Tengger - Nomad.jpg

Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

Snarls

“Burst”

snarlsband.bandcamp.com/album/burst

One of the great joys of music fandom, in my opinion, is clicking “play” on a song by a band you’ve never heard of and being enveloped in a sound that’s immediately irresistible. On that note, say hello to Snarls, a relatively new quartet from Columbus, Ohio, whose debut album “Burst” is one of the best of 2020’s first half. Opening track “Walk in the Woods” encapsulates everything good about emotionally fraught electric guitar-driven music over the past few decades: smeared jangle, bountiful echo, dramatic and memorable melodies, an unmistakably downcast vibe. And then when that song’s over, Snarls does the same thing nine more times on “Burst.” Are they a future favorite band? Time will tell. But for right now, they’re, oh, so good.

Julius Eastman

“Femenine”

frozenreeds.bandcamp.com/album/femenine

La Monte Young. Philip Glass. Steve Reich. Arvo Pärt. Terry Reilly. These are the artists who emerged as the leading figures in the minimalist musical movement of the mid-20th century. And rightfully so — each is an explorer and innovator and pioneer worthy of celebration. And then there’s Julius Eastman, the New York-based composer who also experimented with long works, relentless repetition and glacial modulation, but who was an enigmatic figure in the scene and left behind very little documented work when he died alone in 1990. (Famously, it took eight months before his obituary was published.) Thus, releases like this one — a 73-minute live recording of an Eastman piece performed by the man himself with the long-running group S.E.M. Ensemble in 1974 — feel revelatory and vital. “Femenine” is that rarest of things: a marathon composition that pulses with musical immediacy and creative ferocity, even 46 years later.

Tengger

“Nomad”

tenggerbbib.bandcamp.com/album/nomad

The world is an amazing place. It’s big, and it’s full of different people from different cultures making very different kinds of music, and for every Beatles or Beyoncé or whoever, there are probably 1,000 Tenggers out there, and we’ll be lucky if we ever hear one of those 1,000. So here’s your chance: Tengger is a traveling musical family helmed by a South Korean and Japanese couple whose intoxicating blend of tones, zones and drones are built with electronics but are also deeply rooted in the serenity of nature and the momentum of a life lived without borders. Even if bleeps, bloops and beats aren’t usually your thing, there is something about Tengger’s approach that makes it feel more earthbound, undiluted and accessible than many of their contemporaries. Especially right now, this is essential, calming listening.