The Predatory Wasp
Dennis Huddleston’s music has always been based around loops, and his latest album as 36, Ablyss, is the fullest expression yet of this obsession. The 21 tracks that make up the LP are not unfinished ideas, waiting to be fleshed out into fully formed tracks: they exist purely in their own terms, tools for drifting off and becoming completely detached. Or as he puts it: “Feel free to get lost in them whenever you need them.”
“These days I feel somewhat in control of what I choose to believe”
Nina Kinert released the album Romantic and the EP In Twos in 2018 and was awarded Composer of the year at the Independent Manifest gala in Sweden that same year. Her new album Religious – her first release since 2021’s Wild, Wild Geese – tells personal stories about growing up within the Pentecostal Church Community in Sweden, while simultaneously exploring her attraction to both nature and the supernatural.
Romantic was my album of the year in 2018, and still affects how I search for new music today. I’m pretty much always on the lookout for ‘the next Nina’; to discover an artist about whom I was previously unaware, but that goes on to have a huge significance in my life. So to say I was happy that she agreed to an interview is somewhat of an understatement.
Religious tells stories about you growing up in the Pentecostal Church, and also explores your attraction to spiritual mystique and the supernatural. Were these attractions you felt as a child, or did they come later?
I’ve always felt open to different possibilities, and maybe seen that as a result of my childhood within the church. As if it gave me an understanding of belief – no matter what the belief relies on. But when I was a child I thought everything needed to be categorised, divided into good or evil. That’s not how I see it now.
LXXXVIII is the ninth Actress album, and is presented as “the very first presentation of [his] voyage into ‘luxury sonics’ – the culmination of 25 years’ honing mind-shorting, soul-igniting audio infusions for dance floors, rave dens, festivals, and concert halls”. I’m not even going to attempt to top that, other than to say that this is as meditative and immersive as Darren Cunningham’s music has ever been.
I’m busy today, but this is lush and you should listen to it. For a more committed précis, see Boomkat’s excellent (as always) hype.
Suntub is the second full length album from ML Buch, a double record of 15 pieces by the Danish composer and producer; a dreamy mix of shoegaze, experimental electronics and bedroom pop. I’ve only listened a couple of times so far, but so far it’s pretty much flawless, and up there with my favourite albums of the year. So many highlights, but album opener Pan over the hill should give you a good idea of what to expect.
Hinako Omari’s debut album a journey… was one of my favourites of last year. Released last week her new LP stillness, softness… explores a new sonic range, and was mainly composed on her Prophet ’08, the Moog Voyager and UDO Super 6, an analogue hybrid synthesizer that creates binaural, 3D-simulating sound. The album is darker, more expansive and more overtly theatrical than her previous work, but still seems to exists in the liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming, with the brief but beautiful stalactites illustrative of its meditative tone.
Continuing the trance revival theme today with this melancholy banger from Lee Gamble’s new album Models, which, when compared to some of his previous work, is surprisingly accessible. According to the PR, “it’s pop music, but it ain’t background music” and I’m not sure I entirely agree with either of those statements, but it is very good. Elsewhere on the album you’ll find him autotuning the fuck out of Lana Del Rey, which is also fun.
Trance really is having a moment. It feels like everyone is finally ready to accept what I’ve known all along: trance is the best, most credible and timeless genre of all! The latest evidence of this seismic shift is the Warp-approved Evian Christ and his debut album Revanchist, which explores “the latent potential in Trance to evoke, beyond Euphoria, the fullest feeling of the Sublime.” Yes! Silence is a reimagining of Delirium’s proggy masterpiece of the same name. Rave like it’s 1999 all over again.
Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden’s Lost Girls’ collaboration dates back more than a decade, with Volden playing regularly in Hval’s live band and two previous albums. In 2022, the duo were booked to perform a concert at Les Subsistances in Lyon, and decided to use the opportunity to create all new material, with Volden creating beats and guitar chord progressions and Hval restructuring the parts, creating melodies and adding lyrics. The resulting album, Selvutsletter, explores different territory than their previous work; shorter, more concise and melodic songs that border on alternative pop (kinda), with opener Timed Intervals one of the clear standouts.
Under the mononym L’Rain, Brooklyn native Taja Cheek has become a celebrated figure in New York experimental music, and her new album I Killed Your Dog looks set to further cement her reputation. Existing in a similarly genre-less, albeit considerably more wavy space as someone like Yves Tumor, I Killed Your Dog considers what it means to hurt the people you love the most, and has been described by Cheek as an “anti-break-up” record. Does this mean it’s a record that soundtracks people getting together? Or one that’s suited to couples who really should split up, but battle through regardless. Probably the latter, maybe something else entirely. But it’s very good and you should listen to it.
The Predatory Wasp 