The Predatory Wasp
Lb Honne’s new EP Brücke comes on Smallville, a label with which I was mildly obsessed in the early 2010s thanks to sleepy, melancholy deep house from artists like Moomin and Christopher Rau: a musical theme which continues to this day. The pick of the bunch here is Deeper, which picks up the beautiful, reflective threads of his 2024 album Present Future / Here There, which is a must-listen if you missed it last year.
https://smallville-records.bandcamp.com/album/smallville-71-lb-honne-br-cke
Molly Nilsson managed to sneak out an album without me realising back in October, which is pretty astonishing given how much I like her music and how much time I spent looking for new albums from artists I like. Amateur is described as both a “jubilee for losers” and “maybe her greatest yet” and while the latter honour still firmly resides with her 2018 masterpiece 2020, Amateur is awash with enough beautiful, hazy melodies and low-key hooks that, even on the first listen, it’s definitely up there.
Voices From The Lake’s eponymous album came out way back in 2o12, and I’ve probably returned to it on a nearly weekly basis every since. Donato Dozzy and Neal’s collaborative project started as a one-off live performance in the Japanese Alps before birthing an album that, according to the press notes, “become a touchstone in ambient techno, reshaping the global landscape of hypnotic and atmospheric electronic music.” I heartily agree. I cannot express how much I’ve loved this album over the last decade and more. The follow up, Voices From The Lake II, arrived today, and is already in my top 10 of the year.
h.pruz’s new album Red sky at morning is a stripped mix of folk songwriting and small, tactile electronic details. Co-producer Felix Walworth adds Wurlitzer, soft synth lines and loose percussion that drift under the vocals rather than lead them. The tracks feel like short scenes, each clearly shaped by specific moments and memories. The sound is quiet and spacious but warm, built on acoustic guitar, piano, sax and concise synth phrases, and calls to mind similarly reflective LPs by artists like Adrianne Lenker and Tomberlin.
“Late one evening, I was listening to the radio alone at home. I couldn’t find the station I wanted, so I shifted the dial around for a while. Between frequencies, fading in and out of fidelity, I found a station I’d never heard before. To my amazement, the station was broadcasting my own memories. Memories from when I was seventeen. Some of the most formative and important moments of my life, alive on the air.”
K-Lone’s new LP sorry i thought you were someone else – his debut release on Incienso – was produced after his father’s passing and became a place for the Brighton-based artist to escape and reflect. And while the majority of the album isn’t necessarily something I’ll be going back to, the opening track someone else is inarguably lovely.
https://k-lone.bandcamp.com/album/sorry-i-thought-you-were-someone-else
I’m currently spending way too obsessing about my end of year list, which doesn’t leave much room for new music. I did dutifully dive into Oneohtrix Point Never’s new album Tranquilizer though and yes – it’s quite good! Ben Cardew’s article for Line Noise did a great job of summing up my own ambivalent feelings towards much of his discography (TLDR: I think it’s impressive, I just don’t feel it) but Cherry Blue definitely stood out amongst all the glitchiness.
I really was intending to post something bouncy and uplifting to start the week, but then I heard Simone Seales new album Dearest and decided reflective, somewhat mournful cello was actually the way to go. Simone Seales’s debut studio album is a poetry-music album inspired by the warmth, nostalgia, and tension of first queer love which they wrote as a way of honouring and releasing their first relationship from a decade ago. So not bouncy, exactly, just very good.
I love The Field, to the point that I attempted to create a remix by entirely ripping off his sound. I would link to it, but it seems to be entirely expunged from the internet; probably for the best. His output over the last decade has been extremely limited, so I was delighted to this this sun-bleached, beautifully atmospheric remix of Sachika Nayar & Nina Keith’s Disiniblud project pop up, reminding me of why I fell for his mesmerising loops all those years ago.
Viktoras Urbaitis aka Teatre crafts electronic music of cinematic quality, evoking images of desolate night streets and the dark, flowing waters of Eastern European rivers. His new Overtime EP is the debut release for Berlin’s Dangė Records – which specialises in championing electronic music from Lithuania and the Baltics – and is a testament to the hours spent in the fluorescent-lit purgatory of office spaces, navigating corporate networks and the sterile interactions of online support, all while under the literary spell of Jurga Ivanauskaite’s diaries.
The Predatory Wasp 