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Music

Automatic Tasty – Ballad For a Modern Man

Automatic Tasty is Ireland’s Jonny Dillon, an electronic music producer who specialises in squelchy acid and electro, while also releasing various experimental acoustic guitar pieces under his own name. On the surface his latest EP A Farewell to Reason is the most overtly ‘poppy’ thing he’s produced – almost saccharine in its happy, open chords and bubbling synth lines – but there’s a darkness to a lot of the lyrics, not least on Wake Up Dead which lists various things you shouldn’t worry about as there’s a chance this will be your last day or earth. My pick of the bunch is opening track Ballad For a Modern Man though, which pairs a chunky bassline alongside beautifully billowing melodies and Dillon’s intimate, closed-mic’d vocals.

https://wrongisland.bandcamp.com/album/a-farewell-to-reason

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Music

Thanya Iyer – I Forget to Drink Water (Balance)

Spellbinding experimentations in rhythm and tone here from the Montreal-based singer-songwriter and violinist (and band) on one of the early stand-out’s from her new album KIND. I Forget to Drink Water (Balance) has so much going on, but it’s all hushed, subdued and innate, as if it’s music that has seeped up from the earth rather than been actively performed.

https://thanyaiyer.bandcamp.com/

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Music

trayer tryon – new forever ft. Julie Byrne

new forever is the lead single from Hundred Waters producer and multi-instrumentalist trayer tryon’s forthcoming album of the same name, and it’s absolutely wonderful. Less restrained by traditional structures than much of his work with Hundred Waters, it drifts gently – at times recalling the crackling ambience of The Caretaker – with warped vocal textures complimenting beautifully shimmering piano lines.

https://www.instagram.com/trayert/

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Music

Wye Oak – No Place

I really love Wye Oak, and posting about No Place – which is taken from their latest EP, No Horizon – also gives me a valid reason to talk about one of my favourite songs of the last few years, It Was Not Natural: if you haven’t heard this, go and do it right now. It’s one of the most passionate delivered, inspiring records I’ve ever heard and makes me so happy every time I hear it.

Anyway, back to the present: No Horizon was recorded with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus contributing to every track, which lends the entire EP a spectral, quietly disorienting quality especially when paired with the rolling polyrhythms on No Place.

https://wyeoak.bandcamp.com

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Music

Katie Dey – Closeness

Closeness is taken from mydata, the fourth album from Australian artist Katie Dey: an intimate electronic album about an ‘internet relationship” in which Dey’s vocals are more often than not partially buried, emerging twisted, hushed and barely audible from beneath layers of winding static, triumphant strings, or whatever other musical textures she’s thrown at the canvas. Closeness is short, barely clocking in over two minutes, but packs a huge punch: a sincere and incredibly moving minimalist ballad.

https://katiedey.bandcamp.com

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Music

Yo La Tengo – James gets up and watches mourning birds with Abraham (Wednesday)

Yo La Tengo’s latest release is the five-track ambient drone piece We Have Amnesia Sometimes, recorded with a single microphone placed in the middle of the trio. Not that you can necessarily tell that it’s been recorded in this relatively unorthodox way, although there is definitely an all-encompassing quality to the music here; guitars are gently twanged at random, or left to drift endlessly into meandering waves of static and reverb. James gets up… is probably the stand out, and certainly the dreamiest and most relaxing, but it’s worth committing yourself to the album’s half an hour or so running time, and becoming one with the majesty and awesomeness of the cosmos, dude.

https://yolatengo.com

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Music

Chevel – Crush

It’s a question I’ve asked before on this blog, but how can something this good get some little attention? I mean obviously I know: people have precious little time and for some people trawling through every record releases in a given week isn’t (shockingly) what gets them out of bed in the morning. But still. At time of writing Crush is currently sitting on two (2!) views on YouTube, and though it’s faring a little better on other streaming platforms, it’s deserving of way, way more people knowing about it as it’s literally better than 99% of music I’ve heard this year. So come on people – GET ON THIS. Oh yeah, and it’s kinda glitchy, hyperactive, bassy techno/breaks etc (you know, that vibe).

https://soundcloud.com/chevelmusic

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Music

Becky and the Birds – Paris

Becky and the Birds is the solo project of Swedish artist Thea Gustafsson, and someone I first came across via her eponymous 2018 debut EP, which is still one I go back to regulalrly. Paris is taken from her new EP Trasslig, which roughly translates from the Swedish “entangled, messy, intricate”, which neatly sums up the vibe across the seven tracks it contains. As on much of her work, her voice on Paris is extraordinary, hitting high notes that transcend traditional vocals and become strange, eerie textures floating above sparse, otherworldly production.

https://www.beckyandthebirds.com

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Music

Jessy Lanza – Over And Over

Amid the mania of a surprise-released Taylor Swift album, thank fuck for the understated brilliance of Jessy Lanza’s new electro-inflected pop LP All The Time. There’s so much to enjoy here – not least the wide-eyed effervescence of lead single Lick In Heaven – but Over and Over is my pick: a driving, delicate, happy, sad, restrained banger. How’s that for a bunch of contradictions? Whatever, I’m standing by it.

https://jessylanza.bandcamp.com

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Music

The Transcendence Orchestra – Hinge Caterpillar

I’m only two tracks into The Transcendence Orchestra’s new album Feeling The Spirit, and it’s already a pretty overwhelming experience. Sometimes ambient music can wash over you: enjoyable, but not necessarily something you’re paying much attention to. Hinge Caterpillar manages to be both deeply relaxing and compellingly intense: an experience that grips you throughout, albeit with a touch so delicate you feel as if you could be cast adrift at any moment.

https://thetranscendenceorchestra.bandcamp.com/