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Funnybone Records releases benefit compilation, Liminal Space, with a truly stacked lineup

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Happy Fourth Birthday, Funnybone Records! Hartford’s Funnybone Records just released a giant 28-track benefit compilation, Liminal Space, filled to the brim with great music. What’s the benefit, you ask? Funds raised from Liminal Space will be donated to support three organizations whose work is crucial in protecting communities: End Hunger Connecticut, House of GG, and the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Assembly. This isn’t a new thing — Funnybone has done this for a couple of years now, including 2019’s House Sounds and 2018’s Running from the Dark.

The compilation also comes with a twin! Import Sky is a new printed community arts journal that features multidisciplinary artwork from Buck Meek (from Big Thief), Katie Skau, RJ LaRussa, Mary Neagle, and many (I mean many) more. Bandcamp has an option to access both Liminal Space and Import Sky, and we recommend going that direction. You can maybe think of Liminal Space as the soundtrack for Import Sky? Or maybe the other way around and Import Sky as the visual/narrative media companion for Liminal Space? Let us know how you paired the two!

To celebrate this 28-track compilation, we’ve given a very quick blurb / commentary for every song on the compilation.


1. Kelly Quigley – Behind Now

A brand new song from the master, Kelly Quigley’s “Behind Now” is the perfect start for Liminal Space because it IS a liminal space.  One part of it feels like a dream, and the other feels like an affirmation.  It’s both tense and relaxing.  


2. Griff – Foresight

A beautiful sun rises on weekend morning while you sit curled up on a couch in a giant old house.  The pride of Sarasota Springs, Griff’s new song (from Everyday, a Little Something) is the ultimate chiller.  Part jazzy wake-up call, and part twilight R&B.


3. Niamh – One For Leaving

A magnificent pop wonderland – all of Niamh’s songs take up your whole head with their gentle synths and warm vocals.  Recorded / mixed by Daniel Carr (of Greetings) and back-up harmonies by Clara Huebenthal.


4. @ – My Garden

Maryland’s @ released Mind Palace Music earlier this year, and “My Garden”, the album’s closing track, is certainly a highlight (just like it’s a highlight on this compilation)!  Tender psychedelia.


5. Greetings… – Sleeper

Oh hey, there’s Daniel Carr!  We just saw him in the “One For Leaving” blurb.  Retro-futuristic psychedelic R&B, how can you not be onboard with this?  I’m also secretly a sucker for anything that includes a good whistle in place of a verse break.


6. Berta Bigtoe – Hieronymous and Me

Falsettos from top to bottom, the award-winning bodybuilders Berta Bigtoe have made a lo-fi AM radio gem.  Music for when you accidentally wake up in a cartoon version of our own world.


7. NOVA ONE – to be kind

Everlasting friend of Connecticut, Roz Raskin’s Lovable was one of our favorite albums of the year (non-CT division), so it comes with great joy to find its opening track snuggled in this compilation.  Moving the song from an opener to a heart-of-the-record song gives the song a new context – an opening, blooming flower, or a video clip that washes from black and white to technicolor.


8. Luke Ellingson – Unwind (Unwound)

Oh hey, an exclusive version of “Unwind”!  This track is one of our very favorite songs on Ellingson’s new Clementine, so this stripped back version is a perfect little bonus track.


9. Donnie Alexzander – Secret Themes

This has everything you’d want in a Donnie Alexzander song!  Perfectly distilled guitar lines, minor key shifts, and a slow + sad delivery.  “Secret Themes” is a compilation exclusive for now, and it alone is worth the minimum price of the compilation.


10. Lumot – Wilted

Remember that band, SHY?  Really great, right?  Well they are rebranded as Lumot, and it’s still the primarily songwriting vehicle for Shyanne Horner.  The name change comes with a stylistic change too – the song (like their new album) is wickedly catchy and a little prickly to the touch (in an exciting way).


11. sundots – In Touch (feat. OnlyAfter6PM)

Drew Collins from Pulsr has two new songs out on compilations: both are great and both are collaborations with OnlyAfter6PM.  Sundots’ music is like waking up from a daydream, remembering a great melody for a song, only to fall right back into the same daydream after about two minutes.  Happy, tape-backmasking dreams.


12. Pearl Sugar – On the Low

Connecticut expat Pearl Sugar should be voted “most likely to have a song in a Twin Peaks tribute album” – superb dreampop with a nice helping of heartbreak.


13. Max & Haley – Big Hug

This song reminds me of when I was a kid – I found an old cassette (not sure who the artist was), and I began pulling the tape out of the cassette.  I stretched and pulled, and more and more tape just kept coming out.  I would wrap the new tape around my fingers and just keep pulling, and it look like I had cat’s cradle-type knot made from this music.


14. foil – I Forgot

Last year, Funnybone Records released the astonishing, pleasantly mischievious debut of Joann Fabrix.  One half of that pairing, Helly Manson who also runs the Jolt Music label in Philadelphia, makes music under the name Foil.  “I Forgot” is dreamy, and it will spin around a few times before laying down to sleep.


15. Dreamvoid – Press Play

Ym / Chad Browne-Springer is a revelation on Dreamvoid’s new album social anxieties in the new world.  Dreamvoid’s music is a little more dance-centric than the solo CBS work, and it immediately pulls you into its own orbit.   Case in point: “Press Play”, a song that you could easily have on repeat for an hour before you decide to venture to the next track.


16. Meuble – All That (feat. Eugene Junior)

Look, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know who Meuble is.  Dunno if Meuble is a group or a songwriter or a producer.  But I do know that “All That” is an incredible track, and Eugene Junior’s verse shines something heavy.  Yo if Meuble has more music out now, please let me know.


17. Pink Navel – NDC Cafe Remix

“NDC-Cafe.dev” first debuted on Pink Navel’s 2018 Odyssey Tape.  Here, Pink Navel has remixed his own track, blowing it up, expanding it, and including some great bars all on top of it.  Betcha didn’t expect scat on a 2021 remix, did you?


18. Blue toed – Dry Spell

A few tracks up, we talked about Joann Fabrix.  The other half of that group is Nico Lepeska-True, whose music is layered with playfully repetitive loops and samples.  You can find “Dry Spell” originally on Blue Toed’s Screentime in the Deep.  This track features what I would call the “hey wait, I wasn’t done with that” effect, when a song ends at just the perfect time that you want to revisit it immediately.


19. Them Airs – arc_flash.xlt

Lil stinkers from Post Haven, Them Airs have remixed the opening track of Doped Runner Verse to an unrecognizable Aphex Twin song. “Arc_Flash.xlt” is a surprise, of course, because of how different it sounds from anything else Them Airs have done. But let’s be honest, if they put out a whole album of this kind of IDM 2000’s pastiche, we’d all be like “yes of course thank you”.


20. Queen Moo – Vine Street (Bandcamp Exclusive)

A cover of a song by Randall S. Newman.  I gotta say, having Queen Moo submit a cover of Randy Newman is a bit of a “oh, of course they like Randy Newman!” moment.  The clues were all there.  This track is a bandcamp exclusive and will not be on other streaming services, so check it out now!


21. Changeling – untitled pop song

Changeling is Samuel Sandoval, Stadia (Dylan Healy), and Justin Holden – three people who have released great music separately, and are not releasing great music together.  The trio have released another song (available on the previous Funnybone compilation), but I check bandcamp at least once a month to make sure I’m not missing out on any new ones.


22. Figurine – Gallows

One of our favorite CT musicians, Figurine’s “Gallows” is exactly what we love about Ashly LaRosa’s music.  A minimalist opening swells into an emotional tidal wave.  Be sure to check out Worthy from earlier this year!


23. Carey – Hypnotizer

Carey, formerly known as Namesake, debuts with “Hypnotizer”, a song that more than adequately lives up to its title.  “Hypnotizer” feels like digging your hands into the New England soil before it gets too cold to dig and seeing your breath puff out of your chest with each handful of dirt you pull out of the ground.


24. John Airfield – TNT

John Airfield is the collaborative project from Brooklyn’s Michael Steiner.  Speaking of liminal spaces, “TNT” floats between the muscular Americana of Springsteen and the synths of a nostalgic utopia.   John Airfield is no stranger to using music to give back to the community – they teamed up with Funnybone Records to make their EP 1999 that directly benefited the RHD Morris Home in Philly.


25. Max Shakun – Where Will I Go

Before striking out on his solo project, Max Shakun was in the CT band Parsonsfield!  His debut EP dropped just last week (Heatwave), and “Where Will I Go” is one of the stand-out tracks on that collection.  Drop into it like a cool pool next to an inky black ocean.


26. Mild Monk – Little Paradise

The little bandcamp bio for Mild Monk reads (and has read for a long time): “Music from the heart.”  And there’s never been any doubt about that – the Monk’s music is quiet, considered, and infinitely pleasurable.  As the end of the compilation gets closer (three tracks left!), you can feel the finale approach.  It’ll be a slow wave to your friends as they come to greet you.


27. Andrés Ruiz – Arenas movedizas

Argentina’s Andrés Ruiz is a one man band!  Laid-back and otherworldly, I can feel the light from a sun slipping in and out of the clouds when I listen to “Arenas movedizas”.  For a song title that translates to “quicksand”, this does a perfect job of pulling you in and keeping you there.


28. Ayla Loon – Harbinger

Massachusetts’ Ayla Loon (fka Unstabile) closes the compilation out with “Harbinger”. The feeling I get from this song is a perfect landing — drifting closer to the earth so that the ground may rise to meet our feet. Feel the grass, feel the wind, close your eyes and take a deep breath in. And what do you know? It’s time to start over again.