The Predatory Wasp
Incredibly chill and glassy ambient from Quiraing, written on an island in Northern Michigan and created mainly from field recordings made on the artist’s journey to reach it. Simple and very effective.
Apologies for my recent absence (you noticed, right?) I was enjoying some post-birthday seaside celebrations and was way too busy pretending I’m rich to waste my time with music! Anyway, here’s some glorious Aphex-adjacent weirdness from Mads Kinnerup – the first single from his forthcoming album Interpolation – by way of an apology.
This is the lead single from Micah Frank and Chet Doxas’s forthcoming LP The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part 1, which lands in November. Ave Maria combines a masterful harp performance from Mary Lattimore with Doxas’s meandering woodwind, gently billowing electronics and the late addition of a softly pulsing kick drum. Deep chill.
https://micahfrank.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-hildegard-von-bingen-part-one
Impressively disorientating polyrhythms from drosophila. Menaces; soothes, repeat. Taken from their new LP Slight Spells. Glitches get stitches.
Mick Jeets packs a hell of a lot into the sub-three minute move your feet. Ravey breakbeats, footwork, garage and frantic old-school vocals all make an appearance, while the overall track still manages to be both sparse and contemplative. Impressively invigorating stuff to shake your out of your Monday coma.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” etc, but in my experience definitely do judge an album by its cover. Or at least give it a listen. There is literally nothing about the cover of Precipitation’s new album Glass Horizon (or the artist name, or the title for that matter) that suggests I won’t completely love it. And I do! Kinda house, kinda ambient, 100% lush. Sundown in Orgi comes in like Laurent Garnier’s Last Tribute to the 21st Century – all sad pads and longing – before skipping happily off on lo-fi broken beats over a squidgy bassline. Aaaaand… melt.
“Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is dancing in an eye-scorching tumble of neon bricks and video game aesthetics” is the opening line to the Quietus’s review of her new album Let’s Turn It Into Sound, and while it actually describes a recent music video, it could just as easily be a neat single-sentence summation of the entire LP. Hauntingly introspective one minute, exuberantly unhinged the next, it’s an intriguing listen from start to finish, with the circling synth patterns and warped vocals of Then The Wind Came a personal favourite.
Composed entirely using his voice, Canadian-based artist Andrew Bennett aka Factor Eight explores mental health and creates a platform to relay his experience with bipolar disorder, with all proceeds being donated to Canadian Mental Health Association Saskatoon. “I hope that through this project, my music might help to inspire a feeling of connection in those who struggle, and sense of compassion in those who struggle to relate.”
The latest release from the phenomenally talented Rafael Anton Irisarri, Sacred Variations, includes some new remixes of tracks from his Sacred Hatred LP, along with some previously unreleased locked-penned pieces. Limbering Slumber features layered, ghostly vocal contributions from Hannah Elizabeth Cox, and is both stunningly beautiful and utterly absorbing.
A very sad banger from Tomu DJ’s beautiful new album Half Moon Bay. That’s all I’ve got to say about this one: it’s a busy day over at TPW HQ.
The Predatory Wasp 