Caterina Barbieri’s Third Album is Incoming

Caterina Barbieri will release her third album, Spirit Exit, next month.

Spirit Exit is the Italian artist’s “time machine,” we’re told, in that it’s primarily composed with a modular synth rig that she thinks of more like a mechanical fortune teller.

Whereas her previous releases—including 2017’s Patterns of Consciousness and 2019’s Ecstatic Computation—were constructed on tour, capturing only snapshots of continually evolving works, Spirit Exit was written and recorded in her home studio amidst Milan’s pandemic lockdown in 2020.

During this extended isolation, Barbieri found inspiration from female philosophers, mystics, and poets, united in their strength at cultivating vast internal worlds. We’re told that St. Teresa D’Avila’s 16th century mystical text “The Interior Castle,” philosopher Rosi Braidotti’s theories, and the metaphysical poetry of Emily Dickinson act as “thematic anchors” across Spirit Exit.

Sonically, Spirit Exit crystallizes Barbieri’s densely layered synth arrangements while introducing strings and guitar, and her singing voice. It marks the first album on Barbieri’s new label, light-years.

Tracklisting

01. At Your Gamut
02. Transfixed
03. Canticle of Cryo
04. Knot of Spirit (Synth Version)
05. Broken Melody
06. Life at Altitud
07. Terminal Clock
08. The Landscape Listens

Spirit Exit LP is scheduled for July 8 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “At Your Gamut,” “Broken Melody,” and “Terminal Clock” in full below and pre-order here.

Lawrence English Soundtracks Yoshihisa Tagami’s Manga ‘Grey’ For New Album

Lawrence English will release a soundtrack to Yoshihisa Tagami’s manga Grey, originally released in 1986, on Room40.

Grey, a type of Japanese graphic novel or comic, was one of the first mangas to be translated and distributed outside of Japan. It was also the first manga that English bought for myself, at the age of 13, and it left a lasting impression on him. After rediscovering it in 2021, he was struck by how internalised some of the manga’s themes had become and he became compelled to create a soundtrack as a form of “distorted mirror to its pages,” he says.

It’s a work steeped in nostalgia of memory that muses how experiences and encounters shape us in unexpected ways.  “This album, Approach, is an echo that has travelled with me for 33 years,” English adds, “even if I wasn’t fully aware of it.”

English describes the album as a kind of “sonic postcard” that he has retrospectively drafted for the unsteady teenage version of himself. It also pays homage to the family and friends who helped to “cushion and guide that young body and mind.”

The record is mastered by Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung Mastering.

Tracklisting

01. Pre-Approach: Citizen
02. Approach I: Grey Death
03. Approach II: The Doll
04. Approach III: Losing Red
05. Approach IV: Shidara
06. Approach V: First Encounter
07. Approach VI: Ruins
08. Approach VII: Nagoshi
09. Approach VIII: Becoming Halfling
10. Approach IX: Lara’s Theme
11. Approach X: The City
12. Approach XI: Toy

Approach LP is scheduled for September 23 release. Meanwhile, you can stream an edit of “Approach V: First Encounter” below and pre-order here.

Nils Frahm Returns to LEITER with First Album in Four Years

Nils Frahm will release Music for Animals, his first fresh studio material since 2018’s All Melody and 2019’s associated All Encores.

Containing 10 tracks and clocking in at over three hours long, Music for Animals is “an ambitious and compelling set different to anything Frahm has released to date,” we’re told. He recorded it between 2020 and 2022 and it’s in part a document of the pandemic and of the long, lonely hours he spent at his studio in Berlin. “Nothing was happening,” Frahm recalls, “and I felt like this was a special time which needed a special kind of music.”

Notably, there is no piano on the album. It’s also the first record on which Frahm has worked with his wife.

“Like everyone, Nina had to spend much more time on her own at home,” he recalls. One day she brought a picnic over to the studio, and we opened a bottle of wine, then I showed her my new instrument, a glass harmonica. When she tried playing it, it sounded amazing, and I recorded that first interaction. Afterwards she came a couple of times a week, and each time I’d prepare a little sequence to jam on. She’s not musically trained, but she was playing with so much purpose and care. That’s very helpful, just playing the few notes you really feel and otherwise not playing anything.”

Unfolding at an unhurried, meditative pace in a celebration of tone, timbre, and texture, Music for Animals offers an “unusually immersive experience,” we’re told. It also functions as what Erik Satie once called “Furniture Music,” inviting a listener to wander in and out at their leisure. Frahm likens it to watching a waterfall or the leaves on a storm: “If you want to watch it, watch it,” he says. “If you don’t, then you don’t have to. “

Music for Animals is Frahm’s first album of new music for LEITER, the label he co-founded with his manager, Felix Grimm. All his earlier work has landed on London’s Erased Tapes.

Tracklisting

01. The Dog With 1000 Faces
02. Mussel Memory
03. Seagull Scene
04. Sheep In Black and White
05. Stepping Stone
06. Briefly
07. Right Right Right
08. World Of Squares
09. Lemon Day
10. Do Dream

Music for Animals LP is scheduled for released on September 23. You can stream “Right Right Right” in full below and pre-order here.

Hudson Mohawke’s Third Album is a Soundtrack to Cultural Meltdown

Photo: Jonnie Chambers

Hudson Mohawke, real name Ross Birchard, will release Cry Sugar, a new album on Warp Records.

Cry Sugar is Mohwake’s third album for Warp and it serves as his first work informed by apocalyptic film scores and soundtracks by everyone from the late Vangelis to John Williams.

Cry Sugar also serves as Mohawke’s own demented original score for the twilight of our cultural meltdown. This is captured in the artwork, by Willehad Eilers, which depicts Ghostbusters’ Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Sonically, the album touches on various styles of club music across 19 tracks, while deepening the Glaswegian producer’s practice of “producing motivational music for club goers.” It arrives alongside new single “Bicstan” plus an accompanying kingcon2k11-directed Megamix visualizer. Also, on “Cry Sugar (Megamix),” Hudson takes various parts from the full album to offer a window into the project’s full sonic palette ahead of release.

Mohawke began making MDMA-drenched, strobe light rap anthems from his bedroom in Glasgow, before dropping his legendary 2005 mixtape, Hudson’s Heeters. He released his debut album, Butter, in 2009, with its glossy, hyper-real pop production. Lantern, his second album for the seminal UK label Warp, arrived in 2015.

Tracklisting

01. Ingle Nook
02. Intentions
03. Expo
04. Behold
05. Bicstan
06. Stump
07. Dance Forever
08. Bow
09. Is It Supposed
10. Lonely Days
11. Redeem
12. Rain Shadow
13. KPIPE
14. 3 Sheets To The Wind
15. Some Buzz
16. Tincture
17. Nork 69
18. Come A Little Closer
19. Ingle Nook Slumber

Cry Sugar LP is scheduled for August 12 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Bicstan” and “Cry Sugar (Megamix)” below and pre-order here.

Objekt is Back with First New Music in Four Years


Photo: Kasia Zacharko

TJ Hertz, better known as Objekt, has put out a new EP—his first release since 2018’s Cocoon Crush.

Objekt #5 is the latest instalment in Hertz’ white-label series, and his slowest, and perhaps fiercest, 12” to date. It explores dancehall rhythms with his distinctive sound design.

Hertz describes the EP as “tackling ‘the slow banger'” across two raucous club tracks that he produced and engineered himself.

Hertz is a DJ-producer living in Berlin. Born in Tokyo to British-American and Filipino parents, he began the series with Objekt #1 and Objekt #2 in 2011. He’s since released albums Flatland (2014) and Cocoon Crush, both on PAN. Objekt#4, the series’ latest iteration, came in March 2017.

Tracklisting

A. Bad Apples
AA. Ballast

Objekt #5 is available on vinyl now. You can stream it below and order it here.

Coby Sey Next on AD 93 for Debut Album

AD 93 will release the debut album of Coby Sey, a London producer and vocalist.

Known to many for his collaborations with Tirzah, Mica Levi, and Klein, Sey’s influence stretches across many of the most important UK records of this decade.

The album’s sonic direction was cemented by a recent live performance on the rooftop of The Laundry with friends Ben Vince, CJ Calderwood, and Biu Rainey. It’s feeling is nocturnal “with luminous moments shimmering throughout.” Sonically, we’re told that it traverses “woozy and corrosive post-grime” and flirts with post-punk, jazz fusion, and experimental electronics. As ever, Sey’s style remains intimate but a sense of frustration ripples throughout in comparison to his previous releases.

Conduit is Sey’s second appearance in AD 93, following a 2017 EP, released when the label was still known as Whities.

Across eight tracks, Sey plays multiple instruments but there are also credits for Ben Vince (tenor saxophone, loops), Raisa Mariam Khan (electronic percussion), CJ Calderwood (alto saxophone), and Biu Rainey (electric guitar).

“Conduit is a statement of intent, reaffirming my dedication to transcend the tangible through music,” Sey says. “It’s my way to continue and contribute to the musical lineage laid by those before me, locally and worldwide.”

Tracklisting

01. Etym
02. Mist Through the Bits
03. Permeated Secrets
04. Dial Square (Confront)
05. Night Ride
06. Onus
07. Response
08. Eve (Anwummerɛ)

Conduit LP is scheduled for September 9 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Permeated Secrets” below and pre-order here.

I.JORDAN is Back on Ninja Tune with Dreamy Double-Single

I. JORDAN has released a double-single called Always Been / First Time Back on Ninja Tune.

Tried and tested on the road since clubs re-opened in 2021, both tracks have become staples of Jordan’s DJ sets this last year and have been honed according to crowd reactions.

The release marks the London artist’s first solo music since the release of their 2021 EP, Watch Out!, which was released on Ninja Tune. It also comes shortly after Jordan announced their official name change to I. JORDAN, from India Jordan. When speaking on the subject, they commented that it felt “heavy” carrying around India Jordan when it “really doesn’t resonate with me anymore.” The release is the first in a series of double-singles scheduled for release in 2022.

The artwork that accompanies the release is taken by photographer El Hardwick and feels significant to Jordan. With their back to the camera and face out of shot, it draws focus to other identifying features such as hair, tattoos, and a “J” signet ring Jordan gifted to themselves to celebrate the name change.

“As a trans person, I’m forever changing,” Jordan says, “being visible in the image without directly showing my face allowed me to avoid capturing something I might feel unconnected to in a few months time, but still shows off parts of my trans-ness.”

Tracklisting

01. Always Been
02. First Time Back
03. Always Been (Edit)

Always Been / First Time Back is out now on Ninja Tune. You can stream it in full below and order it here.

Podcast 753: Ana Helder

With Ana Helder, an Argentinian musician based in Cologne, Germany, you can expect aggressive drums, weird samples, and lots of bass guitar. She releases most of her music on Cómeme, after connecting with the label through MySpace. She debuted on the label with El Groove De Tu Corazón.

Helder was born in Rosario but raised in Buenos Aires, where she developed an interest in music, especially rock and reggae. During the early 2000s, she tried to play in bands but struggled to memorize song structure, so naturally she fell into programming, editing, and improvising. Since 2011, the same year she signed with Cómeme, Helder has developed a broad discography that amplifies house music with boogie, disco, and funk. In 2020, she shared Landpark, a five-track EP on Müstique, but more recently she delivered a chugging psychedelic piece of dance music for the latest XLR8R+ package.

Now, in support of that package, she’s delivered an XLR8R podcast, recorded earlier this month during her set at Odonien in Cologne. It was a dark and musty atmosphere, with an empty dancefloor, and Helder’s job was to fill it. Pulling tracks from Space Ghost, DJ Python, and Ron Trent, she moved from brooding psychedelia to hard-hitting techno, all underlined by warped sound design that’s sure to trip you out and melt your mind.

01. What have you been up to recently?
The usual: working on music.

02. What have you been listening to? 
This weekend a good friend introduced me to Saturno 2000 which I found really cool. It’s a compilation about cumbia rebajada. It has very nice sonic sounds and funny lyrics.

03. When and where did you record this mix?
It was earlier this month, when I played in Odonien in Cologne. I realized I had to do the mix and I saw the opportunity to do it there.

04. What can the listener expect?
It’s the first hour of my set that night. The doors had only just opened so there were only three people there. I thought about starting with some calm techno and house but the people wanted to dance so I built it up fast and soon the room was filled with dancers.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included? 
I selected from a collection of tracks that I want to play and I think they can fit during the night. In this case the dancefloor was dark and foggy. So I chose tracks that could work in that place and also for the podcast. In general, I like to try out tracks that are fresh but there’s some tracks that I always carry with me. Like Bell’s “Computer.”

06. What’s next on your horizon? 
I’m looking forward to playing in the next Comeme night in Tbilisi with Matias Aguayo, Katerina, and Borusiade. I’m also close to finishing some material I want to release.

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. DJ Python “Oooophi” (Incienso)
02. Ana Helder “Campanas” (Unreleased)
03. Space Ghost “Deep” (Vibes Mix) (Tartelet Records)
04. D.K. “Marimba Theme” (Antinote)
05. Bell “Computer” (Satelite)
06. King Jazz “Lockdown” (NTS)
07. Jamal Moss “The Lust With-In” (Modern Love)
08. Tony Price “Turbo” (Dub) (Telephone Explosion Records)
09. Zillas on Acid “Black Cat” (Optimo Music Digital Danceforce)
10. Teto Preto “Pedra Preta” (Valesuchi Remix) (Mamba Rec)
11. System 01 “Paralysed Force” (Mannequin)
12. Ron Trent “Flos Potentia” (Sugar, Cotton, Tabacco) feat. Khruangbin (Night Time Stories)
13. Sara Dziri “Horizons” (Optimo Music Digital Danceforce)

Bvdub to Release New Album on Affin

Brock Van Wey, better known as Bvdub, will release his first album on Affin, the label founded in 2007 by Joachim Spieth.

Since he started out in 2007, Van Wey has released more than 40 albums and EPs, spanning ambient of electro-acoustic compositions. He kick-started his career in music as a DJ on the San Francisco rave scene and runs Quietus Recordings, which is “dedicated to releasing and communicating the deepest, most personal, and innermost realms of electronic music.”

Decades On Divided Stars, his first album since Violet Opposition in February, features four powerful long-form compositions, each “with a sonic and emotional density second to none,” we’re told.

Alongside the release, Van Way shared the following statement:

“You are lost… Losing your sense of time…. for yourself. And yet you find your inner existence in the galaxies folding inward. Your thoughts and emotions circle like planets caught in gravitational pull before you suddenly awaken as if from a dream, unaware of how much time has passed. Only the stars will tell…”

Tracklisting

01. Invisible Emperors
02. Colors Unknown to You
03. Twelve Years Apart
04. Decades On Divided Stars

Decades On Divided Stars LP is scheduled for July 22 release. Meanwhile, you can stream clips below and pre-order here.

Podcast 754: Lowris

As a resident of Concrete before the club closed its doors in 2019, Lowris, the alias of Loris Pugnet, shared the decks with artists including Onur Özer, Cabanne, Sonja Moonear, and Zip—which should say enough about where his sound sits: wonky minimal tunes that’ll have your feet shuffling in no time. In the years since, he’s established himself as a skilled label head with Æternum Music, which is where he’s released some of his work as K.O.D. (meaning Kings of Delay), plus Le Loup and Alci. For years, Lowris was a key artist on the Yoyaku roster in Paris, alongside the likes of Zendid, Maayan Nidam, Varhat, and Lamache, but he’s recently signed to Reciproc in Bucharest.

You won’t find much other information on Pugnet, other than that he grew up in the Parisian sububurbs and discovered electronic music around the age of 15. He began with hardcore but moved to house and techno when Le Loup introduced him to Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos, and from there, his direction changed. Today he rolls out stripped-back records on labels like Minibar and Crazy Jack Records while spending his weekends spinning the best ones he can find in small, dark clubs across Europe. (He’s also a meticulous Sound Engineer, at Eye Sound Studio, working with the likes of Steve O’Sullivan and Rhadoo). Following the success of his last mix he delivered to us, we asked him to return to the XLR8R pages for an official podcast and he responded with a recording of one his favorite sets in Slovenia—one of those special nights where his music and the crowd came together as one. Press play for one of free-wheeling, stripped-back house.

01. What have you been up to recently?
Recently I have been busy with changing booking agencies from Yoyaku to Reciproc, working on various collaborations, plus there’s a new alias, Labello, with my friend Abé, coming out on Rotate. There’s also been a few remixes for Tommy Vicari Jnr, Saudade, and Pheek & Kike Mayor. I’m also working on a new imprint with my partner, Adema from Full Scale. More information on this will come soon.

02. What have you been listening to?
An old psychedelic rock album gifted by my Brazilian friends: Tim Maia’s Nobody Can Live Forever.

03. Where and when did you record this mix?
This set was recorded during a party by the lovely Solvd crew in collaboration with Yoyaku at Klub K4 in Ljubljana. It was my first time in Slovenia and I was amazed by the people’s energy!

04. Can you talk us through some of the tracks and artists it features?
In this cut you can hear tunes from Niko Maxen, Ted Ambers, Silat Beksi, and Traumer. I’m following their work closely. There are also some oldies from the vault.

05. What’s next on your agenda?
I’m playing this weekend in Paris with Reiss from Vbx at the new Démesure Ouest Club.

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.

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