MUTEK.MX has announced that Squarepusher will be performing at this year’s event.
MUTEK.MX’s 14th edition will run from October 11 to 15 across multiple venues in Mexico City. Squarepusher joins the already announced list of artists, including Alva Noto, Rødhåd, Emptyset, Leafar Legov, Babyfather, Aurora Halal, Actress, Kettenkarussell, The Orb, Patten, Telefon Tel Aviv, and fellow Warp artist Lorenzo Senni.
You can find the entire lineup and more information on MUTEK.MX here.
“VO/CE” is the first single from Tokyo-born, Sydney-based producer Heroarky, the title track to his debut three-track EP.
Musically, Heroarky draws influence from minimalist producers such as Steve Reich, as well as his day job helping refugees, mainly from Syria and Iraq, to establish a new life in Sydney.
Across the near-four-minute run time of “VO/CE,” Heroarky introduces us to his soundworld, a warm and inviting sonic space built on groove-led beats, ethereal vocal samples, and floating pads.
You can download “VO/CE” via WeTransfer below, with the EP available to purchase here.
Tomorrow, Astral Black‘s Xao will drop his debut EP, Alloys.
Alloys follows a year spent heading up Astral Black’s monthly Radar Radio with five pummeling, bass-heavy cuts. Keen listeners would have heard tracks from the EP across the airwaves and DJ sets in recent times, with a handful becoming favorites of UIQ’s Sim Hutchins, Soda Plains, NTS, and Rinse FM. Although the EP runs like a coherent whole, Xao manages to reference trap and Southern rap, frantic footwork, haunting, bass-heavy grime, and genreless future-leaning styles across the EP’s run time.
In support of the release, Astral Black have offered up a full stream of “Lockjaw,” an atmospheric ride through warped bass. You can stream the track below, with the EP available for pre-order and purchase here.
Mattokìnd—Italian for “crazy” and German for “kid” stuck together as one word—are a Berlin-based two-piece of Jae and Cristiano (a freelance classical violinist and producer). Between them, they “bridge a gap between electronic and organic music,” creating starkly beautiful, intimate and stirring compositions as presented on their debut self-released EP.
After meeting coincidentally and hitting it off, soon many late nights followed and the pair would play records to one another until the sun crept up. Cristiano showed Jae ’90s post-rock and Jae shared her favorite recordings of Beethoven’s late string quartets. “Through these nocturnal listening sessions, we were able to gradually piece together the kind of world the other came from,” they say of these bonding sessions.
The finished product of said EP is a deeply rich one, dense in ambiance and gently skating around genres to never quite settle on ambient, or electronic, or classical or chamber pop anything else specifically definable. However, such ambiguity is something the duo are keen to explore further. “We associate ourselves with electronic music but not to any specific scene. There are pros and cons of this ambiguity of course but we feel that not being part of any scene facilitates more interesting possibilities. We feel that our genre of ambiguity gives us a good starting point to be flexible and unconstrained, to explore different live show formats.”
Now, “Scenescape,” the duo’s debut self-released single is available to listen and download via the WeTransfer button below.
Erased Tapes will release a new LP from Icelandic composer and singer Högni, titled Two Trains.
Högni may best be recognized for his work in the indie band Hjaltalín and electronic group GusGus, but on Two Trains “he steps out on his own to embrace his Icelandic heritage,” the London label explains. The album will be his first album under his own name, though he’s also released solo ambient music under the name ADSR.
At the heart of the LP is an allusion to two locomotive trains central to Icelandic industrialization in 1913-17, the Minør and Pionér. The two locomotives ushered in a new age in Iceland, helping construct the Reykjavík harbor by hauling stone, concrete, and gravel across the country, thus bringing Iceland into modernity. However, upon completion of the harbor in 1917, the trains were permanently parked and never used again. Now they only serve to remind us of the grandeur of a bygone future. They are the only trains ever to have graced the Icelandic landscape.
The trains are representations of the different incarnations of Hogni’s persona during a difficult period in his life. “As a society, we are also quite often faced with a fork in the road and a decision to make, and most importantly the acceptance of one’s self,” the label says. The music in Two Trains “embraces the spirit of the original European avant-garde and invokes these concepts in its chugging rhythms, metallic clangs, and brooding choral arrangements (men’s choruses are a distinctly Icelandic phenomena related to the national/romantic politics of the 19th and 20th century) while the lyrics speak of ominous clouds on the war-ridden eastern horizon and freight cars filled with gravel and dreams.”
Words from Högni, July 2017:
“The music on Two Trains is a blueprint of a period in my life where I collided with my own self, and at that point, I felt the indifference between the personal and the universal, the absolute consciousness of life’s unconsciousness. Perhaps it’s a feeling that cannot be conveyed, like watercolors that just seem to wash off into the sea. But also a flashing mirage that you can enjoy before you arrive at your last destination.”
Tracklisting
01. Anda∂u
02. Shed Your Skin
03. Komdu Me∂
04. Crash
05. Drag∂u Mig
06. Óve∂urssky
07. Break Up
08. Moon Pitcher
09. Parallel
10. Enn Næ∂a Or∂
Erased Tapes will release Two Trains on October 20, with “Komdu Me∂” streamable in full below.
Ableton has finalized the lineup for this year’s Loop summit in Berlin.
The latest announcement includes live performances by Jenny Hval, mobilegirl, Visible Cloaks, and Kaki King, a new live performance by Nosaj Thing in collaboration with Japanese artist Daito Manabe, a live performance by Laurel Halo with drummer Eli Keszler, and keynote conversations with Ben Frost, Goldie, and Chloe x Halle. The Roots’ Stro Elliot, JD Twitch, Goth-Trad, and Syrian The Khaled Kurbeh & Raman Khalaf Ensemble were also announced.
The 2017 Loop program will also feature the previously announced lineup, including Jlin and Machinedrum, African music collective The Nile Project, acclaimed mastering engineer Mandy Parnell, Berklee professor and Prince’s audio engineer Susan Rogers, ambient music luminary William Basinski, and music tech innovators Teenage Engineering.
You can find out more on Loop here.
Earlier this year at IMS Ibiza, Point Blank’s Carly Hordern hosted a special masterclass with DVS1 focusing on DJ skills.
During the masterclass, the Mistress label head discussed his use of technology in music, approach to creativity, and his view on creating a unique DJ’ing style, before giving a short, awe-inspiring performance and elaborating on the techniques he employs to get the best from his sets.
You can watch the video in full via the player above, with more on Point Blank and the courses they offer here.
Following on from their self-titled debut album and live show for Piano Day at Union Chapel, Dead Light return with a four-track remix EP, crafting originals “Sleeper,” “Falling In” and “Trills” into potent and thoughtful re-imaginings.
Andrea Belfi joined the duo during their well-received appearance at Piano Day for an improvised performance. He comes back into the fold, opening Dead Light Remixed with his version of “Sleeper,” a haunting, driving hymn. It’s vamped with full reverb, wide open spaces, and rolls forward with sparse and purposeful drum-work.
Also on remix duties are Rafael Anton Irisarri (a.k.a The Sight Below), Border Community’s Luke Abbott, and Dead Light themselves.
Dead Light Remixed EP is scheduled for August 25 release via Village Green, with Andrea Belfi’s rework of “Sleeper” exclusively available to download below.
Dense & Pika is the DJ/production project of Alex Jones—Hypercolour label boss—and Chris Spero, most widely known for his work as Glimpse. Their collaborative journey started in 2011 with a number of white label releases, and it wasn’t long until Scuba recognised their talents, inviting them to release on his Hotflush imprint—where they’ve put out a string of EPs and remixes. Other releases have landed on Hypercolour as well as Adam Beyer‘s Drumcode. Away from the studio, the pair continue to tour the world on a weekly basis, all while ensuring they provide for their families and take care of the plethora of responsibilities associated with later life. In this month’s Real Talk, the duo reflects on the challenges of an extended life in music.
Dense & Pika will be performing at Croatia’s Sonus Festival in August, alongside Binh, Rhadoo, and more. This year’s edition takes place from August 20 to 24 in Croatia, with more information available here.
When you’ve spent the best part of your life DJing and producing things can start to get pretty serious. As you get older, life just gets that way, there isn’t much of an escape from it. We all end up with long-term partners and often you also have kids, too. Alex has a 15-month-old daughter while Chris has two daughters, aged two and seven. As you can imagine, our perspectives have changed massively since we both got married and had children. You start to have more of a business-minded mentality to this industry.
Management is a really weird one but it is essential. It’s such a complex and multi-faceted situation when you manage an artist and vice versa. We’re managed by Jeremy Ford, who also manages Adam Beyer. Jel has changed our lives really. Ever since we started working with him everything has fallen into place; he’s sorted out some pretty amazing stuff—some of which we can’t mention right now—big projects, remixes. He’s been a game changer for us.
A good manager uses their leverage to get you into beneficial situations, they will put you in a shop window and then it’s up to you to prove your worth. They sort an accountant and get your finances in order. We now have a financial structure, a model for how our “business” works, which is pretty mindblowing and has taken a massive weight off our shoulders. Jel put all our agents in place; he literally changed our lives. Most importantly, he’s not afraid to tell you when something is shit. As we said, managing is a complex job and you sometimes have to be brutally honest with an artist. It’s crucial that an open channel of communication is in operation so you can both be frank without upsetting one another and ruining the relationship. Trust is key.
The most important thing for us is working with people we like, which can be applied to life outside of this world, too. You’ve got to get on with the people you work with, you’ve got to like them as people. The perfect scenario is that you all have mutual respect and admiration for one another, you’re all in this together working towards the same goal. Disagreements will come but they are dealt with in a professional manner. You must believe in one another—if you keep telling someone they’re doing a bad job they will lose their self-belief and most likely get worse. But if you get positive feedback for doing a great job you will keep on working to the best of your abilities, it’s a self-perpetuating motion of positivity.
Since we’ve had our new PR on board, for instance, our view of ourselves has changed. You can get into a downward spiral wondering why you’re not getting any press, and some of us can take it quite personally. We’re not on the inside, so we don’t know how it works. There isn’t one definitive answer and you can get knocked down quite easily when the press thing isn’t working out for you. So when you hire someone who not only gets you as an artist, likes what you do and believes in you, and then also gets you widespread press coverage in respected publications, you start to look at yourself differently. You become more positive, which feeds into all aspects of your life and career.
You have to remember that this thing does become quite serious. You’re in your mid-30s with a family to think about, so there is some pressure there. We might be on the frontline, in the clubs, on stages at festivals but when it comes to those behind-the-scenes machinations, we’re not really in control. We’re not privy to the conversations between PR and journalist, or booking agent and promoter, so we just don’t know why the press or gigs are not coming in as we’d like unless the people representing us are feeding back in an honest way. Sometimes, if you’re with the wrong people, there is no communication about the things that matter and you get lost wondering what’s going wrong—you question yourself and it can be tough.
We’re not businessmen at all so having our team in place is crucial, we trust everyone implicitly. We also trust each other, there’s no worry in that department. Look at the people who are really really successful—Sven Väth, Adam Beyer, Richie Hawtin—they’re savvy, they’re composed, and they’re fucking professionals. At the end of the day, this is a business. You can be creative but you can also have a good head on your shoulders, not get a massive ego and get battered all the time—and being aware of the business side of things will complement your creativity if you do it right. However, this is an industry that’s fed on youth and young people by their very nature are often perhaps not as likely to be so measured in their approach. Youth is wasted on the youth, as they say!
“When money, a house, a spouse, and children get involved that changes but you still have to keep the fire burning and maintain that hunger.”
For most of us, there’s just no way we can behave in the same way we would have done when we first started out. Chris was 16 when he first got into this, and Alex not much older—and you’re so hungry with zero responsibilities at this point. You’re in the studio smashing it out for days on end, partying all weekend and doing it all over again week in, week out. The thought of it being a “business” is the last thing on your mind. When money, a house, a spouse, and children get involved that changes but you still have to keep the fire burning and maintain that hunger.
As a touring DJ with children to think about, there’s a constant tug of war between wanting to spend less time away, or in the studio, and wanting to earn enough money to support them. It’s very much a double-edged sword with the focus always on the kids. How you manage your schedule on the road can become a minefield. Being away for long periods can actually be brutal. One of the very worst things is when you’re away and your kids are ill. Alex’s daughter Suki isn’t well at the moment, he’s been up all night with her online while she’s been coughing and you feel really bad because there’s nothing you can do but say, “There, there” – and your wife can get frustrated because she’s dealing with it all first-hand while you’re holed up in a hotel room somewhere post-rave. There’s nothing you can do—nothing. Alex hasn’t seen Suki in the flesh for seven days now. Thank goodness for Skype.
“You never allow yourself to go too crazy because it can lead to resentment from a partner. Neglecting your family in the name of a few more hours of raving is just not on at all.”
On the flipside, you have to think that most people who work in the city are out of the house at seven in the morning, whereas Alex is up with his little girl at 5.30am and Chris takes his kids to school every day. He can be with his daughters until 10 am, he does their homework with them, reads to them in the evenings, so he probably spends a lot more time with his girls than people who have to work long hours during the week. That quality time is so important, it’s crucial for the whole family. Time is so precious: you never want to miss anything and you want to be with them as much as you can. If you ever get caught up in the madness that our world can become, being with family is instantly grounding. You never allow yourself to go too crazy because it can lead to resentment from a partner. Neglecting your family in the name of a few more hours of raveing is just not on at all. Without being too preachy, there’s always going to be another rave but imagine missing your daughter’s school play or your wife’s birthday because you decided to crack on for another day? Unforgivable.
Balance is key. To get a bit of balance we both try and take Mondays off now. You’re tired after the weekend, so you can recuperate, go to the gym, spend time with your kids and your wife. Going out for dinner with his wife is really important to Chris, for example. It gets really tricky if you don’t do things like that because you can end up not spending any quality time together at all. The divorce rate among DJs is so high. If you’re going out with a DJ it’s a fucking tough gig, you marry someone, you have kids and they’re like, ‘Seeya, I’m off raving every weekend for the foreseeable future’! Luckily for us both of our wives are absolutely amazingly understanding about it. What DJ wives and husbands have to contend with is probably too much sometimes, we’re so fortunate to be with people who are not only willing to put up with it but give us so much support. That is one of the most important factors in being a success: having a supportive other half.
You view your own mortality with a lot more seriously when you get older, too. You want to live long enough to see your kids grow up. That sounds morbid but it is something you start to think about. Lots of artists from our generation are being more mentally and physically conscious—the usual yoga, meditation, eating healthy, going vegan—and a lot of people are doing it because it all catches up with you if you don’t. You begin to counteract the excess with being more health conscious when you can be; Chris likes to do a lot of healthy stuff during the week—going running or to the gym but sadly when you’re on tour that all goes out of the window. That unhealthy side can be testing, to say the least. Honestly, if you took a normal person and told them you’ve got to go raving in three different countries this weekend, and there’ll be flight delays, a lack of sleep and mainly rubbish food, they’d probably be like, “Really?! That’s a bit of a tall order.” It’s a lot to ask of somebody when you really break it down.
Naturally, we will always feel emotional about our daughters and, as we’ve said, juggling the career, the business with family and all of the added responsibility that comes with it can be a bit of a strain at times, but you just to have to get on with it. We chose this life. When you see other DJs who get it right, it’s really inspiring. Like Adam [Beyer] for example, he’s at the top of his game, he’s got three kids and he’s happily married—it proves that people can make it work. You’ve just got to have self-discipline and everyone’s got to be in it to win it. You need to have a deep understanding between you and your spouse, and your team. It becomes more of a job and less of a jolly, that’s what the people who get it right do: they treat it like a business—a job. A job that is also a hell of a lot of fun.
Over the last few years, William Reed (a.k.a. William Welt) and his labels—Eye Shadow, 22 Digit, and DEAD CERT.—have been featured on our pages quite regularly via downloads and premieres. For his latest endeavor, a new vinyl release on Eye Shadow that dropped on June 9, Welt enlisted the modular stylings of Freerotation resident and founder Steevio.
The vinyl-only Eye Shadow 003 features three deep and intricate originals, alongside a loose and swinging remix from Welt. Producing entirely with an awe-inspiring modular rig, Steevio’s productions are free-flowing wonders, built with shuffling percussion and pure machine funk—qualities this release has in spades.
In support of the release, Welt has offered up his remix as today’s XLR8R download, available via WeTransfer below. You can pick up Eye Shadow 003 here.
