The Predatory Wasp
Raw Poetic and Damu The Fudgemunk collaborated on one of my favourite albums of this year – the massively underrated Laminated Skies – and this is similarly brilliant: robotic funk, hypnotic lyrics and the second single from their forthcoming album Space Beyond the Solar System, which lands this Friday.
https://damuthefudgemunk.bandcamp.com/track/digits-single-mix
Daniel Avery has assembled an impressive raft of caollborators on his new album Ultra Truth, with production from Ghost Culture and Manni Dee, vocals courtesy of HAAi, Jonnine Standish (HTRK), AK Paul and the “voices” (not sure why that’s different from ‘vocals’, but apparently it is) of Marie Davidson, Kelly Lee Owens, Sherelle and James Massiah. It’s a more contemplative record that he’s produced before – way more afterparty mong than peak time rave up – and is probably the release of his I’ve enjoyed the most, which tells you everything you need to know about my current levels of rave-readiness. Spider is 90s-evoking ambient techno with all the OTT heartfeltness that entails, and I love it.
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.
“She lay by the poolside, dipping her hands into the water as she wondered where her lover might be. It had been three days since he’d left her in the baking heat, stuck in a motel on the wrong side of town. She’d never dreamt it might have turned out like this? What with all the money, the wild nights and the excess. How had it all come crashing down around them all so horribly? Why was she the one all alone?”
Taken from the the debut solo EP from Texan electro producer Terrestrial Access Network, Endless Dunes is exactly the kind of contemplative, broken-beat electronic music I completely lose my shit over, especially when there are a few gentle acid flourishes thrown in for good measure. Only gentle mind: I want to be soothed, not challenged. Inspired by the artist’s “shifting and hectic nomadic existence around the rattling expanse of the United States”, it’s out now and comes packaged with a remix from TPW favourite Versalife which is also well worth checking out.
https://www.juno.co.uk/products/terrestrial-access-network-distant-lands-ep/857210-01/
Recording under his 96 Back alias, 9696 Dream is the excellent new album from Manchester producer Evan Majumdar-Swift; a body of work that can handily be summed up in all its fun-loving, electro-leaning glory by its title track. Some of the sound design here reminds me a little of Holly Herndon, but without any of the oppressive intensity her music often explores. Instead we get warm, open chords, stripped-back rhythms and an almost uncontrollable desire to listen this at a volume that would doubtless upset my neighbours.
Pioneering electro pioneer The Egyptian Lover has doubled down on his 2015 album 1985 with new LP 1986. Like its predecessor it focusses entirely on the kind of sounds and techniques he was using back in the mid-1980s, and aside from it perhaps sounding a little more polished that some of the electro and proto-hip-hop being produced then, its otherwise sounds completely indistinguishable. Cinnamon Oil Massage is a definite highlights, complete with the omnipresent crisp, punchy 808 beats and an outrageously over the top electric guitar solo which is absolutely joyous.
Sanity is fierce, crunchy, eerie, swaggering and a whole load of other adjectives that I can’t really be bothered to get down on paper (screen?) as I’m too busy really, really enjoying listening to it. It is electro? Punk? Post-punk-inflected electro? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares? Big up Sneaks for creating my #trackoftheweeksofar – IT’S. A. BANGER.
Automatic Tasty is Ireland’s Jonny Dillon, an electronic music producer who specialises in squelchy acid and electro, while also releasing various experimental acoustic guitar pieces under his own name. On the surface his latest EP A Farewell to Reason is the most overtly ‘poppy’ thing he’s produced – almost saccharine in its happy, open chords and bubbling synth lines – but there’s a darkness to a lot of the lyrics, not least on Wake Up Dead which lists various things you shouldn’t worry about as there’s a chance this will be your last day or earth. My pick of the bunch is opening track Ballad For a Modern Man though, which pairs a chunky bassline alongside beautifully billowing melodies and Dillon’s intimate, closed-mic’d vocals.
Cindy is an alias of Kai Hugo, who produces various shades of house music as Palmbomen II. The backstory of the Cindy project is fascinating and involves the X-Files and an extensive fictional biography for ‘Cindy’. It’s too lengthy to go into in detail here, but there’s a great Quietus review of the album complete with David Lynch comparisons that you should check out if you’re so inclined. In terms of the music, Never Let Me Go is part stripped-down electro, part dream-pop and entirely beguiling.
The Predatory Wasp 