The track, available now, features New York’s E-Man, who is well-known for his deep oral messages over house grooves. He makes his debut appearance on the label with a powerful local message about the current state of America, calling out the current President for allowing racism and chaos to run rampant through the streets of the nation. He asks the question: “just how blind will America be?”
Minx created the track specifically for E-Man and he told her he had “the perfect idea for it.”
“Blind Amerikkka” is a powerful statement from Minx, real name Jennifer Witcher, whose Women on Wax label has sought to champion Black female artists since its inception in 1996. She has been a central figure in Detroit’s dance music history, learning to DJ in the late ’80s, then holding a vital residency at Motor Club. She also hosted long-running radio shows in the city and been a fixture at Detroit’s Movement Festival since 2000.
Tracklisting
01. DJ Minx & E-Man “Blind Amerikkka”
“Blind Amerikkka” is available now on Women On Wax Recordings. You can stream it in full below.
Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt have unveiled their debut album as Smerz, having shared a teaser last year.
Believer melds sonic touchstones from the Norwegian duo’s youth, like musicals and classical music, with swirling, trance-indebted synth lines, hip-hop, and R&B. They began to work on it three years ago, formalizing the boundless sonic worlds that emerged within their monthly NTS shows.
Working mostly on their computer, their main instrument, Motzfeldt and Stoltenberg began to search for “something new in well-known tropes,” playing with the tension between the computer’s ability to render a spectrum of sounds ranging from the organic to the wholly unnatural.
“There’s this hierarchy between different styles and what is expected of different genres, but we wanted to keep them all together in this flat hierarchy to show their different potentials and abilities,” Motzfeldt tells XLR8R.
The pair bring Believer to life with the help of Benjamin Barron and Bror August, who respectively directed and styled the series of interconnected and accompanying videos, like the album trailer.
“Each scene is a picture in a way, but it’s alive and hopefully there’s this glimpse into a world and a bigger narrative,” Stoltenberg says. It’s a world that rides the line between reality and dreams, and one that’s steeped in the nostalgia and romanticism of Norway’s history.
Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt began releasing together in 2016, and their earlier EPs, Okey and Have fun—with shuffling, laidback basslines, footwork-indebted rhythms, and clipped snippets of field recordings—were rooted in the Copenhagen techno scene they fell into when they moved to the Danish city in 2011.
Since then, Motzfeldt has been studying music composition and Stoltenberg has been enrolled in a masters mathematics program, and the two pursuits have brought something different to their creative processes, which is demonstrated across the new record. In spite of their intellectual pursuits, the collaboration still “sidesteps analytical processes in favor of spontaneity, randomness, and intuition,” we’re told.
The announcement is accompanied by a music video for the title-track, which you can stream below.
01. Gitarriff 02. Max 03. Believer 04. Versace strings 05. Rain 06. 4 temaer 07. Hester 08. Flashing 09. The favourite 10. Rap interlude 11. Sonette 12. Glassbord 13. Grand piano 14. Missy 15. I don’t talk about that much 16. Hva hvis
Believer LP is scheduled for February 26 release on XL Recordings. Meanwhile, you can stream the title-track below and pre-order here.
Stones Throw will release the debut album from Apifera, the new project of Yuvi Havkin, better known for his work as Rejoicer.
Havkin is joined by Nitai Hershkovits on keys, plus Amir Bresler on drums and Yonatan Albalak on bass.
Apifera’s influences range from the folk music of their home country, Israel, to the traditional music from Sudan and Ghana, and the transcendental jazz of Sun Ra. Working intuitively, the quartet wrote and recorded Overstand mostly live in just three days. The final album includes minimal overdubbing.
Alongside today’s announcement, Apifera have shared a live video version of “The Pit & The Beggar.” The group describes their new single as “a spiral staircase into a wide abyss, revealing new colors on every turn.”
Tracklisting
01. Overstand 02. Lake VU 03. Énék Hamaguro 04. Yaki’s Delight 05. The Pit & The Beggar 06. Notre Damn 07. Iris One 08. Four Green Yellows 09. Gerçekten Orada Degilsin 10. Pulse 420
Overstand LP will land on January 25. Meanwhile, you can stream “The Pit & The Beggar” below and pre-order the record here.
Visionist, the London-based experimental producer, has announced details of a new full-length, A Call To Arms, with the release of its first single.
A Call To Arms will be Visionist’s third full-length and his first for Mute Records. The LP utilizes, for the first time, his voice in the more traditional lyrical form, and demonstrates a shift towards traditional songs rather than tracks. On previous efforts he used his voice as manipulated samples.
We’re told to expect “a landscape of enigmatic songs.” From one point of view, the album is “a musical equivalent of sleepwalking,” and from another the “soundtrack to a world experiencing deep sociopolitical and cultural changes.”
A Call To Arms also features a host of collaborators, including Haley Fohr, who provides vocals on the album’s first single, “The Fold,” and Black Midi’s Morgan Simpson. Meanwhile, Ben Romans Hopcraft appears on “By Design” on guitar, clarinet ,and vocals.
Alongside the announcement, Visionist has shared the video for “The Fold,” an intriguing film which was created using footage filmed of Jonathan Schipper’s 2016 installation Cubicle, from the Rice Gallery in Houston, Texas.
Visionist, real name Louis Carnell, released his debut album, Safe, on PAN in 2015. His second album, Value, came on Big Dada Recordings IN 2017.
Tracklisting:
01. By Design 02. Form 03. Allowed To Dream 04. Nearly God 05. A Born New 06. The Fold 07. Lie Digging 08. Winter Sun 09. Cast
A Call To Arms is set to arrive on March 5 on CD and digital platforms, with the vinyl to follow in spring. You can preorder the release here, with “The Fold streaming in full via the player below.
Sirr Tmo Sama, real name Reginald Cosper, Jr., refers to himself as an “artistic scientist.” He has been a staple of Chicago’s underground juke and footwork parties for 14 years, and has been working with the Teklife crew from its beginnings.
As a producer, his goal is to make the “most beautiful movements out of something undone,” through improvisation.” He shapes the footwork and juke sounds in a way that “resonates with himself and others,” while pushing the styles’ limits with his bass-heavy and experimental techniques.
LIFE SAVERS XX follows OV3 (OVERNIGHT VIBES 3), released in November 2020. It comprises 12 pumping juke and footwork tracks, made for a few important people around him to help them heal, he says.
Tracklisting
01. 555 02. 313GHOUSE 03. BILDAM 666 04. SAFE PASSAGE 05. 024 JOINT 06. FEEL BETTA 07. DELTAWAVE 707 08. GR8FUL 09. NO NAME JOE 10. PURPLE HEAVEN(CHADWICK, KOBE, PRINCE TRIBUTE) 11. ASCENSION 12. 999444 04:00
LIFE SAVERS XX LP is available now. You can stream it below and order it via Bandcamp here.
Blanck Mass, the project of musician Benjamin John Power, has announced his new albumout on Sacred Bones.
In Ferneaux is divided into two long-form journeys that gather the memories of being with now-distant others through the composition of a “nostalgic travelogue.” To do this, Power draws on an archive of field recordings from a decade of global travels.
Isolation gave Power an “opportunity to make connections in a moment when being together is impossible,” the Brooklyn, New York label tells XLR8R.
Each journey is haunted with the vestiges of voices, places, and sensations. These scenes alternate with “the building up and releasing of great aural tension, intensities that emerge from the trauma of a personal grieving process which has perhaps embraced its rage moment,” we’re told.
In Ferneaux follows Animated Violence Mild, which Blanck Mass released in 2019. While that record channelled the horrors of the surveillance state into the music aggressive music of Power’s career, In Ferneaux “explores pain in motion, building audio-spatial chambers of experience and memory.”
Tracklisting
01. Phase I 02. Phase II
In Ferneaux LP will be released on February 26. Meanwhile, you can stream a single edit of “Starstuff,” an excerpt from one of the record’s two long-form works, below, and pre-order here.
Jesse Futerman will make his Pacific Rhythm debut with a slice of music lovingly crafted in Canada’s French Quarter during the summer of 2019.
On Luckey, the Montreal producer reunites with good friend Beverly Glenn-Copeland, the Canadian music legend whose keyboard-inflected outsider folk has been making waves across the world, alongside a stellar ensemble incorporating cello, saxophone, bass, and vintage hardware.
There’s a melancholy tinge to the release, but infectious vocals and pitter-patter drums uplift and reassure, radiating contentment, joy, and gratitude.
The release includes a remix by Peaking Lights, who give the original a dubbed out dimension, like some lost post-disco Afro-cosmic Ibiza gem.
Futerman’s previous work has come via Jus Like Music Records and London label Church.
Tracklisting
01. Luckey 02. Luckey (Peaking Lights Remix)
Luckey EP is scheduled for February 4 release. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream the original version via the player below.
mu tate is an alias of Artur Strekalov, an artist based in London but originating from Riga, Latvia. Through his work, he delivers “immersive sonic procedures for introverted consumption,” he says. In 2019, he released Static, a gorgeous collection of experimental tracks on Edited Arts.
There’s little known about the new album, other than that it comprises eight tracks of ambient, dub, and downtempo psychedelia.
Launched in 2019, Experiences LTD. is the label of Special Guest DJ or uon, known to his friends as “Shy.” He originates from Michigan but is currently based in Berlin.
In December, mu tate released “Left My Brain,” his latest outing.
Tracklisting
01. Outer 02. Ultra 03. Saltwater 04. Inner 05. Impulse 06. All 3 07. New Way To Cope 08. Ultima Resonance
Let Me Put Myself Together LP is scheduled for January 28 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Saltwater” and “New Way To Cope” below, and pre-order the digital album here.
LD, the south London rapper, has unveiled the first of three new singles taken from his new tape, scheduled to land this summer.
As part of rap group 67 alongside rapper Monkey, Dimzy, Liquez, ASAP, and SJ, LD is credited with kick-starting the British drill movement and earned mainstream popularity. He joined Sketpa on his last tour, and has recorded with the likes of Dizzee Rascal. His music is characterised by dark and violent lyrical content, and ominous trap beats.
There’s little known about the new album, other than that it’s called Who’s Watching. It’s the first album that LD has released since 2018’s The Masked One.
In 2019, LD, real name Cassiel Wuta-Ofei, was jailed and sentenced to four-and-a half-years for dealing heroin and crack cocaine.
Kode9, or Steve Goodman, will release The Jackpot / Rona City Blues later this month.
The two-track release is Kode9’s first full solo outing since 2015’s Nothing LP. Since then, he’s put out remixes for Gant Man, Hyph11E, Mr. Fingers, and Burial, and he’s produced the video-game music project “Diggin In The Carts.” There was also his original track “Cell3” on Hyperdub‘s collaborative Adult Swim compilation in 2019.
We can expect a couple of “speedy little rollers,” according to the British label.
The A-side, ‘The Jackpot,” is a toxic, off-key zigzagger that coils and recoils, while reprieve comes on the B-side,” Rona City Blues,” with its lush pads, stuttering synth melody, and coasting drums.
This is the first of several new Kode9 releases for 2021. It comes in transparent vinyl housed in a heavyweight see-through yellow PVC sleeve with three holographic stickers.
The vinyl is limited to 500 copies.
Tracklisting
01. The Jackpot 02. Rona City Blues
The Jackpot / Rona City Blues is scheduled for January 15 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Rona City Blues” below and pre-order the record here.
