Music Submissions Roundup: June
A selection of our favorite music submitted by XLR8R+ members last month.
Music Submissions Roundup: June
A selection of our favorite music submitted by XLR8R+ members last month.
We’re back with another roundup of submissions, and that means a slew of artists that we’re stocked to have discovered. Our picks from this month, while they’re perhaps more downbeat and calming than on our previous editions, are even more geographically diverse, coming from Morocco, Australia, and Iran, in addition to the usual spots. We welcome back Detroit’s Filthiest, but other than that these artists are also new to us. Emin Gok, with his fusion of jazz and Turkish folk with electronica, is something we highly recommend, and also Dami.an, a promising young lo-fi talent. In terms of mixes, this month is especially rich, and Kamyar Keramati’s recent one for KIMCHI Records in Berlin’s Neukölln district is 70 minutes of wonderfully paced transcendental madness that engrossed us until the last beat. If you’re looking for something more upbeat, dig into Mort.domed’s recent set from Denver’s Milk Bar. With its bone-rattling acid, breaks, and peak-time techno, you’ll probably need to unwind, and we can recommend Broken Atoms, Maddrigal, and Aurelia for that! Dig in, please.
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.
Martyn Pasch “Path Transitions” (Anechoic Remix)
Anechoic, a Moroccan producer now based is Paris, has shared his work through labels including Konsequent, Subsist, and Skryptöm. His remix of Martyn Päsch’s “Path Transitions” encapsulates his sound perfectly: techno that’s trippy, textural, and blissfully melancholic.
Broken Atoms “Koganoya Adventurer”
Broken Atoms is the alias of Chris Adam, a producer based in Essex, southeast England. By combining floating guitar and synth melodies with glitched drums, he creates genre-bending electronica with a post-rock twist. His most recent EP is called Journey and, with its soaring soundscapes, ambient drones, and soul soothing textures. “Koganoya Adventurer” is our favorite track.
Casper Hastings “Ruthless Romance”
Casper Hastings’ sound stems from his teenage years DJing at under-the-radar raves and local parties in rural Ireland. His sound leans towards bouncy but dark techno and warbling electro. Later this month, he’ll release Recreational Murder, a six-track EP on Dublin’s Yin Yang Label and the EP’s title track underlines Hastings’ long-running love for jungle. (“Good Medicine,” the EP’s fifth track, is also well worth your time.)
Maddrigal “Alma”
Maddrigal, a sound explorer based in Paris, left classical music behind to focus on something that can broadly be described as electronica, downtempo, and dark ambient. He’s “constantly looking for new ways to compose,” he says, and he’s inspired by Oneohtrix Point Never and Alice Coltrane. After releasing his first EP, Blacklight, he’s now back with Essence/Lack Thereof, a collection of five tracks that invite us to “cross the mirror to enter a world apart. A sensitive world.” We’re playing “Alma,” the impossibly soothing opener, here.
Dakuan “Vacancy”
Dakuan is the techno alias of Darnell Stewart from Memphis, Tennessee. He’s better known as DJ DanceAlone, but as Dakuan, Stewart delivers “glitchy techno with occasional micro-samples and sample collages.” “Vacancy” is one of the standout cuts on Memphis Innovation, a 12-track album experiment that merges lo-fi recording techniques with straight up Detroit techno.
Emin Gok “Bataille’s Will”
Emin Gök aims to reflect on the many facets of the human condition through sound. His melodic influences span from jazz and Turkish folk to blues and rock, but the structures he uses take advantage of the freedom of contemporary electronica. “Bataille’s Will” is the spellbinding first single from Gok’s upcoming project, Prayer in a Void.
Aurelia “Midnight Sky”
Aurelia De La Costa (a.k.a Aurelia) is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her latest single, “Midnight Sky,” which features Dyan, is a hypnotic and soulful house jam, with powerful vocals and a romantic message.
Detroit’s Filthiest “Imitated Never Duplicated”
Julian Shamou began DJing as a teenager in the mid-’90s and has gone on to produce over 100 tracks under aliases including DJ Nasty, Digitek, and 313 Bass Mechanics. After moving to Detroit in the summer of 1983, Shamou became a part of the city’s emerging ghettotech scene. As Detroit’s Filthiest today, he makes hip-hop beats, bouncing electro bombs, and warehouse techno. In June, he released Imitated Never Duplicated, an EP of four tracks, and we’re streaming clips here.
Charles F. Pokhara, Nepal III “Trails Of Light”
Charles F. Moreland III is an American producer living in the Annapurna Mountains of Nepal. His sound exists between ambient, lo-fi, and trip-hop, and his most recent EP is Trails of Light, which leans on field recordings, analog drum machines, and modular synth patches to paint three surreal soundscapes. The title track is a dark organic trip that we keep coming back to, and we think you will too.
Dami.an “Black On Grey”
Dami.an, a 25-year-old based on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, only began producing music at the start of the pandemic. He’s spent the last six months working on S.O.M.E.T.I.M.E., an album of lo-fi house, and “Black on Grey” is the standout track.
Uji & La Charo “Sin darle motivo” (Derrok Remix)
Raised in the southwestern Andes, Derrok aims to preserve the essence of his homeland through music, bringing the wilderness to the dancefloor with a mix of electronic and organic elements. He’s put out two albums on Nomade Records, and earlier this month he shared a remix of Charo Bogarín (a.k.a La Charo) and Uji, delivering a trance-inducing composition that fuses indigenous and natural soundscapes with the modern dance music aesthetics.
Nother “Lines” feat. Moon Leap
Nother is the solo project of Stefano Milella, who has built a career as a producer, drummer, and composer for movies and television. After the loss of a close friend, Milella felt the need to create his own project starting from what he really cares about: the music. “Lines,” with its bright synths and vocals by Moon Leap, is both engrossing and calm. It’s the second single from the Future is Bright, Nother’s first album, coming soon.
Mort.domed “Live at Milk Bar in Denver“
Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Mort.domed, started DJing clubs at the young age of 16. He’s now 22, and this month he’s delivered a live recording of a recent set at Milk Bar in Denver. Expect just under 90 minutes of acid, breaks, and peak-time techno.
Teresa Ferreiro “Asturias”
Teresa Ferreiro is a PhD student from Universidade de Vigo in Spain. Besides being a cultural researcher and visual artist, she DJs, and in the set she’s presented to XLR8R this month, you’ll hear Asturian folk music mixed in with IDM and drum & bass. It’s her attempt at resuscitating the powerful emotion of anagogic tradition within new forms of music.
Kamyar Keramati “Kimchicast Mix“
Hailing from Tehran, Iran, Kamyar Keramati didn’t have much access to music growing up, but that didn’t deter him. Instead, it inspired a “strong drive to push boundaries,” he tells XLR8R. From a young age, he was heavily influenced by the likes of Queen’s Brian May, and he spent his youth learning guitar and experimenting with music production. As part of electro-rock group Langtunes, he released Teherantor, a debut album, in 2014, and he currently forms one half of Tonnovelle. With Keramati’s recent mix for KIMCHI Records, a record shop in Berlin’s Neukölln district, you can expect 70 minutes of wonderfully paced transcendental madness that’s as hard to label as it is to pause.
