Shape-shifting UK producer Clark has announced the imminent arrival of his sixth LP for Warp, a 12-track offering called Iradelphic. The album—which has been described by its creator as “looming, ambiguous, radiant, glowing, whole, invincible, complete” and was recorded throughout Australia, Berlin, Wales, Brussels, Norway, Cornwall, and London—is scheduled to drop on April 2, but is preceded by a free download of the cut “Com Touch.” From the sound of it, it would seem that Clark’s new record might exist somewhere in between the intrepid musicality and stylistic shifts of his breathtaking Body Riddle LP and the dystopian bombast of its follow up, Turning Dragon. You can hear for yourself, as well as check out the artwork and tracklist for Iradelphic, below.
1. Henderson Wrench 2. Com Touch 3. Tooth Moves 4. Skyward Bruise / Descent 5. Open 6. Secret 7. Ghosted 8. Black Stone 9. The Pining pt. 1 10. The Pining pt. 2 11. The Pining pt. 3 12. Broken Kite Footage
Hamburg, Germany resident B-Ju returns to the Error Broadcast imprint with Prozac People (artwork above), a forthcoming EP featuring four original tunes and a trio of remixes from Monolithium, eLan, and 813. “Mia Got a New Haircut” kicks off the endeavor with a decade-spanning jaunt through synth-laden G-funk, juke-indebted drum programming, and a slowed-down assemblage of sounds culled from the depths of spacey house music. After giving Prozac People‘s opening cut a listen below, you can check a preview video for the effort—before it drops January 23—after the jump.
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A lot has changed in the electronic-music landscape since Commix‘s debut LP, Come to Mind, was unveiled. True, it’s only been five years, but of all the drum & bass that could be heard maxing out sound systems in any number of cities across the globe back in 2007, the premiere full-length outing of the London duo has stood the test of time far better than most. Now, Goldie’s Metalheadz imprint has announced plans to release a collection of Commix productions culled from around the same period, on Dusted (Selected Works 2003 – 2008). The 12-track endeavor will see a release on March 5, to be eventually followed-up by a brand-new Commix album later in the year. The pair goes on to explain, “Dusted is a collection of music that we made at that time, all of which didn’t appear on the finished product. We get asked so often about all of these and now that we’re working on a new album we thought it was time to let these ones go. This is the end of an era for Commix, and our next album will be the start of a brand new one for CMX.” You can preview that past era via the Dusted Soundcloud preview stream, which you’ll find following the artwork below.
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This gem of late-night footwork comes courtesy of Brenmar, who was enlisted by two of Chicago’s finest MPC experts, DJ Rashad and DJ Manny, to put together a song “dedicated to all those who have died for rocking the flyest kicks.” In perhaps an unintentional twist of irony, anyone within earshot of this tune is bound to scuff up any sort of new footwear once the beat kicks in with its array of skittering hats, chopped chords, chirping melodies, and is that a reversed kick we hear tucked underneath there? After giving “Stick Up” a listen below, you can follow the jump to find a rather entertaining video of Rashad, Manny, and Brenmar working on this track and others in a bedroom while they smoke blunt after blunt.
The team behind the bass-oriented Outlook Festival, one of Europe’s most extensive and extravagant annual electronic music gatherings, has announced plans to launch a new endeavor which focuses on the “deeper end of the electronic spectrum,” Dimensions. The newly founded festival is scheduled to take place one week after this year’s edition of Outlook and will go down in the same location as its parent gathering—an abandoned fort in Croatia. Happening September 6-9 in the coastal Croatian city of Pula, the festival has put together quite the line-up (which we’re told is not yet complete), and is bound to leave aficionados of forward-thinking house, techno, and bass music drooling over names like Moodyman, Marcell Dettmann, Scuba (pictured above), Shackleton, Joy Orbison, Boddika, Kyle Hall, Blawan, Floating Points, Gold Panda, Ben Klock, 2562, Ben UFO, Pearson Sound, Pangaea, Pinch, and Mala, all of who only make up about half of the slated talent. You can check the rest of the so-far-announced Dimensions line-up via the flier below, and head here to read up on all the details.
Burgeoning London producer Jamie Grind has decided to start the year off with a stroke of generosity, releasing a free EP of four quality tunes simply titled Free Tracks. Continuing along the lines of the house-infused steppers Grind has previously explored with releases on imprints such as Fortified Audio and Infrasonics, this EP of insofar unreleased tracks finds him exploring chopped R&B samples, skittering beats, and rolling basslines with the dancefloor in mind at all times. You can check the artwork and tracklist for the Free Tracks EP below and head here to get your hands on the download.
01 Bad Attitude (And You Know It) 02 Don’t Think 03 Same Old Me 04 Don’t Feel Right
Brooklyn’s Trouble and Bass label brings us a new purveyor of vertigo-inducing bass, a young artist who goes by the name Sleepyhead. “Hi-Five,” the third track from his upcoming EP, Motions (artwork above), combines off-kilter percussion, gliding synths, and post-rave vocal samples. The Brooklyn-via-SF producer is gearing up for a big 2012, planning a release on Distal’s burgeoning Embassy imprint as well. The Motions EP drops on January 31, but you can check out an exclusive advance stream of its four songs after the jump.
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The term “bedroom producer” seems to be slipping into degradation as it simultaneously rises into relative ubiquity. Much like the digital camera craze of the early ’00s (which has only grown exponentially with advent of the iPhone and apps like Instagram), the notion that anyone can easily make music with a few simple and affordable tools irks its share of professionals and veterans as much as it excites people young and old with the inspiration to create. Some of the critics’ points may be valid though; anyone that’s spent a good amount of time scouring the internet for new music has likely found themselves inundated with Bandcamp links, SoundCloud players, and the like from hundreds upon hundreds of fledgling, all-too-similar-sounding artists whose only hopes are for you to download their latest homespun tune. Undeniably, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, but that’s no reason to demonize a growing group of producers that create more of the music you listen to than you might expect. Case and point: Belgium’s François Boulanger and his new EP as Ssaliva, RZA.
Many things go on within the bedroom of any given individual—much of it personal, private, and downright weird. It’s a place where many people feel the safest and the most comfortable, all of which gives way to any nature of experimentation. This certainly applies to the music created within bedrooms around the world, as those locales act like incubators for the ideas brimming from the vibrant, groggy, or stoned minds of the inhabitants. RZA‘s eight tunes are a gelatinous and unsteady bunch, almost like they were stolen from the incubator a bit early, but their looseness and fuzzy warmth are high on the list of strong suits.
It’s easy to reference artists like Boards of Canada, Lone, or Hype Williams when considering Ssaliva’s obvious similarities, as tracks like “Hobo4030” and “B Adventures” employ the same wavering bounce and hypnotically meandering soundscapes those outfits are known for. His music is syrupy and warped to no end, but at the core of this EP resonates an initial love for dancefloor grooves, which are then surrounded by permutations of ambient music and hip-hop. (The title track alone is a direct reference to the hands-on, DIY, and relatively lo-fi style of Wu-Tang’s lead producer.) Lilting synth melodies drift throughout “SPA82” and “Night Landing,” sounding like they could’ve appeared anywhere on Music Has the Right to Children, but the chunky rhythms and basslines that accompany those prismatic tones come from another world entirely, a world that owes as much to 36 Chambers as it does classic Chicago house. “Trimensional” is a glowing example of Ssaliva’s knack for mixing off-kilter time signatures with lush atmospheres to create music that is enticingly confusing, full of nuance, and bursting with handmade character.
Boulanger produced his new record in the rawest of ways. To its credit, RZA isn’t rendered in the same kind of distant mono as the cassette for Leaving Records that preceded it, Thought Has Wings, but tape does remain an integral part of Ssaliva’s sound palette. Each of the tunes sound like they were initially recorded onto a reel-to-reel before being dubbed over and recorded onto another analog station at three-quarters speed. Some could rightly remain skeptical of the rampant use of the hyper-nostalgic cassette, but Ssaliva proves that—for him—it isn’t just a buzz word or a cute way to release an album. Most songs contain blips of screeching audio or sudden lulls in tempo, like Boulanger flicked the fast foward button or held back one of the reels momentarily while he listened to his music transfer from one tape to another. As such, the RZA EP could not be what it is without its various analog treatments, nor could it be quite the same thing were it not born and created in the bedroom. Boulanger surely labored over this batch of tunes day and night—chopping up samples from his favorite records, listening to the bits on repeat with some coffee or food or maybe a joint, toying with the way it sounds slowed down or running through an effects processor, laying the loops over a beat he made one night a few weeks back, and so on. Music like this grows with time, experimentation, and the ability to fully immerse yourself in the experience of what you’re creating; Ssaliva’s new EP is a perfect example of why the bedroom producer should continue to exist and is currently thriving.
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After two successful years exhibiting a stateside edition of forward-thinking electronic and experimental music, the Poland-rooted Unsound Festival has announced plans to return to New York again this spring. The five-day festival will begin Wednesday, April 18 and run through Sunday, April 22, showcasing a diverse range of performances spread amongst a number of NYC venues, including BAMcinématek, The Bunker, the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, ISSUE Project Room, and (Le) Poisson Rouge. And with the announcement of Unsound New York’s official dates comes the first wave of acts slated to perform. Adventurous UK duos Hype Williams and Demdike Stare lead the pack, along with Planet-Mu-by-way-of-100% Silk producer Ital and Chicago avant-house stalwart Hieroglyphic Being. Rounding out the initial list will be Poland’s own Baaba, the latest incarnation of Sun Araw, dub veteran (and tastemaker behind the now-defunct ~scape imprint) Pole, and a special collaboration between Biosphere and Lustmord, commissioned specifically for this year’s festivities. As we draw closer to the dates, Unsound will likely have more artists to reveal, but for now, we’ll just have to wait patiently and get to marking our calendars.
We just brought you a bonus track from Graphics‘ (pictured above) buzz-inducing There’s a Way Back EP that was released on GETME! last month, but residuals from the release continue to appear. Here, Brighton’s Lorca has taken the record’s trudging title track and turned it into a jumpy two-stepper. The original’s haunting vocal samples and synth washes remain, but virtually everything else is removed, leaving a void for Lorca’s clear, percussive stabs to propel the track. The remix is an exciting meeting between two of Britain’s up-and-coming producers, and we can expect positive things from both in the near future.
