Jon Hopkins Readies ‘Late Night Tales’ Mix Album

Jon Hopkins has been tapped to deliver the next Late Night Tales mix CD. Set to arrive in March, Hopkins’ contribution to the long-running series will incorporate tracks from Four Tet, Teebs, Nils Frahm, Holy Other, Bibio, School of Seven Bells, and others as the mix weaves its way through a “beautiful and hypnotic sequence of songs, instrumentals, and cinematic electronics.”

“Putting this album together was a unique opportunity for me to present music that I have been listening to for years, free from the constraints of a club setting or from trying to stick to one genre,” Hopkins explains in a press release. “I chose tracks not just because they have been important to me but because of how they sit together, putting as much thought into the transitions and overall narrative as I did into the track choices,” he continues, “I mixed by key and by texture more than anything else, using original sound design, pivot notes, and often recording new synth or piano parts to link things together in a way that flows as naturally as possible.”

Hopkins’ resulting hybrid contribution to the reflective Late Night Tales series will see its official release on March 1. In the meantime, the record’s artwork and complete tracklist have been included below.

1. Ben Lukas Boysen “Sleepers Beat Theme (Unreleased)”
2. Darkstar “Hold Me Down”
3. Holy Other­ “YrLove”
4. Teebs ­”Verbena Tea (with Rebekah Raff)”
5. Nils Frahm ­”More”
6. Songs of Green Pheasant ­”I am Daylights”
7. Jonsi & Alex Daniell “In the Sea”
8. Evenings ­”Babe”
9. Letherette ­ “After Dawn”
10. Jon Hopkins ­”I Remember (Yeasayer Cover Version)”
11. David Holmes “Hey Maggy”
12. Alela Diane ­”Lady Divinev”
13. Four Tet ­”Gillie Amma I Love You”
14. School of Seven Bells ­”Connjur”
15. Peter Broderick ­”And It’s Alright (Nils Frahm Remix)”
16. Health ­”Before Tigers (Gold Panda Remix)”
17. Last Days ­”Missing Photos”
18. Bibio ­”Down to the Sound”
19. A Winged Victory for the Sullen ­”Requiem For The Static King 1″
20. Helios ­”Emancipation”
21. Rick Holland ­”I Remember (Exclusive Spoken Word Piece)”

Archivist “Trophic”

An established DJ and event promoter in the Seattle scene—and a member of the city’s Secondnature collective—Alex Markey (a.k.a. Archivist) will release his debut EP as a producer later this month via the burgeoning Blankstairs label. Titled the Migration EP, the record will offer four dense efforts from Markey (as well as a remix from Secondnature cohort Josef Gaard), including the elongated “Trophic.” Stretching out past the seven-minute mark, “Trophic” is an efficient techno production, one which allows only pieces of effected percussion and a sparse bass sequence to peak out above its bleak, hazy atmospheres. Archivist’s “Trophic” track can be downloaded in full below before his Migration EP sees an official release on January 27 via Blankstairs.

Trophic

Image by Warren Mattox

Four Tet Compiles Percussions 12″s on New Album

Four Tet‘s Percussions alias first appeared on the London producer’s 2011 Fabriclive 59 mix album, where he included the project’s appropriately titled first track, “Percussions One.” Since then, Four Tet has issued three 12″s under the name via his own Text label, releases which have been compiled onto a new full-length Percussions album simply titled 2011-2014. Available through Bandcamp, the digital LP is “made from all the Percussions 12″ releases on Text Records and some other tracks made during the same time period from 2011 until 2014,” according to the description there. Out now, the full album can be streamed via the player below.

Premiere: Watch the New Video for Lena Willikens’ “Howlin Lupus”

After being spotlighted during the course of our recent Bubblin Up’ Week 2015 series, Cologone-based DJ/producer Lena Willikens has now shared a new video for “Howlin Lupus,” the lead cut from her debut EP for Matias Aguayo’s Cómeme label.

The video for the humming production takes a tight focus on a collage of images by Cologne painter and visual artist Sarah Szczesny, who specifically made the piece to accompany Willikens’ Phantom Delia EP. As “Howlin Lupus” grinds and twists across its five-minute run, the video follows the coarse details of Szczesny’s collage, gliding along the edges of its many layers and flashing bits and pieces of its patterns. Said to be the first chapter of an ongoing Phantom Delia video series, the full clip for Lena Willikens’ “Howlin Lupus” can be watched below.

Podcast 373: Kowton

It wasn’t that long ago that any talk of Kowton (a.k.a. Joe Cowton) was almost sure to revolve around his drums. Even on his earliest records, the man simply had a way with percussion that few of his contemporaries could match. Honing his craft in Bristol, a UK city with a long history of thunderous, low-end-centric sounds, Kowton first made a name for himself amongst the splintered ruins of dubstep. By applying the genre’s bass explorations to something resembling a techno template, he came across a remarkably potent formula, one that eventually proved to be particularly compelling in the hands of Livity Sound, his collaborative project with fellow Bristolians Peverelist and Asusu. The trio has undoubtedly played a huge role in moving the UK’s so-called hardcore continuum forward, and has also laid the groundwork for a whole new generation of producers—many of them also hailing from Bristol—to step into the spotlight.

As for Kowton, it’s clear that he’s never stopped evolving, and while his solo work these days still features his signature percussive prowess, it’s also richer and deeper than ever before. His most recent effort, a 12″ for the upstart Whities imprint, is not only surprisingly melodic, but also quite possibly the best thing he’s ever done. (Lead cut “Glock & Roll” was named one of our top tracks of 2014.) Kowton seems to have crossed some sort of artistic threshold, and with a North American tour on the books this month, it feels like the perfect time for him to drop an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast series.

Surveying the tracklist, a couple of things jump out immediately. First of all, the podcast is largely a family affair, as the bulk of the tunes come from a handful of Kowton’s Bristol cohorts. Secondly, it’s worth noting that almost every track here is unreleased, meaning that he’s delivered nearly a full hour of previously unheard music. That being said, while the song titles may be unfamiliar, the aesthetic most certainly isn’t, as the mix is full of cracking drum hits, off-kilter rhythms, gut-rumbling bass, eerie atmospherics, and the occasional soaring melody. It’s undoubtedly an engaging listen, but more importantly, it’s proof that with artists like Kowton leading the charge, the future of bass music is in very good hands.

01 Bee Mask “Frozen Falls” (Editions Mego)
02 Neuroshima “Scanner”
03 Pev & Hodge “Untitled”
04 Tessela “Untitled”
05 Hodge “Recall”
06 Kowton “UKF”
07 Tessela “Untitled”
08 Asusu “Velez” (A Made Up Sound Remix)” (Livity Sound)
09 Neuroshima “Headspace”
10 Minor Science “Glamour”
11 Pearson Sound “Rubber Tree”
12 Pev & Kowton “Signal 2”
13 Batu “Collate”
14 Pev & Kowton “Low Strobe”

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XLR8R_Podcast_Kowton_2015_01_13

Grandbrothers “Wuppertal”

The Grandbrothers duo is made up of Erol Sarp and Lukas Vogel, two German musicians who met while attending university in Dusseldorf. Together, the pair combine synthesis, rhythmic programming, and live piano to craft modern classical hybrid compositions that would sit nicely alongside much of Nils Frahm’s and the Erased Tapes’ catalog. Dilation, Grandbrothers’ debut LP, however is set to land via Berlin’s FILM label in the coming months, including “Wuppertal” in its run. Spanning just over four minutes, the composition is led by cascading melodies—both from the piano and plucked strings—which weave together atop sparse layers of live percussion and subtle sound manipulation. A rush of syncopated patterns, “Wuppertal” is as hypnotic as it is rich, ultimately serving as a fine introduction to the burgeoning Grandbrothers pair’s forthcoming 12-track debut album, which is set to see its official release on March 23.

Wuppertal

Aden Returns to Ultramajic with the ‘Tanz’ EP; Preview it Now

Jimmy Edgar’s Ultramajic imprint is set to launch its 2015 run with a new EP from the semi-anonymous Aden project, which is widely believed to be an alias of Machinedrum, though this has never officially been confirmed. Having appeared on the label’s inaugural Metaphysix with Mentalism collection and issued the Four EP in March of last year, Aden will return with his second EP for Ultramajic, Tanz, later this month. Said to cover a “range of moods to fuel human bodies on the virtual dance floors of a digital future,” the record falls in line with the sharply crafted, future-gazing club cuts that have accounted for much of the fast-growing imprint’s catalog to date, with the four tracks on Aden’s forthcoming EP further described as efforts “hewn from bouncing drums, vocal yelps, glittering keys, and a few functional white noise-infused breakdowns that pack a solid dose of energy and spirit.”

Aden’s Tanz EP (it should be noted that “tanz” is the German word for “dance”) is scheduled to land on January 26; before then, the record’s four new cuts can be previewed below.

Croatia’s Garden Festival Reveals Complete 2015 Line-Up; Jackmaster, Talaboman, Leon Vynehall, Mark E, Young Marco, and More Added

As we first reported back in November, Croatia’s Garden Festival will embark on its 10th and final edition of the annual festival in the summer of 2015. Having already revealed that DJ Harvey, Joy Orbison, Midland, and Ben UFO would perform during the festival’s final run, the upcoming event’s full line-up has now been revealed. Among the new names added to the bill is globetrotting DJ and recent XLR8R podcast contributor Jackmaster (pictured above), as well as Talaboman (a.k.a. John Talabot and Axel Boman), Leon Vynehall, Young Marco (both of whom turned in two of our favorite releases of 2014), Mark E, Optimo, Gerd Janson (also a recent XLR8R podcast contributor), and Beats in Space head Tim Sweeney, whose weekly NYC radio show recently celebrated its 15th anniversary; an occasion we marked with an in-depth oral history of the electronic music institution.

Taking place in Croatia from July 1 – 8 across four stages, eight club nights, and 20 boat parties, the Garden Festival’s complete 2015 line-up can be found here.

Kid Smpl Preps New EP for Symbols, Shares Free Track

Seattle producer and former XLR8R podcast contributor Kid Smpl will debut on Kastle‘s Symbols imprint next month with the Precinct EP. A five-track affair, Precinct appears to find Kid Smpl continuing to evolve his singular brand of immersive productions, where widescreen sonic landscapes and ghostly melodies are cut by otherworldly (and often distorted) rhythmic structures.

Though previews for the West Coast producer’s new EP are yet to surface, Symbols has supplied a non-EP cut from Kid Smpl for the label’s first installment of its new free download series. Entitled “Haven Dialect,” that track can be downloaded via the player below, where the artwork and tracklist for Kid Smpl’s forthcoming Precinct EP have also been included; the record is set to drop in digital and limited-cassette form on February 10.

1. Precinct
2. Ender
3. Cold Scan
4. Barrier
5. Loss Parameter

Hear Another Track from John Carpenter’s ‘Lost Themes’ LP

A new track has surfaced from Lost Themes, the forthcoming debut solo album from iconic horror film composer John Carpenter. An appropriately eerie effort, “Night” finds Carpenter using a series of cascading synth sequences and atmospheric chords to weave together the suspenseful new composition.

Appearing just a few weeks before Carpenter’s Lost Themes album sees its official release on February 3 via Sacred Bones (the same day a deluxe edition of the record featuring remixes from Silent Servant, Bill Kouligas, and others is also set to arrive), LP cut “Night” can be streamed in its entirety below.

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