Your experimental fix for tonight has vocals sung and spoken and screamed, in a few different languages and in no language at all. Also jungle beats mushed into other genres, slapback echoes, manic electric guitars and soft piano. And that’s not all!
Lucrecia Dalt – cosa rara (ft. David Sylvian) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
I’ve been following Lucrecia Dalt‘s music since she was The Sound of Lucrecia, making lovely indie music that only fainly hinted at the highly experimental electronics or Latin music that would come into her music in latter years. Her last album, 2022’s ¡Ay!, somehow combined her modular synth work with the music of her Colombian roots and incredible, counter-intuitive orchestrations – a masterpiece. Now comes a new single, cosa rara, another slice of Latin experimental pop, with the added spice of a spoken outro by David Sylvian, who also contributed “feedback guitar” and completed the final mix. The song, whose title translates as “strange thing”, is sultry and just a little menacing, and the single is rounded out with a typically radical rework by Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti and a “dopamine dub” remix by Chilean-German techno producer Mathias Aguayo.
Los Pirañas – Los pendencieros del Latin [Glitterbeat/Bandcamp]
Sticking with Colombia for just a little longer, the trio Los Pirañas are a supergroup of Colombian experimental rock, whose latest album Una Oportunidad más de triunfar en la vida (One more chance to succeed in life) has just been released by Glitterbeat. The album’s full of angular riffs on scrappy electric guitars, fed into a laptop and looped while the group improvise these pieces live in the studio. It’s not jam band music, it’s more a kind of Latin postpunk jazz – what’s not to love?
Satomimagae – Many [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
On the first single from her new album Taba, Japanese musician Satomimagae embeds a plaintive acid folk song in between ominous drones. It’s a small piece, only 2 minutes long, but it has a gravity to it – I’ve listened to it a few times already.
Maud The Moth – Kwisatz Haderach [The Larvarium/Bandcamp]
Amaya López-Carromero, born in Spain and now based in Scotland, has been part of the European scene for ages, as part of the band healthyliving among others. Under her alias Maud The Moth, she has now released her solo album The Distaff. It’s full of rapturuous gothic pop with piano songs as well as more noisy guitar numbers, like the Dune-inspired song tonight. Also appearing on the album are Seb Rochford of Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet and Pulled By Magnets, and legendary metal cellist Helen Money (aka Alison Chesley).
Ursula Sereghy – Fight Child [Mondoj/Bandcamp]
Prague-based musician Ursula Sereghy grew up playing saxophone in the jazz world, but then discovered synths and electronics, and in 2021 released her debut OK Box, full of weirdly abstracted sounds of acoustic instruments and field recordings – hints of classical and jazz – chopped and processed into an electronic world, with glitchy beats sometimes joining the granulated samples. Four years later, her follow-up Cordial will be released on Polish experimental label Mondoj, and it’s very much a continuation of that aesthetic, with snippets of vocals jittering into impossible melodies, everything pristine and yet everything slightly off. This will be a great album – keep an eye out in April.
Lyra Pramuk – Vega [7K/pop.soil/Bandcamp]
On her debut solo album Fountain, operatically & classically-trained composer & producer Lyra Pramuk focused entirely on her voice – whether her own range of expression, extended techniques, or all manner of processing and sampling. The electronic aspect was heightened on the massive remix/collaboration double album Delta that she released in 2021. It’s been a few years again, but now Pramuk is starting a new label, pop.soil, in conjunction with 7K (!K7‘s classicall/ambient imprint that they’re back-referencing as 7Klassik). This first single seems like a departure for 7K as much as the artist herself, interestingly taking things in a more toughened electronic direction, but still with her transformed voice. Hoping this turns out to be the first single for a new album on the way!
Desideria – Serotonin [Disideria Dreams]
Swedish musician Desideria creates cyberpunkish songs with glitchy electronics along with her own voice, often sung in Guthnic, the nearly-extinct language of Gotland. Her debut album Princess WWW is out now, albeit not on her Bandcamp, and features the brilliant song “Serotonin“, a song which she originally released as a single back in 2020.
Fade Evare – Keep Talking [Astral People Recordings/Fade Evare Bandcamp]
Newly signed to Astral People Recordings are Naarm-via-Eora band Fade Evare, centred around 21-year-old frontwoman Mira Holleman and older brother producer Tori Holleman, member of Sydney/Melbourne indie-electro 3-piece Retiree. Their second single “Keep Talking“, like last November’s debut “Yamaha Dreaming“, is mantra-like, with cyclic drumming, melodic bass guitar and synths accompanying a repeating vocal line.
Glass Fountain – Crow Flies (Live at the Belfry) [Watch on YouTube/elsewhere]
Last year I featured an excellent live track from Naarm/Melbourne duo Glass Fountain (fka Glass House Mountain), recorded at the Belfty – the upstairs, wood-panelled studio at Bakehouse Studios. It’s one of three tracks now all released with lovely videos demonstrating how they do their mix of drums, synths and electronics live. Cool stuff in a cool space.
Nickolas Mohanna – Future Light Cone (excerpt) [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp]
Nickolas Mohanna – Method Actor [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp]
When I played a preview from Nickolas Mohanna‘s new album Speaker Rotations, I mentioned how the highlights in his long, evolving compositions are often the transition points. So tonight we heard a healthy excerpt from the opening track and its mutation into its follower: gritty belling guitar tones shudder away amongst crackles until chirping synths erase the guitars – and by the end of the second track you can hear the one-note bass guitar riff gearing up for the next section. This is minimalism written in the rock vernacular.
hoyah – 808s n Trance Gates [hoyah/more info]
Berlin-based musician Shmuel Hatchwell makes dope lo-fi hip-hop as Ehye אֶהְיֶה, and debuted his hoyah incarnation with the disorienting glitched sax samples of Set + Setting on Low End Activist’s BRUK label last year. His new 2-track single has a QR code as its cover image, which takes you to this site explaining something of the politics of the piece and its real cover art. Here Hatchwell is deconstructing an antisemitic image created in Austria at the turn of the last century – the sort of dehumanising imagery that led to the Shoah, and which Hatchwell – an observant Jew – wanted to re-appropriate as part of examining what kinds of expression Jews can make. This is particularly notable in the context of his adopted home of Berlin, where non-Jewish German authorities routinely shut down Jewish speech that’s critical of Israel or simply supportive of Palestinians. And the irony of the suppression of Jewish speech via accusations of antisemitism is particularly heightened by the fact that Hatchwell was not able to use his chosen cover.
The single itself, “808s n Trance Gates” embeds granulated samples of klezmer clarinet and Arabic-sounding voices with shuddering low-end and eventually a chunky hip-hop beat. Paired with the video which you can see on the linked site, its important political questions are clear, but the aural aspects add another layer of social commentary: the clarinets represented the European Jewish (Ashkenazi) culture while the voices come from the “Mizrahi” traditions of Jews whose roots have always been in the Arabic world. And yes, you don’t need any of this context to enjoy the music… but it helps!
Dub Syndicate – Alive And Burning Bright [On-U Sound/Bandcamp]
As part of On-U Sound‘s ongoing compiling of the catalogues of their many iconic groups, the second Dub Syndicate box set collects the later works of the band led by Style Scott, legendary Jamaican drummer in the Roots Radics, tragically murdered(?) in 2014. As with much of the On-U catalogue, Dub Syndicate worked with Adrian Sherwood at the controls, and for this box, Sherwood revisited the original tapes from these 1989-1996 albums to create fresh new dubs. Proving that dub is the most timelessly futuristic musical form.
Grup Ses & Gökalp K – Okul Terk [Souk Records/Bandcamp]
Grup Ses & Gökalp K – Cambul Cumbul (feat Obookubo) [Souk Records/Bandcamp]
I first heard the heavy hip-hop sound of Istanbul producer Grup Ses with fellow Turkish rapper Ethnique Punch back in 2019. Now back on Discrepant sublabel Souk Records again, Grup Ses teams up with Istanbul sound-artist and beatmaker Gökalp Kanatsız aka Gökalp K to make an album of wonky beats using Turkish music & found sounds. There’s a collaboration with Ethnique Punch too, and things accelerate into drum’n’bass territory with Istanbul junglist Obookubo.
DJ Strawberry – Ritim Atölyesi [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Now based in Berlin, Emre Öztürk aka DJ Strawberry also hails from Istanbul. After a couple of great releases on Polish post-footwork label outlines, DJ Strawberry ends up on Prague’s great YUKU label, known for top-quality experimental bass music. These 160+ BPM productions are still rooted in Chicago footwork, but they spin & skitter in new ways, clearly referencing jungle and other bass musics – it really is a “Ritim Atölyesi” (rhythm workshop)! Brilliant stuff, rounded off with a couple of remixes from artists at the top of their game: Belgian beatmaker Leese and UK producer Wordcolour.
.618 – Nil [Éditions Appærent/Bandcamp]
Haitian-Canadian sound designer Nick Rony launches .618 with a mini-album on Montréal label Éditions Appærent. The first single from Goodbye ONY pits frantic percussive, resonant synths against matching beats and occasional pads. It’s minimalist, but ferocious.
Cocktail Party Effect – Clutter In The Attic [Shepard Tone Recordings/Bandcamp]
Released on his own his own Shepard Tone Recordings in conjunction with Osiris Music (run by Simon Shreeve of Kryptic Minds and Sandwell District), Radioactive Fruit is the first (mini-)album of the year from Berlin-based UK producer Cocktail Party Effect. He’s a master at mashing up UK bass styles with ambient passages and weird structures. As well as the beats – which you’d be hard pressed to find on the dancefloor – there are lovely glitchy interludes.
s8jfou – You Erase Us [s8jfou Bandcamp]
Finally the new album from French IDM/bass maestro s8jfou is out! Dognip was made only with Ableton 11 and Max/MSP – no plugins or hardware – and doesn’t seem to suffer in sound quality or tweaked-ness at all. His name, as I’ve mentioned before, is a French pun – it reads as “suis-je fou?”, i.e. “am I crazy?” I don’t think he’s crazy, but he does like his constraints – his 2022 album Op-Echo was even more constrained, using only Ableton Live’s Operator synth and Echo delay module. There’s bass music from dubstep to jungle (drill’n’bass?), melodic and glitchy. All proceeds go to Livyj_Bereh, rebuilding homes in Ukraine.
Max Cooper – I Exist Inside This Machine feat. Aneek Thapar [MESH/Bandcamp]
After a series of EPs and singles, Max Cooper has dropped his new alubm On Being. He’s always melded high concept with the dancefloor, and this time the concept is that his audience provides the seeds of the art. The prompt was to pose deep questions about what it means to be human in the current age. One such submission inspired the last single from the album, “I Exist Inside This Machine”, created in collaboration with British-Asian producer/sound-designer Aneek Thapar. It might be contemplative subject matter, but there’s tweaked, crunchy beats and dynamic sound processing galore. Good stuff.
Use Knife – Freedom Asshole (feat Spooky J) [VIERNULVIER/Bandcamp]
Following last year’s remix EP Peace Carnival, Belgian-Iraqi trio Use Knife have released their second album État Coupable. With the heavy electronics of Belgian musicians Kwinten Mordijck and Stef Heeren and the vocals and percussion of Saif Al-Qaissy, this is urgent music of the moment. The whole album’s out on March 28th, but meanwhile here’s a collaboration with Spooky J, who’s usually seen alongside pq adding his electronic touch to the Bugandan percussionists in Nihiloxica.
Djrum – Three Foxes Chasing Each Other [Houndstooth/Bandcamp]
So look, I’ll probably play every single that Felix Djrum Manuel releases in the lead-up to new album Under Tangled Silence. This is one of those rhythmic-illusion pieces where the beats are constantly shifting around, from drum’n’bass and footwork to techno. Even the melodic sounds are bells or steel drums. It does indeed convey the energy of “Three Foxes Chasing Each Other”.
Leah Kardos – Rattle Cage [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Mike Lazarev – a little bit [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
UK neo-classical label bigo & twigetti are adept at curating themed compilations from their stable of artists, and their latest is looking for concision: each piece on Shorts must be only a minute long, and must say what it needs to say, musically, within that time frame. Really, the best thing about this compilation is coaxing a new little piece from London-based Australian composer/producer/academic Leah Kardos. “Rattle Cage” came out of the Covid lockdowns in 2021, originally as a collaboration with a friend suffering in Milan, and it’s made up of pots and pans rattling along with the insides of a piano. Meanwhile Headphone Commute‘s Mike Lazarev takes a gentler approach, a waltz from an airy muted piano and domestic sounds.
Kvedarkvintetten – Brest [Heilo Records/Bandcamp]
Tagal is the latest album from Norwegian vocal quintet Kvedarkvintetten, featuring music composed by Jorun Marie Rypdal Kvernberg. The title translates as “to keep silent” or “mute” or “wordless”, so these songs feature almost no text. The quintet’s previous work was primarily based around their interpretations of the traditional vocal music of the Hallingdal region of Norway, so even though Kvernberg provided musically notated scores, the group brought their own interpretation. This is highly melodic music, performed with dedication and emotion.
The Cloud Maker – Daughters Of The Forest [The Cloud Maker Bandcamp]
Finally the wonderful The Cloud Maker is out. The project involves 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. When Kim and Endean took part in a residency in Banff (Canada), 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.
Jeugdbrand – Lonely, Sure, but It Is Getting Late and My Grandmother Is Calling [Futura Resistenza/Bandcamp]
3 × hullo, hullo is the bizarre title of the bizarre new album from Jeugdbrand. Jeroen Stevens, who plays percussion, melodica and organ, has recently been playing with the iconic Belgian folk-classical-electronic-experimental ensemble DAAU; Dennis Tyfus, responsible for the terrifying vocals as well as piano, organ and tapes, founded the experimental label Ultra Eczema. They are joined for this album by Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, also responsible for tapes, who is a founding member of cult experimental band Stilluppsteypa; and finally, Gerard Herman, best known as a visual artist, provides loops.
Penelope Trappes – A Requiem [One Little Independent/Bandcamp]
While Penelope Trappes‘s album A Requiem is still a while off, we can now hear the title track. Trappes’ voice creaks around cello drones until multiple voices bloom outward. The beautiful choral parts are the closest we’ll get to a classical requiem though: this is spooky music, both forlorn and unsettling.