Everything’s off-kilter this week. It’s not just the deranged tarrif-spewing orange menace… it’s also the music? But… in a good way? Yeah.
Infinity Broke – Snowdome of Dreams [Love As Fiction Records/Bandcamp]
Infinity Broke – Scum Valley ’86 [Love As Fiction Records/Bandcamp]
Jamie Hutchings fronted Bluebottle Kiss from the mid-’90s till the mid-’00s, making abrasive but emotive indie rock with a substantial following. In 2014 he and BBK drummer Jared Harrison formed Infinity Broke with Jamie’s brother Scott Hutchings on second drumkit & percussion, and Reuben Wills on bass (Reuben is the husband of Jamie’s sister, ARIA-award-winning pianist Sophie Hutchings). When I played the debut album I noted the “excellent long rock jams”, with the double drums and bass holding things down while Jamie’s penchant for free jazz avantgardism only emphasises the krautrock feel for me. That’s still absolutely my feeling – with all of the passion in Jamie’s singing and the abrasiveness of his guitar, but held down by the low-slung bass and the double percussion. Rad!
The Ex – Beat Beat Drums [The Ex Bandcamp]
The Ex – Wheel [The Ex Bandcamp]
It’s exhilarating to have a new album from Dutch anarcho-punks The Ex. Their history goes back to 1979, although only guitarist Terrie Hessels is still with them. We’ve heard GW Sok, their original vocalist, a lot on this show, appearing with Oiseaux-Tempête and recently on that incredible Sopa Boba album that came out in February; in 2009 he was replaced by Arnold de Boer of Zea. Meanwhile, Andy Moor (not the DJ) has played guitar with the band since 1990 – he’s one of the people behind the essential avant-garde label Unsounds. And Katherina Bornefeld joined on drums in 1984 and has been with them ever since. De Boer manages a handy resemblance to GW Sok in delivery, but it’s always nice to hear Bornefeld singing on one or two tracks. I could write pages and pages on The Ex – “anarcho-punk” refers to their politics and way of living in those early days, but the politics, while still present, is not perhaps the main focus. They dived heavily into improv in the 1990s (if not earlier), and worked extensively with Ethopian saxophonist Getachew Mekuria in the last decade or so of his life. In the 1990s they made two incredible albums with pioneering New York cellist Tom Cora: Scrabbling At The Lock and And The Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders. Seriously, give them a listen.
Oh No Noh – Dog Years [TELESKOP/Bandcamp]
Oh No Noh – Orb [TELESKOP/Bandcamp]
Love hearing some music that, stylistically, takes me back to the early days of postrock and folktronica (I know these were not the same early days). Leipzig’s Markus Rom is Oh No Noh, playing a multitude of instruments and electronics, putting it together in post-production to make head-nodding guitar-driven instrumental rock, folktronic near-pop, and more abstract sound-arty collage. Across the album he’s worked with the likes of KMRU, The Notwist‘s Andi Haberl, and the album is adorned with artwork from legendary cartoonist Anna Haifisch. Amazingly, a lot of this was performed by musical robots Rom has programmed – see a live performance here.
Giuseppe Ielasi – 01 [Senufo Editions/Bandcamp]
Giuseppe Ielasi – 11 [Senufo Editions/Bandcamp]
All that iconic Italian sound-artist/producer/guitarist/etc Giuseppe Ielasi says about his latest release an insistence on material vol. 1 is “new series // first volume // march 2025 // thanks for listening”. Which, fine. Past series of Ielasi’s have involved mechanical machines butting their heads paper hooked up to contact mics, or music made from run-out grooves of vinyl records, or blurry guitar loops – just about anything really, including minimal beats (from strange sources). So “an insistence on material” could be an insistence on physical sound sources… or it could just be, you know, putting out material of some sort? These numbered tracks are vintage Ielasi – strangely cut, warbling tape (or vinyl?) loops, anonymous sputtering anti-rhythms… Wonderful.
BirdWorld – Opposite Hinges (feat. Sara Övinge) [Dugnad rec/BirdWorld Bandcamp]
BirdWorld – Let Sleeping Babies Lie [Dugnad rec/BirdWorld Bandcamp]
When I discovered BirdWorld in 2018, it was love at first sight – a cello and percussion duo? And yet so much more? Cellist Gregor Riddell and percussionist Adam Teixeira are both virtuosos at their chosen instruments, but in the mysterious albums of BirdWorld – their debut UNDA and now the follow-up NURTURE – you’ll find Teixeira playing kalimbas (thumb piano) and other tuned percussion, or synths, while Riddell adds guitars, piano, and even vocals at times. Field recordings and rhythmic jazz/almost-postrock coexist with an impeccable solo cello piece, throwing plucked and bowed notes around like a seasoned juggler, while at times guests join – like Swedish violinist Sara Övinge, who’s comfortable in classical or jazz contexts, and has a duo with Riddell called Tlön, with an album on the way on legendary Norwegian label Jazzland. The gregarious nature of these recordings, and the willingness to go in unexpected directions mid-stride, reminds me of The Books or Lucky Dragons, groups who first turned me on to the possibility of just dispelling all preconceptions, and not making music for instant gratification or consumption. More power to them! Don’t let this one slip by.
Morgan Szymanski and Tommy Perman – Harmonic Rain [Blackford Hill/Bandcamp]
Paradoxically, one of the most “ambient” tracks of the night is leading us into the beats? Guitarist Morgan Szymanski and artist Tommy Perman are childhood friends, who released their first album together in 2022, and “Harmonic Rain” is the first track from their follow-up, Songs for the Mist Forest. The roots of the album – and of this track – come from a soundtrack that the two worked on for a documentary (you can see a trailer here) about the ongoing ecocide from overdevelopment of the beautiful Valle de Bravo in Mexico. You can see more of the forest in the beautiful video for this track, made by Szymanski’s friend Juan Pablo Ortíz. But what about the music? Szymanski’s guitar does indeed play dancing harmonics as well as little melodies, while Perman builds beats which may partially be sampled from guitar taps. Around the edges are drawn-out scraping/bell-like tones; it’s a very effective evocation of a misty forest.
Carrier – Slow Punctures [Carrier Bandcamp]
For a couple of years now, Guy Brewer has been releasing a unique strain of bass music as Carrier. This follows his influential minimalist techno as Shifted, but seems to look back at his early work with drum’n’bass trio Commix (now the solo work of George Levings). But rather than the more rigid rhythms of either d’n’b or techno, Carrier explodes everything into its constituent elements, especially on his latest EP Tender Spirits. Here, Brewer’s skittery rhythms float untethered inside dub techno textures, and even when the syncopated sub-bass thumps through the stunning “Slow Punctures”, the rest of the rhythms seem only loosely moored to that fundament. The third & last track takes this to its logical conclusion – the white noise hi-hats flutter to an unrecognisable beat, frequently fizzling out, while the bass tones struggle under the murk, never quite getting going. It’s Stygian dub, a properly haunted dancehall, the club’s deconstruction finally complete.
Ziyiz – Plastic Sentiments [Plasma Sources/Bandcamp]
J-Shadow – X-38 [Plasma Sources/Bandcamp]
“Worldwide artistic collective” Plasma Sources covers a wide ground of electronic music, from electro, grime & downtempo to techno to drum’n’bass & jungle. Their first compilation Multi-Source showcases experimental takes from across this range, with an insane piece of jungle – almost breakcore – closing the album from J-Shadow. And the mysterious Ziyiz, archaeologist of the future, unearths some strangely degraded bass music (see their Instagram for visual artefacts).
Kid Spatula – Spitalfield [Third Kind Records/Bandcamp]
Mike Paradinas, boss of the one of the most on-the-money labels in the world, Planet µ, has released music- as µ-Ziq for well over 3 decades, and in that time countless people have missed the fact that µ = the Greek letter µ, so the name is a pun… Too often I’ve found him categorized under U for u-Ziq. He’s kept at it (even though the internet presences now tend to spell it out – thus planet.mu as the label URL), but there have always been other aliases. Tusken Raiders clearly covers a murky kind of industrial techno, Jake Slazenger is a kind of woozy, sleazy funk, but Kid Spatula is harder to define. Is it µ-Ziq but staying away from obvious dancefloor styles? Well, a lot of µ-Ziq does that, and there’s plenty of drum’n’bass on, e.g. 2004’s Meast. So I’m just going to count us lucky to have another Mike Paradinas album. Joozy is released by the boutique Brighton label Third Kind Records (locals for Paradinas, over in Hove), and takes a lot from the melodic, slightly twisted jungle he’s put out in the last few years, but equally isn’t that far from 1977, released a couple of years back on Balmat. Much though I’m a jungle head, I was always an IDM head too, and it’s lovely hearing the woozy synths and crunchy beats here. More! More!
Pépe – Grane Drum [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Spanish producer Pépe has been everywhere lately. His 2023 album Reclaim, released on Lapsus, found him branching out into bass music, jungle and IDM, from his previous house & techno productions, and also saw him reaching into the future for his inspiration. Now on YUKU comes his Slow Cancellation of the Future, very pertinently named from a phrase from Italian Marxist philosopher Franco Berardi, as channelled by the late philosopher & hauntologist Mark Fisher. For this EP, Pépe is consciously adopting and adapting the “hardcore continuum“, as Simon Reynolds dubbed the UK bass musics that came out of hardcore techno in the late ’80s & early ’90s – jungle, drum’n’bass, 2-step/UK garage, grime, dubstep and so on. By looking to the dismal future with clear eyes on the ever-distracting present, Pépe has developed his own compelling deconstruction of club music. It’s a trip!
Raf Reza – Mirror Of Love [Telephone Explosion/Bandcamp]
Toronto-based producer Raf Reza announces his debut full-length album Ekbar with the first single “Mirror Of Love”, which showcases his Bangladeshi heritage mixed in with music influenced by soundsystem culture – dub through to jungle. South Asian musicians have been central to bass music scenes in the UK, so it’s nice seeing a Canadian artist picking up on this too.
Polonius – The Pauper [Souk Records/Bandcamp]
Discrepant sub-label Souk Records is where they put the experimental beats, and there’s an emphasis on MENA artists, from the great Palestinian beat-maker Muqata’a to Turkey’s Grup Ses. You Didn’t Hear It From Me an album of delightfully odd bass music from Egyptian-French producer Seif Gaber aka Polonius. There are suggestions of jungle, dub and other bass music, but couched in a hallucinatory framework.
Hair & Treasure – In The Coin of Disaster [Discrepant/Bandcamp]
Meanwhile, Discrepant boss Gonçalo F Cardoso has also released a new album from his project Hair & Treasure, a duo with Alex Jones augmented with some other weird musicians. Disc Rot is also weird beats or otherwise weird sonic emanations, drawing on noise, sound-art and technoid quasi-beats. It’s an appropriate title!
Dangerous Creatures – CTHULU feat. Dan Peter Parker [Weaponize Records/Bandcamp]
Billed as an “open universe collective”, Dangerous Creatures is nevertheless primarily the project of producer Mimski and UK rapper King Kashmere. Mimski brings ultimate heaviness to her beats, at times channelling The Bug or clipping., but there’s always a jaunty hip-hop bounce. Guests abound in this apocalyptic celebration/warning, from the US and the UK, but the core of it is King Kashmere’s lyricism. “Welcome to the future” indeed.
Jeremy Young – Whirld, Pt. II [Halocine Trance/Bandcamp]
Jeremy Young – Moray [Halocine Trance/Bandcamp]
Montréal sound-artist Jeremy Young is part of the much-loved electro-acoustic/post-classical trio Sontag Shogun, among other projects; he also initiated the brilliant oscillator-based trio Associated Sine Tone Services with Nicolas Bernier and Machinefabriek last year. His solo work is always beautifully engrossing and highly individual. His new album Cablcar is built from “magnetic tape and analogue oscillators”, but there’s way more than that might suggest – Young himself plays piano, guitar, contact mic’d objects and: “‘the’ radio, grief, lightning, self-doubt, & bourbon”… and there are some guest voices here & there. But those analogue electronic tones and those lovely warping tape effects are central to the music, even when he somehow structures it into some kind of bass beats on “Moray”. Young is a brilliant (analogue) sample digger and curator of sound, who happens to also be a great musician. Cablcar is highly recommended.
Lonnie Holley – I Looked Over My Shoulder ft. Billy Woods [Jagjaguwar/Bandcamp]
For most of his creative life, Lonnie Holley was known as a creator of powerful sculptural assemblages and other visual & physical art. His untrained musical creations began, I believe, in about 2006, and his first studio recordings were released on Dust-to-Digital in 2012. Just Before Music and 2013’s Keeping a Record of It were deeply weird and very effective works of what was being called “outsider art”, a term which probably should never have existed. In any case, Holley is highly adept at storytelling, and his performances as well as his recordings are always entirely improvised – I saw a stunning performance of his at AGNSW’s Volume in 2023, with Mourning [A] BLKstar. His 2023 album Oh Me Oh My invited many guests to join him, including Michael Stipe, Moor Mother and Bon Iver, and both it and new album Tonky are creatively and sympathetically produced by Jacknife Lee. This time round there’s an even more wide ranging list of collabs, including the crown prince of underground hip-hop Billy Woods as well as Saul Williams, and from other spheres, experimental harpist Mary Lattimore and wonderful folk singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop. Holley’s improvised stories/songs are as powerful as ever, chronicling a world that’s not so much gone wrong as always been wrong. This is the guy, after all, who viscerally Woke Up In A Fucked-Up America – stunningly predicting Trump’s return on the wave of non-specific “anti-woke” hatred… Stone cold genius.
Penelope Trappes – Sleep [One Little Independent/Bandcamp]
We’ve been waiting since last November for this album to finally drop! A Requiem is the first album on One Little Independent for the Brighton-based Australian musician Penelope Trappes. I’ve played a bunch of singles, ranging from drone works with scratchy cello to choral fragments and deep bass booms. It’s 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. Tonight I’ve revisited that first single, a horror story of the legend of the “sleep hag”, viscerally dramatised in its video.
Hüma Utku – Comfort Of The Shadows [Editions Mego/Bandcamp]
I started following Turkish electronic producer Hüma Utku on Karlrecords in 2018. A true statement of intent, she was already there combining dense, sometimes rhythmic electronics with traditional Arabic instruments and samples from the region. She gained the attention of Editions Mego while Peter Rehberg was still alive, releasing The Psychologist in 2022 (it was ready earlier but delayed by Rehberg’s tragic death in 2021). Now comes Dracones, named for the Latin phrase “hic sunt dracones” – here be dragons. It’s very much about the fear of the unknown in tremulous times, more relevant day by day, with emotions only heightened by the fact that Utku was recording this while pregnant. I should note that this music rewards careful headphone listening, where you will realise that these electronic-sounding drones and pulses contain acoustic & electric instruments including – as well as cello, guitar & vocals – an electromagnetic instrument called the Lyraei which you need to read about!
Hara Alonso – Millions of other Suns [FUU/label Bandcamp/artist Bandcamp]
Very pleased to finish tonight with the engrossing sounds of Stockholm-based Spanish pianist & sound-artist Hara Alonso. It seems like each release of hers inhabits a different sound-world, from the most piano-based neo-classicism to electro-acoustic works, and by that measure touch•me•not is both her most electronic work and also her most composed work, featuring an ensemble of percussion, double bass and voice around her piano & electronics. The sonic realisation was aided by FUU label’s Başak Günak aka Ah! Kosmos, creating an otherworldly sensory halo.