5 Tewns Vol.24
Read Time: 3 mins
Greetings, my loves. It’s been a while since my last 5 Tewns rundown. The reasons are manifold, but most importantly, I’ve pivoted careers from stay-at-home dad, irregular graphic designer, blogger and chubby DJ to attempting to set up and care for a small permaculture farm here in the north of Portugal. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s been more work than I’d bargained for. Tomatoes won’t grow themselves, after all. But with my first season successfully behind me, the passing equinox and just in time for Bandcamp Friday, here’s a little selection of five tracks I’ve been enjoying this week while planting out my turnips.
Apiento & Co – The Orange Place [World Unknown]
As it’s Bandcamp Friday, this track needs to be in your cart. Generally regarded as Apiento’s classic, “The Orange Place” has it all: chugging Italo sexiness, ghostly arabesque synths, and oodles of atmosphere. It’s proper timeless dance music, and it sounds absolutely stunning whilst packing down for the day, watching the sun set over the mountains.
Tercet Imperial – Jasia [Future Classic]
This week, my old mate DogPatrol introduced me to Poland’s Tercet Imperial, and I’m completely obsessed. I’ll be honest: the album gets tens across the board from me, and it’s been hard to pick a favourite, but for the sake of choosing something, I’ll plump for “Jasia,” with its weird scattered rhythms, nervous synths, and eerie vocals. It’s a solid illustration of Tercet Imperial’s retro-futurist Polish folk.
Djrum – L’Ancienne [Houndstooth]
Hypnotic mutant dancehall with spiritual jazz and classical flourishes, as only Djrum can. I’m a huge fan of Djrum’s knack for interweaving organic instruments with industrial elements. “L’Ancienne” opens with lazy piano stylings reminiscent of ethio-jazz, but it’s not long before roaring bass and industrial dancehall rhythms take over, and the track finally collapses into a sea of strings and what sounds like a guzheng.
The Caretaker – Misplaced in Time [History Always Favours the Winners]
Sometimes things fall into a kind of strange cosmic pattern, and I’m having one of those moments right now. John Barleycorn is long dead, and autumn’s looming with all its attendant feelings of depression. I’ve been reading Philip K. Dick’s VALIS and obsessing over time, the many-worlds theory, memory loss, and all that stuff, so it feels like a weird sign that The Caretaker’s deeply hauntological 2016 release “Misplaced in Time” should pop up on my feed. Has it really been a decade?
Pharoah Sanders – Living Space [Spiritual Jazz]
But it’s not all depression, is it? Wake up at six, stumble out of bed, plunge a coffi and cram a slice of toast down your gullet, watch the fog roll in over the mountains as the sunlight bursts through, and stick this in your ears… it’s pure majick mate!
‘Til next time, Jammo x