Ever since 2010’s astounding Emerald Fantasy Tracks, Lone has been creating a grin-inducing sort of dance music reminiscent of 808 State at their most sunny and tropical (“Pacific”, “Plan 9”), Orbital at their most chiming (“Chime” of course), and Underground Resistance in their more deep-house mode (Galaxy 2 Galaxy). In 2011, Lone found a natural home at R&S Records, who have released far too many golden classic dance records than I have time to even start listing here. Reality Testing is another album of positive, timeless dance music, influenced by ’90s British and Detroit techno at its most warm and melodic, but there’s also several excursions into dusty, downtempo instrumental hip-hop, in line with Lone’s earlier material. The styles cross-pollinate, however, with Mike Paradinas-like melodies threading through the dusty hip-hop bounce of “2 Is 8”, or the samples speaking of “reality real” during the broken-beat shuffle of “Restless City”. The classy house groove of “Airglow Fires” even has a Dilla-esque coda before the next track “Coincidences” begins, and flips a similar synth sound from the previous track to a mellower hip-hop rhythm. The album feels a bit like a battle between two personalities, and it’s hard to say which one wins out because he’s just so good at both. The album’s last few tracks see a few clouds start to block the sun, with some slightly more growling synths creeping into “Vengeance Video”. Then “Stuck” is a subdued ambient piece with a distressing looped sample about a man who loses everything; “everything is so fucked up, I can’t begin to begin.” “Cutched Under” ends the album with more of a blue tone than usual for his tracks, with ghostly vocals and nightfallen synth pads. Not the most cohesive or consistent Lone album, but the music is still definitely way above average.
Latest cassette from a local artist, but released on a Chicago label. Both sides of the tape contain around 20 minutes of decaying prismatic sketches, which fade out and resurface unexpectedly. A few moments are closer to dream-pop, with ethereal guitar and weightless, (probably) wordless vocals. At some points there’s some rolling rhythms that even suggest beats, but they feel more like rolling off a hill than anything you can dance to. The second side has a bleak, chilling moment with icy, wailing vocals, but then it drifts back to more droning guitar reveries. The tape can be downloaded and purchased on Bandcamp.
Known Moons & Cloakfern tape
Cloakfern also recently released a tape in collaboration with Known Moons (Josh Bay of Raw Honey and Saturday Looks Good To Me). This tape is also sprawling and dreamlike, but it seems a bit more focused, with more vocals, song titles listed, and a bigger sonic palette. It’s even closer to being worthy of the tag “dream-pop” than the Cloakfern solo tape, but this is still music that’s drifted very far away from “pop”. The whole tape is gorgeous and you should buy it. It’s available to preview and purchase here.
Raster-Noton founders Carsten Nicolai and Olaf Bender released a few EPs on Mute last year with this collaborative project Diamond Version, and now they’ve taken the step and created a full, cohesive album of the project. This album streamlines their glitchy microsound tracks into something more pop-minded, even going so far as to feature Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, singing a weird electro-gospel hymn (“Were You There”). Of the other vocal-based tracks, “This Blank Action” is a wry, sarcastic spoken-word piece, continually playing on the phrases “sorry for your loss”. “Feel The Freedom” has feisty Japanese female vocals, recalling Mu. A few tracks are new and updated versions of tracks that appeared on the EP’s; “Turn On Tomorrow” is a skittering electro track, “Operate At Your Optimum” is a more buzzing, static-y electro track, “Science For A Better Life” has distorted vocal samples of commercial slogans and affirmations, and “Make Believe” is a more skittering Autechre-esque jam. Other highlights include the static-bombarded half-step beat of “Raising The Bar” and the Kraftwerk-inspired phone bleeps and operator messages of “Connecting People”. If you’re already familiar with recent Raster-Noton output, but aren’t afraid of a slightly more accessible sound (and especially if you love the Pet Shop Boys), this is obviously a must-listen. If this sound is all new to you, this could potentially awaken your mind to a lot of possibilities in the digital music world.
First LP from UK-based dubtep/future garage producer. Mostly vocal-based downtempo electronic tracks with intricate production, definitely recommended for fans of most of Ninja Tune’s recent output. “Avarice” has strings and buzzing bass, and a solid steady beat. “The Tempest” starts out with a cool spiralling loop pattern, unconventional beat patterns, ringing guitars and enchanting female vocals. “Hypnotise” has Bjorkian vocals and a more galloping beat. “Linguis” is a cool instrumental with gamelan-like percussion and more buzzing bass. “As You Fall” is a futuristic dubstep ballad, with strings, more clinking, crashing beats, and more buzzing bass. “Pathfinder” has glitchy, obtuse string samples, and more of a thumping beat than most of the other tracks, but even that dissolves and mutates throughout the track. “The Void” is a strong downtempo neo-soul song with a solid minimal beat and synths, and an intense attack of harder synths during the bridge. “Maera” ups the intensity with swirling drum’n’bass breaks, and “All The Lights” is even more overtly d’n’b-inspired, with rapidfire beats, bubbing synths, and strong but not overbearing or overused soul vocals. “Draugr” is where the album gets more drawn out and hazy, riding on simmering synths before some more distorted percussion comes in at the end. “Saltare (Parts 1 & 2)” is a 2-part buzzing, clicking dance instrumental, which seems to get a little slower and less amped-up during its second half. The whole album is pretty great, there’s a lot of exceptional tracks on here, it’s definitely an accessible, slightly poppy album that has plenty of creativity and soul to it.
Synth-heavy instrumental neo-Krautrock. Heavy post-punk guitars, steady drum machien rhythms (both rock-like and technoid), and also some delicate synths. “Velocet Vir Nesat” hits hard with driving rock energy, then “Bounce Synth” is a gentle music-box ballet. “Time Enough” is a future-city cruiser, with clip-clopping drum machines and clean yet fizzing synths. “Shapes And Patterns” basically sounds like its title, with arpeggiating synth patterns and rhythms building on top of each other. “Vapour Trails” is a long, dusty drone with some spare guitar licks on top. “You Are Disko” is a steady electric drive through a desert. “Into Forever” is another delicate, clicking music-box-like composition, with gently floating synths and a half-time beat through part of the second half.
Improv instrumental psych-rock featuring members of Talibam!, USAISAMONSTER and Necking. Melodic and rocking, gets into a groove and hammers away at it. “Astral Projections and Suicidal Thoughts” has a constant organ riff of two notes going back and forth, before taking a solo midway through the track, after which the guitars get more crunchy and furious. “Space Boots Foots to Foots” is more condensed and concise compared to the other 2 tracks, being only 2 1/2 minutes long, and sounds like it has some sitar buried in there. “Anointus Venomous Atlanticus” is longer and more sprawling, slowing down the tempo to a more relaxed pace from the first side, adding more spacey guitar effects, and sea-shanty accordion, making it feel like cruising into the sunset on a pirate ship.
Experimental composer Austin Buckett created the 30 minute-long loops on this album strictly by recording the sounds of snare drums and sandpaper. The result is a series of patterns of various speeds which imitate washing machines, photocopiers, factory machinery, and any other repetitive mechanical devices that are a part of daily human life. These rhythms, of course, can be used as DJ tools, or form building blocks for music, and it’s not hard to sample these and create songs out of them. So naturally there’s a remix EP available as a free download. Listening to all 30 loops in succession can be equal parts thrilling/headnodding and monotonous, so the presence of more musical elements added to some of the remixes can be a welcome change.
Austin Buckett: Sand Stems 1-7
The remixers tend to arrange the loops into clicky rhythms, add distortion, or somewhat attempt to make them more danceable. Andrew Pekler turns the rhythms gloopy and nauseous, Scissorlock makes sort of a cut-up hypnogogic hip-hop instrumental, and DJ Earl and Heavee go the footwork route.
3:02 AM Windy & Carl ~ Untitled ~ split CD w/ Landing ~ Music Fellowship
3:18 AM Red House Painters ~ Drop ~ Ocean Beach ~ 4AD
3:31 AM CarRI ~ Crystals Like They Amethyst ~ Mugen Volume 5 (split tape w/ Spectrum Control) ~ Hausu Mountain
3:49 AM Landing ~ Centrefuge ~ Centrefuge ~ Music Fellowship
4:02 AM V/Vm ~ Monroes Stockport ~ The Death Of Rave (A Partial Flashback) ~ History Always Favours The Winners
4:07 AM Paper Armies ~ Leave Your Room ~ Trying ~ Bridgetown
4:16 AM Apollo Vermouth ~ Never Ending ~ Fractured Youth ~ Bridgetown
4:22 AM Widesky ~ And The Stars Emerging ~ Silhouette. And The Stars Emerging ~ Bridgetown
4:29 AM Mark Alban Lotz ~ PVC Mantra ~ Solo Flutes ~ Lop Lop Productions
4:34 AM Quicksails ~ Mountain Suite ~ Mugen Volume 6 (split tape w/ Headboggle) ~ Hausu Mountain
4:53 AM Arthur Russell ~ Being It ~ World Of Echo ~ Upside Records
4:58 AM Remnants ~ End Of Shuttle Program Pt I ~ Elusive Infinite ~ Tailings
5:02 AM Ben Frost ~ Secant ~ A U R O R A ~ Mute
5:07 AM Hydropark ~ Bae ~ 4th tape ~ Life Like (Soundcloud)
5:19 AM Harmonious Thelonious ~ Ausgelieferte Muziek ~ The Malag EP ~ meakusma
5:24 AM V/Vm ~ Hate You (Edit) ~ V/Vm – Hate You ~ V/Vm Test Records
5:33 AM Diamond Version ~ Access To Excellence ~ CI ~ Mute
5:38 AM Reighnbeau ~ Splinters ~ Hands ~ Bridgetown
5:42 AM Big Waves Of Pretty ~ Blissed ~ It Is A Sight He Never Forgets ~ Bridgetown
5:46 AM Autococoon ~ Infinity Factorial ~ Spirulina ~ Bridgetown
5:50 AM Swans ~ Nathalie Neal ~ To Be Kind ~ Young God
The Answer Is In The Beat 