Review: Fatima Al Qadiri “Brute” – Watch: GODMOTHER “MTFTM” – Stream: Ziemba “The Longest Night on this One Habitable Star” (exclusive) – Interview: Jamal Moss (Hieroglyphic Being) – Review: Bing & Ruth “City Lake” – Watch: Federico Albanese “Shadow Land Part II” (exclusive) – NFOP x Kometenmelodien: LA Priest, Laura Clock & Lea Porcelain – Anna Meredith “R-Type” – Sierra Manhattan “Moonburned Girl” (exclusive) – Watch: Dmitry Evgrafov “Like Foam” (exclusive) – Review: FOANS “Schema” – Watch: Erasers “Returning Home” (exclusive) – Watch: Paco Sala “Square Jaw / LGO” (exclusive) – Ocean Hope “Forever” (exclusive) – Antoine 93 “Me and the Sound” – Stream: Tara King th. & Halasan Bazar “Unreleased from ‘8’ EP” (exclusive) – Arca “Soichiro” / “EN” – Stream: Mansions and Millions “Mixtape Vol 1” (exclusive) – Born In Flamez “Easier Like That (Aïsha Devi Remix)” (exclusive) – Bersarin Quartett “Jeder Gedanke umsonst gedacht” (exclusive) – Interview: S Olbricht – Interview: Sean Nicholas Savage – Stream: Feather Beds “Ah Stop” EP – Night Trap: “Someone Like You” – Interview: Sun Araw – Review: Savant “Artificial Dance” – Interview: Hauschka – Review: Helen “The Original Faces” – Guest Post: Efterklang’s Rasmus Stolberg Recommends By the Lake Festival 2015 – Auscultation “L’étreinte Imaginaire” – Watch: Kepla “Ordinant 6” – Visionist “Victim” – Review: Ducktails “St. Catherine” – Graham Dunning “Retort” – Cherushii “Memory of Water” (exclusive) – Vogelbat “Nuuk” – Stream: Hua Li 化力 “Za Zhong” – Pat Keen “Morning” (exclusive) – Doug Bleek “Inner Demon” – Zeitgeber “Monad XX” – Michael Stasis “Venus Of Soap” – Francine Thirteen “Lady Mary, The Fire/Pars Una” – Blondes “Persuasion + Rein” – Watch: Kvien & Sommer “Kwan” (exclusive) – Interview: LYKANTHEA – Stefana Fratila “Tugging” – Watch: Katapulto “Blue Eyes” (exclusive) – Review: Good Moon Deer “Dot” – Reanimator “Damaged Bads” – Watch: The Horn The Hunt “My Face In Your Eyes” – Interview: GABI – Watch: Jannick Schou “Skov II” – Norway According to Boska – Swim Platførm “SURFACE 2” – Holly Herndon and the Fortress of Music – Review/Interview: Jenny Hval – A City Is An Island – Interview with Timothy George Kelly – Win: Paula Temple Presents “Decon/Recon” Live in Berlin – The NFOP Guide to Torstraßen Festival 2015 – Star Horse “Slower Now” (exclusive) – Stream: Tasseomancy “Palm Wine Revisited” (exclusive) – Clade “Vietnamese Piano” – Grounders “Drawing Space” – Review: Róisín Murphy “Hairless Toys” – Christian Kroupa “A Dangerous Game (909 Version)” (exclusive) – This Sunday: 5 Years of NFOP at Urban Spree – Boycrush feat. Madeira “Flirt” – The Sandwitches “Wickerman Mambo” (exclusive) – S Olbricht “Trancess” (exclusive) – The German Mob Mentality Is Still Alive – Watch: Sayth “Rare Candy” – Stellar OM Source “Nite-Glo” – Interview: Erika – Nancy Leticia “Le Big Mac” (exclusive) – Interview/Premiere: Pascale Project – Oni Ayhun, rRoxymore, Aquarian Jugs & Jaguar Woman “Decon/Recon #1” – Live Review: Colleen Green at Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium – Review: Godmother “Transgenre” – Live Review: Kiasmos at Dublin’s Opium Rooms – Ellis Swan “Dice Rolled” – Aural Cinema: An Interview with OOFJ – Watch: GABI “Falling” – Devon Loch “Sleep Scale” – Ozy “Distant Present” (exclusive) – Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk “Bombchu Girl” (exclusive) – Moving As One: An Update on Gender Equality in Electronic Music – Psychic Reality “Harness” (exclusive) – Digital 21 + Stefan Olsdal “War” – Motorama “Corona” – Watch: IAN “If You’re Cryin” – Interview: Hama – The Next Peak Series (Twin Peaks Tribute Compilation) – Ela Orleans “The Sky and the Ghost” – Interview: Nuearth Kitchen – Watch: To You Mom “Charming Karma” (exclusive) – Yowler “The Offer” – NFOP Presents: You Dont Really Know Me with Phoebe Kiddo – Interview: Jlin – Watch: Sally Dige “Hard to Please” (exclusive) – Broshuda “Flares”

5 Years of NFOP

Come celebrate with us: Urban Spree, May 24, 4pm

Listen to the NFOP Radio Show on Berlin Community Radio

Every Friday at 4pm CET

Holly Herndon “Fade (NHK Remix)”

23 Jan 2013 — Henning Lahmann

Fade

Our favourite track of 2012 just received this terrific remix treatment, masterfully executed by PAN associate and Berlin via Japan producer NHK aka Kouhei Matsunaga, whose excellent Dance Classics Vol. I and Dance Classics Vol. II were released last year. Matsunaga tears Holly Herndon's original apart and focuses on her chopped up vocals that provide the foundation for a staggering, house-informed bass drum assault that holds the listener captive for almost eight minutes.

Holly Herndon will perform at Berghain as part of CTM Festival on January 31, and at Boiler Room Berlin on February 1.

22 Jan 2013 — Andrew Wagner

Perennials

Andrew Wagner reviews Rachel Evans aka Motion Sickness of Time Travel's new work The Perennials.

What stands out at first about Motion Sickness of Time Travel’s latest EP, The Perennials, are the beats. Her last major release, a massive self-titled LP, clocked in at a whopping 80 minutes and consisted of four symphonic-sized tracks of echoing drones. It’s an album that I’m still digesting. The Perennials, instead, has five shorter (but not, by any means, short) tracks filled with synth beats and clear song structures, landing somewhere in between drone and pop. The press release for the album cites ’90s trance as a reference point, and though that doesn’t quite seem to fit (the pop-ier songs, if anything, fall closer to a Tangerine Dream soundtrack), it emphasizes that on this record, Rachel Evans no longer seems content to linger in her endless, ambient soundscapes.

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Instead, The Perennials finds Evans following in the path hinted at by the final track on her previous album, in which the listless and hypnotic echos of her voice are brought (slightly) back down to Earth by an equally hypnotic looping synth line. On The Perennials, the songs are even more forcefully grounded. This change is perhaps best captured by the wonderful track, "Foggy Morning", in which ambient tones largely take the background to a simple but effective static, industrial, and noisy loop. Elsewhere, "Effloresence" is driven by a pulsing and dark synth beat, while "The Reynard and the Vixen" pairs a synth line of almost random bleeps with the ghostly echoes of Evans singing, "I know we can make it last". Even the drone-ier moments of The Perennials feel far more awake than past Motion Sickness of Time Travel releases; the previous haze has started to dissipate.

But ultimately, it’s still those warm washes of ambient droning that Evans does best, with sumptious melodies and harmonies that surround you and seep into your skin. Accordingly, it’s "The Walk of the White Cat" that’s the best track on the EP, which finds Evans almost completely ditching the beat-driven synthlines, and comes closest to the staggering complexity of the previous album’s soundscapes. However, even if The Perennials isn’t quite the masterwork that Evans’ previous album was (but could we really expect it to be?), it’s still an immensely pleasureable listen. There’s much to love about Evans’ song sketches, and there’s a certain delight to be taken in these smaller synth compositions. To put it simply, it’s a fun little EP, one which should stave us off until Evans completes her next, more complex release.

The Perennials is out now on Boomkat Editions.

Blizzardo “River Rouge (Motion Studies Remix)”

22 Jan 2013 — Henning Lahmann

Blizzardo

As New York's Pete Feigenbaum is apparantly not the guy who'd suppress any creative urge the minute an idea pops into his mind, the former Titus Andronicus touring guitarist and Dinowalrus founder dipped into more electronic realms the other day with his solo project Blizzardo, an endeavour that shows some deep understanding of early dance culture somewhere between Chicago and the Hacienda that frequently lands not far from mid-noughties NYC dance punk – think LCD Soundsystem et al. – only with less emphasis on punk and more on straight up, four-to-the-floor nightclub vigour. One of his latest tracks, the excellent, highly addicitve "River Rouge" (recently acclaimed over at XXJFG), which features a fine vocal sample by Ava Luna's Felicia Douglass taken from an upcoming Dinowalrus track, now got the remix treatment by Brooklyn-based producer Tyler McCauley aka Motion Studies. On his reinterpretation, McCauley drops most of the original's acidic ingredients and punk-ish dancefloor furor in favour of a slightly more subtle and playful approach that is still very much made for freaking out to, if that happens to be your intention anyway.

Check out the visuals as well, courtesy of Michael Potvin, and the track's original version below:

22 Jan 2013 — Parker Bruce

Coasting

Baltimore's Secret Mountains are all go big or go home and sometimes that‘s just what you need. The band will drop their debut album Rainer via Friends Records on February 26. One of the first songs released from the album, "Coasting", comes off as the opposite of its title when you listen to it. "Coasting" implies ease and comfort, but Secret Mountains don’t allow for that: it’s hard and gurgling grunge. Press releases often describe a band’s sound in a laughable way, but this time, the label hits it right on the head: 'squalls', 'interstellar hail', 'thunder and lightning', 'howling rage', and 'downpour'. It makes you want to throw on a Cranberries record and let it rip; 'Rainer is the dark answer to each member’s storm, prompting listeners to roar through their own tempestuous experiences'. Is this the 'déluge' that Pitchfork's Lindsay Zoladz was referring to when she recently wrote, 'après Grimes, le déluge'? Not sure, but this piece of music indeed is a fucking 'deluge'.

Find the album here and support your Friends.

22 Jan 2013 — Trey Reis

Blanche

"Rich Man" kicks off with some real 'You’re listening to America's favorite light music here on Light 104.1' vibes (vibraphones?). It’s the kind of thing that would have me changing the radio station. Then, twelve seconds later, Blanche Blanche Blanche (or BX3 if you want to be Internet cool and shorten everything), make their mark with their weirdo no-wave pop strangeness, and it all kind of makes sense in that off-kilter way that only Blanche Blanche Blanche can really accomplish.

"Rich Man" is taken from the group's forthcoming full-length Wooden Ball, which is due out March 5 on NNA Tapes, and if BX3’s 2012 productivity is any indicator of what to expect from them this year, look for another three to five albums before the end of 2013.

21 Jan 2013 — Laura Li

The rolling snares, pitched-down vocal samples and sweeping sub-bass that accumulate to last years massive new school comeback of trap might have left you in need of some air. But Strange VIP, also known as Captain 666, blows new life (more like afterlife) back into the too often generic sub-genre with No Future, serving a possessed mix of sci-fi horror, metal hip hop and haunted hallucinations. The EP is a quick and dirty throw, but enjoyably dark and cinematic. Spiraling out of an X-files sample and the apprehensive voice of Scully, it is implied where we're going. To a round tour in hell, and we think you should take the trip. No Future is set to be released later this month on Trouble & Bass.

21 Jan 2013 — Trey Reis

There is no reason a band called Unknown Mortal Orchestra should sound so sexy. In fact, when I first starting seeing the name show up everywhere, I kind of assumed they were some sort of metal band. Boy was I wrong. “So Good at Being in Trouble,” the second single released from the band’s forthcoming second album, II, has all of the smooth bass, crunchy drums, and cloudy vocals intact from their 2011 self-titled debut while still exploring further into the low-ceiling, lo-fi sound space UMO is beginning to really be able to call their own. While “So Good at Being in Trouble” is noticeably more relaxed than II’s first single, “Swim and Sleep (Like A Shark)”, the combination of the two songs provides a pretty clear view of what we can expect from II when it hits release from JagJaguwar on February 5th.

20 Jan 2013 — Editor

Welcome to the first regular edition of Video Sunday in 2013. Because of our brief hiatus, we've missed quite a bit, so this is an extra-large yet still by no means exhaustive selection for you to spend your Sunday night with, including rad and fresh contributions by Lee Gamble, Factory Floor, Woods, Alex Calder, SFV Acid, and Death and Vanilla. So much outstanding material, like seriously.