The Predatory Wasp
Part of a run of singles featuring new versions of tracks from Poppy Ackroyd’s 2021 album Pause, Hinako Omori’s offering starts sparse and delicate before the tension resolves into something richer and more comforting with the addition of radiant and increasingly prominent pads.
Dennis Huddleston aka 36’s new album Cold Ecstasy is a pitch-perfect homage to 90s rave, focussing on “the happier side of the hardcore spectrum, which I feel was unfairly maligned at the time.”As a teenager obsessed with happy hardcore and later trance, I’ve always had a massive soft spot for the unashamed positivity of those genres. A companion piece to 2021’s Weaponised Serenity which was equally brilliant, this new LP is further proof that Huddlestone is one of the most consistently excellent electronic producers out there.
Back in May 2016, Trevino a.k.a. Marcus Intalex released his debut album Front on his own Birdie label. Following the producer’s death in 2017, the follow-up album Back was released posthumously in May. Recorded between Berlin and Manchester, Back is at its strongest when it embraces the more melancholy aspects of electronica – as in the all-conquering Backtracking, still one of the best techno singles of all time – with Moodswing a clear highlight.
Increasingly, I like electronic music to make me feel one of two ways: extremely, nostalgically blissed-out or overwhelmingly anxious to the point of not being able to sit still. Katatonic Silentio’s output falls very much into the latter of these two categories, although To – from her recent Mantis 11 EP – is one of her more accessible pieces, with a clear, if apocalyptic, rhythm and only the suggestion of creeping, mechanical oblivion patiently lurking in the background.
Picture of Bunny Rabbit features nine previously unreleased performances from legendary artist Arthur Russell, recorded around the time he released his career-defining album World of Echo. These newly discovered tracks have been compiled from completed masters culled from two unique test pressings, including one, dated 9/15/85 by Arthur, provided by his mother and sister, while a further four tracks were discovered in his tape archive. Profoundly haunting as ever, its a fascinating collection from an artist whose legacy continues to grow.
https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/picture-of-bunny-rabbit
Recorded following the death of her producer and close friend, Julie Byrne’s first album in six years The Greater Wings embraces her sorrow and attempts to find personal growth in the desolation of loss. Gently meandering from traditional folk compositions to more ambient, textural pieces, it’s an undeniably sad album, but richly, rewardingly so, for the listener as much as its creator.
Finding albums like Not Marshall’s Fragments of Varnished Visions makes me a bit happy and a bit sad: happy, as I feel like I’ve stumbled on something brilliant that hasn’t already had its praises highly sung; sad as this is flying so hard under the radar that it’s difficult to imagine any more than a small handful of people will ever get the chance to enjoy its magnificence. I literally can’t find anything about it online except its listing on AOTY, not even a Bandcamp page. It’s not often ambient is explicitly joyful, but that’s certainly the case with About The Desert, and the rest of this deeply buried gem is equally lovely.
The list of instruments Clara Engel plays on their latest album Sanguinaria starts familiar, but very quickly takes a sharp left turn: voice, acoustic guitar, electric cigar box guitar, talharpa, gudok, cajón, wooden trunk with soft mallets, tongue drum, melodica, all of which combine to create an atmosphere that is both otherworldly and yet deeply rooted in the earthiest of folk traditionalism. None more so is this evident than in the incredible album closer Larvae, with its subdued yet relentless drum rhythm, ghostly strings, and lyrics which beautifully combine the celestial and terrestrial.
“Dub postcards, east London boats, reflections in the eye of a cat, swallowing your tarot card, spitting echo from calming substances, yellow paint on our shut down local brunch spot, post-punk golden rules, shaking metal memories in a glass jar.”
Rrose’s compositional process centres on “seed” sounds being fed through elaborate webs of interrelated audio processing: essentially a chain of sequences where changes in any one element have resulting implications further down the line. If that all sounds a bit technical its because its largely copied from the press notes, but I thought it was quite interesting. The new album from which Spore is taken splits its time between radical techno iterations and pieces which pare back the percussion, letting the synth textures uncurl in their own time and space. Spore lands firmly in the former category, and is among the most straightforwardly enjoyable tracks on Please Touch.
The Predatory Wasp 