The Scenic Route - The Pattern Forms

Five years later: The Scenic Route is an excellent album that still holds up which is pretty good for a retro faux library LP. Lush downtempo electronic library jams. Exquisite arrangements and melodies take this beyond mere library muzak recreations. These are sublime luxurious instrumentals, smooth, sweeping, soulful and cinematic.  

For cruising or daydreaming in any kind of weather at any time of day... 

Nice...

This cover designed by Paul Flack of Trunk Records fame is just the best, appealing on so many levels. So evocative of idyllic seaside drives. Then there's the whole fantasy of living the lighthouse life...

Gee I dunno... you think it was inspired by this 70s library LP cover at all... 

This original design was done by Nina Klein for Studio G's 1974 music library Scenic and Romance: Volume 2.

This fascinating documentary from the BBC Archive might put you off your living in a lighthouse fantasy. 

The Secret Love Life Of The Octopus - Pierre Henry

[1967]

Abstract reverb drenched musique concrète.  

I would have liked to have heard the entire thing sans French fella voice over but that doesn't seem to be available on anything. 

Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier - Jéricho jerk [1968]
Musique concrète crossed with funky rock for novelty fusion fun in the 60s.

Steve Hiett - Down On The Road By The Beach

[1983]

Dreamy sun drenched summer days to infinity. 

Hazy sea breeze hypnagogic surf guitars glisten on the beach.

Wenn der Südwind weht - Roedelius

Wenn Der Südwind Weht - Roedelius [1981]

The all time greatest electronic album nobody ever says is the all time greatest electronic album. The reassuring halcyon loveliness of Wenn der Südwind weht is irresistible. 

Veilchenwurzeln - Roedelius [1981]

It's lush, pastoral, sparkling and mildly euphoric. The lightness of touch and unhurried approach is a winning and charming musical strategy. 

Mein Freund Farouk - Roedelius [1981]

These gliding breezy melodies all seem so effortless like they always naturally existed it's unimaginable how they were even created.

Auf Leisen Sohlen - Roedelius [1981]

As serene as the delicate glistening of raindrops on leaves in the golden sunlight...  idyllic. 

Saumpfad - Roedelius [1981]

Somehow he even makes the only vaguely ominous tune on the album just as comforting as the tranquility he usually delights in. 

Sonnengeflecht - Roedelius [1981]

Gentle elation evocative of playful childlike innocence...

ZERKALO [The Mirror]

 

JS Bach - Das Alte Jahr Vergangen Ist, BWV 614

I don't think this is Artemiev but it might be Simon Preston from a Deutsche Grammophon 14 cd box set compilation Johann Sebastian Bach: The Organ Works. The only Bach albums I have are Switched On Bach, Johannes Passion Version IV (1749) and Matthäus-Passion so I'm no baroque expert and find it tricky navigating classical catalogues. Simon Preston is best known to pop culture plebs for playing some Bach on his organ for the Rollerball (1975) soundtrack. 

[1975]

The first 22 minutes and 40 seconds here are the original Aduard Artemiev recordings for the soundtrack of Tarkovsky's 1975 masterpiece Zerkalo aka The Mirror.

The Korgis - Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime

[1980]

Supreme synth-y soft-rock with incredible 80s synthetic violin solo and er... some zither!

How many top 10 hits have a zither in them? Probably only this.

Another one from back in the primary school dayz, although I feel like this popped up in a couple of movies in the 90s/00s and was there a techno cover version, maybe...

Never seen this video or maybe just forgotten it but I guess I probably just thought this was the same group who did I'm Not In Love...

Lyrical sentiments similar to Talk Talk's philosophical bent of getting your shit together/self improvement to make sure you have a good meaningful life.

Vibe achievement.

Chris Watson - Winter

[2013]

Now for a journey to Lindisfarne and the sounds of nature on the Holy Island as captured by Chris Watson. Featuring the sea, an array of birds and the wind. 

Oklahoma After Dark · Phil Geraldi

[2024]

Hypnagogiamericana!

Static On The Airwaves. Ghosts on the highway switching the dial. Mirages on the horizon of cosmic cowboys playing hypnagogical twanging guitars.

Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea - Pan·American & Kramer

Lamenting The Colours Of Melting Ice - Pan·American & Kramer [2025]

Speaking of peak Labradford. This here is main man Mark Nelson and Lamenting The Colours Of Melting Ice is nostalgic ear candy for me as it reminds me of early Labradford. 

Over the last couple of years Mark (Pan·American) has collaborated with Kramer for two fantastic LPs of spaced out dreamy and drifting improvisations occasionally dipping into glowing psychedelic ambient Americana. Shadowy shifting shimmering tones...  lovely.

In The Time It Takes To Drown - Pan·American & Kramer [2025]

Absolutely gorgeous post-rock ambient-Americana. The "beautiful like the stars at night" guitars and keyboards are couched in marshmallow-y reverb for a supreme secluded nocturnal atmosphere. Depending on your mood this could be lonesome and melancholic or the sound of serenity found in solitude. 

HyperNormalisation Tracks

Thomas Ragsdale - Warning Mass [2015]

Been watching Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation (2016) again after also watching Academic Agent's critique of the documentary from the right, sensible centre and centre left. We've all known (well a lot of us) for a bloody long time that the partisan division is a joke, left/right is an obsolete gauge, this fake scam is protecting power and people actually want the same things ie. an end to the hyper-capitalism of, dare I say it, neoliberalism. 

There's plenty of Curtis' usual suspects on the soundtrack like Morricone, Eno, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin, Burial et al. But there's also a few less famous artists utilised to great effect in this masterclass of sound design too.

Some of you might know Ragsdale as he's the fella behind Sulk Rooms whose albums have featured in some end of year lists here at CardrossManiac2 anyway Warning Mass is a classic ominous minimal track that moves the atmospheric tones around that then swell into calamitous intensity. It was perfect for the show.

Pye Corner Audio - The Black Mill Video Tape [2012]

This awesome tune popped up which I hadn't heard since Ghost Box released Sleep Games fourteen years ago. Some post-Carpenter hauntological synthwave goodness. 

Gavin Miller - Fotograf (Part 2) [2013]

Then there was this excellent eerie track that I didn't know.

worriedaboutsatan - Blank Tape [2016]

Blank Tape is dark, minimal, ambient with a hint of ye olde post-rock. This was a duo featuring Gavin Miller with the unmistakeable touch of Thomas Ragsdale. Incredible spectral electronics.

worriedaboutsatan - All Safe All Well [2015]

This bit of atmospheric minimalism reminiscent of peak Labradford. Shifting tones of gloom.

Lou Reed - I Love You, Suzanne

[1985]

If you thought Lou was too drug addled or too cool just check out the pizazz of his dancing at the end of this video. 

It is indeed a new sensation! 

Who knew. 

Plus summersault!

A summersault in a bar just who does he think he is.

Suzanne must have really been worth it.

Neuronium - Quasar 2c361

[1977]

A prime slice of 70s cosmic synth goodness. There is even a little bit of acoustic guitar and flute here and there. Top Belgian/Spanish kosmische krautrock.

Connie Stevens - Sixteen Reasons

[1959]

Back in the 90s and 00s I was often tuned into 3MP and Magic 693. 40s, 50s and 60s pop and easy listening. Lovely songs like this all the time on the airwaves. I need a station like these today. Anyway Connie was a good catholic girl of Irish/Italian descent from New York who ended up in Hollywood. She starred in movies and tv, dated Elvis and did this tune. She's still around at the grand old age of 87. The impeccably produced and arranged Sixteen Reasons was a top ten hit in America and Britain in 1960 and it subsequently showed up in David Lynch's 2001 masterpiece Mulholland Drive.

[1964]

Speaking of easy listening there's a great instrumental version of Sixteen Reasons by Lawrence Welk here on his LP The Golden Millions at 20:19. 

The Savage Young Taterbug - Syrupy Evenings

[2010]

An inspired piece of sound collage Americana style where hypnagogia and hauntology deliriously intersect. Ride the creepy ghost train into the American dreams of the past. Fragments of decayed American pop culture are reanimated for a phantasmagoric ye olde carnival revue on Halloween. 

Stars Of The Lid - Music For Twin Peaks Episode #30

[1997]

Dug out some old Stars Of The Lid cds recently from a scary cobwebby box at the bottom of the cupboard. Twin Peaks and the music of Twin Peaks influenced a lot of 90s artists and groups on Kranky were the most inspired in their influence. Stars Of The Lid were the crème de la crème of the ambient drone contingent of so called "post rock". They weren't particularly popular though none of my friends ever said can I borrow that groovy new Stars Of The Lid cd Tim. I'd love to know the sales figures rankings of early Kranky releases. When they were the coolest underground record label on the planet before signing Godspeed and Low I imagine they didn't shift vast quantities of cds to rival the likes of Fugazi. There is a book I've been meaning to read You're With Stupid written by Kranky co-founder Bruce Adams that might shed some some light on this topic. Anyway SOTL are probably known to the kids these days because many of their tracks feature prominently in Adam Curtis Documentaries. 

On Music For Twin Peaks Episode #30 we get tenebrous tones and unsettling dark drifting drone-scapes or the eeriest kind. It wouldn't have been out of place if used on the legendary TV show. A fitting musical tribute for Agent Dale Cooper emerging from The Black Lodge after a tumultuous time in the red room with his doppelgänger only to smash his head on a Great Northern Hotel bathroom mirror revealing Bob has deleteriously entered his psyche.

Haunted.

"How's Annie?"

"How's Annie?"

Videofashion presents: Channel Surfing

All the daytime and late night tv nostalgia from the 80s and 90s brought to you on VHS by Pepsi. 

A  V A P O R W A V E extravaganza.

Tonetta - Hitler

[2011?]

Everybody's favourite dodgy cross dressing Leonard Cohen meets Suicide jam. 

骨架的 - microwave

[2010]

When the cosmic ambient end of hypnagogia became vaporwave. If someone said this was a lost track from peak Oneohtrix Point Never from 15 years ago you'd believe them. The exhilarating shapeshifting sound design here is random and disorienting.

unknown caller + tesseractive(TV) Live @ LATE NIGHT LIGHTS II

[2022]

Plunderphonic sound and vision. This warped  hazy nostalgia of the 1980s in the 2020s is vaporwave to infinity. If you love surfing videos, garish and smeared neon synthwave video graphics, slow-mo 80s funk and stretched early 90s smooth jazz saxophones then this is for you. Degraded and deformed VHS psychedelia. 

Stand By - Videofashion

[2018]

A vaporwave video masterpiece. 

VHS memories.

Pop art.