Tag: electronic

Categories
Music

Maribou State – All I Need

Maribou State’s upcoming album Hallucinating Love – out this Friday – represents a journey through adversity and renewal. Since their rise with Portraits and Kingdom in Colour, Chris Davids and Liam Ivory faced personal and creative struggles while navigating the fallout of relentless touring and the global lockdown. Health challenges—including Chris’s ADHD diagnosis, chronic headaches, and surgery for a rare brain condition, as well as Liam’s severe anxiety—forced the duo to scrap their first attempt at the album and rethink their approach. From what I’ve heard of it so far, it’s going to be worth the wait.

For reasons too long to go into I have a massive emotional connection to Maribou State’s music, and Holly Walker’s voice especially makes me cry pretty much every time I hear it. So yes, I’m very much looking forward to this one.

https://mariboustate.bandcamp.com/album/hallucinating-love

Categories
Music

Voice Actor, Squu – dYn

Stroom favorites Voice Actor team up with Squu for their second album, Lust (1), blending ambient dance, electro-dub, and trip-hop into 14 hypnotic tracks. Following previous LPs Fake Sleep and the mammoth Sent From My Telephone which spanned a frankly ridiculous 3+ hours, this release feels somehow sharper yet simultaneously dreamy, with soft textures, shimmering vocals, and hazy lyrics that float effortlessly, with the ambient dancehall vibe of dYn an early highlight.

https://stroomtv.bandcamp.com/album/lust-1

Categories
Music

Djrum – Crawl

I wish that people would stop releasing really great albums this late in the year, as it’s making compiling my top 50 list an increasingly tough. The latest guilty party is Djrum, whose new LP Meaning’s Edge – his first full length since 2018 is amazing, with the eight minute Crawl coming in like a cross between Aphex Twin and Shed, but with a deftness of touch that makes the frenetic rhythms glide silkily by.

https://djrum.bandcamp.com/music

Categories
Music

Becky and the Birds – Star

Becky and the Birds is the project of Swedish artist Thea Gustafsson. Her sound blends neo-soul, electronic, and R&B influences, drawing inspiration from artists such as Bon Iver and Frank Ocean and her new album Only music makes me cry now landed today. Opener Star hints at a slightly more abrasive, glitchier style than some of her previous releases which have leaned more into atmospheric dream pop, but her voice remains as beguiling and fragile as ever.

https://shop.4ad.com/release/472790-becky-and-the-birds-only-music-makes-me-cry-now

Categories
Music

Skee Mask – MDP1

Skee Mask just released the latest album in a series that pulls together batches of previously unreleased tracks, these made between 2016 and 2022. As with its predecessors, D is more coherent and accomplished than 99% of electronic albums released this year; an impressive feat given that this is essentially a sweep of the cutting room floor.

https://skeemask.bandcamp.com/album/d

Categories
Music

Dylan Henner – There Was A Scattered Light Between The Leaves

College Music Presents: PhonoSynthesis is the label’s fourth VA compilation, and explores the intimate relationship between music and nature, spanning solo, acoustic sounds through to modular synthesis masterpieces, and everything in between. Includes contributions from Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Shopan and this beauty from Dylan Henner.

https://collegemusicrecords.bandcamp.com/

Categories
Music

DANIAILYAS – Breathe and Start Again

Well this is just totally lush. DANIAILYAS is a transatlantic collaboration between Barcelona’s Dania Shihab and Portland’s Ilyas Ahmed. On their debut EP, Enough For Me To Remain, Shihab’s ethereal vocals and sweeping synths are intricately intertwined with Ahmed’s fluid, unpredictable guitar work. The result is a deeply immersive, almost spectral experience, balancing tenderness with an underlying tension. What emerges is both intimate and disorienting, like a love letter written in shadow and light, offering release and rupture in equal measure.

https://daniailyas.bandcamp.com/album/enough-for-me-to-remain

Categories
Music

Oliver Coates – 90

The blog has gone pretty ambient-heavy this week, but the heart wants what it wants. Today’s offering is taken fromThrob, shiver, arrow of time, the new album from Oliver Coates who created the incredibly moving soundtracks for the 2022 film Aftersun (highly recommended) amongst many other things. 90 is glassy, sparse, delicate and beautiful.

Categories
Music

Klara Lewis – Thankful

Extraordinary stuff from Klara Lewis on the opening and title track of her new album for Editions Mego, starting life as simple, mournful strings before becoming increasingly deranged, distorted and overwhelming over the course of its 20 minute runtime.

https://klaralewis.bandcamp.com/album/thankful

Categories
Music

Midland – Vogue In Slow Motion

Midland’s debut album Fragments Of Us examines the queer experience, from the early days of the 80’s AIDs crisis up to the present day, and features the voices of some Midland’s artistic heroes including Arthur Russell, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz alongside the contemporary voices of Stereogamus’ Jonny Seymour and Horse Meat Disco’s Luke Howard. The subject matter is often dark, and includes news snippets following the introduction of Section 28 in the UK – which prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality” in public life – to an excerpt from an audio diary of Wojnarowicz that concludes simply with “basically I don’t want to die”. But there’s hope and possibly catharsis in Midland’s production, which is warm and accessible without ever becoming bland or homogenised.

https://midlandsound.bandcamp.com/album/fragments-of-us