We have experimental songs tonight, underground hip-hop & grime, and quite a lot of jungle & drum’n’bass mixed up with more experimental electronics & noise, sound-art meets contemporary classical, music for Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Congo, and more!
Aphir – Photokeratitis [Bird’s Robe Records/Bandcamp]
Naarm’s Becki Whitton is many things: having been a guiding force behind sort-of record label Provenance Collective and mastermind of alternative top 100 for leftfield Australian music, The Wettest 100, professionally she’s a talented sound engineer, mixing & mastering many local pop & indie legends; and of course above all she’s a wonderful songwriter, producer, singer & improviser under the name Aphir. It’s been some time since the last Aphir album of songs with beats & stuff – for some time she’s been creating incredible ambient choral works with live looping & processing, some of which was released on The Halo is Shapeless in 2023. That album was released on Art As Catharsis – a very eclectic label, but best known for postrock & metal. Now Aphir’s new album Avarena is coming in September, and another Eora/Sydney postrock powerhouse, Bird’s Robe Records, is releasing it. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing it already, and it’s full of the kind of experimental electronic pop songs we’ve come to expect from Becki Whitton.
Brian Ennals & Blockhead – Let it Burn (like Usher) [Phantom Limb/Bandcamp]
Last time I had the pleasure of playing Baltimore rapper Brian Ennals, it was as part of a frankly astonishing opus in collaboration with Infinity Knives last year called A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears, mixing hip-hop with guitars’ acoustic strums & electric riffs, and a male gospel choir. NYC producer Blockhead is known – apart from the endless memes on his Instagram – for his extensive production work with Aesop Rock and more recently billy woods, two genius figures in rap – plus scads of solo work. Ennals more than easily stands in those shoes on *ahem* Boatshoes, the first single of which takes in in jazz loops and weird synths, with often-melodic rapping from Ennals. Keep an eye on this album, due out on July 17th.
Basic Rhythm & NyNy – Vibez [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
Basic Rhythm – No Future [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
Anthoney Hart’s Basic Rhythm is generally his take on drum’n’bass, albeit always a little off-centre, rhythms shifted in some way. But his latest for the great bass label Sneaker Social Club is titled 8 Bar Techno. So is it techno? Well… kinda? It definitely starts that way, the title track sporting gun reloads & shots accenting its 4/4 thump. It’s definitely bass music though, and half of it I would suggest is grime – a highlight is NyNy‘s collaboration, “Vibez”, with more of those gun cocks. And then “No Future” has the 4/4 pulse and techno tempo, and that syncopated bassline… With Eklipse the mix empties out for a dubstep/grime feel, and sword slices replacing the guns. Only when the album closes on “Ice Cold” do we get hints at drum’n’bass, and even then what it really is a kind of grime-techno-electro stomp. Excellent.
Sourdure – Le Pebre (feat. Lisà Langlois) [Murailles Music/Bandcamp]
Ernest Bergez, of experimental electronic duo Kaumwald and various bands in various genres, continues his Sourdure project this year with a new album, Outredore, coming in September. With Sourdure, arcane pagan themes are modernised with electronic processing and synths, with lyrics in the Auvergnat dialect of the regional French language Occitan – which is closer to Catalan than French, and was the traditional language of many troubadors in ages past. As much as it draws on the folk music of central France, there are Arabic melodies flowing through these songs, and electronic pulses and tones. The first single features additional vocals from Lisà Langlois of the band Bòsc and collective La Crue, based also in the Massif Central of France.
Jesse Draxler – Traap Number 9 ft. Lord Spikeheart & Hybrid Intuition [RIP ID]
LA-based visual artist, filmmaker & musician Jesse Draxler released the first single from his upcoming album/project Tongue of Angels a few weeks ago, featuring hardcore punk/hip-hop duo Ho99o9. Here’s the second one now, with two big names from the Kenyan underground: Martin Kanja aka Lord Spikeheart, who works with heavy electronics and was half of grindcore band Duma, and guitarist/producer/futurist Hybrid Intuition. Draxler is primarily a visual artist as far as I know, but whether this is his music or more curation, it’s good stuff!
Artilect – Flames (Featuring Miss Ria) [Weaponist/Bandcamp]
One of the most consistently exciting drum’n’bass/jungle producers of the last while is Dylan Blythin aka Artilect, who’s often been associated with the Samurai folks but has always tended to have a junglist’s sense of rhythmic complexity shot through the d’n’b cyberpunk battering ram. And that neon, rain-soaked darkness is present on Reptile, his latest EP on Homemade Weapons‘ Weaponist label – to my ears there’s a lot of Dom & Roland here (high praise).
dgoHn – Waiting For [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Here are two tastes that sure go well together – the first release by drumfunk genius dgoHn (aka John Cunnane) on Planet µ! Tessares really is vintage dgoHn, with the melodic focus of label boss µ-Ziq – and dgoHn did have an album with Macc on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label (digital available here), so IDM isn’t exactly foreign to his style of drum’n’bass. But the beats are impeccable & inventive too, of course. Highly recommended.
Mantra, Decibella & Tim Reaper – Force 32 [RuptureLDN/Bandcamp]
Force 32 is the third collaboration between three huge forces for the jungle revival in the UK: (DJ) Mantra, who co-founded RuptureLDN with her husband Double O, as club nights and a label (who released this EP); Decibella, herself a busy jungle & drum’n’bass DJ, and Ed Alloh aka Tim Reaper, the hardest working guy in jungle, albeit now on a break from his collaborative releases on Future Retro London. The previous installments can be found on Tim Reaper’s label and on FABRICLIVE, and this may be the best of the lot – just really good jungle as it should be done.
Shhau – Bedrock [SFX/Bandcamp]
Fresh on Zoë Mc Pherson‘s SFX is an album from Armenian musician & bass music producer Shhau. This is music that moves comfortably between bass music genres and tribal, percussive techno – as such it would be perfectly suited to the YUKU label, but very much fits with Mc Pherson’s aesthetic too. I love the way this is a really solid drum’n’bass tune until it pummels its way into something more techno-y.
Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – Iron Age Fantasies [Bios Contrast Bandcamp/Universal Broadcast]
Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das, Seraphim, Susu Laroche, BROOD – Escape [Bios Contrast Bandcamp/Universal Broadcast]
Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das is the usual way that Nilotpal Das refers to his music-making, although there are many more variations! He’s an incredibly prolific producer, with new tracks going up on Bandcamp more than weekly – and there’s Bios Contrast and Brahmancore at least to follow. These two tracks are from an honest-to-goodness album that’s even released in a limited CD edition from US distributor Universal Broadcast (with impossibly expensive shipping, natch). Sounds from the S.P.E.A.K.E.R System also extends Das’s love of collaboration, with a whole host of artist joining in. On the second track here we have vocals from French-Egyptian cross-media artist Susu Laroche, and additional production from Seraphim and BROOD. We’re talking crazy glitchy beats, sometimes edging into breakcore or speedcore territory. Brahmancore.
KK NULL – Quantum Pulsation X_000005 [KK Null Bandcamp]
Kazuyuki Kishino, usually known as KK NULL or Null, is one of the most recognized, long-lasting noise & experimental musicians in Japan. Since the early 1980s he’s made noise rock, hardcore punk and industrial, and collaborated with scads of artists from across the spectrum, but for decades as well he’s made mind-melting electronic music. Even if there are elements of dub, techno or other genres, his music remains sui generis. On his Bandcamp you’ll find a host of different series, albums grouped around particular concepts, this particular recent one being Quantum Pulsation X – and it’s not actually the tenth Quantum Pulsation, but rather an extended riff on an earlier work I guess. The complexity of rhythm and noise reflects the complexity of thought that Null puts into everything he does. A fascinating assault on the senses.
Architectural – Psychedelic Dancefloor Visions [Delsin Records/Bandcamp]
Better known as Reeko, Spain’s Juan Rico has made thumping minimal techno for many years, and in the last few years branched out into drum’n’bass and 170BPM beats, mainly for Samurai Music. His long-established Architectural alias turned up a couple of years back on R&S Records, and has continued as an outlet for the lighter stuff. Here we have some blissfully head-noddy deep techno.
Kirk Barley – Ecstatic [Marionette/Bandcamp]
We’ve heard Kirk Barley a lot on this show under his own name and as the Church Andrews half of Church Andrews & Matt Davies. In that pairing, Barley’s sinuous yet precise modular synthesis interacts with Davies’ complex (and precise!) drumming patterns, and it’s interesting hearing on forthcoming album Arc that Barley’s solo synth work retains a lot of that rhythmic quirkiness – although to be fair, Matt Davies appears on a number of tracks, including this one. The oddly-tuned synths and hard-to-pin-down rhythms make for a beautifully strange listening experience.
dprk – Blutsuppe [Studio Fabrik/Bandcamp]
dprk – Aksak-Turm [Studio Fabrik/Bandcamp]
I continue to appreciate the super-weird work of Eora/Sydney experimental trio dprk, made up of Richard Fielding (Loop Orchestra, early Severed Heads), Nick Dan (of noise obscurists xNoBBQx) and Juke Wyat (also recently of Loop Orchestra). Gnomes of Zürich is their ostensibly krautrock excursion, although a lot of the aesthetics of that loose genre have inhabited their mix of psych, noise and synth oddness. The two short vignettes here have a strange affinity with the more de-genred aspects of Mike Paradinas’ µ-Ziq and his one-off collaboration with Jochen Paap aka Speedy J, Slag Boom Van Loon.
Lord Tusk – Opposites Attract [do you have peace?/Bandcamp]
Dawuna – Anything [do you have peace?/Bandcamp]
From do you have peace?, the label run by Bristol minimalist bass/trip-hop mavericks Jabu, a highly recommended compilation raising money for on-the-ground organisations in Lebanon, Congo, Palestine, Iran & Sudan. And this is a seriously stacked compilation, ranging from the more ambient side of this scene’s productions to the dub-influenced weirdness of, for instance, Lord Tusk and the minimalist, obscured r’n’b digi-funk of Ian Mugerwa’s Dawuna, who I loved in his early incarnation as Ot to, not to.
Helen Svoboda – If [Room40/Bandcamp]
Helen Svoboda – Evening Hepuli (feat. Selma Savolainen) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Naarm-based Finnish-Australian double bassist is an artist who truly defies categorisation, as you may have noted if you’ve been listening to this show for a while. Adept as a jazz double-bassist, she has also developed many extended techniques on her instrument, and is a master at the melodic use of stopped harmonics (heard in last year’s debut from the TL;DR quartet and 2024’s Anatomical Heart collaboration). Svoboda’s last solo album, 2023’s The Odd River, is a collection of assorted songs, on which Svoboda is joined by many brilliant Australian jazz players, but the music covers folk and classical – and in fact the album is one part of a film work Svoboda made with Angus Kirby (I’m not sure there’s any way to watch it online though). Now the follow-up, Headwater, has been released by the great Room40, showcasing songs & compositions mostly created from Svoboda’s double bass & voice, and co-produced by Tilman Robinson, whose electronics also wrap around many of the works. There are a few collaborators, and notably the voice of acclaimed Finnish singer Selma Savolainen can be found throughout. It’s a stunner.
Kalia Vandever – Tough Play [International Anthem/Bandcamp]
New York-based trombonist Kalia Vandever plays an instrument that’s a little unusual in jazz as a lead instrument, but is also a talented ensemble player and a great composer & songwriter. Their last solo album, last year’s Another View, was made with a guitar/bass/drums backing band featuring the brilliant Mary Halvorson, but follow-up Mana is entirely performed by themself. There are electronic textures blending with the sound of multi-tracked trombones, and there are also songs, bearing the influence of Vandever’s Hawaiian heritage. There’s something homely about “Tough Play”, with simple piano chords, trombone lurking underneath and Vandever’s clear voice. Just beautiful.
Mara – Air Leak feat. Benjamin Woods [Pure Space/Bandcamp]
fbi.radio broadcaster, curator, violist, composer, sound-artist Mara Schwerdtfeger returns to the also-fbi-affiliated Pure Space with a two track release. At the time of broadcast the first track was available, based around the single note playable on her great-grandfather’s flute, with additional flautation from Naarm’s Benjamin Woods. The very breathy tones are warming but slightly unsettling, joined at intervals by sub bass pings.
Seabuckthorn – Mumbo Jumbo [Lost Tribe Sound/Bandcamp]
When we first heard Andy Cartwright’s Seabuckthorn, the project was a showcase for his incredible fingerstyle guitar picking, a brilliant take on American Primitive from an artist based in the UK. There were hints even then of other tendencies bubbling under – shoegazey bowed guitars, field recordings. In the meantime, both under his own name and as Seabuckthorn, Cartwright has taken his art in many different directions, including sound-collage and electronic elements. On this track, we have an arrhythmic collage of percussive sounds which eventually coalesces into a cyclic rhythm, with string drones and a few select notes from Phil Cassel’s double bass (he’s one of two guests on the album, along with Lost Tribe Sound regular William Ryan Fritch).
Ben Shemie – I See You Too [Beacon Sound/Bandcamp]
Bint Mbareh – one’s own third harmonic on a rusted sewage pipe [Beacon Sound/Bandcamp]
Following January’s brilliant compilation Gaza Is The Moral Compass (and it still is), Portland, OR label Beacon Sound offer Flowers Not Bombs, once again featuring artists associated with Montréal’s Constellation label such as cellist Rebecca Foon, Ben Shemie of SUUNS, as well as Lost Tribe Sound’s William Ryan Fritch, cellist/sound-artist Nick Storring, International Anthem & WeJazz-associated percussionist Booker Stardrum – plus Lebanese composer Youmna Saba, Palestinian sound-artist Bint Mbareh, Iranian composer & sound-artist Rouzbeh Shadpey and many more. Shemie’s piece features his high, vocoded voice with beautifully orchestrated strings, while Mbareh’s echoey piano gradually succumbs to sound manipulation, stretching and reversing until its brief piano coda.
All profits of this beautiful compilation go to two very worthy on-the-ground organisations: Arab Group for the Protection of Nature and Palestinian Teacher Creativity Center.
Félicia Atkinson – Les Yeux IV [VIERNULVIER Records/Bandcamp]
Félicia Atkinson – Sans Visage V [VIERNULVIER Records/Bandcamp]
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. Having discovered the excellent Antwerp-based musician Youniss through the label earlier this year, I was pleased to see a familiar name in Félicia Atkinson appearing on the label. This album, Sans Visage, was a commissioned by VIERNULVIER for their Videodroom series. It’s spooky music, not particularly redolent of evil but very atmospheric, and simply as sound-art, the maniupated piano and guitar, the organ and voicelike drones and the quite avant-garde harmonies are beautiful, and evoke a soundtrack from years ago, glitchily transmitted from a long-lost archive.