The Predatory Wasp
Natural Beauty Wonder Concept is the new project from DJ Python and Ana Roxanne, both of whom I love. There’s an album due out in July, primarily recorded during covid days, and this is the first single. It’s great, and not even the press release describing the LP as “two artists learning to be alone, together” (🤮) can dull my enthusiasm.
https://naturalwonderbeautyconcept.bandcamp.com/album/natural-wonder-beauty-concept
Yves Tumor continues their evolution from experimental electronic noodler to stadium rock icon with their new album, the insanely (and brilliantly) titled Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds). I haven’t had a proper chance to delve into its metallic depths yet, but on the first listen Parody stood out as particularly fun.
I’m a bit late to the party on this one as it feels like everyone’s been singing the praises of Liv.e’s new album Girl In the Half Pearl for some time now, but I just couldn’t risk the ire of the music blogging community so am jumping on the appreciation bandwagon. Also: it’s really great, and about as varied an album as you’re likely to find anytime soon, from the full on soul balladry of Wild Animals to the arpeggiated chaos of Snowing!.
Following collaborations with artist like Space Afrika, Ben Vince, and Elena Isolini, Bianca Scout’s new album The Heart of the Anchoress started life as a three day recording session at St Giles Church in Camberwell. Dark, dreamy and hypnotic, it sits somewhere between TPW favourites Grouper and Andy Stott, with opening track Empty space nicely setting the tone for the gloomy euphoria to come.
https://firstterracerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-heart-of-the-anchoress
Here’s a brilliant – if deeply unsettling – slice of dubby electronica for you that genuinely seemed to make my tinnitus swerve to an entirely new, ferocious pitch. Taken from her recent LP Les Chemins De L’inconnu, out now on the relentlessly good Ilian Tape.
https://iliantape.bandcamp.com/album/itlp13-les-chemins-de-linconnu
Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ, with Sections 17-30 out now ahead of the full album. For fans of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and meditative modern classical in general.
While producing his new album Meeting with a Judas Tree, Duval Timothy made a point of being in nature as much as possible, immersing himself in various habitats from South London and the hills surrounding Bath to scrubland in Ghana and the woods of Sierra Leone, taking recordings of birds, insects, monkeys, bats, plants, trees, stones on his phone, many of which made it into the final version. The result is a deeply immersive, meditative album which flits between electronic experimentation, jazz and modern classical, culminating with the sparse beauty of Drift.
https://duvaltimothy.bandcamp.com/album/meeting-with-a-judas-tree
I don’t often just copy in release hype for posts, but this is an important one, and gives you an indication of the tone of the album better than I ever could, so here you go…
“Blue Scar Vol I , is the first installation of a long form album. This tapestry of songs is a personal mythology of love and survival, I have been patiently writing and working on this since 2013, the year I almost died because of intimate partner violence.
“This body of work brought me back to my body, and continues to do so everyday, my prayer is that it does the same for all trauma survivors, that this music is a place we can tend to our personal and generational wounds as well as a place to honour our scars. This is for youngest selves , for my child self and my god self, who always seek to protect and heal me – this is a quest to relearn what love is.”
NNAMDĂŹ’s head-spinning new album Please Take A Seat takes great delight in wrong-footing you. Relatively straightforward rap one second, it will turn sharply into chaotic electronics or jaunty pop before throwing in the kind of guitar riffs more at home in 80s stadium rock. I’m not sure it always works, but it is highly ambitious and enjoyably eccentric. Anti is one of the more straightforwardly enjoyable moments, but it’s really worth checking out in its entirety to get the full effect of its undeniable power.
If Mondays generally make you feel tense and anxious, I’d suggest maybe skipping this one; and maybe the entire album from which it is taken. Lucrecia Dalt’s new album ¡Ay! does have contain some lovely melodies and lighter moments, but most of them are buried beneath twitchy, sketchy layers; rattling off-kilter percussion; warped, half-whispered vocals. It’s undeniably beautiful, but in a slightly panic-inducing way. And this weird video – despite it focussing on someone gently floating in water – is pretty much the opposite of relaxing.
The Predatory Wasp 