Samuel Rohrer will release his new solo album in early February, titled Continual Decentering.
As with Rohrer’s most recent solo work, like the Range of Regularity LP, out in 2017, Continual Decentering showcases the Swiss artist’s skill in turning the drum kit into a lead instrument, meaning everything else within the audible environment exists to complement the character of the percussive playing rather than to stand apart from it. Rohrer recorded it using a unique and complex hybrid system in which drum hits trigger modular synthesizer processes, making for an incredibly fluid response time between distinct sonic events.
In contrast to Range of Regularity, the new album is propelled less by interlacing threads of intensity and more by a shared sense of deep listening. Its tonal palette is one that is expectedly rich for those familiar with Rohrer’s work, yet still surprising in terms of how exactly the differing tonal colors come together. Tracks like “Spondee” and “The Fringe” are brimming with dub pulses, noir shivers, and blooming timbral variations that are, in many places, carefully isolated and, in other places, blended together in vivid fusions.
The album once again arrives on Rohrer’s own Arjunamusic.
Tracklisting
A1 / 1. Spondee A2 / 2. The Bridge A3 / 3. Fulcrum I A4 / 4. The I-I A5 / 5. The Climber A6 / 6. All Too Human B1 / 7. The Descenders B2 / 8. Fulcrum II B3 / 9. Subterranean Dark B4 / 10. The Fringe B5 / 11. All Too Human Var B6 / 12. Body Of Ignorance B7 / 13. Plane Waves
Continual Decentering LP lands February 7. Meanwhile, you can stream “The I-I” in full via the player below.
Bjarki has remixed Francois X on Irregular Passion Reshaped, a 12 track album that re-works Francois X’ album of the same name, out next month on Demented XXX.
The original album, released in 2018, explored themes of euphoria and melancholy, entertaining the listener with sensual atmospheres and unpredictable fervour, all designed to mirror the emotions and intensities of nightlife.
Bjarki sits among an accomplished list of friends and artists chosen to re-imagine the album tracks, building a community of like-minded producers that boldy represent what Demented XXX is all about. Besides Bjarki’s frenzied IDM exploration of breaks and golden era dubstep on “Blurry Youth,” there’s an Anthony Linell reshape of “Down Under,” a Pessimist rework, and much more.
“I wanted a complete rework of my album, containing a wide range of musical directions. A good representation of what [Demented] XXX is all about,” Francois X says. “The important thing for me was to have some real transformations on my original material, in a way it’s a complete new album.”
In advance of the album’s December 11 release, we’re streaming Bjarki’s rework below.
Tracklistings
Digital
01. Blurry Youth (Elise Reshape) 02. Slave No Slave (Bambounou Reshape) 03. Falling For Her (Prequel Tapes Reshape) 04. Blurry Youth (Bjarki Reshape) 05. Absolute Therapy (Pessimist Reshape) 06. Down Under Feat. Opuswerk (Anthony Linell Reshape) 07. Shamefaced (Valentino Mora Cosmic Trance Rephase) 08. Absolute Therapy (In Aeternam Vale Reshape) 09. Absolute Therapy (Redshape Redshape’s Dusty Dub Reshape) 10. Dirty Chat (Yotam Avni Reshape)
Vinyl
A1. Blurry Youth (Elise Reshape) A2. Slave No Slave (Bambounou Reshape) A3. Falling For Her (Prequel Tapes Reshape) B1. Blurry Youth (Bjarki Reshape) B2. Absolute Therapy (Pessimist Reshape) C1. Down Under Feat. Opuswerk (Anthony Linell Reshape) C2. Shamefaced (Valentino Mora Cosmic Trance Rephase) D1. Absolute Therapy (In Aeternam Vale Reshape) D2. Absolute Therapy (Redshape’s Dusty Dub Reshape) D3 Dirty Chat (Yotam Avni Reshape)
Gulp is one of the chosen aliases of Gonzalo Perez Scartascini, one of many Argentinians to have relocated to Berlin, Germany in the name of music. Little is known about his story but his name has been popping up on lineups across Europe, Asia, and South America, including at Vera and Alexandra’s Melliflow parties, Cocoon in Amnesia, and London’s Home, where he performed alongside Rhadoo, Vlada, and Sonja Moonear late last year. In this same period, he put out a 12″ with Adam Collins and started PEOPLE PEOPLE, a cross-genre group with multidisciplinary artist André Baum. The duo will debut on Lamache’s Discobar before the turn of the year.
Scartascini’s story begins in Buenos Aires, where he unearthed a deep curiosity for music of all genres by attending Cocoliche, one of the capital’s most renowned clubs. He’s been collecting and spinning records ever since, forever seeking to widen his palette, and this ongoing desire eventually drove him to Berlin, where he’s now settled in the city’s east.
It was in the German capital that he launched Formas, a minimal techno-leaning group project alongside Whoann and TXL with releases on Minor Planet Music and Dana Ruh’s Broquade. Intent on retaining ties with his home country, he also founded SUR in 2016 as a home to exchange and exhibit ideas between Europe and South America. The label regularly hosts showcases between the two continents and is responsible for breaking out a string of new talents.
A dedicated record collector with a broad yet fine taste, Scartascini’s musical expression continues to pick up the pace, spanning experimental, ambient, jazz, and funk. His XLR8R podcast, at just over one hour in length, exhibits his artistic range and a commitment to presenting records old and new in original contexts. He recorded it on the fly in Berlin last month, and delivered it to us eager with a small note: “Something different from what I do when I play at parties, more in a podcast vibe.” We couldn’t agree more, and so we decided to put it out.
What have you been up to recently?
The last months have been about making records that will see the light very soon and preparing a live show with PEOPLE PEOPLE, my cross-genre group with multidisciplinary artist André Baum. We presented it for the first time in October at La Rachdingue, a space in Girona that Salvador Dali founded. Now I’m in South America concluding a tour; the last gig was on Friday for Avant Garten alongside Nicolas Lutz and local talents Dintun and Klauss, and I will be back in Berlin next week to continue my daily routine of digging for records and finishing projects from this year.
Talk us briefly through your journey into electronic music—how did you first connect with it?
I became curious about electronic music after being inspired by friends in the scene in Argentina. There used to be a club in Buenos Aires called Cocoliche where I spent years listening for something new, and from there it’s continued to be a learning path. Traveling and meeting new interesting people always opens new channels for me and it takes me deeper into my curiosity.
Talk to us behind the idea behind SUR. What do you look for in the music you release?
When I started SUR with Jorge Gamarra and Gabriel Mylsztejn, the idea was to release music from our friends and our own productions that we were playing but that didn’t have a home. It started as a small project but the reaction from the international scene has been great and naturally, the family got bigger. We’ve been able to work with artists we really admire and also got the chance to exhibit new talents. Before the end of the year, we’ll celebrate our 10th release with a new record from AHORA, a project that involves Felipe Valenzuela and me and appeared for the first time as a mysterious AKA on a V/A Compilation on SUR , along with new collaborative artwork from Angeles Jacobi & Camila Alberti.
When and where did you record this mix?
I recorded the mix in October before traveling to South America at a friend’s place in Berlin where I love to hang, share new music, and drink tea while we listen.
What’s the concept or idea behind it? How did you choose the tracks that you included?
I made a blend between old and new music and productions from friends. My intention was to deliver something that grows from almost just noise to something deeper and more melodic.
Where do you do your digging for records?
I do most of my digging on Discogs and, of course, from the stuff shared between friends. Every time I travel I try to visit new record shops plus the usuals in Berlin.
How does the mix compare to what you’d play in a club?
When I play in clubs I don’t know what is going to happen. This was all pre-selected. I also included a few tracks that I like to listen to at home, that don’t fit the club scenario.
What’s up next, as you look forward?
I’ll finish the year with two releases that will be in stores in December. I’m excited to perform live again with PEOPLE PEOPLE. And I’ll keep working for SUR. I’ll also make my second tour through Asia. Recently I joined the Crisalida agency roster, so I’m looking forward to what will happen.
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.
EDITOR NOTE: All the T-shirts are now gone. We still have Free Passes, however.
XLR8R is offering XLR8R+ subscribers a free t-shirt and pass to the upcoming Alien Communications EP launch, taking place at Werkhaus, Brick Lane, in London on Saturday, December 7.
After previously booking Binh and Nicolas Lutz in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alien Communications, a label and party series, will venture south for their third event with another excellent lineup consisting of Oshana, Christian AB, and the Alien Communications duo themselves. They are backed up by a host of local talent including C-Wendy, Har-V, Maximilian FD, Sanj, WOOS and more in room two.
The party is in celebration of the first Alien Communications EP, Ozone 22, which you can listen to below ahead of its December release.
The t-shirt comes in black or white, and it’s one per person. For those who haven’t yet, just SUBSCRIBE HERE and email your full name, address, and colour of t-shirt with “Alien Communications” as the subject to [email protected] to claim your FREE t-shirt and event pass. For those current subscribers, simply email your full name and “Alien Communications” as the email subject along with your address.
The 16th edition of XLR8R+ is here, featuring tracks by Alec Falconer, Jack Michael, and Leif which you will also get once you subscribe.
FLESHWORLD is SWAN MEAT’s third solo EP, and the “culmination of years of work at perfecting a sound that draws from a wellspring of disparate sources and genres.”
Sonically, we’re told that breakbeats, harpsichord arpeggios, and distorted, 8-bit kickdrums move in disjunctive harmony with string arrangements even more soaring than those on SWAN MEAT’s latest release, TAME, out on Bala Club last year.
“MECHANICAL BULLGIRL” pays tribute to old Western soundtracks while sounding as though it could be played through the loudspeakers on an abandoned theme park. “SUCKLING” pairs a funk bass with a string arrangement that pays tongue-in-cheek homage to Hans Zimmer; “DENTISTS TOYS…” and “LITERALLY SEETHING” are shameless tributes to animé and old Sega OSTs; “EUGENIA MARIONETTE,” meanwhile, is the EP’s “centrepiece”: a punk whorl of Y2K-core drum & bass riffs and heartbreaking vocaloid samples.
Swan Meat is a producer, DJ, and engineer from Washington, D.C. currently living in Cologne, Germany. She debuted with Bounty, released on Paris’ experimental PERMALNK label at the beginning of 2017.
Artwork comes from Francesca Landi.
Tracklisting
01. SUCKLING 02. LITERALLY SEETHING 03. EUGENIA MARIONETTE 04. MECHANICAL BULLGIRL 05. DENTIST’S TOYS COME ALIVE AT NIGHT
FLESHWORLD EP is out February 21, 2020, with “SUCKLING” streaming below.
The 11-track album is produced by Mike Lindsay—founding member of Tunng and one half of LUMP with Laura Marling—in his studio in Margate, United Kingdom in just 12 days. It’s said to see Dare becoming confident and comfortable enough with his own identity to reflect on both the joys and pains of youth.
Dare grew up on a farm as the youngest member of a large extended family, where he was often found in his own private world, dancing in his mother’s pink ballet dress. “Only now do I feel free to express my inner child again, and am giving myself permission to play dress up,” says Dare of Milkteeth’s cover shot, in which he wears soft makeup. “I never felt like I fit in. I was different, odd. I wanted to dance and sing and dress up and on a small farm in rural Dorset that really stuck out.”
Where previously he has been known as a piano player, for Milkteeth, Dare picked up a new instrument, the autoharp, and as soon as he sat down with it, songs poured out. He wrote the album’s first single, “Silly Games,” in under an hour. “Instinctual feelings about childhood and innocence were the catalyst,” he explains. “Then with the autoharp, it all just clicked—I could see the album laid out ahead of me.”
Dare’s two previous albums, Whelm and Aforger, came in 2013 and 2016 respectively, both via Erased Tapes.
Tracklisting
01. I Am Free 02. Red Arrows 03. Heavenly Bodies 04. The Piano Room 05. Silly Games 06. The Joy In Sarah’s Eyes 07. The Stairwell 08. Whereever You Are 09. The Window 10. The Playground 11. Run
Milkteeth LPis out February 21 via Erased Tapes, with “Silly Games” streaming in full below.
The Clouds Know follows the duo’s Safe In Harbour album, releasedon Perlon, and is their debut on Mana. Once again, it sees Villalobos and Loderbauer exploring abstract electronic music and free jazz. Across 11 tracks, they pull away the backbone inherent to the structure of dance music, refining a deft and subtle musical noir built on ambient cues, sparks and claps of electricity, brushed drums, black voids, and subterranean bass swoops.
“There’s a twinkle in the eye and moments of deadpan levity, but the overall mood here is sober and introspective,” the label explains. “Emotions run deep.”
Mana is a record label established in 2017 by Andrea Zarza, curator at the British Library Sound Archive, and Matthew Kent.
Arms and Sleepers will release their ninth studio album, Safe Area Earth, in January.
Safe Area Earth begins a six-part music series to be released throughout the year, comprised of three full-length albums and three EPs—“a highly conceptual project based in part on my childhood and teenage years of traveling the globe as a Bosnian refugee,” says band member Mirza Ramic. The project is also “an attempt to explore the growing personal anxiety about the meaning of one’s own existence and the impending, fast-approaching end-date to that existence.” Each release will be thematically focused on a facet of human life.
This first instalment feels emblematic of the beginning of a journey—one that sonically represents both possibilities but also uncertainties. There are heady and immersive atmospheres that wash over the listeners via waves of glistening electronics, there are gently cracking and snapping beats that allow melody to glide in and out of them, and vocals that at times resemble choral music.
“In many ways, this is a return to the melancholic early days of Arms and Sleepers,” Ramic adds. “It’s a slow record with our more heavily ambient leanings of the past, but the focus is more on the overall mood and experience. It offers a different feel both musically and emotionally— perhaps a darker, more pessimistic overall tone.”
For well over a decade, Max Lewis and Mirza Ramic have explored trip-hop, electronica, ambient, hip-hop, and subtle pop with deftness and grace. Their previous albums have come on Pelagic Records, Fake Chapter Records, and via self-releases.
Tracklisting
01. SAE 02. Art and Scope 03. Ruined By Geography 04. Open To The Elements 05. Give Me This 06. If I Had Drowned, I Would Be Here 07. Leon (feat. Sofia Insua) 08. Roman and Mayan 09. After World’s End 10. Don’t Forget 11. Black Out / Sun Shine 12. In The Jaws Of Life 13. Both But None 14. Centralia 15. Unwound 16. … .- . 17. That Is What Human Beings Do [BONUS]
Safe Area Earth is out January 17 on Future Archive Recordings, with “Give Me This” and “Ruined By Geography” streaming below.
Dais Records will release the debut album of Riki, the Los Angeles-based dark synth-pop outfit commandeered by the mysterious Niff Nawor.
The album sees Riki exploring courage, physicality, and romance across eight synth pop anthems. It was produced and engineered by hardware-based synthesist Matia Simovich of INHALT.
Nawor is a visual artist and musician active in the deathrock scenes of the California bay area, and a member of Crimson Scarlet before founding her solo endeavour as Riki in 2017. She has previously released only once, namely her Hot City cassette tape in 2017, which featured Chelsey Crowley of Crimson Scarlet, Skot Brown of Phantom Limbs, and Peđa of Doomed to Extinction.
The album’s lead single, “Napoleon,” streaming below, is reminiscent of ’80s New York dance floor electro-pop that recalls the fusion of uptown and downtown styles and culture.
Tracklisting
01. Strohmann 02. Napoleon 03. Böse Lügen (Body Mix) 04. Know 05. Earth Song 06. Spirit Of Love 07. Come Inside 08. Monumental
Riki is out February 14, 2020, with “Napoleon” streaming in full below, and pre-order here.
The EP, out next year, is the latest in a series of releases following 2016’s Ravers that sees Carbone trying to push the movement even further. “It’s in modern key because the new hardcore wave is really slow compared to ’90s hardcore but it still sound the same way,” he explains.
The EP features two remixes from VTSS and 14Anger. Since that mini-album, Carbone has put out music on Repitch Recordings and Cosmo Rhythmatic, both of which he co-owns.
The digital version of the EP comes with a bonus track, “The Rhythm of Acid Core,” described as a hypnotic acid banger.
Carbone is a techno producer born in Naples, Italy in 1987, and is dedicated to “extolling acid and rave culture.” His most known solo projects are D. Carbone and Honzo, and he has collaborations with the likes of Ascion, AnD, Gaja, Shapednoise, Noneoftheabove, and CJ Bolland.
Tracklisting
01. Back To The Empire of Hardcore 02. Back To The Empire of Hardcore (VTSS Remix) 03. Back To The Empire of Hardcore (14Anger Remix) 04. Raver Killer 05. The Rhythm of Acid Core (Digital Bonus)
Back To The Empire of Hardcore is out on January 24, with clips below and pre-order here.
