Aufgang “Ellenroutir (Anton Zap Remix)”

The release of Aufgang‘s Istiklaliya LP earlier this year saw the trio refine its ideas of melding live instrumentation into the electronic music canon. Featured here, Anton Zap‘s remix of album cut “Ellenroutir” mines that area in order to create a spacious and lilting house track. Each piano stroke from the original production is stretched out and strewn around the stereo field as dubby stabs ricochet off of the sides of the mix. With a slow escalation, the track’s various elements intertwine with each other into a loosely woven framework before spiralling down into an echo chamber. Aufgang’s Ellenroutir EP—from which Anton Zap’s new remix is lifted—will be released on October 14 via Infine.

Ellenroutir (Anton Zap remix)

Guido Announces Sophomore LP for Tectonic, Shares Lead Single

It has been three years since Bristol mainstay Guido released his debut LP, Anidea, though he hasn’t exactly been silent in the meantime. 12″s and EPs for a few different labels—including his own State of Joy imprint—have sporadically appeared, and now, we’ve been given word of the DJ/producer’s sophomore LP. Called Moods of Future, Guido’s 11-track album is said to take a step forward from the R&B-informed “purple” dubstep of his past, moving into territory informed more by the artist’s foundations in jazz and classical music to “[create] tracks that—although always inherent of dubstep’s influence—are bereft of any single genre.” Pinch’s Tectonic label will release the full-length on November 4, but ahead of that occasion, its tracklist and a stream of lead single “Green Eyed Monster (GEM)”—featuring singer Emma-Lou—can be found below.

01. Green Eyed Monster (GEM)
02. Heartful Dodger
03. Same Road
04. Letting Go
05. Lucky Git
06. Jupiter
07. NRG
08. Afrika Pt 2
09. Midnight Savannah
10. Kalm
11. Squeaky Jungle

Oneman Readies ‘Solitaire Vol. 2’ Mixtape

South London DJ (and occasional producer) Oneman has announced the imminent release of his second Solitaire mix album, sharing its artwork and a teaser video in the process. Word of Steve Bishop’s latest mixtape arrives only a few months shy of a year after its first installment, and is said to exhibit the artist’s “skill in selecting the best of underground rap and club music to devastating effect,” with loads of exclusives, unreleased tunes, and brand-new material coming from Bok Bok & Tom Trago, Jeremiah Jae, Loefah, Danny Brown, and many more. Solitaire Vol. 2 will be given away on October 14 via Oneman’s website, which he’ll follow with a launch party at Fabric on October 18 and an as-yet-unannounced event with Boiler Room in New York. Before then, the trailer for Vol. 2, which features a portion of Loefah exclusive “Champion,” can be seen below.

Five Minutes with Kid Smpl at Decibel 2013

Last week, XLR8R spent a long weekend running around the rainy streets of Seattle for the 10th-annual edition of the city’s Decibel Festival (our comprehensive review can be read here). Between the long list of showcases and events we attended, XLR8R took some time to catch up with a few of the festival’s performers, and—seeing as how we were holed up in his hometown—we tracked down Seattle-based Kid Smpl for a few minutes, talking about his first encounter with Decibel, becoming an RBMA grad, and why his new music is moving in a more “physical” direction.

XLR8R: Growing up near Seattle, when did you first start hearing about Decibel?
Kid Smpl: I wasn’t really aware of Decibel until about four year ago. I was in college, and I saw that FlyLo was playing, and then I checked out the line-up for the rest of the festival and was like, “Oh my god!” [laughs] That year though, I was under 21, so I actually didn’t have very many options of where I could go.

And now you’ve performed as part of the festival a few times now?
Last year was the first time I did a real live set for Decibel, and then again this year. Decibel does events throughout the year, and anytime I play one of their events, I feel like it’s one of the most comfortable places for me to perform.

What about it makes it comfortable for you?
Just the audience it attracts is always people who are into underground electronic music. They just know what they’re getting themselves into. [laughs]

You were a participant at this year’s RBMA session in New York. How was that experience? It looks like they keep you guys busy for those two weeks.
It’s pretty non-stop with things to do. There is a lot of encouragement to get into the studio and collaborate and make music with the other participants. Then there are the two lectures a day that usually get put online, and then occasional workshop-like lectures as well. Then there are just shows every night, and every participant plays at least one. I played a show with Oneohtrix Point Never, Evian Christ—who was an RBMA participant as well for that class—Bill Kouligas from PAN, and AnnaLove, who was part of RBMA too. We were in this proper metal venue out in Greenpoint [in Brooklyn], but they brought in this big system out for it. That was such a fun show, and I just felt really comfortable because everyone on the bill was really weird, so I could take my live set wherever I wanted to.

Back in our Bubblin’ Up profile of you earlier this year, you had mentioned wanting to start making instrumentals and beats for vocalists. Have you made any progress with that?
Yeah, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and I’ve done some tracks for a few projects, but haven’t really heard anything yet. It’s a slow process from what I gather. I did a remix for a label recently, and they got back to me and asked me to make some beats for the project, but it’s one of those things where nothing is set in stone. It’s kind of like, “We think you might be able to do something cool, so send us something.” [laughs] That’s how it’s been working. I’ve also been writing a lot of new Kid Smpl stuff, but I don’t know what it’s going to be yet. I don’t have a finished EP or LP yet, but I’ll have more music out soon.

Do you think your music has changed or evolved in any significant way with these new tracks?
Yeah, the stuff I’ve been working on has the same aesthetic and mood as my older music, but it’s just been getting a lot more physical.

In what way?
Well, it’s more brooding, I guess—not that it is sinister. I think it’s the result of me playing out a lot more than before. I want to make something that sounds good on a system, but I don’t want to make dance music; I just want to have a really physical experience for my live set. I’ve been drawn to that kind of music lately, artists like Emptyset—even though it’s not anything like my music, the physicality of it is pretty incredible, and that’s influenced me a little bit. I’ve also been doing a lot of remixes lately; that’s probably been taking up most of my time, but I really like doing those. It kind of slows down my process of making original tracks, but you can develop new sounds and stuff to use on other tracks in the process.

Do you ever find it stifling to be restricted to certain source material when you remix, or do you like that challenge?
Sometimes, but for me, as long as there is a lead vocal, I can make a remix from it. I feel really comfortable just creating a new instrumental for the vocal. It can be a little more difficult when I do a remix for another electronic artist—the starting point is a little different for me then. There’s always that difficulty of trying to maintain your aesthetic while still using the source material, but it’s been a learning process and I like doing them.

Robinn “Plastic People”

The debut LP from London producer Robinn, Multiphonia, is set to drop via German imprint Compost this Friday, but before then, we’ve been treated to “Plastic People.” The texturally rich track—likely inspired by the London club of the same name—takes shape as a slightly jazz-touched procession, one which focuses on its rhythmic swing while building a dense assemblage of subtle noise, revolving bell melodies, inhuman vocal chops, and runs of distant synths. There are definitely some echoes of Four Tet to be heard (another producer who took particular inspiration from Plastic People), but Robinn lets his own personality shine through on “Plastic People,” particularly in the almost dub-wise bassline that creeps in just over halfway through the effort. Before Robinn’s Multiphonia sees its official release on October 4, a preview stream can be heard by those who follow the jump.

Plastic People

Dopplereffekt Tetrahymena

Anyone worried that Gerald Donald (or Heinrich Mueller, as he sometimes prefers to be called) had disappeared down a wormhole of aimless flinty arpeggios and pseudoscience (or oblique scientific references, at least) would be wise to check his latest EP as the ringleader of Dopplereffekt, his long-running group with Kim Karli, Michaela To-Nhan Bertel, and William Scott. Granted, the track themes on Tetrahymena are as vaguely related to the music as they’ve ever been (says Wikipedia: “Tetrahymena are free-living ciliate protozoa that can also switch from commensalistic to pathogenic modes of survival. They are common in freshwater ponds.”) and the vast majority of the producer’s (or producers’) steely traits are on display. Familiar though these aspects may be, the record offers some of Dopplereffekt’s most urgent material since its days exploring telecommunication and pornography.

The opening title track is a electro stormer, redolent of Donald associate DJ Stingray in its high-energy bounce. The track is loaded with flange shifts, which lends it a great deal of movement, while an eerie synth chorus intermittently punctuates the proceedings. “Gene Silencing” is slower and steppier, and its interplay between a catchy, zapped-out bassline and a high, blippy arpeggio harkens to the group’s poppier days. The beatless “Zygote” closes the record with another, seemingly more unstable arpeggio and a kind of sharp, fluctuating flutter. It’s not as immediate as its predecessors, but it fits in nicely all the same. As legendary a figure as Donald is, his interest in minimalism has betrayed him in the past. This is not the case here, as he absolutely capitalizes on a stark but evocative palette, and perhaps most importantly, reintroduces a pop aspect to the project.

Antwerp “Endless Maze (Enjoyed Remix)”

Both hailing from London, producers Antwerp and Enjoyed have each traded in their own versions of neon-lit tracks, running the gamut from disco-infused warmth to modern, club-ready bumpers. On Enjoyed’s remix of his peer’s “Endless Maze,” the pairing seems unassumingly natural, as the new timbres sound as if they’ve been there all along. A stilted arpeggio riff and a funky guitar intro are upended by a dancefloor-ready beat, which is made even more potent by a popping bassline delivering its low-end muscle. “Endless Maze (Enjoyed Remix)” reaches a timely crescendo when it opens up with a breathy vocal, letting the rhythmic building blocks fall away into the smeared background.

Endless Maze (Enjoyed Remix)

Cosmin TRG 50WeaponsRMX06

Credit the folks at 50Weapons as curators—Cosmin TRG, Marcel Dettmann, and Lee Gamble all converge on points of clean lines and speed. If techno is meant to have an inherently futurist bent, these three producers regularly turn out fine contemporary examples of this ideal. For 50WeaponsRMX06, Dettmann and Gamble have been enlisted to work on a pair of tracks from TRG’s Gordian LP, which was released earlier in the year. The results are as contoured as one would expect.

Dettmann has a reputation as a bit of a serious guy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make a romantic track. Granted, his rework of “New Structures for Loving” is run around a gruff, old-school bassline and pounding kicks, but he counters these aspects. Bristling open hi-hats alternate with shorter, tinkling windchimes, and a good portion of the track is blanketed in warmly bleary, marbled soul loops. Gamble’s take on “Noise Code” is grittier and harder to get a read on, thanks to its slippery sequencing. In a setting of static, a pressurized bassline competes with tubular alarm tones for space, with the beat accelerating and decelerating as it quantizes and unquantizes. The brief breakdown toward the end suddenly places the drums in the next room, while the selection of odd debris that remains echoes like water droplets from a cave ceiling. Both takes do justice to TRG’s slightly cleaner originals, and locate plenty of interesting new pockets in the process.

Download a New Mix from Teebs and Prefuse 73

With their debut collaborative record as Sons of the Morning released today, Prefuse 73 and Teebs have dropped a new, 40-minute mix which is now available to stream and download. Appearing as part of Self-Titled‘s Needle Exchange podcast series, the joint DJ set covers a lot of sonic territory, including tracks from Oneohtrix Point Never, Andy Stott, Lukid, Tim Hecker, and Nathan Fake, among others. The pair tells Self-Titled that its mix was inspired by the many songs each of the producers were listening to during the creation of the Sons of the Morning EP, specifying that, “Although, it would be impossible to fit every single thing we became intrigued with on a 40-minute mix, these are some standouts during our journeys. A retrospect of sounds, so to speak.” Teebs’ and Prefuse 73’s full Needle Exchange podcast can be streamed and downloaded via the player below, where the effort’s full tracklist is also included.

01 Bus Driver intro – (excerpt)
02 Sons of the Morning – Arrival
03 Oneohtrix Point Never – He She
04 Jeremiah Jae – Spaceman
05 Lukid – The Life of the Mind
06 Andy Stott – Luxury Problems
07 Nathan Fake – Bauxite Dream
08 Forest Swords – Anneka’s Battle
09 The Exposures – Ein Lied Fur Frau Thyssen – Home
10 Radian. – Git Cut Derivat
11 Cannibal Ox – Pigeon
12 Tim Hecker – They Call Me Jimmy
13 Visitor – Burn Out
14 Actress – Voodoo Posse Chronic Illusion
15 Ras G – Sign Me Up (excerpt)
16 The Caretaker – All you’re going to do is get back there.

Download Kelela’s Mixtape for Fade to Mind, Featuring Kingdom, Girl Unit, Jam City, and More

With a production list that includes contributions from Bok Bok, Girl Unit, Kingdom, Jam City, Morri$, and Nguzunguzu, among others, the debut mixtape from Los Angeles vocalist Kelela has been an anticpated affair for the past few weeks. Now, the 13-track effort can be streamed and downloaded in full. Amongst Cut 4 Me‘s tracklist appears an extended version of “Bank Head,” the standout single from Kingdon’s Vertical XL EP (a song which arguably launched Kelela onto many radars earlier this year), but as the mixtape goes to show, the budding vocalist has a breadth of talent extending far beyond what was heard on that one track. Kelela’s complete Cut 4 Me mixtape can be streamed below, or—better yet—downloaded for free by signing up for Fade to Mind‘s email list, here.

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