Xenia Reaper’s new album Gambling had me at “a requiem to noughties trance-euphoria”, scratching an itch that only 36’s Cold Ecstasy had previously been able to reach.
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Xenia Reaper – Thruu
Tag: electronic
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JakoJako – Hoa đào
Ludicrous amounts of fun stuff out this week which I’ll be highlighting in the coming days, starting with Sibel Koçer’aka JakoJako’s new LP Tết 41, her debut for Mute. Recorded during a trip to Vietnam and bookended by field recordings from Tết Lunar New Year celebrations, the album is a sonic nod to Koçer’s heritage, with the melodic palette breaking away from traditional Western scales, drawing instead from the tonal intricacies of the Vietnamese language, inspired by overheard conversations. Produced with a minimalist setup consisting of a Eurorack and Waldorf Iridium Core, Tết 41 reflects on notions of rebirth, and the pursuit of a sonic core.
Penelope Trappes doesn’t so much write songs as she carves out little underwater worlds to sit and stare at your feelings in. Anchor us To The Seabed Floor from her new album A Requiem is synths that start soft and end up ragged, hushed vocals, and heavy emotional fog. It’s slow, it’s sad, it’s very beautiful. Let it wash over you and maybe cry a bit. Or don’t. It’ll still haunt you either way.
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Maria Somerville – Stonefly
Stonefly is the third single from Maria Somerville’s upcoming album Luster, due out April 25 via 4AD . It’s a slow, minimal track built around soft synth loops and Somerville’s low-key vocal delivery. There’s not much in the way of hooks, but it’s easy to get drawn into its atmosphere after a couple of listens. The track also comes with a video directed by Daniel Swan, which fits the mood without overdoing it
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Barker – The Remembering Self
Barke’s new album Stochastic Drift is absolutely brilliant, and if it’s not in my top 10 of 2025 at the end of the I will be amazed. It’s not really fair to pick out a single track as you should really just dive in in its entirety, but The Remembering Self is the one that really stopped me in my tracks: probably the most purely ambient track Barker has ever produced, and achingly beautiful.
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OK EG & Priori – Serpentine 1
OK EG and Priori team up for a four-tracker that keeps things fast and focused without ever going full throttle, recorded from sessions at Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio. Stand out Serpentine 1 plays like a set of finely tuned sketches and there’s a definite Dozzy-like touch to the rhythms: slightly disorientating, never dull.
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DJ Python – Marry Me Maia
i was put on this earth is DJ Python’s debut EP for XL Records and his first solo release since 2022. Across five tracks, Python (Brian Piñeyro) gently forays into uncharted territory as a singer, producer and collaborator. For me, his 2020 LP Mas Amable is still the high watermark, and I do wish he’d return to that hypnotic style, but until that happens Marry Me Maia will more than do.
https://djpythonnyc.bandcamp.com/album/i-was-put-on-this-earth
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OHYUNG – dancing on the soft knife
OHYUNG made my favourite album of 2022, the ludicrously under-appreciated ambient masterpiece imagine naked!, and on the basis of my first few listens their latest LP is going to be right up there in 2025. You Are Always On My Mind marks a shift—away from the rawness of their earlier experimental work and towards something more pop-adjacent, but no less nuanced. Built from processed string loops and glistening synths, You Are Always On My Mind is “a declaration of love for raves and the dark hazy rooms that helped me to be free and true with myself – seeing other people who are so free and beautiful and thinking that one day that can be me – that’s me in the future.”
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Martinou – The Last Hour
Swedish producer Martinou is the latest addition to my very short list of electronic artists making properly emotional stuff; melancholy, reflective, heartbreaking. Basically the kind of stuff I want to be able to make myself. This is taken from his excellent new EP The Glow That Lingers for Fauxpax Musik, and if you like what you hear I’d recommend going back to his 2021 album Rift for more of the same.
https://fauxpasmusik.bandcamp.com/album/the-glow-that-lingers
Astrid Sonne’s remix of Mount Kimbie’s The Trail sounds absolutely nothing like the original, and is all the better for it: chopped, stuttering and deeply atmospheric, her own ghostly vocals providing significant chills.
The Predatory Wasp 