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Nosaj Thing feat. serpentwithfeet – Woodland

Nosaj Thing has just released the best album of his career. Or my favourite at least, which is my little self-obsessed world amounts to the same thing. Continua sees him lean harder into collaboration than ever before, and with a very impressive range of artists; serpentwithfeet, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Toro Y Moi not least among them. Picking a focus track is a tough ask as the album flows so beautifully – with a consistent tone and feel yet with enough variation to avoid coming across as one note – but here’s the incredible Woodland with the aforementioned serpentwithfeet to hit you right in the feels.

https://nosajthing.bandcamp.com/album/continua

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Quinton Barnes – Fuck On U

Quinton Barnes’s fantastic new album For The Love Of Drugs landed last week, and while my overall takeaway from the LP is that Quinton has bascially had enough of everyone’s shit, there are a few gentler, borderline romantic moments, of which Fuck On U is arguably the strongest. Boasting the crunchy synth lines that characterise much of the album’s production paired with some truly gorgeous piano, it sees QB showing his vulnerable side to powerful effect.

https://quintonbarnes.bandcamp.com/album/for-the-love-of-drugs-2

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Music

System Olympia – Give Me

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a track more than this in the last few months. Just listen those pads! Ridiculous. Taken from her new “mini-album” (EP?) Racing Heart, which is also great.

https://systemolympia.bandcamp.com

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Music

NNAMDÏ – Anti

NNAMDÏ’s head-spinning new album Please Take A Seat takes great delight in wrong-footing you. Relatively straightforward rap one second, it will turn sharply into chaotic electronics or jaunty pop before throwing in the kind of guitar riffs more at home in 80s stadium rock. I’m not sure it always works, but it is highly ambitious and enjoyably eccentric. Anti is one of the more straightforwardly enjoyable moments, but it’s really worth checking out in its entirety to get the full effect of its undeniable power.

https://nnamdi.secretlyca.co/please-have-a-seat

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Rival Consoles – Vision of Self

The new album from Rival Consoles is a bit of a mixed bag, but Visions of Self is undeniably great. I like the less polished-sounding tracks a lot more than the “epic” “bangers”; sometimes it’s as if he’s trying just a lit bit too hard to pull on the heartstrings, but this is nicely subdued. Must try less hard!

https://idol-io.link/NowIs

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Music

Joy Helder – Life of the Party

Joy Helder’s fantastic recent EP Blurt flits between creeping ambient and more energetic electronica, with Life of the Party sitting slap bang in the middle. Skeletal in the sparseness of its structure, every echoing glitch or crispy delivered hi-hat has been painstakingly crafted to deliver maximum impact, burrowing deep into your brainholes and sending satisfying shivers down your spine.

https://joyhelder.bandcamp.com/album/blurt

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Music

Loraine James – Black Excellence (Stay On It)

Loraine James’s new album Building Something Beautiful For Me lands today and fucking hell it is amazing. I never really clicked with last year’s Reflection, but loved her ambient album as Whatever The Weather from earlier this year. Building… seems to sit somewhere between these ambient and club spaces and comes across almost like a work in progress, with tracks stopping abruptly or changing tone midway through. There are so many highlights picking a single track was very tough, but I went for Black Excellent (Stay On It) due to the simplicity of its construction – pretty much just a single, undulating synthline throughout – resolved perfectly by the bleak beauty of its final third.

https://clark.bandcamp.com/album/05-10

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Music

Clark – Autumn Linn

Celestial ambient wanderings from Clark that should appeal to anyone who enjoyed last year’s Playground In A Lake. Taken from a compilation of new tracks, unreleased archive material and rarities, collected by the artist to release alongside the remastered reissue of his 2006 LP Body Riddle.

https://clark.bandcamp.com/album/05-10

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Music

Rex Kalibur – Benign Abyss

Get lost in the digital waves…

https://soundcloud.com/rex-kalibur

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Music

Quiraing – SU1-269MU 

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.

https://soundcloud.com/quiraingmusic