The Predatory Wasp
US producer The Range is responsible for one of my all-time favourite and go-to “get shit done at work” mix. His new album Mercury is full of the same sample-heavy., outrageously feel-good electronic tunes, and while it doesn’t quite compete in terms of sheer propulsive energy as his mixes, is still definitely worth checking out.
ashbalkum – the new album from Seoul electronic duo Salamanda – is really, really lovely. In the press release, rather than banging on about all the different synths they used and talking about their inspirations, the overwhelming focus is the fun they had making it, and how their friendship inspired them to create music that was playful and soothing. How nice is that! And to quote directly from the PR: “Do dreams always reflect what we think? Is what we feel within dreams real? Ultimately, Salamanda don’t seek to answer these questions, so much as revel in the delightful liminality of it all.” Lush.
Despite 070 Shake’s Modus Vivendi being my very favourite album of 2020, the fact that she released the follow up, You Can’t Kill Me, last week completely passed me by. You would have thought that sitting in front of a computer and hunting for new music for hours every single day would prevent this kind of glaring oversight, but apparently not. Anyway, it’s here, and it’s fucking great. I could have picked any one of at least half a dozen tracks to highlight, but let’s go for Purple Walls as it has that perfect balance of crushingly hard production and plaintive vocals. Peerlessly brilliant, as ever.
Jamal Moss (who also records as Hieroglyphic Being) has been a pioneering force in Chicago’s electronic music scene for decades, producing a range of sounds from weird, glitchy electro, to gorgeous, melodic house. Most of the tracks on his Modern Love debut Thanks 4 The Tracks U Lost fall into the latter category, with The Lust With-IN tugging especially hard on the heartstrings with its melancholy pads and beautiful, cascading synth line.
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Barker is someone I wish released more music, as pretty much everything he does put out is fucking incredible. Since 2018’s groundbreakingly brilliant Debiasing EP he’s been ploughing a particularly rich furrow of (nearly) beatless atmospheric techno, now taking on a remix of techno royalty Luke Slater under his Planetary Assault Systems alias. Slowing the tempo and erasing all but the tiniest hint of a kick drum, Barker’s version is meditative, warm and essential.
Taken from her new album Baby, We’re Ascending which is out today, Pigeon Baron is an emotional banger of ridiculously impressive quality and intensity, and the thought of being three beans deep while listening to this somewhere in the depths of Block 9 next month is making me so excited I can barely sit still.
Despite their being an absolute ton of great new music out today, I’m choosing to share this track from 2020 as I’ve only just heard it and its blowing my tiny little mind. This is pretty much how I want all electronic music to sound: moody, atmospheric, sparse, beautiful. And yes, I have been listening to his mixes all day, thanks for checking.
Late last month Skee Mask quietly popped out two EPs as part of Ilian Tape’s ISS series, one of which comprises four tracks of fiercely abrasive techno and the other – from which MDP93 is taken – eight tracks of gorgeous, beatless, drifting ambient: perhaps the most relaxing collection of music he’s ever put his name to. Honestly, if you’re feeling even mildly stressed or anxious – or even if you’re not – please put this on and go and look at the sky for a bit.
It’s hard to imagine a world in which a track so gloriously unassuming as Röyksop’s Eple could achieve such ubiquity, but for what felt like the entire first half of the 2000s I reckon I heard it every day. So did you. And even if you can’t immediately call to mind how it goes, listen to it for five seconds and you’ll immediately be transported back to a simpler, happier time when we were all basking in the glow of a post-2YK realisation that all the computers didn’t in fact collapse, and that everything was just going to be just fine from now on.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ve thought about Röyksop for a good 15 years now, but last week they put out a new album and some of it is really lovely. Like this – the penultimate track on Profound Mysteries – which seems tailor-made for the next time Traumprinz makes one of his Very Poignant Mixes.
More dope beats from the other realm courtesy of the queen of electronic witchery. If you’re familiar with DJ Sabrina’s previous work, this follows in pretty much the same vein: 90s-heavy samples blended with bright, open-hearted production. An out-and-out nostalgia-fest, in other words that will make you yearn for the days when aspect ratios were square and TV audiences pissed themselves laughing at literally everything.
