Categories
Music

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Thoughts On The Future

Kaitlyn’s Aurelia Smith’s last album GUSH was one of the best albums of the year, and didn’t get nearly enough love in the end of year list, except mine of course. There’s a risk new EP Thoughts On The Future will also get a bit lost as it came out just before Christmas when no-one’s really paying attention, but it shouldn’t. Entirely instrumental, and echoing artists like Kelly Moran in its use of slowly evolving rhythmic repetition, Smith described it as “a contemplative body of work that examines what grief does to the body and the mind – the necessary disembodiment & cocooning — how it suspends us, how it empties us, and how it quietly begins to rebuild us in its own time.”

https://kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/thoughts-on-the-future

Categories
Music

Bvdub, East Of Oceans – We Remembered When We Danced

Nothing I write here about the backstory to bvdub’s new album Replicant Memories is going to do justice to the incredible write up on Bandcamp, so if you want all the details, go there. Briefly, it reminds me of both the long form, genre-flipping sketches of recent Burial and the emotional gut-wrench of 36’s ambient trance masterpiece Cold Ecstasy. So a fairly high bar.

https://lilaone.bandcamp.com/album/replicant-memories

Categories
Music

Martinou – Paean

Keeping this short as it’s my first day back in the office and I am struggling, but here’s a deeply atmospheric house cut from the extremely reliable Martinou to warm your souls. Taken from his new EP Always There. Welcome to 2026! It’s going to be good?

https://nousklaer.bandcamp.com/album/always-there

Categories
Music

Molly Nilsson – All the Way

Molly Nilsson managed to sneak out an album without me realising back in October, which is pretty astonishing given how much I like her music and how much time I spent looking for new albums from artists I like. Amateur is described as both a “jubilee for losers” and “maybe her greatest yet” and while the latter honour still firmly resides with her 2018 masterpiece 2020, Amateur is awash with enough beautiful, hazy melodies and low-key hooks that, even on the first listen, it’s definitely up there.

https://mollynilsson.bandcamp.com/album/amateur

Categories
Music

Voices From The Lake – Voices From The Lake II

Voices From The Lake’s eponymous album came out way back in 2o12, and I’ve probably returned to it on a nearly weekly basis every since. Donato Dozzy and Neal’s collaborative project started as a one-off live performance in the Japanese Alps before birthing an album that, according to the press notes, “become a touchstone in ambient techno, reshaping the global landscape of hypnotic and atmospheric electronic music.” I heartily agree. I cannot express how much I’ve loved this album over the last decade and more. The follow up, Voices From The Lake II, arrived today, and is already in my top 10 of the year.

https://voicesfromthelake.bandcamp.com/album/ii

Categories
Music

Dylan Henner – Her Parents Were Out So We Shared a Joint and Floated Around In Her Pool Under the Starlight

“Late one evening, I was listening to the radio alone at home. I couldn’t find the station I wanted, so I shifted the dial around for a while. Between frequencies, fading in and out of fidelity, I found a station I’d never heard before. To my amazement, the station was broadcasting my own memories. Memories from when I was seventeen. Some of the most formative and important moments of my life, alive on the air.”

https://dylanhenner.bandcamp.com/album/star-dream-fm

Categories
Music

K-Lone – someone else

K-Lone’s new LP sorry i thought you were someone else – his debut release on Incienso – was produced after his father’s passing and became a place for the Brighton-based artist to escape and reflect. And while the majority of the album isn’t necessarily something I’ll be going back to, the opening track someone else is inarguably lovely.

https://k-lone.bandcamp.com/album/sorry-i-thought-you-were-someone-else

Categories
Music

Oneohtrix Point Never – Cherry Blue

I’m currently spending way too obsessing about my end of year list, which doesn’t leave much room for new music. I did dutifully dive into Oneohtrix Point Never’s new album Tranquilizer though and yes – it’s quite good! Ben Cardew’s article for Line Noise did a great job of summing up my own ambivalent feelings towards much of his discography (TLDR: I think it’s impressive, I just don’t feel it) but Cherry Blue definitely stood out amongst all the glitchiness.

https://oneohtrixpointnever.bandcamp.com/album/tranquilizer

Categories
Music

Disiniblud – Serpentine ft. Cassandra Croft (The Field Remix)

I love The Field, to the point that I attempted to create a remix by entirely ripping off his sound. I would link to it, but it seems to be entirely expunged from the internet; probably for the best. His output over the last decade has been extremely limited, so I was delighted to this this sun-bleached, beautifully atmospheric remix of Sachika Nayar & Nina Keith’s Disiniblud project pop up, reminding me of why I fell for his mesmerising loops all those years ago.

https://rachika.bandcamp.com/album/disiniblud-remixes

Categories
Music

Teatre – Wish

Viktoras Urbaitis aka Teatre crafts electronic music of cinematic quality, evoking images of desolate night streets and the dark, flowing waters of Eastern European rivers. His new Overtime EP is the debut release for Berlin’s Dangė Records – which specialises in championing electronic music from Lithuania and the Baltics – and is a testament to the hours spent in the fluorescent-lit purgatory of office spaces, navigating corporate networks and the sterile interactions of online support, all while under the literary spell of Jurga Ivanauskaite’s diaries.

https://dange-records.bandcamp.com/album/overtime-2