Gobby “Hidden Temple”

Gobby is a producer who can be hard to pin down. Usually found releasing on hometown label UNO, the enigmatic talent has today released a new three-track effort via the fledgling Tar label. Entitled The Films: A Lucid Nightmare, the new record opens with “Hidden Temple,” an unexpectedly sun-kissed tune which finds Gobby playing with a particularly radiant sample and a few bits of rattling percussion atop a simple kick-and-snare pattern. For the most part, “Hidden Temple” follows a familiar path, with Gobby peacefully sweeping FX across the sample’s surface while hints of airy textures flow through it. The track essentially stops just past the three-minute mark, and turns into a completely new (but no less intriguing) song—just another example of Gobby’s ability to keep us guessing. To help celebrate the release of The Films: A Lucid Nightmare, Gobby will perform alongside a number of other NYC artists tomorrow at Brooklyn’s Cameo Gallery; more info on the event can be found here.

Hidden Temple

Shlohmo Announces North American Spring Tour

With his collaborative EP alongside Chicago vocalist Jeremih set to drop next month, SoCal man-of-many-beats Shlohmo has revealed dates of an upcoming North American tour. Following his performances at both weekends of Coachella this year, Shlohmo is set to spend most of April and May on the road, hitting both coasts and just about every place in between as he darts across the US, with one Canadian stop in Toronto. The full dates of the man’s upcoming tour—which is said to also feature some “special guests” that will be revealed at a later date—can be perused below.

April 11 – Indio, CA – Coachella (Weekend 1)
April 18 – Indio, CA – Coachella (Weekend 2)
April 22 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst
April 23 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
April 25 – Portland, OR – Branx
April 26 – Seattle, WA – Neumos
April 30 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theatre
May 01 – Lawrence, KS – The Granada Theatre
May 02 – Chicago, IL – Bottom Lounge
May 03 – Toronto, ON – Opera House
May 04 – Buffalo, NY – Waiting Room
May 06 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
May 07 – New York, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
May 10 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
May 11 – Washington, DC – U Street Music Hall
May 13 – Atlanta, GA – The Basement
May 14 – Nashville, TN – Mercy
May 15 – New Orleans, LA – Republic
May 16 – Houston, TX – Fitzgeralds
May 17 – Dallas, TX – Trees
May 18 – Austin, TX – The Parish
May 20 – Albuquerque, NM – Sister

Unsound Festival Returns to New York with Demdike Stare, Huerco S., Vladislav Delay, and More

After electing not to touch down in New York in 2013—so as to focus its efforts on London and the Australian city of Adelaide—Unsound Festival will return to NYC this April with five days of diverse programming. Among the artists set to be featured at the upcoming stateside edition of the Polish-born festival are Modern Love bosses Demdike Stare (pictured above), Brooklyn-based house experimentalist Huerco S., Vladislav Delay, DeepChord, and Ital. As is customary at Unsound, a number of artists will prepare special performances for the occasion: Demdike Stare will present a new live soundtrack called Concealed; noted sound artist Ben Vida will perform Damaged Particulates (undersong edition), a so-called “new exploration of sub bass… [which makes] use of bass frequencies throughout the space and on tactile bass seat-backs called SubPac.”

Clearly, Unsound has another adventurous NYC edition planned, with performances and parties set to take place across a number of the city’s venues (including Cameo Gallery, BAMcinématek, First Unitarian Church, and Issue Project Room) between April 2 and April 6. So far, Unsound’s official schedule has not been posted online, but we’ve gone ahead and included the full details of the upcoming Unsound NYC events below.

Wednesday, April 2
EVOL plays Hanne Darboven scores (USA premiere), Knots with Oren Ambarchi, Sinfonietta Cracovia players, James Rutherford, and Joe Talia (USA premiere)
8pm / $25 or $18 IPR members / students
@ Issue Project Room,
22 Boerum Pl, New York, NY 11201

Thursday, April 3
Pietnastka, Neotrantrik & Suzanne Ciani (USA premiere)
7.30pm / Free
@ David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center,
61 W.62 St, New York, NY 10023

Friday, April 4
Stara Reza, Phill Niblock, Concealed with Demdike Stare, Michael England and Sinfonietta Cracovia players (USA premiere)
8pm / $25 or $18 IPR members / students
@ First Unitarian Church,
50 Monroe Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Friday, April 4
DeepChord (Live), copeland (Live), Wilhelm Bras (Live), Huerco S (DJ), Visuals by Aurora Halal, Lighting installation by Nitemind
10pm / Advance tickets $15 / $20
@ Mutual Dreaming @ Cameo Gallery,
93 N.6th St, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Saturday, April 5
Time (afternoon) @ TBA
Artist talks and discussions

Saturday, April 5
Percussion event featuring: Sean Meehan and Ben Manely, Hakon Stene, Hubert Zemler
3pm / $15 or $12 IPR members / students
@ Issue Project Room,
22 Boerum Pl, New York, NY 11201

Saturday, April 5
Rondo (directed by Janusz Majewski) with a live score by Piotr Kurek, Andy Votel presents Kleksploitation (USA premiere)
$13 / $8 for BAM Cinema Club members
@ BAMcinématek at BAM Rose Cinemas,
30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Saturday, April 5
Porter Ricks (Live), Vladislav Delay (Live), Ital & Halal (Live) (world premiere), Miles (DJ), Leisure Muffin (Live), Le Petit Garçon (Live)
Doors 9pm / Advance Tickets $20 / 21+
@ The Bunker @ The Wick,
260 Meserole St, Brooklyn, NY 11206

Sunday, April 6
Ben Vida presents Damaged Particulates (undersong edition) (world premiere)
Time TBA (afternoon)
@ Experimental Intermedia
224 Centre St, New York, NY 10013

Sunday, April 6
Bocian Records showcase with Kapital, Paal Nilssen-Love & Robert Piotrowicz (world premiere), James Rushford & Joe Talia
6pm / $15 or $12 IPR members / students
@ Issue Project Room,
22 Boerum Pl, New York, NY 11201

Watch RBMA’s New Documentary Featuring Brian Eno, Flying Lotus, Giorgio Moroder, Richie Hawtin, and More

After announcing the film’s debut in January, Red Bull Music Academy‘s illuminating documentary What Difference Does it Make? A Film About Making Music is now available to stream and download for free. Directed by Ralf Schmerberg, the piece features interviews from notable artists and legendary icons such as Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Giorgio Moroder, Lee “Scratch” Perry, James Murphy, Flying Lotus, Richie Hawtin (pictured above), Todd Edwards, Erykah Badu, and Thundercat, among others, and seeks to explore the overarching concept of what it means to be a musician in this day and age, as well as to showcase the academy’s 2013 edition in New York.

Created in celebration of RBMA’s 15th anniversary (and perhaps as a teaser of what to expect from 2014’s upcoming sessions in Tokyo), the film also sheds some light on the artists’ trials and tribulations and how they look for the inspiration and motivation to create, as well as ideas like the rise of visual-based DJ performances. You can watch the compelling and inspiring documentary below, and learn more about the feature here.

Stream Champion’s New EP as Hayfever with Remixes from Mickey Pearce and Maddslinky

The fledgling record label run by burgeoning DJ/producer Champion, Formula is about to drop its latest record, a three-track EP from the head honcho’s new Hayfever alias. Along with its titular single “Ground Collapse,” the forthcoming release also features remixes from UK heavy hitters Mickey Pearce and Maddslinky (a.k.a. Zed Bias), and can now be streamed in its entirety exclusively on XLR8R. All three of the soundsystem-ready productions are loaded to the brim with woofer-busting low-end, razor-sharp percussion, and an insatiable urge to push the envelope while maintaining infectious dancefloor vibes. Hayfever’s Ground Collapse EP will drop as a vinyl package on February 24, but before then, the whole record can be heard below.

Skin Town “Midnight Lover (Secret Circuit Remix)”

On his remix of Skin Town‘s (pictured above) “Midnight Lover” (from the bedroom R&B pair’s debut LP The Room, released last year via LA label Time No Place), Secret Circuit injects the slow crawl of the original production with a new dose of gurgling percussion. Initially hinting at a sort of Balearic edge, the six-plus-minute rework slowly becomes more and more unhinged. Its loose percussive layers join with appropriately unfocused synth swells that build towards the kind of electronic wizardry we’ve come to expect from longtime sonic experimenter Eddie Ruscha, especially when found operating as Secret Circuit.

Midnight Lover (Secret Circuit Remix)

Galcher Lustwerk to Release New EP; Preview It Now

After impressing just about everyone last year with with his 100% Galcher mixtape, not to mention his tunes for Brooklyn’s ascendant White Material imprint, it was an easy choice to tab Galcher Lustwerk as one of 2014’s “Artist to Watch” during our Bubblin’ Up Week in January. The young producer apparently isn’t waiting long to capitalize on his promise, as he’ll soon be issuing a new EP. As reported by FACT, Lustwerk is calling the four-track effort Nu Day, and it is expected to drop via the vinyl-only Tsuba Limited on March 5. The tracklist is below, and clips can be heard over at Phonica, where the record can also be pre-ordered.

Nu Day EP
A1. Nu Day 1
A2. Nu Day 2
B1. 216
B2. Chillin in the Booth

MUTEK Joins Forces with Elektra for Its 15th Anniversary; Line-Up to Include Audion, Nicolas Jaar, Shackleton, and More

For anyone who follows XLR8R with any sort of regularity, it’s no secret that MUTEK is one of our favorite festival organizations. This morning, the long-running institution, which focuses on both cutting-edge electronic music and visual arts (and how they’re influenced by technology), announced the details of its upcoming 15th anniversary festivities in Montreal. What’s perhaps most interesting about the news is that MUTEK has elected to team up with Elektra, another high-profile digital arts festival in Montreal. Working together, the two groups have dubbed this year’s event EM 15 and established a new headquarters at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. The festivities will run from Tuesday, May 27 through Sunday, June 1, and though further line-up announcements are on the way, the initial group includes Audion, Nicolas, Jaar (pictured above), Shackleton, Pinch, Move D, Voices from the Lake, Magic Mountain High, Heatsick, Donato Dozzy, Archie Pelago, and others. More details will be unveiled in the weeks and month’s ahead, but organizers claim that EM15 will ultimately feature more than 100 acts and will take place in several new venues. In the meantime though, passes for both the entire festival and just the weekend have been placed on sale.

Listen to Four Tet’s and Terror Danjah’s New Collaborative 12″

UK DJ/producer Four Tet (pictured above) is making a habit out of announcing new records via his Twitter account, and has continued the trend today, unveiling full streams of his forthcoming collaborative 12″ with Hyperdub grime stalwart Terror Danjah and sharing that it “might start getting to shops late this week or early next week.” Taking a tone not unlike Four Tet’s recent Beautiful Rewind album, “Killer” b/w “Nasty” balances rough and heavy beats with a taste for light melodies and crunchy atmospherics, all of which coalesces into a couple of club-specific productions that bare the indelible mark of their two wildly talented creators. Before the record drops via Four Tet’s Text label sometime soon, both “Killer” and “Nasty” can be streamed in full below.

Com Truise Wave 1

Com Truise‘s chrome-plated synth jams have always come across as a kind of musical mood ring. In loose, romantic, wistful moments, the best of Seth Haley’s high-sheen outings (“Brokendate” or “VHS Sex,” for instance) appeal to a nostalgia-junkie area of the brain over which few of us have much control. However, in harder-nosed, colder frames of mind, the same music’s hyper-stylized maneuvers can occasionally seem tiresome.

Regardless of one’s feelings about Com Truise and his music, it would seem inarguable that Haley’s sound is one that could easily drift into banal self-parody if not developed over time. And time is certainly something Haley has allowed himself plenty of in formulating this, his largest collection of new work since 2011’s Galactic Melt LP. After seemingly being everywhere in 2011 and 2012, Com Truise’s 2013 offered only a solitary remix for Canadian producer Blood Diamonds and a smattering of DJ and live shows. Listening to Wave 1, there appears to have been no grand overhaul during the time Haley has spent on semi-lockdown, but neither has there been total creative stasis.

At seven tracks, only one of which clocks in at under four minutes, Wave 1 is more of a mini-album than an EP, and it kicks off with a clear heads-up that anyone looking for a radical leap into the musical unknown should probably just keep on walking. “Wasat” is a two-minute introductory vignette comprised entirely of classic Com Truise ingredients—there are steady, deliberate drums, space-transmission vocal snippets, a keening, gleaming synth line, and glowing background pads. Next up is another standard-issue workout, “Mind,” which rests on familiarly languid drums, pads, and tottering pin-pricks of synth. Possibly the least remarkable cut on the EP, it has a mid-album feel that makes it an odd choice as the first proper track on Haley’s first collection of new material in over two years.

Things get more interesting on “Declamation,” an overtly pop effort that falls on the right side of cheeseball despite Joel Ford contributing an Auto-Tuned guest vocal that wouldn’t have been out of place on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. After that, things lapse back to the familiar, with “Subsonic”‘s smooth linearity and far-off machine voices, the wafting synths and foregrounded percussion of “Valis Called (Control),” and the swooshing space-odyssey aesthetic of “Miserere Mei” all emanating squarely from Haley’s comfort zone. However, what saves Wave 1 from being totally unremarkable is the EP’s final number (and title track). Founded on a beautifully spectral, Robin Guthrie/Cocteau Twins-indebted guitar line, it’s an utterly enchanting listen. It’s not the first time Haley has mined such territory (see “Polyhurt” from 2011’s Fairlight EP), but on “Wave 1,” he realizes it with uncommon skill and a spine-tingling ear for melody.

Strong ending aside, the central lesson of Wave 1 would seem to be that Com Truise’s likely longevity as a creative force is a little uncertain. A year and more of thought and (presumably) heavy studio time has yielded something that frequently sounds like the same old Com Truise, in second gear, trotting out the same old ’80s synthoid tropes. However, in the engaging “proper song” experiment of “Declination” and the sheer beauty of “Wave 1,” there is just enough intrigue for his subsequent moves to remain a matter of interest.

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