On a cold and rainy November Sunday afternoon like this one, there's really nothing you could do but watch a selection of this week's most interesting videos, and there really was much to see this week, and thanks to us, the essence of it is delightfully presented below, with contributions by our darlings TOPS as well as S O H N, Angel Haze, WIFE, Rangleklods, and King Krule. Enjoy.
Just like anyone identified with our cherished Arbutus crew, and partly also thanks to a little help from a good friend, Devon Welsh aka Majical Cloudz (who is joined by Matthew Otto on stage) has made some well-deserved rounds in the interwebs this year, and it's a delight to see the announcement of a proper EP release pretty soon. Lead-off single and title track "Turns Turns Turns" is, I'm sure a lot of people have already mentioned it this past week, truly gorgeous, an autumnal lullaby that feels subtly hopeful behind its prevailing heavy-hearted melancholia.
The Turns Turns Turns EP is out December 3 via Arbutus (North America) and Merok. Pre-order here.
Holy Strays' stellar track "Christabell B", which we consider his finest work to date and which we described as "a five-minute killer that compellingly blends intricately constructed, footwork-indebted rhythms with eerie vocal samples and Forrester's signature style of organ and synth-driven psychedelia". The new video, directed by Chloe Bonfield, convincingly reinforces both the psychedelic aspects and the tune's pronounced franticness. Watch it now below.
Up-and-coming British Indie-rapper Rowdy Superstar, who has turned quite some heads as of late not only cause he somehow and for some reason is the newest member of German proto-electroclash post-wave punks Atari Teenage Riot, gets the remix treatment for mind-boggling single "Breathe" courtesy of Micachu and the Shapes member Raisa K. Those familiar with the band of the band will immediately recognize the twitchy, syncopated production which defines the Micachu sound. Stream the original version here.
Rowdy Superstar's "Breathe" single is available November 12 via Accidental Records.
Hew is the new collaborative project between Rachel Evans aka Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Nevada City, California-based visual artist Juli Toro (who not only did the artwork on the left but also the cover art for MSOTT's self-titled LP on Spectrum Spools earlier this year). The two have just readied their first cassette named Domoboi, a four-track effort that's not too far away from Evans' ambient-leaning solo ventures. We're happy to premiere the video for one of the tracks off the tape, "In the Center of a Room", made by Rachel Evans herself. As usual with her work, sound and vision align perfectly, the restrained pictures creating a dense, absorbing atmosphere for the track's slowly meandering, careful synth patterns.
When I interviewed Seb Gainsborough aka Vessel a while ago, he told me that considering his tracks as etudes or sketches would be an appropriate assessment of his work. Apart from himself, this seems to be a pretty common approach among the whole Young Echo crew. Rather than delivering polished, re-considered results every other day, most members seem to prefer the raw and deliberately unfinished, producing tracks that at some point are left alone in order to provide opportunities for further development, for continued evolution in a live setting or in a process of cross-fertilisation within the collective itself.
In that way it makes perfect sense that the Young Echo people appear to have found a new channel for their seemingly boundless creative urge, the strictly tape-only label No Corner, which is shrouded in mystery but is allegedly run by friends of the crew in Bristol. After a split between J a b u and Killing Sound and "a 40 minute sonic bricolage of golden era grime pieced together by Kahn and Neek", NC003 is set to drop very soon, and it's another reminder of the young musicians' convincing agenda. Labyrinths is a roughly 26 minute transmission by Sam Kidel aka El Kid, collecting a couple of cuts coming fresh from the collective's sonic laboratories. In line with said concept, it's hard to detect a common, connecting theme among the tape's gloomy, noise-laden movements. It's certainly an effort not meant for dancing around all night, with the possible exception of b-side track "We Need Mirrors", but rather for intellectual contemplation, providing some hints at what would be possible if necessary or really intended. In that sense, the approach feels almost inevitable in a year in which a lot of people who should know --Rory Gibb and Jamie Teasdale chiefly among them-- have lamented over a critical over-saturation and at the same time the lack of an overarching narrative in contemporary electronic music. El Kid's Labyrinths, just like the music by Young Echo as a whole, probably won't be of any immediate help here, but for now, that might be exactly the point.
Below, listen to two cuts taken from the cassette, a-side tracks "Labyrinths" and "Mercury", and "Quixote" and the mentioned "We Need Mirrors" from side b.
Labyrinths is out very soon via No Corner. Watch this space.
The Minneapolis quartet All Eyes are set to release their new full-lenght Shelf Life on November 13, and as we are waiting for the first snowfall, the hautning, Trespassers Williams-esque vocals of Alicia Wiley pulls us into warm, mysterious waters; somehow feeling strangely welcoming and distant at the same time. Obviously, these guys have chosen to move in a different speed from the rest of us.
UK producer Joshua Leary aka Evian Christ, who recently showed up at Berghain for a very convincing first Berlin live performance, has a knack for unusually strong and original mixes, a fact that has already been proven this year with his works for Mary Anne Hobbes and especially Dummy. Today, NFOP is happy to premiere Leary's next piece that he's made exclusively for über-rad London fashion label Fortyounce Clothing. "No Experiences" is another brief yet breathtaking reminder of his wide-ranging taste and knowledge in modern music and his outstanding musicality, a quality that not all that often shows in mixes. It is a seamless, pleasantly slow-burning and downbeat twenty-minute contemplation that features zeitgeist-y NFOP favourites such as Vessel, Wanda Group and 1991 but also a version of Arclight's "Holographic" by Evian Christ himself that we think we haven't seen anywhere else so far (we might be wrong though), and a beautiful closer by the great Julianna Barwick.
You may strean the mix below and will be able to download it through the Forty Ounce website.
Tracklisting:
arclight - holographic (evian christ version)
wanda group - a warm perspective on a liner
vessel - lache
steve peters + steve roden - fade away within
1991 - domination translates directly into efficiency
weit draussen - durch!
julianna barwick - bode
