Randall McClellan - The Healing Music of Rana: Vol. 2 (Aguirre, r. 2018)

While we're on the early ambient/psychedelia/kraut reissue tip. You may recall JD Emmanuel coming to the forefront recently with a reissue of his amazing "Rain Forest Music". Randall McClellan is a cohort of Emmanuel and made these and other recordings between '77 and '83, giving multi-hour meditative performances of these 20-40 minute pieces. These came out on cassette in 1983 along with Vol 1 I suppose. Two 20 minute pieces here of long, dreamy, synth-driven ambient drones. Much like Riley again or maybe Popol Vuh or, more contemporaneously, William Basinski. Pretty cool stuff, more blanks being filled in. Not the revelation "Rain Forest Music" was for me but, yknow, nice.

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Playboi Carti - Die Lit (AWGE/Interscope, 2018)

Playboi Carti has never really been on my radar too much, but then Pfork gave this one a rave review, and I figured I was sleeping...but man, this album didn't do anything for me. Barely any song made any kind of impact. The production is interesting at times but Carti himself gets lost in both that and the whole mass of features all over the album. Nothing gelled for me, so I guess for me I wasn't missing much after all. Oh well.

Ami Shavit - Neural Oscillations and Alpha Rhythms (Finders Keepers, r. 2018)

Another one I wasn't expecting much from but Finders Keepers always gets a fair shake, this turned out to be surprisingly legit. Influenced by Philip Glass and Tangerine Dream in the 70's, "Ami embarked on an experiment with what he coined Alpha Mood – a state in which the brain is working in relaxation and in which he used music as a means of helping induce his own meditative state". These aren't the droney, spacey, meditative synth pieces you'd expect - they're hypnotic in an active sense, very stimulating and dynamic. Seems not much is left of Shavit's recorded legacy but I'm glad I gave these a shot, very neat.

Eartheater - IRISIRI (Pan, 2018)

Eartheater first came on my radar (and many others) with 2 Hausu Mountain tapes in 2015. She makes glitchy, disorienting music, combining electronics and synthesized percussion with voice, guitars and who knows what else. The whole thing is a confusing stew, kind of reminiscent of Inga Copeland but I would say even more detached from "song". Didn't do much for me.

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