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Music

Dawn Richard – enough

Following previous albums excellent LPs New Breed and Second Line, and the middling Blackheart, Dawn Richard’s new solo LP creole culture pays trubute to her hometown of New Orleans through a mix of R&B, soul, hip-hop and jazz, celebrating its cultural influence while confronting its troubled history. Personal favourite enough samples Sister Nancy’s dancehall classic ‘Bam Bam’, a single that has been well mined over the years by artists including Kanye West, Lauryn Hill and Groove Armada.

https://dawnrichard.bandcamp.com/album/creole-culture

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Music

Jam City – My World feat. Aidan, Bawo & Ox Eye

I first heard this only a couple of days ago, and it has already brought a ludicrous amount of joy into my life. As my brother said when I sent it to him: “It’s the DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ x Blood Orange x Two Bears mashup I didn’t know I needed, but absolutely do”. I’d also add Prince and Jai Paul to those reference points. High praise indeed, and deserving of every word.

https://jam-city.bandcamp.com/album/my-world-2

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Music

Fog Lake – Bogus

Newfoundland-raised, Montreal-based Aaron Powell returns as Fog Lake with Bogus, the lead single from his forthcoming seventh album Hollowbody. The new LP continues a project that’s spent well over a decade finding interesting ways to make beautifully worn-out indie rock, with Bogus landing pleasantly between the stoned, shambling warmth of Kurt Vile and the more personal yearning of Adrianne Lenker.

https://foglake.bandcamp.com/album/hollowbody-2

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Music

Maxime Denuc – Atlantis

To continue along the distinctly trance-themed path of recent selections, next up we have Maxime Denuc and his excellent new LP Club Imperiale. Named after a now-shuttered nightspot that overlooked the beach on Italy’s picturesque Tuscan coast, the album is framed as a work of speculative historical fiction, imagining a point of creative symbiosis between the Catholic church and the ecstatic dancefloors of the early ’90s. In simpler terms it occupies one of my favourite sub-genres, seemingly set up to answer the question: “what if trance but minus drums plus reverb?”.

https://maximedenuc.bandcamp.com/album/club-imperiale

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Music

Donato Dozzy – Ryoma (Lò Song)

Even arguably the most credible techno producer ever, King Doz, is now making trance. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

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Music

Bullion – Roo

Nearly arrives two years after Nathan Jenkins’ previous album as Bullion, Affection, and is full of the kind of yearning bedroom pop I really enjoy, landing halfway between Bayonne and John Moods. And if you don’t know either of those references, shame on you. Go and read every page of this blog, immediately.

https://bullion.bandcamp.com/album/nearly

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Music

Space Afrika – Regards

Space Afrika, the Manchester/Berlin-based duo of Joshua Tarelle Reid and Joshua Inyang, make raw, intensely detailed, visceral music with shades of ambient, trip-hop, techno, and modern classical, drawing spacious urban dubscapes from the contours of their city. Their new album Quiet Storm is the duo’s highly anticipated follow-up to their 2021 LP on Dais Records, expanding on its predecessor’s sound and scale in pretty much every way.

https://space-afrika.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-storm

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Music

Miyaxx – Hold Your Ego Out Like A Sun

Miyaxx is the duo of Lea Thomas and John Thayer, who have been making music together in various forms for more than a decade. Their album Hold Your Ego Out Like a Sun brings Thomas’s voice, songs and open-tuned guitar together with Thayer’s percussion, field recordings and electronic production. There’s a folk record at its centre, though it often takes unexpected turns into various different genres. But above all, it is achingly beautiful. And sad; very sad.

https://miyaxx.bandcamp.com/album/hold-your-ego-out-like-a-sun

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Tokyo Tea Room – Always In The Sun

Despite existing in my head under a label of “Cannons but more low-key’, even I realise that this is doing Tokyo Tea Room a disservice. Their new album Feel Forever is a complete joy, full of bouncy, rubbery basslines and plenty of yearning. I’m off to see them in Bristol in a few weeks, and I expect I’ll have a bloody good time.

https://niceguysweare.bandcamp.com/album/feel-forever

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Music

Astel – Liminal Crossing

Astel is a new alias from Addison Groove, also known as Headhunter, an artist whose work has shaped key moments in UK electronic music for over two decades. With Shards, he steps away from the rhythmic intensity of the dancefloor, turning instead towards stillness, atmosphere and a more contemplative way of listening. This belongs to the increasingly popular “producer who used to make techno bangers and now is too old to go to clubs and makes ambient” sub-genre, and is fast becoming my favourite.

https://biofieldrecords.bandcamp.com/album/astel-shards-biofield-002