Khruangbin will release their second album, Mordechai, in June.
Mordechai comes two years after the release of their breakthrough, 2018’s Con Todo El Mundo. As a first for the mostly instrumental band, the album features vocals prominently on nearly every song. It sees them pulling reference points from Pakistan, Korea, and West Africa, all the while incorporating strains of Indian chanting boxes and Congolese syncopated guitar.
Mordechai is the name of Laura Lee’s friend who had reached out when she was feeling unmoored, inviting her to come hiking with his family. That day, she jumped into a waterfall and her rejuvenation came out in hundreds of pages of words, which the band turned into lyrics. Chief among the themes is memory—holding onto it, letting it go, and naming it before it disappears.
“Time (You And I),” the lead single, evinces the feeling of a festival winding down to its final blowout hours. Its accompanying video features comedian Stephen K. Amos and Lunda Anele-Skosana. The duo wander around London, placing singular sandcastles throughout the city’s various scenery.
Tracklisting
01. First Class 02. Time (You and I) 03. Connaissais de Face 04. Father Bird, Mother Bird 05. If There is No Question 06. Pelota 07. One to Remember 08. Dearest Alfred 09. So We Won’t Forget 10. Shida
Mordechai LP is out on June 26 on Dead Oceans, in association with Night Time Stories. Meanwhile, you can stream “Time (You and I)” below and pre-order the record here.
Konstantinos Soublis will release his ninth studio album as Fluxion next month, Perspectives.
Across 10 tracks, Fluxion displays his free-form approach to composing and beat-making. As with all his releases, he goes about the arrangement like a classical composer and the production like a live performer, subverting the listeners expectations for a song’s direction by never repeating a single refrain and incorporating mistakes as “happy accidents.”
Fluxion’s emphasis on the harmony of form between different moods and timbres breathes life into this album, enabling it to be felt and resonated with on an emotional and spiritual level. A delicate sentiment displays itself at times, where it feels like Fluxion wants us to share a frozen moment in time and feel what he feels. In other segments, Fluxion captures a more ethereal image of a natural world waking up, delivering lush, celestial pads “reminiscent of Moby’s iconic Play album,” we’re told.
Vibrant Music, the label behind the release, describes it as a “collage of constantly evolving moods and soundscapes that embraces spontaneity and relinquishes the dogma of structure and arrangement in the authentic Fluxion style.”
Included on the album is “Cliff,” originally released via XLR8R+ along with tracks from Silverlining and Redeyes.
Learn more about Fluxion with his XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Schism 02. Formation 03. Within 04. Glimpses 05. Dawn 06. Glimpses II 07. Down The Line 08. Distance 09. Cliff 10. Promise
Perspectives LP is out on vinyl on May 22 via Vibrant Music. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here, and stream “Cliff” in full below. “Formation” is available to stream via this link.
Sofie will release her debut full-length record, Cult Survivor, in June on Stones Throw.
Cult Survivor was written as a direct response to Sofie’s difficult personal experiences. After an abrupt breakup and a serious illness in the family, she moved home to Vienna, Austria, and she began isolating from her musical community. This inspired her to begin writing her own songs.
“In Vienna, I was suddenly so secluded, no longer surrounded by the musical world I was so embedded in, that it forged the way for my creativity,” she says. “I’m not sure this would have happened had I stayed in Los Angeles, I don’t know if I’d have had the courage, or not felt like it was superfluous.” In touch with Peanut Butter Wolf having worked for Stones Throw, Sofie started to send him demos, which eventually led to her finishing a record and being asked to release it on the label.
You can hear these experiences across “Asleep,” the album’s lead single, “written about the inevitable feeling that accompanies pursuing something, from a meaningless crush to an existence choice, something you know is a dead end; which as inane as it is, will ultimately always be better in your head or imagination rather than reality.” It’s about “trying to stay on that precipice of fantasy between being awake and unconscious,” Sofie explains.
Surrounded by classical music from a young age, Sofie started learning the violin at just four years old. She continued playing through her teens but ended up in London where she became an integral member of the growing Boiler Room team and an NTS Radio resident DJ. She also worked at Stones Throw for four years.
You can read more about Sofie with her XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Hollywood Walk of Fame 02. 99 Glimpses 03. Asleep 04. Try To Reach Me 05. Guest 06. Figueroa 07. Baby 08. Truth Of The Matter 09. Georgia Waves 10. High Time Now 11. Interlude 12. Happen 2 B There
Cult Survivor LP is out on vinyl and digitally on June 26. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Asleep” in full below.
Iglooghost is back with Amu, a new single and video.
Recorded with a children’s choir, the song is about the ecosystem of an entity named Amu. To unlock the song, the UK artist, real name Seamus Malliagh, required his listeners to help him find four hidden stones that were scattered across ancient websites.
“I think loads of people around my age grew up immersed in these kinds of feral, infinite wormhole-like music communities online,” Malliagh tells XLR8R. “When I was 14, my friends and I would spend days doing ridiculous things like trading fake unreleased Odd Future beats for genuine ones, following breadcrumb trails of dead links and ancient profiles to grab demos from our favorite music people at the time. Mixing these kinds of experiences with storytelling and magic-realism was a really fun way to get tons of crazy weirdos in a chatroom cracking codes and spamming text at lightning speed.”
The video, directed by Luke Gibson and featuring 3D animation from Christopher Casey Denton, goes from a chip shop to a lime-green shrine on the outskirts of town. As Iglooghost and his hovering friend Amu venture the town’s transport networks, they begin to notice a lime-green gang of fiends following them.
Amu is Malliagh’s first solo material since 2018’s Clear Tameiand Steel Mogu EPs. Before that, he released his debut full-length with 2017’s Neō Wax Bloom. You can read more about him in his XLR8R feature here.
On Colure, we’re told that the pair conjure “transcendent creations” out of their contrasting musical backgrounds and environments. The album is assuredly dualistic: electronic and acoustic sounds sit comfortably side-by-side, and big melodic hooks are laced into hypnotic club productions.
The album features “Phases,” a 2017 single release, and the delicate piano of “The Water,” the duo’s spin on the track of the same title from RY X’s Unfurl album.
RY X is a solo alternative artist and member of The Acid, and Wiedemann is one half of Âme on Innervisions. The duo marked their debut as Howling with the release of a self-titled track in 2012, which they followed with the 2015 album, Sacred Ground.
Tracklisting
01. Ellipses I 02. Pieces 03. Bind 04. Healing 05. Dew 06. Need You Now 07. The Water 08. Light On 09. Phases 10. Mother Mother 11. Body Inside 11. Lover 12. Ellipses II
Colure LP is out July 24 on vinyl and digitally on Counter Records. Meanwhile, you can stream “Bind” below.
Alan Mathias and Etienne Dauta connected in Berlin, Germany in 2010 and formed Arcarsenal after purchasing a Jomox 888 drum machine. Their references at this point were labels like Smallville and Dial, and New York artists like Fred P, Levon Vincent, and Jus’Ed. In 2012, they setup Bass Cadet Records as a platform for their music, and Dauta followed this by opening Neukölln’s Bass Cadet record store a year later, which became a hive of activity centred on the German capital’s thriving music community. Within months, Mathias and Dauta were touring as DJs and had signed artists like Jenifa Mayanja and Ron Trent to their label.
Things picked up pace from then on. After releases on labels like Underground Quality, Rue de Plaisance, and Finest Hour, and some solid studio experience, Mathias and Dauta presented a hardware-only live set, which they’ve been touring almost incessantly until recently. They’ve now closed the store and moved away from Berlin, and they made the decision to stop producing new music together in 2016. Their final piece of new music, the second part of Compendium, will land soon, comprised of tracks produced between 2011 until 2016 but never released for various reasons.
As it stands, there will be no more Arcarsenal music, as Mathias and Dauta focus on their solo work and pursue professional careers elsewhere—but that is not to say the project is written off. Mathias and Dauta are open to linking in the studio again but just not now. As they prepare for time away from the project, Mathias and Dauta prepared an XLR8R podcast, a dancefloor mix whipped up on the fly and full of their slick house sounds that underpinned their collaboration. Dauta also answered some questions about the project, the mix, and how he’s dealing with lockdown. (Hint: you can hear some of Dauta’s new music inside the podcast.)
What have you been up to recently?
We moved back from Berlin to France two years ago. We both come from south west France where we grew up and have our families. We are now living one hour away from each other so we see each other from time to time and we still talk a lot, but we haven’t been producing together for a while now. I, Etienne, am currently learning Naturopathy and will be therapist next year, and Alan is graduating to be a diving trainer. We both work on music on the side. Alan has set up a nice recording studio in his house, while I have stripped down my studio equipment and I’ll be working on new tracks as soon as I feel it’s time to make music.
Which artists or labels are impressing you right now?
I’ve been listening to lot of jazz and beyond recently. I’ve been digging Binker Golding’s latest solo album, and also Matthew Halsall, Joe Armon-Jones, Makaya McCraven, Yazz Ahmed, Steve Spacek, Fatima, Sarathy Korwar, and Thundercat. I also had the chance to see Kokoroko live, and had a blast.
On the electronic side of things, I’ve been into the latest Black Jazz Consortium album and I’ve also discovered some new deep techno artists like Konduku and Soela on Dial. I also like Forest Drive West, and I’m following my friend Valentino Mora’s work and all the deep techno scene around Donato Dozzy and Marco Shuttle. But I’m not following new releases and new artists as much as I have in the past because I closed the store.
How have you been dealing with the lockdown measures?
I have to say that I’m one of the lucky people. I’m locked down in the middle of the countryside, where I live. So I’m gardening, spending most of my time outside, harvesting plants, wandering in the woods and up in the hills with my three-year-old daughter. My wife is working from home, so we are having a nice family time but we’re conscious of being in these “luxurious” conditions when so many people and a lot of our friends are locked up in their flat in big cities. We’re hoping things will turn in a nice way for everyone soon and that we won’t get back to the states things were before the crisis. We need a bold change and to start building a new relationship to our environment.
What are you listening to in this downtime?
Mostly spiritual things. I’m also singing and working a lot of songs with my acoustic guitar. But from time to time I go listen to some of the newest jazz, electronic, and ambient releases I like.
Where and when did you record this mix?
The mix was recorded at home at the beginning of 2020. We set up a nice DJ booth nestled in the framework of my house’s roof. It was a nice and inspiring setup.
How did you choose the tracks that you’ve included?
We wanted to build up the mix around deep techno and stripped down house. I wanted a very mental core. It naturally flowed towards slightly more dancefloor things. The selection was mostly made while mixing. We had some key tracks, like Konduku “Caduta Di Massi” and Forest Drive West “Parallel Space” that we wanted to put in the mix, but almost everything came out while recording.
How does it compare to what we’d hear you play in a club?
A one-hour podcast is always a special exercise. When playing in clubs we like to play longer sets so we never stay locked in a style or mood. It always depends on the club, the crowd, our feelings, and the energy that builds up in the room over the night. We play a large range of styles going from vocal deep house, to minimalistic after-hours music or muscled up techno, so it really depends on the context. It’s hard to condense all the music we could play in this one-hour timeframe, so a podcast could never be a “business card” of what we are in our “natural environment.” Our club sets would be more diverse, because they’re longer.
What are your longer-term ambitions in music?
I’m working on a new solo project called Sylve, which will be focused on a deep sound going from techno and house to electronica and more experimental things. I don’t want it to be sticking to a specific genre, rather to a special introspective mood.
The track included in the mix, “Cloudless Raindrops,” is already set to be released on Laura BCR’s On Board music and I have some other tracks ready. I don’t want to put myself under pressure; nowadays, I just want to have a good time when doing music without having the pressure to release enough records each year to be seen and followed. This is my main ambition as an artist.
What’s next on your horizons?
As Arcarsenal, we will have the second part of Compendium, our archival project, out this year. This will nicely close a chapter of our artistic life, but Arcarsenal is not down. Maybe we’ll get back in the studio together someday or maybe do a few gigs, if we have the opportunity. We’re also working on the digital distribution of some of our catalogue so we can have it available on Spotify and other popular digital platforms.
XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to download the podcast you will need to subscribe to our Select channel. 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. Molly “Voovoo” [Groovement] 02. Forest Drive West “Parallel Space” [Echospace] 03. SYS “Exoplanet” [ESHU Records] 04. Dewemer “Long Rice” [Nous’klaer Audio] 05. Chaos In The CBD “Educate The Heart” [Mule Musiq] 06. Sylve “Cloudless Raindrops” [On Board Music] (unreleased) 07. Dorisburg “Gloson” [Hivern Discs] 08. Konduku “Caduta Di Massi” [idle Hands] 09. Galcher Lustwerk “Fathomless Irie” [Galcher Lustwerk Records] 10. Secretsundaze “Gigantic Impossible Large “(NYC Dub Mix) [Running Back] 11. Callisto “The Power” [Guidance Recordings] 12. Arcarsenal “Sweat Lodge Breathing” [Inner Balance] 13. Black Jazz Consortium “Brisbane” [Perpetual Sounds]
Thessa Torsing will release Zoom, her debut album as Upsammy, via Dekmantel in June.
Zoom is described as a “refinement” of Torsing’s sound and an “expansion of its ambition,” and it follows a pair of EPs on Die Orakel. Across 11 tracks, the Dutch artists invites listeners to look a little closer at their surroundings and replenish their stock of wonder by sharpening their focus and throwing them off guard.
“People can be consumed by really big or ‘fantastical’ things in life, but don’t see the small things that have great emotional, artistic, or even spiritual value,” Torsing says. “I’ve always had a lot of curiosity for my surroundings, trying to grasp, understand, and be amazed by what is around me.”
Since 2017, Torsing has developed her own style by meshing airy tones, tender melodies, and technical drum patterns which wrap around the body of the song. She’s also a resident of De School, and has put out music on Whities and Nous’klaer Audio, where she released a mini-album last year.
Tracklisting
A1. Melt In My Heated Hands A2. Growing Out Of The Plastic Box A3. It Drips B1. Subsoil B2. In A Shade B3. Echo Boomed C1. Send-Zen C2. Overflowering D1. Extra Warm D2. Twisted Like A Flame D3. Reality Paces The Platform
Zoom LP is scheduled to release on June 8 on vinyl and digitally. Meanwhile, you can pre-order via Bandcamp here and stream clips below.
Dan Andrei has released a new digital album, Vreau sa ma simt bine, meaning “I want to feel good.”
Vreau sa ma simt bine is the Romanian’s second studio album, and it follows his Parcul Cosmos LP on Arpiar in 2015. His most recent EP came last year on Amphia with Loose Dots.
There’s no information disclosed on the album, other than that its artwork comes from Claudiu Stefan and it’s mastered by Vlad Caia.
To learn more about Dan Andrei, listen to his XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Syntheticc 02. Am ametit 03. Micromi 04. Fajitajita 05. Home alone 06. Skimming 07. Back back to normal 08. Vreau sa ma simt bine
Vreau sa ma simt bine LP is available for download over at Bandcamp now, where you can also stream the album.
Let’s begin with a thank you—for all the submissions, and all the great music you’ve sent to us. We launched this submissions portal with one goal in mind: to provide a direct channel with musicians because we recognize that for independent, emerging artists, it’s harder than ever to cut through the noise and have your music heard. That being said, we weren’t sure what to expect—how much music would we receive; and how much of it would be of a high enough quality to feature across our platforms? The answers: lots; and the majority of it. We’re really touched by the depth and breadth of these submissions, and we’re grateful for your hard work and for supporting us. We’ve listened to every single submission more than once—and while we could have featured much more, these are the tracks and mixes that stood out this month. Please enjoy, and keep sending us your music.
Editor’s note: we’ve made a point of linking each artist’s name to their Bandcamp 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.
Edgar Mondragón“Rufugio”
https://soundcloud.com/edgarmondragon/refugio
Edgar Mondragón is an electronic musician based in Mexico City, Mexico. His sound blends ambient, drone, noise, dream pop, and techno, and his work has taken him across Latin and North America. With several EPs under his belt, he’s about to release his first full-length album called No hay recuerdo que no se apague, and this is the first single, a tense and immersive slice of ambient.
Finds Them And Thrills Them“Disconnected, But Connected” (feat. Ane Trolle)
Finds Them and Thrills Them is the project of Tyler Pope, from LCD Soundsystem, and Steven Jess Borth II (a.k.a CHLLNGR) alongside synth wizard Anders Dixen from the band AV AV AV and drummer/producer Stunn Gunn.
Although Pope and Jess Borth II had crossed paths in their hometown of Sacramento, California, they never formally met until a party in the Bedstuy apartment of M.I.A., where they talked about working together. It took another few years before they fulfilled their promise, finding time to meet when Pope was in Copenhagen, where Jess Borth II lives, for a series of concerts with LCD Soundsystem. They snuck away for a studio session and the funk-filled proto-disco cut “Disconnected, But Connected” is the first release to come out of those sessions. It features a Danish singer Ane Trolle on vocals and is available on Bandcamp now.
usr/friendly “Sleeper”
“Sleeper” is the first track from usr/friendly, an experimental group formerly known as Oketo, and it’s as beautiful as it is cerebral. The group is made up of long-time friends Bradley Clevinger, Karlee Reiss, and Steven DeLair, all residing in Washington, United States. Expect their debut album later this year.
Erik Strauss “Darkside”
Erik Strauss is a DJ-producer from Venice, Italy, who grew up listening to jazz and funk from his family’s vinyl records. Only later on did he begin digging into more electronic sounds. He’s part of French label Nuit Blanche but he also independently shares trip-hop and downtempo tunes like “Darkside,” a masterfully produced cut we keep on coming back to.
Toada “Brisas De Lisboa”
Toada is a producer born Valdir da Silva in Luanda, Angola but raised in Lisbon. He grew up around Sintra, a charming Portuguese town, where he discovered a “deep connection” with music. After lessons with electric guitar, he found himself performing in hard rock and metal bands, which developed his most basic musical instincts. These instincts took him away from metal and into alternative music, in particular bands like dEUS or even Flamenco music like Vicente Amigo, and he discovered electronic music, albeit only as an “avid listener,” he recalls.
In 2015, da Silva conceived Toada, an amalgamation of several other musical projects that began in Lisbon but matured in Berlin, Germany, where da Silva bases himself for personal reasons. Toada’s releases began in 2018, all of them through Plūma, his own label set up for his own work. We signed “Brisas De Lisboa,” his new work, to XLR8R+, and released it with tracks from Rob Garza and Mike Shannon. It’s a delicate slice of emotive downtempo electronica, much in the same vein as Rival Consoles, dedicated to the Lisbon community where he’s grown up.
Dawn Razor “Be As One 2”
Enigmatic Russian artist Dawn Razor has featured on R&S, A R T S, Anemone, and Hypnotic Room to name a few. His music comprises broken beat techno, electro, mutated bass, post-trance, and everything in between. “Be As One 2” is one of his latest works and its rolling breaks and low-slung groove hit us like a wrecking ball. With a huge catalog of unreleased tunes at his disposable, Dawn Razor is one to watch in the coming months.
C. Wendy “Fuckboy’s Rhythm”
C. Wendy is a London-based DJ-producer, and an affiliate of etiket records in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has released two previous tracks, both last year on the Tribute To Joshua Nolan EP. “Fuckboy’s Rhythm,” a new cut, is a slick house track that will certainly have dancefloors moving when they can be filled again.
Jean-Emmanuel Rosnet “General Updates”
Jean-Emmanuel Rosnet forms part of the French avant-garde music scene. Over the last 10 years, he has produced music under several different monikers from dance music to electronica. Under his own name, he delivers music that’s rich in field recordings, textures, and mineral chords with a heavy focus on ambient music. As co-founder of Mirage Festival, he’s also a recognized curator in the field of digital arts and new media art. The Distant Murmur of the City, his new EP, is out now, and we’ve picked beautifully subtle and calming “General Updates” as a highlight.
Sef Sung “PIT”
Sef Sung was born in Vienna, Austria in 1994 but moved to Ankara, Turkey in 2007. He’s a student of film who currently resides in his parents’ attic where he has started to make electronic music. His setup comprises a laptop and some basic music equipment he bought with money “extorted from his parents,” he says—and with it he’s made “PIT” a warped-out track that sounds like pop beamed from parallel universe.
Sour Gout “Pulses”
Sour Gout’s new album is out now on Absurd TRAX. Across the album, the Vancouver, British Columbia artist creates collages of organic and virtual intensities, sculpting them into a series of immersive soundscapes. The album combines digital, instrumental, and organic sounds into a wide array of abstract forms, taking influence from the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Frank Zappa’s late synclavier compositions, and the apocalyptic healing manga of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō. The album represents a sonic shift for Sour Gout toward a more abstract space, and we’ve picked “Pulses” as the pick of the bunch.
Komarebi “Break Out”
Komarebi, real name Iestyn Jones, has been making music for nearly a decade but only recently has he been taking it seriously, and now he’s looking to get it out there. Based in Newport, Wales, Komarebi takes influences from house, techno, ambient, and slow jungle, but right now he’s feeling electro! His first album is due on Touched Music soon, and “Break Out,” with its lush melodies and tender grooves, is the first sign of what we can expect. Don’t sleep on this one.
Silene is a support worker and music therapist based in Bristol, UK. He produces music on the side and has released on Nous Disques and Mor Elian/Rhyw’s Fever AM, while also running his Energy Source label, which donates all proceeds towards East Bristol/Trussell Trust Food Banks. His new EP features “Reflect,” a world-class piece of left-field beat science that marks Silene as a UK producer to keep an eye on!
Aestum “Siwei”
https://soundcloud.com/aestum/siwei
Nothing is known about Aestum other than that they’re based in Vatican City and they released the Blasted Heath EP last year, presenting five dedications to contemporary artists Asma, Kinke Kooi, Siggy Sekira, Zhou Siwei, and Viktor Timofeev. The whole EP is deeply moving and paints an exciting sonic world, and it should be listened to as a whole, but “Siwei” is the track we came back to.
Aspetuck “Into the Woods”
Aspetuck had never considered delving into the world of music production until fairly recently. Growing up in sleepy Vermont, United States 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 was drawn into 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.
Treehouse at Yuma Place is a collection of eight songs produced towards the end of 2019. They were all made in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, a place that is lush and serene just minutes up the hill from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. The songs reflect the closing of a chapter and the start of a new one. We’ve picked “Into The Woods” as our favorite, but the whole album, out now, is worth a dig.
Loxxe “Limit Break”
https://soundcloud.com/loxxe/limit-break
Loxxe is an emerging Toronto-based DJ and producer with a knack for finding the elusive middle ground between house and techno. Loxxe is a former bass guitarist and classical pianist, and took up DJing after living in Osaka, Japan, as she was “inspired by the city’s energy and intensity.” Her sound balances driving rhythms with subtle atmospheres and melodies, an ethos that is perfectly summed up in “Limit Break,” our favorite of her recent tracks.
SMTHN “Austerity’
Konrad Kujawa is a techno DJ-producer based in Kraków, Poland. After flirting with various musical genres, he settled on techno in 2015 and became SMTHN. He released his first EP for Dirty Stuff Records in 2017, and he followed it with a mini-album, l e s s, and his debut vinyl album, Disappearance of Peter Bergmann. This mix, one of Kujawa’s first to be published online, oscillates between techno and ambient, and it’s made with field recordings and live instruments. “I was trying to find the balance between 4/4, straight to the dance-floor cuts, and something more emotional and elusive,” Kujawa tells XLR8R.
Vers ‘Altijd Vers’
https://soundcloud.com/shleip/altijd-vers
Vers made this mix in the run-up to an event hosted by Grid, the Ghent-based collective, which aims to tie together architecture, visuals, and cutting-edge club music. Headlining the party was Stenny, who fittingly features in the mix, alongside Aquarian, Deena Abdelwahed, Actapulgite, and many more. This one will have you dancing in your bedroom!
Lost Fx ‘Short Stories’
This mix by Lost Fx captures the “feeling you have when being in a big city you do not know, for the first time, but how you can take comfort in this,” they say. “Loneliness is something I like to explore a lot in my music, so when putting this mix together, instead of having tracks play one after the other, I wanted to create a narrative that could run alongside the music.” To achieve this, they used a variety of sound clips taken from various films and interviews. The music almost exclusively comes from XLR8R downloads, some of it going back to 2011. “This was a conscious decision, as I have a genuine love for XLR8R and the tracks you have highlighted over the years have turned me on to some amazing producers. So please enjoy.”
Brain is Dear’s latest alias, additing to a catalog of techno projects that includes False, Jabberjaw, and Audion. He’s also prolific under his birth name, releasing many albums on Ghostly and Spectral Sound, including Bunnyin 2018.
The EP opener, “Boss,” surfaced on Carl Craig’s Detroit Love Vol.2 mix as a psychedelic tunnel that takes full advantage of Dear’s nous for detail.
The World EP will be released digitally during the lockdown period, with a 2×12″ vinyl release to follow in September featuring the additional production, “Tantricity.”
Clocking in at 24 minutes, this understated epic offers a tumbling journey through passage upon passage of Brain’s ultra-precise and unpredictable world; expect “a euphoric and occasionally unsettling masterclass in suspense and release,” the label says.
Digital tracklisting (May 15, 2020):
01. Boss 02. Corrections 03. Rafe 04. Snake Head
Vinyl tracklisting (September 2020):
A1. Boss A2. Corrections B1. Rafe B2. Snake Head C1. Tantricity Pt.I D1. Tantricity Pt.II
The World EP lands digitally on May 15. Meanwhile, you can stream “Boss” in full below, and pre-order the release here.
