Bjarki will drop his first solo EP since 2018 with the launch of a new self-titled imprint on Friday.
Besides a hub solely for Bjarki’s own material, the label will serve as a creative platform to launch audiovisual projects. Its logo is designed by Paul Nicholson from the Number 3 agency, and all artwork is designed by Thomas Harrington Rawle, the creative mind behind the Care More project.
“I want to share more of my unreleased works, especially the tracks that I have created specifically for parties in each city I play,” Bjarki, born Bjarki Runar Sigurdarson, says. “People impact my work a lot, and I would like to share this music directly before or after the show. I don’t see any other way than to set up my own channel or label where I can share all these ideas.”
Opening the label, I Wanna Go Home brings a quartet of “serious yet playful productions,” we’re told, which “arc back to previous material while also looking ahead to the future.” It’s Bjarki’s first solo release since Oli Gumm on трип in 2018.
Bjarki already curates the mighty bbbbbb recors, launched in 2016. For more information on his work, check out his XLR8R Real Talk feature here, part of an XLR8R+edition focused on Iceland.
Tracklisting
01. I WANNA GO HOME 02. Woo!! 03. Electrip ppl 04. Toilet Rush 05. untitled track
I Wanna Go Home EP drops via Bjarki on February 25. Meanwhile, you can stream the title-track below and pre-order here.
This week’s Web3 Wrap includes Audius’ $AUDIO Rewards program, David Rudnick’s physical-digital project Tomb, Soulection’s genesis compilation mix drop on Sound, and a range of NFT picks from Bergonist, Torn Hawk, Igor Dyachenko, Korrē, Great Dane, and many more.
Dive in below.
Audius Launches $AUDIO Rewards and Bridges Ethereum Token to Solana
This week, blockchain-backed streaming service Audius bridged its Ethereum-based $AUDIO token to Solana and launched $AUDIO Rewards.
$AUDIO Rewards is a gamified feature set that rewards the platform’s top artists, fans, and curators with $AUDIO tokens for using the platform and performing in-app actions, such as inviting friends, downloading the app, daily listening streaks, uploading songs, and more. The press release noted that the gamification and challenges in the $AUDIO Rewards program will be continually modified with more ways to earn as the program goes on so that the token is constantly distributed to actual Audius users engaging with the platform.
The $AUDIO Rewards program was made possible following the token bridge from Ethereum to Solana as Solana is much faster and cheaper to use. An Audius representative told Decrypt that Solana’s “low-cost, faster, and more environmentally-conscious blockchain” is helping them “create an accessible gateway to onboard users into the Web3 ecosystem.”
You can read more about the $AUDIO token and rewards program here.
David Rudnick Announces Tomb
Renowned designer David Rudnick has announced Tomb, a new hardcover book and on-chain art series.
The basis of Tomb is 177 works individually drawn by Rudnick using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS3 using the trackpad on a 2012 Macbook Pro (with no 3D or additional rendering software used). The Tombs, which are depictions of optical data discs on a black void, will be published in a 240-page hardcover book titled Tomb Index and deployed on-chain as individual 1/1 artworks. There will also be a smaller series of screenprint editions.
The 177 Tombs are split into eight “houses”—GENESIS, LUX, X2, SHADOW, DEVASTATORS, COMETS, TERRA, and RONIN—which will launch with “different contracts, behaviors, interactions, mechanics, platform launch partners, even on different blockchains and with unique physical components.” Foundation, Foila, and Avante Arte are partners for seven of the houses, and ACRONYM / Errolson Hugh, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Harm van den Dorpel, Ix. Shells, Ezra Miller, M.I.A., Dom Hofmann, Eric Hu, evian christ, luke miles, Nic Hamilton, Straylight, and terrain are all noted as collaborators for the RONIN house.
Presales for Tomb went live today. You can read more and order Tomb here.
Soulection Announces Soulection+ Radio Drop on Sound
Today, Soulection announced a partnership with Sound to release the genesis Soulection+ Radio Show.
The show, titled Soulection+ Radio: Untitled 001, was mixed and curated by Joe Kay and will feature an hour of unreleased music from artists integral to the Soulection sound. Anyone can listen to the mix for free but there will only be 333 NFT editions of the mix for sale for 0.1 ETH (around $280 at the time of writing). Soulection noted that this is a historic moment for the label and crew because they are utilizing Sound’s royalty split system to automatically and instantaneously pay all the artists featured in the mix on the initial and secondary sales.
The mix will feature tracks from artists such as Monte Booker, IAMNOBODI, J.Robb, Sango, Jayla Darden, Esta, Jarreau Vandal, Monte Booker, Rose Gold, Mars Today, Jared Jackson, Kenyon Dixon, and LAKIM, among others.
NFT owners will also get access to a “holders” channel on Soulection’s Discord, which they note will be a space for “deeper level conversation, music discovery, and will provide an organic opportunity for us to grow and explore together.”
The drop will go live on Thursday, February 24, and can be accessed here.
XLR8R’s NFT Picks, Featuring Bergonist, LAKIM, Torn Hawk, and More
This week, we trawled Catalog and Nina and present a selection of our favorite music NFTs, detailed below.
Catalog has a wealth of new tunes, including colorful pop-infused deep house from LAKIM; Great Dane’s strutting, head-nodding bass cut; a nimble and airy remix of camoufly by Three Oscilators; and a set of killer beat-driven outings submitted for hedsTAPE 01 by DEFFIE, harris cole, and oshi.
Finally, on Pianity, there are two new notable tracks, including a chunky house track from Guti and a soothing pop-styled electronic cut from Iain Howie.
What to Join and Who to Follow:
Teia Community: a group working on a new community-owned version of popular Tezos NFT platform hicetnuncc.
South African DJ Lag has shared his long-awaited debut album, Meeting with The King, on Ice Drop and Black Major.
Over the past years, DJ Lag, real name Lwazi Asanda Gwala, has become the poster boy for Durban’s rapidly growing gqom scene, putting out music on Hyperdub and Goon Club Allstars, where he’s dropped several relentless club tracks, which serve as a perfect introduction to the bass-heavy sound of gqom. In 2019, he notably collaborated with Beyoncé on a track called “My Power” on Beyoncé’s album The Lion King: The Gift.
His debut album builds on his signature darker style, but it sees him dropping the BPM from 127 to 124-12 on several tracks. This reveals a slower, sexier sound on songs like “Ikhehla,” the lead single, featuring Babes Wodumo, streaming below.
In creating this style, more than a decade after he taught himself to DJ and produce while still a teenager in Clermont, Durban, DJ Lag leans heavily on amapiano, afro house, and afro tech. The result is unmistakably DJ Lag’s sound signature but this time “excavating new ground to create a fusion that makes a persuasive case, in particular, for gqom and amapiano as sonic siblings in delivering high energy music for the dancefloor.”
Tracklisting
01. Thongo Lam ft. Ndoni 02. Destiny feat. Amanda Black 03. Raptor feat. Sinjin Hawke 04. Lucifer feat. Lady Du 05. Ikhehla feat. Babes Modumo 06. Into Ongayazi 07. Shululu feat. K.C Driller & Loki 08. Khavhude feat. Mr Jazziq, Mpura & Vic Typhoon 09. Keep Going 10. Something Different 11. Yasho Leyonto feat. Dlada Mshunqisi 12. Chaos ft. General C’mamane & Omagoqa 13. No Child’s Play feat. General C’mamane & Deejay Jackzin 14. New Wave feat. Omagoqa 15. DJ Lag feat. Babes Wodumo & Mampintsha
Meeting with The King LP is available now, with “IKhehla” streaming in full below.
Weavings, a nine-track release, was recorded in one sitting on September 30 for the Unsound 2020 online edition.
Led by Jaar, performers—including Aho Ssan, Ka Baird, Angel Bat Dawid, Ellen Fullman, Dirar Kalash, Księżyc, Laraaji, Resina, Paweł Szamburski, Juliana Huxtable, Rolando Hernández Guzmán, and Wukir Suryadi and Rully Shabara of Senyawa—joined from around the world using Zoom and a high resolution audio plug-in. Jaar had less than 24 hours to mix the work into a whole, then streamed it live from his own computer as the first performance of the festival.
The Weavings album is that mix, unaltered since the broadcast except for subsequent mastering, and the splicing into tracks. The drone-like quality of the album is not only a result of its durational form, but also the technology employed: there were minute delays between what each musician could hear from other performers and what they played in response.
Weavings is co-released digitally by the Unsound and Other People labels, with all profit split between the participating artists. An excerpt was previously released as part of the Unsound Intermission album.
A second part of Weavings was performed in real life at Unsound Krakow 2021 on October 17, and will be released this year as a companion to this album.
Safe Jazz, the imaginary world of Jesse Schuster, will release a new album in March.
Though raised in Minneapolis on indie rock and jazz, Schuster now resides in Los Angeles where he plays in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, works in social care for a non-profit, and runs an artist collective called Pop Can Records. He launched the label part of the collective in 2020 with the introspective and melancholy solo EP Sigh.
Giddy Up! is Schuster’s second album, following 2018’s frenetic and exuberant Joy, Etc., which was inspired by the sounds of Los Angeles’ beat-maker community. Across nine new songs, he wanted to make something vibrant and playful and brimming with energy.
For most of the life of Safe Jazz, he’s been “really grounded” in the beat scene, Schuster says, but for this project he wanted to make something “less syrupy and slinky.” Over the last couple of years his “creative north star” has migrated towards new rhythms, so the universe he wants to evoke across the album has Four Tet, Flying Lotus, Ross from Friends, Vegyn, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and Caribou “as constellations.”
Schuster produced a lot of the album from recordings he made traveling and collecting sounds made with friends with a recorder. It made working primarily solo pandemic-style “a little bit more collaborative,” he says, because he could go back through catalogs of recordings made with friends.
Tracklisting
01. Giddy Up! 02. Precious Machinery 03. Unlimited Dada {{ft. Jarina De Marco}} 04. Test Your Chest 05. Sunshine In Reverse 06. Hyphen 07. Mercy In Retrograde 08. Foie Gras Fights Back 09. {{Very}} Precious Machinery {Fun Tubes Edition} video
Giddy Up! LP is scheduled for March 2 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Precious Machinery,” “Unlimited Dada” featuring Jarina De Marco, and “Test Your Chest” in full below. Pre-order is available here.
Inês Coutinho, better known as Violet, will release her third album on Rádio Quantica.
Across 10 tracks on Transparencias, the Lisbon artist offers “soundtracks for practice of mundane activities.”
With “música para andar de transportes” (“music for taking public transport”), “música para cantar no banho” (“music for singing in the shower”), and “música para passear o cão à noite” (“music for walking the dog at night”), Violet encourages listeners to experiment with the functionality of music as a tool for interpreting the ways in which we occupy time and space. They are pieces that support our routine, helping us to reform the connection between what we feel and what we do, be it work, chores, art, pleasure, or necessity.
Sonically, we’re told that the album mixes genres such as ambient, jazz, jungle, downtempo, and even lullabies, through different methods and sound techniques. We’re also told that the record is made of “unique sonic layers and textures,” based on Violet’s innermost creative impulses. It features the collaboration of some of Violet’s close friends: producer and composer BLEID, who has featured on XLR8R before, and producer and composer PHOEBE. The cover art comes from Dipsy Rei, a Brazilian illustrator and dancer.
Transparencias will be available for free, with the idea being that music is a universal right. The physical format will be available at a few cultural community spaces in Lisbon.
The digital format pre-order is already available on Bandcamp for a small donation that goes fully to the community-led radio station, label, and festival Rádio Quântica.
The physical version of the album, in CD format, is accompanied by a book of poems written by Violet.
In 2019, Violet put out Bed of Roses, her latest album, on Dark Entries. You can read more about her work in her XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Música para acordar 02. Música para ler feat. Phoebe 03. Música para contemplar a natureza 04. Música para limpar e arrumar feat. BLEID 05. Música para fazer arte 06. Música para andar de transportes 07. Música para cantar no banho 08. Música para passear o cão à noite 09. Música para dançar 10. Música para adormecer
Transparências LP is scheduled for February 23 release. Meanwhile, you cans stream “Música para acordar” and “Música para dançar” in full via the player below, and pre-order here.
Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes will put out the debut release from DJ Travella, a 19-year-old producer based in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
Having started producing at 15, DJ Travella, real name Hamadi Hassani, represents a new wave of producers in singeli, a frenetic style of electronic music that borrows from local styles taarab, kwaito, Tanzanian hip-hop, and soukouss. He forms part of a community of artists who are driving Tanzania’s breakneck dance sound into fresh, innovative spaces, though he’s unaffiliated with any of the well-known studios like Sisso and Pamoja. His personal take on singeli pulls influence from across the globe, folding together elements of dembow, rave, R&B, and even trap, and this is felt across the album.
Alongside the release, Travella has shared “Crazy Beat Music Umeme 2,” which juxtaposes grinding 200bpm rhythmic intensity with urgent plucked strings, sounding like “Timbaland conjuring a Thunderdome soundtrack for a Tanzanian street party,” we’re told.
Nyege Nyege Tapes is a Kampala-based label exploring, producing, and releasing outsider music from around the region and beyond. They released Liye Liye, the debut album from La Roche, in January.
Tracklisting
01. Crazy Beat Music Umeme 1 02. FL Beat 03. Crazy Beat Music Umeme 2 04. Tambasana 05. Chapa Bakola Music Bass 06. Dope2 07. London Bandcamp 08. 21212 09. Good Beat 10. London Uwoteeee 11. Beat Kikosi 12. London Jomon Beat 13. Kaz0
Mr Mixondo LP is scheduled for April 1 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Crazy Beat Music Umeme 2” in full via the player below.
1STR1C3 will release his debut EP, Fastridebadfinish, on the Italian electronic label 51Beats on February 25.
1STR1C3 is an emerging producer and electronic composer based in Milan, whose background in music started at a very young age. His curious nature led him to London at the age of 17 to learn about acoustics and it’s this pursuit of a well-defined sound that shaped his unique style and the music on his debut, Fastridebadfinish.
The concept behind Fastridebadfinish was birthed in the back of a car one night after returning home from a gig.
Today’s XLR8R download, “illseeyouagain,” kicks off the release with hypnotic and uplifting, ethereal music that would not be out of place in a Christopher Nolan film score. The following track, “rbtfeelings,” ups the suspense but with much darker tones, before the ambient and self-reflective “rbtrevenge” and “Fallen,” an emotive sci-fi epic, close the EP.
“illseeyouagain” is available to XLR8R+ subscribers as a free download below.
Dome of Doom will welcome BOSTN for a new EP that “relaunches the project,” we’re told.
BOSTN actually started in 2018 as a phonk project, but the first 30 or so songs have all been removed from the internet. In March 2019, he moved away from that sound and into bass music, because he “wanted to play shows” and “didn’t see a live music market for instrumental hip-hop.”
Over the last four years, BOSTN’s previously released music has been more of an “experiment and journey of discovery,” he says. When he started making bass music he was trying to emulate and fit into a scene that was already established. Breaking away from that and stepping into his own authentic space has “changed everything,” he says. The EP is self-titled because it signifies a “rebirth” of the project.
“This EP is a big moment for me because these songs encompass what I was searching for—my own musical identity, a sound that is unique to me and pulls from my lifetime of many different musical influences,” BOSTN says. “At this time I don’t care how the music is received by others. I am solely in it to express myself and I think ultimately that authenticity is what will resonate with others.”
We’re told that the music on BOSTN is some of the “heavier and more brutalist sound work” released on the Los Angeles label to date. These songs, while being almost completely electronic in their composition style, aren’t necessarily for fans of electronic music. They’re dark, visceral, and unhinged, reflecting BOSTN’s musical background in hardcore, death metal, nu metal.
Conceptually, the EP is a “visceral story of greed and lust,” focused on “humanity’s complete disregard for the health of the planet and all of its living inhabitants,” we’re told.
Tracklisting
01. Impiety 02. Violence 03. Ruminate 04. Grave 05. The End of Everything
BOSTN is scheduled for February 25 release on Dome of Doom. Meanwhile, you can stream “Violence” in full via the player below and pre-order here.
This seven-track release continues where the Chicago artist left off, opening with a nine-minute remix of last year’s groundbreaking “Suicidal Ideation,” subtitled “Aural Hallucinations.” Rush also returns to “Break It,” remixing the classic footwork track from her debut album, Pariah, on Objects Limited, giving it a more laidback, half-time feel.
The remaining tracks are all new compositions with Rush concentrating on a more manic, dancefloor-focused style with punchy, panicked vocals, hip-hop beats and humorous, self-effacing samples.
Alongside the release, Rush has shared the jazz-infused “Lonely,” made with DJ Paypal, which comes with a video, streaming below.
Tracklisting
01. Suicidal Ideation (Aural Hallucinations Mix) 02. Don’t Want No Dick 03. Break It (Remix) 04. Lonely (ft. DJ Paypal) 05. Unk 06. Clown 07. Make Bitches Cum
Dark Humor LP is scheduled for March 25 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Lonely” featuring DJ Paypal in full below.
