Dream Sequence

Emerging from Trieste in 1972, Dream Sequence (Elena Leitner, Giulia Leitner, and Sofia Martini) forged an Italian take on the Berlin School and a true scuola cosmica italiana through Moog synthesizers and ethereal textures. Their legacy is a sonic journey between technical precision and cosmic mystery, an echo of the analog era weaving through cables and constellations before the final silence.

Or so they would have us believe. 

This introductory text accompanied the eight releases from this previously unknown trio which suddenly popped up out of nowhere on Bandcamp in February. Suffice to say I'm extremely dubious, but whoever is responsible for these recordings is a proper scholar of the Berlin School sound of the era it purports to come from.

There's a right treasure chest of kosmische booty to be unearthed here, with the lengthy pieces contained within unfolding in the unhurried manner of the best Berlin School releases of the era. 

If densely textured, slowly evolving analog soundscapes are your thing (and as you're reading this, I'll assume they are) then you know what to do.

Listen to the Dream Sequence catalogue here or book a one way trip through one of the embeds below.

Beat Rhythm Fashion - Bring Real Freedom + Beings Rest, Finally

On this second go around for the Active Listener I intend to occasionally share some deserving music from my home country New Zealand. We're a little country with a small population, tucked away in our own corner and due to our geographical isolation and comparatively small music industry not a lot of our music makes it internationally. So what I share here will be known by very few offshore, beyond a small community of collectors.

Beat Rhythm Fashion, based around brothers Dan & Nino Birch were the ultimate NZ post-punk band. Their wistful dreampop-before-its-time sound compares favourably with The Cure circa Seventeen Seconds. For those that want to read an in depth history of the band I'd direct you to their profile page on the excellent NZ music website Audioculture here. This post is only intended as an introduction to get you listening.

Sadly they never released an album proper during their initial run in the early eighties, but they did manage three absolutely classic singles, of which the gorgeous Turn of the Century (embedded below) is the undisputed crown jewel. Get that playing now while you read the rest of this, you'll not be disappointed.

Christchurch (by way of Japan) label Failsafe Records have managed to collate two fantastic archival collections of recordings by the band from this era over the years, both of which are available through Bandcamp. 

Bring Real Freedom constitutes the three singles and their b-sides plus a selection of well recorded live material which would have likely appeared on a debut album if they'd had the opportunity to record one.

Beings Rest, Finally digs even deeper to complete the picture, with rare compilation appearances and more live material that has been extensively restored and sounds absolutely superb.

Though both collections are revelations, I'd start with Bring Real Freedom. These two releases belong in the collections of anyone who is a fan of the Cure, Sad Lover & Giants, the Lines, the Sound, the Chameleons and the like.

Unfortunately Dan passed away in 2011 but Nino has released several albums of new material as Beat Rhythm Fashion since 2018 with Caroline Easther, former drummer for the Chills. They can also be found on their Bandcamp page.

Listen to Bring Real Freedom on Bandcamp. 

Listen to Beings Rest, Finally on Bandcamp.  

The Garrys - Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Original Score)

This Saskatchewan trio's regular fare is pretty closely aligned to the La Luz school of surf guitars and girl-group vocals - which they do very well - but this is something else entirely.

Recorded to accompany a 2019 showing of the classic 1922 film Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages, this is a beautifully realised synthesis which on paper shouldn't work, but proves to be inspired.

The Garrys' sound translates to this medium surprisingly well. Largely bypassing the rapid-fire, staccato guitar runs you'd normally expect of the genre, the Garrys here conjure a dread atmosphere by amping up their doomy Shangri- La's vocal harmonies, providing the perfect haunt factor with their witchy chanting and spooky oohs and aahs, atop an ominous bed of swelling tremelo guitars, cymbal splashes and mournful trumpet. And the walking basslines take on a 'being stalked in the dark' quality in these surrounds. 

It stands up perfectly well on its own but for the full experience you can watch the film and score synced together on the Garry's YouTube channel here. 

Ghosts of Jupiter - Keepers of the Newborn Green

Here's another that's not new (but new to me and hopefully some of you too). Ghosts of Jupiter is the sort of band that I'd have championed endlessly on my first run of the Active Listener if I had only known of their existence. Just goes to show that there is always something great that you've missed, and make no mistake, Ghosts of Jupiter are great. 

I'll focus on their latest release, 2021’s Keepers of the Newborn Green, as it’s what I’ve listened to the most from their catalogue, but from what I’ve heard of the others you’re pretty safe jumping in anywhere.

Now, there is an elephant in the the room, so let’s get that out of the way first. Yes, this sounds an awful lot like Midlake, but that’s no bad thing as far as I’m concerned as I can never get enough of them. Forest prog I guess you could call it and there are certainly moments on here (especially during some of the instrumental passages) that strongly evoke the moodier elements of some of my favourite early 70s UK prog albums from the likes of Ginhouse, Tonton Macoute and Steel Mill, so if that’s the sort of vibe you’re looking for you’d do well to get stuck in here.

Highlights for me are the mid-album duo of Sea of Madness which has a great hook and superlative flute and keys interplay, and the spacey synth washes of Battlekat, which revels in its Floydian grandeur.

Definitely one to spend some time with.

 

Junkboy - Littoral States

Junkboy's previous album Sovereign Sky was one of my favourite albums from my first stint on the Active Listener so it's only natural that I should belatedly draw your attention to its follow up, 2023's Littoral States. 

Like Sovereign Sky, it's an exquisitely arranged and produced affair, with gorgeous string arrangements that can trace their distinctly English lineage back to Robert Kirby's work for Nick Drake, and beyond.

Sussex folk singer Hannah Lewis is a welcome presence on a number of tracks, but for the most part this is a wistful instrumental ramble through the Sussex countryside, evoking a strong sense of place - not surprising given their interest in psychogeography (they were interviewed for Phil Hubbard's book "Listening To Landscape" which looks fascinating and is on my to-read-when-I-can-find-a-copy list).

It's all impeccably done of course. A perfect Summer listen which has accompanied me on many trail walks already with many more to come I'm sure.

Others have already covered this more eloquently, so I'll leave it to your ears to be the judge, but anyone who enjoys investigating the meeting place between hauntology and pastoral folk will find plenty to enjoy here.

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister

Discovering the music of this Spanish duo was pretty much single-handedly responsible for me reviving the Active Listener. They really opened my eyes (ears?) to how much great music was still being made out there, and this is just too good to not share.

The Gong inspired moniker makes it pretty clear what to expect, and these two have really got their vintage seventies space-rock / psychedelic / progressive vibes honed to an impressive degree. 

Their self titled 2020 debut shows no signs of trying to find their way and aptly demonstrates how fully formed their sound already was at that stage, but it's their two Tarot albums, released six months apart in 2024 that really show the full mastery of their craft. Beautifully produced, these albums make full use of the sonic spectrum and the spacious mixes give the rich instrumentation (including plenty of mellotron, flutes and sitars) plenty of room to shine. And the treated vocals are absolutely on point.

Broadcast meets early seventies Pink Floyd would I guess be a starting point, but there's plenty more touched upon here and it's all done masterfully. These would be holy grail albums if they'd been released in the seventies, no doubt.

I'm sure a lot of you will already be familiar with these albums but for anyone who has yet to discover them, now's the time. Superb stuff.

Luster

This Belgian group describe themselves as "the missing link between Mazzy Star, Pentangle, Broadcast and Enhet for Fri Musik", so in all honesty there was no way I was not going to check this out. 

Often with these press-releases the reality can't match the hyberbole but in this case they're right on the money - no pipe dreams here.

It's spooky and a bit ethereal and has some doomy drones that give it a bit of a ritualistic folk-horror vibe at times. And at other times it's beautifully evocative and naturalistic.

This 2022 release was ten years in the making apparently. Hopefully a follow up doesn't take that long to manifest.

A Return + Moonrite

Six years! It's been a while since I was last on here. 

How you all doing? 

Life got pretty busy here and for the longest time I almost completely stopped investing time in new music. I got comfortable listening to what I knew and found that I had to really work to connect with anything new.

But over the last month or so I've made some positive lifestyle changes which have, among other things, put me in the right sort of headspace to start being receptive to new music again. And it turns out that there's a lot of pretty impressive stuff still happening out there. So I'm going to start sharing it again.

Time won't allow for anything like the scope of what was going on here before. It'll just be me, not the wonderful team I had working with me previously. I won't be posting lengthy reviews or compiling samplers. But the urge to share has returned with the urge to discover so I'll be posting links and sharing my thoughts on music that speaks to me as I come across it. And we'll see where things go from there. I've got a lot of catching up to do it seems.

Here's a new discovery to get the ball rolling: 

 

Moonrite are a French duo (two brothers) who released two albums and a 7" between 2016 and 2019 but seem to have shut up shop since then which is a pity as they really had a handle on what they do, namely early seventies style psychedelic occult rock. Not your garden variety stoner / doom either, we're talking serious vintage sounds here. And the treated vocals are amazing. 

 

Check them out - and if anyone knows what they're doing now, let me know.