Montreal artist Smileswithteeth makes intricate and tender slices of electronics that are charged by emotions. His releases—2013’s Here, 2014’s Everyday Always, and 2016’s Walk Forever—arrive with personal heartfelt messages and anecdotes that directly relate to the music they accompany. Musically, comparisons can be drawn to electronic contemporaries like Bonobo or Bibio, but this could simply be due to the affecting qualities of his music.
His latest release, out on Knowmad Records, is a single titled “We Fight In The Prettiest Places,” which looks to the stunning landscapes of Iceland and love—or the loss of love—for its inspiration, as he explains:
“In Iceland, the landscape changes so quickly that everything starts to superimpose. Mountains covered in snow jut up against deserts, lush fields balloon up and then disappear, fog rolls in and then dissipates leaving you much higher than you thought you were and with much less distance between you and the cliff that you just realized you were driving on.
My new song is about the way that scenery flies by in a car and the feeling of losing someone despite your best intentions.”
You can download “We Fight In The Prettiest Places” via WeTransfer below, with more on Smileswithteeth here.
AWAY Music is set to start a new techno-focused label called Astray.
The Berlin-based brand is known for some of the finest selected house and techno lineups at About Blank, hosting names such as Derrick May, Moodymann, Omar S, Hunee, and DJ Sneak, to name a few. As a label, AWAY Music has so far released work from Move D, Christian Vance, and their own AWAY Soundsystem.
The first release on the new label will feature an EP by the talented newcomer Discrete Circuit, co-founder of the imprint who has previously released on DVS1’s Mistress Recordings, Darko Esser’s Wolfskuil, Delsin, and Mark Broom’s label Beard Man. Road Force is described as a versatile four-tracker showcasing both the dancefloor and the experimental sides of techno, and will land on June 30.
Ahead of the release, the label has offered up an “Impressions” rework of “Circuitry,” which is available as a free download below.
Nina Kraviz‘ Trip label will soon release a new album from Biogen.
The LP is a mixture of rare and unreleased material from the late Icelandic producer.
Biogen (a.k.a Sigurbjörn Þórgrímsson) was a pioneer in Icelandic electronic music, first as part of the hardcore group Ajax, and later as a founder of the Thule label, which released music from other Icelandic producers like Thor and Exos. His own music was unpredictable and experimental, encompassing made-up genres like “sofatrance.” He only put out a few records under the name Biogen, through Thule and Uni:form Recordings.
Halogen Continues, compiled by Nina Kraviz with help from Ruxpin, who gave her access to Þórgrímsson’s archives, collects rare and unreleased material, some of which was first unearthed last year for digital-only Bandcamp releases.
“I picked the most idiosyncratic cuts that show his creative approach most brightly,”Kraviz says. “Some of them are short cuts ending obnoxiously with a lot of temper, and others gorgeous atmospheric narratives—so deep and haunting that it feels like they are not familiar with a notion of time and dissolve slowly into the eternity.”
The album will be followed by a compilation of Þórgrímsson’s ambient and experimental music on GALAXIID later in 2017.
Tracklisting
A1. Irrelevant Information A2. Lag 38 A3. Borealis A4. Autofloat B1. Lag 7 B2. Lag 24 B3. 160 Techno B4. Lag 9 C1. Bliss C2. Lag 8 D1. Forever Is Never Again D2. 303 Ambient D3. Halogen Continues
Trip will release Halogen Continues on June 23, with “303 Ambient” exclusively streamable in full below.
The Tear Up The Club / Watton Res two-tracker will be the producer’s first EP on the imprint after 2014’s Black Light Spiral LP. It is also his first solo release since Doff, which landed in 2015.
Tear Up The Club / Watton Res EP is scheduled for July 7 release, with clips available below.
Sam Haar and Zach Steinman(a.k.a Blondes) will release a new LP on R&S Records.
A decade into their musical relationship, the NY-based duo continue to find inspiration through hardware instrumentation and improvisation. They got their start back in the early 2010s and have released almost exclusively through highly respected RVNG Intl. label. After parting company, however, the duo have found a natural home at R&S, as they explain:
“Having released on RVNG for years, we had wanted to move in the direction of releasing on a more dance music focused label. RVNG has established itself in the world of experimental music and reissuing overlooked records from the past, and we both (RVNG and Blondes) thought it would be immensely exciting for us to release this new record with R&S.”
“Warmth,” according to the label, finds the duo further stripping away extraneous elements and pushing their percussive framework to the forefront. The result is lysergic techno fused with the duo’s characteristic synth-work and atmospherics.
Tracklisting
01. OP Actual 02. Clipse 03. Quality Of Life 04. Stringer 05. Trust 06. Tens 07. KDM 08. All You 09. MRO 10. Cleo
Warmth LP is scheduled for August 11 release, with “KDM” streamable in full below.
The Parallel Window EP will mark the British producer’s first release of 2017 and his first ever on Parachute.
Driven and direct, the release includes three”wrought-iron originals” and remix from Token affiliate Sigha. The music, according to the label, features “careful modulation drawing sounds in and out of the sonic hinterland sporadically to create a comfortable atmospheric balance between peak-time dancefloor urgency and hazy mid-set moments.”
Chris Geschwindner is a Frankfurt-born, Darmstadt-based DJ and producer who will soon release a track on the debut VA from Ukranian label Fakedtunes.
At just 23 years old, the rising Geschwindner has already made a name for himself with his unique hybrid of minimal house and melancholic techno. Initially noticed as a skilled DJ, Geschwindner fell in with the Five Finger Records crew shortly after relocating to Darmstadt, where he began to perform regularly at the local club Galerie Kurzweil. Geschwindner’s productions eventually started to appear after developing his first live set in 2015, and since then he has released several remixes and EP’s on labels from the likes of Second Step, Project London Records, and the UK-based NorthSouth Records. Last year’s standout Mathilde EP on Five Finger Records earned Geschwindner international recognition, and showcased the young producer’s ability to fuse elements of garage, deep house, and minimal techno into a fresh and upbeat, but always groovy aesthetic.
Following on from his debut on NorthSouth Records earlier this year, Geschwindner will help inaugurate Fakedtunes, the new label headed by Andrei Bambu, a resident at the popular Kiev club Closer. Joining the likes of Kashawar and Melliflow contributors Nicola Kazimir and Barbir, Geschwindner’s track on the Niagain EP is a fast-moving, hypnotic combination of minimal techno and deep house.
In anticipation of the release, you can stream “Hynosumting” in full via the player below.
Over the years, Austrian musician Abby Lee Tee has been a regular fixture on XLR8R‘s pages. The most recent feature dropped earlier this year in support of Shash Records‘ Compilation 04, which featured cuts from artists such as Monophobe, GC, DeeAit, Ylwfrnd, Mischmeister M, Dear-No, Dj Odd, Lowa, Valabaluza, and, of course Abby Lee Tee. The track in question was produced alongside GC and presented stylish beat work, glistening synths, and a bed of field recordings; qualities that have become somewhat of a calling card for the regular collaborators.
Abby Lee Tee’s latest release, Riverside Burrows, follows this trend; although, this time, the release is spread across two parts and over 20 minutes run time, merging layers of field recordings with warped instrumentation and beautiful, floating pad arrangements.
In support of the release, Shash and Abby Lee Tee have offered up a six-minute cut of the release’s first part, available via WeTransfer below.
Earlier this week, Öona Dahl released her debut album, Holograma, via DJ Three’s Hallucienda label.
The album follows Dahl’s Wait. lifted EP, which gave listeners a glimpse at her more experimental production personality. On Holograma, which evidently features the preceding EP’s title track as its opener, Dahl pushes her songwriting prowess to the forefront, weaving through floating ambience, cosmic techno, and more pop-infused pastures with her vocals featuring throughout. Although she doesn’t eschew the dancefloor altogether, there’s a noticeable shift in Dahl’s focus, one that has resulted in a striking debut that will further solidify her status as one of electronic music’s most exciting newcomers.
Holograma is out now and can be purchased here, with album cut “Treescry” streaming in full below.
Best Available Technology is Kevin Palmer, an Oregon-based producer and sound artist originating from Southern California. Having debuted the project in 2012 as part of the BAT & OND TON split release on Opal Tapes, he has since gone on to release on various other imprints, including, most notably, Further Records and Astro:Dynamics, and his extensive discography includes over 10 LPs and a similar number of EPs, encompassing a vast array of sounds and styles—from abstract techno and house to dub, trip-hop, moody lo-fi, and instrumental. It’s a wonderfully eclectic collection of music.
His latest LP, Exposure Therapy, dropped last week and is “as expansive as it is intensely personal,” the label explains. The album arrived on Styles Upon Styles, and the Brooklyn-based label “provides the perfect canvas for B.A.T.’s brush strokes on the LP,” which Palmer describes as “a complex meditation on the golden age of New York hip-hop.” It juxtaposes “ambient, dub, hip-hop beats and left-field techno,” while simultaneously celebrating “the sonic triumphs of the NYC boom-bap sound and mourning its passing temporality through morphed and decayed productions.”
To celebrate the release, Palmer offered to compile a mix for the XLR8R podcast series, consisting entirely of material drawn from his catalog of unreleased work—and all blended together to make one delightfully experimental sonic journey.
Your first release came in 2012. Talk to me about your route into electronic music production.
I guess it probably goes back to junior high, hearing rap/hip-hop/electro and whatever KDAY was blasting out of the boomboxes that the breaker kids had out in the playground.
The press release for the new album says you’ve been “experimenting with how to express a deep affection for a sound that was always thousands of miles away growing up, and this is said to be his distinctive vision of that era.” Which era are we talking about?
I guess like late ’80s early ’90s. Let’s be clear: I am not a scholar or anything approaching an authority on the subject (way too ADD to be scholarly or authoritative) I just know that when I heard those sounds and voices I was profoundly moved and have been a bit obsessed with trying to recreate the feeling I get when I listen to it.
What were the inspirations behind the Best Available Technology alias? How long were you producing beforethis project?
You have to ask my friend Max Sympathy, he gave me the name when we started doing stuff together. Max is a poet and has very similar ears for sonics that I do, we met by chance because our daughters were in the same class at a very small school in a very small town. We met and discovered that we have much in common, one thing leads to another and we start doing sonics, Max on voice me on machines. We recorded a few things and did a couple shows (this happens btw 2008-2010) we will work together again. Before I met Max and he gave the name I had been doing sonics since 1992, by myself or with my brother and partner in BOA Gary Geiler (records as Ovis Aurum).
When and where did you record the mix?
The mix was recorded at home between 4 am and 6.15 am over a couple days about five feet from my amazingly patient and understanding, sleeping wife.
How did you select the records that you included?
The tracks that I used are unreleased examples of my other projects BOA and BATIILAB (a project I do with my friend Nate Forest who also records as Lab Matix and White Peak).
How did you compile the mix?
Loaded some tracks and sounds into a couple machines, screwed around and recorded it. then put it all together with an ancient copy of Vegas
How do you feel your latest LP compares to your previous material?
Totally natural progression, especially in the context of doing it for Styles Upon Styles as the record we did earlier suggested and informed the sonic direction.
What else is coming up in 2017?
More tour stuff has been discussed, release on 12thIsle, more Excavated Tapes, more Working Nights, more BOA, more BATIILAB.
