Listening: Bandcamp, SoundCloud
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STAFFcirc just released a sweet new album on Sunday, but I haven’t listened to their previous album yet, so I should do that first! It’s a small label focused on collaborative theme releases, mostly original music but they occasionally do cover albums. The artists generally come from the western digital fusion/chiptune space, so you’ve seen a lot of their names before when I’ve posted stuff from Sample Pack Contest and the like.
The theme of volume 8 was that it loops endlessly: each track leads directly into the next, and the last loops back to the first, so once you start listening you’re trapped forever and there’s no escape. The album also comes with two seamless mixes: one is simply all 11 tracks in order and loops perfectly, and the other is a standalone mix that replays the first track as an outro and fades out. You’re encouraged to pick an arbitrary starting point when you listen to this and truly embrace the circle.
This one’s consistently quite nice! It’s fairly electronic, with about half of the tracks being more active or dancier and the other half being a bit calmer or more ambient. A few tracks approach having a more acoustic sound of piano, strings, winds, and the like, but they’re still heavy on the synths and electronic production. Lots of good chords and good sounds in pretty much every track, and the overall flow between the tracks is great as well. I’ve already listened to this several times on full loop and I might continue doing so! (I asked a random number generator and it told me to start on track 5.)
Recommended tracks:
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“drum circle” (ilkae as mnsn) is mainly just a wet and glitchy drum track
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“calculations” (mandrasigma) follows directly from that into a proggy dance track with some pretty wild bass
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“For A Younger You” (Naineux) starts off nice and classy with a little bit of some old-timey jazz flavor before getting video game in the second half
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“Ideasthesia” (Viravax) follows directly from that into some ambience consisting of a bunch of nice, rolled piano chords and some pads
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“Sylvestris” (Hunter Van Brocklin) lies in this artist’s space of calm, beautiful glitch disasters
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