Today is the day when so-called Australia is meant to celebrate its founding as a British colony. It’s a day of sadness and contemplation for indigenous Australians, and should be for all of us. This always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
I’m starting with the beats tonight, as I have quite a bit of sound-art and experimental song coming up later.
Insignio – Everytime (A.Fruit remix) [Yanked Beats/Bandcamp]
A.Fruit – Midnight Coffee [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Afonso Silva is Insignio, one of the people behind Portuguese label Yanked Beats. He also makes drum’n’bass as Crawler, but the music under Insignio is a bit less balls-out distorto-bass stuff. Anyway, Barcelona bass producer Anna Fruit, aka A.Fruit, recently mentioned that she had a remix on this single, and it’s very excellent as you can hear. She also has a new EP out on YUKU called Somnambulism, which shows off her various sides of bass, footwork, jungle and ambient, all expertly produced.
DJ Don’t Sleep – No Shut [Stolen Groove]
Celine Arnauld – Reaktor II [Celine Arnauld Bandcamp]
Pablo Miranda, from Seville, started off making speedcore, breakcore and the like, but primarily he releases music now under the name Celine Arnauld, taken from a key poet from the Dada movement (it was a pseudonym of hers too – her real name was Carolina Goldstein). There’s a certain playful aspect to the music of Celine Arnauld, which can range from ambient to jungle & IDM to conceptual sound-art. Late last year, Arnauld released the Ensemble EP, in which he is in dialogue with his younger self, using “ensembles” he created in Native Instruments’ Reaktor software from 2005-2011. “Reaktor II” is a nice piece of glitchy bass-techno. But earlier in 2024 Miranda unleashed another alias, DJ Don’t Sleep, under which he released the first album on UK hardcore/jungle/bass label Stolen Groove, Digital Subscriber. There’s jungle & d’n’b with a hardcore techno (pre-jungle) twist on some tracks, with ambient interludes. Quality.
Leese x Nathalie Froehlich – Holy [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Back to YUKU, who must be one of the most-played labels on this show of late. Here they’ve handed control to Brussels-based DJ & producer Leese (Leslie Deboeur) and Swiss DJ & producer Chewlie (Julia Häller), whose “Invite” series collects club-focused bass music by female producers & artists. Here Leese teams up with Swiss rapper Nathalie Froehlich with a hard-hitting bass track.
Opius – Pizazz [Subtle Audio/Bandcamp]
Vinnie J. Smith’s output as Opius goes back to a series of drum’n’bass 12″s in 2004-2005, but he’s picked up steam a lot in the last 5 or 6 years, more on a drumfunk tip – his In Session on Inperspective last year is wicked, as is the more dark d’n’b-styled EP+remixes The Calling, released in 2023 on Polish label Offish Productions. Meanwhile, Irish label Subtle Audio has been around for a whopping 20 years itself, and they released two multiple CD collections (Subtle Audio Vol II and Vol III) that turned me on to a lot of great drumfunk/jungle in 2010 and 2014 respectively. They’re now back in the compilations game with SUBTLE001COMP :: Rhythmic Idyllic, a 10-track selection of contemporary jungle & drumfunk with 4 tracks also released as a vinyl EP. Opius’ “Pizazz” appears on both – it’s a brilliant piece of jazzy drumfunk, mostly in a half-time swing.
Djrum – A Tune For Us [Houndstooth/Bandcamp]
One of the greatest rhythm scientists of recent years is Felix Manuel aka Djrum. But the beats have always been tempered with lush orchestrations of electronics, samples and instrumental performances. “A Tune For Us” is his first release of 2025 and features cello from Zosia Jagodzinska, who also played on his spectacular 2018 album Portrait With Firewood. Gorgeous Djrum-style neo-classical that slides into very unusual beat patterns in the second half.
tunng – Snails [Full Time Hobby/Bandcamp]
tunng – Drifting Memory Station [Full Time Hobby/Bandcamp]
Look, you know the story. OK, maybe you don’t. In 2004 I was lucky enough to go to Sónar in Barcelona with a press pass courtesy of Cyclic Defrost. Among the memories and goodies I brought back was a promo CD of some sort that featured an incredible track on it, which happened to be the first single by Tunng, “Tale From Black”. I found shortly after that this was released on a lathe-cut 7″ by the excellent little indie label Static Caravan. I was obsessed, and played this and its b-side, and then the second single, to death. And this is where I get confused, because 2025 is the 20th anniversary of their debut album Mother’s Daughter and Other Songs, but Geoff from Static Caravan kindly sent me the album early, so I was playing tracks off it from October 2024. “Folktronica” was a genre name already bandied about for the likes of Four Tet, Manitoba (pre-Caribou) and Minotaur Shock, all of whom used acoustic guitar and other acoustic samples in a cut-up, glitchy hip-hop fashion. This was a different version, songs with an arcane, pagan British folk feel courtesy of singer Sam Genders, and glitchy production from Mike Lindsay which referenced club sounds but never leaned too much on beats. I’m still super fond of that album and its follow-up, but Genders left after the third album and I didn’t warm so much to the following couple of albums. Then after a 5-year break, Genders was back with the band for Songs You Make At Night in 2018, and 2020’s concept album Tunng Presents…DEAD CLUB. It’s been four years, but here’s Love You All Over Again, an album that’s unabashedly nostalgic, looking back 20 years to that debut. So yes, it’s folky and glitchy, and it’s pretty easy-going stuff, but sweet & catchy and unique as ever. I rather like the downtempo instrumental “Drifting Memory Station” too, its title a nice evocation of nostalgia.
Nick Storring – Roxa I (radio edit) [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp]
Everyone knows I collect experimental cellists (not to embalm them and put them on my shelf – preferably just their CDs). Toronto musician & composer Nick Storring is someone I’ve followed for over 10 years – here’s me in 2013 discovering his 2011 album Rife – and I was pretty stunned by the lush orchestrations (performed by Storring on a cornucopia of instruments, some homemade) on his 2020 album My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell and 2021’s Newfoundout. Now this March, We Are Busy Bodies are releasing Mirante, which is ostensibly Storring’s homage to Brazil – and I do think I can feel some kind of Braziliana in this first single, as it becomes more dense & rhythmic. Like those predecessors (and some earlier works), this album features a host of musical instruments and non-musical objects all performed by Storring, meticulously built into opulent orchestrations. There are field recordings from Brazil woven into later tracks on this album too – it’ll be something very special.
Sam Amidon – I’m On My Journey Home [River Lea Recordings/Bandcamp]
I discovered US folk avantgardist Sam Amidon via the minimalist composer & producer Nico Muhly, who used Amidon’s voice and banjo on the third section of his album Mothertongue in 2008. Amidon’s first solo album actually came out the previous year on the same label, Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Bedroom Community. Amidon combined a deep knowledge of American folk music traditions with an interest in contemporary music & production, but the key I feel is his raw, emotive voice, and his proficiency on violin, banjo and guitar. Over the years, Sam Amidon’s music has varied from fairly direct folk – both interpretations of traditional songs and his own pieces – and fusions of folk with free jazz, contemporary classical and electronic music. His new album Salt River, released on Rough Trade sub-label River Lea Recordings, leans away from experimentation by and large, and is a rewarding, dreamy listen.
The Cloud Maker – Shaman Dance [The Cloud Maker Bandcamp]
Here’s a preview of a wonderful new project involving an international cast of brilliant women, convened by clarinettist, improviser and experimental musician Aviva Endean. Endean is a member of the remarkable project Hand to Earth with Yolgnu songman Daniel Wilfred, didgeridooist David Wilfred, trumpeter & sound-artist Peter Knight, and Korean-Australian vocalist Sunny Kim. Kim and Endean were involved in a residency in Banff (Canada), where they met Te Kahureremoa Taumata, a practitioner of Taonga Pūoro (a word that describes a suite of Māori musical instruments). Their fruitful musical collaboration began with the Māori moth goddess Raukatauri, whose story is the origin story of one of those taonga pūoro, the cocoon-shaped flute called Putorino. In the Adelaide Hills, the group expanded to include contemporary cellist Freya Schack-Arnott (who also plays a traditional Swedish multi-stringed instrument called the nyckelharpa which you can hear in her duo Runa Cara with Bonnie Stewart), and percussionist/sound-artist Maria Moles. So yes, it’s a project overflowing with talent & creativity. Each member contributes stories of goddesses from their own folkloric traditions, and The Cloud Maker‘s music is as varied as its members. “Shaman Dance” will have a video released in a few weeks, and is a perfect example, with Māori flutes, unbridled vocals and energetic percussion.
Penelope Trappes – Red Dove [One Little Independent/Bandcamp]
In April, London-based Aussie musician Penelope Trappes will release A Requiem, her first album on the One Little Independent label. We’ve heard two singles already, and here’s the third – just as dark and stark as the previous ones. The Red Dove of the title was held in the hands of a boy at the end of a particularly apocalyptic dream of Penelope’s, and she has channelled this imagery into a reflection on our society’s general numbness to violence and toxicity. Couldn’t be more apposite for the current moment really. There’s the cello scraping, cavernous bass and Penelope’s voice. This will be a powerful album.
Ida Duelund – Læmira [Initiated Records/Bandcamp]
Ida Duelund – Misi Miamo [Initiated Records/Bandcamp]
I’ve been looking forward to Sibo, the debut album from Danish double bassist & singer Ida Duelund, for a while. Duelund is one half of the experimental string duo Lueenas with violinist Maria Jagd, and spent some time studying in Naarm before finding her way back to Copenhagen. This album is a strange, uncanny concoction that’s ambient double bass whalesongs one moment, then exquisite chamber jazz, then heavy electronics… Duelund’s incompletely-white-painted face on the cover is an indicator of the humour and weirdness within, but the wrenching beauty may catch you unawares.
Reuben Ingall – Stung [Reuben Ingall Bandcamp]
Canberra’s Reuben Ingall may be known for making drone works out of a microwave heating up a pie (well, maybe he’s not, but he performed it a lot, and it was… delicious), but he’s a disarmingly lovely songwriter, and his matter-of-fact vocals with guitar sent through custom glitch patches never fail to grab me from the inside. An unfairly talented man who’s happy enough lurking in the background. At the very end of last year he released a little EP called SONG SONGS, which is actually an EP never released in 2014, and completed, re-mixed, or just released now. It’s so good.
Nickolas Mohanna – Night Horses [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp (forthcoming)]
Here’s a special thing just for you – the first single from Nickolas Mohanna‘s album Speaker Rotations, which is out via AKP Recordings on March 7th. NY-based composer & musician Mohanna continues here with his practice of the last few years building cyclical structures of krautrock rhythms and riffs that shift, at intervals, into new shapes. As I commented on his excellent 2023 album Double Pendulum, the joy is often in these transitions, which recontextualise the more static passages around them – which can make it hard to play representative excerpts, but in “Night Horses” you’ll hear the motorik snap and pop of guitar harmonics and controlled feedback, and as it cuts off you’ll hear it start to mutate somewhere else.
Mitchell Keaney – Snowbird Pass [Eastern Nurseries/Bandcamp]
Mitchell Keaney – Northern Butte [Eastern Nurseries/Bandcamp]
Portuguese experimental label Eastern Nurseries (actually co-run out of Newcastle-upon-Tyne) has a strong track record of uncovering unusual, strangely gripping music, and this is one of their strongest in a while, from Arizonan sound-artist Mitchell Keaney (now based in Berlin). The music is inspired by the striking environment of Arizona, from the deserts to the towns, and bewilderingly shifts from literal field recordings (at times with music being played in the background) to deep, abstract walls of sound. It’s incredibly engaging and evocative work.
dprk – Mountain Garden at Eki-Kita 駅北の山庭 [Studio Fabrik/Bandcamp]
I’m glad that this Eora/Sydney experimental group are continuing to make their uncategorizable noise/psych/kraut primitivist stuff. dprk is made up of Richard Fielding (Loop Orchestra, early Severed Heads), Nick Dan (of noise obscurists xNoBBQx) and Juke Wyat (also recently of Loop Orchestra). Their second album dragonfly mountain トンボ山 documents a tour of Japan, and sees them inviting drummer/saxophonist Yusuke Akai into the fold. It’s not really following any trends, nor is it imitating any past genres either – free music, with its own logic. Cool.
Final Fantasy – A [Final Fantasy Bandcamp]
La Fielding & Sydney Jarrett recently formed Final Fantasy as a “melodic noise” duo, using violin and synths with amps and effects. Swansong is a long, freeform jam performed at Lazy Thinking in Dulwich Hill (Sydney’s inner west). It’s been a long time since Owen Pallett was calling himself Final Fantasy, so the name’s up for grabs! This reminds me nicely of Yellow Swans, which is a very good thing.
Kate Carr and Matt Atkins – Chloroplast [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp]
Finally for tonight, on Kate Carr‘s own Flaming Pines label is a duo with fellow sound-artist Matt Atkins imagining what it might sound like inside our cells, where proteins fold & unfold, metabolic processes occur, cells divide and duplicate through mitosis and meiosis… Organelles is the result, using Carr’s and Atkins’ practices of amplifying common objects and sequencing recorded sounds. The pieces teem with off-kilter micro-rhythms and nano-melodies, floating in ever-moving stasis.