24 Nov 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski
Heatsick's much anticipated album Re-Engineering, out today on PAN, sounds a lot like growing accustomed to summers in Berlin. It's awkwardly satirical, more of the same type of fun previously experienced but somehow more comfortable in its own skin, and scantily tropical. The latter emerges from the habit of Berlin crowds flocking to the parks with backpacks full of beer and crisps from the first day of sunshine, even if it's in March, making the city in the summer time a non-coastal, hipster, pasty leg beach party.
While Warwick, the man behind the maracas, calls the emerging genre encountered on his new release “elastic goo house music,” it can be perhaps otherwise referred to as Ex-Pat Tosca-house. The album, its danceability, its lyrical and aural satire, all contribute to making the work challenging to peg, which is useful in the contemporary mood of internet-fed gender awareness. Perhaps the album spells it out quite clearly during the opening and title track: "invisible hand of god. Question mark. Question .... smart phone .... East London in West Kreuzberg...." this is a work of enveloped poetic cultural observation at the dawn of when we realize that things really are changing, traveling toward a delayed future: the response at this particular, and on this particular work, is distance created by satire.
Knowing Berlin the way I do, I find that an album as sun-bathed and merry as this is nullified by lyrics like "it's all congealing/slightly numb-feeling/wish you were here" under the conditions that it was produced and shaped by the likes of the dark and disorienting German capital city. It does indeed have a "disruptive," impatiently-streaming-music, affect, and it is highly recommended for your contemplation.
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22 Nov 2013 — Kelsie Brown
Running In The Fog's Amanda Harper is no stranger to No Fear Of Pop. The San Francisco resident consistently captures our hearts with her smooth and offbeat pop music. Her latest output, "Sail", takes that silkiness a step further into an almost fully-formed dance track. Harper's vocals reminisce classic R&B singers, over funk-inspired synths and rhythms, in a new and exciting way. It's a very solid track in every sense of the word, and as always we can't wait to hear more from Ms. Harper.
"Sail" is taken from Silver, Running In The Fog's upcoming EP set to be released on December 10 via Father/Daughter Records.
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22 Nov 2013 — Kelsie Brown
In a world oversatured with downtempo electronic music, Madison, Wisconsin's Chants stands out. Producer Jordan Cohen newest album I Feel Like I Like It has a way of making his sound unique, with his fondness for sounds not commonly used in such music, like the clamoring bells in "Oubliette" or the simple, bittersweet guitar melody that dominates closing track "Porch Song 1 AM". His work all puts forth a very melancholy, nocturnal mood, evoking feelings of choosing to stay home even though there's a party you should really be attending, or of rides in cars that last so long you begin to feel delirious. It's a very real sound, something made to reflect common events in life that we all feel.
I Feel Like I Like It is out now on Seattle's Hush Hush Records. Stream "Oubliette" and "Porch Song 1 AM" below, and grab the rest of the album over on Bandcamp.
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22 Nov 2013 — Richard Greenan
Unfettered, experimental tape label Reckno have put out so much new and fascinating material recently it's a wonder those at the helm, Chris Catlin and Peter St. John, aren't gibbering wrecks lying prone in a bolognese of ferric spool. Or maybe they are. Hot on the heels of Joane Skyler's labyrinthine Orz and the narcotic utopia of Yaaard's Kimberlin, we've been treated to a simultaneous quad release – including tapes from Tuff Sherm, Attack Bear, Street Thunder and Alabaster Falcons.
It's the Falcons that stand out for me, like chipped statues intimately reclaimed by a Wabi-sabi garden, content in their transience and imperfection. As the name might suggest, Amethyst Ocean Oyster Refraction Index oozes like a benign, zenned out augmentation of Fripp and Eno's magma tape loops. The Falcons teach a serene melancholy, imparting fractal examinations of nature with no beginning or end. This is joy in desolation, where nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.
Purchase the tape over here.
(Artwork by Jason Kerley)
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21 Nov 2013 — Henning Lahmann
As bluntly admitted by the label's operators, for a release on Glasgow's acclaimed broken20, Semtek's upcoming Nagual EP is surprisingly straightforward and, for lack of a more appropriate description, almost clean. Where the imprint's usual output is characterised by drone-infused, noise-indebted refracted techno explorations, Semtek – aka Benjamin Roth, the man behind Don't Be Afraid – largely eschews overly obvious fuzz. Yet don't confuse 'straightforward' with 'simple': the three original tracks on Nagual, a term denoting a "shapeshifting semi-human", not only take up more than 26 minutes of disc space, they also seem to enjoy mocking common and contemporary tech-house tropes by consistently going for the less expected option to advance the arrangement, with results that are just as twisted and surprising as they are deliberately unwieldy.
The title track as well as second piece "Brujo" receive the remix treatment by Debukas and DJ Votive, respectively, and as an addition to the versions to be found on the EP, both producers deliver further variations that will be available via direct sales through the label's bandcamp page. One of the two reworks, aptly named "Brujo (Those Votive Beats)", marks by far the package's fiercest and darkest moment, an uncompromising 4/4 techno banger that any Berlin afterhour DJ will surely be happy to drop as a giveaway now and again. Stream it in full exclusively below.
The Nagual EP is out November 25, get it over here. Highly recommended.
Check out clips of the five EP tracks below:
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21 Nov 2013 — Lukas Dubro
Brooklyn-based producer William Burnett – bka Speculator, or also just Willie Burnett – has quite an interesting approach to club music. On his latest LP, debuting as and named after his newest moniker Black Deer, Burnett employs rock guitars, where others would nowadays use old school synthesizers to support their four-to-the-floor kickdrum. The result sounds convincing: Even though Black Deer is referencing rock music from the 70s and 90s, his music unfolds this futuristic post-modern atmosphere that you can find at mostly London-bred contemporary experimental techno that this very website is so fond of. The producer's forward-mindedness is principally reflected in each track's complex texturing. Through multiple effects, noise and smart layering of loops, Black Deer over and over again manages to create truly impressive, pyschedelic soundscapes.
FACT recently found it appropriate to characterise Burnett as a "circus performer" due to his enormously multi-faceted activity, which is ranging from drone to house music, so it might be worthwhile to delve a bit deeper into his work right here.
Black Deer is out on the very noteworthy, LA-based experimental dance imprint Peak Oil. Listen to LP track "First of September" below and get the full album here.
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21 Nov 2013 — Henry Schiller
You probably do not need to be told about the latest track from Hockeysmith. When we first posted about the Cornwall sister act this July you immediately said to yourself: “I am going to follow this band’s every move!” As such, you’ve already heard “Meanwhile.” In fact you've been listening to it all month; you know everything there is to know about "Meanwhile."
For example, you already know that “Meanwhile” runs silken, shimmering acoustic guitars through a gauntlet of dub beats and wizard roars. You also already know that hauntingly ethereal vocals are contorted over bursts of distortion before being shredded by laser beams fired from an ancient forest. You have, of course, already heard “Meanwhile” transform from spacey freak folk minimalism into something fanged, deranged, and sonically overwhelming; all while maintaining a consistent poetry of form, striking a magnificent balance between delicate and deranged. And you know that Hockeysmith could be compared to the likes of Grimes, Mount Kimbie, and Chelsea Wolf, but that the young duo is already well on their way to becoming totems of comparison themselves. You know all that, right?
If not, check out “Meanwhile” for the first time below, and listen to everything else Hockeysmith have released here.
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20 Nov 2013 — Kelsie Brown
We previously touched on Ukkonen's "Viva Las Huelgas" when we first heard the Finish producer's newest taste of his upcoming album. Here's the official video for said track. Directed by London artist Will Clarke, the video sides with the more ambient-leaning aspect of the IDM-esque song. Pastel-colored origami shapes blend into flowers, then back again, blurring the lines between growth and destruction and between space and fullness. As with the sense of slight atonality in "Viva Las Huelgas" coming from the absence of a third tone in each chord (as described more in depth by Ukkonen on his website), the visuals in the video allow the listener to see what's not present. It's a very psychedelic experience still, in the loosest sense of the word, and one that remains very beautiful and warm.
"Viva Las Huelgas" is taken from Ukkonen's upcoming full-length release, The Ancient Tonalities Of..., out December 2 via No Pain in Pop. Pre-order a physical copy over here.
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