put on a Fahey record.’ — Bandcamp description
A Tropical Entropy by Nick León (album / electronic) [TraTraTrax]
“You'll find hazy tracks for the body and the mind; tracks to dedicate and feel deeply; tracks for heartbreak and tracks with the promise of future love. You will find themes of memory, sleep deprivation, decaying wildlife, and the suburban still life of Florida. “A Tropical Entropy” captures the haunting feeling of watching life unfold like a broken video recording—frozen in the orange hue of a never—ending sunset, signaling the final days of an apocalypse.” — Bandcamp description
IN THE QUEUE:
Are We Doomed to Bow to the Stupid and Cruel? by Estoc (album / electronic)
Blush by Kevin Abstract (album / alt hip-hop)
Virgin by Lorde (album / pop)
Flowers by Durand Jones & The Indications (album / alternative)
Boleros Psicodélicos II by Adrian Quesada (album / Latin soul rock)
Music List Reminders: Bold and ^ denote reader-submitted work. Bandcamp links provided for every record that is available on the platform. If an album is not on Bandcamp, YouTube or other streaming links are provided. List format: Title by Artist (release type / genre or subgenres) [Label].
The Press Box
This week, we’re featuring something new and something coming soon.
AVAILABLE NOW: A very vampy music video for Twos by The Noisy
“I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys. The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.” — Sara Mae Henke, frontperson of The Noisy
Out now from our friends at Audio Antihero, Twos is a new single by Philly-based dream pop band The Noisy with a video that channels gothic-glam in the spirit of vintage cinema, dripping with theatrical flair and midnight movie camp.
COMING SOON: A Fragile Geography (10th Anniversary Reissue + Reworks) by Rafael Anton Irisarri
“I was navigating a sense of not quite belonging—geographically, musically, culturally. This record became a space I could build for myself. This record has always been about letting go of one life and rebuilding another. It feels fitting to return to it now—ten years later, in a different country, a different world.” — Rafael Anton Irisarri
Rafael Anton Irisarri is, in my eyes, among the modern pantheon of ambient drone artists—not only for his seminal works like A Fragile Geography or FAÇADISMS, but for his prolific contributions to dozens of other artists as a mastering engineer as well. Later this year, he’ll be revisiting his 2015 record A Fragile Geography for its 10-year anniversary, reissuing it with a newly remastered version by Stephan Mathieu out of his Schwebung studio in Germany.
Accompanying the reissue is a limited edition cassette of remixes from a diverse group of ambient and experimental artists handpicked by Irisarri—including William Basinski and Gary Thomas Wright. These reinterpretations offer fresh perspectives on the album’s core themes: displacement, memory, and emotional reconstruction.
The 10th Anniversary reissue releases September 19 on Black Knoll Editions. You can pre-order the album on limited edition BioVinyl (yellow, orange, black) and digital.
ICYMI: 500 Sub Giveaway + Join us on Discord
Reminder that you can still enter our July 1st giveaway (details below) by sharing Hum, Buzz, & Hiss with a friend! Plus, you’re invited to join our growing community on Discord!
Poetry Book Giveaway: Hum, Buzz, & Hiss is quickly approaching 500 subscribers, so I’m running a giveaway! 3 winners will receive a signed paperback copy of my poetry book Shifting Senses, Lifting Lenses: A Book of Poems and Songs. You can enter by completing 3 simple steps:
Invite a friend to subscribe to Hum, Buzz, & Hiss on Substack using the referral link on my leaderboard page: https://meltedform.substack.com/leaderboard
DM me your referred friend’s name/email so I can confirm they subscribed (DM on Substack or Discord… alternatively, you can email me at meltedform@gmail.com)
Join the HB&H Discord (see how below): https://discord.gg/UD6udayQzm
Bonus: If you can successfully refer 5 or more friends to subscribe to the newsletter, I will buy you an album on Bandcamp (max $10, only for the first person to do so).
Giveaway ends July 1!
Join our community on Discord: Please consider joining our server of music lovers, independent artists, and label heads. We regularly chat, share music, and support each other’s work. Plus, you’ll get more music and info from me exclusively in that space.
That’s all for this week’s issue. Thank you for reading. Until next time.
Your friend,
Melted Form
Remember to listen to the hum, buzz, & hiss of the world around you—there is music to be heard there.
Read the previous issue of The Living Music List:
Afterword—Let’s Get In Touch
Are you an artist, a label owner, or a member of the press? Want to share an in-depth feature of your upcoming release, an advertisement, or a guest post for a future Hum, Buzz, & Hiss issue? Get in touch with me at meltedform@gmail.com or join our Discord Community. As always, I would love to hear and recommend your music, especially if it’s new and ambient/electronic/experimental.
Thanks for featuring Reel Landscapes, really appreciate the support!
Thank you. And what a magnificent photograph.