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Squarepusher – Midi Sans Frontières (Avec Batterie)

Squarepusher is a gaping and frankly quite embarrassing hole in my musical knowledge. I’ve basically thought of him as a “bit like Aphex Twin” for years, without really bothering to delve into his sprawling back catalogue. This is often the case with artists who have a huge body of work behind them: it can feel intimidating and somewhat overwhelming without an obvious point of entry. However his last album Be Up A Hello was listed highly in the Quietus’s always excellent best albums of the year so far list, so I thought this was as good a time as any to get stuck in.

Midi Sans Frontières (Avec Batterie) is actually from his more recent Lamental EP, and it’s brilliant: spine-tingling synths slowly arcing over tranquil breakbeats. So now it’s just the small matter of 16 albums to wade through and I’ll be fully Pusher-literate. Wish me luck.

https://squarepusher.net

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Jackie Lynn – Control

Control is the final track on Jackie Lynn’s (aka Circuit des Yeux’s Haley Fohr) latest album Jacqueline, and it’s a pretty phenomenal way to wrap up the 30 minutes or so of eclecticism that precedes it. Ranging from electro-inflected punk to soaring, ethereal folk to out-and-out pop, it’s a disorienting experience of being flung from one genre to another without the slightest bit of warning. And then there’s Control, an epic, grandiose finale that’s both fragile and foreboding, and a fitting end to a hugely ambitious release.

https://jackielynn.bandcamp.com/album/jacqueline

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Music

ML Buch – I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL

This is taken from Skinned, the new album from Danish artist ML Buch: an electro-pop-ambient hybrid that’s unpredictable, hugely creative and a highly recommended listen. For the majority of its fairly short running time I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL is nothing more than a vocal and a gentle twanging synth line, before rich, poignant pads rush in for the final quarter, somehow bringing everything that’s come before into even sharper focus.

https://mlbuch.bandcamp.com

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Music

Faded Paper Figures – Bones

The lead single and opening track of Salt Lake City synth-pop trio Faded Paper Figures’ new album Kairos, Bones is a glossy, effervescent joy. A song about “the history and culture of skateboarding” according to the band, and inspired by sad, trashy cityscapes made glorious as they’re taken over by teenage skaters, it’s haunting and punchy in equal measure and a great introduction to their music – if, like me, this is the first song you’ve heard of theirs, despite them being six albums deep into their career.

https://www.fadedpaperfigures.com

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Music

Apollo Brown & Che Noir feat. Black Thought – Hustle Don’t Give

The opening bars on Hustle Don’t Give – “Raisin’ Hell, but the shit that I’m rhymin’ was Heaven-sent / Went broke and bounced back, I’ve been grindin’ out ever since” – perfectly sum up the vibe on most of As God Intended, the album it’s taken from: confident, defiant and by turns humble and elegantly self-aggrandising. the Roots’ Black Thought delivers a typically thoughtful verse and both his and Che Noir’s vocals shine through the sample-heavy, soaring production like hazy sunbeams glinting off rolling waves.

https://apollobrown360.bandcamp.com/album/as-god-intended

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Music

Shifted – Hard Matter

After the dissolution of his drum & bass group Commix, Guy Brewer relocated to Berlin, started to experiment with techno and established his, at first anonymous, Shifted alias. His productions as Shifted have always leaned more towards the dark than the light, but the intensity has really been ramped up over the last couple of releases, ultimately culminating in Hard Matter, which is, by anyone’s standards, an absolute panic-inducing nightmare of a track. But in a good way.

https://avianstore.bandcamp.com

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Music

Summer Walker – My Affection feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR

Downtempo R&B jams galore on Summer Walker’s new EP Life On Earth, from which this collab with PARTYNEXTDOOR stands out, largely due to the production which sits in a very sweet spot between melancholic gloom and hopeful longing. Vocals from both are perfectly on-point, resulting in a finely balanced and affecting portrait of a relationship under strain.

https://www.summerwalkermusic.com/

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Music

Jadu Heart – Walk The Line

Jadu Heart are a UK duo who I first came across via last year’s excellent Melt Away LP, with Zorah Come Home making an especially lasting impression, sitting somewhere between Jai Paul and Little Dragon. Walk The Line is one of a series of singles they’ve been releasing this year, and which seem to be moving further from their electronic roots towards more fully-fledged songs and lush production. It’s a really catchy, haunting record, and a proper duet – which I really think we could use more of in modern music.

https://www.jaduheart.com

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Music

Young Galaxy – Seeing Eye Dog

Rolling it back to 2018 today and a record I don’t think got enough attention at the time. Seeing Eye Dog is the second track on Young Galaxy’s album Down Time, which along with the equally brilliant Under My Wing completes an outrageously strong opening pair. Young Galaxy announced an indefinite hiatus not long after the release of this album, although recently have resurfaced on a couple of collabs with Euro Berlin and Amsterdam Cosm, but Seeing Eye Dog is a fine place to start with their extensive back catalogue.

https://www.facebook.com/younggalaxy

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Music

Julianna Barwick – Oh, Memory feat. Mary Lattimore

Julianna Barwick's new album, Nepenthe, comes out August 20.

I’ve loved pretty much everything Julianna Barwick has done over the past decade, so waking up to a new album of hers today was a very welcome surprise. Healing Is A Miracle is everything I’d hoped it would be: immersive, soothing, emotional, fragile, beautiful. Oh, Memory is an early highlight, and further cements my yearning for live shows come back in some form really soon, as if I don’t have the opportunity to listen to this in a church or similarly reverential venue I’m going to be very disappointed.

https://juliannabarwick.com