sqip, real name Cole M. Johnson, has released his debut album, battery.
battery, available now, comprises 17 tracks of powerful but delicate electronica, both deliciously contemplative and introspective. At times it’s playful but it’s also raw and deeply emotive.
The album is sqip’s debut release, recorded in Portland, Oregon and featuring his own vocals. Corey Wichlin adds guitar on “Wheel.”
There’s little else known about sqip, but look out for more material soon.
PAN will release Arca‘s debut mixtape, &&&&&, on vinyl for the first time.
Arca, real name Alejandra Ghersi, originally shared &&&&& via Los Angeles’ Hippos In Tanks in 2013. Released with no warning, the 25-minute mixtape became a bridge between Ghersi’s time partying and collaborating with her queer peers, while still living in New York, and the next stage of her career releasing on Mute Records in London.
Expect 25 minutes of coiling, contorted grime, glitch, dub, and hip-hop, plus cuts of sound that were too weird for Ghersi’s pop projects. Extrapolations of material from Stretch 1 and Stretch 2, two of Ghersi’s early EPs, can be heard in the mangled R&B sampling of “Century” and her vocal layering in “Waste.”
“I wanted to make something that was my best work,” Ghersi says about the record. “I listen to it very fondly today.”
The remastered project will be pressed onto vinyl and paired with a digital album featuring individual tracks for the first time. It marks PAN’s 100th anniversary release.
Earlier this year, Ghersi released KiCk I, her fourth album, available now on XL Recordings.
Tracklisting
01. Knot 02. Harness 03. Fossil 04. Feminine 05. Anaesthetic 06. Coin 07. Century 08. Mother 09. Hallucinogen 10. Pinch 11. DM True 12. Waste 13. Pure Anna 14. Obelisk
&&&&& is available on September 18. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here, and stream “Knot” below.
DJ Danifox, or Daniel Veiga, must be the only member of Príncipe to be based in Leeds, in the north of England. Veiga, the son of Angolan parents, was born in Lisbon, Portugal but he moved to the United Kingdom in 2014, around the time that he began making his first beats as a means of sheltering from family-related difficulties surrounding him. As his aesthetic began to take shape, coming from tarraxo, kuduro, and Lisbon ghetto, he connected with the Príncipe crew through his friend Deejay Ary, whom he collaborated with on 2016’s Dorme Bem.
Now 20 years old, Veiga is touted as one of Príncipe’s rising names, acknowledged for his dancefloor cuts and playful vibes. After releasing his debut solo EP, Long Way Talk, on Los Angeles’ Point Records, moving from kuduro to house and featuring his own vocals, he’s contributed “Dark Hope,” a closing title track, to Príncipe’s thrilling 32-track label compilation. Alongside Puto Márcio, Lycox, and BBoy, Veiga also forms the Tia Maria Produções crew, who will release a new EP on Príncipe later this year.
Veiga recorded his XLR8R podcast in Lisbon, Portugal, earlier this month, without really thinking too much about it. Instead of trying to create a pumping club mix, he’s taken a relaxed approach, compiling a set from his own private archives, whether that’s as a solo artist, with DJ Lycox, or as part of Tia Maria Produções—but that won’t stop you dancing.
01. What have you been up to recently?
I’ve been trying to stay positive, and look out for myself and the loved ones around me. Also trying to not let down my creative side and have the channels open to keep the music coming and flowing.
02. Can you talk to me about your journey into music?
When I was a child, I was born in Lisbon, and I used to like playing football. I also had good ears because my family was very musical. When I was 13, I went to Angola and I saw kids playing with homemade instruments—like they’d use a can for percussion. Returning to Portugal, I began to have some kind of communication with my friends and they told me about this software called FL Studio. I’d never paid much attention to this software until I moved to Leeds. I had problems at home and outside my home that made me isolate in my bedroom and only by making music did I feel calm and also confident with my person, and that’s how I discovered who I am today.
03. Which artists do you look up to?
Dj Adamm, Dj Lycox, and Dj Nigga Fox.
04. Where and when did you record this podcast?
I recorded this podcast in Lisbon, Portugal on July 23.
05. What can we expect with the mix?
No expectations. I’m just happy when anyone can take the time to listen to it. It’s different from what I’d play in a club because the dancers in the room normally contribute to the music I play; it’s like we do it together, a mystery.
06. What’s up next on your horizon?
We, Tia Maria Produções, have a new EP ready in the pipeline, coming on Príncipe before the year ends.
07. What are your longer-term ambitions with music?
As I say, “day doesn’t kill day.” What’s important is that I’m happy with it and I’m allowed to share my imagination with everyone.
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.
Tracklisting:
01. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Jogo T” (Unreleased) 02. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Na Tua” (Unreleased) 03. Tia Maria Produções “Culpadalisa” (Unreleased) 04. Tia Maria Produções “Rootz” (Unreleased) 05. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Lost” (Unreleased) 06. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Collision” (Unreleased) 07. DJ Danifox “Baú” (Unreleased) 08. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Olha Hora”(Unreleased) 09. Tia Maria Produções “Robô Que Fala”(Unreleased) 10. Tia Maria Produções ((DJ Danifox and DJ Lycox) “Big Rich Town Remix (Unreleased) 11. Tia Maria Produções “Se Eu Cantar”(Unreleased) 12. Tia Maria Produções “Vibe Boa” (Unreleased) 13. DJ Danifox “SZA Love Galore Remix” (Príncipe) 12. DJ Danifox “NiggaFox” (Unreleased) 14. DJ Danifox “HIV” (Unreleased) 15. DJ Danifox “Tou Constipado” (Unreleased) 16. DJ Danifox “Nubata” (Unreleased) 17. DJ Danifox “Acordei” (Unreleased) 18. DJ Danifox “Muted” (Unreleased) 19. Tia Maria Produções (DJ Danifox) “Soldado Desligado” (Príncipe) 20. DJ Danifox “Oi Manah” (Príncipe) 21. DJ Danifox “Alesis” (Príncipe) 22. DJ Danifox “Marjam” (Unreleased) 23. DJ Danifox “Para Você Tânia” (Príncipe) 24. DJ Danifox “Na Palmeira” (Point Records) 26. DJ Danifox “Jelly” (Unreleased) 27. DJ Danifox “Lacura” (Unreleased) 28. DJ Danifox “Poliangui” (Unreleased) 29. DJ Danifox “Earthen 2” (Unreleased) 30. DJ Danifox “Ódio No Coração” (Príncipe) 31. DJ Danifox “Karsh” (Unreleased)
Boston Chery has released Summers With You Vol. 3, a new EP.
Boston Chery is a Brooklyn, New York-based DJ-producer originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She is of Haitian, Cuban, Dominican, and Jamaican descent, and broke into the DJ scene in 2010, turning up at local basement parties in Brooklyn, where she’s since been a regular, delivering original productions and high-energy edits of popular tracks. Her mission, she says, is clear: to pump energy into any room and move the crowd with dynamic sets. She released her debut EP, Summers With You, in January 2019.
Summers With You Vol. 3 follows on from this release, and follows the series’ second instalment, August’s Summers with You Vol 2., which featured five remixes. Here, we can expect six original productions.
In June, Boston Chery released Signs and Skeletun, edits of Beyoncé and Tekno, available for free download here. You can see her Boiler Room set here.
Tracklisting
01. Savage 02. Eleven 03. Fi Di Jockey 04. Forgive Me 05. Toosie Slide 06. Shaky Shaky
Summers With You Vol. 3 LP is available digitally now. Meanwhile, you can stream it in full via Bandcamp below.
McGee, from Los Angeles, is known as a member of the dream-drone duo Higuma with Evan Caminiti, and she’s made vocal contributions to albums by Jefre Cantu Ledesma and Sarah Davachi. Her debut solo album, Forever Falling Toward the Sky, came out on Root Strata in 2012.
Since Forever Falling Toward the Sky, McGee has evolved her sound and process, placing a new emphasis on electronic processing. On her new album, her songcraft is built on the foundations of atmosphere and experimentation that have defined her collaborative outings, but here she has meticulously built up her arrangements into a fully fleshed out vision of luminous dub-informed avant dream-pop.
Fusing memoir with contemplative inquiry, McGee “traces the blurred boundaries between the self, the other, and the world, capturing various states of desire, ambivalence, and surrender,” we’re told. Each track is a “meditation on the tension between opposing forces: the ideal and the real, the essential and the cultivated, the erotic and the ascetic.”
Tracklisting
01. Citruscine 02. Pale Lips 03. True Lies 04. Something Human 05. Morning Prayer 06. A Permanent Illusion 07. Sleep or Dream
Holy Origin LP is out on vinyl and digitally on August 28. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “True Lies” below.
Earlier this year, Ground Tactics returned to Midgar Sands, a Midgar Records sub-label, with his new EP, Reality Implant, and he’s now shared a video single.
Over the last half-decade, Ground Tactics, real name Colin Tobelem, has been on a sound-focused journey, developing his craft from music producer and sound designer to tuning fork practitioner and sound healer, most recently delivering sound treatments in Berlin. His work, while focused on sound, also looks to inspire more worldly values in life, “of seeking deeper meaning and knowledge of one’s self, to serve in the process of humanity’s transcendence,” he explains. He released Immaterial Breath on Midgar in 2018.
Reality Implant continues this trajectory, bringing together the various facets of his work for a collection of tracks that act as a respite for a world uniting in self-reflection. According to the label, it “symbolizes the start of a techno-prophecy: introducing the coming of a new era in which multiple realities and timelines merge together.”
The EP landed back at the end of May, and it’s now followed by a video single for “Sublimation,” created by Michael Tan (a.k.a. CARRIER).
Tracklisting
A1. Heat Wave A2. Violet Fire A3. Reality Implant 2020 B1. Sublimation B2. La Belle Fête B3. Cnnctng Vssls (7Wndw Vrsn)
You can pick up the EP here, and stream the release and the video below.
Black Josh has released a new album, Mannyfornia, available now.
Black Josh, from Manchester, has established himself as one of most electrifying hip-hop artists to emerge from the United Kingdom, first gaining YouTube popularity through his video for footballer Paul Scholes and his song with The Mouse Outfit, “Air Max.” His style sits between grime’s fervent flow and the lackadaisical delivery of hip-hop.
Mannyfornia is Black Josh’s fourth album, following 2018’s Yung Sweg Lawd, and it’s also produced by Metrodome. Across 16 tracks, Metrodome’s eerie, spacious, and often atmospheric production complements Black Josh’s dark, visceral, and introspective lyricism. It features many of Black Josh’s friends, including Yibby, Meme Gold, Lord Apex.
In 2014, Black Josh released blahblahblackjosh, his debut album, having formed prestigious Ape Cult at a mere 15 years old. He is also a member of Cult of The Damned and Levelz, a Mancunian super-collective of MCs, producers, and creatives.
01. SELF DESTRUCTION 02. FIFA STREET ft. Yibby 03. DEMON 04. MANNYFORNIA 05. KING OF TRASH 06. 2 BAD ft. [ K S R ] 07. LOCALS 08. WANNIT ALL ft. Sleazy F Baby 09. SMOKE ft. Meme Gold 10. RAGE ft. Lunar C & Lord Apex 11. MIDDLE FINGER 12. ENDZ ft. OT Babyface & Mennis 13. THERAPY 14. VIMPTO ft. Abeni & Coops 15. PRETTY FACES 16. SKRUFF
Mannyfornia LP is available now on vinyl and digitally via Blah Records. Meanwhile, you can stream it in full via Bandcamp below.
Boomkat Editions reached out to Standish, from Melbourne, Australia, to ask for some music and she ended up sending in what is essentially a nine-track album of new songs featuring herself on bass guitar, a Mopho synth, a wave drum, and an electric wind instrument, plus her vocals, clicks, and garden chimes. Standish recorded it in Kallista, Australia in Spring 2020, and it features contributions from Conrad Standish and mixing by Tarquin Manek. The record comes accompanies by an eight-panel insert plus an instant download of the release dropped to your account.
Late last year, Standish released Super Natural, her debut solo record as Jonnine via French label Good Morning Tapes.
Lawrence English, also from Australia, recorded Field Recordings From The Zone in the aftermath of a summer of intense bushfires and just as the lockdown started. We can expect almost an hour of “heart-stopping location recordings” from “The Zone,” a place “we find ourselves in right now, where we just might still have time to reshape the world around us if we pause to acknowledge and address our own actions.”
“Sometimes, we need to stop (everything) if we are going to start to realise new ways of being in this world,” English tells XLR8R. “Field Recordings from The Zone is a contemplation of this proposition.”
Manchester record store Boomkat launched Boomkat Editions in 2012 as “an occasional series of diverse releases pressed up in limited runs and not tied down to any particular genre.” Previous contributions have come from HTRK, Beatrice Dillon, and Lorenzo Senni, among others. You can read more about the series here.
Tracklistings
Blue Hills LP
01. The Tides Do That With Me Jonnine 02. Can You Get Me There 03. I Chase You Like Light On A Sundial 04. I Feel Like I’m In A Film 05. Blue Hills 06. Serum 1 07. Serum 2 08. Red Stalks 09. Let The Waves Roll
Field Recordings From The Zone LP
01. Know Your Exit 02. The Other Side Of Knowing 03. The Only Way Out Is In 04. I Thought I Heard You Call 05. The Picnic
Blue Hills and Field Recordings From The Zone are available now on cassette tape. You can stream them over here and here, where you can also order.
Welcome back, this time for a roundup of our June submissions. As lockdown lifts in some parts, almost all world’s clubs remain closed meaning that we’re at a loss if we want to go out for dance. But if you want to sit in and dance in our living room, or even your bedroom, this month’s submissions will give you a soundtrack, with three must-hear mixes, one comprising almost exclusively tracks downloaded from XLR8R‘s now-defunct free downloads section, as well as a selection of cuts from the XLR8R+ edition. This month also sees the return of Dawn Razor, who delivers another bass-driven cut, and Nick Stoynoff, who turns in a remix of Thom Yorke and an all-originals live set from 2014. For those who’d prefer something more contemplative, we’ve submissions from Tender Scoundrel, Wicked Expectation, and Darcy Khalid, plus many more that are sure to resonate. Enjoy, and thanks for your continued support.
Editor note: we’ve made a point of linking each artist’s name to their social media 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 mixesto be showcased in this feature series and to the XLR8R+ community, as well as exclusive editorial content, mixes, FREE passes to music festivals and events, playlists, and more.You can find out more here.
Tender Scoundrel “Ringgo“
Tender Scoundrel is the work of Meik de Swaan and Stephan Wever, originally from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, but now based in Los Angeles, California. Earlier this year, de Swaan and Wever, long time collaborators on film projects, decided to combine their love for music and build a fully analog studio in Laurel Canyon. Their debut EP is set to release this summer, and “Ringo,” a light piece of contemplative, melodic electronica available now, is the first single.
Enigmatic Russian artist Dawn Razor has featured on R&S, A R T S, Anemone, and Hypnotic Room to name a few, and we’ve featured his work in our Monthly Selections before with “Be As One 2.” His music comprises broken beat techno, electro, mutated bass, post-trance, and everything in between. “Sixteen” is more subtle than “Be As One 2,” but it’s equally mesmerizing. We’ll repeat what we said earlier. Dawn Razor is one to watch.
Haelium is a producer from Paris, France whose dreamy electronica is a mix of cinematic textures, ethereal atmospheres, and punchy beats. Influenced by the sounds coming out of labels such as Warp, Brainfeeder, and Erased Tapes, his music is “a place where opposites meet,” and offers a refreshing blend of deep melancholy and childlike optimism. “Feel The Same,” a perfect summation of his style, is taken from Recovery, his new EP, available now.
Puma is a Venezuelan DJ-producer based in Miami, Florida, and a resident DJ at The Electric Pickle. He’s just launched his own label, Miami Analog Jams, with MAJ 001, comprising four original club-oriented tracks that’ll have you dancing around your living room. “J10,” the pick of the bunch, is one we keep coming back to for its rolling, insatiable groove—a sure-fire floor filler.
Edgar Mondragón, from Mexico City, is another artist we’ve featured before. His sound blends ambient, drone, noise, dream pop, and techno, and his work has taken him across Latin and North America. He’s about to release his first full-length album, No hay recuerdo que no se apague, and this is the third single. It’s another exquisite slice of score-like ambient, but it’s more moody and contemplative than “Refugio,” his first track, which is available here.
Rollover Milano Records, from Milan, Italy, will present the album release of Ferrari, real name Andrea Ferrari. Born and raised in the outskirts of Milan, the rising producer began playing drums in post-punk bands before swerving into production. Nene, a four-tracker, embodies Ferrari’s early influences: dystopian guitars, dreamy Middle-Eastern flutes, and Norwegian disco basslines. On the A-side, there’s a pair of cosmic, club-ready chuggers, including “Talk,” and on the flip, there’s a remix by Juan MacLean plus “Dopium,” which closes things out in Ferrari’s psychedelic style.
We’ve featured Piksel‘s music on XLR8R before, covering Some Silver Burns, and now she’s remixed Dujat‘s “With Him.” The track is included on Gongan Remixed, a five-track remix EP available now, and it twists the original into a textured piece of ambient techno of beautiful subtly. Proceeds from the release will be going to Arts Emergency, a UK charity that helps young people from diverse backgrounds access higher education in the arts, and Seed Studios, an arts and wellbeing organization.
Aspetuck had never considered delving into the world of music production until fairly recently. Growing up in sleepy Vermont, without easy access to any inkling of a nightlife scene, the internet was his only form of musical discovery for those formative days. Years later, after living in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Aspetuck found himself drawn to the robust nightlife cultures of both cities that was so absent in the rural hills of the northeast. Immersing himself in both music production and photography, two creative outlets that seemingly complement and balance each other, he is quietly chipping away at developing his sound with the help of a broad range of influences to draw from.
After releasing his debut album, Treehouse At Yuma Place, Aspetuck has returned with a brand new EP, Unknown Future, comprising three hopeful yet slightly melancholic tracks. “Unknown Future, taken from the album, is a more straight-forward, groove-focused house track that gushes with emotion. It was made towards the very beginning of the strange times the world is experiencing in early 2020.
Idea Unsound, from San Francisco, California, is a left-field hip-hop producer and DJ mixing broken beats, futuristic vocal chops with a melodic, dubstep palette. His musical style is strongly influenced by his classical training, his love for science and technology, and his roots in dance music. “Be With U,” his latest track, is a dark dance heater with futuristic vocal chops awash in glitchy, synth, and deep bass, and it follows April’s “Push Me.”
Darcy Khalid“150,000 Drug Tests, All Across Victoria”
With “150,000 Drug Tests, All Across Victoria,” we’re introduced to Darcy Khalid, an unidentified producer originating in Perth, Australia, where he had been DJing around town under a different name, but now based in Melbourne, Victoria. Upon arriving in Melbourne, he began taking production more seriously, enrolled in a music production course, and began exploring experimental and soundscape-driven music. He waited four years before releasing anything, because he wanted a sound that felt like his own. Drivers Wave At One Another On The Nullarbor, his debut EP, is available now, and on it is “150,000 Drug Tests, All Across Victoria” featuring Hamish McGrath. Expect broken-beats and ambience, overlaid with a sheen of melancholy fuelled by Khalid’s “propensity for brooding introspection,” he tells XLR8R.
Wicked Expectation, from Turin, Italy, is a band formed in 2012, and they just released Emotional Control, their new EP. The release’s two tracks surround IDM and broken-beats with atmospheric grooves to create an immersive sound inspired by clubbing culture. The group recorded the release during lockdown, dousing it in melancholy underpinned by the need for escapism. It came out for Italy’s Sideshape Recordings, and we’ve picked the title-track to present here, but check out “Grain of Sand” too.
In our March Selections feature, Nick Stoynoff remixed Albion’s “Air,” an ecstatic, timeless trance track written by Ferry Corsten. Stoynoff, from Chicago, morphed the original into a driving, late-night cut, adding some real punch to the drums without compromising the majesty of the original. Now he’s remixed Thom Yorke’s “Not The News,” from Yorke’s most recent solo album, Anima, turning it into a bass-driven floor-filler.
Lawani is a half-French, half-Beninese techno producer named Alexandre Barbier. He’s been making music since the early days of MySpace but it was only in 2016 that he committed to using his third name, Lawani, which so happens to be his great grandfather’s name. In May, he released May, documenting his first experience of panic attacks. “Kilburn,” a new track, is different from his earlier work, in that it’s infused by grime and garage, and paced at 145 BPM, but it’s no less enjoyable.
The mysterious Anaphase duo met at their neighboring studios in London, while working through the night. They’d hear samples of one another’s music through the walls, and this led them to begin working together, bearing fruit in a string of singles that combined their contrasting musical backgrounds into a blurred-genre electronic sound that’s uniquely their own. Haunting, fragile vocal hooks and cerebral synth melodies characterize their compositions.
Their latest release, “Accordia,” is available now on UNDERHER’s IAMHER imprint, and it’s as beautiful as you’d imagine. “The lyrics are about corruption in the world. It’s about what that does to you on a personal level,” the duo explain. “How we can become tainted and twisted by it if we’re not careful.”
Lostfreqk, whose identity remains unknown, is based in California, and their music is inspired by club movements and self-expression. “(breakin on down) with the midnight drum —>,” a wildly eclectic track of singular style, has plenty of bass and quick beats, and it also features Lostfreqk’s own vocals.
Moritz Grassinger and Martin Schneider, or KIDSØ, released their latest single, Childhood, in May on Springstoff. It’s the title track from the live-electro duo’s anticipated album, which is slated for release later this year. Here they’ve presented a remix of “Childhood” by Russian producer Georgy Kotunov, or Long Arm, which is as emotive and beautiful as you’d expect from the Munich duo.
PΛRΛ, sometimes spelled PARA, is a project started in 2018 by Mickey Babalon, who was born in Poland but spent a big part of his childhood in the United Kingdom. He currently resides in China.
Babalon was introduced to electronic music at an early age through The Prodigy and Thunderdome, before a fascination with drum & bass and jungle pushed him towards collecting records, DJing, and producing. PΛRΛ, his lead project, is focused on musical experimentation within various genres of dancefloor-oriented electronics. The first singles, including “Sour Bit,” came through Barcelona label Xenonyms, and present dubstep and techno aesthetics in a rather deconstructive manner.
“While writing the track, I tried to transform all the negative emotions I encountered this year into my fuel for the creative process,” Babalon explains.
It is described by the label as a” soundtrack to a non-existent quarantine party, spinning itself beyond the grim reality, into oblivion, one last time,” and it embodies the darkness of challenges we face today and the hope we hold for the future.
Grey Pantone, or Andrés Lloreda, from Berlin, Germany, offered “Lasers,” a new track, for free download via Soundcloud. He’s released it alongside a video, which had been on his mind for some time. He recorded the track one night in his studio, playing with his Moog Mother 32, and with its vocoder vocals and warping bass, it formed the soundtrack for the video. The video evolved and it now features two girls, Paula and Maria, dancing around the washing machines, firing lasers at one another. Watch it here.
Antonio Rodriguez, who uses his first name, is a DJ based in Dallas, Texas. His connection with music is “deep,” he says, and he has ambitions of not taking over stages but a radio show instead. He recorded this fun and upbeat set for his birthday, choosing a bunch of his favorite records old and new.
Nick Stoynoff “Live PA @ SOUNDBAR CHICAGO“
Nick Stoynoff, whom we’ve mentioned earlier, warmed up for Hernan Cataneo and Nick Warren in Chicago in July 2014. His live setup for the night was Ableton live with an Akai controller, and a pioneer mixer for additional effects. Expect just under an hour of Stoynoff’s unreleased originals, with a full tracklisting here. It’s world-class deep and emotive house music—played live!
Tima Fei “Downsouth Electronic Soul Transmission“
Tima Fei, a Chicago-trained and Ukrainian-born artist, has compiled a mix dedicated to XLR8R, in that it’s almost entirely compiled of tracks from the downloads section, which is currently on hiatus, and tracks from recent XLR8R+ editions. “My evolution as an artist has been fostered by XLR8R for many years,” he explains. “I moved from Chicago to Atlanta—one music city to another—in 2017, accompanied by your site as though one of my closest friends.” It’s downtempo and wildly eclectic, and described by Tima Fei as “an embodiment of my perception of music and sound during this chapter of growth.”
Lov3 & L1ght follows two releases on Planet Mu sub-label Objects Limited, and her first release, 2016’s Ru Meng Ling, on Chinese label Genome 6.66Mbp. It continues with the theme of growth, fusing Chinese melodies with energetic European club music.
The album is also the first time that the Chinese producer, also known as DJ Ruan, has featured her own vocals on her work. She uses them as the basis for a “deeply personal account of finding love” as a trans person and an immigrant now living in Berlin, Germany.
“I have always been interested in singing but my voice has been a huge obstacle for me since I always wanted a high-pitched female voice instead of a deep, low male voice,” Ho explains. “Vocal feminisation during my transition has been a huge inspiration and it’s a hidden theme of the album, too. I hope to learn to love my own voice and be able to find ways to express myself with the voice that I have, without having to fear it. It’s a process of self love, I guess.”
Across the album, Rui Ho pulls from rave, ambient, reggaeton, and R&B, all with an undercurrent of Chinese melody and arranged neatly to give space to her auto-tuned vocals. “The brash surfaces lightly camouflage a strong talent for arrangement and melody that give the record an uplifting freshness,” the label explains.
Tracklisting
01. Hikari 02. Exodus ’12 03. The Way I Am 04. Right Now 05. Lucky Strike 06. Send For Me 07. Hundred Thousand Ways 08. Fire Walk With Me 09. Leave feat. Golin 10. Tired Of Me
Lov3 & L1ght LP is available digitally on September 4. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Exodus ’12” below.
