The Predatory Wasp
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
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.”
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.
I have fond, if slightly intense, memories of Demdike Stare’s Before My Eyes nights they used to put on in a tiny London basement, especially one where my friend took too much K and ran, pretty much crying, from the room. Their new album sees them in their usual chaos mode, as they destroy and piece back together piano and vocal recordings by US filmmaker-musician Kristen Pilon, with unsurprisingly unsettling results. For fans of The Caretaker, crunchy drums and feeling generally a little bit tense.
Celebrating the re-release of one of the influential drum & bass singles of all time and the album from which it came, Adam F’s 1997 debut Colours. To record new versions of the tracks Adam F dug out all his old hardware which had long been hidden away. Over a span of two years he reworked the original music, from restoring vintage instruments like his Fender Rhodes piano to enlisting UK jazz legends like Julian Joseph. Vocalists including Kirsty Hawkshaw and the late MC Conrad re-recorded their parts, while new solos from contemporary artist added fresh life to the tracks. Circles still sounds as good as is always has – a true classic.
Tim Hecker saves the best until last on his new album Shards with this extraordinary, amorphous ambient/electronic closing track. Released last week on krany, Shards is a collection of pieces originally written for various film and TV soundtracks Hecker has scored over the last half decade, with compositions originally written for scoring projects including Infinity Pool, The North Water, Luzifer, and La Tour.
Lots of good music out today but this is the bleakest aka the best. Taken from the new album antichamber which sees him stepping away from the full-band setup, focusing instead on stripped-back electronics and acoustic textures. Ideal listening for the bleak midwinter.
In 2018 Sam Barker released his Debiasing EP and pretty much changed the techno game. He wasn’t the first to do away with kick drums, but with Look How Hard I’ve Tried especially he demonstrated just how powerful restraint could be. His recently announced second album Stochastic Drift now sees Barker creating tracks with a fresh deftness and by “letting go of expectations”, and the first single Reframing is fucking magnificent, although if I was being super critical I reckon it could be at least twice as long. Roll on April.
I can’t quite get over how great this is; without doubt one of his best songs to date. Completely ridiculous. For the full experience listen to the segue from the previous album track. Just astonishingly good.
The Predatory Wasp 