The Predatory Wasp
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
Following March’s CD Wallet, HOMESHAKE has just released his second album of 2024, Horsie. Written and recorded at his home studio in Toronto, it explores his complicated feelings about returning to live performance, deepening his relationship to loneliness and anxiety while examining those themes in the context of touring. Cheery stuff right! It’s lovely though, really.
Apologies for my extended break – it was pre-Glastonbury/Glastonbury/post-Glastonbury, so I couldn’t really engage with anything else. But now I’m back! Lots of interesting albums out recently, but this opening track from Omar Apollo’s new album God Said No is the one I’ve had on loop. So while everyone else is losing their shit about Pedro, we can listen to this low-key banger.
It’s hard to explain just how of an emotional connection I have to Sufjan Steven’s 2024 album Seven Swans. Reissued today for its 20th anniversary, it was the first album I listened to, and I vividly remember the experience. It was like nothing I’d heard before, and started an intense and continuing obsession. Sister is probably the album’s emotional peak, with closer The Transfiguration coming in a close second. But the entire album is flawless. I have still never heard anything that approaches its raw emotion and stripped down beauty. I love you, Sufjan.
Today’s track is 12 years old, but I had completely forgotten about it until yesterday and assume there are plenty of people who have never heard it. If that’s you, you’re in for a treat. Thinking back to 2012 it was almost unavoidable in certain circles, but unlike many other hype tracks of yesteryear, this remains completely essential and may well be one of the best remixes ever produced, especially given its somewhat forgettable source material.
The Predatory Wasp 