Roma Vjazemski - Golden Microphone From Rainy Sicily (2023)

One half of cosmic funk duo Fruit Express and co-founder of SAD FUN, Estonia-based producer Roma Vjazemski materializes in an arid, abstract zone on 'Golden Microphone...', throwing a sheet of ferric gauze over cracked beatbox bumps and analog synth wobbles. RIYL Plone, Stroom, Delia Derbyshire or Nikolaienko. Initially released in 2020 as a snappy 8" (!) vinyl on Vjazemski's SAD FUN label, 'Golden Microphone from Rainy Sicily' has been expanded into a slippery suite of rhythmic electrical pulses and melted monophonic melodies. The original two tracks are included in full, forming the album's backbone and setting the pace with Raymond Scott or BBC Radiophonic Workshop-style blips and child-like rhythms that bubble thru layers of tape hiss. Elsewhere, tracks like 'Waiting For Her To Get Ready' sound more indebted to the German kosmische vanguards, spiced up with fourth world echoes that resonate with Andrew Pekler's knottiest deployments. And Vjazemski doesn't only attempt to capture a lost, utopian past, he's also able to melt his lightly hauntological sequences into dubby abstraction, turning a loose, unstable rhythm into dizzy darkness on 'Bluesman's Blues' and freezing drones alongside pastoral environmental recordings on the effervescent 'Horses of Uhum'. Rezzett's Tapes shows up on 'I Used to Have', easing a tensile, metallic groove into Vjazemski's cosmic slop - needless to say, anyone enthused about modern tape music, neo-dub or the most utopian archival finds on the Stroom label should check this one immediately.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Roma Vjazemski - Golden Microphone From Rainy Sicily Pt.1 (4:21)
1.02 - Roma Vjazemski - Waiting For Her To Get Ready (2:16)
1.03 - Roma Vjazemski - Bluesman`s Blues (4:02)
1.04 - Roma Vjazemski - Horses of Uhum (4:47)
1.05 - Roma Vjazemski - Science And Alchemy in Uraniborg (5:13)
1.06 - Roma Vjazemski - Golden Microphone From Rainy Sicily Pt.2 (3:49)
1.07 - Roma Vjazemski - Sammal (3:25)
1.08 - Roma Vjazemski - I Used To Have (5:35)
1.09 - Roma Vjazemski - Suurupis (3:51)
1.10 - Roma Vjazemski - Car to L.A (Gone Forever) (4:05)