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Music

aloisius, jaso – 2ndjune1

the unfolding rose is an ever expanding album mostly made up of improvised one-take songs, recorded, mixed and mastered by aloisius alongside various collaborators. If you’re in the market for an extremely challenging 4+ hour ambient/experimental LP, this comes highly recommended. Patience definitely required, but there are some truly extraordinary moments of beauty hidden between the sketchy snatches of conversation and – at times overwhelming – dissonance. This particular track also ticks the elusive ‘zero views on YouTube’ box, which makes me feel exceedingly niche.

https://aloisius.bandcamp.com/album/the-unfolding-rose

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Helado Negro – Best For You And Me

Best For Your And Me is the third single to be unveiled from Helado Negro’s forthcoming album PHASOR, which is set to land 09 February on 4AD. And it’s a peach! Loose and languid but with just enough low-end growl to keep it anchored to the dusty earth.

https://heladonegro.bandcamp.com/album/phasor

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Marika Hackman – The Ground

Marika Hackman’s new album Big Sigh is described as the “hardest” record she’s ever made. It’s unclear whether that refers to the challenge or how it actually sounds; it’s definitely bolder and less hushed than some of her previous releases, but still contains plenty of sadness, reflection and catharsis, which is exactly what I’m interested in, and LP opener is a beautiful, haunting, (almost) instrumental starting point for what turns out to be the first great release of the year.

https://marikahackman.bandcamp.com/album/big-sigh-3

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Music

Kam Theory – ECLIPSE IN OCTOBER

The only description I can find online for Kam Theory is her Soundcloud bio which reads: “sound bender | the vibe known as Kam Theory”. But maybe that’s all anyone needs to know.

https://www.instagram.com/kamtheory

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Music

Youth Lagoon – Lux Radio Theatre

Trevor Powers’ return as Youth Lagoon completed passed me by last year, the album’s inclusion on various end of year lists has prompted me to dive in. I really liked his last two albums under his own name, especially 2018’s Mulberry Violence, was a beautifully odd. Lux Radio Theatre isn’t the most exciting track on Heaven is a Junkyard, but it’s probably the prettiest.

https://osoleone.bandcamp.com/track/surfin

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Music

Oso Leone – Surfin’

Oso Leone’s 2019 album Gallery Love is an under-appreciated masterpiece, and while they haven’t officially announced a new LP yet, hopes are high for one sometime in 2024 following the release of two new songs, the latest of which is the almost pornographically dreamy Surfin’, which occupies a similarly soft-focus space as the The Antlers’ recent work.

https://osoleone.bandcamp.com/track/surfin

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Music

Salamanda – Sing Together

It’s been a solid couple of years for Seoul based electronic duo Salamander, as they’ve slowly but surely become more widely known in the West via glowing features in tastemaker outlets like FACT and Crack Magazine. Sing Together landed on Christmas Eve and continues in a similar vibe to their latest album In Parallel; skeletal but warm electronic meanderings with naive melodies and plenty of whimsy.

https://8salamanda8.bandcamp.com/album/sing-together

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Music

nthng – Unlimited ()

As is traditional, the first few weeks (possibly months) of 2024 will see me catching up on all the brilliant music I missed from last year. I expect everyone’s feeling exceptionally bleak after big nights out/in a couple of days ago, so here’s something soft and restorative from Amsterdam’s nthng, taken from their latest album There Is A Place For Me. For fans of DJ Healer, breakbeats and being reflective (or just a bit sad).

https://nthng.bandcamp.com/album/there-is-a-place-for-me

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Music

Burial – Come Down To Us (10 year anniversary)

Described on its release by FACT as “Christmas story about love, confusion and sexuality, and the best thing he’s made since Untrue“, Burial’s Rival Dealer EP came out 10 years ago, and includes what has become arguably the defining mid-period Burial track Come Down To Us – a 13 minute epic that starts and ends with crackly static (obviously) and tackles themes of identification and loss via a speech from transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski, soaring melodies and what can only be described as Christmas bells. A decade later it remains both provocatively divisive and inescapably brilliant.

https://burial.bandcamp.com/track/come-down-to-us

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Music

Metro Riders – Rattornas Vinters

My favourite album of the year was a nostalgic reimagining of mid-90s rave with all the sharp edges removed, so it’s unsurprising that I’m similarly enamoured with Metro Riders’ backward-looking LP Lost In Reality, which examines 80’s proto-house through an extreme lo-fi lens. A project of Henrik Stelzer, this latest Metro Riders album aims to “map out an emotional geography of cities at night” and absolutely nails the sense of time and place, like a Roland-obsessed Burial for the Stockholm underground.

https://possiblemotive.bandcamp.com/album/lost-in-reality