As I was putting this show together, it felt like it was leaning heavily into bass & beats – and it is, to an extent, but it also has highly ethereal sounds, acoustic doom and acoustic prettiness, post-jazz forms and post-classical hyperpop(?) And lots of music from albums that are yet to be released.
Darian Donovan Thomas – Ugly Betty [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus in late August we’ll have A Room With Many Doors: Day. With its autotuned vocals, tricksy 5/4 time violin loops and skittery live drums, the first single “Ugly Betty” is still very much rooted in hyperpop and classical.
Johnny Richards & Dave King – Sleepless In Settle [False Door Records]
The Bad Plus (especially when they were a piano trio) are one of the great crossover-jazz ensembles of the last few decades, known for their surprising covers (Aphex Twin, Pixies, Stravinsky etc) and their brilliant original material too. And if you know that Aphex Twin cover, you’ll know that Dave King is a machine of a drummer when he needs to be, as well as a sensitive ensemble member. Leeds, UK pianist Johnny Richards is a member of the Ethio-jazz-inspired Sorcerers and the virtuosic, surreal improv troupe Shatner’s Bassoon. Their forthcoming duo album The New Awkward was created remotely, started during COVID lockdown, but there’s no sign of that in the alchemical creations from the pair. Richards uses the piano like a percussion instrument, with layers of prepared piano and straight piano in conversation with King’s busy percussion. In keeping with Utility Fog’s longtime interest in music between the genres, Richards’ metal preparations recall Javanese gamelan, while the compositions draw from the counterpoint of J.S. Bach – elsewhere there are inspirations from Mr Bungle and Frank Zappa, 20th century composers like Hindemith and Schoenberg, early Robert Wyatt and more. I’ll play some more of this as the release date approaches.
Blurt – Mecanno Giraffe [All City Records/Bandcamp]
There’s no band quite like Blurt, the post-punk/free jazz group fronted since 1980 by Ted Milton, who alternates between largely spoken vocals and sputtering, yelping saxophone. And that’s usually it, but it doesn’t fully describe the jagged punk energy, nor Milton’s very working class British delivery, nor his surreal yet political poetry. The flipside of this 7″ is 18 minutes of Milton’s poetry, just spoken word with no music. As for the music, here are some other genres that have been used to describe it: psycho-funk, afro-punk, fake no-wave, pogo-jazz. Yeah.
James Massiah meets Lord Tusk – Might Be The One [Accidental Meetings/Bandcamp]
This one track and its dub are the sequel to last year’s “Open Up“, an equally-intoxicating dub mantra invoked by London poet & musician James Massiah over a killer minimal dub-house steppa from Lord Tusk. I was lucky enough to see them together at Cafe OTO in London at a night curated by Accidental Meetings back in May, and they have the wonderful chemistry of blokes who’ve worked & created together in various forms for many years.
Richie Culver – Chase Money [SUPERNATURE/Bandcamp]
Having already released one of the albums of the year with Rainy Miller‘s Joseph, What Have You Done?, SUPERNATURE now ready another bloinder from Miller & Blackhaine collaborator, poet and conceptual artist Richie Culver. In fact, somewhat confusingly, this album also follows Miller’s as the 12th release on his own Fixed Abode label although they don’t inhabit its Bandcamp as yet. I Trust Pain follows the path of the aforementioned Blackhaine and Miller into cold and harsh, dark UK drill – a genre that’s hard to pin down to a particular sound, except that it nods at UK bass music and is tightly restrained. Hearing Culver’s poetry spoken in more familiar rap phrasing is a revelation, even if half of it’s gutteral or shrieked. A bleak first single, and I trust the rest will be just the kind of northern desolation we’re looking for.
Mumdance – Ping Devil Meme [Different Circles/Bandcamp]
Back in 2014(!), UK bass producers Mumdance and Logos founded the Different Circles, with their first 12″, Weightless Vol. 1 also coining a new genre. “Weightless” is a vibe, but it’s one you can clearly recognize, combining grime and sound-art, somehow inverting bass music… Now they’re preparing the label compilation Ping Volume One, which brings with it a new genre again. What’s Ping? You’ll know it when you hear it, but it’s the focal point that can be found in Weightless music where a single percussion hit (or synth ping) – not a kick drum – embodies the music’s rhythmic centre. This seems to me to extend from the real innovation of dubstep and grime, which turned the assumptions of jungle-drum’n’bass-uk garage on their head: rather than the beats impelling the music forward, garlanded by the basslines, it was the bass itself that held the rhythmic impetus. The beats were often able to syncopate and rubato out of their expected subdivisions – so theoretically, here those errant beats take centre-stage. That said, the two preview tracks, by the label’s two founders, do not eschew rhythmic driving beats or basslines, so I’m keen to discover what it is that holds all these tracks together.
Shapednoise – Oblivion Step [Weight Looming]
When the last Shapednoise album came out, I pointed out that Nino Pedone has one foot in the noise realm, with releases on Prurient’s Hospital Productions among others, and one foot in the bass world, collaborating with Mumdance & Logos on the cyberpunk project The Sprawl. That was Absurd Matter, an ambitious set with many guest vocals, set to massively overdriven beats & bass, and electronic walls of noise (and sometimes melody). Out on September 17th, Absurd Matter 2 is the sequel you’d expect, with both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother returning as guests. But it’s not all guest spots: as you might expect from a track called “Oblivion Step”, this second single is a cool shuffling breakbeat piece – just sheathed in pummeling distortion.
Muskila – YARAO [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Here’s a new single announcing an album from young YUKU artist Muskila, a Copenhagen-based artist with roots in North Kurdistan. It’s percussive bass music with a beautifully open sound stage, bumping bassline and vocal snatches. Very YUKU, and you know that’s the shit.
Sicaria – Rhassoul [Tectonic Recordings/Bandcamp]
V.I.V.E.K – Gone W3st [Tectonic Recordings/Bandcamp]
When Rob Ellis, aka (DJ) Pinch, founded Tectonic Recordings in 2005, he cemented Bristol as the second home of dubstep after South London. As well as release some of the most classic early dubstep tunes, Tectonic released a series of iconic compilations, beginning with Tectonic Plates Vol. 1 in 2006. More than anything, it’s the callback to these great compilations that made me excited to discover that Pinch is revitalising the label with the 2CD (and 6 vinyl boxset) Tectonic Sound. The label boss opens the proceedings with the album’s title track, which shudders between OG dubstep minimalism and vocal snaps & busy percussion. Across the compilation there’s a whole spectrum of 140bpm, from the rolling percussive house (yet still dubstep) on dubstep mainstay V.I.V.E.K‘s “Gone W3st” to the percussive dubstep from London-based Moroccan DJ Sicaria, a rising bass music star. Elsewhere there’s eerie electro-acoustic minimalism from Flora Yin Wong (which also manages to still be dubstep), the distorted crunch of dubstep legend Distance, and the methodical dubstep-dub from Bristol legend Rob Smith aka RSD. If you have any interest in 140bpm bass music, this is essential listening.
Slikback – Knot [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Slikback – Spend [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Back in May, the day I arrived in London I was able to attend the Planet µ 30th celebration at Corsica Studios. The last act I saw before my body gave out (something like 5am) was the brilliant Slikback, playing his set with a lot of live input. I was super pleased to find out that Planet µ had signed Slikback, and in a recent Wire interview, Slikback talks about the creative guidance Mike Paradinas gave him (something I’ve heard from a number of Planet µ artists). It’s not that Attrition is wildly different from what we’ve been hearing from Slikback over the last 5+ years, but here his talent for sound design and intricate beats is fashioned into an album, with some callbacks between tracks and room for in-between spaces. Just what you’d want from Slikback on Planet µ.
Alienationist – Ghosts in the Grid [Alienationist Bandcamp]
Your Data Is Funnier Than You: Fragments is the new EP from Berlin-based producer Alienationist, following on from May’s Your Data Is Funnier Than You: Echoes. On both you’ll find agitated, mashed jungle breaks nestling with electro drum machines, and unsettled ambient sound design, evoking the contradictions of our hyper-connected present.
DJ Haram – Stenography ft. Armand Hammer [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
DJ Haram – Distress Tolerance [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
It’s kind of weird to be told that Beside Myself is DJ Haram‘s debut album, given how important she’s been in the US experimental beats/hip-hop scene for the last 10 years. Notably, she released the incredible Nothing To Declare with Moor Mother as 700 Bliss in 2022, and it was much-awaited by the time it came out. As a producer, the artist born Zubeyda Muzeyyen has worked with billy woods, ELUCID and their duo Armand Hammer, as well as work with Debby Friday and even Kronos Quartet. Calling the album “Beside Myself” indicates that it’s Muzeyyen’s vision in totality (as well as denoting a righteous anger at the world), but it is nevertheless choc full of collaborations, including both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother of course, as well as Palestinian rapper & producer Dakn, Egyptian producer El Kontessa and other musicians like Irreversible Entanglements trumpeter Aquiles Navarro. As well as all the guests, Muzeyyen’s voice is found throughout, particularly on “Distress Tolerance”, a poem of self-affirmation in the face of a hostile world. “You know my heart lives with the resistance”.
Christophe Bailleau O’Farrell + Innocent But Guilty – C’ABC [Mahorka/Bandcamp]
Tim Koch + Waldgrenze – Air From Other Planets [Mahorka/Bandcamp]
Bulgarian label Mahorka tends to slide across my awareness at regular intervals – most recently with the glitched General MIDI-meets-electro-acoustic of Christophe Bailleau, now going by Christophe Bailleau O’Farrell. And in 2022 I loved Mutuals by Dolphins of Venice, a collaborative project from Adelaide’s Tim Koch and US producer Adrien 75. All these artists appear on thae label’s 10 Anniversary Compilation Making Things Happen, for which the label asked artists associated with the label to collaborate, often across borders and oceans. Still, the distances here aren’t so far. Franco-Belgian Christophe Bailleau O’Farrell works with Bordeaux-based Innocent But Guilty on a track that’s part field recording, part drone, part bent new-age synth. And Tim Koch reaches out almost due east to Canberra where Polish producer and academic Waldgrenze is currently based, for some granular processed live instruments and skittery IDM beats.
Cortex of Light – United feat. Lamby [Cortex of Light Bandcamp]
Milan duo Cortex of Light recently released a great album of glitchy idm and spacey ambience on Special Guest DJ‘s 3 X L label. I didn’t play it, purely because it was right in the middle of my 6 weeks overseas, so here instead is a new single from them, on their own Bandcamp. Featuring muffled post-punky vocals from visual artist and singer Lamby, it’s a kind of acid house trip-hop filtered through post-vapourwave sensibilities. That’s a whole phrase that 99% of the world would have no way of parsing, but I’m sure you get what I mean (right?). It’s great, and they say all proceeds will be donated in aid of Palestinian victims.
Mark Van Hoen – I’ve Got To See The Light (Featuring George ‘Tony’ Subratie) [Mark Van Hoen Bandcamp]
Almost as soon as his second album in 2 years dropped, Mark Van Hoen is back with a new EP. The title track is from The Eternal Present, but the rest are additions. I’m gonna recycle what I said about the new album, mostly:
Sometime around 1997 maybe, or 1998, I was introduced (by Seb Chan, no doubt) to the 1995 album Truth Is Born Of Arguments by Locust, the sometimes-used pseudonym of Mark Van Hoen. I guess I would’ve known some of Seefeel‘s work already, so I knew Van Hoen had been part of the lineup early on, and some of the vocal samples on that album were from their singer Sarah Peacock. But the massively overdriven beats, which stopped and started and shuddered with fragments of female voice and very sparse electronics, were enough to blow my tiny mind – not to mention the weird world-beat and disquieting ambient found elsewhere on the album. It’s still an album I happily go back to anytime I get an excuse. For some time (at least 6 years, maybe more) Van Hoen has had a subscription available on Bandcamp with heaps of exclusive music, some of which leaks out as Bandcamp-only releases (and then slips back behind the wall), including really early experiments, live performances, and essentially demos of tracks that later appear on “proper” releases, like the two recent ones on Dell’Orso label: The Eternal Present and last year’s Plan For A Miracle (and for folks like me there’s now a double CD collecting both albums).
Van Hoen has an interesting background, born in Croydon to African-Jamaican and Punjabi Indian parents. These influences are mostly indirect on his own music, but this new EP has a lovely remix-cum-cover of a 1970s reggae/dub single by the late George ‘Tony’ Subratie.
Ourobonic Plague – This Torsion [Ourobonic Plague Bandcamp]
All this year, Naarm/Melbourne oddity Ourobonic Plague has been releasing EPs as part of his G.A. (Green Annex) Project, with a whole magickal/apocalyptical fiction background that you don’t need to know in order to enjoy the music. As per Ourobonic Plague’s usual sound there are influences from breakbeat & bass genres as well as industrial & noise. As it’s now July, 12 tracks have been collected into The Green Annex Mid-Year Report, so if you’d like distorted beats and drones and dubs, it’s right there and it’s name your price too.
Ujif_notfound – Peace Your Tranquility [I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free/Bandcamp]
Georgiy Potopalskiy is well-known in his home country of Ukraine not just for his experimental electronic project Ujif_notfound but as a composer of electro-acoustic operas and as a multimedia artist. I discovered him in 2019 via a huge conceptual collection of music on USB Card on the now sadly-defunct Ukrainian label Kvitnu. Both artists behind that label now run Prostir and child label I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, whose name is self-explanatory for a Ukrainian label. The third album from Ujif_notfound on ISSUMLIF is the forthcoming Postulate, which detours into intensely distorted guitars and crunching beats, depicting the constant terror of wartime living.
Makram Aboul Hosn – Double Bass Part 2 [Ruptured/In-Resonance Bandcamp]
Earlier this year I played a new album from Berlin-based Italian sound-artist Sara Persico called Sphaîra, which was recorded inside what’s now called The Dome, an unfinished theatre at the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli, Lebanon. Designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, The Experimental Theatre was not yet completed in 1974, as Lebanon descended into all-out civil war. Persico was no doubt not the first to make use of the extraordinary acoustic properties of the space, nor the last, but now Beirut label Ruptured, in association with the In-Resonance Collective, have released a compilation of Lebanese musicians performing in and responding to the space. The Dome Sessions gives us a range of beautiful site-specific music, from group and individual improvisations to songs and a choral performance. There’s a film about the space coming, using footage and music from these performances, but the sound is plenty evocative in itself. I loved the deep exploration of his instrument from double bassist Makram Aboul Hosn, across two improvisations – plucking and scraping, tremolo and harmonics, ricocheting through the space.
David Donohoe and Kate Carr – A Storm and its Aftermath (excerpt) [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp]
On the latest album from Flaming Pines, A Storm and its Aftermath are recreated by London-based Australian sound-artist Kate Carr and Irish composer & sound-artist David Donohoe. It’s a conjuration of a storm’s sound-world, where field recordings merge unobservably with drones, where musical elements appear shockingly in the middle of the artists’ careful mimicking of nature. An excerpt like I played tonight can only give a flavour of the whole 45 minute work, so when you have a chance, sit in a darkened room and listen with your headphones on.
Morgan Szymanski and Tommy Perman – Birds of Paradise [Blackford Hill/Bandcamp]
The second album from Scottish multimedia artist Tommy Perman and Mexico-based guitarist Morgan Szymanski grew from music they recorded for the documentary El Dragón de los Bosques de Niebla (The Dragon of the Mist Forest) about the environmental devastation being caused by overdevelopment in the Valle de Bravo, where Szymanski now lives. The combination of classical guitar, subtle electronics and field recordings is gently evocative of the area’s beauty, and of the many species endangered by the ongoing ecocide. It’s a touching work.
memotone – In Dreams (w/ Eva May) [World of Echo/Bandcamp]
A new album from Will memotone Yates could go anywhere, from the dubstep & uk garage-influenced early EPs to the minimal jazz-meets-folktronica that followed quickly on, with Yates playing just about any kind of instrument – percussion, piano, clarinet, cello… Not to mention the extra-saturated industrial techno/house stuff he does as HALFNELSON. New album smallest things, out on August 1st from World of Echo, mostly pares things down to multi-tracked acoustic instruments, and whether it’s folk, avant-garde classical or jazz doesn’t really matter. The last track, however, is a gorgeous understated song underpinned by muted piano, over which Eva May sings a melody that blooms out into multi-tracked vocals and clarinets. It’s gorgeous.
True Silos – STILL (excerpt) [Miles Thomas Bandcamp]
I would love to have played all 35 minutes of this piece, but on a 2hr show I had to take a 10-minute excerpt. This is patient, minimalist jazz or “postrock”, in the sense of late-period Talk Talk. You might think of The Necks, and this trio is also made up of three guys from Eora/Sydney playing keyboards, bass and drums, but it would be lazy to namecheck The Necks and leave it at that. “STILL” was created by “exponential improvisation”, repeatedly playing over their own recordings. Because each take is still improvised live together, it sounds like a single performance – albeit surreal around the edges. Drummer Miles Thomas brings in Brendan Clark on bass and Microfiche’s Novak Manojlovic on keys, although Thomas & Clark often use found objects rather than their instruments, and Manojlovic might stretch drones and long melodies out of his keys. Somewhere in the last 10 minutes, Manojlovic’s piano spins away into jazz-like phrasing and soloing, and the insistent percussion pattern finally drops away. The whole room is mic’d up so it feels like you’re in the studio, with the sun slipping away, the musicians only half paying attention to what they’re playing. Just lovely.