Some lovely dark electronics tonight in various contexts – pop/grime/hip-hop, jazz-funk-metal, folk influences, electro-acoustic techno, bass music galore, and also some live instruments somewhere in there.
Dis Fig – The Account ft. the wind between [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Felicia Chen aka Dis Fig's debut album Purge was released on PTP in 2019, merging her jazz- & opera-trained vocals with industrial & noise influences as well as electronic music. Then in 2020, her collaboration In Blue with The Bug brought her voice into a caustic miasmah of "narco-dancehall", but it was the incredible Orchards of a Futile Heaven with serial collaborators the body that brought not just her vocals but her composition, musicianship & production to wider attention. That album also brought her to the attention of Thrill Jockey, longtime home of The Body, and thus her forthcoming album What To Make Of These Mortal Hands is being ushered into the world from that venerable label. All signs point to this being one of the albums of the year – her anguished but also highly versatile vocals, her melding of bass musics with industrial, classical, jazz and metal influences… Various colleagues appear on select tracks, including The Body's Lee Buford and My Disco's Liam Andrews, and on "The Account", the wind between aka Eldon Somers lends spoken word/rapping.
Kwes Darko – War in these sTreets [Black Acre/Bandcamp]
UK producer/vocalist/musician Kwes Darko (now New York-based) made a bunch of 12"s & albums as Blue Daisy that circled the post-dubstep bass music styles of the late '00s and 2010s, but easily veered into softer r'n'b or harder grunge or industrial stylings. For a long time now he's been producing other artists (including e.g. John Glacier, Isaiah Hull), but 2026 has seen a new EP, a mixtape and now a short album (or is it a long EP?), A CancelXed Generation. In keeping with latter-day Blue Daisy, this is incredibly intense, saturated/clipped bass music with field recordings & newscasts along with Kwes' heavily distorted voice. That's to say: fucking ace.
Nueen – Turbocap Is Sure To Disintegrate [3XL/Bandcamp]
Nueen – Impls (feat. RenzNiro) [3XL/Bandcamp]
Argentinian-Spanish producer Nacho Pezzati aka Nueen released an incredible collaboration with UK vocalist Iceboy Violet in 2024 via Hyperdub. Swerved is his new album back on 3XL, a solo album but packed with guest spots from the likes of Space Afrika, Dawuna, Loraine James, Xzavier Stone and Manchester rapper RenzNiro. In keeping with the 3XL aesthetic, there's a lot of vapoury sound design as much as decisive beats. An intriguing sonic environment.
Nu Jazz – Who Do You Work For [Orange Milk/Bandcamp]
What the fuck is this? Whatever you think Nu Jazz might sound like, you're probably wrong. It's not NOT jazz, but it's also hardcore punk, weirdo ambient metal, twisted electronics… Un Jazz is about right. Whenever it threatens to be jazz, the howls of Dan Orlowski (also of (digital) hardcore punk duo Deli Girls) remind us we're not in that kind of club anymore… Not that any particular genre lasts very long. Meaty basslines, fusion keyboards & guitars, nimble drumming, then it all switches up into doom riffage. Love it.
Madelaine Vallin – Spruce (Song of Balance) [self-released digitally or as a package here]
Based in Naarm, Madelaine Vallin is a psychotherapist who's dug deep into her Nordic ancestry in relation both to her day job and also her music. Her JORDIC series integrates biofeedback recordings from trees, gathered in Sweden, with her songs, with layers of vocals and heavy percussion that invoke the majesty of those snow-covered forests.
Marina Herlop – Vas volant ft Adri Goor [Marina Herlop Bandcamp]
Next up is the second single from Catalan composer, pianist, singer & producer Marina Herlop's third album Dja Dja, her first to be self-released (distributed by Barcelona label Lapsus & !K7, so the gorgeous-looking vinyl & CDs should be readily available). This is absolutely in keeping with Herlop's style, synthesizing Spanish folk and other traditional styles, classical composition and experimental electronica. The track features Adri Goor, a pianist & producer who Herlop describes as her "co-pilot" on this album.
Hanna Tuulikki and Tommy Perman – Hear and Follow (Bechstein’s Bat) (Radio Edit) [Kin-Tu/Bandcamp]
UK producer Tommy Perman here teams up with Finnish singer Hanna Tuulikki with a selection of songs – appropriately title Echo In The Dark which are based on recordings of different bat species. Incredibly the only sound-sources are bats' echolocation calls and Tuulikki's voice. The rhythms of those calls mutate into club-ready songs, with pitch-shifted versions providing basslines and pads, alongside more delicate pieces. Fascinating and fun.
Sebaas x Nicoba – SMOKE TWO [Due on sebaas_waveform in late Sept]
Here's another early listen to something from Amsterdam's Sebaas, this time collaborating with Nicoba, also from Amsterdam, on two slabs of heavy bass music and mutated vocals. Some of the best dancefloor-focused bass music coming out at the moment.
How Du – C Gate [Pressure Dome]
Metal Will Reign is Bristol producer How Du's debut on Pressure Dome, the label run by Yushh (a recent visitor to these shores). Here How Du pairs the very zeitgeisty dub techno with more jittery, soundsystemy bass music. You won't hear any thrash though, despite the title.
Conundrum – Thinking Emoji 2 [Fiesta Soundsystem Bandcamp]
DJ Aimbot – track 41 [Fiesta Soundsystem Bandcamp]
When is a compilation not a compilation? When it references postmodern literature perhaps. If on a Winter's Night… a Junglist was released by Fiesta Soundsytem under the conceit that Fiesta is hosting a compilation of tunes from a "secretive enclave of hardcore junglists", hailing from Tlön Uqbar – which just happens to be a fabled place chronicled by the great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges in one of his faux-scholarly stories, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in 1940. An author of a similarly post-modernist bent, Italo Calvino, lends the title to the album from his novel of nested meta-stories called "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller". So yes, of course, all these artist are in fact Fiesta Soundsystem, whose fans are well aware that he is a jungle, breakcore & IDM freak of the highest order – and that's what you get here, with intensely complex beat programming across a crazy range of moods and instrumentation. Pure genius, essential for the junglists among us.
Opius – Isolated Space [Pinecone Moonshine/Bandcamp]
Vinnie J. Smith's output as Opius goes back to a series of drum'n'bass 12"s in 2004-2005, but he's picked up steam a lot in the last 6-7 years, more on a drumfunk tip. Nic TVG's Pinecone Moonshine is the spiritual home for drumfunk really, a subgenre of jungle & drum'n'bass that concentrates on complex, funky drumbreak edits that retain the spirit of live drums from jazz, funk & soul (and elsewhere). But Opius is not constrained by subgenre, so "Isolated Space" somehow encapsulates explosive jungle, dark drum'n'bass and clattering drumfunk all in one place.
Accelera Deck – Stormslide [Accelera Deck Bandcamp]
It's still a bit disorienting that Chris Jeely's shoegaze-IDM project Accelera Deck is back in operation. The main period was about 1998-2006, in which he released myriad EPs and albums on underground labels and built up a reputation for lo-fi experimental beats & textures. New track Stormslide comes, as much of his stuff, with a more dubbed-out version, but the track is very much jangly indie/shogaze/postpunk guitars and a rattling jungle drumbreak. I love the Version but it's twice as long!
Realm of Dusk – Endless Clutter, Infinite Joy [Blasted Gorse]
Realm of Dusk – Astral Vomit [Blasted Gorse]
A couple of years ago I was sad to play the last release from connect_icut, the long-running glitch/sound-art/experimental/postrock project from Samuel Macklin. A large amount of connect_icut's music can be found on the CSAF Bandcamp. It turns out that Mars Maps Waterloo Moon was just the last connect_icut album, as Macklin has now come out with the first album (confusingly titled III) from his new project Realm of Dusk. The music here is deeply evocative, despite each of the 12 tracks clocking in at exactly 3 minutes. Fizzling glitch, deep sub pings, modulated beats, electro-acoustic loops. Lovely to have you back, Sam.
Robbie Avenaim – Tell Me Everything (excerpt) [Heavy Machinery Records/Bandcamp]
For a considerable number of years now, Naarm/Melbourne record label Heavy Machinery Records has been releasing music commissioned from artist to collaborate with Melbourne's Federation Bells, a mechanical sculpture of upturned bells of various sizes located in Birrarung Marr, the park to the south-east of Federation Square , on the Yarra River. And who better than Robbie Avenaim to do so? Through the mid 1990s to mid 2000s, Robbie directed the seminal, incredibly important What Is Music? Festival with longtime collaborator Oren Ambarchi. Robbie's own career has spanned early noise and punk through to free jazz & ambient, but his now well-established artistic practice for the last 20 years(!) is based around "SARPS" aka Semi-Automated Robotic Percussion System. So on Shine Caught Blue, his semi-automated robots interact with his own drums & percussion and the MIDI-programmed Federation Bells, creating something of predominantly incredible delicacy punctuated by concentrated intensity. Remarkable work.
Kirk Barley – Sundry [Marionette/Bandcamp]
Accidentally, I'm playing London musician & modular synthesist Kirk Barley next – a musician who's often worked at the intersection of automation and percussion, with frequent collaborator Matt Davies on drums as Church Andrews & Matt Davies. Arc is a solo album, and his first for the Marionette label, but a number of the tracks still feature Davies' percussion, intertwining with the microtonally-tuned synth tones and uneven rhythms. Always beautiful and otherworldly.
Aidan Baker – Dream Song I [Frolic Press/Bandcamp]
Aidan Baker – The Figure Waits [Frolic Press/Bandcamp]
This is a little bit special. Not only because it's a new solo Aidan Baker release – Berlin-based Canadian guitarist of doom metal/shoegaze duo Nadja fame – but this one is the accompanying "soundtrack", so to speak, of a novel by Baker of the same name – Songs of Waking Weather. But honestly Aidan's music is always wonderful, whether it's noise/drone, weird glitched guitar loops, or more pensive slowcore. Mostly the sounds here are delicately processed acoustic guitar, bass and sparse drumkit, but there's also piano and electric piano, dulcimer and vibraphone, field recordings and those lovely subtle studio détournements. It seems to suit the fragmentary narrative he describes on the Bandcamp page. In all his solo works, Nadja releases and many collaborations, Aidan Baker is incredibly prolific, such that even I can't keep up with everything, but he's nevertheless really consistent, so if you like his vibe you'll never really go wrong diving in. This one is particularly lovely though.
Mannequin Pants'd – Cyan and Gold [Burnt Seed Records/Bandcamp]
So, Mannequin Pants'd eh? Joke name, huh? Called their album misophonia exposure therapy you say? That sounds… unpleasant, as a sufferer of misophonia. So why's it so damn good then? Well, the half-face on Bandcamp's a clue that this is the irrepressible genius behind many experimental acts over the last couple of decades, possibly not best known as A Demon Sheen/A DMN SHN. So when the slightly creepy vocal ejaculations are injected with vicious digital vinyl scratches and varispeed weirdness, you know you're in for a ride. But somehow by "Cyan and Gold" we're listening to a beautiful garden of tuned percussion and rumbling loops, like a slowed-down gamelan… Bewildering in the best way.
Rabbitsss – Adrift [Clan Analogue/Bandcamp
Adrift is a 3-track EP recently released by venerable Australian electronic label Clan Analogue from cross-continental duo Rabbitsss, made up of Ballarat's Rae Howell, better known as post-classical composer/director of the Sunwrae Ensemble, and New York's Jon Cohrs, technologist and multimedia artist. It's 3 tracks of experimental electro-acoustics taking in minimalist composition, electronica and Tortoise-style postrock. Their album Penguins, released a mere 12 years ago, took a similar approach and is absolutely lovely too.
Sophie Gordon – GSM (Version) [Sophie Gordon Bandcamp]
Finishing with a typically minimalist, moody piece of dub techno from Sophie Gordon, who has played many roles at fbi.radio and has sat in for me on this show a number of times too. Her music is centred on sub bass, texture and extreme restraint. I particularly like the Version of "GSM" which plays more with dub effects throughout.