Somehow it’s the second-last month of the year? And yet, this year has lasted about 3 years so far, so it’s not too surprising? We do have a surprise new album from Aesop Rock, new weirdpop of various sorts, trip-hop vibes, Halloween spookiness, sadcore/hardcore crossover, industrial sad-hop, experimental electronics both beat-wise and not, some jungle and some blissful ambient pop to take us out. It’s Sunday.
Aesop Rock – Sherbert [Rhymesayers Entertainment/Bandcamp]
Aesop Rock – Crystals and Herbs [Rhymesayers Entertainment/Bandcamp]
Crazy… after releasing another in his great run of self-produced, somewhat-themed albums in May this year (Black Hole Superette), America’s most vocabularian rapper returns with a second album for 2025! I Heard It’s A Mess There Too commiserates us all for the state of the world, giving us a head-noddy stripped-down funk and words of wisdom. Just pure pleasure.
Yunzero – B1 [Best Effort/Bandcamp]
One of Aus’s most creative producers, Jim Sellars as Yunzero builds tracks out of dusty YouTube samples and a sharp sense of rhythm and the surreal. While his latest release is a collection of edits (vol. 1), they’re very much twisted in the Yunzero way. This one’s a harder take on the Ying Tang Twins’ “Wait (The Whisper Song)“.
ŽIVA – Unrest [ŽIVA Bandcamp]
Croatian musician Lucija Ivšić has been based in Naarm/Melbourne for a while now, and having fronted the postpunk band Punčke in Croatia, she now makes music as ŽIVA with clear roots in new wave and ’80s electronic pop but also contemporary electronica & techno. The Friday after this show aired, ŽIVA played at the Vanguard here in Sydney, and I’m really glad she released this song ahead of it. It’s about dealing with OCD, fighting with your own brain… Gotta say I can identify with burnout right now, as I think a lot of us neurodivergent folk can.
celosiafields – Newletter ft. Raj Mahal [self-released – stream here & elsewhere]
Balram Veeragoo Naidu is a composer, filmmaker, producer & programmer working on Gadigal land, and going by celosiafields for his artistic work. He’s gradually releasing an album called Newletter, much of it with post-classical piano and synth work, and with some amazing videos – I particularly like this one from a couple of years ago. The title track of the album starts with soundtrack-like piano, but halfway through a minimalist beat builds up, over which Eora-based rapper Raj Mahal adds some verses. Great crossover stuff.
Jerome Blazé – You Can Find Us Out Your Way [Jerome Blazé Bandcamp]
Eora/Sydney musician Jerome Blazé is engaged with music across multiple dimensions: as a producer, live keyboardist, songwriter and academic. Last year’s Living Room album was a home-recorded album combining influences from soul, neo-classical and dance music. The album put collaboration up-front, with instrumental and vocal collaborators from across the Sydney music scene as well as songwriting collaborations and a fully-credited list of sampled artists (and birds!) taking in local friends and international influences like BADBADNOTGOOD, Punch Brothers, Al Green and more. This year, Jerome released the album on vinyl, and accompanying it, has been expanding the album with alternate reworkings of each track – in reverse order! However, in late October he put out this new single, “You Can Find Us Out Your Way“, a piece of classic indie-pop replete with a classical sample (from Australian composer Alex Turley) that sweetly echoes The Verve’s illicit Rolling Stones sample on “Bitter Sweet Symphony”. It’s a really great song, and to cement the connection, there’s a video of Jerome & friends on the Sydney Harbour Bridge that echoes The Verve’s classic video. Honestly so great, got to give it way more views.
Penelope Trappes – Bleed [One Little Independent/Bandcamp]
Well, last November was when we first heard a single from Brighton-based Australian musician Penelope Trappes‘ album A Requiem, her first on One Little Independent. I played a bunch of singles, ranging from drone works with scratchy cello to choral fragments and deep bass booms. The album is kind-of songwriting turned inside-out, and it’s an album worth listening through from start to finish, a ceremony eulogising parts of herself that she’d long suppressed. However, a year after that first single, here Penelope offers us her second album of the year, suitably following A Requiem with Æternum. This is very much a companion album, and the material here is as strong and moving as the “main” album. I had the pleasure & privilege of playing cello with Penelope at a performance at Lazy Thinking earlier this year – and while we’ve known each other for quite a while, it was the first time we’d met in person. I can only hope she’ll be back at a venue of the size that reflects her stature. (All love to Lazy Thinking though, one of the best things about this here city!)
Bird Battles – Overgrown [Sleep In The Fire Records]
Earlier this year I was pleased to play the incredible debut “Bird Battles” from the duo of the same name – in fact there I am quoted on the Bandcamp page! I expressed hope that more was to come, and here’s the album! Bird Battles features the voice and other sounds of London-based Scottish musician Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as glacis and also one half of Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and of Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall. Here he’s working with visual and sound-artist Jesse Narens, whose love of birds is all over his visual art and audio work. This is by turns fragile and intense, noisy and delicate. Some of Euan’s best work, and lately he’s been on a high.
Hilary Woods – Taper [Sacred Bones Records/Bandcamp]
One of a number of Halloween releases that came out this week is Night CRIÚ, the new album from Irish experimental musician & songwriter Hilary Woods. After a career in indie rock, she took a break and came back with a unique form of dark, experimental songwriting – part folk, part drone, part soundtrack. In fact, her last album was dramatic instrumental drone music, so it’s notable that Night CRIÚ sees her return to vocal music. The second word in its title, “criú”, does seem to be Irish for “crew”. These are gothic tales inspired, like the music, by a wide range of art and contemporary experience, and the evocative production makes it hard to always make out the lyrics – there’s a lot of Hope Sandoval mixed in with strummed guitar, sparse drumkit, soaring strings and arrangements for brass band and children’s choir.
Laura Moody – The Witch [Laura Moody Bandcamp]
Years ago, when I discovered the Nonclassical label, it was their very first release, the first string quartet by Gabriel Prokofiev, along with some remixes, and it was performed by The Elysian Quartet. Tragically the quartet doesn’t exist as such anymore, although The Elysian Collective does in its place, and Laura Moody remains their cellist. Now, 11 years after her first solo album, Laura has dropped a small EP that’s perfect for Halloween, called Haunted – three tracks for cello & voice, originally commissioned for a performance called “Deep Night, Dark Night” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. They sit somewhere between classical and gothic folk, dramatic and creepy. The lyrics to “The Witch” come from Mary Elizabeth Coleridge.
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – The Magic of the World [Computer Students™/The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Fission/Fusion [Computer Students™/The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Oklahoma is surprisingly rich with heavy and raucous bands, but the band that’s made it to the top of the pile, so to speak, are Chat Pile (named after the piles of chat, or toxic waste from lead-zinc mining), who combine sludge and hardcore with highly-strung noise rock and postpunk. They are apparently big fans of Hayden Pedigo, a man who embraces contradiction – or at least, is a lot of things all at once: a model, a politician (having run for mayor in his hometown of Amarillo, successfully exposing corporate corruption, if not actually winning) and a fingerpicking guitarist who embodies the avant-garde elements that were there since John Fahey at least. Chat Pile themselves always match their songs with experimental material and strange off-genre detours. Nevertheless, the combination of these artists is utterly unexpected and highly fruitful, bringing out melodic singing from Chat Pile’s Raygun Busch, and lurching between fingerstyle guitar, sludge rock, proggish metal and punkish yowls, with tape loops and field recordings finding their way in & out of the mix. It’s legitimately excellent.
Richie Culver – Curse [Fixed Abode/Supernature/Bandcamp]
Richie Culver – I Loved You [Fixed Abode/Supernature/Bandcamp]
With releases via various labels across the noise & electronic spectrum, British conceptual artist (visual, film, poetry & music) Richie Culver‘s new album I Trust Pain comes to us via Rainy Miller‘s Fixed Abode imprint and Supernature. As is standard with Culver, it’s noisy and anguished stuff, with a kind of Southern bass music vibe to it.
Ship Sket – Casting Call (ft. S280F) [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Ship Sket – Mimikyu [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Josh Griffiths aka Ship Sket is newly arrived to the Planet µ label with a banger of an album summarising the Planet µ sound with references to contemporary bass music & pop through distortion and glitch. Following a number of singles, InitiatriX is out now. Comprehensively mutated bass music, electro-acoustic manipulation, distorted classical samples, and multiple guest spots including the mysterious S280F (who visited our shores for Soft Centre earlier this year). Weirdest shit.
December – Stonemilker [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp]
French producer Tomas Lefebvre has been making music as December for over a decade, a combination of weirdly-shaped textures and beats. In contrast to the heavier beats of some of his earlier work, his new album I Stumble, I Walk, released on Jordanian label Drowned By Locals, is a noir movie of whispered voices, jittery bass-fueled IDM and even trip-hop. Walk these darkened streets: try not to trip.
Synkro – Excursion [Of Paradise/Bandcamp]
UK label Of Paradise bring techno & bass music as always on their Shapes compilation, and it’s nice hearing Synkro on here doing a brilliant bit of minimal d’n’b/jungle, starting super-stripped down with dub delays and kick + hi-hat, until the drumbreak drops. Synkro was one half of the revolutionary bass experimentalists Akkord with Indigo (now Ancestral Voices), and their precise, pared-down sound is missed, but this is definitely in the ballpark.
San – Core of the Earth [Rua Sound/Bandcamp]
The anonymous Irish techno producer who makes jungle as San only drops EPs every so often – the last one was in 2023. He and the (excellent) Rua Sound label milk the mysterious identity with over-the-top promotion, but a San release really is big news in these circles, and In Plain Sight does not disappoint. It’s dark, hard-hitting jungle with classic Photek atmos and precision. More people need to get amongst it.
Dak – Triagen [Straight Up Breakbeat/Bandcamp]
Aki Haapaniemi comes out of the wealth of great drum’n’bass producers from Finland. His productions as Dak are few & far between, but always quality – his last seems to have been 10 years ago but it could be even longer. Straight Up Breakbeat has made itself the home for a lot of great Finnish d’n’b, and now releases the Solaris EP from Dak – four tracks of tuff, no nonsense beat-juggling drum’n’bass. Complex yet melodic enough, with pumping subs. Yep, quality
Julien Mier & thedieyoungs – Dolphin Tears [Julien Mier Bandcamp]
Not satisfied with having released his brilliant album Gradually, at the beginning of November Sydney-based Dutch-French musician Julien Mier has released a long-gestated project called Pluto Exchange Program with the very talented Sydney jazz-trained keyboardist thedieyoungs. There’s electric piano jazz licks aplenty, ambient textures and some jungle/IDM beats skittering around. In keeping with the cartoonish artwork, it’s super fun, super bright stuff.
Mattr – Fade [Mesh/Bandcamp]
We’ve heard a lot of UK producer Mattr on this show, with a lot of melodic jungle-paced IDM. It’s actually a great fit for Max Cooper‘s Mesh label, but this is his first appearance with them, on the label comp Lattice 004, a five-track EP of varied tracks with great sound design.
xin – opening [appendix.files/Bandcamp]
xin – trash dub [appendix.files/Bandcamp]
Once Berlin, now (again?) UK-based producer xin released an EP in 2018 and then full-length album MELTS INTO LOVE in 2019, both on Subtext Recordings, and in the meantime has been DJing but I don’t think releasing much music. Now via appendix.files we get a small album, Wasted, which is about as deconstructed as club can get, and which reveals its layers of meaning not just through the intricately constructed beats and samples, but through a zine which you can also read online. The zine has two texts: one is a deep look at the decline of dance music culture, as it’s eaten by corporate interests and the familiar, enormous glut of new music being pumped out week-by-week; the other is a look at our Age of Waste, the unsustainability of our lifestyles, and the acceleration thereof. These themes are of course deeply interconnected, and xin provides an astute examination of them. But if you’re interested in post-club music with an environmental bent, you can’t go past the album itself.
Ipek Gorgun – Edgelord [Touch/Bandcamp]
Ipek Gorgun – Exocannibalism [Touch/Bandcamp]
Turkish composer/sound-artist/musician Ipek Gorgun released her last solo album Ecce Homo seven years ago. In the meantime she’s had works performed in prestigious venues, but has also been through multiple traumas – electrocution, cancer treatment, anaphylaxis… So her remarkable new album Earthbound is an act of defiance as well as an act of surrender. The darkness of these years is audible here, but so is an earthy sense of liveliness and humour. There is endless detail in each of these soundworks, but some do stand out, especially those incredible swooping glissandi in “Edgelord”.
Bridget Ferrill – What was the World to me [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
Berlin-based synth builder and sound-artist Bridget Ferrill likes to mess with classical music’s sonic identifiers, sometimes performed by herself, and often by – among others – her longtime collaborator Liam Byrne on viola da gamba. So here we have collaged string playing with de/reconstructed melodies, surface/tape noise, found-sounds. It’s like The Books but inside-out; it’s minimalist composition for baroque instruments and a malfunctioning sampler. It’s cool.
IKSRE – karijini (iron. spinifex) [IKSRE Bandcamp]
Naarm/Melbourne musician Phoebe Dubar makes ambient-not-ambient music as IKSRE (it stands for I Keep Seeing Rainbows Everywhere), often using her voice and synths, teasing the sounds out into short epics, insubstantial but full of movement. Her new album expansion a (south) collects music made on the road – literally, in a solar-powered caravan traveling around outback Australia, the tracks dedicated to the feeling of specific places. It’s gorgeous stuff, sometimes glitchy, sometimes raw, sometimes smooth. The title clearly implies a sequel, and by the time I’m writing this the secret sister release expansion b (south) is out, and is just as lovely.