The Predatory Wasp
John Beltran released one of the years best album’s back in February, Canada, and has another, Sunrise and the Life We Live, due in October for Music For Dreams. If that’s still not enough dreamy electronics for you, yesterday From Detroit From Love reissued his 2020 EP, from which this arpeggiated delight is taken.
Sleep D and Mosam Howieson join forces for an EP that sits between peak-time bangers and deep hypnotic terrain, with Intetia my pick of the bunch thanks to its Barker-esque melodic synthline and the fact that the breakdown reminds me of 00s prog.
Built entirely from source material supplied by zakè, Brian Grainger, working as Coppice Halifax, has somehow teased rhythms, melodies and entire compositions from recordings that contained no beats or obvious musical framework to begin with, uncovering possibilities that feel both surprising and strangely inevitable.
The result is Tree Grid, a collaborative LP that sits somewhere between reinterpretation and reinvention, never losing sight of where these sounds came from but constantly pushing them into unexpected territory. It’s also the first glimpse of what looks set to become a deeper collaboration between two artists whose approaches seem to complement each other remarkably well. If this doesn’t make my end of year shortlist I will be astonished.
There’s a whole lot of interesting music out today, but I spent the morning listening to Sasha & Digweed’s seminal Northern Exposure mix which everyone’s currently losing their minds about thanks to the recently announced 30th anniversary Redux edition, so I’m perhaps more even open to progressive, trancey offerings than usual. Step forward Danny L Harle and his new Crystallise Divergence EP, which includes this floaty little gem in collaboration with Doss.
https://dannylharle.bandcamp.com/album/crystallise-divergence
Helado Negro and Reyna Tropical’s collaborative project is described in the extensive press notes as feeling like “the summer sun’s warmth on a Sunday”, and that’s pretty much all you need to know about this joyful new album to decide whether you’re on board or not. There’s a whole lot more that suggests ChatGPT was given a little too much freedom – “the project functions as both creation and documentation” (yikes) – but as the album clocks in at a breezy 29 minutes you’d probably be quicker just diving in and making your own mind up.
Functions’s new LP Aeternum (Existenz) brings to a close a body of work that began with 2019’s Existenz. Written between 2016 and 2019 during an intensely productive period in the studio, the six-track release explores ideas of transformation and renewal, taking inspiration from the seven stages of alchemy. It also serves as a tribute to Sumner’s friend and longtime collaborator John Mendez aka Silent Servant. If there’s a track that encapsulates the record’s atmosphere, it’s City Of Luz. Running for close to 13 minutes, layers of synth and texture gradually emerge before dissolving again, sitting somewhere between ambient electronics and hypnotic techno. Just how I like it.
https://function-inf-ny.bandcamp.com/album/aeternum-existenz
A frankly ludicrous amount of talent combines for Everything Always Changes, For We’re Truly Here, a collaborative LP from four of the most boundary-pushing electronic and experimental artists working today. Cult Polish producer Przemysław Jankowiak, aka 2K88, brings together Rainy Miller, Lauren Duffus and Bianca Scout, creating a dreamlike album blending R&B, ambient electronics and fragmented vocals, inspired by the slow, dreamlike dance at the heart of the Polish film Salto.
https://fixedabode.bandcamp.com/album/everything-always-changes-for-we-re-truly-here
I’m biased of course I as pretty much love everything that 36 does, but I do think that even among a discography of almost pathological prolificness and quality, his latest album stands out as one of his very best.
Hardcore, Static: Pirate Transmissions From The North Of England, 1990-1994 is Dennis’s celebration of a unique period in the UK’s musical history, when primitive pirate stations run by enthusiastic kids delivered a continuous stream of experimental sounds to Bradford, Leeds, and the surrounding towns of West Yorkshire. Spread across four expansive tracks blending fragments of ambient, drone, jungle, uk hardcore and peppered with the spectral voices of long forgotten pirate DJs, the result is utterly compelling.
Forest Drive West’s new album Mantis 1920 sits somewhere between Donato Dozzy and Andy Stott, so you know I’m loving it! Right lads? Lads!??
The Predatory Wasp 