Music Submissions Roundup: December
A selection of our favorite music submitted by XLR8R+ members last month.
Music Submissions Roundup: December
A selection of our favorite music submitted by XLR8R+ members last month.
Welcome to 2022, everyone! As the first month of the new year draws to a close, we’re ready to present the latest batch of submissions for our portal, which through 2021 continued to attract several hundreds of high-quality and innovative musical gems to our radar. This edition, you’ll be pleased to know, is no different: there are the usual familiar faces—Stature’s synth-heavy garage, Christopher Ledger’s slick studio jams, and Aspetuck, who delivers a calming ambient mix to see the year in—but there’s also an assortment of rich electronic productions from a string of new names. Cirene, a rising Italian artist, delivers a cut of euphoric, sample-heavy house, as do Moritz Bommert, better known as Bomat, and Robin Flux, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. For those looking for something a little bit more experimental, check out “Wake” from Manchester’s Catch92 and James Bangura’s room-shaking 2-step remix on Canadian labels YUNG DUMB Records and Model Future. There’ll be more to come soon, but this is plenty for now—and please, support the artists.
Editor’s note: we’ve made a point of linking each artist’s Bandcamp page, or a place where you can buy their music, and we encourage our readers to support these independent artists by buying their music. Let’s keep independent culture alive!
For those unfamiliar, XLR8R+ is a member-supported music community and curated music experience. Every month, you will get three exclusive tracks—sometimes more—by a wealth of amazing artists that XLR8R has supported over the years, as well as access to the member’s area where you can submit tracks and DJ mixes to be showcased in this feature series and to the XLR8R+ community. There’s also exclusive editorial content, mixes, FREE passes to music festivals and events, playlists, and more. You can find out more here.
Cirene “Gotta Flow“
Enrico Follesa is the artist behind Cirene—pronounced “chee-reh-neh.” Hailing from Cagliari, Italy, Follesa has been listening to house music since the ’90s, though he’s only been producing it for less than a year. The project aims to uplift and is heavily influenced by Follesa’s background in producing rap, so you can expect wavy Rhodes sounds, fat synth lines, and hazy pads, while his drums provide a sturdy structure to allow his bass to “develop effortlessly and produce movement within the groove,” he tells XLR8R. “Gotta Flow” is one of his first tracks and we can’t wait for more.
Vroda “Transcriptions”
David Mayboroda, better known as Vroda, grew up in the industrial Luhansk region of Ukraine, and gradually took a great interest in heavy guitar music before discovering trip-hop from the likes of Portishead and Massive Attack. He focuses his time today on instrumental electronic music, and in August he released Senses, his debut EP, on Thousand Kisses Place, a label for breakbeat, ambient, and techno. “Transcriptions,” an eerie breakbeat cut, is one of his more recent productions.
Bomat “Feels Like I’ve Seen You”
Moritz Bommert, better known as Bomat, is a German DJ-producer originally from Cologne. His passion for house music started at a young age when he moved to Berlin, where he worked for several years and released music under various monikers. After a creative break in 2015, Bommert returned to the studio and in 2020 teamed up with Nervous Records for his Classy Talk single. He returned to the New York label last year before signing “Feels Like I’ve Seen You,” a classy lo-fi house tune, to Melbourne label clipp.arr. Deep and resonant, driving and gritty, “Feels Like I’ve Seen You” aims to generate a “melancholic euphoria,” Bommert says, with some “head-nodding and more than a few limb movements.”
Listen/Buy
Catch92 “Wake”
Folded Music, based in Nicosia, Cyprus, will release Wander, an EP of emotive jazz from Manchester-based beat-maker Catch92, later this week. The EP draws influence from Lewis Carroll’s literary classic ‘Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland,” after Catch92 bought a copy of the soundtrack for his girlfriend and discovered its assortment of samples. We’re streaming “Wake,” which exhibits this psychedelic influence from the first beat, with its hypnotic synth line, creative sound design, and lush, delicate strings. (Last year, Catch92 released Capricious, his debut album, on Aviary Bridge Records, which we also recommend.)
Pattrn “Imantodes Path”
In December, Belgian producer Brice Deloose, better known as Pattrn, released Echoes Of Gourds on Deflection Music. You can expect four hypnotic, dancefloor-ready techno cuts, and we’re streaming “Imantodes Path,” the standout, in full here.
^L_ “Mongrel Dog“
Through his ^ L_—pronounced “control L” project—Luis Fernando delivers a mix of techno, breakbeat, hard techno, acid, and even gabber. In May, he released The Skull on Berlin’s Antime Records, which was flanked by a remix by the Brasilia-based artist Quizzik and followed a collaborative release with the founder of the Berlin label, Martin Steer (a.k.a. Bad Stream). More recently, though, he’s put out Eyes of The Old Man on Fcode’s MTDN Audio, which once agains sees him eschewing the four-to-the-floor techno sound of his earlier work for something more complex.
AZARI, Butr, Jeremy Glenn “Phaze” (James Bangura Remix)
Canadian labels YUNG DUMB Records and Model Future have teamed up on Wade Galaxy, a collaboration between Toronto artist AZARI, Butr, and vocalist Jeremy Glenn. Whereas the A-side is a hazy fusion of R&B and slowed electro, accompanied by Jeremy Glenn’s ethereal vocals, the B-side delivers a room-shaking 2-step remix of the second track, “Phaze,” by James Bangura, which we’re streaming here. (For more information on Bangura, the alias of former military man Timothy Smith-Bangura, check out his XLR8R podcast here.)
Michael Donoghue “Overview Effect”
Michael Donoghue is a Rotherham, UK-born artist who featured in our October roundup with “Aequorea IV,” a stomping techno jam taken from Landing, his debut album. This time around he’s submitted “Overview Effect,” a slice of ambient, also from Landing, as a demonstration of his versatility.
Robin Flux “You Make Me Feel“
Robin Flux is a German DJ-producer currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark, who is influenced by ’90s dance music but has developed his own production style that dips into garage, breakbeat, and disco. In 2019, he released Future / Universe, his debut EP, and more recently he’s put out “You Make Me Feel,” a compilation contribution to Valencia’s Miura Records. Expect six minutes of euphoric, sample-heavy house.
Stature “Etched“
Stature, the alias of Connor Harrison, is a regular on XLR8R, having featured in several submissions roundups—most recently September. Having studied music production at a young age, he now makes intoxicating beats with a focus on dance. “Etched” is one of the few singles of the Nottingham producer we haven’t shared, and it falls right in the Stature wheelhouse: synth-heavy garage music that’s sure to make your feet shuffle.
Cy Dune “Don’t Waste My Time“
Cy Dune is the project of Seth Olinsky, the co-founder of experimental rock band Akron / Family. Sparked by a fascination with the primal, transcendent energy of rock music and informed by his lifelong love of early blues music, Olinsky has explored blues, ’50s rock, and ’60s/’70s punk through the Cy Dune project and soon, with Against Face, his latest album, he will deliver a new collection of explosive, post-punk tracks. “Don’t Waste My Time,” streaming above, is the lead single, and you can hear the title-track here, too.
MSTRBLSTR “8 Acid“
Originating as an improvisational acid house and techno artist during the 1990s, MSTRBLSTR learned to move crowds at illegal rave parties held in shady warehouses, and at full-moon parties in the Arizona desert. He’s now based in Queens, New York, where he has a studio of hand-built gear that he uses to produce music to “work its way deep into your mind and make your body move,” he says. In August, we featured his pumping acid remix of his own “Are We Living In A Simulation,” out now on Toy Opulent, and now we’re sharing “8 Acid,” a blistering acid techno brain-melter with a dubbed-out breakbeat breakdown surprise hidden inside.
Christopher Ledger “Danza Nativa 08“
Last month, Christopher Ledger, the rising artist known for his slick studio productions across Dana Ruh‘s Brouqade Records, DeWalta’s Meander, and his own CL Series, delivered a studio mix for Italy’s Danza Nativa. As with his DJ sets, Ledger’s recording is stacked with unknown jams and coveted unreleased tracks, which are pieced together among oddball classics to create over an hour of timeless and futuristic house music.
Aspetuck “Music For New Parents 3”
Aspetuck, real name Griff Fulton, is an American DJ-producer from Vermont, northeastern United States. Cut off from nightlife, he and his younger brother, Pierce, jammed together on guitar and drums in their basement, encouraged by their music-loving parents to pursue their wildest musical whims. He discovered new music through snowboard videos, and these exciting new flavours dragged him down the wormhole that is electronic music. (You can read more about him in his XLR8R feature here.)
After an unusually hectic December, the new year kicked off peacefully and he bought a ton of new music on Bandcamp and recorded “Music For New Parents 3,” a mix he recently uploaded to his Soundcloud. As a new parent, he finds himself constantly craving ambient, non-club-type music—calming music for background listening that “won’t wake up a baby,” he says. The mix serves as a tool to help him unwind by creating a really nice, tranquil feeling at his home. “I had such a nice time recording this one and hope it helps you find a well-deserved quiet moment,” he says, “whether you’re a new parent or just someone in need of a deep breath!”
Adam Rahman “One Last Mix 2021”
DJ, promoter, label co-owner, and festival coordinator, Adam Rahman has been a driving force for dance music across the Middle East for decades. And while techno might be the go-to sound for dance music right now, he’s been pushing forward-thinking techno and electronica since he started in the late ’90s. In December 2020, we featured his guest show on Proton Radio, for which he unveiled a deep, hypnotic techno set with transfixing mixing to boot. To close out last year, he’s delivered another mix with the same hallmarks, and that’s what we’re streaming here.
