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Barker – Wick & Wax

Sam Barker returns with his first solo EP since 2020’s BARKER002, this time on Oslo’s Smalltown Supersound. His 2018 EP Debiasing changed the game and remains one of my favourite electronic releases of all time, and while his latest Unfixed sees him reintroducing kick drums back into the equation there’s still an unpredictability to how the tracks are structured and progress. There are arguably more inventive, and certainly harder-hitting moment on the four-track release, but Wick & Wax get my nod for being 9 minutes of melodic loveliness.

https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/unfixed

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Carmen Villain – Multicolor

The latest album from Norwegian-Mexican artist Carmen Villain is comprised from parts of her score for Eszter Salamon’s two-and-a-half hour dance performance, Monument 0.10 : The Living Monument. Most of the track included here are edited down from the long-form versions that accompanied the ultra-slow scenes of the performance, which means that somewhere there’s probably an extended version of this incredibly lush album opener that I need to find and have on repeat for months to come.

https://carmenvillain.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-living-monument

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Yu Su – I Want An Earth

Billowing ambient that builds into something more rhythmic and structured; like an optimistic take on Vangelis with all the sharp edges sanded off. Taken from the Kaifeng-born, Vancouver based musician and occasional chef’s new album of the same name which is well worth checking out in its entirety.

https://yusu.bandcamp.com/album/i-want-an-earth-2

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Jessy Lanza – Limbo

I’m not quite as enamoured with Jessy Lanza’s new album Love Hallucination as I hoped I would be, but there’s no denying the infectious brilliance of Limbo. Deeply rooted in late 70s/ early 80s funk and with a bassline to rival the best of that era, its a ridiculously hooky earworm that I’m inevitably going to be hammering for months.

https://jessylanza.bandcamp.com/album/love-hallucination

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7038634357 – Winded

As a result of the deep calm I felt after the first few minutes of listening this, I was very much unprepared for its final third. I won’t spoil the surprise.

https://7-0-3.bandcamp.com/

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Apex Twin – zin2 test5

Lots and lots of fun music out today, but this is probably the biggest and funnest of the lot. The first new music from The Big RDJ in 5 years – the predictably functionally named Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / in a room7 F760 – includes this tight, sinewy little roller which dissolves into those trademark melt-your-heart pads in its final third.

https://aphextwin.bandcamp.com/album/blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760

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Cucina Povera – Naapurista kuuluu lattian natinaa

I came across this during a frantic Spotify cull of albums I’ve saved but rarely (if ever) listened to. Cucina Povera is the alias of the Glasgow-based artist Maria Rossi, originally from Finland, and this is taken from her 2021 LP Dalmarnock Tapes, throughout which she layers her own vocals to create a choir of one, with invariably intensely haunting results.

https://cucinapovera.bandcamp.com/album/dalmarnock-tapes

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Poppy Ackroyd – Pause (Reimagined by Hinako Omori)

Part of a run of singles featuring new versions of tracks from Poppy Ackroyd’s 2021 album Pause, Hinako Omori’s offering starts sparse and delicate before the tension resolves into something richer and more comforting with the addition of radiant and increasingly prominent pads.

https://3six.net/album/cold-ecstasy

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36 – Touch The Sky

Dennis Huddleston aka 36’s new album Cold Ecstasy is a pitch-perfect homage to 90s rave, focussing on “the happier side of the hardcore spectrum, which I feel was unfairly maligned at the time.”As a teenager obsessed with happy hardcore and later trance, I’ve always had a massive soft spot for the unashamed positivity of those genres. A companion piece to 2021’s Weaponised Serenity which was equally brilliant, this new LP is further proof that Huddlestone is one of the most consistently excellent electronic producers out there.

https://3six.net/album/cold-ecstasy

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Trevino – Moodswing

Back in May 2016, Trevino a.k.a. Marcus Intalex released his debut album Front on his own Birdie label. Following the producer’s death in 2017, the follow-up album Back was released posthumously in May. Recorded between Berlin and Manchester, Back is at its strongest when it embraces the more melancholy aspects of electronica – as in the all-conquering Backtracking, still one of the best techno singles of all time – with Moodswing a clear highlight.

https://birdierecordings.bandcamp.com/album/back