Chicago artists Tasha and Sen Morimoto have shared an album of live sessions.
These recordings were originally meant for the Millennium Park at Home virtual concert series. Morimoto was pulled from the lineup after criticizing the city’s Mayor, and Tasha asked to be removed from the bill in solidarity. So both artists streamed the footage over YouTube and recorded the audio.
The album includes five improvised “movements” and “Goosebumps,” an unreleased song from Morimoto’s upcoming self-titled LP. Tasha’s portion of the record features previously released and unreleased songs that she recorded at dog haven in Three Oaks, Michigan.
All proceeds from the release go to the Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project, a visual arts and humanities organization that connects artists and scholars with people at the Stateville Prison.
The album is mastered by Brok Mende.
Tracklisting
01. Tasha”But There’s Still The Moon” 02. Sen Morimoto “Movement One” 03. Tasha “Winter Song IV” 04. Tasha “Alright” 05. Sen Morimoto “Movement Two” 06. Tasha “Dream Still” (Unreleased) 07. Tasha “Bed Song 1” (Unreleased) 08. Sen Morimoto “Movement Three” 09. Tasha “Kind of Love” 10. Tasha “Lake Superior” (Unreleased) 11. Sen Morimoto “Movement Four” 12. Tasha “Something About This Girl” 13. Sen Morimoto “Movement Five”
Tasha and Sen Morimoto Live Sessions LP is out now. Meanwhile, you can stream the recordings in full below and order the album here.
TAH, real name Taree Jones, is from Newark, New Jersey, and began releasing music in October 2019, beginning with ALL I EVER WANTED. Earlier this year, he put out That Way You Feel Right Now. His music spans Jersey Club, a high-energy style that grabs you and pulls you onto the floor.
Menacing is a full-length album, and it comprises seven new tracks, one featuring Marvelito. TAH hasn’t shared any details about it, but if it’s like his earlier records, expect another set of Jersey club originals he’s been sitting on for a while.
Flowers is the London artist’s first original music since 2019’s Moonlight, out on Ninja Tune’s sub-label Counter Records. It features collaborations with Ell Murphy, Gabrielle Aplin, and Malian griot music group Trio da Kali.
Alongside the announcement, TSHA has shared “Sister,” a vibrant piece of music packed with melody and emotion. She wrote it during lockdown after finding out she had an older half-sister from her estranged father that she is also estranged from.
“We spoke on the phone and were texting each other in lockdown and we recently met for the first time,” TSHA explains. “She’s lovely and we got on straight away, so I’m very happy to have a new member of my family as I’ve not had much of that in my life. The song is an expression of all of those feelings.”
“Demba” is a collaboration with Trio Da Kali. Vocalist Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté is one of the most revered musicians in the Malian griot tradition, and her vocals and a balafon accompaniment by Lassana Diabaté were the foundations for the track. At its heart, it’s a song advocating female solidarity, and it refers to one of the most significant cultural events in southern Mali, the celebratory parties that mark life-cycle rites.
Leaving Records has released a pensive and affecting new single by Long Beach’s Zeroh.
Out today, the single, “HEYOKA,” follows on from Zeroh’s debut full-length, BLQLYTE, which dropped on Leaving in April this year. Much like its album predecessor, “HEYOKA” is an almost beatless cut of psychedelic new jazz, with Zeroh’s singular vocal delivery skipping over frayed samples and heavy soundscapes.
The single lands with a 3D-modelled artwork of black waves by recent XLR8R+ alumni Ashtrejinkins, who also animated the art for the single’s video, which can be streamed in full below.
Leaving Records also recently released “Just Me and You” (lofi edit), a standout debut outing from San Francisco queer bpoc artist Xyla, which can be streamed below.
Cabaret Voltaire will release Shadow Of Fear, the group’s first album in 26 years, in November.
Shadow Of Fear is Cabaret Voltaire’s first release with Richard H. Kirk as the band’s sole member. Its genesis was the 2014 Berlin Atonal festival where Kirk played the first show on his own as Cabaret Voltaire, after which he went on to perform across Europe, shaping the sound of the band’s future.
“I started developing tracks specifically for live performance,” Kirk says. “Stuff that was quite stripped back and crude. Every time I would visit a new place to perform, I would write something fresh.”
Kirk recorded the album at Western Works, the studio used throughout Cabaret Voltaire’s history, and he toyed with upgrading his old setup to digital but decided to retain his original equipment. “Making this album reminded me a bit of the old days with Cabaret Voltaire because there wasn’t that much equipment, so you really had to use your imagination,” he continues.
The tone and personality of Cabaret Voltaire is ingrained into its core as it dances across techno, dub, house, and ’70s Kosmische, but it begins a new era for the Sheffield outfit. “The mission statement from the off was no nostalgia,” Kirk says. “Normal rules do not apply. Something for the 21st Century. No old material.”
Originally active between 1973 and 1994, Cabaret Voltaire featured Chris Watson until 1981 and Stephen Mallinder until 1994. The group was inactive until, with Kirk as the sole remaining member, the 2014 performance at Berlin’s Atonal festival.
Tracklisting
01. Be Free 02. The Power (Of Their Knowledge) 03. Night Of The Jackal 04. Microscopic Flesh Fragment 05. Papa Nine Zero Delta United 06. Universal Energy 07. Vasto 08. What’s Goin’ On
Shadow Of Fear LP is out on November 20 on Mute. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Vasto” in full below.
Dark Entries will release Family of Waves, a new EP from Steffi as Crushed Soul.
Steffi, real name Steffie Doms, has only released as Crushed Soul once before, in 2013 as part of an Ostgut Ton compilation. The Family of Waves EP represents both familiar and novel pastures for her. While her love of electro and classic Detroit techno have been oft-evident, here we witness the darker shades of new wave and industrial creep to the forefront.
“This turn for the twisted feels not just natural, but predestined, an inevitable succumbing to morbid forces,” the San Francisco label explains.
This is Steffi’s first full release on Dark Entries. In 2016, she provided a remix for Cute Heels’ 2016 EP on the label. She describes it as a “playful association…a mix of my past and new modern waves.”
All songs have been mastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The sleeve and accompanying postcard were designed by Eloise Leigh using video art stills by Goldenliustra.
To learn more about Steffi, check out her XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Gravitational Field 02. Scalar Property 03. Family Of Waves 04. Diffusion Of Heat
Family Of Waves EP is out on August 28 on Dark Entries. Meanwhile, you can stream “Gravitational Field” below and pre-order here.
For nearly a decade, Sweden has been associated with a singular strain of cold, menacing techno, and Dan Vicente (a.k.a. Acronym) is the man behind some of its most affecting embodiments. Having risen to moderate prominence as part of Sweden’s Northern Electronics label, where he released two brilliant albums—June and Mu, both from 2015—Vicente has gone on to establish himself as one of the more singular and enigmatic producers in a bustling global techno landscape.
Vicente grew up in central Stockholm, his father a classical Spanish guitarist. He progressed through heavy metal—bands like Slayer and Celtic Frost—into techno, leading him to Anthony Linell (f.k.a Abdulla Rashim), of a similar age, who had ambitions to start a label. In 2013, Northern Electronics was born, with Vicente as the oft-forgotten third member quick to avoid any whiff of media attention. His music on the label, which channeled the depression after a friend’s suicide, was integral in its success. As Northern Electronics became a landmark of modern techno, Vicente peeped out, looked around, and decided it was time to move on. “I wanted to break free because there’s other stuff to build,” he toldXLR8R in 2018.
Nowadays, outside of touring and producing, Vicente heads up the Stilla Ton label, launched with a minimal synth-leaning record from a group called Post.23. Now in its sixth release, the label explores a diverse tapestry of sounds, and it’s not afraid to reach back to Vicente’s metal roots and present them through a techno lens. He’s put out three releases on the label, including a collaboration with Kali Malone.
With no touring, Vicente has used lockdown to work on new music, but it’s also been an opportunity to reflect on the sounds and styles that have inspired him. For his XLR8R podcast, he’s presented some of these in a 70-minute mix rich in records that he wishes not to disclose. His goal was to recreate the pulse of a typical Stockholm night, when he’ll head out late and rave into the early hours, entrenched in the techno sounds that he’s committed his life to recreating.
01. What have you been up to recently?
I’ve mostly been enjoying nature. Running, climbing, walking, and swimming while eating good food with my family.
02. How has lockdown been for you?
To be honest, my life has not changed that much because I already naturally practised physical distancing before the pandemic. Not being able to travel and play shows took some time to get used to though.
03. What music have you been listening to?
I have been listening to a lot of Brazilian Bossa nova and some jazz too.
04. Where and when did you record this mix?
I recorded it in my studio, which is located in a basement in Stockholm.
05. What can we expect with it?
Some techno, some trance, some house, and some things in between.
06. How did you go about choosing the records that you included?
I have wanted to do a DJ mix for a while and so I started to select some records that I thought fitted together. The selection usually takes about 80 percent of the time it takes to create the mix. For this mix, I wanted to pick music that, in my mind, kind of feels like Stockholm by night.
07. How do you go about finding your records?
I’m always searching for things on the web and in record stores. There are several good local shops where you can find interesting stuff.
08. What else do you have on your agenda at the moment?
I don’t think I will be playing many shows in the near future. So I am going to try and make as much music as I can, while adjusting all the other parameters in life.
09. What are your long-term ambitions with music?
I’ve never really have had a goal or an ambition in music, I’ve just always needed a way to express myself. Music has a therapeutic effect for me, especially when words fail to explain what is going on inside.
XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.
Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast here.
Editor’s Note: No tracklisting will be added to this mix.
Tangents is a Sydney, Australia-based quintet melding rhythmic, improvisational jazz with melancholy tunes and artfully abstract production. Timeslips follows their 2018 album, New Bodies, and they recorded much of it in a single day, just before guitarist Sia Ahmad left the band. Only the “bravest, most intense” moments from the session remain intact across the release.
In contrast to Tangents‘ earlier work, we’re told that “more tension and intention” pervade Timeslips, and that it demonstrates a “thoughtful maturation of spontaneous ideas.”
The brittle skittering mallets of “Exaptation,” raucous guitar of “Debris,” and processed trumpet of “Vessel” add new timbres to an existing palette of jazz drums, melancholy piano, throbbing cello, and swirling glitched ambience.
The album finishes with the tonal rumble of a 100-carriage coal train winding through New South Wales’ Bylong Valley, which recalls Tangents’ earlier references to the Australian environment on New Bodies and Stateless, also on the Brooklyn, New York label.
Below is an archive of XLR8R podcasts and mixes, available as downloads for XLR8R+ members. Note: podcasts newer than 667 can be downloaded natively on the page in each Podcast feature.
If there are any specific podcasts missing from the list that you would like, please email us at [email protected] and we will endeavor to help you out.
Reidy, from Sydney, Australia but based in Berlin, Germany, writes and performs original music using guitars and synthesized and recorded sound. Vanish is her first appearance on Editions Mego, and it completes a trio of releases that started with last year’s Brace, Brace and In Real Life, out via Slip. She’s also released on A Guide To Saints, Room40′s magnetic tape label.
We’re told that “the delicious unease, the anxious burning” of the preceding volumes has settled, becoming “more wide-eyed and resolute.” For all its poise, the album’s sense of build—electric licks rasping into glistening synths, punctured by distant kicks—feels freshest.
Across the album, Reidy’s music “sweeps you up,” the label says, and her guitar and vocal lines are mapped to the natural ebb-and-flow of breath and thought, lulling you as they “push through vast and secret spaces.”
The release is mixed and mastered by Joe Talia at Holding Pattern, Berlin.
Artwork comes from Suze Whaites, with layout by Nik Void.
Tracklisting
01. Clairvoyant (18:22) 02. Oh Boy (15:18)
Vanish LP will be released by Editions Mego on October 16. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Clairvoyant” below.
