Categories
Music

zakè, Coppice Halifax – Regeneration Survey

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.

https://zakedrone.bandcamp.com/album/tree-grid

Categories
Music

Danny L Harle & Doss – C’Mon

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

Categories
Music

Helado Tropical – Déjate Caer

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.

https://heladotropical.bandcamp.com/album/helado-tropical

Categories
Music

Function – City of Luz

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

Categories
Music

2K88, Lauren Duffus, Rainy Miller, Bianca Scout – Salto

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

Categories
Uncategorized

36 – 105.5 Wacky Fm

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.

https://auxiliary.bandcamp.com/album/hardcore-static-pirate-transmissions-from-the-north-of-england-1990-1994

Categories
Music

Forest Drive West – Tensor

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!??

https://forestdrivewest.bandcamp.com/album/mantis-1920

Categories
Music

Flabaire – Summer Sun

This is taken from efflorescence iii, a VA compilation from Dutch label Project Indigo who have been flying the flag for dreamy, emotional house and techno for the last decade or so. Home to TPW favourites like Lb Honne and Hame, Flabaire was a new name to me, but it someone I’ll be keeping a close eye on in the future, as Summer Sun is totally lush.

https://projindigo.bandcamp.com/album/efflorescence-iii

Categories
Music

Boards of Canada – Age Of Capricorn

According to the Guardian the new Boards of Canada album Inferno sounds like Coldplay and is a “big disappointment”. I strongly disagree.

https://boardsofcanada.bandcamp.com/album/inferno

Categories
Music

Lord of the Isles – Venus Flux

Venus Flux is a new four-track EP by Scottish producer Lord Of The Isles, which opens with a beatless ambient piece built from slow-moving analog tones ahead of two live-improvised dub techno tracks which form the core of the EP. But it’s the closing track, Venus Flux, that’s got me; a reflective, broken-beat number right out of the Conforce tradition of plaintive, meandering electro.

https://lordoftheisles.bandcamp.com/album/venus-flux