Murphy, an accomplished DJ, session, and live player in Oakland’s diverse music scene has emerged as one of indie’s most in-demand percussionists. In 2018, she began recording songs with multi-instrumentalist and producer Stuart, who grew up outside Chicago and shares a background in jazz and pop in bands.
Eventually dubbed Brijean, the project grew out of marathon sessions at their intimate home-studio. Their first effort, Walkie Talkie, released by Native Cat Recordings in 2019, found Murphy taking the mic for the first time to deliver dreamy dance tracks that felt home-cooked and effortlessly chic.
Ghostly International has re-released Walkie Talkie alongside Moody, which is the first taste of forthcoming material. The easy-grooving cut is said to “capture Brijean’s signature sound in just over two minutes,” with its the dazzling, golden-hued haze of percussive beats and honeyed vocals.
Stuart describes the track as a “quick gentle trip” that started in a living room, recording with Murphy’s drum mentor Pepe Jacobo, with windows open and stream-of-consciousness lyrics flowing.
Tracklisting
01. Moody
Moody is available digitally now, with a full stream below, ahead of new music coming soon. Walking Talkie is available here.
Persian Pillars Of The Gasoline Era is Fernow’s first album on the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based metal and noise imprint 20 Buck Spin. Thematically, it connects the dots of America’s overthrow in Iran to the bedrock of violence that would later erupt and suffocate the world economy in 2001.
Across six tracks, we’re told that Vatican Shadow’s “deconstruction continues,” with layers of collaged synth stabs, low end pulsing dread, and ominous sand-swept melodies.
To intensify the album, Fernow brought aboard Justin Broadrick, known as Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh, etc., for the mastering process, “adding the mysterious vibrance of cold morning mountain light that presages a conspiracy about to unfold,” the label explains.
The bulk of Vatican Shadow’s previous work has come through Fernow’s own Hospital Productions, and last year he released his Berghain 09 mix, which you can hear here.
Tracklisting
01. Predawn Coup D’etat (Schwarzkopf Duffle Bags Of Rials) 02. Rehearsing For The Attack 03. Uncontrollable Oasis (Real Life Spy Mystery Ends With Scientist Hanged In Iran) 04. Taxi Journey Through The Teeming Slums Of T ehran 05. Moving Secret Money 06. Ayatollah Ferocity (The Refinery At Abadan)
Persian Pillars Of The Gasoline Era LP is out on September 18. Meanwhile, you can stream the title track below and pre-order here.
Darkstar will release a 12″ of remixes from their recent album, Civic Jams, available now on Warp.
This release pairs a selection of works by John Talabot, Parris, Horsepower Productions, and Loraine James, whose haunting club remix of “Wolf” is already available. James effortlessly skims over the softer sonics of the original, adding harder punctuations that clatter and clamour like corrugated sheet metal, a nod to the warehouse raves it deserves to be heard in.
“I felt honoured to be contacted to do this remix because I remember listening to Darkstar back when I was 16,” James explains. “With remixes, I like to create an atmosphere that’s the opposite of the original song, so here I’ve taken Darkstar’s downtempo track and made it into a proper dance tune. I played it out a few times in sets before lockdown and it got the crowd going.”
Civic Jams, available now, is Aiden Whalley and James Young’s fifth album as Darkstar, following 2015’s Foam Island.
Tracklisting
01. Wolf (John Talabot’s Euphoric Remix) 02. Wolf (Loraine James Remix) 03. Jam (Parris Remix) 04. Jam (Horsepower Productions Remix) 05. Wolf (John Talabot’s Materia Dub)
Civic Jams Remixes will be available on Warp on August 7. Meanwhile, you can stream the Loraine James, Horsepower Productions, and John Talabot reworks below.
After sketching out the form of an album in Massachusetts, Zahn decided to make the release a full-band affair, leaning into some of his favorite players to fill in the emergent album’s contours. He explains: “I wanted to put together a group of people that I knew would be sensitive to playing together in a room and using the room as the extra member of the band.”
The album is inspired by the music of Keith Jarrett and the catalog of legendary jazz label ECM, as well as Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, but it features Dave Harrington, who plays guitar and electronics, plus Spencer Ludwig (trumpet), Mauro Refosco (percussion), Kenny Wollesen (drums), Andy Highmore (piano/Rhodes/organ), Jacob Bergson (piano/Rhodes), and Mike McGarril (soprano saxophone).
Cascine, in New York, describes the release as a “showcase for Zahn’s community of musicians,” and “a masterclass in interplay,” adding that the features contribute to the album’s “ebbing layers and radiant sheen.”
We can expect a “lush collection of instrumental songs that undulate along waves of electronic, jazz, ambient pop, Americana, and neo-classical,” while “pulling from Zahn’s established musical background and collaborative ethos.”
Born in Massachusetts, Zahn started playing the bass at age 12. Since moving to New York in the mid-2000s, he has worked as a touring musician, performing live with a range of acts across the genre spectrum. His career as a solo artist began around the same time he started playing with like-minded guitarist Dave Harrington, in 2015. His music is marked by openness: spacious sonic landscapes, rich with contributions from his creative community.
Tracklisting
01. Key Biscayne 02. The Mist 03. Empathy Duet 04. Roya 05. Sunday Painter 06. Ten To One 07. Promises 08. To The One You Love 09. At High Tide
Sunday Painter LP is out on September 18. You can pre-order here, and stream “Key Biscayne” below.
GROOVE will host GROOVE Global, a music journalism course for aspiring writers, hosted by the German dance music magazine’s editors and writers.
The course, held in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, a non-profit German cultural association, sees the partners welcoming 10 aspiring music journalists to participate in “an international experience exchange in the digital realm.”
The successful applications will participate in 10 online workshops held between August 17 and 28 covering topics like “Interviews” and “Boundaries And Ethics In Music Journalism.” They’ll then be tasked with pitching and writing a feature about their respective local electronic music scenes, for which they’ll receive €500. The features will be edited, peer reviewed, and published in both German and English by GROOVE in November.
Applications are open now, and they’ll close before August 3, 6pm CET. You’ll need to send in a short cover letter outlining your motivation to participate in the programme, a brief CV, and between one and three text samples. You can read more about the application requirements here.
The offer is targeted at people whose native language is not German, so applications from the predominantly German-speaking countries, namely Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, will not be accepted.
Before lockdown really hit the United Kingdom, Alan Myson, or Ital Tek, was under self-imposed isolation, working on new music. He found himself in a new environment, following a move out of the city to a quieter space, and the birth of his first child. While his partner slept, he’d sit up through the night with his newborn, listening back and making notes on how the new record should take form. Sleep deprived, he became prone to audio hallucinations, and tried to capture these through distortions in his perception of pitch and time. Eventually, Outland was born, released via Planet Mu in May.
Outland is Myson’s seventh album in a career that dates back to the ’00s. Raised in Brighton, on England’s south coast, Myson began releasing music in 2007, signing to Planet Mu as an 18-year-old. In the period since, he’s moved from the moody dubstep of 2008’s Cyclical and the more contemplative Midnight Colour through Nebula Dance’s, where he dropped the dubstep and hip-hop tempos in favor of jungle and footwork. In contrast, 2016’s Hollowed became abstract and elegant, a precursor to Bodied, when Myson turned his back on dance music altogether, embracing acoustic elements and ghostly choral arrangements, turning to rhythm as nothing more than a tool to give his sound a sense of momentum.
It’s difficult to anticipate Myson’s next move, but instead of bringing with it a new Ital Tek incarnation, Outland instead melds two existing yet previously disparate parts of Myson, with its roughened beats and detailed atmospheres. It does this while feeling adventurous and heartfelt, and with the same dramatic drums and restrained yet impressionistic synths that touch all Myson’s work.
His XLR8R podcast has one foot in the past and the other in the future. There’s a couple of unreleased cuts, said to be from an upcoming album project, but there are also several taken from previous album projects, contextualized among the work of artists like Lapalux, Blanck Mass, and Juliana Barwick, who have been keeping him company during lockdown. As with Outland, it mixes the rough and the smooth, the intense and peaceful, making for an immersive listen that sits between contemplation and the club.
01. What have you been up to recently?
I’ve just been finishing up my new EP, Dream Boundary, which is the follow up to my recent album. I wrote a huge amount of material for the album and this is five tracks that I’ve revisited and reworked from those sessions. It didn’t quite fit with what I was going for with Outland, but I think they complement each other nicely and have their own little world. I imagine there will probably be more to release from the bank of music I’ve written over the last year or two. Aside from that, I’m a fairly new parent, so lockdown with a baby has been pretty exhausting, but a lot of fun, too. Just cramming in music as much as I can when I get the opportunity
I’ve also been scoring a television series that will be coming out later in the year. It’s a lot of work but I’ve really enjoyed the challenge.
02. What sort of records have you been listening to in lockdown?
I kind of have an on-off relationship with checking out new music. When I’m stuck into making a record I don’t really pay much attention to what is coming out, and I don’t have much desire to listen to music as I’ve been doing it all day long. But when I’m coming out of that phase I try to catch up on loads of stuff, and there have been so many amazing releases because of lockdown. It’s a really hard time for a lot of musicians at the moment obviously, but conversely, it seems like there’s never been so much good new music!
Bandcamp has done an amazing job rising to the occasion to help out independent artists and labels as well as great causes in conjunction with Black Lives Matter. I’ve been checking out a lot of stuff on there and it’s been great to see so many people sharing recommendations on Twitter.
Off the top of my head, some new music I’ve recently been listening to: Blanck Mass, EOB, the Devs score, Skee Mask, Speaker Music, Alessandro Cortini.
03. You’ve just released Outland. How do you feel about the release looking back?
It’s only been a couple of months or so since it was released but time seems to be moving at a glacial pace so it feels like ages ago now. I’m really happy with the album; it was written just before and after the birth of my first child. so it’s a special and really intense time to reflect on. I didn’t think I’d be getting anything creative done so I’m pleased that somehow it went the other way and I ended up having one of the most fruitful music writing periods of my life.
04. It’s difficult to know what to expect with your work, because it constantly changes. What’s guiding you sonically?
I think over the years I’ve become a lot more content in just following my instincts and trying to do something I feel is honest in my music. I find there’s a strange juxtaposition of caring less makes you care more, if that makes any kind of sense. I try to keep things loose and experimental when I first start anything and just let it inform itself. Not being too precious or analytical in that initial phase and then switching gears when needed to actually get the thing into shape. It’s easy to start tracks, but not so easy to finish them. I write a lot of notes down about musical or sound ideas and refer to that all the time when I need an idea or feel stuck.
05. Your sound has gone through many iterations. What do you feel links it all together?
Because it’s just a never-ending process for me, I don’t really see it in terms of albums every two years or so. It just feels like a continuation because I know all the music that didn’t make it onto the records or inspired an idea that led on to something else. Recently it was the 10-year anniversary of my second album, Midnight Colour, so I actually went back and listened to pretty much all my releases from the start and it was really interesting to hear it all with some distance. I found myself thinking in equal measures: “Why the fuck did I do that?” and “how the fuck did I do that?”
I’m always interested in contrast, whether that’s blending intense parts with peaceful moments or melancholic/gnarly or whatever, and perhaps that is the link throughout everything I do.
06. Where and when did you record this mix?
All done in my home studio using Ableton Live.
07. What can we expect to hear?
There are a few unreleased and upcoming new tracks of mine. Some from the new album and then some great stuff from artists like Patten, Lapalux, Juliana Barwick—the kind of music I’ve been checking on Bandcamp or that I’m fortunate to be sent.
08. How did you choose the tracks that you’ve included?
Because I’ve not been playing live, doing a studio mix has given me a nice excuse to seek out some new music and also see how my new music works mixed or re-edited. It’s actually quite strange having not heard any of my new record on a proper big sound system, so putting it in a different context is like the next best thing I guess!
09. What’s next on your agenda as we move forward?
I’ve started work on a new collaborative project that is different to my Ital Tek music and something that I’m really excited to get finished as soon as we can. I’ve not really collaborated much with other artists to be honest and it’s not something I’ve been particularly drawn to, but this project has been really inspiring so hopefully I’ll have more to share about that sometime soon. Aside from music, I need to finally find the time to play “The Last of Us 2” which has been sitting there in my living room for weeks unopened, and I’m looking at getting a new studio built!
XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to 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. Ital Tek “Untitled” (Unreleased) 02. Ital Tek “Dream Boundary” (Planet Mu) 03. Ital Tek “Deadhead” (Planet Mu) 04. Lapalux “51 Endless Pulses” (Brainfeeder) 05. Blanck Mass “Jack’s Theme” (Invada Records) 06. Patten “Heat Transfer” (555-5555) 07. Juliana Barwick “Flowers” (Ninja Tune) 08. Deft “Click The Snap” (20/20 LDN Recording) 09. Shades “Womb” (Deadbeats) 10. Ital Tek “Wintered” (Planet Mu) 11. Ital Tek “Leaving The Grid” (Planet Mu) 12. Ital Tek “Angel In Ruin” (Planet Mu) 13. Alessandro Cortini “Virgola” (Bandcamp, Self-Release) 14. Kuedo “Silver” (Music In Support Of Black Mental Health, Bandcamp) 15. Ital Tek “Reverie” (Planet Mu) 16. Ital Tek “Bladed Terrain” (Planet Mu) 17. Ital Tek “Cobra” (Planet Mu) 18. Ital Tek “Time Burns Heavy” (Planet Mu) 19. Ital Tek “Deletion Quarter” (Planet Mu)
sectiontoo is the alias of Sean Lawrence, a 24-year-old artist, producer, and songwriter from Queens, New York. His lyrics are both deeply personal and heavily relatable, and his sound is rooted in alternative R&B but remains fluid.
Cascade Effect documents Lawrence’s “Black experience” across 11 tracks, and serves as a vehicle to amplify Black voices. It’s engineered by Will Fisher and produced with identite crisis.
All the funds raised go to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and a number of bail funds for protesters. “I just want to say thank you to any and everyone who purchased this album,” Lawrence says…”They are hearing our voices! Slowly but surely, we are making a difference.”
Last year, Lawrence released Portrait, his debut album.
Tracklisting
01. intro (cascade) 02. runnin’ 03. now or never 04. touch earth/faces 05. just dreamin’ 06. vigil (feat. Willie Mason) 07. solar 08. dontmakemeleave 09. wonderful (interlude) 10. the hills have eyes 11. shapeshifting
Cascade Effect LP is available digitally now, with a full stream below.
Grammy-winning bassist, composer, and bandleader Ben Williams has shared an instrumentals version of I Am A Man, his latest album released on February 7 via Rainbow Blonde Records.
I Am A Man is the Washington, D.C. artist’s most poignant, sociopolitical statement yet. Its title refers to Memphis’ historic 1968 African American sanitation workers’ strike during which African American men marched through the streets with picket signs that read “I Am A Man” in arresting, boldface type.
“The image of this long line of men, holding the picket signs, all saying the same thing—there’s something powerful about seeing this message over and over again,” Williams says. The messaging reminded him of how we use hashtags today to help ignite activism such as Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements.
The instrumentals version, called I Am A Man: Mentals, is an opportunity to “take a peek under [the] hood and get a closer look at the arrangements” he created for the album. It features the same band of New York- and Los Angeles-based musicians, including Keyon Harrold, Marcus Strickland, Kris Bowers, David Rosenthal, Jamire Williams, Justin Brown, Bendji Allonce, Dontae Winslow, Anne Drummond, Maria Im, Chiari Fasi, Celia Hatton, and Justina Sullivan.
Hailing from Washington, D.C., Williams graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Michigan State University and The Juilliard School. He won a Grammy Award in 2013 for Best Jazz Instrumental Album as a member of guitarist Pat Metheny’s Unity Band. He has also performed with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Robert Glasper, and Pharrell.
Rainbow Blonde Records is the Los Angeles label of José James, Talia Billig, and Brian Bender. Album artwork comes from Janette Beckman.
Tracklisting
01. I Am A Man (Intro) (Instrumental) 02. If You Hear Me (Instrumental) 03. March On (Instrumental) 04. Promised Land (Instrumental 05. High Road (Instrumental) 06.Take It From Me (Instrumental) 07.Come Home (Instrumental) 08. The Death Of Emmett Till (Instrumental) 09. High Road, Pt. 2 (Instrumental) 10. We Shall Overcome (Instrumental)
I Am A Man: Mentals LP is available digitally now. Meanwhile, a full stream is available below.
James, a Minneapolis-born singer, signed to Brownswood with a track on Peterson’s first Brownswood Bubblers compilation, and he went on to release two albums on the London label, beginning with 2007’s The Dreamer, with its dusky jazz grooves and James’ silky vocals.
Blackmagic, the followup, features lo-fi hip-hop production from Flying Lotus, Moodymann, and Taylor McFerrin. Across 13 songs, James takes a soulful journey into the history of Black music, connecting the dots between soul, R&B, hip-hop, and London’s broken-beat and dubstep movements. Highlights include the Moodymann-produced Marvin Gaye tribute “Detroit Loveletter” and the spaced out jazz meets hip-hop of “Blackmagic.”
The re-release comes through James’ own Rainbow Blonde Records, and includes new photography by Hassan Hajjaj plus four new live tracks recorded in Brooklyn with an all-star band.
In 2018, James also reissued The Dreamer, remastered with four bonus tracks.
Tracklisting
01. Code 02. Touch 03. Lay You Down 04. Promise In Love 05. Warrior 06. Made For Love 07. Save Your Love For Me 08. The Greater Good 09. Blackmagic 10. Detroit Loveletter 11. Love Conversation 12. Beauty 13. No Tellin’ (I Need You) 14. Blackmagic (The Brooklyn Sessions) 15. Code (The Brooklyn Sessions) 16. Made For Love (The Brooklyn Sessions) 17. Save Your Love For Me (The Brooklyn Sessions)
Blackmagic: 10th Anniversary Edition LP is scheduled for August 28 digital release. You can read more about it here.
In Terminus, we’re told to expect “a stunning EP of contemporary breakbeat science.”
Across four tracks, the UK producer, real name Joe Baker, pushes his sound further into the darker recesses of drum & bass, flexing drum production that hypnotises and beguiles, delivering stripped grooves shot through with dissonant pads, swollen feedback, and mordant bass. Parallels can be drawn with Lee Gamble’s deconstructed breakbeat meditations or the dark moods of Demdike Stare.
In 2018, Baker released his debut LP, Apparitions on Livity Sound, preceded by EPs for Whities, Echochord, and Delsin.
Tracklisting
01. Impulse 02. Terminus 03. Void Control 04. Curved Path
Terminus EP is out on 12″ vinyl on August 21. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Impulse” in full below.
