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Léa Sen – lvl 3 EDGE OF THE MAP

Sultry, low-key r&b for you today from French-born, London-based singer-songwriter and producer Léa Sen who first came to prominence with a breathy, resonant vocal on Joy Orbison’s Better in 2021, quickly followed by collaborations with Sampha, Oscar Jerome, Wu‑Lu, and Vegyn. This is taken from her debut LP LEVELS which was co-produced with her brother Florian, with each track representing a different floor in a liminal hotel of memory and growth.

https://leasen.bandcamp.com/album/levels

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XENIA REAPER – halo°°°

XENIA REAPER lands on Berlin’s Oscilla Sound with seven deft cuts, gently fusing the outer realms of spectral ambience and delicate breaks. 

https://oscillasound.bandcamp.com/album/lmnl004-zumi3

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747 – Sea To Sky

First Floor‘s Shawn Reynaldo described Canadian producer 747’s new LP Pacific Spirit as “if Tin Man made a jungle record”, and that’s pretty much all you need to know. Where his past work etched itself in acid techno, Pacific Spirit blooms with expansive, saturated colours and wears its vulnerable, optimistic heart very much on its sleeve.

https://aquaregiarec.bandcamp.com/album/pacific-spirit

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Burial – Comafields

A new Burial record is an increasingly rare thing: his new EP Comafields / Imaginary Festival is his first original material for over a year, following a split release with Kode 9. Comafields opens with a sample of Russell Crowe as Noah from Darren Aronofsky intensely odd 2014 movie (sure) and then meanders through all the Burial tropes: vinyl crackle, celestial rave, abrupt tonal and rhythmic shifts, ethereal, whispered vocals, before seemingly sampling himself with the final shuffling percussive flourish. And… it’s great!

https://burial.bandcamp.com/album/comafields-imaginary-festival

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The Antlers – Carnage

Like many of the songs on The Antlers undeniable masterpiece Familiars, their new single Carnage starts as a whisper and ends with a roar, and is, according to the band’s Peter Silberman “a song about a kind of violence we rarely acknowledge—violence not born of cruelty, but of convenience. Innocent creatures are swept up in the path of destruction as their world collides with ours, and we barely notice.”

I fucking LOVE The Antlers, and really want to enjoy their forthcoming album Blight (10 October, Transgressive) in full, so won’t be listening to any more of the inevitable singles. But suffice to say, this is a very promising start.

https://theantlers.bandcamp.com/album/blight-2

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The Velvet Sundown – From Deep Within

Had me fooled 😦

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Kurt Vile – hit of the highlife

Kurt Vile’s new EP with Luke Roberts is loose, low-key, and quietly pretty. It doesn’t try too hard. The two have been friends for years, and you can hear that ease in the recordings: songs that feel more like sketches than statements. hit of the highlife is the standout,and sounds unlike anything else Vile has produced. Dreamy and soft-edged, it drifts along at its own pace, all hushed vocals and meandering guitar lines, with just enough structure to keep it moving.

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Kokoroko – Da Du Dah

Jazz collective Kokoroko channel the greats of West Africa, building on the foundations laid by Fela Kuti, Tony Allen and Ebo Taylor and lacing together their influences into a soul shaking, horn-fueled sound. Taken from their new album Tuff Times Never Last, Da Du Dah is breezy, jazz-and-funk-laced soul ripe for BBQs and struttin’.

https://kokoroko.bandcamp.com/album/tuff-times-never-last

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Demdike Stare, Cherrystones – Thee Oath

Described by the ever understated Boomkat as “up there with some of the most satisfyingly deep and frazzled gear this century”, I’m not sure whether I enjoyed or endured Demdike Stare’s new LP Who Owns The Dark?, but it certainly left an impression. A long-in-the-making collab with Cherrystones, it’s even sketchier and more unnerving than To Cut & Shoot from earlier this year, which is really saying something.

https://boomkat.com/products/who-owns-the-dark

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ØXN – Cruel Mother (Ben Frost Remix)

The bones of ØXN’s folk-horror lament are still visible in this expansive remix – Radie Peat’s (also of Lankum) voice remains spectral and clear – but Frost drags the track into darker terrain, stretching and fraying its edges until it feels less like a song and more like a summoning.