The Predatory Wasp
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
Taken from the Bristol-based producer’s latest collection Acid Dub Studies II, Camo clocks in at just two-and-a-half minutes, but squeezes in a hell of a lot of influences, from its reggae-ish rhythm and stabs through plaintive ambient pads, skittering techno-evoking hats and squelchy electro bassline. Which sounds like it could be a bit of a mess, but definitely isn’t.
The third LP from the anonymous electronic producer was a welcome surprise drop today. If you’re not familiar with their work, the two previous albums consisted of murky dub techno – every track exactly five minutes long, a theme that continues here – that while not exactly ripe for the dancefloor, still held into some vaguely rhythmic propulsions: a fading dream of the rave rather than a direct memory. Vol. 3 however does away with any such pretence, with most of the tracks quickly dissolving into little more than washed out hints of ‘dance’ tracks’, a creaking, lilting ship on an infinite sea of static.
The Origins of Structures is the lead track from Cycles, the forthcoming fifth album by Dutch ambient duo Tangent, and very nice it is too. Combining heavily processed, grainy drums with shifting pads that sound as if they’ve managed to find a way to actually record sunbeams glinting through the clouds, I’d be very happy to listen to this on repeat for the next hour. Which reminds me! Try listening to TMS cricket commentary with wordless ambient playing underneath. There really are few better ways to spend a Friday afternoon.
Recording under his a new line (related) moniker, Andy Johnson has just released a rather lovely electronic album, love in a unitary authority part 1-7. Party ambient, part deep house, part dub, it’s a really engaging listen from start to finish and this is the epic 10 minute opener, which starts as life with what sounds like indistinct, looped field recordings before developing a delicate, patiently evolving 4/4 structure.
Columbus-based electronic artists CoastalDives and Henry Blaeser team up on Ghost II, a haunting, at times unsettling, but ultimately extremely warm slice of electronica landing on Chile’s renowned No Problema Tapes imprint. Dense, dark and intricate, it merges Blaeser’s cold, skeletal rhythmic & textural architecture with CoastalDives’ all-encompassing, haunting synth-scapes to tremendous effect.
https://noproblemasingles.bandcamp.com/album/snp-013-ghost-ii
The Predatory Wasp 