World is fukt. Music, not surprisingly, reflects that. But there’s joy and dancing and energy to be found here as well as anger and only a bit of sorrow. Dance a new world into being!
LISTEN AGAIN and enjoy something whyoncha. Stream on demand from fbi.radio or podcast here.
Oh and by the way, I DJed on Friday night (March 20th) at White Bay Power Station for Art After Dark / Sydney Bienalle, curated by Liquid Architecture. Mara Schwerdtfeger did a beautiful set, and we were graced by a performance from Tujiko Noriko as headliner. I recorded my first set, which opened the evening, a pretty wide-ranging mix that I’m sure you’ll like if you’re a follower of this show!
"Omphalo Centric Mixture", live @ White Bay Power Station for Liquid Architecture
Youniss – TakeThat ft. Pink Siifu [VIERNULVIER/Bandcamp]
Youniss – Gits Worse ft. Petite Noir [VIERNULVIER/Bandcamp]
Sometimes it’s good to become acquainted with the underground & cutting edge in odd corners of the world. I was lucky to perform at the brilliant dunk!festival last year with my band Black Aleph, a festival in Europe’s best-kept secret, the lovely northern-Belgium city of Ghent. Specifically, the festival occurs in a few theatres and venues around an arts centre / platform / community called VIERNULVIER (404), which itself has a phenomenally-curated boutique record label. It’s from this connection that I discovered Antwerp-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, singer & taxi driver Youniss Ahamad. In a fair world, Youniss would be as big as other genre-crossing punk/indie/hip-hop acts, or at least would have the critical recognition he deserves. In this dizzying world of non-stop (bad) news and constant interconnectedness (unless you’re under Iran’s internet blackout or myriad other less-advantaged or more-oppressed populaces), it’s hard for anything to cut through, but I wish that Good Effort! would do so. It’s loosely themed around gentrification, which as it always does is pushing the multicultural residents of the area of Antwerp where Youniss lives out of their homes and community centres. But it’s full of great songwriting, switching between post-punk, jazz and hip-hop on a dime. Youniss plays most of the instruments as well as singing & rapping, but he does also invite some top tier guests, including Belgian clarinettist Dienne, Congolese/South African singer Petite Noir, and underground rappers like Quelle Chris and Pink Siifu. Do yourself a favour and stick this in your ears asap.
Kim Gordon – No Hands [Matador/Bandcamp]
OK, we all know by now that Kim Gordon is the coolest, releasing now a series of albums (PLAY ME is her third since 2019) in collaboration with Justin Raisen, a producer comfortable in the pop world as well as the more leftfield. Gordon’s delivery has always been more drawled than sung, and her fragile voice somehow suits these simple, bass heavy grooves to a tee. I don’t have much more to say: her social commentary is compact because she knows the words to say. Her style is both now and then, because she’s always been the Kool Thing after all.
BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Kuya Neil – Copy + Paste [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp]
BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Kuya Neil – Luzon Bleeding Heart (ft. Sevy) [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp]
You know this will be the shit, with Eora’s BAYANG mixing together his love of punk/metal with underground hip-hop, and Naarm’s Kuya Neil as usual throwing plenty of experimental club sounds from all over – bits of jungle, uk bass, baile funk, anything. Another CONTENT.NET.AU affiliate, Sevy, lends a verse to “Luzon Beating Heart”.
Grasps_ – Dream On [Grasps_ Bandcamp/Nina Protocol]
Christian Grasps_ might be known for his ambient & beat-based electronic productions, including credits with the likes of BAYANG (tha Bushranger), but you might also find him playing piano & singing, or on this new single, playing guitar and singing. There’s a nice bit of a surge in the middle that hints at mayhem that never quite arrives, but that’s by design. A touching little piece.
Travis Cook – unfinished symphony [Travis Cook Bandcamp]
It’s Travis Cook, on Kaurna land, still bringing a track per week to Bandcamp. Most of them are fragments, as unfinished as this one, but also fun, good production.
Laces – Doormen [NLV Records/Bandcamp]
Naarm musician Laces is touring UK & Europe with Ninjarachi, and has released his Oekno I EP to accompany them, released by Nina Las Vega’s NLV Records (also home to Ninjarachi). Laces shares with Ninjarachi meticulous electronic production, but this is far more abstract. It was presented to me as “ambient”, but that’s only half the story – there’s beautiful sound design, but also glitchy beats and glitched vox.
world’s end girlfriend & samayuzame – Sweet Suicide (Syndrome) [Virgin Babylon Records]
So, vocals aren’t usually a prominent part of the music of World’s End Girlfriend, the Japanese master of genre-mashing since the early ’00s. Not that they’re not present, but usually they’re serving the music, whether it’s bizarre electro-acoustic glitch, IDM, breakcore or more like psych-rock/postrock/breakbeat hybrids. Honestly World’s End Girlfriend has been one of Utility Fog’s biggest inspirations since the start, and his now long-lived label Virgin Babylon Records is consistently awesome whether it’s idoru-breakcore, glitch-punk or spoken word. Now, on the 3-track Helix of Frequency, Phenomenon of Love and Void EP he presents three songs with three guest vocalists. This is J-pop WEG style, glitchy, still somehow three genres in one track, and all very lovely.
Uriel’s Bath – Beautiful Hats [Hobbies Galore /Bandcamp]
The 1990s are big at the moment, and much though jungle is my #1 love, there’s something heartwarming about the kind of ambient techno that developed around the start of the decade, and hearing it echoed nowadays is a weird trip. The self-titled EP by Naarm duo Uriel’s Bath is just such a trip, made by Julia McFarlane and Thomas Kernot, a slightly abstracted continuation of the trip-hop-exotica of 2024’s Whoopee as J.MacFarlane’s Reality Guest (released in the UK by Glasgow indie label Night School). Melodic, electronic, mostly ambient with occasional beats. Sweet as.
The Leaf Library – The Reader’s Lamp [Fika Recordings/Bandcamp]
Listeners to this show will be aware of The Leaf Library, the London band/collective who make melodic, hypnotic dream-pop/space-rock, with side projects in all sorts of twistings of sound-art, electronica, noise, and folk. Their new album After The Rain, Strange Seeds is released by Fika Recordings, who released one such side project – the strange chamber folk of Mirrored Daughters – last year. While The Leaf Library’s last release was last year’s remix album Flowers at the Border (released on their own excellent label Objects Forever), this new album eschews studio trickery by and large, and is made up of more song-like structures than may be expected. There are also sumptuous strings on a number of tracks, including this one. Some of the best krautrock-indiepop you’ll find at the moment.
Xylitol – Bowed Clusters (with The Leaf Library) [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Xylitol – Sudwestwind [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Catherine Backhouse debuted on Planet µ under her Xylitol alias in 2024 with the frantic drill’n’bass of Anemones, very much in the vein of the Planet µ output from the ’00s, as much as the jungle and hardcore she was immersed in in her youth. As DJ Bunnyhausen she was resident DJ at a krautrock club night called Kosmische, and is also a specialist in electronic music & pop from the former Yugoslavia. Her follow-up album Blumenfantasie ups the ante with more sophisticated beats (still manic, don’t stress!) and influences from Sarajevo-born synthmeister Miaux as well as early industrial and yes, krautrock. And Planet µ feels like the perfect home for it – I hear a lot of label boss Mike Paradinas’ µ-Ziq in these tunes, no doubt because Mike was listening to a similar assortment of electronic pioneers as much as his own music directly influencing Backhouse.
Oh, and the abovementioned krautrock-influenced space-rockers The Leaf Library feature here – the brilliant “Bowed Clusters” is actually a remix of them which Matt from The Leaf Library gave me a listen to last year, and I’ve been wanting to play it to you ever since. I expected it to be on their Flowers at the Border remix album, but it’s awesome to hear it among the other genre-melted junglisms here.
Rutger Zuydervelt – Gas [Machinefabriek Bandcamp]
I’ve also been waiting to play something from the pair of releases just out from Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek). A lot of Rutger’s music, particularly released under his own name, is created for dance, theatre and sometimes TV work. His latest is a wonderful thing called Bodies of Water (music for a performance by Iván Pérez / Dance Theatre Heidelberg). The water theme is a great creative catalyst, especially as the work itself deals with the three main states of H2O – solid (ice), liquid (water) and gas (steam, but also water in suspension in air). As well as the soundtrack, there’s an outtakes EP Fog/Drops that highlights water as a power of nature – two 20-minute pieces that mix drone & sound-art with pulsating rhythm. Forces of nature also propel the music on the main album, with thundering sub-bass, sheets of white noise and, well, the drum machines and acidic synth that drive “Gas”. Out of an extremely prolific career of high quality, Rutger is doing some of his best work right now, and I highly recommend this duo of releases whether you need a starting point or a place to catch up.
hoyah חיה – talmuds (feat. Derya Yıldırım) [BRUK/Bandcamp]
hoyah חיה – sol [BRUK/Bandcamp]
Berlin-based musician Shmuel Hatchwell makes dope lo-fi hip-hop as Ehye אֶהְיֶה, and debuted his hoyah incarnation with the disorienting glitched sax samples of Set + Setting on Low End Activist’s BRUK label in 2024. Last year he released the 2-track single 808s n Trance Gates along with a website that interrogated the political circumstances in which he – an observant Jew who happens to be openly anti-Zionist in a time of genocide – found his original choice of artwork censored because it appropriated antisemitic imagery from the early-20th century. In the intervening time, not only has Germany’s suppression of speech about Palestine gotten worse, we in Australia – as well as activists in the UK, France, the US and elsewhere – have experienced an escalation in the suppression of speech critical of Israel, even when coming from Jews like Hatchwell or myself. Last year’s single appears on hoyah’s remarkable new album Can I Get A Chayah?, its flickering samples of Eastern European and Middle Eastern Jewish musics standing as a template for Hatchwell’s deep reimagining of Jewish music, religious practice and oft-warped history throughout the album. Here, the structures of hip-hop, UK club music and experimental electronic production are the conduit for the wide range of diasporic Jewish music fed into the stuttering shutters of Hatchwell’s sampler. The voice of the late David Berman of Silver Jews appears on the second track, a poignant mantra of doubt repeating “Adonai, I don’t know, I don’t know, Adonai” (“Adonai” roughly means “Lord”). Turkish singer Derya Yıldırım meanwhile reminds us of the long traditions of Jewish practice in the SWANA region. Works like this are an important part of imagining and bringing into being a strong panoply of Jewish identities that reject the fascistic, ahistorical tether to an apartheid, genocidal state that’s pushed by Israel and its erstwhile allies across the world.
datewithdeath – (aar) [Poverty Electronics]
While Travis D Johnson‘s music as datewithdeath has not come to an end, his Poverty Electronics label has closed up shop with two releases at the beginning of this year: the excellent remix/collaboration collection Culotte Sine and datewithdeath’s Apple Tree Brightness, a shining collection of glitchy electro-acoustics, abrasive drones and messed-up beats. Following a debilitating illness, Johnson – writer & folklorist as well as composer, improviser & producer – is concentrating on his boutique publishing house Frolic Press, which happens to come with an accompanying musical outlet, Frolic Press Recordings. Follow there for new noise & beauty, and like me you can catch up on Poverty Electronics on Bandcamp.
Skee Mask – Greensleeve Attack [Skee Mask/SCNTST Bandcamp]
The alphabetical compilations of unreleased Skee Mask music on the German producer’s Bandcamp have reached F – that’s almost 6 hours of music of 6 albums of 11 tracks each. While obviously unmastered, the music here often rivals the material often released on Ilian Tape, and offers an enjoyable, illuminating look into the musical practice of one of the most versatile producers of the last decade, across warbling ambient, IDM-tinged techno and soft-focus jungle.
Rob Clouth – Gummy Clusters [Mesh/Bandcamp]
No artist could be more suited to Max Cooper‘s Mesh label than Rob Clouth, so synchronised with Cooper’s are Clouth’s musical aesthetics and interests in the intersection between science and music (the two collaborated on an EP last year). Clouth’s second EP on Mesh for 2026 is Cicada – the sometimes deafening chittering sound of these insects is familiar to anyone living in Australia, but the cicada shimmer in the title track is quickly overtaken by 4/4 kicks. “Gummy Clusters”, on the other hand, is yummy syncopation and chopped vocal samples.
Untold – It’s Not My Fault but It Is My Problem [Hemlock Recordings/Bandcamp]
Jack Dunning founded Hemlock Recordings in 2008, following his debut 12″ on Hessle Audio as Untold. From the start his approach to dubstep was married with the 4/4 kicks of tech-house and the fidgetiness of electro; I appreciated it more than liked it, but Dunning has a keen musical sensibility and Untold never stayed still. So it’s nice to find him returning to his own label with HEK036 (catalogue number as title hey), out on April 10th. “It’s Not My Fault but It Is My Problem” wants to thump in 4/4 but trips over itself, syncopating into dancehall patterns while the synths snarl in cyberpunk. Just the kind of odd stuff you’d expect from Untold.
Whisker Floater – Overshoe 3 [Whisker Floater Bandcamp]
Scattered Order – Daisy and Lucy [Red Raw Bandcamp]
Nick Shimmin for many years hosted experimental music performances at The People’s Republic of Camperdown, and a year or two ago moved the republic to a converted church in Earlwood dubbed The Red House. The venue itself, beautifully setup with impeccable sound provided by Matt McGuigan, has run into licensing problems (which they are working on!), but many performances there have been recorded, giving one a kind of a chance at re-living the experience (and hearing some unique music). Sydney postpunk/post-industrial/experimental electronic legends Scattered Order performed there at least a couple of times, including a memorable tribute to founding member Michael Tee, who sadly passed away in 2024. Co-founder Mitch Jones and longtime fellow traveller Shane Fahey (a continuing member of SO since their 2009 reformation) made Continue in 2025, using material from Tee, and when they came to launch it at the Red House, they invited Sydney experimental mainstay Matthew Syres to join on treated guitar. That performance is documented on SO CONTINUES at the Red House. Fahey also collaborates with Mitch Jones’ wife Drusilla Johnson-Jones, a wonderful visual and musical artist who was also a member of SO for many years, under the cheeky name Whisker Floater, making complex, internally-interactive, beautifully weird electronic music.
more eaze – sentence structure in the country [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
When Mari Maurice Rubio first came up on my radar as more eaze, she was making luscious, glitchy electronic music on a compilation from Lillerne Tapes. Her 2018 album Conveyance took a similar approach – samples of classical & other music smeared & glitched into abstracted brushes of audio-painting. But Rubio is a great violinist and a brilliant string arranger, a great improviser and a great producer – for example, she co-produced the new album of her partner, the genius Wendy Eisenberg, and her string arrangements help make Eisenberg’s songs even more gorgeous. But a few weeks before Eisenberg’s album is released, Rubio’s own latest solo album is out on Thrill Jockey, which by the way is the perfect home for it. In their different ways, both albums are homages to what the two have found as a couple, although their duo whait is going to give us more of a picture of what they can do when neither is leading (Sydney’s Andrew Khedoori is giving them a place to explore this as part of his Residence label/project). So sentence structure in the country is a very more eaze kind of thing, and when Eisenberg appears (on electric guitar here on the title track), it’s in service to that vision – as with the other guests, including Alice Gerlach aka alice does computer music. What a “more eaze kind of thing” is is everything all at once – folk & country-infused acoustic arrangements, harsh glitch-edits, vocoded vocals, lilting melodies. It makes as much and as little sense as the words “sentence structure in the country” do, and that’s great – who needs music to make sense? Not me.
Jessica Roch – Par [Across The Horizon/Bandcamp]
US label Northern Spy has for a few years now run an interesting program called Across The Horizon, co-founded with musician & podcaster Bob Holmes (SUSS, Ambient Country Podcast). Each year when the series is running, 8 musicians curate a wedge of new music, each of them commissioning 2 other artists along with themselves. So each release features three new tracks, which fit broadly into merged genres such as Holmes’ “ambient country”, as well as perhaps ambient classical, ambient folk, ambient jazz… Each new drop is initially subscriber-only, so the latest now-public selection was curated by LA musician & artist Cynthia Bernard aka marine eyes. Alongside her own work is the underwater exotica of Lauren Helene Green and a piece from London musician Jessica Roch, whose track initially sounds like a familiar kind of piano-ambient (albeit beginning in reverse), but almost immediately the simple piano refrain blossoms outward with electronic filligree, and multi-tracked violins hint at expanded harmonisations. In between phrases, the piano glitches and stutters, and warps with tape delay. The piece’s juxtaposition of hesitancy and romanticism, acoustic instruments and electronics, instinctively expresses the jostle of emotions as-yet unprocessed in the hours after Roche’s father’s funeral. It’s deeply touching.