Black Light Smoke Spans Origins of House Music on Scissor and Thread

Black Light Smoke (a.k.a Jordan Lieb) will return to Scissor and Thread with his second album.

Ghosts, which is Lieb’s first release on the New York label since 2019, was written across a two-year stretch. Spanning ‘90s house, soulful beats, and dusty grooves, it sees him revisiting his youth by exploring the origins of house music.

Lieb was raised in Chicago, and was an impressionable teenager during the ’90s, with illegal warehouse raves being his access point. That era left its mark and influenced his need to later immerse himself in club culture, which he’d do in New York.

When he was invited to return to the label by Francis Harris, Lieb didn’t know how he’d fit back into it after years away. But, after some soul searching, he decided to focus on his reverence for the origins of house music, “from the founders to the creators behind its ‘second wave,'” he says.

“I found myself in that world. I found my purpose and identity in New York’s scene and did it all with brilliant people. House music was the soundtrack to this transformative decade in my life. It was everything through my 20s and 30s,” he continues. “This LP kinda closes that chapter of my life while creating music that I feel stays true to my roots.”

Scissor and Thread describes the record as “something of an anticipated homecoming” for Lieb, after he debuted on the label over a decade ago.

As Black Light Smoke, Lieb has also put out music on his own imprint, Death Decay Magic.

All of Lieb’s personal proceeds from the album will go to The Little Bit Foundation, a non-profit committed to improving access to education for students living in poverty across St. Louis, Missouri.

For more information on Francis Harris, check out his XLR8R podcast here—one hour of emotionally charged house and techno. Or his XLR8R feature here.

Tracklisting

01. Sprinkles Says
02. 727 Anthem (House Is Back)
03. Hearts Not Broken feat. Léah Lazonick
04. Pleasure Chaser
05. The Beat Direct
06. Love Triangle
07. Ghosts feat. Léah Lazonick
08. Out From Within
09. Prisoner
10. At Home In Strange Places
11. Resonate
12. In The Valley
13. Ghosts feat. Leah Lazonick (Dark Disco Mix)
14. Nighttime Honey
15. The Storm (Bandcamp exclusive)

Ghosts LP is scheduled for June 2 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Hearts Not Broken” feat. Léah Lazonick in full below and pre-order here.

Photo: Kevin Kendall

Podcast 800: ERIS

ERIS is the collaboration of Enrica Falqui and Dea (a.k.a Dea Dvornik), DJ-producers originating from Cagliari, Sardinia and Croatia respectively—but now living in Berlin. We have featured Falqui before: in June 2021, eight years after her move to Germany, she released her debut solo outing, Plexus, on Andrew James Gustav‘s Marginal Returns. Later that year, Falqui landed on XLR8R+ with “Entire Metaphor,” a deep almost-downtempo cut that sat alongside STL, Nemo Vachez, and Dawn Razor on the 34th edition in the series. Both records presented a versatile artist whose work is grounded in deep experimentation. Alongside Dutch-Italian composer Grand River as Yhdessa, she’s put out two tracks made entirely with the Vermona E-Piano, an electric piano built in 1978, and she also DJs across Europe.

The ERIS project was formed in 2018, around the same time that Dea, who was born into a family of musicians and jokes she was “dancing before walking,” announced herself with a glorious mix via Nicolas Lutz‘s My Own Jupiter. Bonding over their shared love of techno and electro, they began sharing production and mixing sessions and soon they had their first tracks. Later that year, they released four tracks of hard-hitting techno with a dark edge on DJ Masda and So Inagawa’s Cabaret Recordings and followed it a year later with Champions League, a collection of gritty electro.  For this week’s XLR8R podcast, Falqui and Dea have compiled a mix filled with wonky club workouts, recorded in Berlin earlier this month.

01. What have you been up to recently?
At the moment we are in Brazil kicking off our first South American tour. We’re excited to meet old friends and visit some places like Foz do Iguaçu and Quito for the first time together.

02. What have you been listening to?
Tosca‘s latest album, Osam, has been on repeat during moments of chill in hotel rooms in between gigs.

03. Where and when did you record this mix?
We recorded this mix in Dea’s house a few weeks ago before heading off to New York.

04. What setup did you use?
The setup used was my trusted Technics SL-1200MK2’s and Allen & Heath Xone 92.

05. What can the listener expect?
The listener can expect some deep warm-up electro vibes.

06. How did you choose the tracks you’ve included?
The idea was to create a mix that wold be nice to listen at home or in the car, or riding your bike to work. Lets say we wanted it to be different then last two mixes we put out which where very warm summer house mix for circoloco and and a hi energy one we recorded for trommel. Once agreed on the vibe we are after, we each do a rough selection of the tracks and then they just come together as we meet to finalize the tracklisting.

07. What’s next on your horizon?
We are close to completing the next ERIS EP and opening our own label.

XLR8R Subscribers can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R subscriber, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Sleep D’s Second Album is Here

Sleep D, the collaboration of Corey Kikos and Maryos Syawish, will release a new album next month.

Electronic Arts comes through the Australian pair’s Butter Sessions label, where they’ve put out the work of Roza Terenzi, Furious Frank, Booshank, Ewan Jansen, and more. It follows the pairs Rebel Force album, released in 2019 on Anthony Naples’ New York Incienso imprint.

Having released four EPs since then, including the recent Greasy Beats And Blobs Vol.1 on CockTail d’Amore Music, the pair are now ready to release their second album.

“Never banging one drum, Electronic Arts mirrors the anything goes mania of their DJ sets, tactfully shifting through different sounds and styles,” we’re told. “Tempos intensify and decelerate, at times pushing the threshold to 150 bpm from docile canine dreamscapes.”

You can read more about Sleep D in their XLR8R Get Familiar feature here.

Tracklisting

01. Planet Waves
02. Outdoor System
03. Sunrise In The Crater (I Exist)
04. Strange Sounds
05. From Village To Empire
06. Punch Drunk feat. YL Hooi
07. Textile
08. Happiness
09. Hector (Dreaming)
10. Hockey

Electronic Arts LP is scheduled for June 9 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Planet Waves” in full via the player below and pre-order here.

African Head Charge to Release First Album in 12 Years

African Head Charge, the group formed by percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, will release a new album on On-U Sound Records.

Whereas Noah’s previous albums have been a melting pot of global influences, A Trip To Bolgatanga is a musical journey to Noah’s current hometown in north Ghana. It’s the first album that Noah has released in 12 years, and all 10 tracks were produced by Adrian Sherwood.

We can expect “a psychedelic travelogue across the landscape” featuring Noah’s trademark hand percussion and group chanting augmented with rumbling bass, mutated horns, dubbed out effects, disco congas, blues-inflected woodwind, and funky organ.

As with every On-U Sound production, each repeated listen reveals fresh detail, and “its power won’t be really understood until heard on a big system,” we’re told.

“It’s always a case of getting all the right ingredients sorted for Head Charge, and then having some fun with overdubs and mixing and getting it completely perfect,” says Sherwood. “We always work well together, but I think on this one we have the greatest result.”

Ahead of the release, On-U Sound has shared “A Bad Attitude,” which features one of Ghana’s foremost kologo players, King Ayisoba.

Tracklisting

01. A Bad Attitude
02. Accra Electronica
03. Push Me Pull You
04. I Chant Too
05. Asalatua
06. Passing Clouds
07. I’m A Winner
08. Trip To Bolgatanga
09. Never Regret A Day
10. Microdosing

A Trip To Bolgatanga LP is scheduled for July 7 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “A Bad Attitude” and “Microdosing” in full via the player below and pre-order here.

Photo: Jeff Pitcher

Little Dragon Next on Ninja Tune with New Album

Little Dragon, the Grammy-nominated Swedish band, will release a new album on Ninja Tune.

Consisting of school friends Erik Bodin (drums and percussion), Fredrik Wallin (bass), Håkan Wirenstarnd (keyboards), and Yukimi Nagano (vocals), Little Dragon have become one of the most loved bands on the Ninja Tune label.

Recorded in their Gothenburg studio, the same studio they have worked in for almost 20 years, on Slugs of Love they bring their distinctive blend of soulful pop, electronics, and R&B, all underpinned by lead singer Yukimi’s vocals. The record features a guest turn from Damon Albarn on “Glow” and a collaboration with East Atlanta rapper JID, who is signed with J. Cole’s Dreamville label.

The band’s previous album, New Me, Same Us, landed on Ninja Tune in 2020.

Released today alongside the announcement is new single “Kenneth,” a soulful, lo-fi tribute to a childhood friend. “It’s about friendship and love,” the band explain, “and the dirt of getting caught in bitterness and taking the wrong turn mentally.”

The band have once again teamed up with animation studio for a video to accompany the track.

Tracklisting

01. Amöban
02. Frisco
03. Slugs of Love
04. Disco Dangerous
05. Lily’s Call
06. Stay (feat. JID)
07. Gold
08. Kenneth
09. Glow (feat. Damon Albarn)
10. Tumbling Dice
11. Easy Falling

Slugs of Love LP is scheduled for July 7 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Kenneth” in full via the player below and pre-order the album here.

Photo: Delali Ayivi

Podcast 799: KMRU

As KMRU, Joseph Kamaru, a sound artist from Nairobi, Kenya, sits at the forefront of modern experimental ambient music. Now based in Berlin, Germany, where in 2020 he enrolled in a graduate program for Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste, Kamaru has released several albums, on labels including Warp Records, Seil Records, and Editions Mego, which is where he released Peel, his debut album of delicate, textural compositions, in 2020.

Across all of Kamaru’s recent tracks, including on Epoch, which he released in October, he delivers an exquisite mix of intelligent atmospheres and emotionally experimental textures. In March, Kamaru delivered an Artist Tips feature for XLR8R, revealing some of the key practices behind his work, and now he’s back with an XLR8R podcast, recorded in his Berlin apartment. At one hour in length, this is a mix of breathtaking beauty, filled with some of Kamaru’s favorite tracks and artists—Loke Rahbek, Space Afrika, and Kali Malone. Press play and let these evocative soundscapes wash over you.

01. What have you been up to recently? 
I’ve been spending time at home, reading, and making lots of music.

What have you been listening to? 
A lot of NTS radio shows. I’ve also been discovering some old tunes from this app called radiooooo.

03. Where and when did you record this mix? 
I recorded the mix at home in Berlin on a Sunday evening before going to bed.

04. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included?
It’s a lot of new music discoveries that I’ve had on my Bandcamp Wishlist and lush sounding tracks for a perfect slow Sunday listening.

05. What can the listener expect? 
A lush splash of waveforms.

06. How does it compare to what we might hear you play out live? 
Pretty much different, although the atmosphere could be the same. For mixes I tend to share music which I enjoy listening and new music by artists and friends I love and admire.

07. What’s next on your horizon?
I have some new music coming out in the next months and also an a new collaborative project that I am looking forward to sharing and performing in the summer.

XLR8R Subscribers can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R subscriber, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. OZMOTIC “FENNESZ” (Floating Time (Touch))
02. Miguel A. Ruiz “Transparent” (Les Disques Bongo Joe)
03. JEFRE CANTU-LEDESMA “Shame” (Self-Released)
04. Loke Rahbek “Fermented” (Editions Mego)
05. Felisha Ledesma “Golden Mirror” (ECSTATIC)
06. fields we found “chroma” (quiet details)
07. DJ Lostboi “SEE INSIDE” (Self-Released)
08. Kelela “KAREEM LOTFY TURN TO DUST_NO BPM” (Warp)
09. The Purge of Tomorrow “Time Moving” (Modern Obscure Music)
10. Jan Jelinek “A Concert For Television” (Faitiche)
11. Hoavi “Posle Vsego” (Quiet Time)
12. Meitei “Pt.II” (Métron Records)
13. Strategy “Daydream Space Graffiti” (Constellation Tatsu)
14. nueen “IV” (Self-Released)
16. Pan American “Quarry A” (Foam On A Wave)
17. Florian T M Zeisig “VII” (enmossed)
18. Space Afrika “bly” (sferic)
19. Johanna Orellana “El Jardín III” (Smalltown Supersound)
20. Tapiwa Svosve “Side A” (czarnagora)
21. Aviva Endean “What Calls In The Quiet” (Room40)
22. Kali Malone “Does Spring Hide Its Joy v1.1” (Ideologic Organ)
23. KMRU “CPR-12” (Unreleased)

Kareem Ali Shares New Album of Lush, Funk-Driven House

Kareem Ali has released a new album.

Over 10 tracks, GODSON OF HOUSE: RISE OF A BLACK PLANET explores the Tucson, Arizona artist’s funk-driven deep house sound. The album follows on from February’s GODSON OF HOUSE: THE ALBUM, which also came out via CosmoFlux Recordings.

Ali, a New York native now living in Phoenix, specialises in forward-thinking, space-age sounds, bringing together elements of classic Detroit techno with ambient, garage, and broken beat.

Tracklisting

01. Sacrifice
02. Believe In Yourself (Who Cares What They Think)
03. Close Encounters
04. Skyward
05. For Those Who’ve Died
06. Hope
07. Lift Your Head Up
08. Longing For You
09. One Chance
10. Willpower

GODSON OF HOUSE: RISE OF A BLACK PLANET LP is available now. You can order it here and stream it in full via the player below.

Dorisburg & Sebastian Mullaert Next on Donato Dozzy’s Spazio Disponibile

Swedish producers Dorisburg (a.k.a Alexander Berg) and Sebastian Mullaert will release a new album together.

To record That Who Remembers, Berg and Mullaert set up their equipment in Malmö’s empty Inkonst venue, spending several days immersed in its atmosphere, using the lights, smoke machine, and soundsystem to create an authentic club environment where they could freely improvise.

The result is a suite of free-flowing sounds that draws on both artists’ backgrounds in reduced techno and ambient music, sailing through near-future landscapes and punctuating them with shimmering textures and fragile rhythms.

“Not dance music exactly, it’s music that instead considers the spirit of an empty dancefloor, wondering which elements might remain when feet have left the building entirely,” we’re told.

The record lands on Donato Dozzy and Neel’s adventurous Spazio Disponibile imprint.

“We recorded at full club volume with massive bass, but our references had gradually shifted to the point where just adding a soft kick drum would feel like peak time techno,” Mullaert says. “So even though the final recordings are quite soft and ambient, the energy we felt during the recording was often quite intense.”

In 2021, Mullaert and Dorisburg released an album as Jorum. They are regular collaborators under the Circle of Live umbrella.

Mullaert is a serial collaborator who has recorded alongside artists as varied as Matthew Jonson, Vril, and Johanna Knutsson. For more information on him, check out his XLR8R podcast here.

Tracklisting

01. That Who Remembers
02. Bond
03. Scarlet Haze
04. Skyward
05. Moss Odyssey
06. Deep Water Branches
07. Overgrown Rebirth
08. Archway
09. Hibernation
10. Lucid Soil

That Who Remembers LP is scheduled for June 23 release. You can here clips and pre-order here.

Australian Vocalist Skeleten Reveals Debut Album

Russell Fitzgibbon, better known as Skeleten, will release his debut album in July.

Written before and during the pandemic, Under Utopia stems from a desire to connect with others and to shake the mantle of introspection that had been placed on his previous works.

As the project has evolved, the Australian artist has gained clarity on what he hopes his music will achieve: bringing people together, and creating an atmosphere of elation.

Suffused with cloudy, baritone vocals, glistening synths, and truncated beats, the album is an 11-track collection “about seeing the world entirely new, full of hope and beauty, and all of us underneath pushing it upwards,” we’re told.

A Sydney native, Fitzgibbon grew up playing piano and went on to play in rock bands through high school, before discovering electronic music in his 20s. You can read more about him in his XLR8R podcast here—just over an hour of woozy chill.

Tracklisting

01. Generator
02. Mirrored
03. Walking On Your Name
04. Heart Full Of Tenderness
05. Territory Day
06. No Drones In The Afterlife
07. Under Utopia
08. Colour Room
09. Right Here It’s Only Love
10. Sharing The Fire
11. Everything We Need In The World

Under Utopia LP is scheduled for July 18 release on Astral People Recordings. Meanwhile, you can stream a handful of the tracks via the player below and pre-order here.

Podcast 798: Glenn Astro

You’ll find the music of Glenn Astro, a German DJ-producer, on labels including Ninja Tune (where he released a collaborative album with Max Graef in 2016), Money $ex Records (which he ran between 2015 and 2018), and Denmark’s Tartelet Records, which is where he released Homespun, his latest solo album in 2020.

Sonically, Astro doesn’t stick to any particular genre; rather, he fuses house and broken beats with jazz and disco, filling each of his tracks with rich, spacious grooves. On 2018’s Turquoise Tortoise, with Hodini, he pivoted into more downtempo electronica and future soul, with thick kicks and warbling basslines. He grew up in Essen, where he would listen to hip-hop, house, soul, jazz, and disco, and began DJing at the age of 13. Today, he runs the labels Termina and Hypno Discs, platforms for his wildest bass adventures and club experiments.

Later this week, Astro will release Nothing Is Real, a compilation of his own original productions from a cast of fictional artists, on which he celebrates the thrill of discovery which came as standard as he listened to new entries in series’ like DJ Kicks. He’s decided to celebrate the album with his much-anticipated XLR8R podcast, which he recorded last month in Berlin. Across its one-hour run-time, it moves between head-nodding downtempo, techno, broken beat, and various chill-out delights—a sure-fire mix to brighten up your day, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

01. What have you been up to recently?
I recently became a dad, so that’s an amazing new journey, which keeps me busy. Otherwise, I am working on as much new music as possible, aside from working a part-time day job.

02. What have you been listening to?
Apart from Rosalia’s Motomami, you mean? Although I’m not really a club person, I’ve been listening to a lot of electronic music lately, but I guess it’s more on the unconventional side of things. It’s hard to pinpoint. Lots of rap records, too. Also there’s this album called Jerusalem by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou that was released by Mississippi Records recently, which is just absolutely wonderful. The record features recordings she did in the ’70s.

03. Where and when did you record this mix?
On a rainy Saturday afternoon In my studio, roughly two weeks ago.

04. What setup did you use?
Two turntables, a mixer, and a laptop.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included?
There’s no refined system behind it. A lot of the included tracks are recent purchases, a few tracks are rediscoveries I haven’t heard in a while, and there’s a few digital exclusives thrown in for good measure. My aim was to keep it somewhat…”clubby.”

06. Where do you imagine it being listened to?
During dinner preparations, commuting from or to work. Perhaps for a spontaneous living room dance, while doing homework, or hanging out on your couch, bed, floor, or sofa. There are loads of applications you can combine it with! I don’t want to be overly cynical but we’re all in some way or another stuck in this neoliberal treadmill of doing things we don’t really want to do but have to do daily, in order to get by, so I hope this might ease the stress a tiny bit for a little while for someone out there.

08. What’s next on your horizon?
I’m an indecisive person, so usually it’s something that pops into my head on the spur of the moment!

XLR8R Subscribers can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R subscriber, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. Optic Eye “Crystal Moon” (Mystic Stones)
02. Drush “Birds & Bass” (Fast Castle)
03. Brain Liquor “Blame It On” (Tartelet)
04. F.B. Illwig “Take It Off” (Moonwalk X)
05. Missy Elliott “Get Ur Freak On” (Gavsborg edit) (Unreleased)
06. Nutcase & Papachubba feat. Petah “U Do” (Best Effort)
07. Technosis “Change Positions” (Butter Notes)
08. SG Rilla Mane “My Cadillac” (Wah Wah Wino)
09. Skepta “Man” (Yung Bingles & Lil Chimpz Rebax) (YBLC001)
10. RDG “The Hand Above” (Sentry Records)
11. Lag “Rokenrol” (Beot Remix) (Coincidence Records)
12. Binary Digit “Acid King Charles Spaniel” (WéMè Records)
13. Michael J. Blood “Eazun” (Blood)
14. Greyhouse “New Beats The House” (Remix) (Hotsound USA Productions)
15. Sounds of Life “Currents” (React/Artcore)
16. Yushh “Look Mum No Hands” (Wisdom Teeth)
17. Fracture “Blaze” (feat. Bryan Gee) (Astrophonica)

Page 31 of 3781
1 … 29 30 31 32 33 … 3,781