Seahawks Return with Latest Cosmic Odyssey

Seahawks, the collaboration of Jon Tye and Pete Fowler, will release a new album of mystic pop, sparkling new age, and psychedelic ambience in November.

Infinite Echo is the British pair’s first album since Eyes of the Moon, released in 2019. All 10 tracks emerged from a series of scraps and vignettes informed by a “breadth of eclectic chillness,” we’re told, from mid-’80s digital new age in the Higher Octave vein and Michael McDonald remixed by Oneohtrix Point Never. These were fleshed out with Lyra Pramuk’s “Siren Songs” application and Holly Herndon’s “Holly+” software.

Despite the technological innovations at play, the record ranks among the most “overtly emotive” in the pair’s decade-plus discography, with soprano saxophone, synths, and snippets of heavenly voice sitting atop low-slung bass. We’re told that it’s “more DMT than marijuana.”

“The results sound elevated and ineffable, like music heard at the edge of dreams, hinting at worlds yet to come,” says Cascine, the New York label behind the release.

Since forming in Cornwall, England, in 2009, Tye and Fowler have collaborated with Laraaji, Peaking Lights, Laurel Halo, and more

Tracklisting

01. Beams of Love
02. Galaxy Time
03. Sometimes We Fly
04. Space Oracle
05. The Other Shore
06. Spirits Guide Us
07. Falling Into Space
08. Forever Now
09. We Are Dream
10. Blue Surround

Infinite Echo LP is scheduled for November 4 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Beams of Love” in full below and pre-order here.

Podcast 763: Elena Colombi

Elena Colombi is a fast-rising DJ and radio host, whose sets prioritize energy and emotion rather than function. She was born in Italy, where she fell in love with music through a mix-tape created by a family friend. “I was around three or four years old,” she says. “I listened to it on repeat.” This was the first time she heard the sounds of Airto Moreira, The Slickers, and Liaisons Dangereuses, all of whom have shaped the sounds and styles she curates, presents, and produces. 

Years later, Colombi made her name in London, where she spent nearly a decade running her own parties, refining her skills as a DJ by playing the warm-ups as a means of maximizing her budget for the main act. Nowadays, she bases herself between London and Amsterdam, while touring globally. She’s a long-standing resident of NTS. 

Sonically, Colombi’s sets are geared towards the unexpected. An interest in literature and film inspires her avant-garde selections, which range from cosmic psychedelia and pounding jungle to obscure post-punk and spoken word. In recent years, she’s branched out into the world of production, utilizing synthesizers to craft intuitive sound works, which she presents in a performance context alongside art collective Tutto Questo Sentire.

Since 2019, Colombi has been running Osàre! Editions which, like her DJ sets, presents future-facing music imbued with a sense of freedom, transcending expectations of geographic area, era, or genre—welcoming anything from the punk sounds of Schulverweis to the darkwave of Violetov General. “No matter how deep someone’s knowledge [of music] is,” Colombi says, “there is always more to discover.” For XLR8R+, Colombi recently delivered a label showcase featuring a taste of her own production style with two collaborative tracks alongside Sepehr and The Spy. You can download that package here.

For her much-anticipated XLR8R podcast, Colombi has once again pulled from a diverse range of records. Besides some of her favorite oldies brought to her attention by a dusty hard drive she forgot she had, there’s some forthcoming music from her artist friends, spanning techno and house to post-punk, EBM, and industrial. Press play for a cerebral world of noise that’ll draw you in from the first note.

01. What have you been listening to? 
The Brainwaltzera album on FILM has been on repeat since it came out. But also the Anadol LP on Pingipung, Neptuno by Luis Paniagua, and the new Marina Herlop on album on PAN. 

02. How are things coming along with Osàre! Editions?
There are three more releases coming out before the end of the year, plus some label nights.

03. When and where did you record this mix?
I recorded the mix a few weeks back, on a hot afternoon at Radio Radio in Amsterdam. 

04. What setup did you use? 
Three CDJs, an Allen & Heath mixer, a Tascam recorder. I did it straight onto an SD card.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks that you’ve included?
The usual digging, plus some forthcoming tracks from fellow artists and labels. Plus a sprinkle of favorite oldies brought to my attention by a dusty hard drive I forgot I had.

06. How does it compare to what you play out?
I can play very different types of DJ sets, so I would say no difference at all!

07. What’s next on your horizon?
I’ll be playing in Tel Aviv, Israel for the first time! I am also returning to Bucharest, Berlin, Madrid, and to Club2Club festival in Turin.  I’ve got a couple of remixes on the way, and hopefully I’ll get some rest in between!

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. 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.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. Elena Sizova “Source Code” (excerpt) (Commes Des Larmes)
02. Talismann “A” (TALISMANN)
03. Acre “Switchblade” (Coldrecordings)
04. Or:la “Mess” (Maricas)
05. CCL “Drum On”  (3024)
06. Rhyw “Sharknado” (WOAM)
07. Delay Grounds “Marcelo’s Whistle” (Tropopause Records)
08. Kasra V “Thousand Year Dream” (Shaytoon Records)
09. Sematic4 “Frozen” (Dalmata Daniel)
10. E-bony “Untitled” (Osàre Editions)
11. Gesloten Cirkel “Quiker” (Solar One Music)
12. Edit Service 20 “by Carisma” (I’m a Cliché)
13. Heimat “ITA” (Teenage Menopause Records)
14. Yukai “Tfos El Naah” (Ceaseless)
15. The Spy “Cobra” (Osàre Editions)
16. Liaisons Dangereuses “Avant-Après Mars” (Roadrunner Records)
17. MZ-Y “17 Die Kraft” (Hämmern Version) (Dalmata Daniel)
18. RAFF “They Don’t Wanna See Us” (NousKlaer)
19. E-bony “Mad Naama” (Dalmata Daniel)
20. Werfol “Your Wife” (BAKK)
21. DKAPZ “Truth is a Ruin” (Kycker)
22. Ploy “Rayhana” (Deaf Test)
23. Power From The Skies “Doesn’t Follow Logic” (No Static Automatic)
24. Filmmaker “The Love Market” (Detriti Records)
25. Das Ding “Marketing Strategies for Main Sequence Stars” (Lustpoderosa)
26. Bot’Ox “Overdrive” (Versatile)

XLR8R+ Mix: Download Dan Andrei’s Set From Sunwaves 28

We’re delighted to share a live recording from Dan Andrei at Sunwaves 28.

Like many of his Romanian peers, from Raresh and Rhadoo to Barac and Priku, Andrei likes to stay in the shadows. His hypnotic productions have been released on Arpiar, Amphia, Be Chosen—and also XLR8R+—but he’s notoriously careful with where he shares his music.

As shown in this mix, he has a rare ability to effortlessly extract groove, and we wanted to share it. Expect just over two hours of house, disco, minimal, and techno cuts, and a little taste of one of the annual event’s best sets.

For more information on Dan Andrei, check out his official XLR8R podcast here. Meanwhile, XLR8R+ subscribers can download the Sunwaves mix below.

Guatemalan Cellist Mabe Fratti Unveils Third Album

Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti will soon release her third album, Se Ve Desde Aquí, meaning “It Is Seen From Here.”

The nine-track album marks Fratti’s “most revealing” work to date, we’re told, showcasing a “sinuous and tensile sound” coupled with a “confident and clear-eyed worldview.” The album takes “a decisive shift” away from Fratti’s most recent works, including last year’s Será Que Ahora Podremos Entendernos?, which were more enigmatic in tone.

Fratti sees her new music as “drier” in texture and more on the front foot in terms of setting out emotion. She describes the resulting nine songs as “less protected.”

According to Fratti, the sound is “informed through the aesthetics of rawness,” with noisy instrumentation set against “the tools of melodic lines and harmony,” leading to a trademark richness.

Fratti is a cellist now based in Mexico City. Ask music fans for regional tips, and Fratti’s name is likely to crop up more than once. After various low-profile live performances across Guatemala and Mexico, including her Aire Libre 105.3 FM session, she released Aprendiendo a Hablar (meaning “Learning to Speak”), her EP debut, before signing to Hole Records for her debut album, Pies Sobre La Tierra, meaning “Feet on the Ground.” You can read more about her work here.

Alongside the announcement, Fratti has shared lead single “Cada Músculo” alongside a video directed by Nika Milano.

Tracklisting

01. Con Esfuerzo
02. Desde el cielo
03. No se ve desde acá
04. Esta Vez
05. Cuestión de tiempo
06. Algo grandioso
07. Cada Músculo
08. Deja de empujar
09. Siempre tocas algo

Se Ve Desde Aquí LP is scheduled for October 14 release on Tin Angel Records. Meanwhile, you can stream “Cada Músculo” below and pre-order here.

Los Angeles’ Louis Cole Next on Brainfeeder with New Album

Photo: Richard Thompson

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Louis Cole will release a new album on Brainfeeder.

20 tracks deep, Quality Over Opinion was written and produced at Cole’s home studio, though he did invite a handful of close friends to contribute. These include Genevieve Artadi, saxophonist Sam Gendel, pianist Chris Fishman, Nate Wood from the band Kneebody, and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. 

“This album is a representation of me trying to make the best, most powerful, and listenable music I can,” Cole says. It follows Time, his 2018 album, also on Brainfeeder.

Alongside the announcement, Cole has shared “I’m Tight.” In contrast to “Let It Happen,” released earlier this month, “I’m Tight” is a sleek, laser-focused funk jam, based on an irresistible bassline.

“It comes from me recording about 100 different cells of funk, choosing my favorite ones and quilting them together into a song,” says Cole. “I had to practice the bass part a lot for this one.”

According to Thundercat, Cole is one of Los Angeles’ “greatest musicians.” Though he has a background in jazz, the music he writes bears little resemblance in any pure or classical sense. Instead, his connection to the movement is more conceptual. “The root of jazz is pure freedom…no limits… just what you’re thinking right at that moment,” he says. “A pure blast of limitlessness.”

Tracklisting

01. Quality Over Opinion
02. Dead Inside Shuffle
03. Not Needed Anymore
04. Shallow Laughter
05. Bitches (feat. Sam Gendel)
06. Message (feat. Chris Fishman & Nate Wood)
07. Failing in a Cool Way
08. Disappear
09. I’m Tight
10. True Love
11. Planet X
12. Let Me Snack (feat. Marlon Mackey)
13. Forgetting
14. Park Your Car on my Face
15. Don’t Care (feat. Genevieve Artadi)
16. Laughing in her Sleep
17. Outer Moat Behavior
18. When (feat. Kurt Rosenwinkel)
19. Let it Happen
20. Little Piano

Quality Over Opinion LP is scheduled for October 14 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “I’m Tight” and “Let It Happen” in full below and pre-order here.

Ondness’ Latest Album Marks a New Beginning

Bruno Silva will release a new album as Ondness, titled Oeste A​.​D..

Silva, based in Lisbon, Portugal, 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. He became Ondness in 2009 with Em Afogando, one of several self-releases shared under a slew of different monikers, among them Iguana Feedback or Navalha Mystic. He also releases as Serpente, a channel for his ideas on rhythm. Whereas Ondness deals more personally with Silva’s obsessions, anxieties, and hauntings, “finding some internal cohesion for me in some hallucinatory space,” Silva explains, Serpente is more “strict,” focused on percussion.

Sonically, Oeste A​.​D. is a “monstrous piece,” we’re told, that marks the beginning of a new age for Ondness. It follows Megadawn, a recent album on Holuzam, but what makes the album so remarkable is the “intangible idea of nostalgia,” we’re told. Whereas in the past the Ondness sound was “fragmented, sparse, and intensively reflexive,” now it’s “full of clarity,” in that the music moves in one direction, continuously.

In May, Silva released Dias da Aranha, a new album as Serpente. You can listen to his XLR8R podcast here.

Tracklisting

01. Torres e Baldios
02. Aqua Matrix Alternativa Nation
03. Torres e Baldios II
04. Endless Domingo

Oeste A​.​D. LP is scheduled for August 26 release on Discrepant. Meanwhile, you can stream “Torres e Baldios” and “Torres e Baldios II” in full below, and pre-order here.

Romare Launches Label with New Album

Romare, born Archie Fairhurst, will release Fantasy, a new album, in November.

Across 10 new tracks, Fantasy takes a more abstract approach to sampling than Fairhurst’s previous work, including 2020’s Home and 2015’s Projections, both on London label Ninja Tune. It brings his own instrumentation and vocals to the fore, while folding in elements from 1970s fantasy cinema into his distinctive strain of rhythmic, off-centre electronica.

“The samples come more from film on this record, and the influence of Medieval music can be heard in some of the songs,” Fairhurst tells XLR8R. “I enjoyed listening to the band Gryphon at one point while making the album and was inspired by the otherworldly instruments they used in their recordings. There is something spooky about combining film samples with sounds of popular instruments from the past.”

The original inspiration for Fantasy came from long country walks, and it’s dedicated to Fairhurst’s father. It will be available on his newly minted label, You See. 

Tracklisting

01. Quiet Corners of My Mind
02. Priestess
03. Walking in the Rain
04. Dungeon
05. Seventh Seal
06. Arthur
07. Sunset
08. The Fool
09. Pot Of Gold
10. A Hold

Fantasy LP is scheduled for November 4 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Quiet Corners of My Mind” and “Walking in the Rain” in full below. Pre-order is available here.

Carla dal Forno’s Third Album Grapples with Home, Disorder, and Insomnia

Carla dal Forno will return with her third album, incoming on her own Kallista Records.

Come Around follows the release of Look Up Sharp, her 2019 album, and a 2016 debut on Blackest Ever Black. Now based in the township of Castlemaine, Central Victoria, the Australian artist grapples with ideas of home, disorder, and insomnia across nine new tracks.

After nearly a decade of moving, recording, and touring out of Berlin and London, we’re told that the album “embodies a newfound solitude,” embracing the same pop structures her post-punk forebearers like Young Marble Giants, Virginia Astley, and Broadcast.

We’re told the the album’s title-track offers the best example of this “confident, fresh candor.” The track in inspired by a guitarist dal Forno used to play in a band with.

“I wrote the song during a carefree springtime and I loved working on it while recording this album,” she says. “There’s a lightness and openness to it, which I feel quite liberated by. It reminds me of a life I once had with very few responsibilities.”

Tracklisting

01. Side By Side
02. Come Around
03. The Garden of Earthly Delights
04. Stay Awake
05. Autumn
06. Mind Your On
07. Slumber feat. Thomas Bush
08. Deep Sleep
09. Caution

Come Around LP is scheduled for November 4 release. Meanwhile, you can stream the title-track below and pre-order here.

DeepChord Returns with First Album in Five Years

Deepchord, real name Rod Modell, will soon release his first album in five years.

On Functional Designs, the enigmatic Detroit-based producer delivers what he calls “night-walks through numerous cities,” which is to say the music is connected to various places he’s visited, like a “sonic postcard from each city.” Across 11 new original tracks, he uses field recordings, holographic synth tones, cosmic sounds, and the hiss of electric wires. The album is a “perfect example” of electro-acoustic techno, we’re told.

While living in Detroit, near to the techno boulevard made famous by the likes of Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson at the time, Modell began looking for a more experimental sound. He co-founded the DeepChord label during the mid-’90s, after declining offers from top techno labels of the moment, and he’s since shared more than 16 releases using the alias. That includes 2017’s Auratones on Soma Recordings, the Glasgow label that will also release Functional Designs.

You can read more about Modell and his work in his XLR8R podcast here.

The album will be preceded by Functional Extraits 1, an EP off off-cuts, and Functional Extraits 2, which is scheduled for October release.

Tracklisting

01. Amber
02. Darkness Falls
03. Transit Systems 
04. Strangers
05. Panacast 
06. CloudSat
07. Pressure
08. Ebb and Flow
09. Sun
10. Memories
11. Drassanes

Functional Designs LP is scheduled for September 30 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Strangers” below and pre-order here.

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