It’s another Bandcamp Friday. For the uninitiated, that’s when Bandcamp forgoes their cut (revenue share) and the vast majority of money spent goes straight to the artist. I’ve never done anything quite like this before, but I thought I’d throw up a short article of releases for you to consider. Don’t worry, only one of them is mine, the rest are sincere recommendations.
I’ll go ahead and get myself out of the way here. I just released my first full-length album in over 7 years, Aqua Blue, it came out September 18th. It’s a high-speed pleasure trip, an eclectic daydream teeming with electric intensity. I had a lot of fun with it, a lot of disparate elements but all things I know and love. It’s fast, it’s dreamy, it’s got some punch. It melds 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s elements into something cohesive. I’ve been describing it as the Top Gun soundtrack meets 90’s/00’s video game music, and that really is the most succinct way to describe something as hard to pin down as Aqua Blue. There are shades of Eurobeat, Synthwave, House, New Age, even Metal. It’s only $4, or you can nab every release I’ve got up for just 13.50. Thank you for your consideration!
I covered this album here on the site in a short review. I’m a big fan of Personal System and Dream Chimney both, so when they re-teamed for this new outing, I was on board from jump. Like I said back in July: Liminal City ’87 is as much a live set as it is a sort of concept album, it has a foot in both musical worlds, and is executed beautifully. It’s a great little experience, this album. I’m happy to have picked it up physically. A loose narrative and songs that flow in and out of one another keep this Ambient odyssey coherent and grounded, it threads the needle between art installation and attractive BGM very nicely. If you’re at all a fan of liminal spaces, concept albums, Ambient, Smooth Jazz, New Age, or even Vaporwave, there’s probably something to like here. Check it out!
Mooglepuff is a great producer from way down under in Australia. I’ve covered her a couple times on the site here, I’m definitely a fan, and she’s shown herself to be remarkably consistent as a producer. Her release, Paradise ’93, does a brilliant job melding chilled-out Synthpop and fashionable Dance music. The release is short, sweet, mellow, and lavish. Bandcamp (and really music in general) is terribly over-saturated now but this release puts me in mind of the 2014 to 2016 era of Bandcamp, in which a really lovely release would spring up out of the blue and have a small-scale watershed moment of its own. Something like this would’ve done sincere numbers back then and been covered by numerous online publications, unfortunately the EP came out in 2023, and didn’t catch the audience it so deserved. Give it a look!
Speaking of people not getting their flowers, friend and collaborator of mine, AeroStar is chief among them. I mentioned my album, Aqua Blue, at the top; guess what, that album almost certainly wouldn’t exist without this album here, Blue Wave Wonder. Albums like this paved the way for an album like mine (and it’s better than mine, too). Me and AeroStar have known each other for a long time, we first connected back around 2018 I want to say. He’s a great musician and his ability to execute on a vision is second to none. Sadly, it’s been a few years since we last spoke; it was 2023, he sent me a message to wish me well and let me know that he had picked up a physical copy of my Statue & Palm EP. I think he’s a bit unplugged from the online world and that’s not a bad thing to be these days. Wherever he is, I wish him well. Check out his stuff, give him some love!
Thanks for reading.
~ FW.
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