Something glittering for tonight given all the fuss in the UK about the Northern Lights. Here’s ZUSO with Crystal Lights.
As a reminder, the returning ZUSO is from Australia and is producer Gabriel Cuenca. His work has that uplifting prog house richness redolent of people like Rüfüs Du Sol, Lane 8 and Tourist.
Crystal Lights is the new single. He says “I actually took a bit of inspiration from one of my past ep’s ‘Lost In Time’ with this one and wanted to bring those feelings of escapism and vivid imagery back. It’s definitely a song you can get lost in and let go of all worries too.”
The basic elements here are rippling progressive house allied to a strong synth drive. There’s nothing bashful about this. It’s heart on the sleeve stuff. Full of guileless positivity.
Soaring melodies and synth peaks abound. But it’s not so far towards dream house that the dance floor is discarded. This always has an eye to the club with a wave your hands in the air appeal. And a sharp knack for timing peaks for maximum effect.
If you want to be moved, to be transported, to be made to feel, then this is for you.
A couple of tracks that don’t quite follow the usual downtempo conventions from Toxic Positivity and Lucky Amour.
Toxic Positivity last appeared here four years ago with a spot of minimalism. Toxic Positivity previously described himself as, “your local, free-range, bedroom producer.” Nowadays he says “Feelings of confusion and alienation can be tools to an altered state. Realize you are being haunted by ghosts of another world.”
He’s back with something that blends warm downtempo with something a bit more abstract and IDM on Blandford Znajek Process taken from the Enucleation EP. I’m not into astrophysics so was surprised to find out that the process a real thing. It is a mechanism for the extraction of energy from a rotating black hole, introduced by Roger Blandford and Roman Znajek in 1977. This mechanism is the most preferred description of how astrophysical jets are formed around spinning supermassive black holes. There you go.
Musically, this is buzzy IDM but set against some neo classical tones that go for vast, epic and cosmic. The IDM jitters around in a constant fizz of noise. The imperturbable drone tones stretch on.
The contrast between the two styles is rather brilliantly handled. They don’t ever really combine but neither do they conflict. This manages to have a slightly cerebral air without being in any way inaccessible.
Big ideas find a way into your ears. Listen on.
Switching to Australia we get something that blends art rock, surf guitar and spy electronica from Lucky Amour. Lucky Amour is artist and musician Ben Frichot. He’s worked with all manner of rock folk like Motörhead and INXS. And yet there’s a sense of someone thinking way beyond head down guitars here.
The featured track is Shadow Man from the album Sandcastles. It’s a real mix of styles culminating in a retro futuristic spy theme with a Sergio Leone twist.
There’s a taut and tense plucked guitar opening. It’s all very enigmatic, evocative and anticipatory. A bit of bass leavens the mood with electronics almost offering a cooing chorus.
The guitar riff almost gets into James Bond territory but isn’t quite prepared to go sophisticated. This has the bleached grittiness of a Spaghetti (spy) Western. Makes you want to chew on a cheroot. A bit of what sounds like sitar confirms that this isn’t your usual track.
A great cinematic track that also stands on its own two feet to take on all comers in the final shootout.
Staying with IDM lets have something that starts with IDM but draws on a whole range of reference points including 70s synthwave and acid. Eclectic? Certainly but woven together quite brilliantly.
Popshop is Martin Akeret from Winterthur/Zurich in Switzerland. He’s been making music for 25 years and draws on all that time and more on Lonely Modern Truth. This is part of a five track mini LP (available on vinyl).
The track opens with a fairly standard IDM template before offering itself to some synthwave. Not the bombastic 80s version but the more subtle and primitive 70s version with plenty of spacey whooshing and a touch of neo-ethereal sound.
As if that wasn’t enough there’s even the addition of some acid and Detroit touches. This gives the track that dance floor touch and the thrill that only techno can bring. Acid squiggles abound and frolic in among the melodies.
This is a wonderful, winsome ride through some of dance’s history highlights to deliver something so fresh and now and above all danceable.
Something a bit challenging following the public holiday yesterday. Here’s Iris Ipsum with something that’s a bit IDM and a bit glitch and seasoned with a little experimentation. This is for fans of autechre, FSOL and Plaid.
Iris Ipsum is the name for Sol Rosenthal from Los Angeles’ musical output. Their new release is the Xtilde EP on Satellite Era. Loreti is the featured track.
Loreti is lost in a Warp wonder world but cute enough to use cutting edge tech to give this track a modern sheen.
The vocal elements offer a modern take on a sixties girl band sound. Beats come razor thin and sharp. There’s a slight skitter edge of glitch without any of the usual stutter. It’s a terrifically clever composition.
None more digital sounds butt up against rich humanity. There’s a delight in melody but undercut with the harshest urban light. No wonder Iris Ipsum has appeared with autechre. This is progeny taking over.
Another public holiday marred by this winter/spring’s seemingly endless rain is lightened by this lovely stirring epic wonky house track from Sogen x Tomggg.
Sogen (which may mean something like elementary or principle in Japanese) is Tokyo-based Rick Goddard aka solo artist Kogane and China-based Auryn Waring aka solo artist Shinamo Moki and half of duo Tolari. They’ve been around since 2019 and cite people like Four Tet and Aphex Twin as influences. There’s certainly more than a little sense of Four Tet in new track Empty Project.
Empty Project Remix has Japanese producer Tomggg on remix duties. The original track is a thing of fragile, slightly experimental, wonder with a slightly minimal or raw edge.
Tomggg goes Spinal Tap and turns this fragile track into something where everything has been turbo fuelled to eleven. It’s a gloriously unhinged epic piece of electronic wonkiness.
The focus of the track is an ever present bass parping that sets the tone and the pace of the track. The beats are full and filled with an epiphany of the world. This is a magical, careering track. They say it “feels like a fitting soundtrack to Mario Kart’s “Rainbow Road.” But that sells the dayglo wonderfulness of the track short.
This is hyper house all on its own. No dodgy mushrooms here. Just a pleasure in all the uplift that the best electronic music can offer.
Sunday was a game of two halves. A morning with sun and summers promise. And an afternoon of cloud and cold. It’s been that sort of Spring. Here’s rocomoco with The Hidden to offer something summery, serene and slightly salacious.
rocomoco are a Berlin based duo that have appeared here a few times before. They’re working again with The Hidden (Dan McRae from Southampton, England). The track is Serenity of the Siren. This references The Odyssey by Homer. Rocomoco explain that ““Siren, in Greek mythology a creature, half bird, half woman, who lured sailors to their doom with his sweet song” (Encyclopaedia Britannica) “Serenity of the Sirens” is from the forthcoming album “Electric Paradise” (May 17th). The track comes with a serene 90s downtempo vibe straight from the bottom of the ocean while the drums are merging Hip Hop with a programmed CR-78 Bossa Nova.”
There’s more than a little of some of Kruder & Dorfmeister at work here. The mood is languid, lush and just a touch salacious. The beats have a really lovely hefty hip hop kick but with a bossa hip wriggle.
There’s a bit of lounge guitar to add to the sun kissed beach vibe. A bass strums away slowly. This totally lures you in with its promise of something rather special. It’s one of those wonderfully deceptive tracks. Superficially it seems like little is happening but underneath this is a work of art in into intricacy. Utterly perfect laid back summer music.
Tie me to the mast and let me listen to this track forever.
Some wonky study beat sounds for the end of the week care of a_omori.
a_omori is a producer from São Paulo, Brazil. As is all too common these days there’s no biog, simply a message that “a_omori is a FDP (fictional digital productor) created by a disturbed guy with a fvck3d mind.”
Luckily his wonky synth shtick has a cheery cute charm. Here’s Cozy taken from his seven track release of the same name. The whole release is only 14 minutes, so listen up. None of these tracks are hanging around for too long.
Cozy takes a bit on surface noise and some reverbed piano as a starting point. Beats arrive in a suitably lofi manner. Scales go up and down wonkily. It’s all terribly appealingly off kilter. Like watching a child learn to walk there’s something sweet here.
Such a lovely cheerfully, optimistic sound. And when you think it’s too good to last it stops. Wonderful.
It’s not yet the weekend but it’s still time for some acid techno from Logofarm.
A reminder that the returning Logofarm is a musician, drummer and electronic music producer based in Rome. Mission statement: Every day aiming at find the right sound and notes to survive between heaven and hell. Today, it’s mostly hell.
The new track is Tightrope. It’s taken from new release U.n.Ltd. The premise is that we’re not alone and are we sure we can tell the source of voices inside us.
While you contemplate the meaning of that there’s plenty of precise acid to soften you up. The beats are dark and sharp but without the need for bass battering. This is reverberating acid of an old school style. That makes it also familiar and warming.
The track includes a properly fabulous break half way through as it builds itself up and then lets you down again. Of course, the beats come back to give you a tremendous crescendo.
Some prog house from Germany from Moe-le-Cul, albeit he describes it as “a deep and spherical techno track.”
Moe-le-Cul is from Hamburg, Germany. However, his name in French would translate as Moe ass. Music has been a constant in his life. He says he was “Raised in a family in which music and learning to play an instrument was a central point of the education, Moe started to play piano at the age of six.”
Here’s Annemarie in which he says he “indulges a little in memories.” Nowt wrong in a bit of reminiscing. Whoever or whatever Annemarie was or is, this gives the track a slightly melancholic air that interplays with a romanticism. This is prog house as a listening experience than being aimed primarily at a club.
Annemarie offers solid beats and hint of a past with JMJ. It takes a synth techno approach to life but leavened with that melancholy air. The tinkling of almost xylophone only adds to its otherworldly charm.
The middle of the track goes off into spirals of synthwave as the beats drop out. Like an aural sigh. Beats return as things come back to Earth literally and metaphorically. The track punches its way back to reality. A great home listening experience.
Here’s some hip hop with a bit of a drill edge from neyoooo x glxzzy.
neyoooo is a producer, engineer and GFX maker from Poland. Glxzzy is Dan Ferrante from the USA. They’ve a bunch of drill releases, none of which need detain us now. But they also have done a couple of them slowed and reverbed, of which THROAT is the best offering. It’s a lovely sleazy, modern hip hop tune with the drill edges filed down.
THROAT is a dark, deep track. The slowed down sounds go into dark ambient in places, despite the beats. There are lighter finger snaps. But this is all about the treacly atmosphere generated.
It offers a sense of slowed menace. But also an inevitability of something disturbing approaching. Very much a horror game soundtrack vibe but no less essential for that. Hip hop that lurks around the darkest of corners.
ACID TED 