The Predatory Wasp
Kate Shilonosova is a Moscow-based producer, composer, designer and front girl of the Moscow new wave-post punk band “ГШ”. There are significant Kate Bush comparisons to be made on Marafon 15: the meandering structure and whimsical nature of the production, vocally when she hits the high notes – even before you get to the video, which is pretty much a direct homage to Bush’s avant-garde theatrics – but it more than holds its own.
Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles has just announced details of his new album, the follow-up to 2018’s very well regarded Persona. Articulation is the lead single, and is probably the track I’ve enjoyed most of his to date, with West intertwining some beautiful melodies and evoking a sense of both space and restraint, while also sounding like it would punch pretty hard in the right setting.
Extravagant is everything I love about Kamaiyah in a single track: big, bold, old-school sounding production, super-confident delivery and tongue-in-cheek lyrics that are perfectly balanced between the self-aggrandising and the ridiculous. “I took off big like a rocket / I’m eating sushi with my hands, fuck chopsticks”. Iconic.
Ingrid starts off with nothing more than a solo, softly reverbed cello, which wanders round a little before locking into a single repeated refrain. Over the course of the next 20 minutes it’s slowly joined by various electronic textures, gradually dissolving into a cacophony of static before Lewis strips everything away again until only the stark, fragile strings remain. It’s stunning, and Lewis’s ability to wring this amount of tension and emotion from a single, simple loop is really quite breathtaking.
This is the opening track of Brigid Dawson’s latest LP Ballet Of Apes: an epic, foreboding construction that conjures images of vast, wild American vistas and the dangers, opportunities and hardships they suggest. I’ve not really heard anything else quite like it recently, and though the album doesn’t quite live up to its promise it’s still an impressive record.
Brooklyn-based synth enthusiasts Nation of Language have just released their latest album Introduction, Presence, which sounds exactly like the soundtrack of your favourite offbeat 80s drama where the protagonists embark on nihilistic but ultimately seductive adventures until someone dies of a drug overdose and they have to question their behaviour but ultimately just end up lighting yet another cigarette and saying “fuck it… where’s the party?”. If that sounds like the kind of film you’d enjoy, then you’ll probably really like lead single September Again.
I’m a sucker for a Change sample (I mean, who isn’t) but often they’re a poor imitation of the original rather than doing anything especially interesting with it. India Jordan’s For You takes an extremely chill soul classic and transforms it into a rapidly-paced house banger, and does it with a huge amount of class, and a nod to Orbital’s Chime along the way. There’s a lot of stuff thrown at the wall here, but it all sticks, resulting in a ferociously joyous record.
Like a lot of teenagers who discovered video games in the late 80s/early 90s, I played A LOT of Streets of Rage. The occasional out of control tantrum and smashed controller aside, I have very fond memories of that time, and especially of the soundtrack, so the newly released Streets of Rage 4 had a lot to live up to in that department. Happily they’ve delivered not only a fantastic game, but a brilliant OST which ropes in some of the original producers alongside newcomers like Olivier Deriviere who manage to preserve the frantic 8-bit rush of the 90s series while bringing the production bang up to date.
“I wanted to make a project that was about manifesting the things that you want as an individual, and only speaking good things.” So says Kota The Friend about latest album EVERYTHING, which is a genial breath of fresh air reminiscent of similarly sun-soaked releases by Anderson .Paak, and Long Beach is a breezy, infectious delight.
Brooding ambient drone from one of the very best in the business. Like a lot of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s work, this is pretty bleak, but compellingly – and often overwhelmingly – so, with enough tiny rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds to keep you coming back for more. This is on his new album Peripeteia which came out this week on Dais Records, and includes a continuous mix of all the album tracks if you really want to burrow into the gloom.
The Predatory Wasp 