The Predatory Wasp
I heard this on the radio earlier today as the sun was just breaking through the morning haze and it made me feel incredibly calm and happy. It’s from London producer Flaurese’s debut EP which is out now on Circa ’99, and it’s a real delight: warm chords and winding melodies with an almost 8-bit bassline that chugs on throughout before entering throwback rave territory for the final third. Quite the debut.
The Tweet that brought the new Overmono single to my attention came from grime producer Mr.Mitch and simply said “Think I would cry if I heard this in a club”. This, in a nutshell, is what every single person currently bereft at the lack of nightlife options in the UK is feeling. The specific tracks will differ from person to person, but everyone has at least one tune that if they heard loud, surrounded by other people, would reduce them to tears. It’s something that headphones and watching screens can’t even begin to replicate, and I only hope there are enough producers still making absolute bangers like this left when we’re allowed to party once again.
Previously best known for his production work for Danny Brown, as well as collaborations with Jamie Woon and Charlie XCX in addition to production duties for a vast number of other MCs and singers, Paul White has stepped more fully out of the shadows in the last few years. Following a string of album releases over the last decade, 2018’s Rejuvenate felt like a statement of intent, and clocked up plenty of very positive reviews. His new mixtape All Eyes Open sees his step back from the mic for the most part, instead delivering a kaleidoscopic range of beats, synths and samples from multiple genres, all undershot with a yearning nostalgia that holds everything together.
Over the last decade or so, Canadian producer Khotin – or Dylan Khotin-Foote to his friends – seems to have been slowly deconstructing his own sound, moving from admittedly slightly off-kilter but still structurally recognisable house music, to increasingly stripped-down ambient and psychedelia. His new album Finds You Well is his calmest to date: at time playful, at other solemn, but rarely rising above a gentle murmur. WEM Lagoon Jump tips its cap quite considerably to the influence of Boards Of Canada with its stumbling drums and hazy, wandering, nostalgic synth lines, but nevertheless stands out as a highlight in a beautifully introspective release.
Vatican Shadow has something of a penchant for long, enigmatic track titles – personal favourite: Boxes Were Wired to Batteries Then Loaded into a Brown Toyota Cargo Truck – so while Rehearsing For The Attack is positively breezy as far as names go, it’s an undoubted highlight from a catalogue that’s both extremely extensive and reliably excellent. Taken from this his latest LP Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era (see?), it has the effect of being incredibly calming, despite the at times unnerving clanks and scrapes emerging from the glassy darkness.
Formerly known artistically as Youth Lagoon, Trevor Powers has now released two records under his own name, the latest being Capricorn: a sketchy, at times deeply paranoid and at others almost naively beautiful instrumental collection of songs. There’s a tapestraic quality to the album, which is peppered with field recordings and warped, hushed and time-stretched synths, halfway between Blood Orange and The Caretaker. Album closer 2166 is like the entire album compressed into a single track: a poignant piano line, ominous bass notes and something that was probably a vocal once upon a time before it was processed almost beyond all recognition. It’s a really impressive body of work, from an artist that seems to be doing it exactly the way they want.
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.
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.
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.
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.
