The Predatory Wasp
Yetsuby is the solo experimental electronic and ambient-focussed project of South Korean artist Yejin Jang who also records of one half of the excellent duo Salamanda. If I Drink This Potion is taken from her new album, b_b, her debut release on Seb Wildblood’s all my thoughts label; a striking mini LP that features some of the most arresting, engrossing and detailed production of any I’ve heard this year.
Reunion Island is Ashley Leer, Matt Leer, and Brad Loving, and that’s about as much information as I can find out them. Their second (I think) album Night Words came out last month, and it’s really very good; ambient techno one minute, shoegaze the next, and various things in between. Lost New is dubby, hypnotic techno, as soothing as it is stimulating.
I’ve spent a few weeks with Mabe Fratti’s new album Sentir que no sabes now, but it’s just not really doing it for me. Her last couple sounded like nothing else I’ve ever heard, properly visceral and overwhelming in parts, whereas this one just kinda of bobs along. Almost everyone disagrees with me, so maybe I just don’t get it. Enfrente is pretty great though.
https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sentir-que-no-sabes
Loma’s 2020 album Don’t Shy Away was one of the best of the year: its somewhat paranoid but ultimately reassuringly intimacy the perfect companion for heading into a winter of lockdown bleakness. Four years later we now have the follow up How Will I Live Without A Body, and while the overall atmosphere hasn’t changed drastically – recording techniques include using the ruin of a 12th-century chapel as a reverb chamber – I’m not sure it quite reaches the insular beauty of it’s predecessor. How It Starts is lovely though.
American R&B singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Fana Hues describes the process of working through grief on her third album Moth as ““denying the fact that it happened, turning it into shameful pettiness, self-reflection, re-grounding myself and acceptance, and then letting it go”. The drums on Gone Again stand out – purposeful and intricate – with Hues’ airy vocal soaring majestically above them.
Illuvia is the music project of Ludvig Cimbrelius who also releases music as Purl, Eternell and Abraço de Vapor. New album Earth Prism is his third under this ambient drum n bass leaning alias, and does pretty much exactly what you’d expect, with atmospheric pads and lush melodies combined with lo-fi drums filtered almost out of existence.
https://astrangelyisolatedplace.bandcamp.com/album/earth-prism
Dylan Henner has made some of the most enriching, soothing ambient music I’ve ever heard, so I’m very excited about diving into his new album. Also, it’s called performs Raymond Scott’s Soothing Sounds for Baby, so I’m anticipating being pretty fucking relaxed in about an hour’s time.
https://dylanhenner.bandcamp.com/album/performs-raymond-scotts-soothing-sounds-for-baby
Following their excellent collaborative LP Dolphin, UK jazz maestro Greg Foat and Venetian electronic luminary Gigi Masin join forces once again for The Fish Factory Sessions, an exclusive release for Record Store Day 2024. Also featuring the talents Moses Boyd on drums and Tom Herbert on bass, Sabena is an alternative version of the track of the same name from Dolphin; a beautifully poignant tribute to Masin’s late wife, with this new version even more delicate than its predecessor.
https://gregfoat.bandcamp.com/album/the-fish-factory-sessions
Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey…
Lots of good stuff out today, much of it pretty mournful (see also: most of Bat For Lashes’ new album) but this is my pick, from Arooj Aftab’s new album Night Reign which described in the press notes as “a perfumed, public garden of renewal”, and although I’m not entirely sure what that means, it’s very lovely.
The Predatory Wasp 