Author: The Predatory Wasp

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Music

Salamanda – Hard Luck Story

ashbalkum – the new album from Seoul electronic duo Salamanda – is really, really lovely. In the press release, rather than banging on about all the different synths they used and talking about their inspirations, the overwhelming focus is the fun they had making it, and how their friendship inspired them to create music that was playful and soothing. How nice is that! And to quote directly from the PR: “Do dreams always reflect what we think? Is what we feel within dreams real? Ultimately, Salamanda don’t seek to answer these questions, so much as revel in the delightful liminality of it all.” Lush.

https://8salamanda8.bandcamp.com/album/ashbalkum

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Interviews Music

One Track Mind: Hinako Omori

The classical pianist and synthesiser obsessive discusses the timeless beauty of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Energy Flow

The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!

Born in Yokohama, Japan, Hinako Omori moved to the UK when she was three years old and currently lives in London. She began her musical path learning classical piano, later training as a sound engineer, and has since moved into working with analogue synths. Previous to releasing her own solo material she toured with and played on records by a raft of critically acclaimed musicians including Kae Tempest, Georgia, and Ed O’Brian. However it is her experience in sound engineering that form the foundation for her new album a journey…, a deeply meditative electronic project that encompasses binaural field recordings, analogue synthesisers and augmented vocals.

For her One Track Mind selection, Omori has picked a track by arguably Japan’s most celebrated and influential musician of all time, Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Continue reading “One Track Mind: Hinako Omori”
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Music

Bad Flamingo – The Fifth Of June

I don’t think I’ve featured any other artist on this blog as much as Bad Flamingo – but they’re just so remarkably, consdiently good, so for this I make no apologies whatsoever. The Fifth Of June is another sultry, country-meets-alt-pop mashup that sounds like nothing else out there

badflamingomusic.com

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Music

070 Shake – Purple Walls

Despite 070 Shake’s Modus Vivendi being my very favourite album of 2020, the fact that she released the follow up, You Can’t Kill Me, last week completely passed me by. You would have thought that sitting in front of a computer and hunting for new music for hours every single day would prevent this kind of glaring oversight, but apparently not. Anyway, it’s here, and it’s fucking great. I could have picked any one of at least half a dozen tracks to highlight, but let’s go for Purple Walls as it has that perfect balance of crushingly hard production and plaintive vocals. Peerlessly brilliant, as ever.

https://www.instagram.com/070shake

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Music

Jamal Moss – The Lust With-IN

Jamal Moss (who also records as Hieroglyphic Being) has been a pioneering force in Chicago’s electronic music scene for decades, producing a range of sounds from weird, glitchy electro, to gorgeous, melodic house. Most of the tracks on his Modern Love debut Thanks 4 The Tracks U Lost fall into the latter category, with The Lust With-IN tugging especially hard on the heartstrings with its melancholy pads and beautiful, cascading synth line.

https://boomkat.com/products/thanks-4-the-tracks-u-lost-93eb5e09-774f-48fc-abba-5fb562b3f8dc

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Music

Planetary Assault Systems – Eden Tide (Barker Remix)

Barker is someone I wish released more music, as pretty much everything he does put out is fucking incredible. Since 2018’s groundbreakingly brilliant Debiasing EP he’s been ploughing a particularly rich furrow of (nearly) beatless atmospheric techno, now taking on a remix of techno royalty Luke Slater under his Planetary Assault Systems alias. Slowing the tempo and erasing all but the tiniest hint of a kick drum, Barker’s version is meditative, warm and essential.

https://soundcloud.com/voltek

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Music

Maria BC – ROF

ROF is taken from Hyaline, the debut album from Ohio-born, Oakland, CA based artist and songwriter, Maria BC. Described in the accompanying promo copy as “ghost stories, but not as we know them”, the world building throughout the album is really extraordinary, and the uncanny atmosphere is rarely more dense and intimate than on ROF, where a hushed, Grouper-esque guitar and a glacial vocal takes centre stage as eerie field recordings twist and scuttle in the distance.

https://mariabc.bandcamp.com/album/hyaline

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Music

Just Mustard – 23

You wait six years for a new Warpaint album and then two come along at once, although this second one seems to have been created by an Irish 5-piece called Just Mustard. Or, if I’m being less of a reductive prick about things: I really like Just Mustard’s dark, moody new album Heart Under, which calls to mind similarly atmospheric indie bands like, for example, Warpaint. 23 is the first track on the album and is instantly magnetic, with a level of quality and conviction that remains throughout.

https://justmustard.bandcamp.com

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Music

HAAi – Pigeon Baron

Taken from her new album Baby, We’re Ascending which is out today, Pigeon Baron is an emotional banger of ridiculously impressive quality and intensity, and the thought of being three beans deep while listening to this somewhere in the depths of Block 9 next month is making me so excited I can barely sit still.

https://haai.bandcamp.com/

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Music

Nu Genea – Gelbi

Taken from the new Bar Mediterraneo album by Italo-funk duo Nu Genea, Gelbi is a sparkling, effervescent delight, tripping merrily along on a rich, warm bassline with shiny synths and soaring vocals – performed by Marzouk Mejiri in their Tunisian dialect – keeping the pool party a poppin’.

https://nugenea.bandcamp.com/album/bar-mediterraneo