Seattle producer Domokos puts a lovely spin on this track from Kid Smpl's debut album. What's already a smooth, downtempo track becomes a beautiful clanger. "Left There (Domokos remix)" is off of Kid Smpl's Skylight Remixes, Vol. 1, out now through Seattle's Hush Hush Records, also featuring remixes by the likes of Jerome LOL and Dream Koala.
Download Skylight Remixes, Vol. 1here, and listen to Domokos' take below.
Oh, those ambitions. Only their second release but we can already hardly imagine ever to have to live without the supreme curation of Lyon/Geneva imprint Danse Noire. Their first offering, the Out Of Body EP by Turin's Daniele Mana aka Vaghe Stelle was a quintessential and mind-boggling tour de force through everything exciting and challenging in contemporary underground dance music, and now the folks' fine ears introduce us to the sounds of Aïsha Devi, formerly known as Kate Wax, and the results this time around are by no means less enticing. The artist's forthcoming Aura 4 Everyone EP takes up the noirish feel of its predecessor while largely dropping the dancefloor menace in favour of some of the finest broken avant-garde pop tropes we've come across this year. The rhythm patterns are mostly twisted, providing an aptly uneasy foundation for Devi's experimentations with synths and sequencer, and not least her own voice. The uncanny, shattered arrangement of "Popular Science" is a perfect introduction to the EP, entrapping you like a dim, semi-lighted alley in some rundown quarter in a city far east, dragging you towards a place you know you should never enter, yet there's nothing left that will stop you now.
The Aura 4 Everyone EP is out June 3. If you're in need of further arguments, it includes two excellent remixes by Cooly G and Willie Burns. Highly recommended.
The musical metamorphosis of Julia Holter continues. With her new song "World", put up last week, the musician abandons her ambient roots and strengthens the chamber pop elements that she introduced on her critically acclaimed album Ekstasis. The typically spherical soundscapes have been replaced with silence. Her very dry voice and a softly playing ensemble of all kinds of classical instruments and a choir is all we can hear. Since "World" is the opener of her third full-length, Loud City Song, you may guess that it will set the tone for the rest of the album. Fact is, unlike her first two albums, this time Holter didn't record her songs alone in her bedroom but together with Cole Mardsen Grief-Neill and a group of musicians, which already indicates that the piece will probably sound a lot different. That aside, "World" taken by itself sounds promising, making us count the days until the release of Loud City Song.
Undeniably, Bradford, UK producer Hourglass Sea has found the core elements to his music in maximalistic pop — always a little bit over the top, and particularly hard to classify with one word alone. Soundcloud suggests both "popstep" and "new jack", both of which would make most heads nod in agreement after a few listens. However, on his upcoming self-release Live From The Crematorium, Dean Bentley truly shows of his spectrum of craziness, moving from k-pop-like trap productions to recorded instrumentation and icy synth riffs, usually infused with those just slightly outdated RnB vocal samples, all though absolutely forgivable in the end. ...Until the lead guitar comes in. You get the picture.
"Another World" is just one of the more obvious synth tracks off the record, and plays with with a delightful, analogue feel. Live from The Crematorium is out on June 17th.
Jay Holy's SkeletorEP conjures an alternate reality where He-Man's nemesis started listening to John Maus and, well, learned how to chill out. He worked out his maniacal urges out through music, instead of remaining fixated on Castle Grayskull and universal domination.
Jay Holy is a brand new Toronto project (whose live incarnation includes Devan Boomen on keyboards), and already reveals a mastery of psychedelic electronic pop. It bursts forth with "Skeletons," a brilliant pop single, reminiscent of Ariel Pink and the 13th Floor Elevators ending with supervillainous laughter (perhaps of the titular villain). The rest of the record is just as strong, walking that line between psych-rock and electropop, hearkening to nostalgic sounds while creating something unmistakably of the blog age. Jay's attention to detail and many memorable hooks means every listen reveals just a little bit more of his madness. Highly recommended.
The Skeletor EP is available as a free download or on cassette from Bandcamp.
Moses Gold and his blog Tru Luv is usually my first source to new projects or side-projects from the suburban corners of Manchester, and therefore also the one that led us to KRAKEN — the pneuma of M O N E Y's lead singer Jamie Lee. From a soul-searching position of his own self, Lee strips down the crumbly, musical barriers that M O N E Y has built up around him, reveiling a face with no edits. It's the same intimate, approachable feeling as we were introduced to with "SOLONG (GODISDEAD)" — but the physical structure is different, less processed, and in some way or the other, it feels just slightly more real. "I'll Be The Night" was the B-side of M O N E Y's 7" on Almost Musique last year (which we also happened to premiere), but the version under his solo moniker KRAKEN has a more stripped-down feel to it, all though being very similar to the 'original' (after all, we could even guess that this is the original).
Below is also another standout from his youtube profile (uploaded a year ago) entitled "This Song Is For The Doctor (But Mostly it's For You)", but obviously isn't alone in its company. In the description field of another track, the captivating "Otis", Lee writes: "I want to marry Joan of Arc. I want to be Buddy Holly. I want to be 'Jack'. I want a sea please. Council Tax is expensive when you live alone", reminding us that "Kraken" actually is the name of a sea monster, more precicely told to excist off the coasts of Norway and Greenland.
And so on, he writes: "Death is just an illusion - a high wall. It is not the end. There is no such thing as 'the end'. It is the beginning."
We're stoked to be co-presenting the Berlin debut with Stockholm's most exciting pop outfit as of late, Kate Boy — an act that pioneered 2012's pop charts as an obvious standout amongst the newcomers, our own 'charts' included. Only three singles have seen the light of day so far: "Northern Lights" (as we introduced last year), "In Your Eyes" and the new single "The Way We Are", but even with so little material around, the quartet have already managed to break out of their national barriers (and even more so), making them an obvious watch-out for the upcoming festivals this summer.
A little while ago, we reported about the forthcoming Meudiademorte ten-year anniversary edition, a "wooden box containing 10 one-sided 7" singles by members of the artistic family", accompanied by the film "Mirage" which will tie all ten contributions together audiovisually and which is conveniently going to be released in a series of just as many parts. Last time, we premiered the psychedelic Pretty Lightning assault "Mantra De Morte", and this week's second part comes courtesy of trio Schrein (and yes, that neatly translates into 'shrine'), whose dazzling and beguiling, free jazz-informed improvisations are merely interspersed along a mind-altering sequence of 80s talk show scenes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ads, with surprisingly coherent results. I'd mention hypnagogia if I didn't know better. Watch it below.
