Hodge has announced his debut LP, Shadows In Blue, out April 17 via Houndstooth.
Shadows In Blue follows releases on labels such as Livity Sound, Berceuse Heroique, and Peach Discs, and is inspired by the Bristol producer’s newfound love of plants and gardening, reading science fiction, old prog-rock album covers, and going to raves. Hodge, real name Jake Martin, arrives on Houndstooth having contributed to the British label’s 2018 compilation, In Death’s Dream Kingdom.
We’re told that the album is “as rich and textured as anything that has gone before it,” produced over a two-year period of personal change.
Tracklisting
01. Canopy Shy 02. The World Is New Again 03. Sense Inversion 04. Shadows In Blue 05. Lanacut 06. Sol 07. Lanes 08. Cutie 09. Ghost of Akina (Rainbow Edition) 10. One Last Dance
Shadows In Blue LP is out February 17, and a dark green limited edition of the vinyl is available on Bandcamp, where you can also hear “Ghost of Akina” (Rainbow Edition). Meanwhile, you can pre-order here.
Earth EP comprises three diverse tracks exploring house, disco, and funk, delivering a different flavour with each cut.
The EP opens with “Jigoo,” the collaboration between Fulton and Peggy Gou, which combines a rolling, infectious bassline with the sort of joyous chords of Gou’s previous productions. On the flip, “Not Sure How I Would” features a chugging bassline, live drums, and guitar, plus a barrage of effects, before “One Itself” provides the most understated moment on Gudu so far, turning in a “veritable pressure-cooker of slo-mo rave euphoria,” the label explains.
The release is Gudu Records’ third, following Peggy Gou’s Moment and a 12″ from DMX Krew.
Tracklisting
A. Maurice Fulton & Peggy Gou “Jigoo” B1. Maurice Fulton “Not Sure How I Would” B2. Maurice Fulton “One Itself”
Earth EP is out on March 13. Meanwhile, you can stream “Jigoo” below.
Fabrizio Rat will release his new album, Shades of Blue, on his own La Machina label on Friday.
Shades of Blue is the Italian musician’s third album, after 2018’s Unconscious Mind, and it sees him taking a break from the fusion of piano and the techno rhythms of the previous productions to explore the timbre of modular synthesizers. It travels through electronica, acid, noise, and ambient, across 12 tracks.
In writing the album, Fabrizio Rat was inspired by the compositional techniques of the Ars Nova, a musical style that flourished in France in the 14th century. He describes the patterns emerging during the creative process as “surprising illusions of harmony and polyphony,” created by superposing two lines of hypnotic loops, functioning separately on independent cycles.
Fabrizio Rat is an Italian musician based in Paris, France. He is known for his hybrid performances mixing acoustic piano, drum machines, and synths, merging the worlds of acoustic and electronic music into a radical new style.
Oedipa Maas is the alias of Gus Nisbet, a producer based out of Bristol, United Kingdom, aiming to pioneer a more downtempo, European-influenced style of house music on home turf.
The EP consists of two original tracks with two remixes, and generally sits around 110bpm in a downtempo, quirky house style. Conceptually, it’s about perception, the power of ideas, and embracing randomness.
“Behind our individual identities lies a complex sequence of events,” Nisbet explains. “We spend years defining who we are through experiences, ideas, and thoughts. But what if identity is an illusion? What if our sense of self is constructed by millions of ideas outside our control? Does this still make us real, if only to ourselves?”
He continues: “The line between the real and the illusory is delicate. Ideas, concepts, and words define who we are, but they can’t be touched, they don’t physically exist. So what does exist? Does something have to be concrete and physical to be real, or are concepts and metaphors real too?”
The EP cover, designed by Joe Webb, aims to demonstrate the deceptions our brains are capable of.
Yoyaku will release Zendid‘s debut album, In the Shell.
The eight-track effort is the first time the French duo, made up of Adrien Doumenge and Lenny Mailleau, have featured on Yoyaku’s in house label. After debuting on Body Parts back in 2014, they signed to the Yoyaku booking agency and released on Lamache’s Discobar, Cure Music, and their own Timeframe, launched in 2017. They have also appeared on Yoyaku-affiliated imprints YoY and Aku.
There’s little known about In the Shell, other than that it has been in the works for several years, and it touches on breaks and wonky minimal.
Artwork comes from Yoyaku’s studio, Belastro.
You can read more about Zendid in their XLR8R feature here, and listen to their XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
A1. Cycle Sine A2. Cey Nawak B1. Zidane B2. Party 2 Style C1. In The Shell C2. Palace D1. Nektown D2. Electric Continental
In the Shell LP is out March 17 on vinyl, with pre-order available here. Meanwhile, you can hear clips below.
Bruno Silva became Ondness in 2009 with Em Afogando, one of several CDR and tape self-releases shared under a slew of different monikers, among them Iguana Feedback or Navalha Mystic, depending on the vague concept or premise surrounding the music. The two-track EP, touching on noise, experimental, and psychedelic rock, was later reissued with a different cover on Celas Death Squad, a short-lived label Silva once had with a friend.
From here, Silva sprinkled several extremely limited edition cassettes on various labels he respected, exploring the depths of ambient and drone, before switching to vinyl for Meio Que Sumiu, released on Souk Records last year. Across 10 tracks, Silva alluded to the disappearance of outdoor communities, releasing an album less about himself and his inspirations and more about his aspirations about how dance music could be in an era of interactivity and information.
By this point, Silva had also begun to release music as Serpente, a channel for his ideas on rhythm. Whereas Ondness deals more personally with Silva’s obsessions, anxieties, and hauntings at a given moment, “finding some internal cohesion for me in some hallucinatory space,” Silva explains, Serpente is more “strict,” focused on percussion. Serpente’s debut album, Parada, an exploration of abstract and experimental jungle, is available now alongside two EPs on São Paulo, Brazil-based Tormenta Electrica.
Silva began as a guitarist, and the guitar remains an important part of his life: he plays in a jazz trio with mythical trumpet player Sei Miguel, among other projects. But beyond this, he began morphing his guitar sounds using various techniques and this awakened his first electronic impulses. He developed these primitive ideas through software, giving birth to his first electronic outings, but he now relies on these techniques to make sense of oblique perspectives on music, architecture, and life.
Earlier this year, Silva donned his Serpente hat to contribute a track to XLR8R+ alongside tracks from DJ Nigga Fox, BLEID, and RS Produções, and he’s marking the release with an XLR8R podcast. Titled “Echolocation Through Troubled Times” and recorded at home in two recording sessions of free-association, it’s a trippy and hypnotic listen aiming to reflect today’s turbulent times, and influenced by Silva’s favorites Mark Fisher and dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson.
What have you been up to recently?
Trying to accommodate to 2020 now that the haze of the transitional period has dissipated. Still, I managed to close these forthcoming releases after a long period of mixing and self-doubt.
How do you spend your time outside of music?
Shuffling between family harmony, my “other” work—writing and production—readings, speculations on conspiracy, esoterica and liminal spaces—which tend to be quite interlinked—and long periods of silence.
Which labels or artists are impressing you right now?
To be honest, in the last couple of years I haven’t been listening to as much new music as I used to, so I’m quite out of the loop, and so I mostly try to keep up with all the amazing work done by loved ones and acquaintances— from Broshuda to Gabriel Ferrandini, Maria Reis to Kepla, too many to mention, forgive me—and the stream of releases put out by labels I’m connected with. That being said, I try to keep an eye on whatever 20 Buck Spin or Dark Descent are releasing.
Where and when did you record this podcast?
At home in my battered laptop. First half during the wee hours of the night and the rest the following morning.
How did you choose the tracks and the samples that you included?
By free-flowing association mostly. This loose network of connections came into existence without a proper plan—one particular track reminded me of another and so forth without trying to conceptualize it too much, but I kept a certain frame in mind to help me focus. As a gateway. Consciously or not, this was influenced by recent readings like “Surveillance Capitalism,” all-time favorites like Mark Fisher—dearly missed—or Linton Kwesi Johnson, the sprawling “Southland Tales,” or the hauntological spaces within those old VHS logos—a perennial obsession of mine—so it made sense to drop them amidst the flux. Pointers maybe?
What’s the deal with the title, “Echolocation Through Troubled Times?”
Not to take it too seriously, but keeping in mind my previous reply, a title, or vague concept, allows me to find some internal logic and channel the different movements into some sort of framing. It’s not like a manual, a doctrine, or some sort of overarching narrative, more like glimmers of possibility both literal—as in the spoken passages, etc—or more figuratively through the sounds themselves. I guess and hope they might reflect certain aspects of what’s happening now, even if in a skewed or farfetched way, flowing from darker undercurrents, through turmoil and into beacons of hope by the end. And these are indeed troubled times.
Where do you envisage the mix being listened to?
On your way back home after whatever it is you were doing. Or just leave it in the background while doing something else, as if the TV was on.
What’s on the horizon for 2020?
New albums from Ondness and Serpente. And a couple of shows in the U.K. in March. Not that much happening at the moment, but there was never a plan, so it’s all good.
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. Reel sound 02. Southland Tales excerpt 03. Writers Workshop: Places and Things introduction 04. Shoshana Zuboff on Surveillance Capitalism 05. ICQ Sounds 06. Mount Vernon Arts Lab “The Submariner’s Song” (Ghost Box) 07. Simitar VHS logo 08. HTRK “Mentions” (Ghostly International) 09. DJ Olive “Sleep” (room40) 10. Field Recordings from a Non Place 11. Linton Kwesi Johnson “Tings an Times acapella” (LKJ Recordings) 12. Akira Rabelais “1390 Gower Conf. II. 20 I Can Noght Thanne Unethes Spelle That I Wende Altherbest Have Rad.” (Samadhisound) 13. Philip Jeck “Pax” (Touch) 14. Andrew Cyrille, Jeanne Lee & Jimmy Lions “Nuba 1” (Black Saint) 15. George Russell “Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature Part 2” (Event VIII) (Flying Dutchman) 16. Boredoms “7777777” (WEA Japan) 17. Ghédalia Tazartès “Un” (Hinterzimmer) 18. DJ Monita & Steve C “Full Cry” (Skeleton Recordings) 19. Mark Fisher on Why Modern Life Causes Depression 20. Johnny Jungle “Johnny 94” (Origin Unknown Mix) (Suburban Base) 21.. Stellar Om Source “Rites of Fusion” (Olde English Spelling Bee) 22. Gyptian “Serious Times” (acapella) 23. Eric Copeland “Blazin” (DFA) 24. Parliament “Motor Booty Affair” (Casablanca) 25. Start VHS logo
Midnight Mania is the Australian producer’s second album, after 2017’s Lonely Planet on Gerd Janson’s Running Back. It’s inspired by earth, both the planet and actual dirt itself—”the womb and the tomb of life‘s mysteries and wild manifestations,” Tornado Wallace, real name Lewis Day, explains.
Across five tracks, we’re told to expect an organic, psychedelic, and percussive “masterwork that will rock a dance-floor whilst also being something the listener can lose themselves in.”
To mark the announcement, Tornado Wallace has released a wonderfully trippy and psychedelic video for the title track, “Midnight Mania,” made by 3D video artist Stacie Ant, with scenes by Martin Onassis. The track will be released as a digital single in advance of the album on Optimo Music Digital Danceforce on February 28.
Past Palms has unveiled Vernal, his second EP, coming on March 20.
Vernal represents the changing of seasons from winter to spring, and the darkness and light that intertwine along the way. Comprised of dark beats, blooming vocal samples, and water-like ambience, the EP is a “testament” to the “bittersweet contrast” of witnessing new flowers begin to bud, all while the cold effects of winter continue to linger. It follows Past Palms’ debut EP, a self-titled outing released last summer from which XLR8Roffered “II. Kentia” as a free download.
The new EP’s first single, “Rainwater,” streaming below, exhibits new territory for Past Palms, with dance-inflected beats and a more expansive song structure, all while retaining a lush and tropical atmosphere.
Past Palms is a New York-based producer creating lo-fi music that blends lush ambient soundscapes, warm nature samples, and bass-heavy beats. In doing so, he aims to encapsulate the feeling of surrounding yourself with an oasis of tropical houseplants while living in a grey, nature-less city.
Tracklisting
01. Equinox 02. Hoya 03. Sun Storm 04. Of Paradise 05. Rainwater
Vernal EP will be released on March 20. “Rainwater,” meanwhile, is available now, and streaming below.
On Recent Futures, Hollander works with digital audio as a medium to intuitively form temporal experiences. Each of the EP’s six songs aspires towards a different type of temporal movement: a swing between the recent past and near future, an accelerating present, a juxtaposition between massive and microscopic durations, a flowing momentum, and a preserved stillness.
We can expect an “assemblage of field recordings drenched, sampled, tumbled, stretched, diced, dyed, layered, and reversed” to yield “a magical realism of audio.”
Hollander is an LA-based composer and artist working with audio, scores, performance, installation, and text. She has previously released a record on Leaving as $3.33 calledDRAFT.
01. You Have 3 New Telepathic Messages 02. Santa Ana Wind Burn 03. Surround Sound Me 04. Big Talk / Small Talk 05. Spared Time 06. Vacant & Encouraging My Trophy Houseplant
Recent Futures EP is out March 6, with pre-order here. Meanwhile, you can stream “Spared Time” in full below.
Marc Houle has unveiled his new album, No One Knows, out March 13 on his home label Items & Things.
No One Knows is Houle’s first album since 2017’s Sinister Mind, and comprises nine tracks, all revisiting his Detroit techno roots and highlighting his distinct heavy beats and strong melodies.
In support of the release, Houle has shared the title track, with its dark pumping energy and “melancholic message,” and “Here We Are,” the album’s first single. The track features the vocals of Karla Houser, which repeat to create a slowly morphing crescendo, and lies somewhere between Chicago jack drums and rolling techno.
We’re told to expect Houle’s strongest album to date, featuring “tight productions borrowing themes from his past releases while pushing towards the future.”
Tracklisting
01. No One Knows 02. Mock Me 03. Scalery 04. Glit for Pink 05. Arizona 06. Smirker 07. Waterphone 08. Deckard 7 09. Here we Are (feat. Karla Houser)
No One Knows LP is out March 13 on digital. Meanwhile, you can stream “Hear We Are” and “No One Knows” below.
