The Predatory Wasp
Joy Helder’s fantastic recent EP Blurt flits between creeping ambient and more energetic electronica, with Life of the Party sitting slap bang in the middle. Skeletal in the sparseness of its structure, every echoing glitch or crispy delivered hi-hat has been painstakingly crafted to deliver maximum impact, burrowing deep into your brainholes and sending satisfying shivers down your spine.
This is a lovely, subdued little track that’s so low key it almost denies its own existence. Coming across like Lambchop remixed by Jim-E-Stack, it’s taken from the second collaborative album between Joseph Shabason and Nicholas Krgovich, and is exactly the kind of relaxing, dreamy vibe I need today.
https://7eptokyo.bandcamp.com/album/at-scaramouche-philadelphia-2cd-digital
Loraine James’s new album Building Something Beautiful For Me lands today and fucking hell it is amazing. I never really clicked with last year’s Reflection, but loved her ambient album as Whatever The Weather from earlier this year. Building… seems to sit somewhere between these ambient and club spaces and comes across almost like a work in progress, with tracks stopping abruptly or changing tone midway through. There are so many highlights picking a single track was very tough, but I went for Black Excellent (Stay On It) due to the simplicity of its construction – pretty much just a single, undulating synthline throughout – resolved perfectly by the bleak beauty of its final third.
Celestial ambient wanderings from Clark that should appeal to anyone who enjoyed last year’s Playground In A Lake. Taken from a compilation of new tracks, unreleased archive material and rarities, collected by the artist to release alongside the remastered reissue of his 2006 LP Body Riddle.
Taken from the Bristol-based producer’s latest collection Acid Dub Studies II, Camo clocks in at just two-and-a-half minutes, but squeezes in a hell of a lot of influences, from its reggae-ish rhythm and stabs through plaintive ambient pads, skittering techno-evoking hats and squelchy electro bassline. Which sounds like it could be a bit of a mess, but definitely isn’t.
Here’s one that completely passed me by, from all the way back in January. In a week in which pretty much everyone is – quite rightly – singing the praises of Gabriels’ incredible new album, I’m listening to an album which is similarly built around another extraordinary vocal performance, but that flew mostly under the radar, at least of many of the main music reviewers. The album, The Alien Coast, is unclassifiable in parts, but is at its most satisfying when it settles into its soul-forward groove, a la the stunning Minotaur.
Blending jazz, hip-hop and some enjoyably throwback production styles (vinyl rewinds ftw!), the second album from Tom Scott’s Avantdale Bowling Club project TREES comes in like a breath of cool breeze blown all the way from New Zealand. Without You is typically laid back, with warm keys and plucked basslines rolling up lyrics like “Feeding you dreams of big, honeybees / Licking fuzz from your buds, but you never heard the buzz”.
https://avantdalebowlingclub.bandcamp.com/album/avantdale-bowling-club
Lowly are back! The wonderful Danish quintet have announced a new album Keep Up The Good Work will be landing 17 February, with the title track out today. Their last album Hifalutin was massively under appreciated so hopefully this new one will see them finally getting their dues.
This summer I saw Nilüfer Yanya play to a more than half empty tent at Glastonbury, which is a shame because she was great. The previous day they had to close to entire field this tent was in as half a billion people turned up to hear Mel C play bangers from her eight (eight!) solo albums, and maybe Wannabe. And that’s how music works people! Yanya’s album PAINLESS is one of the best of the year, and this is her second single since, covering PJ Harvey’s Rid Of Me to enjoyably nihilistic effect.
I still strongly associate Beth Orton with the 90s. She’s released at least half a dozen albums since Trailer Park, but for me she will always be the soundtrack to hanging out in my friend’s kitchen, having dinner with his parents, waiting until we could go out and take drugs and listen to trance. I’ve not listened to a single album of hers since, but her latest Weather Alive was getting such amazing reviews, here we are. And it’s incredible from start to finish, culminating in the exquisitely devastating Unwritten, and arrives just in time to perfectly soundtrack the bleakness of winter ahead.
The Predatory Wasp 