Albums that my self created network is currently hyping me with.

And not necessarly successfully so - Another little stream of consciousness rambling.

One of the most effective ways to keep up with new physical releases is to subscribe very leniently to artist and label bandcamp pages, newsletters and discogs pages. That can be complemented with mail order and distributor pages as well.

And sometime, you see it all align : you get the anoucement from the artist, from the label, from a promo agency, you see editorial published by the online shops, some social media push, and reviews pop up from various publications you follow or that are suggested to you.

One recent such occurence was the latest Mark Van Hoen album, The Etrenal Present.

Now, I’ve been following Mark’s career for over 30 years now. I even interviewd him as a late teen during his 1997 Locust album, a chat during which he then surprised me by professing his deep love for the Beatles. I do not mind the Fab Four, but when electronica was “everything”, it took me off guard, I must confess. That being said, this was also when I started to become more critical about his music, which until then, had filled a space between Seefeel, The Orb and early Autechre, on e where I felt very much at home. I no longer felt a need to get every single one of his releases as I used to.

By then, he started to use his real name to distinguish his increasingly pop ventures with Locust, from his more abstract electronic musings, and I felt that I was not alone shifting away from the creative hub he once represented, which I still think peaked with his 1995 Locust album, Truth Is Born Of Arguments.

I guess that’s a little sad to say, considering 30 additional years to his career, and around 30 albums under his belt. But that is to to say all his production since then has been worthless, far from that! Because yes, as soon as his name and aliases popped up, even if it was not with the same excitement I felt in the early years, the new offerings were IMHO still worth a listen.

I did purchase half a dozen of his releases since then, but it mostly felt like visiting an old friend you don’t keep up with too often, a nostalgic trip. And I think most people felt the same, as none of those new releases were highlighted anywhere, just a quasi anonymous line in new release listings.

As these episodic marketing news tidbits found their way to me, I still figured out he followed a sort of nomadic life, between the US and several European countries - but I might be wrong about it - and recently resettled in his UK home base.

And thus, suddenly out of nowhere, a new album of his was popping up on all my feeds, including a recent feature/interview/album of the month of the month on Bleep.com, the online retail arm of Warp.

Is this the result of this recent return home, an expensive marketing strategy, an unknown connexion between Warp and his current neo-shoegaze Dell'Orso label, or the genuine celebration of an unexpected masterwork?

Well, I will say that my curiosity was peaked, but that the listening session was contrasted. It reminded me I actually already had listened to some early tracks a few weeks prior, leaving me unimpressed. And yet, upon the full album’s experience, I was reminded that I don’t expect miracles from Mark Van Hoen anymore, and haven’t done so in a quite a while, that no hype should ever color my judgment. Somehow, I still found myself giving another chance to his 2024 album on the same label, Plan For A Miracle, which I did not remember even listening back then, and was even more puzzled by the contrast of its total absence of hype, as it is IMHO a much strong and more charming volume than the new lauded one…

It even made the “maybe” list of future potential purchases, basically my subjective free floating wantlist.

So this was simply a little peak at the elimination process that hundreds and hundreds of albums go through before making the purchase list. I’m sure everyone has their own version of that, but I thought it could be interesting to offer a stream of consciousness about the ones that don’t make the cut, but that I still spend some time with, and maybe do so somewhat regularly.

The ones that make the cut, you know where to find that, on my youtube channel, but, this elimination process, crash testing routine, I’ve been toying for years now, with the idea of creating a format to share it, and here we are, the first draft of the second version, after a failed attempt at a collective format on Facebook 8-9 years ago.

Let me know what you think, until next time.

Stunty