By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the sea breezed ambient stylings of MIRAGGI, David August’s Argento project, as well as the all out Chicgao punk of Cel Ray’s fiery CEL RAYZER!
Argento – MIRAGGI
Genre: Ambient, Balearic
Favorite Tracks: “Mare Arcaico,” “Ritmi Marini,” “Vela d’Argento”
Composer and producer David August has lived many musical lives. From formless, ascending ambient pieces to improvised cinematic live mixes to unofficial downtempo remixes of artists like Grizzly Bear, Sly Johnson, and even Nina Simone, the wide pallet of electronic music he’s explored over the last decade and a half is exhaustively thorough, exploratorily niche, and often quite thrilling. It only makes sense that eventually he’d arrive more directly to Balearic music.
Released under the name Argento, MIRAGGI (Italian for mirages) captures the energy of soft sea breezes and early sunrises on the beach—each song colorfully radiating a sonic spectrum of dazzling blues and tans and whites. August and percussionist Lorenzo Setti hone in that Balearic ambience by filtering pocketed, pulsating, downtempo drums and digital synths through a New Age aura. Its boldest rhythms, including the slow rolling standout “Ritmi Marini” and the melting, whispery samba “Mare Arcaico,” are dance cuts with timeless if understated intentions—to sway rather than boogie, ascend rather than party; the hum of a cricket chirping fades in and out on the sunsetting “Alba,” and like much of the album comfortably, aimlessly drifts into spaces where artful lounge muzak meets blissed out library music.
Described in the liner notes as “an imagined soundtrack shaped by desire, memory and the spiritual abundance of the Mediterranean Sea,” it’s hard to imagine a version of this album that delivers on that thesis better. The ecstasy laden idleness of closer “Vela d’Argento” sums up those intentions perhaps better than any other song: a slow, sensual shuffle offering a colorful, blown out paradise, each second rich in anticipation. Music From Memory rarely misses, and MIRAGGI is continued proof of that. Give a listen over on Bandcamp. [CJ Simonson]
Cel Ray – CEL RAYZER
Genre: Punk
Favorite Tracks: “Snake’s Maw,” “Phone Stuff,” and “Trash”
Despite their specific choice of name, Cel Ray are a quintessential Chicago band. In fact, I deemed 2023’s CELLULAR RAYMOND a “scattershot of punk devotion that gleefully shuffles context and meaning” as born from a “Midwestern mix of hard work/devotion and an aw-shucks level of openness.” Third Coast, baby!
This summer’s 10-track CEL RAYZER certainly furthers that same approach/M.O. “Gotta Get Away” is the egg-pogo fusion that gleefully empowered CELLULAR, a funky-but-furious ode to this undefinable urge to run screaming toward the hills. “Price of Gas,” meanwhile, channels that hyperbolic angst and nuclear awkwardness in more timely, relevant directions. And just because, “Toxic” makes you slam-dance into brick walls.
What you’ll get with these is Cel Ray’s diluted essence: sharp-ish socio-political insights; sustained manic goodness (courtesy of singer Maddie Daviss); and enough “ADHD Kid” energy to fuel 22 nuclear power plants. It’s all genuinely great, and what you’d expect from a band who describes themselves as “hot lava overflowing.”
But what if there was something else—nuance, time, and a dash of variety? Why you’d get “Snake’s Maw,” which at almost four minutes is basically a prog jam. Mostly, it’s a chance for the band (drummer Alex Watson, bassist Kevin Goggin, and guitarist Josh Rodin) to weave and build around Daviss, and let this grow/fester before some grand release that’s more street-level poetry than pleas for Mt. Dew and lower gas prices.
You’d also get “Trash”—it may only be a Daniel Johnston-esque pop song for 12-ish seconds, but that makes it feel all the more lively and engaging. There’s also the sunnier disposition that offsets the otherwise familiar arc of “Teen (Cult) Song,” or how three full minutes lends “Treat Economy” a proper lifespan of emotionality and gradation.
Has Cel Ray grown up? Heck no—they’re still these brash, overly-eager weirdos stomping about Garfield Park. It’s not about maturity but intellect—Cel Ray have done enough to know what works and can then push and pull accordingly. Is the recognition of said “power” a recent development? Sure, the record hums with a level of ferocity that acknowledges some corner having been turned or an otherwise grander rejuvenation underwent.
Cel Ray champion this singularly enthusiastic and unwavering approach to punk across all of their releases. With CEL RAYZER, then, they’ve allowed themselves the space to go longer, extend their core sound (see the “sparklier” instrumentation of “Phone Stuff”), and only go exactly where a song demands. It’s never about mitigating the uproarious chaos of it all, but instead managing it to extend the absurdity, joy, connective might, etc.
The thing about being in constant flux and motion is that no one really knows where you’re going—or even expects you to ever land anywhere. Here, Cel Ray recognize this “superpower,” and they remain themselves even as things feel more expansive, organized, and downright elevated. We’ve simply caught this bright, brilliant band at a single moment, and we can enjoy them as perhaps their best, most focused iteration yet. Where do they go from here? No clue, but I bet it’ll be tastier than a tall glass of, um, celery-flavored soda.
Listen to it now over on Bandcamp. [Chris Copland]
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