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

Best Tracks of 2012: Editorial Picks

11 Jan 2013 — Editor

After yesterday’s lovely staff picks, today we’d like to continue our manic list assault (at least that’s what it started to feel like over the past two weeks or so) with the tracks that we, i.e. the editors, i.e. Tonje and Henning, have been into in 2012, a little recapitulation that we’ve come to admire over the past two years, which is why we don’t want to stop it as yet although over the course of the past year, No Fear Of Pop has finally become something bigger than just the two of us. Check out both our lists below, and listen to (most of) the tracks in two handy Soundcloud sets. Thanks for introducing that feature, dear Soundcloud.

From our perspective, 2012 started with an inevitable growing obsession for the laptop produced, obscure pop, UK garage or weird techno, respectively modifying our usage of words such as "psychedelic" or "fuzzy" to "sonic" and "mind-altering". If you've been reading this blog at all in 2012, you may have noticed this too, but who knows, perhaps will 2013 see the return of garage pop guitars, but without trying to sound too euphuistic, we somehow doubt it.

One more thing, this year marks the very first time that we could actually (and accidentally) agree on our track of the year, which is Kuedo’s marvellous “Work, Live & Sleep In Collapsing Space”. Unsure if that is a good or a bad sign for the future of the website. You decide.

Read our selections after the break.

On my list below you will find pieces of humane, electronic noise in curtesy of Holly Herndon, industrial techno of Andy Stott, a transonic club banger from Stay+, S Olbricht's cassette-tech production, the new-agey "psalmgaze" of Solar Year or the pitching dark, suffocating landscape of Burial; all of which have given us different angles from the poisonous life after 2AM, with or without strobe lights involved. In the nightlife aftermath we wake up to sounds of engulfing ambience and timelessness from the likes of Lights Dim and Gallery Six, Young Magic, Vestals, Theo Bass or Mirroring's mind-blowing "Silent From Above", over to the production-sharp pop brilliance of Jessie Ware, Kate Boy, Frankie Rose, Night Panther and Chrome Sparks.

As much as I frown over the idea of ranking music, there are two particular tracks that stood out in my book, but with two very separate intentions. M O N E Y, the Manchester-based quartet with visuals that we were oh-so-proud to introduce earlier this year, have written one of the most beautiful, above-board tunes of 2012, allowing time to be a part of their slowly evolving atmospherics. On the other side, and as we previously experienced through the four-point, Funktion One sound system of Berlin's one and only Berghain, Kuedo's "Work, Live & Sleep In Collapsing Space" has granted our lists the #1 ranking: a track that has been fought over to be dropped in our DJ sets, and a track that makes us so very proud to be part of the future of pop music; be it the pop genre dressed in Holly Herndon's attic techno, or the kind of pop where its description of genre feels safer to label, for instance through the sound of Purity Ring. It is almost unnecessary to mention that we are utterly excited to see what 2013 will bring.

#01. Kuedo – Work, Live & Sleep in Collapsing Space
#02. Money – SOLONG (GODISDEAD)
#03. Andy Stott - Numb
#04. Burial – Ashtray Wasp
#05. Stay+ - Crashed (feat. Queenie)
#06. Holly Herndon - Fade
#07. Chromatics – These Streets Will Never Look The Same
#08. Physical Therapy – Drone On (feat. Jamie Krasner)
#09. Kate Boy – In Your Eyes
#10. Solar Year - Brotherhood
#11. Purity Ring - Grandloves
#12. Young Magic - Sparkly
#13. Kuhrye-oo – Give In (For The Fame)
#14. S Olbricht - DntTlk
#15. Delusions - Almost
#16. Mirroring – Silent From Above
#17. Jessie Ware – 110%
#18. Theo Bass – Mr. Stellakis
#19. Majical Cloudz – Turns Turns Turns
#20. CHLLNGR - Haven
#21. Bloksberg - Goma
#22. Lights Dim / Gallery Six – Sea Of Tranquillity
#23. Vestals – Forever Falling
#24. Chrome Sparks – Send The Pain On
#25. Night Panther - Snudge

— Tonje Thilesen

As mentioned above, my favourite track of 2012 is also Kuedo’s single on Planet Mu, which was released sometime in the very middle of the year. It is, perhaps, an odd choice in some respect: It was Jamie Teasdale’s 2011 full-length Severant that was truly groundbreaking material, one of the most refreshing approaches to electronic music composition in years (and that I almost completely missed out on, which is why the album didn’t even make it on my 2011 list, my bad). In that sense, “Work, Live & Sleep In Collapsing Space” is a refinement, a reassurance, but not another revolution. Also, what makes Kuedo’s three-track EP so special and ‘now’ has a great deal to do with Laurel Halo’s and Claude Speeed’s breathtaking, radical re-imaginations of the title track. Still, the song itself simply is further evidence that Jamie Teasdale is one of those artistic minds – alongside Laurel Halo, Holly Herndon, or Burial, plus a few others – who in 2012 seemed to have at least a vague idea on what the future of popular music might, or rather should, sound like, something this site will always look and be grateful for. Above all though, “Work, Live & Sleep In Collapsing Space” is a single in the truest sense of the term: it is a track you get addicted to instantly but that also keeps growing and unfolding, unveiling sonic details that so far you had kept overlooking. It is one of those tunes that justify the existence of the single repeat button, cause you want to get lost in it again, immediately, over and over. At least I did. That’s basically why the track needs to be up there.

The rest of the list should speak for itself, I feel – those who follow this blog, or perhaps Ad Hoc and the few other media outlets I have been involved with this past year (thanks to everyone who made that possible, it means a lot to me), will already know about my obsession with Dean Blunt’s “The Narcissist II”, or Holy Other’s “Love Some1”, or Vessel's "Lache", or indeed anything Burial so graciously dropped; as Tonje mentioned, it hasn’t been a year for guitar-focused music all things considered, but Copenhagen’s noise/(post-)punk scene keeps getting me more and more excited, and with all its rage and embittered despair, Lower’s “But There Has to Be More” is the most stirring outcry I have come across in ages, not despite but because it is directed against nothing or no one in particular. Old Apparatus’ rise to fame and recognition will continue in 2013, I hope, and until that happens, “Schwee” remains one of the most interesting and complex tracks of past year, happily evading all genres, and is only the prime example of how the young London collective have found their very own musical language. Human Ear mastermind Jason Grier’s humble, achingly touching duet with Barcelona’s Lucrecia Dalt is perhaps the single most criminally overlooked pop gem of 2012, simple and innocent yet infinitely astute and sincere.

Finally, a few words on Angel Haze’s “Cleaning Out My Closet”, a track that stands out due to the simple fact that despite its all-too familiar (and wisely chosen) instrumental, it’s the one that actually hurts while listening; and it should. The straightforward, bleak, painful lyrics tell a story so universally applicable that they’d almost completely transcend the immediate subject, if it were not for every single word crying THIS. IS. WHAT. HAPPENED. The song is not, as Pitchfork’s Joseph Patterson put it rather oddly, showing the rapper’s ‘softer side’. In fact, it is very much the opposite. “Cleaning Out My Closet” is not a track I’ve listened to a lot, nor is it one I’d say I enjoy listening to. But it is a bold statement that needs to be heard; as Angel Haze puts it, it appears very much necessary to ‘let that feeling ring through your guts’; which makes it perhaps the most important track of 2012.

#01. Kuedo – Work, Live & Sleep in Collapsing Space
#02. Dean Blunt feat. Inga Copeland – The Narcissist/Choice of a New Generation
#03. Angel Haze - Cleaning Out My Closet
#04. Burial – Ashtray Wasp
#05. Lower – But There Has to Be More
#06. Holy Other – Love Some1
#07. Holly Herndon – Fade
#08. Vessel - Lache
#09. Ilyas Ahmed – Now Sleeps
#10. Old Apparatus – Schwee
#11. Jason Grier feat. Lucrecia Dalt – Clouds
#12. Lukid – Manchester
#13. Inga Copeland – B.M.W.
#14. LOL Boys – Changes
#15. Grimes – Skin
#16. Mirroring – Silent From Above
#17. Jacques Greene – Dakou
#18. Albert Swarm – Moths and Moth Catchers
#19. Ryan Power – I Don’t Want to Die
#20. Vatican Shadow – Cairo Is A Haunted City
#21. DIIV – Doused
#22. King Felix – Spring 02
#23. A Made Up Sound – Malfunction (Adjust)
#24. Dusk + Blackdown + – High Road
#25. C.T.M. – Jewel

— Henning Lahmann

Best Tracks of 2012: Staff Picks

10 Jan 2013 — Editor

So here we go. Later than ever, but at least after the year that we're talking about is actually over, this is the first part of our brief series of posts to recap the popcultural mess that we've come to know as 2012. And while we're inclined to agree with our friends over at FACT that most of us and you will already be 'fed up of raking over the coals of 2012', and that 'the future is more important...than the past' (dude, it always is), allow us this brief moment of retrospective contemplation.

About the 'list' of tracks that you can see below, the process of compiling revealed that while it makes sense to ask all your authors about their favourite full-lengths and EPs of the past year, the same question won't get you anywhere as regards their favourite tracks. Our staff mostly ignored all hype and sense of cultural coherence, whatever that might mean, and suggested almost 300 different tracks that they had been into in 2012, a beautiful mess to look at, but nothing that could ever resemble a concise, consistent list whatsoever. Which is why we decided to simply pick the contributors' top one tracks, all of them different, and let them delineate their obsession, in all appropriate brevity. It is, for what it's worth, quite an unexpected and surprising, but lovely and tremendously intriguing selection of music.

However, what seems even more surprising is the fact that the whole twisted process after all did produce one undisputed and indeed overwhelming 'winner', the one tune that kept coming up in almost all individual lists, and which we therefore hereby solemnly declare No Fear Of Pop's track of 2012: Holly Herndon's dazzling, unabashedly academic masterpiece "Fade". In his review about Herndon's LP Movement, while rather skeptical about the piece as a whole, Warren O'Neill described the track as 'bending to the functionality by the dancefloor' without abandoning the artist's distinctly intellectual approach, with 'a strong sense of immediacy' and 'emotional weight'. A more than worthy number one indeed.

Check out the individual contributors' picks after the jump.

Thrupence "Folds": Crisp piano lies over sparse drums & solo flute which sound so perfect together it makes sense, "Folds" is one of the calmest tracks of 2012. (Kelsie Brown)

Jessie Ware "Running (Disclosure Remix)": Bottled, contained inhibition that ebbs and flows so naturally. (Parker Bruce)

Autre Ne Veut "Counting": Beautifully produced R'n'B laced with melancholy and sadness. Written about Brooklynite Arthur Ashin's dying Grandmother, the heartbreaking open letters gives listeners a glimpse into his second LP due in 2013 on Software. (Matt Harris)

Grimes "Oblivion": Claire Boucher is the girl that brought the new shit in 2012. Her hypnotic breakthrough is as airy, minimal and sweet as it is dark, complex and raw. (Laura Li)

Andres "New For U": The club track of the year. Somehow joyous and melancholic at the same time and on top of that it really makes you wanna move. (Warren O'Neill)

Ahnnu "Canopoli": In 2012, sampling borrowed deeper into the puzzle of music history. “Canopoli” pieces history together leaving the lines “barely noticeable... and non-distracting.” (Trey Rice)

Le1f "Wut": An incredible dance beat mixed with just a tinge of Le1f's characteristically dark sensibility, "Wut" is short and sweet hip-hop perfection. (Andrew Wagner)

Lindsay Tuc "Calm Down": It's that sudden climbing melody that runs up at the end of Calm Down that claws away inside of you. Each talon a different poison; warmth, sobriety, optimism, desire… It reaches right in and ensnares you in its grasp, sweet-heartache oozing into your veins. (Holly Friedlander Liddicoat)

Faber Kastell “Games”

10 Jan 2013 — Kelsie Brown

We recently received an email from an artist who goes under the name Faber Kastell with little information other than that he resides between Berlin and London and that he makes "minimal, dreamy soundbites". Dreamy it is - and absolutely intoxicating. "Games" is a tense, atmospheric gem, building constantly but subtlety throughout the short two minutes, and before you know it, the dream has ended. It's one that sparks repeated listens, and we can't get enough of it.

Download for free via Soundcloud.

10 Jan 2013 — Tonje Thilesen

Usually remembered by people who meet him as 'that hilarious bearded Canadian dude', Brooklyn's Landon Speers can also be caught in a somewhat more deliberate mood, as seen on stage as Headaches (below) or visually through his magnificent photographic eye (above). Growing up side by side with our friends of Born Gold, Kuhrye-oo and Purity Ring in Edmonton, their heads were naturally overflowing with creative ideas as the glacial winters snuck in over the landscape; soon to be known as some of the finest souls and electronic bands/producers we've seen emerging from Canada the last couple of years. We have faith in Landon being the next in line, producing supremely fine beats in a cold, baroscopic outfit.

Listen to his brand new "casserole clusterfuck" remix of Ciara's "Ride" below, and don't forget to read the interview with him over at Portals.

09 Jan 2013 — Trey Reis

Gel Set

Chicago seems like a proper city for all of this weirdo second (dark) wave stuff. Have you been there during the winter? You don’t have to hang out in some gloomy basement to get into that headspace. The city bleeds it. What with the mechanical clink of the rail system connecting you with all of those century-old warehouses and industrial loading zones. The wind through the avenues is a coldwave unto itself, and the way it carries those voices echoing between brick buildings and broken concrete is haunting. Call Gel Set’s new Lillerne Tape, Microsoftcore XXXCell, whatever combination of dark and dreary dance-floor genres you want; I say it’s like a field recording of January at 3 AM in Chicago.

Listen to the entire EP below, and look for the tape on the city’s very own Lillerne Tapes. Pre-order now over here.

09 Jan 2013 — Parker Bruce

Wildarms

Wildarms' song "Full Hearts" from the producer's forthcoming EP Clear Eyes (both a reference to the TV show Friday Night Lights), is like being in ten different places at once: a cherry blossom-filled zen land straight out of George Prochnik’s "In Pursuit of Silence", and a pinpointed snobby Victorian tea as if you were on the Soarin' ride at Disney. The "Unity" that came before has become "Full Hearts". And as with "Unity", the second single off the EP gives a seemingly unexpected starring role to, in this case, a harpsichord and sitar that sound all spindly and nesting. Wildarms, aka The Fader's Duncan Cooper, will drop the EP via beloved imprint Cascine on February 5. And take a second to contemplate on that wonderfully past-present cover art that takes a John William Godward painting and turns it into something that's almost more reminiscent of a Jeff Koons work by plastering that big, doofy smiley face on it.

Read an interview with Cooper over at Dazed Digital.

09 Jan 2013 — Kelsie Brown

Springtime Carnivore is a (relatively) anonymous solo project making 60s-inspired tunes. Taking inspiration from the sunny United States desert where she resides, "Collectors" is a bright indie pop gem. Fuzzy vocal melodies are laid down over a bed of strong drums, guitars, and pianos. Other tracks, like "Low Clouds", the closing track of Springtime Carnivore, her debut EP released last fall, take an instrumental approach and veer more on the side of calm psychedelia. This is the project of someone who clearly knows what she's doing, and we can't get enough of it.

Springtime Carnivore EP is out now. Watch the video for "Collectors" below, and stream the rest of the EP over at Bandcamp.

08 Jan 2013 — Henning Lahmann

Kitty

So far I had consciously avoided jumping on the Kitty Pryde bandwagon, for one due to the fact that last year's hype, mostly sparked by a good deal of our cherished stateside blog friends, somehow had made me suspicious, but also (later on) as I was plainly rather underwhelmed by the young rapper's so far most widely recognized EP haha i'm sorry, despite all obvious talent. That however changed last night during a period of protracted insomnia, and from now on you may just count me in as a believer. The rather brief "Dead Island" off Kitty's forthcoming D.A.I.S.Y. Rage EP is a true killer, both visually and sonically. Some fairly big amount of credit should go to London beatsmith Water – 'your future favourite producer' according to Dummy's Ruth Saxelby – whose instrumental track "(diplo)" from last October's debut EP sluts, sampling the frantic marching band beat of Major Lazer's "Pon de Flor" (hence the name, I assume), provides a perfectly smooth and subtle substructure for the rapper's flow, which comes across as more confident and hence more mesmerizing than ever. Her marvelously snotty line 'I love NY cause there's so many bridges to jump off / Or backyards where you get dumped off' strikes me as most memorable right now, but it's really the whole twisted assault of insidiously presented vocals that at least for me may define a whole new dimension of Kitty Pryde's art. In short, you see me thoroughly impressed.

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