Tag: electronic

Categories
Music

Jouska – Lemon Twigs

Jouska is an Oslo-based duo making R&B-inflected electronica, or electronic-tinged R&B; whichever rolls off your tongue more easily. They recently released their debut album, Everything Is Good, from which Lemon Twigs is taken, and which touches on a range of themes, some overtly political, some intensely personal. Lemon Twigs itself is wonderful, the melancholic yet relative bombast of the production magnifying the raw, intimate pain of the lyrical content.

http://eddamusic.no/jouska-2/

Categories
Music

Sufjan Stevens – Sugar

The latest in an ever-increasing and very welcome tide of singles from his upcoming album The Ascension, this is vintage Sufjan from the very first bar. Haunting pads and those brittle electronic drums that he’s been playing around with ever since the early A Sun Came-era weirdness, now honed and refined. Music video is great too. Maybe 2020 will turn out to be ok after all.

https://sufjan.com

Categories
Music

Boo Tell – Alone

Described by the label 2 B Real – a new label from electronic artist Finn and established imprint Local Action – as “languid and loopy, dreamy and aimless”, it’s about the most succinct and accurate release hypes I’ve ever read. Alone is 6+ minutes of hazy, sun-bleached beats, shimmering pads and a relentless vocal which might potentially get a little irritating if it wasn’t so lovely. I’m assuming Boo Tell is an alias of Finn: if so, battered straw hats off to him as it’s fantastic.

https://2-b-real.bandcamp.com

Categories
Music

KMRU – Why Are You Here

I am hungover AF today so here’s 15 minutes of ambient loveliness to help gently usher in your weekend. That’s all you’re getting. I’m going back to bed.

https://kmru.bandcamp.com

Categories
Music

Shawn Rudiman – Fighting the Flow

I’m pretty late to the party on this one as it came out back in June, but I just read a glowing review on Resident Advisor and I’m not obsessed. Fighting The Flow from his album Conduit is absolutely flawless, driving, relentless techno of the very highest order, with just enough fragments of melody to keep things interesting without detecting from its repetitive power. Honestly, play this loud and tell me you don’t want to take your top off, neck a pinger and charge off down the front.

https://soundcloud.com/shawn-rudiman

Categories
Music

Cut Copy – Stop, Horizon

Cut Copy have been around for 20 years, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever listened to a record of theirs. It’s entirely possible that I glanced at their name and got them confused with Coldcut which, while not exactly a great reflection on my musical nouse, is at least honest. Anyway, turns out their pretty popular and have released a lot of shiny, towering pop over the last two decades, and that’s definitely something I’m in the market for right now.

Stop, Horizon is taken from their new album Freeze, Melt. It’s about as pretty as pop gets, with a gently layer guitar loops slowly joined by tinkling percussion, whispered vocals and eventually a steady, four-four beat that nuzzles us you through to the end: a cosy, comforting hug of a record.

http://cutcopy.net

Categories
Music

HAAi – Head Above The Parakeets

HAAi has produced some of the most original, impactful records of recent memory, and Head Above The Parakeets is yet another incredible addition to one of the most consistently brilliant discographies in electronic music. As with much of her previous work it’s not afraid to take its time, but once it gets going its gritty, churning and propulsive, and there’s an incredible balance of raw power and subtle, beautiful melodic touches throughout: at once a banger and a tearjerker, and I absolutely love it.

https://haai.bandcamp.com

Categories
Music

Sevdaliza – Habibi

Habibi, the new single from Iranian-Dutch singer, songwriter and record producer Sevdaliza, is extraordinarily good. Beautiful, delicate piano and her trademark otherworldly strings pitched against churning, seething, raging background atmospherics and the occasional apocalyptic bass note to remind you not to get too comfortable. It’s a masterclass in tension and a reminder that Sevdaliza is operating in a space entirely of her own making.

https://www.sevdaliza.com

Categories
Music

A. G. Cook – Acid Angel

If you’re not familiar with him, A. G. Cook made his name as the founder and head of PC Music, which is either one of the most groundbreaking labels of the last decade, or an infuriating in-joke that should be erased from history, depending on your point of view. Over the last few years he’s become one of the go-to producers for Charli XCX, and together they’ve made some quite astonishing pop. Acid Anger is taken from his new album 7G (which comes in at a frankly intimidating 49 tracks and 2+ hours) and reminds me quite a lot of Mylo’s Destroy Rock & Roll in its glitchy treatment of vocals, with a dose of glacial Aphex-esque melodies thrown in for good measure.

https://agcook.bandcamp.com

Categories
Music

Loscil – Coasts

I watched The Lighthouse last night, so the sound of rolling waves at the start of Coasts immediately caught my attention. But while the film is a claustrophobic, paranoid, hallucinatory nightmare (but also really good, honestly), Coasts – from Loscil’s most recent EP Faults, Coasts, Lines – is expansive and soothing: more akin to a glassy lake than a churning sea. It’s ambient at its most tranquil and conciliatory and is really rather wonderful.

https://loscil.bandcamp.com