The Predatory Wasp
As recommended by Philip Sherburne in his excellent Futurism Restated newsletter, Total Blue is a the Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico whose self-titled debut album came out earlier this month. Working with digital synths, an Akai EVI wind synthesizer, fretless bass, and guitar, the trio masterfully balance texture and colour, evoking expansive vistas and crafting a supremely chilled vibe.
Triumphant, emotionally resonant techno from JakoJako’s eagerly awaited Segmente EP which is out today on NovaMute.
Mica Levi makes their Hyperdub debut with the 12-minute slob air, an amalgamation of dream pop, post rock and shoegaze and among the most accessible, warm pieces of music they’ve ever produced. As you’d expect from someone renowned for soundtrack work it has a cinematic quality, but it also sounds contained and personal; a little nugget of time and place that calls to mind both Dean Blunt and John Murphy.
It’s Friday, it’s blazing outside, and there’s new music from Pale Jay about hanging out in his garden. Life is good! Taken from his upcoming LP Low End Love Songs which will be released later this summer.
I’ve spent a few weeks with Mabe Fratti’s new album Sentir que no sabes now, but it’s just not really doing it for me. Her last couple sounded like nothing else I’ve ever heard, properly visceral and overwhelming in parts, whereas this one just kinda of bobs along. Almost everyone disagrees with me, so maybe I just don’t get it. Enfrente is pretty great though.
https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sentir-que-no-sabes
Dawn Richard and Spencer Zahn first collaborated on 2022’s fantastic Pigments and recently announced a new album, Quiet in a World Full of Noise, which is coming out in October. Breathe Out is the lead single and continues to blend Richard’s r&b instincts with Zahn’s expansive, atmospheric arrangements.
https://dawnrichard.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-in-a-world-full-of-noise
Loma’s 2020 album Don’t Shy Away was one of the best of the year: its somewhat paranoid but ultimately reassuringly intimacy the perfect companion for heading into a winter of lockdown bleakness. Four years later we now have the follow up How Will I Live Without A Body, and while the overall atmosphere hasn’t changed drastically – recording techniques include using the ruin of a 12th-century chapel as a reverb chamber – I’m not sure it quite reaches the insular beauty of it’s predecessor. How It Starts is lovely though.
American R&B singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Fana Hues describes the process of working through grief on her third album Moth as ““denying the fact that it happened, turning it into shameful pettiness, self-reflection, re-grounding myself and acceptance, and then letting it go”. The drums on Gone Again stand out – purposeful and intricate – with Hues’ airy vocal soaring majestically above them.
Berlin based modular synthesist and DJ JakoJako’s, aka Sibel Koçer, recently announced a new four-track Segmente EP which will be coming out 18 July on NovaMute, and Introspection is the second single to be released from it. Pretentiously, nauseatingly described by Resident Advisor as ““fragile techno written in the key of wonder”, I feel slightly sick quoting this level of dewy-eyed fawning, but here we are.
Illuvia is the music project of Ludvig Cimbrelius who also releases music as Purl, Eternell and Abraço de Vapor. New album Earth Prism is his third under this ambient drum n bass leaning alias, and does pretty much exactly what you’d expect, with atmospheric pads and lush melodies combined with lo-fi drums filtered almost out of existence.
https://astrangelyisolatedplace.bandcamp.com/album/earth-prism
The Predatory Wasp 