Marie Davidson will debut a “bold new sound” with a new album as part of Marie Davidson & L’Œil Nu.
Marie Davidson & L’Œil Nu is formed of three long-time friends with shared roots in Montreal, Canada’s music scene: Davidson plus Pierre Guerineau and Asaël R. Robitaille.
It’s a reaction to the touring that followed Davidson’s breakout 2018 album, Working Class Woman, navigating the club and festival lifestyle, often alone, always with her case of instruments and cables in tow. This eventually led her to quit touring altogether last year. The album title, alongside the artwork, with its three versions of Davidson, are nods to these difficult experiences.
As Davidson eyed up the end of the tour, she craved the camaraderie of making music with people she knew best and so called Robitaille and Guerineau about an idea they’d come up with the previous year: to make music inspired by pop, such as the iconic work of French singer Mylène Farmer. Marie Davidson & L’Œil Nu was born, with Davidson as the group’s front-woman, lyrics-writer, and synth player. The sound and arrangement, meanwhile, is led by Robitaille and Guerineau.
We’re told to expect a “forward-facing, innovative pop record” that builds on the classic tenets of Davidson’s music to create something that “strikes out towards a broader audience.” It contains dark humour and interpolated musical influences, from Fleetwood Mac to Kraftwerk, and jazz classics such as Billie Holiday and Chet Baker.
“We wanted to make songs, like the music we’ve been enjoying altogether for more than a decade,” Davidson explains.
The album lands on Ninja Tune, where Davidson put out Working Class Woman.
Tracklisting
01. Renegade Breakdown 02. Back To Rock 03. Worst Comes To Worst 04. Center Of The World (Kotti Blues) 05. La Ronde 06. C’est parce que j’m’en fous 07. Just In My Head 08. Lead Sister 09. My Love 10. Sentiment
Renegade Breakdown LP is scheduled for September 25 release on Ninja Tune. Meanwhile, you can stream “Renegade Breakdown” below and pre-order the album here.
Matthias is the head of Superluminal, a small Berlin label where he’s put out almost all of his productions. He chooses to reveal only a few personal details, but this is what we do know: Matthias originates from Italy, but moved to London and then to Berlin in 2016, when he launched Superluminal and its accompanying party series. He’s been making his own records since 2010 and DJing since 2007, but the two go hand in hand: he only plays his own edits and original productions in his sets. On the odd occasion, you’ll hear some demos from friends, but generally if the music has been widely released, it isn’t eligible for play.
When Matthias does play out, he’ll press his records onto PVC dubplates because he “likes records too much.” For this, he’ll turn to Marco Pellegrino at Analog Cut Mastering Studio in Berlin, who worked with him on this podcast. Matthias chose the 11 or so tracks that he wanted to include and then approached Pellegrino, who pressed them tracks onto vinyl for the first time. Matthias then headed to his bedroom where he strung them together.
With a playtime of just under an hour, Matthias’ mix is full of the sort of deep, minimal groove you’d hear at Club der Visionäre as day turns to night. But this set of music is more wide-reaching than what we’ve heard him play before; it’s dark but playful, with some pumping basslines, electro beats, and spacey samples, making for a mix of midnight madness made of records you may never hear again.
01. What have you been up to recently?
I am aware this has been historically one of the toughest periods ever seen before, but I have been blessed by a unique dose of creativity and inspiration. I’ve spent most of my time in the studio, editing existing records, making music, and searching for new records. I finally also rebuilt all the acoustic treatment to make a perfect environment to play records and to record new music to play, hopefully in the near future.
02. It sounds like you’ve quite enjoyed lockdown.
Yes. The lockdown in Berlin has not been dramatic compared to other countries. In Italy, for example, for all my friends and family, it’s been a real nightmare. I obviously felt sad for all the clubs closing, and all our events and my gigs being cancelled, but these will come back. It’s been a special opportunity to think about how to define my artistic identity.
03. Can you talk briefly about how you got into music?
My grandfather was a contemporary musician. I started playing guitar when I was young, initially classic guitar and then electric guitar. I played in a punk rock band for a while in my hometown, but then my attention turned to the world of electronic dance music. I was around 16 when I began attending some local events, and this is when I finally got to hear the word “DJ,” even if I didn’t understand the essence of it. Immediately I felt deeply intrigued by all the knobs and instruments behind the booth, all controlled by a single figure responsible for people’s dreams.
04. You choose to press all your music onto vinyl before you play. What are your motivations for doing this?
I cannot imagine myself playing a different format, ever. I see a record as an instrument, and I enjoy the feeling of touching it, and the visual content of each record, not to mention the sound of it! I also think about the analog mechanical system behind turntables, which creates a real sense of swing while mixing records. This is not possible with a digital approach.
05. You moved to Berlin in 2016. What took you over there?
A lot of the music I like comes from Detroit and Chicago, and I’ve always seen Berlin as Detroit’s European counterpart. It’s the fulcrum of electronic dance music. I heard about its musical and artistic freedoms and I still believe it is hard to find anything similar elsewhere. I was also fascinated by Berlin’s past, and how that affected the people musically and anthropologically.
06. How do you find Berlin compares to London?
There are things I miss about London, but others I do not at all. Both cities have a huge musical background which fascinates me, although obviously the roots and the crowds are different. London has big issues in terms of events organisation, due to tremendous costs and rules to be followed, not to mention the amount of venues being closed by the government. I see Berlin as more supportive for clubs and venues, giving opportunity to small ventures to grow pure and strong. I personally do not like the competitiveness I’ve found in Berlin, with more than 20 crews doing more or less the same thing and everyone thinking they’re a pioneer. Nobody is a pioneer here; we still play tunes from 20 years ago!
07. Where and when did you record this mix?
I recorded this mix at home, which is where I’ve built my studio. I see the mix as a synthesis of what I’ve created during these hard times. Obviously I could not include all the tracks I’ve made, so I only chose the ones that represent me the most at the moment. It reflects the feelings I have had in the last few months.
08. What can we expect with it?
I would like you to not expect anything, rather just to listen with honesty without any critical approach. I think we should learn more how to listen without expectations and evaluations. I think that perhaps the mix leans towards a more clubby approach, because I simply miss playing music in clubs for people.
09. How did you go about choosing the tracks that you included?
I have a lot of unreleased material, but it is not always easy to include it in a mix because there are some tracks I just do not want to reveal. So I did not include them, because I prefer to play them only in clubs. Personally I have a specific story to tell with this recording, and only certain tracks are part of it. It does not mean they are better or worse, they just belong to this story.
10. What’s on your horizon this year?
I personally want to continue my own event, Superluminal X Discarded Gems, with my close friend Marco Pellegrino. The interruption caused by the pandemic made me sad. I spent the first month struggling to understand this break, and I suffered a lot even mentally because it meant a lot for me. I see that energy on the horizon and some glimpse of those morning lights we had there, so hopefully it will come back one day soon.
11. What are your long-term ambitions with music?
The most important thing for me is to work on my sound signature, and my identity. I’ve never cared so much about what others play and why; I believe in having your own sound and imprint. Of course I have my personal roots and inspirations but I believe in personal identity; sometimes it is easy to become trapped by others’ choices or taste, like being contaminated by the external world. We should not be afraid to develop our musical instincts, and sometimes we must question our choices in order to understand if they are spontaneous or absorbed from someone else just because they have a little bit more credit than us.
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.
Legowelt, real name Danny Wolfers, visited SMEM in Fribourg, Switzerland, in early 2019 to become the institution’s first artist in residence.
Across the album, Wolfers used hand-picked synthesizers from the museum’s archive, including the rare Farfisa Synthorchestra and the EVS-1 Evolution, the “shittiest rompler ever made,” he says.
“When I first saw this collection, I was truly flabbergasted. Endless rows of synthesizers—some so obscure I had not ever seen nor heard of them. This place will probably turn into the world’s most magical place for synths.”
Leaving ample space for new sounds to unfold, Wolfers invokes gentle trips, brooding excursions, and bleep-heavy soundscapes, we’re told. You can read more about the setup here.
As Legowelt, Wolfers has been a key figure in the Dutch electronic music scene since the early ’90s, steadily releasing timeless music that merges the pioneering sounds of Detroit and Chicago with idiosyncratic sci-fi fascinations. He released Tips For Life, his latest album, earlier this year, also on his own Nightwind Records.
Read more about Wolfers in his XLR8RArtist Tips feature here.
Note: A limited edition of this album was already sent out to early supporters of the exhibition. This is its first public release.
Tracklisting
01 / A1. Unconditional Contours Memory Moog 02 / A2. Châteaux dans le ciel Farfisfa Synthorchestra 2 03 / A3. Swiss Fairytales 04 / A4. Little Music with a Big Synth 05 / A5. Evolution EVS-1 Promars and Prophet 5 06 / B1. Prophet Vector Synth Dazzling in the Sun 07 / B2. These Phenomena Are Not Well Understood 08 / B3. SMEM23 Digital Clap Trap Promars Prophet 09 / B4. Roxannes Magic Watch 10 / B5. FBT Synther 2000
Unconditional Contours LP is scheduled for October 2 release. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Unconditional Contours Memory Moog” below.
Eartheater will release Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, her fifth album, on PAN.
Eartheater composed and workshopped most of Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin over a 10-week artist residency for FUGA in Zaragoza, Spain, housed in a sprawling glass facility that looked out over the mountains. Her newfound sense of isolation ultimately became liberating, leading her to sidestep the steady grids inherent to electronic music, and to conceive pieces rooted in guitar music and her desire to perform live with other players.
We’re told that the album “recontextualizes Eartheater’s combinatorial approach to production within her most direct and anthemic songs to date.” From the guitar parts and the orchestral string arrangements, to the harp and violin lines performed by Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz of LEYA, the applications of acoustic instruments bring an “extraordinary emotional emphasis to her compositions,” the label tells XLR8R.
Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin is Eartheater’s first solo album for PAN since 2018’s IRISIRI. Last year, she released a collaborative EP with LEYA, titled Angel Lust, on PAN. She also self-released her Trinity mixtape via her own label, Chemical X.
Tracklisting
01. Airborne Ashes 02. Metallic Taste of Patience 03. Below The Clavicle 04. Burning Feather 05. How To Fight 06. Kiss of The Phoenix 07. Volcano 08. Fantasy Collision 09. Mercurial Nerve 10. Goodbye Diamond 11. Bringing Me Back 12. Diamond In The Bedrock 13. Faith Consuming Hope
Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin LP is available on October 2. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Below The Clavicle” and “How To Fight” via the player below. You can stream an official video for “How to Fight” below.
Wyllie recorded Paradise Cinema in Dakar, Senegal in collaboration with mbalax (the national popular dance music of Senegal) percussionists Khadim Mbaye and Tons Sambe, who provide the rhythmic backbone. There are traditional elements of mbalax rhythm across the album, but they’re often deconstructed or played at tempos outside of the tradition, so while it hints at a location, it occupies a space outside any specific region.
The album’s dream-like quality is inspired by Wyllie’s experience in Dakar, when “the music around the city would go on until 6am,” he recalls. “I could hear this from my bed at night and it all blended together, in what felt like an early version of the record.”
Atmospherically, we’re told that the music is vaporous and enigmatic, but also percussive, “existing in a paradoxical sound-space that’s amorphous, yet still purposeful, serene, but propulsive and aesthetically sharp,” Gondwana Records, the label explains.
Paradise Cinema is also informed by notions of hauntology, an idea developed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, in that it reflects on possible futures that were never realised, and how directions taken in the past can haunt the present. It refers to a handful of old cinemas in Dakar built around independence, that are old and derelict but feel “like monuments to that period, when the city was flooded with utopian ideas about its potential futures,” Wyllie says. As such, the music is situated in an imagined culture that never came to pass.
The album artwork is a photo of Dakar’s Digital Palm, a telecommunications mast disguised as a palm tree. “As a modern piece of technology that on first glance looks natural, it mirrors the album’s combination of modern and acoustic elements,” Wyllie says.
For more information on Wyllie, check out his XLR8R podcast as part of Portico Quartet here.
Tracklisting
01. Possible Futures 02. It Will Be Summer Soon 03. Casamance 04. Utopia 05. Liberté 06. Digital Palm 07. Paradise Cinema 08. Eternal Spring
Paradise Cinema LP is available on October 9 digitally and on vinyl and CD. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Possible Futures” below.
Villete, real name Anne Korteweg, from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, first appeared on Scissor and Thread in 2016 with Girl Next Door, her debut outing. The three-track release sold out quickly.
On Dawn is Mine, we’re treated to seven tracks of understated, floating beauty. It sees Korteweg exploring the more abstract sides of electronic music. “Using a variety of synthesizers, she creates rich and lush sounding structures that continuously bend and flow loosely,” the Brooklyn, New York label explains. She finds inspiration from listening to Pauline Anna Strom, Takashi Kokubo, and Actress.
Opener “Penrose Stairs” sets the tone with gentle arpeggiated synths creating a warm, fuzzy atmosphere. “Dawn Is Mine” uncovers a low bass throb mixed with dubbed out effects and textures, while “Lilac” emits an ethereal, woozy atmosphere, with lush pads, choral textures, and blissful melodic motifs. “Myst” also luxuriates in hazy pads before a slow groove emerges to carry the track towards the edge of the dancefloor.
If “Myst” flirts with the idea of dancing, “Show Me” dives right in; expect an exquisite slice of deep, outsider house with a psychedelic twist. Winding the release down is “Wild Things,” a beat-less vignette of synths engaged in a melodic interplay of chimes and tones.
Earlier this year, Scissor and Thread, headed by Francis Harris, released 1985 by Hidden Spheres.
You can read more about Harris in our full-length interview here.
Tracklisting
A1. Penrose Stairs A2. Dawn Is Mine A3. Lilac A4. Midnight Arp B1. Myst B2. Show Me B3. Wild Things
Dawn is Mine EPis available on vinyl on September 11.
Editor’s Note: Pre-order links and clips will be added as soon as they’re available.
Heart Math arrives after a short hiatus for The Gaslamp Killer, real name William Bensussen. It’s his third album, following 2016’s Instrumentalepathy, available on his own Cuss Records. We can expect an “intense and emotional masterpiece” that reaffirms why Bensussen “remains one of the best DJs and instrumental hip-hop producers of his generation.”
Each song on the album possesses a singular story and emotional tenor. “Blue Butterfly” supplies a soundtrack for anyone suffering. Buoyed by singer Kid Moxie, it has been rinsed by Gilles Peterson on his radio show. Co-produced by Mike Parvizi of Penthouse Penthouse, “Midnight Music” is a Middle Eastern wail, and “Malcolm’s Library” is Bensussen’s tribute to European library music.
Besides Parvizi and Kid Moxie, the album features Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Roberto Schilling, Amir Yaghmai, and more.
With “Null and Void,” there is a meeting of minds between San Diego’s Drumetrics crew and Yaghmai to create a hypnotic, trance-inducing jam. It’s followed by “Hooked On Classics,” which features London’s The Heliocentrics. (Bensussen and the British psychedelic jazz collective are releasing an album together next year.) “Hjorth” is a collaboration with Mophono that would’ve “packed the dancefloor and peeled the paint from the walls of Low End Theory if it still existed,” Bensussen explains.
To read more about The Gaslamp Killer, check out his XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Forged By Fire ft. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson 02. One Take Jake ft. Roberto Schilling 03. The Cat’s Meow ft. Amir Yaghmai 04. Moving On 05. God Willing ft. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson 06. Nullen Void ft. Amir Yaghmai & MRR 07. Hooked On Classics ft. The Heliocentrics 08. Markets of Marrakech 09. Hjorth ft. Mophono 10. Blue Butterfly ft. Kid Moxie 11. To Fathom Hell or To Soar Angelic ft. Sorne & Rojê 12. Midnight Music 13. Malcolm’s Library ft. Roberto Schilling 14. Blind Dog ft. Black Flower 15. Heart Math ft. Amir Yaghmai
Heart Math LP is available now. You can order it via Bandcamp here and stream it in full via the player below.
Isolation Experiments, which is headed up by Measure Divide, is a crowd-sourced techno platform where artists are to produce with a collection of samples sourced from the community and crowd submissions. A track from Isolate Exp 005 featured in the XLR8R+ Music Submissions Roundup: April.
This latest addition to the series features some of techno’s rising names, including, among others, new Trip signee AADJA, Berlin’s Patrick DSP, Korea Town Acid, and The Knife crew, who appear on the release under various aliases, such as Witch-Hunt Abolition, Sawdust, Niban, and Unknown.
Like the releases preceding it, Isolate Exp 006 sits at the harder end of the techno spectrum, presenting cuts that range from breaks-heavy acid, rough-nosed EBM, punk-infused rhythm excursions, and deeper-than-deep heady chuggers.
Tracklisting
01. AADJA “Zero Moon” 02. City Dance Corporation “Deg Shit” 03. Korea Town Acid “Clout Chaser” 04. Patrick DSP “Isolation” 05. MDD “Don’t Point It at Me” 06. Niban “Kietai” 07. Witch-Hunt Abolition “Restless Souls” 08. Giordan Battaglin “Exsanguination” 09. Unknown “Counterfeit” 10. Sawdust “The Other Side of Death”
Isolate Exp 006 is out now and can be purchased directly via the label’s Bandcamp page here. You can find the tracklisting and album stream below.
Ozoyo, from Istanbul, Turkey, is inspired by the rich textures of plants, nature, and space. Collecting old jazz records while studying at university, he had the idea of using samples from these records to create an original mix, and Ozoyo was born. He’s released three EPs, a beat tape, and a couple of singles, all in the realm of lo-fi minimal beats and jazz. His debut album, Motel Lazy, came out on threefinger records last year.
Produced at Ozoyo’s home studio, Ooo features vocal samples, cheap synths filtered with guitar pedals, and broken drums. It’s named after a mysterious intergalactic creature with no gender, and nobody knows where it comes from. The EP’s title is the peaceful “Ooo” tones the creature creates, which can be heard on each track.
Tracklisting
01. Yooo 02. Wooo 03. Hooo
Ooo EP is available digitally now. You can order it here, with a full stream below.
Poirier, also known as Swim Platførm, is a Brussels, Belgium-based musician. Sleek and meditative, his electroacoustic collages reveal minutely textured crunches, splooshes, and echo-clicks that fuse to chart aquatic space. His debut release, Surfaces, was a soundtrack to four of his favorite swimming pools, and the followup, Plage Arrière, is an ode to eight Greek beaches.
Hotel Nota is Poirier’s first release on Sferic, in Manchester, UK. We’re told to expect an album akin to Jon Hassell’s Dream Theory In Malaya and Jan Jelinek’s Loop Finding Jazz Records. “If you’re into either of those two, we’d wager this’ll be your thing,” the label explains.
Keeping the ever-present influence of the sea in focus, Poirier projects himself to a fantasised coastline, imagining a landscape in flux, reconfigured by the movement of water and those that inhabit its space.
Across 11 tracks, he applies his filigree sampling and rearrangement techniques to “realise an electronic simulacra of a world which becomes real through its eccentricities and cohesive integration of sounds,” we’re told. “Trust there’s no mosquito bites or sunburn here, but you may not be able to escape the feeling you’ve been on holiday after immersing in Poirier’s careful world building.”
There’s a vinyl edition of 500 housed in a hi-gloss post card-style sleeve.
Mastering is by Stephan Mathieu.
Tracklisting
01. Thalassocratie 02. Longe-côte 03. Trace palmaire 04. Le bématiste 05. Sablage 06. Hotel Nota 07. Pénombre 08. Du rocher 09. Ekphrasis 10. Raccordement 11. Balayage
Hotel Nota LP is available now. You can stream clips below and order here.
