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Music

Earthen Sea – Present Day

Jacob Long aka Earthen Sea is an American electronic musician and producer. Formerly the bassist for post-hardcore bands Black Eyes and Mi Ami, Long transitioned to solo work, exploring ambient and dub techno landscapes. His previous album, 2022’s excellent Ghost Poems moved away from the dub techno that characterised his first two solo LPs and new release Recollections delves further into jazz and downtempo, albeit through a heavily muted, soft-focus lens.

https://earthensea.bandcamp.com/

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Music

Katatonic Silentio – Bridging The Gap

Mariachiara Troianiello aka Katatonic Silentio continues her exploration of spatial, experimental sound design on her new EP Axis Of Light, slicing and splicing various forms of dub, techno and breaks while following her instincts towards storytelling in each track. Bridging The Gap is skeletal, paranoid, sketchy and extremely good.

https://katatonicsilentio.bandcamp.com/album/axis-of-light

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Music

Mia Koden – Inna Fear

Earlier this year, London-based Mia Koden put together a mix of unreleased material and let people vote what three tracks should be on her new EP 34U, which landed last month. Expect moody dubs and junglist movements with Inna Fear the clear standout.

https://miakoden.bandcamp.com/album/34u

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Music

Lb Honne – Longing (interlude)

Glassy ambient from Karl Primo under his Lb Honne alias, taken from the new album present future / here there. I’d like to tell you more, but there just isn’t time.

https://projindigo.bandcamp.com/album/present-future-here-there

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Music

Will Bolton – Tracery

Wil Bolton is a composer, musician and artist based in East London. His work is inspired by place, memory, resonance and finding beauty in ruins, decay and the details and textures of everyday scenes. His latest album Null Point is dub techno meets Eno, blending gorgeous melodies and ambient textures with a more rhythmic approach than most of his previous work, with skeletal beats constructed from thuds, clicks and crackles sampled from a vintage 7” record of heart sounds as the backbone.

https://theslowmusicmovement.bandcamp.com/album/null-point

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Music

Donato Dozzy & Tin Man – Test 3 (Vocal Version)

The now 10 year old Acid Test 09 sees a special anniversary edition repress with a new vocal mix of track Test 3 which arguably distracts from the near-perfect bubbling simplicity of the original, but is nevertheless a nice reminder of how brilliant this collaboration was.

https://acidtestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/acid-test-091

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Interviews Music

One Track Mind: Freak Heat Waves

The Canadian duo’s Steve Lind on the inspirational merits of an r&b icon

The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!

For more than a decade, Freak Heat Waves have been steadily amassing a cult following and earning acclaim from both critics and underground aficionados alike. Their music is a heady cocktail that defies easy categorization, blending elements of post-punk, psych, dub, ambient, house, and techno. Their eclectic sound has served as the soundtrack to countless DIY punk shows, outsider galleries and sleazy discos, establishing the duo as iconoclasts with a reputation for ignoring expectations and subverting genre conventions.

Their latest album Mondo Tempo exists in a hazy space between all these genres. Lead by Lind’s purringly nonchalant vocals, all the tracks on Mondo Tempo are various shades of “extremely chill”. From the barely-there, Nightmares on Wax-evoking Altered States to the spacious, breezy melodies of Cindy collab In a Moment Divine it’s one to be savoured, preferably while poolside somewhere exotic.

For their One Track Mind selection, Freak Heat Waves Steve Lind has dived back into the movie vaults to the soundtrack of a nearly 80 year old noir classic.

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Music

V/Z – Candles

“Dub postcards, east London boats, reflections in the eye of a cat, swallowing your tarot card, spitting echo from calming substances, yellow paint on our shut down local brunch spot, post-punk golden rules, shaking metal memories in a glass jar.”

https://ad93.bandcamp.com/album/suono-assente

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Music

Anthony Naples – Ackee

Released last week, Anthony Naples fifth full length album orbs is described as “a moody portal of shoegazed and slo-mo songs suspended in thin air”, which is about right, although key missing words include “ambient”, “dub” and “lush”. It’s similarly paced to DJ Python’s peerless Mas Amable from 2020, but while that was often sinister and claustrophobic, orbs is all brightness and warmth. Ackee itself is delicate, atmospheric and soothing; ideal Monday listening, basically.

https://anthonynaples.bandcamp.com/album/orbs

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Music

Katatonic Silentio – Dans Le Cadre Du Relief

Here’s a brilliant – if deeply unsettling – slice of dubby electronica for you that genuinely seemed to make my tinnitus swerve to an entirely new, ferocious pitch. Taken from her recent LP Les Chemins De L’inconnu, out now on the relentlessly good Ilian Tape.

https://iliantape.bandcamp.com/album/itlp13-les-chemins-de-linconnu