Om Unit does something a little different on his newest album. After a collaboration with warped dub crew Seekersinternational last year, he’s released a set of downtempo and ambient tracks which mix acid techno with Bristol-style dub. Some of it’s weightless, like “The Struggle”, and some of the beat-driven tracks like “Treading Earth” and “Celestial Envoy” seem a jump away from the halftime sound he’s often been associated with, but with a digi-dub flavor. “Circled” is like On-U Sound or Mad Professor taking on Kraftwerk’s “The Model”, and it’s the most gorgeous track here. He’s always been a master hybrid artist, and here he approaches some other sounds from a different angle.
3-20-21
Arlo Parks ~ Black Dog
Shygirl ~ Rude
FFSYTHO?! ~ Ask About Me (Jabru Remix)
Nappy Nina ~ Weight
Nubiyan Twist feat. Ego Ella May ~ 24-7
Killah Priest ~ In Secret Anticipation
A Winged Victory for the Sullen ~ Total Perspective Vortex
Hildegard ~ Jour 2
Grouper ~ STS
Jessica Ekomane ~ Live at Heroines of Sound (extract)
Stereolab ~ Dimension M2
Casper McFadden ~ Psychopass
DJ Girl X Elevation ~ CA$HAPP
Ryan Dugré ~ Stalking Horse
British label Super Hexagon has released a few remarkable bass music/braindance-orbit EPs by artists like FFT and J.Wiltshire over the past 5 years. Their newest release is a Bandcamp-exclusive compilation with all profits going to Key Changes Music Therapy in Winchester. The beats gradually creep in with the first few tracks, with “Proximity” by ISMAEL. (track 3) being a sort of grime/IDM hybrid with fizzling horns and beats that swiftly pounce around. Jo Rae’s “20EG20” is dystopian robots-roaming-the-halls music that also has a kind of garage swing to it. Cocktail Party Effect follows his tremendous album from last year with “Car Crash Handshake”, some steel girder dubstep which emits light beams. J-Shadow’s track is a bit more clubby and accessible than the rest of the comp, but Kindohm’s “IG” drops us deep into the pit of the algorave, with sporadic beats cracking skulls in from all corners. The mighty Christoph De Babalon’s “The Legendary Sleep” is simply majestic, equal parts cinematic splendor and rough, ride-out jungle. {arsonist}’s “Idempotent” is definitely more IDM-sounding than her usual work but far from impotent, revealing emotions through its flickering, prismatic beats. Gooooose’s “Ion” closes the comp, with heart-racing arpeggios and choral vocals blooming out of gentle pianos.
This… is weird. A jokey, sprawling avant-pop collage which seems to have some sort of apocalyptic bent or some sort of scheme to figure out the secrets of the universe. They’re from Milwaukee but there’s members from all over, and it says it was recorded between 2006 and 2020. At times there’s a strange soul/early rock & roll thing to it, but in a very homespun way with rudimentary musicianship. Some parts are more avant, maybe Sun City Girls-ish, mixing noise and found sounds with African/Middle Eastern rhythms. Others are modern-day Kerouac road trip/touring stories, with “Baby Wonder” being more of a childhood remembrance. “I Am the Warden” is a haunting, creeping piece from the point of view of some dumb-ass cop abusing his power. “Chicago” is playground jazz with boppy saxophone. “Just When You Think You Don’t Know Someone” is closer to a straight-up indie rock song, but there’s a nihilistic tone to it. “What the Sensei’s Wife Knows (And When She Did Know It?)” is a trippy collage with a spoken sample about LSD. “Please Let Me Get Through This Chore List” is a stammering, stream-of-consciousness tale about a manic grocery store escapade. “Digital Saloon” is a fake trailer for a wacky movie about six unlikely individuals running a virtual business together, including a “sentient outer space sock puppet”. “Fast Food with the Demigods (Parts 1 & 2)” is a demented rap song that mentions sipping an Orange Julius with Samson. “Celebrations of the World” is an epic rocket journey to Mars, crashing into the brief noise-punk smidgen “Learned Helplessness”. “Bamboo Harvester” is a sort of lo-fi industrial rap track which contains a brief sample of queercore legends Mukilteo Fairies. “Honeyville” is a ridiculous country drama, and “Forgive” is a doo-wop ballad which drifts along over a single loop, until it all smudges away at the end. The digital version is up on Bandcamp (with only one previewable track), but interestingly enough, the vinyl edition of this album is only available if you make a donation to Milwaukee’s Pathfinders organization and email the band your receipt.
Recorded solo under lockdown by project founder Robert L. Pepper, Pas Musique’s latest effort lives up to its name, with buzzing guitars and mesmerizing synth sequences coalescing into magical, uplifting pieces. Burning spirit jams filled with luminous textures, subconscious voices, and very tactile-sounding synth bass. There’s a good balance between hazy/ethereal and very plugged-in sounds, so that there’s fleeting grooves to latch onto and other gaseous sounds that seep into your brain when you’re not paying attention to them. The beat switches during “Splash of Red Touch-All” bump things up to a higher level. “In Likeness of Me” also diverts to a more playful rhythm halfway through before lapsing back into its previous acid swirl. “The Hour” has much more sporadic beats, jostling your awareness and ending with a warning that “the hour is approaching”. At the end of the violin-laced “La Bas”, the same voice surfaces again, stating that “I learned to accept the inevitable”. Even when heading towards destiny, there is still hope, and reasons to be thankful and celebrate.
Anna Atkinson, the songwriter behind Linaire, sings gentle tunes over minimalist, Casio-ish drum machines and keyboards, sometimes with additional instruments such as a viola or contrabass. Like the first song says, “maybe it’s a litte bit sad”. Definitely reminiscent of early Julia Holter, as the music is minimalist, but the vocals are a bit more complex. “No Part of Me Ever Dies” has some Weyes Blood vibes for certain. “The Inside, The Outside” is a nice little cosmic waltz about divine powers. “I’ll Buy You Lunch” seems simple and childlike, but unexpectedly seems concerned with mortality; after its title repeats in the chorus, Atkinson says “Just don’t give your life away”. “Oh Who” incorporates swinging cellos, round-like vocals, and some skittery drum machines in the middle. The lush, gorgeous “Snowshoe” is probably the highlight of this set. “Worked That Way” is one of the most hypnotic tracks here, especially towards the end when the drum machine and viola come in.
Rasmus Birk is signed to Atlanta-based Black Cottage Records, home to Applesauce Tears, and apparently shares members with other acts on the label. While this album can be loosely filed as indie electronic, there’s a bit less of a cinematic, almost post-rock feel to it than Applesauce Tears, and more of a mischievous, sample-happy bent. Reminds me a little of the ’90s label Slabco, but without any presence of sung lyrics, and with glitchier beats at times. But it definitely has a D.I.Y. spirit and a somewhat goofy sense of humor, with song titles like “Hottie Art Teacher” and “Lark’s Tongue in Asbestos”. “Clad in Homespun” is a chipper opener with a catchy sample (“Lose touch with the real world”) along with some twinkling organ textures and plenty of offbeat ear-catching sounds. “I Married a Bog Woman” is slower and a bit more mysterious and scientific, and also gets more haunting when the beat changes up. “Second Wetting” is more distraught dwelling on an emotional breakdown during a recording session. “Hottie Art Teacher” is a dreamy burst of glitchy vocals and soothing beats which unexpectedly ends up with thumping 4/4 kicks and a dark cloud of synth noise and crickets. The shadowy “Lark’s Tongue in Asbestos” plays games with a sample of a tight-lipped figure who doesn’t want to come out into the light and speak to a questioning officer. “Invisible Weapon” is one of the most shapeshifting tracks here, going from a perplexing mix of skipping beats, dark flutes, and turntable scratches to baby screams and more of a daytime TV show vibe, with all sorts of wailing ghosts behind it. And then there’s tumbling arpeggios and more beat changes. “Meat Is Manslaughter” revolves around samples about a guy who choked on a piece of meat, and it’s both playful and highly unsettling. Final track “I Lost My Nerve (In the Photo Booth)” starts out with a cheerful cocktail party vibe, but then gets haunting, with more downcast guitars and the chilling repeated sample “I lost my nerve”. Not quite the same sort of creepy, morbid sense of humor as Tobacco, and not nearly as abrasive, but similar in how it makes you question how serious it all is, and if you should feel disturbed or not.
3-13-21
Yasmin Williams ~ Swift Breeze
Nabihah Iqbal ~ Elvis
ouri ~ harp version *shape of it
Fishmans ~ Backbeat ni Nokkatte
Fievel Is Glauque ~ Unfinding
Madison McFerrin ~ Hindsight
Lava La Rue feat. Karma Kid ~ Lift You Up
Plankton Wat ~ Modern Ruins
Stara Rzeka ~ Bron Nas Od Zlego
Monogamy ~ The Roaches Are Back
Suzi Analogue ~ Fast
Equinox ~ Sinister Crew
Duran Duran Duran ~ Year of the Monkey (Dev/Null’s not-quite-finished remix 2007)
TENGGER ~ Us
Wolff Parkinson White (aka drummer Jochen Rueckert) wowed me with last year’s Favours, an album of hyper-complex drum programming, often using quarter-tone scales, with each track incorporating guest vocalists, including artists far from the breakcore scene like Gabriel Kahane and, believe it or not, Norah Jones. A year later, WPW has released the follow-up,Veritable Rapunzel, and it might be even more bonkers than his last one. Immediately rhythms seem to get chewed up and spat out, smeared voices talk about fruit salad, and tones rapidly crumble and reform, twisting into hundreds of audio shapes per minute. It more closely resembles musique concrète than dance music, but exponentially more harder edged. There’s also a wicked sense of humor to this. “Unapologetically Engineered Nothingness” seems like a desolate dark ambient piece meant to express extreme soul-crushing isolation, but an unexpected payoff lobs a sudden spitball at this mood. “Intentionally Impetuous Incrementalism” seems light and delicate at first, but gradually speeds up into a sonic whirlpool. “Aspirationally Non-Heteronormative” comes close to a level of sentimentality, but then a mangled vocal sample that drops in makes you question the seriousness of all this. “Goebbel’s Brunch Preferences-ish” has a recurring cartoonish sample about stepping on a dead body, while the beats start out menacing and swerving, then tinker away into nothingness. Rueckert constantly pushes the edge on a technical level while crucially keeping a high level of absurdity, assuring that the album is fun and perplexing rather than dry and academic.
Brooklyn-based guitarist and composer Ryan Dugré regularly plays with artists like indie singer/songwriters Cass McCombs and Eleanor Friedberger, but on his own, he makes evocative instrumentals which drift between modern classical, folk, soundtracks, and dream pop. The twelve mostly-brief pieces on Three Rivers sometimes feature string arrangements, pedal steel, and other instrumentation, but Dugré’s delicate, affectionate guitar melodies are the main focus. “Foxglove” starts like a wistful movie theme, and is augmented with gentle drumming and a sprinkle of synth melodies, then later picks up into a more galloping tempo, set alight with flurries of strings. The sparse, haunting “Stalking Horse” is closer to ethereal darkwave, and easily one of my favorite moments here. “Shining” has a similar melody, but played on piano, and is doubled up with a further guitar melody and strings. “In the Silence” captures a somewhat similar feeling, but the steel guitar brings a bit of levity.
The Answer Is In The Beat 