#maxine funke

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Annie A - The Wind That Had Not Touched Land

A misty and mysterious collab between Félicia Atkinson, Time is Away’s Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, Christina Petrie and Maxine Funke. The Wind That Had Not Touched Land is a pleasingly disquieting listen, drifting and dreamlike, an uncanny sonic landscape populated by ghostly figures coming in and out of view. I'm reminded a bit of the recent Broadcast demos collections, a trip across some subconscious moor or coastline. Beautiful and occasionally unsettling, this is one to sink into.

And hey! There's a fresh Bandcamping column up on Aquarium Drunkard — just in time for Bandcamp Friday, which returns on May 2.

[something-higher]

Top albums of 2021

Myriam Gendron - Ma délire - Songs of love, lost & found (Feeding Tube Records - Les Albums Claus)

Ma délire - Songs of love, lost & found by Myriam Gendron

Nala Sinephro - Space 18 (Warp)

Space 1.8 by Nala Sinephro

Space Afrika - Honest Labour (Dais Records)

Honest Labour by Space Afrika

Roxane Métayer - Éclipse des ocelles (Morc tapes Records)

Éclipse des ocelles by Roxane Métayer

PLO Man & C3D-E – public static v. (Acting Press)

Maxine Funke - Seance (A Colourful Storm)

Seance by Maxine Funke

Tara Clerkin Trio - In Spring (World of Echo)

In Spring by Tara Clerkin Trio

Mr. Mitch - Lazy (Gobstopper Records)

Lazy by Mr. Mitch

Klein - Harmattan (PentaTone)

Harmattan by Klein

Purelink - Bliss / Swivel (Not On Label)

Bliss / Swivel by Purelink

Monokultur - Ormens Väg (Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox)

Monokultur - Ormens Väg by Monokultur

Tirzah - Colourgrade (Domino)

Grouper - Shade (Kranky)

Shade by Grouper

picnic - picnic (Daisart)

picnic by picnic

Circuit des Yeux - -io (Matador)

-io by Circuit des Yeux

Loraine James - Reflection (Hyperdub)

Reflection by Loraine James

Refreshers - Way U Smile (Refreshers)

Way U Smile by Refreshers

Frog of Earth - Frog of Earth (wherethetimegoes )

Frog of Earth by Frog of Earth

Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2 (Rough Trade Records)

BLACK METAL 2 by Dean Blunt

Cindy - 1:2 (Mt. St. Mtn.)

1:2 by Cindy

Nikolaienko - Rings (Faitiche)

Rings by Nikolaienko

Astrid Øster Mortensen – Gro Mig En Blomst(Förlag För Fri Musik)

Gro Mig En Blomst by Astrid Øster Mortensen

YL Hooi - Untitled (Efficient Space)

Untitled by YL Hooi

Mark Templeton - Ocean Front Property (Graphical Recordings)

Ocean Front Property by Mark Templeton

Emma DJ - Godrime (UIQ)

[backstreetsbackalright]

Heavy Rotation in 2021

Monokultur, “Decennium” (2021, Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox)

Kenji Kariu, “Star Signs” (2020, bruit direct disques)

Lea Bertucci, “On Opposite Sides of Sleep” (2021, Cibachrome)

The Gabys, “Emotional Range” (2021, All Gone)

Grouper, “Unclean Mind” (2021, Kranky)

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Promises (Luaka Bop, 2021)

Maxine Funke, “Goodbye” (2021, A Colourful Storm)

JJ Ulius, “Speglar mig” (2021, Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox)

Tara Clerkin Trio, “Done Before” (2021, World of Echo)

His Name Is Alive, “Liadin” (2021, Disciples)

Blackwater, “Siem Reap” (2021, Ethbo Music)

City Band, “N’Golo Kanté” (2020, bruit direct disques)

[musicmakesyousmart]

Maxine Funke - home fi

Brierfield Flood Press

2018

[bandcampsnoop]

2/18/19.

Vashti Bunyan (UK) had never been on my musical radar until I watched the show “Patriot” (Amazon Prime).  The first season uses her “Train Song” as the intro for Season One.  I was enthralled.  I immediately bought “Just Another Diamond Day” and “Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind” through Midheaven distribution.  A different type of snoop.

Her presence on Bandcamp was nil, until Devendra Banhart curated this demo only LP for Bongo Joe (Geneva, Switzerland).  Vashti Bunyan’s song is “If I Were” and is the only song currently available. 

I love the idea of this LP...only demos.  In the notes on Bandcamp, Banhart proclaims that artists hate demos, but fans love them.  Other artists on this release are Tim Presley (White Fence), King Tuff and Arthur Russell.  Vashti Bunyan’s “Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind” includes nearly a dozen demos that were found in her brother’s attic.

Current bands that must have listened to Vashit Bunyan include:  Tiny Ruins, and Maxine Funke (thanks Micah). 

[ifeellikeaporsche]

I Dischi Del Barone: Summer 2018

Matthias at I Dischi Del Barone has had a world-beating string of releases these past few months, five limited-to-200 singles with hand-glued artwork and hand-stamped labels. A summer of a labor of love for Mr. IDDB in Sweden, no doubt. Every one’s worth the steadily increasing price of admission and custom-built for decreasing attention spans. Take a look under the microscope.

The Dead C, “On the Outbreak of Civil War/Good Consul Is Punished": This is the only one already outta print from the label, and it’s because people seem to understand that the Dead C is getting better with age. Bruce Russell says so himself on the press release. The A-side sounds like the band disappeared while playing the coda to a song, an ominous lead-in for the walloping “Good Consul Is Punished,” which is about as aggressive as the Dead C’s ever sounded. Drums pound through sheets of guitar noise, advancing and receding until the track unceremoniously cuts out. Maybe it should’ve been IDDB’s first 12″ but I’m happy to keep flipping this teaser all day. (Fusetron has some copies left.)

Leda, “Japanese Key/The Silent Contest”: Leda, née Sofie Herner, is one of the more interesting artists from Sweden right now, both as a solo artist, one-half of Neutral and who knows how many other units. This new 7″ is a turn towards more electronic tendencies, though the end of the plodding “Japanese Key” features something that definitely could be a guitar piling on the dread. The unnaturally slow gait of the song is accompanied by half-buried spoken word vocals, the surrounding elements ratcheting up the tension as the voice stays calm. “The Silent Contest” utilizes waves of slow-breathing static that increase in size and volume, nearly succeeding in burying Herner’s quietly powerful vocals. Stunning.

Maxine Funke, Eternity: Maxine Funke’s intricate and intensely personal folk songs are like hand-cut doilies with fresh edges, fragile and raw and capable of nicks just as delicate. This 7″ features three songs and a little sound experiment in “Sandhopper.” The short format suits her, as sometimes her songs can get lost when piled 15+ high on an LP. This whole 7″ hits you right in the chest, short vignettes full of gorgeous imagery and laced with melancholy, but the two tracks on the B-side are my favorites. The end of “Nicest Thing” (”Anyway, I just called to say/the zucchini in the cake was the nicest thing”) is one of her best so-sad-it’s-funny or vice-versa lines, catching herself spilling her observations of the day to a disinterested silence on the other end, and quickly putting a cork in it. And closing track “Make That Dream”’s vaguely familiar melody and resigned, brave tone oughta silence any size room, crowded or otherwise.

Midnight Mines, “Stations/Radio Dub”: I came around late to Midnight Mines, stumbling upon We Are the Primitives of a New Era and working backwards through the two members’ solo tapes and finally succumbing to “Accattone.” On recent releases, the band has been playing more with dub and noise, much to my delight, but “Stations” is a sort of return to If You Can’t Find a Partner form, a totally raucous jammer with doomsday vocals and one of the best guitar lines of the year. You really oughta hear it. May it become an anthem for the disillusioned youth to dance and make out to. The flip, “Radio Dub,” is exactly what it sounds like: a dubby, water-logged version of the A-side, its brilliance split up into a funhouse number of warped reflections. No need to ever file this one away.

Fåglar I Bur, s/t: New-to-me, and maybe new in general, duo outta Gothenburg playing with snippets of industrial, coldwave and minimal synth on their self-titled 7″. You know exactly what you’re getting into when those words are thrown around, but Fåglar I Bur still bring the heat. All the pounding bass, snapping electronic snares and sheets of noise never coalesce into a beat on “Platt,” Felicia Lindgren’s vocals speak-shouted to keep things from even approaching comfort. Following the brief-but-effective A-side is “Öppen Inbjudan,” the cold ride home on some dark and empty streets, spoken vocals and sighing keyboards always heard around the next corner but never seen.

I Dischi Del Barone releases tend to exist solely in the physical world, and most of what’s mentioned above can be bought directly from the label. Fusetron has some older titles, while I’ve been going to Careful Catalog for the newer titles. Matthias has also been putting out the excellent, enthusiastic Fördämning zine the past few years as well. Last month unfortunately saw the release of the 15th and final Fördämning issue. Again, Fusetron’s got a lot of the older issues, and Careful Catalog has the more recent ones.

[dustedmagazine]

Maxine Funke — Silk (Feeding Tube)

SILK by maxine funke

Maxine Funke likes to name her albums after fabrics. This one, Silk, follows 2012’s hand-crafted Felt and 2013’s ethereal Lace. Like its namesake material, this collection of songs drapes lightly around penciled in arrangements, bare to the point of transparency but beautiful. Her lyrics, which often deal with secrets, seem like secrets themselves, hushed, murmured, dropped like koans into stillness and not explained or elaborated upon. There’s a dreamy inward-looking aura to these tunes. Funke often sounds as if she’s singing to herself.

A New Zealander, Funke was part of the drone experimental $100 Band with Alastair Galbraith and Mike Dooley. (Galbraith plays on several of these songs.) Her solo work is lighter, less saturated. The quiet is beaten in like air into a batter, so that the songs float, nearly weightless.  

These are private reveries, surreal bits of free association tethered to the most mundane bits of life. “Boy on the Bow,” one of the disc’s loveliest songs, cascades and frolics with guitar picking, the melody weaving in and out of a sea shanty sway. Yet the images are domestic. Funke’s lyrics describe mystic epiphanies that strike during household chores, folding laundry for instance. “The wind is whipping the sheets as you pull, and it doesn’t take long till you have your arms full, folding up visions, to place in the drawers, stowed away dreams,” she sings, in a bewitching murmur. The spiritual and the perfectly ordinary are right next to each other and perhaps the same thing.

Most of the songs pare back folk and make it personal, using the slightest of touches—acoustic guitar, an understated cello, knocks and noises—to frame the music. Whimsical electronic intervals break up the muted melancholic flow. Wheezy vintage synths make bright pointillistic patterns in “Dewey Decimal” and “Ranunculus.” A brooding organ hums in “Bulbs and Perennials.”

Funke sings with an unforced serenity that might remind you of Sibylle Baier or Vashti Bunyan, and she writes and plays with a simplicity that is always harder than it looks. Her Silk is very fine and slippery smooth in the moment, but idiosyncratic enough to haunt you afterwards.  

Jennifer Kelly

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Maxine Funke - Home Fi

A little behind the curve I think, but I fell under the spell of New Zealand singer-songwriter Maxine Funke last year via her excellent Feeding Tube LP Silk. And now there’s more fresh Funke to dig into. Home Fi was a very limited cassette up for sale during Maxine’s Australian tour last summer; now the rest of us can enjoy it via Bandcamp. Just 22 minutes, but every second is a delight, with wispy vocals (shades of Sybille Baier), elegantly fingerpicked nylon-string guitar and gently surreal lyrics. The songs seem simple on the surface but there’s an intricacy and overall strength that comes through with repeated listens. Funke’s melodies call to mind classic Britfolk without feeling constrained by genre in any way. She’s an original!