Playing Catch Up

I've been falling majorly behind as of late. Nothing major, just the usual tale of life getting in the way meaning I haven't had much time to sit and write something out for a little while. Not to say I'm short of ideas though, I have plenty of stuff in the pipeline and I've been getting new stuff very regularly as per usual, it's just putting pen to paper that's the issue! But with two month of bandamp fridays to catch up on, I've pencilled in some time this week to hopefully get some down. Today's gonna be a litlle short on just as a stopgap, tracks and more after the pic.

I've been trying to put more variety in my mobile selections as of late, I've had pretty much the same rotation for what feels like forever and I felt like it was in need of a shakeup - so I grabbed a bunch of files and threw them all into the mix: a kind of MP3 stew if you will. Enter Sidewalks And Skeletons, an artist that I've not had in my mixes for a long time. I do remember meaning to talk about Forbidden Files way back when but I don't think I ever did. It's a slightly eclectic mix of remixes, some official, some bootlegs - a few of which are totally mangled in that distinct S&S way.

It feels much more like something you'd get from a random Mediafire link or something similar rather than a full Bandcamp release, like Flying Lotus' demo tapes of old, especially with how cryptic some of the titles get. My first pick of the day is a pretty clear cut one, Crystal Castles' Violent Dreams gets the Skeletons treatment. One of the least surprising ones on this list, both CC and S&S have both have a similar aesthetic if the album art didn't tip you off already. This remix takes things in a very electro direction, very bright sounding and almost synthwave-y in parts. It's proven pretty popular, to the point where a quick search will often bring you the remix before the original. If you've never come across any Sidewalks & Skeletons before, this track does a fantastic job of outlining the MO you can expect.



Some of them are a little plain but it's hard to complain too much when the release is pay-what-you-want. The remix of Ic3peak's I'll Be Found gives plenty of room to flex that Witch House sensibility. Truth be told I'm not too familiar with the genre beyond Sidewalk's works so I don't feel like I can comment too heavily on it (and shamefully I haven't really heard too much of the original until right now). Not quite in the same style as the electro-infused Violent Dreams but still sticks quite close to the structure of the original - there's plenty of peaks and valleys throughout, it does feel like it cover a lot of ground in its relatively short runtime, clocking in around half the length of the original.



That's not the only thing I've been spinning from my collection though, there's also three Volumes of EP to get stuck into as well - also pay-what-you-want. It's a bit of a minefield when it comes to the track list as there's a whole heap of Unicode characters and symbols in there to complicate things. I've got a solitary selection from Volume 1 for now - it's perhaps not the best representation of his current work as it's just turned 10 years old as of 2022, but if you've liked what you've heard so far you'll still find a lot to like here.



And that'll be all for today, as I mentioned up top I'm going to try and get some down and scheduled out so the gap *shouldn't* be as long in future, but with the couple of weeks I've had who knows. But enough of IRL stuff, like I also mentioned up top there's tons of stuff to look forward to, I'm going to try and catch up with the Belated Bandcamps ASAP but there's also some other cool stuff in the pipeline too. Until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF