Titled Arps & Early Starts, the EP follows August’s By Your Side EP, which garnered support from house heavyweights such as Sasha, Dixon, and Gerd Janson, among others. The new EP finds Saul going down a deeper and headier route with four gritty house cuts. Alongside the EP release, Saul will also be embarking on a tour that will find him performing at Paris’ Rex Club, London’s Printworks, Barcelona’s Nitsa, Elsewhere in NYC, and Amsterdam’s ADE, where he will be putting on his own party alongside Jeremy Underground and Bradley Zero, among others.
Arps & Early Starts is set to drop at the end of this month, with “Come Together” streaming in full via the player below.
Jack Adams (a.k.a Mumdance) will release a 32-track mix and compilation called Shared Meanings in November.
Shared Meanings is Adam’s sixth major mix project in six years, and inspired by “the dancefloor experiences that transcend location and language to unite people.” It’s the “natural next step” from Radio Mumdance, the far-reaching radio project that saw Adams play back-to-back with some of his favourite artists: Nina Kraviz, DJ Stingray, DJ Storm, Surgeon, Ben UFO, Josey Rebelle, and many others. Across a 97-minute session, Shared Meanings draws from the ideas and inspirations Adams’ gained across those 40 weekly shows.
The mix comprises 32 exclusive tracks, drawn from a panorama of contemporary electronic music—pioneers, emerging talents, brand new producers—brought together by Adams’ curatorial ear. Bambounou, Space Afrika, SØS Gunver Ryberg, and Nkisi all feature, plus a track by Mumdance & Logos called “Teachers,” which is a riff on Daft Punk’s 1997 classic of the same name.
Shared Meanings will will drop on November 20 as a free download, followed by a digital bundle of the separate tracks on November 23, in addition to a cassette of the mix and a vinyl sampler, featuring five of the tracks.
Tracklisting
01. SØS Gunver Ryberg “Flying”
02. Space Afrika “After They Entered It Was Only Evident”
Leifur James has shared a video for “Night and Day,” taken from his upcoming debut album, A Louder Silence, out on Friday via Late Night Tales’ artist label Night Time Stories. The video is directed by Sander Houtkruijer, shot in the atmospheric outskirts of Bogota, Colombia.
A Louder Silence is the London-based producer’s first proper release; his two earlier singles feature on the record. We’re told that the album is both spacious and thought-provoking, energetic yet restrained, brimming with nuanced electronic instrumentals, dubby synths, and jazz breaks.
A Louder Silence will arrive on October 5, with “Argonaut” and “Night And Day” streaming in full via the player below.
The seven-track album, which follows 2012’s Negative Fascination album debut—plus a slew of EPs for labels like Sandwell District, Semantica, Mote-Evolver, and Mendez’ own Jealous God—captures the US producer’s evolution to “more aggressive and stripped-down acid punk electro dance attacks.” “While many would stall after the success of a now contemporary cult classic, Mendez took his time to deliver a more raw—yet refined—brutalism in his second album,” the label explains.
Hospital Productions was founded in 1997 by Dominick Fernow.
Tracklisting
A1 / 1. Illusion
A2 / 2. Harm In Hand
A3 / 3. Damage
B4 / 4. Loss Response
B5 / 5. 24 Hours
B6 / 6. Glass Veil
B7 / 7. Optimistic Decay
Shadows of Death and Desire LP will arrive on December 8, with a video for “Harm In Hand” streaming in full via the player below.
Over the last year, East London producer Kells has become a regular fixture in XLR8R‘s download section. His offerings, both of which were remixes, came via Point Blank Recordings—the first, a remix of Amani’s “Transform,” and the second, a rework of Ann Streichmann’s “The Flow.” Both outings showed a penchant for deep and sensual house music, a style he has continued over to his latest outing, a remix of MJ Cole’s “Soak It Up.”
The remix came about after MJ Cole offered up the track’s stems back in March, giving everyone a chance to remix his work before its official release. Kells jumped at the chance and reworked the stems into a four-and-a-half minute slice of garage-infused house. With its raw swinging drums and feel-good vocals, it’s the sort of track that harks back to summer, coaxing the sunshine out with its alluring vibe.
Once again, Kells has graciously offered up the remix as today’s XLR8R download, available via WeTransfer below.
Due to temporary issues regarding the GDPR, EU readers can download the track here.
Who better to conclude FabricLive than Burial, an artist whose deconstructive take on ‘90s rave captured the spirit of London better than ever before, and Kode9, the exemplary producer, DJ, academic, and Hyperdub label boss who first released Burial’s music all those years ago? The two arms of Fabric’s compilation series purport to offer representations of the London club’s varying musical offerings, with fabric mixes generally comprising journeys through house and techno and FabricLive including rowdier, wider-ranging choices across genres like UK garage, drum & bass, and grime.
What makes Fabric mixes strange is the image they present of the club. Of the near-200 selectors who have appeared on the series, almost all have indeed played at the club for real (with the exception of Burial, of course, but we’ll get to that.) These consistently eye-catching lineups are matched by a stellar sound system, while Houndstooth, the club’s affiliated label, has quickly become one of the scene’s leading lights since its launch in 2013.
All this is very well, but it does little to mask a clubbing experience which has been unfulfilling for some years now. Be it the fault of the council, the bouncers or the patrons, a night in Fabric in 2018 is an impossible search for comfort, a struggle to navigate pushy dancefloors overcrowded with tourists and stag dos, and the threat of being ejected for blowing your nose in view of the staff. With London nightlife enduring its worst period in living memory, a rare sighting of Burial is an exciting distraction, especially one that might just constitute the closest thing we’ve had to an album from the enigmatic producer since 2007’s Untrue.
Note: might. How much Burial is in this mix exactly? Though William Bevan’s mysticism has now been played out to the point of ridicule, it’s hard to escape the image of the producer’s DJing ambitions being curtailed by the Hyperdub head honcho. After more than a decade in which a live Burial performance has never existed outside of internet chat rumors, fans can finally savor a recording of the man behind a set of decks (in a week which also saw him and Kode9 submit a BBC Essential Mix.) But the fact is it doesn’t really feel like Burial at all.
Part of the reason for that is the obviously disappointing absence of original new music, save for the possible contender of the mix’s “Untitled” opener. There’s a swathe of moonlit ambience and then, one second in, there’s that signature vinyl crackle! It wouldn’t be Burial without it. Or would it? It’s worth remembering that Bevan’s hissy calling card was used sparingly, if at all, back in the South London Boroughs days. From his subversive debut EP, through his first album, to his 2007 masterpiece, Burial was always concerned with the mystique of hauntology, a subgenre based on distorted memories of the past. As Simon Reynolds put it, a “love of spooky atmospheres, disquieting sound effects, the hiss and crackle of vinyl” is the most unifying characteristic of Burial’s catalog. With FabricLive 100 popping away like a bowl of Rice Krispies, we’re presented with a kind of meta-hauntology, as the ghost of Burial’s golden early output lingers on like the England football team’s memories of 1966. Is it too much?
After the opening 30 seconds, the mix’s gqom-dominated first 12 minutes feel distinctly like Kode9 choices. These are brought to a welcome close as another snap-crackle-and-pop ushers in Luke Slater’s Daft Punky 2002 jam “I Can Complete You.” It’s a fun, dancey party tune and it sits in the mix like a clown in a graveyard. This carefree shunting between styles rarely lets up, creating a listening experience evocative of a 76-minute bumper-car ride on a queasy stomach. The speedy segue between Jungle Buddha’s raucous DnB cut “Drug Me” and Black Acid’s eponymous 303 track is the pick of the early exchanges, but it feels rushed and airless—deeply contrasting with Burial’s trademark spacey sound-chasms.
The pacy BPM does, however, give a foreboding nod towards what is by far the mix’s greatest strength: Kode9’s (an educated guess) skilled command of the footwork genre. DJ Spinn’s steamy “Make Me Hot” and DJ Phil’s remix of “Pink 33” by Scratcha DVA and Clara Le San are choice highlights in a central stretch reminiscent of Kode9’s masterful Boiler Room tribute to the late great DJ Rashad. The allusion is confirmed a few picks later with the entrance of Rashad’s “Let It Go,” a magnificent, tear-jerking classic that became a kind of digital “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” with Rashad’s passing in 2013. Heartbreakingly it lasts for just 68 seconds here, faded out before it’s had any real emotional impact.
Emotion is surely what made Untrue appealing even to listeners not overly fond of dubstep or garage. Yet for all its ambient, transcendent, even psychedelic qualities, the music of Burial and Kode9 has always felt extremely street. Kode9 has previously stated that the tendency toward pastoral melody explored of IDM and other more ambient areas of techno is not a natural interest to him. This is generally to his credit: Hyperdub is wonderfully adept at churning out darkened dancefloor bangers. But when we’re finally treated to a glimpse of downtempo just after the hour mark in FabricLive 100, it feels like a much-needed respite. OKZharp & Manthe Ribane’s “Treasure Erasure”—released by Hyperdub, btw—is a shimmering ambient track that Global Communication would have been pleased with. It arrives during a decent section that also includes the more gentle timbres of Ben Frost (remixed by Jlin) and Proc Fiskal (also on Hyperdub); these are nice, but are separated by the squeaky rudeboy MCing of Dean Blunt’s Babyfather alter-ego, another bizarrely jarring selection.
If you write about a Burial project without using the words “skeletal” or “transience,” is it even a Burial project at all? Whether due to a disparity in approach between the two selectors or because the two of them felt obliged to show off as much of their record collections as possible, FabricLive 100 feels hurried, uncomfortable, and impossible to feel truly at peace in. Ironically enough, it might be the best representation of Fabric yet.
Tracklisting
01. Untitled “Untitled”
02. Klein “Hurry”
03. Cooly G “Magnetic”
04. Julz Da Deejay “Deaths Effect”
05. Roman Rodney “Triple Beat”
06. TLC Fam “Skim Sam” (Dbn Dance)
07. Nazar “Konvoy”
08. Lechuga Zafiro “Agua Y Puerta”
09. Hyph11e “Black Pepper 炎” (Tzusing Remix)
10. Luke Slater “I Can Complete You”
11. Virgin “B9”
12. Nut-E-1 “Underwater Fireworks”
13. David Hykes “Rainbow Voice”
14. Jungle Buddha “Drug Me”
15. Black Acid “Black Acid”
16. Vladislav Delay “Otan Osaa”
17. DJ Spinn “Make Me Hot”
18. Mr Fingers “Spy” (Kode9 Remix)
19. Scratcha DVA feat. Clara Le San “Pink 33” (DJ Phil Remix)
Who better to conclude FabricLive than Burial, an artist whose deconstructive take on ‘90s rave captured the spirit of London better than ever before, and Kode9, the exemplary producer, DJ, academic, and Hyperdub label boss who first released Burial’s music all those years ago? The two arms of Fabric’s compilation series purport to offer representations of the London club’s varying musical offerings, with fabric mixes generally comprising journeys through house and techno and FabricLive including rowdier, wider-ranging choices across genres like UK garage, drum & bass, and grime.
What makes Fabric mixes strange is the image they present of the club. Of the near-200 selectors who have appeared on the series, almost all have indeed played at the club for real (with the exception of Burial, of course, but we’ll get to that.) These consistently eye-catching lineups are matched by a stellar sound system, while Houndstooth, the club’s affiliated label, has quickly become one of the scene’s leading lights since its launch in 2013.
All this is very well, but it does little to mask a clubbing experience which has been unfulfilling for some years now. Be it the fault of the council, the bouncers or the patrons, a night in Fabric in 2018 is an impossible search for comfort, a struggle to navigate pushy dancefloors overcrowded with tourists and stag dos, and the threat of being ejected for blowing your nose in view of the staff. With London nightlife enduring its worst period in living memory, a rare sighting of Burial is an exciting distraction, especially one that might just constitute the closest thing we’ve had to an album from the enigmatic producer since 2007’s Untrue.
Note: might. How much Burial is in this mix exactly? Though William Bevan’s mysticism has now been played out to the point of ridicule, it’s hard to escape the image of the producer’s DJing ambitions being curtailed by the Hyperdub head honcho. After more than a decade in which a live Burial performance has never existed outside of internet chat rumors, fans can finally savor a recording of the man behind a set of decks (in a week which also saw him and Kode9 submit a BBC Essential Mix.) But the fact is it doesn’t really feel like Burial at all.
Part of the reason for that is the obviously disappointing absence of original new music, save for the possible contender of the mix’s “Untitled” opener. There’s a swathe of moonlit ambience and then, one second in, there’s that signature vinyl crackle! It wouldn’t be Burial without it. Or would it? It’s worth remembering that Bevan’s hissy calling card was used sparingly, if at all, back in the South London Boroughs days. From his subversive debut EP, through his first album, to his 2007 masterpiece, Burial was always concerned with the mystique of hauntology, a subgenre based on distorted memories of the past. As Simon Reynolds put it, a “love of spooky atmospheres, disquieting sound effects, the hiss and crackle of vinyl” is the most unifying characteristic of Burial’s catalog. With FabricLive 100 popping away like a bowl of Rice Krispies, we’re presented with a kind of meta-hauntology, as the ghost of Burial’s golden early output lingers on like the England football team’s memories of 1966. Is it too much?
After the opening 30 seconds, the mix’s gqom-dominated first 12 minutes feel distinctly like Kode9 choices. These are brought to a welcome close as another snap-crackle-and-pop ushers in Luke Slater’s Daft Punky 2002 jam “I Can Complete You.” It’s a fun, dancey party tune and it sits in the mix like a clown in a graveyard. This carefree shunting between styles rarely lets up, creating a listening experience evocative of a 76-minute bumper-car ride on a queasy stomach. The speedy segue between Jungle Buddha’s raucous DnB cut “Drug Me” and Black Acid’s eponymous 303 track is the pick of the early exchanges, but it feels rushed and airless—deeply contrasting with Burial’s trademark spacey sound-chasms.
The pacy BPM does, however, give a foreboding nod towards what is by far the mix’s greatest strength: Kode9’s (an educated guess) skilled command of the footwork genre. DJ Spinn’s steamy “Make Me Hot” and DJ Phil’s remix of “Pink 33” by Scratcha DVA and Clara Le San are choice highlights in a central stretch reminiscent of Kode9’s masterful Boiler Room tribute to the late great DJ Rashad. The allusion is confirmed a few picks later with the entrance of Rashad’s “Let It Go,” a magnificent, tear-jerking classic that became a kind of digital “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” with Rashad’s passing in 2013. Heartbreakingly it lasts for just 68 seconds here, faded out before it’s had any real emotional impact.
Emotion is surely what made Untrue appealing even to listeners not overly fond of dubstep or garage. Yet for all its ambient, transcendent, even psychedelic qualities, the music of Burial and Kode9 has always felt extremely street. Kode9 has previously stated that the tendency toward pastoral melody explored of IDM and other more ambient areas of techno is not a natural interest to him. This is generally to his credit: Hyperdub is wonderfully adept at churning out darkened dancefloor bangers. But when we’re finally treated to a glimpse of downtempo just after the hour mark in FabricLive 100, it feels like a much-needed respite. OKZharp & Manthe Ribane’s “Treasure Erasure”—released by Hyperdub, btw—is a shimmering ambient track that Global Communication would have been pleased with. It arrives during a decent section that also includes the more gentle timbres of Ben Frost (remixed by Jlin) and Proc Fiskal (also on Hyperdub); these are nice, but are separated by the squeaky rudeboy MCing of Dean Blunt’s Babyfather alter-ego, another bizarrely jarring selection.
If you write about a Burial project without using the words “skeletal” or “transience,” is it even a Burial project at all? Whether due to a disparity in approach between the two selectors or because the two of them felt obliged to show off as much of their record collections as possible, FabricLive 100 feels hurried, uncomfortable, and impossible to feel truly at peace in. Ironically enough, it might be the best representation of Fabric yet.
Tracklisting
01. Untitled “Untitled”
02. Klein “Hurry”
03. Cooly G “Magnetic”
04. Julz Da Deejay “Deaths Effect”
05. Roman Rodney “Triple Beat”
06. TLC Fam “Skim Sam” (Dbn Dance)
07. Nazar “Konvoy”
08. Lechuga Zafiro “Agua Y Puerta”
09. Hyph11e “Black Pepper 炎” (Tzusing Remix)
10. Luke Slater “I Can Complete You”
11. Virgin “B9”
12. Nut-E-1 “Underwater Fireworks”
13. David Hykes “Rainbow Voice”
14. Jungle Buddha “Drug Me”
15. Black Acid “Black Acid”
16. Vladislav Delay “Otan Osaa”
17. DJ Spinn “Make Me Hot”
18. Mr Fingers “Spy” (Kode9 Remix)
19. Scratcha DVA feat. Clara Le San “Pink 33” (DJ Phil Remix)
On Kontrapoetik, composer Maria W Horn explores the deceivingly serene yet turmoiled past of her home region, Ångermanland, in the north of Sweden. The region was the site of Sweden’s largest documented execution of women accused of witchcraft in 1674 in the form of burnings and decapitations, and following that, there was a conflict between the worker’s movement and the Swedish military in the 1930’s that left five dead and nearly triggered a revolution. To explore this buried turmoil, across six tense and foreboding tracks, she weaves together field recordings sourced from the archives of The Härnösand Art Museum, samples from uncovered archival recordings released by the Swedish radio in 1966, a mellotron, church organ, and a Buchla 200 synthesizer. The music evokes pain, fear, anxiety, and, at times, serene beauty—and sometimes all at once.
While researching the history of Ångermanland for the album, Maria was a member of an artistic research project in the form of a satanic feminist sect, whose goal consisted of ceremonies and rituals based on counter readings of the Christian genesis narratives, dismantling its misogynist traditions with counter-myths that re-conceptualized Lucifer as a feminist liberator of womankind and an ally in the struggle against a patriarchy supported by God the father and the male priesthood. Several of the pieces on Kontrapoetik were composed specifically for these ceremonial practices, as in the case of “Ave,” which is a composition built from a text by Michelle Jangmyr, one of the sect members.
In support of the LP, which can be pre-ordered here, Portals Editions has offered up a full stream of “Ave,” a haunting eight-minute epic, available via the player below.
Francis Harris‘ Kingdoms label will release a new EP from Finnish composer, producer, visual artist, and filmmaker Hannu Karjalainen.
Karjalainen’s recording career now spans over a decade, beginning under the pseudonym Hannu and later under his full name for A Handful Of Dust Is A Desert on Karaoke Kalk. Drift, a seven-track mini album, is Karjalainen’s debut on Harris’ label and sees him “continue his explorations in new directions—touching on field recordings, soundscapes, and esoteric instrumentation to build a truly meditative and moving record.”
Kingdoms was launched in 2017 and has released work from Aris Kindt, Emil Abramyan, and Leah Lazonick, among others.
Darren J. Cunningham (a.k.a Actress) has shared a new mini-album, Young Paint, via his new Werk_Ltd. label.
The six-track release is a collaboration between Actress and Young Paint, an “AI sprite” and “learning program” that has “progressively emulated” Actress’ musical process since his debut LP, Hazyville. It may also be the case that Young Paint is just another Cunningham alias—just like AZD is also the title of Actress last album and an anagram of his childhood nickname.
“The EP is about gradients of learning, from a humanist perspective investigating the vacant soul of computer language, determination, and logic at its most basic natural level,” Cunningham says, “Exploring complex simplicity and reimagining it as a sort of sonic paint with splats, sprays, splashes, dots in an Impressionistic fashion.”
The mini-album is the first release of Werk_LTD., a collaborative label between the producer and The Vinyl Factory.
Tracklisting
01. Travel Paint
02. Neutral Paint
03. Boy Paint
04. Twisty Paint
05. Ai Paint
06. Kat Paint
Young Paint is available to stream now, with the limited edition vinyl out later this month.
