Premiere: Hear a New Track from Jay Daniel’s Debut Album

Jay Daniel has shared another track from his forthcoming debut album, Broken Knowz. The eagerly awaited album will land via Ninja Tune‘s Technicolour imprint on November 25 and is only the third LP on the label—following offerings from Levantis and Hieroglyphic Being.

Broken Knowz places Daniel’s penchant for off-kilter grooves at the forefront, its nine tracks recorded with live drumming through a multi-track mixer in his mother’s basement. By doing away with the often rigid feel of drum programming, Daniel has crafted an album filled with personality and emotion, and one that exists and flourishes outside of the confines of a club.

Following the previously released tracks “Knowledge of Selfie” and “Paradise Valley,” Technicolor and Daniel have passed on a stream of the album’s closing cut, “Yemaya”; which, like the rest of the album, is a swinging, groove-led outing complete with Daniel’s emotive and frayed synth work.

You can stream “Yemaya” via the player above, with Broken Knowz available here.

Warp Records Announces Brian Eno Album

Warp Records will release a new Brian Eno album.

English musician Eno will release another ambient full-length on Warp, following on from The Ship (which dropped earlier this year) and 2012’s Lux. The forthcoming Reflection, which will be released on New Year’s Day, will come in the form of one 54-minute recording.

On the album itself, Eno stated: “Reflection is the latest work in a long series. It started (as far as record releases are concerned) with Discreet Musicin 1975 (or did it start with the first Fripp and Eno album in 1973? Or did it start with the first original piece of music I ever made, at Ipswich Art School in 1965—recordings of a metal lampshade slowed down to half and quarter speed, all overlaid?)

Anyway, it’s the music that I later called ‘Ambient.’ I don’t think I understand what that term stands for anymore—it seems to have swollen to accommodate some quite unexpected bedfellows—but I still use it to distinguish it from pieces of music that have fixed duration and rhythmically connected, locked together elements.

The pedigree of this piece includes Thursday Afternoon, Neroli (whose subtitle is Thinking Music IV) and LUX. I’ve made a lot of thinking music, but most of it I’ve kept for myself. Now I notice that people are using some of those earlier records in the way that I use them—as provocative spaces for thinking—so I feel more inclined to make them public.

Pieces like this have another name: they’re GENERATIVE. By that I mean they make themselves. My job as a composer is to set in place a group of sounds and phrases, and then some rules which decide what happens to them. I then set the whole system playing and see what it does, adjusting the sounds and the phrases and the rules until I get something I’m happy with. Because those rules are probabilistic (often taking the form ‘perform operation x, y percent of the time’) the piece unfolds differently every time it is activated. What you have here is a recording of one of those unfoldings.

Reflection is so called because I find it makes me think back. It makes me think things over. It seems to create a psychological space that encourages internal conversation. And external ones actually—people seem to enjoy it as the background to their conversations. When I make a piece like this most of my time is spent listening to it for long periods—sometimes several whole days—observing what it does to different situations, seeing how it makes me feel. I make my observations and then tweak the rules. Because everything in the pieces is probabilistic and because the probabilities pile up it can take a very long time to get an idea of all the variations that might occur in the piece. One rule might say ‘raise one out of every 100 notes by five semitones’ and another might say ‘raise one out of every 50 notes by seven semitones.’ If those two instructions are operating on the same data stream, sometimes—very rarely—they will both operate on the same note… so something like one in every 5000 notes will be raised by 12 semitones. You won’t know which of those 5000 notes it’s going to be. Since there are a lot of these types of operations going on together, on different but parallel data streams, the end result is a complex and unpredictable web.

Perhaps you can divide artists into two categories: farmers and cowboys. The farmers settle a piece of land and cultivate it carefully, finding more and more value in it. The cowboys look for new places and are excited by the sheer fact of discovery, and the freedom of being somewhere that not many people have been before. I used to think I was temperamentally more cowboy than farmer… but the fact that the series to which this piece belongs has been running now for over four decades makes me think that there’s quite a big bit of farmer in me.”

Reflection will be available to purchase from January 1, 2017. Pre-order it here.

Bjarki Lines Up New EP

Bjarki is due to release a new EP this December.

The Icelandic producer has had a busy year, putting out a trio of 3×12″ packs via Nina Kraviz‘s трип (Trip Recordings): AE, Lefthanded Fuqs and “Б”. As well as having appeared on several label samplers, he will now round off the year with another EP. In line with those previous releases, uptempo two-tracker Fresh Jive looks set to bring together elements of rave, jungle and acid house with modern techno.

Fresh Jive will be released December 2. Pre-order it at and check out samples over at Juno.

Tracklisting:

A. Fresh Jive
B. Genat 8

Berlin Venue The Off to Host Fabric Fundraiser

A fabric fundraiser will take place in Berlin later this month.

The event is set to take place at The Off (a recently opened warehouse space in Berlin Friedrichshain) on Thursday, November 24. It will be part of the #savefabric campaign, to raise money and awareness for fighting the club’s closure, and the first of such events to hit the German capital.

Billed to perform are a host of fabric favorites: Ricardo Villalobos headlines, joined by the likes of Ellen Allien, Sammy Dee, Mike Shannon and Heartthrob. Exercise One goes back to back with Locked Groove, as well as Federico Molinari and Hamid, Shaun Reeves and Cesar Merveille, and also Konrad Black with Mr. Tomorrow.

For more information, head to the Facebook event.

Klunks ‘Object’

Following last year’s Hush Hush Recordings debut, Elastic Forrest, and an appearance in XLR8R‘s Best New Artists of 2015, Norwegian electronic producer Klunks is set to release his sophomore album, Hollow Scenes, on November 18.

Exploring a vast and unpredictable sound spectrum over 11 diverse tracks, Hollow Scenes once again showcases Klunks’ elaborately detailed and impressively intricate sonic aesthetic.

Designed specifically for intimate headphone sessions, the album features precisely deconstructed found sounds perfectly spliced through a maze of manipulated instrumentation, shards of vocal samples, lush atmospherics, and cerebral drum work. The spacious leftfield downtempo vibes of Elastic Forest are still present, yet Hollow Scenes is wonderfully enhanced by an experimental jazz streak, with robust saxophones lines frequently soaring above the enveloping backdrops.

Ahead of the album’s November 18 release date, the Hush Hush label has offered up “Object” as one of today’s XLR8R free downloads, available now via the WeTransfer button below.

Object

Lawrence English Announces New Album; Shares Track

Room40 label head Lawrence English has announced his latest album, Cruel Optimism.

The 10-track LP will be released via Room40 on February 17 and is directly influenced by the text of the same name by American theorist Lauren Berlant. According to English, Cruel Optimism is a product of the tense times we live in and, more directly, “a new wave of humanitarian and refugee crisis, the black lives matter movement, the widespread use of sonic weapons on civilians, increased drone strikes in Waziristan, Syria and elsewhere, and record low numbers of voting around Brexit and the US election cycle, suggesting a wider sense of disillusionment and powerlessness.”

English worked with a range of musicians on Cruel Optimism, including contributions from Mats Gustafsson, Mary Rapp, Tony Buck, Chris Abrahams, Werner Dafeldecker, Norman Westberg, Brodie McAllister, Australian Voices, Vanessa Tomlinson, Heinz Riegler, and Thor Harris.

Cruel Optimism can be pre-ordered here, with LP cut “Object Of Projection” streaming in full below—you can also download the track for free via English’s Bandcamp page.

Hudson Mohawke Shares New Track

Hudson Mohawke has created a complete original soundtrack to Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world game, “Watch_Dogs 2.” Announced late October with the track “Shanghaied”, label Warp has now shared “Play N Go.”

From Ross Birchard:

“With “Play n Go,” I really wanted to create something that could be both big and anthemic but also strips back to some tough, driving percussion at points. I feel like both these motifs are reflections of the gameplay also; whether you want to go in all guns blazing or play in a more tense, stealthy style. Above all, I really wanted to keep the rebellious nature of the game within the track, crunchy DIY sounding with a victorious kind of cheeky undertone.”

Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, “Watch_Dogs 2” invites players to step inside the shoes of brilliant hacker Marcus Holloway on his journey to pull off the hack of the century: a crippling shutdown of ctOS 2.0, an invasive technology used by the powerful to silently control everyday citizens.

Stylistically Ded Sec – Watch Dogs 2 (OST) casts a sound now synonymous with Hudson Mohawke. The release harks back to his earlier work fusing electronics, hip-hop and the beat scene, but hints towards Hudson’s love of classic science fiction scores.

Tracklisting:

01. Shanghaied
02. Burning Desire (Hacker)
03. W4tched (Cinema)
04. Haum Sweet Haum
05. Cyber Driver
06. Amethyst
07. Play N Go
08. Eye For An Eye (Reprise)
09. Cyber Driver (Opera)
10. Citrus
11. Balance
12. Burning Desire
13. Eye For An Eye
14. Robot (Finale)
15. Watch Dogs Theme
16. The Motherload

Ded Sec – Watch Dogs 2 (OST) is out now on Warp Records, with ““Play N Go” streamable below.

Premiere: Stream RX-101’s New Album in Full

Erik Jong’s story is one that should instill faith in the benefits of the internet. A gear enthusiast, the Dutchman tried his hand at making music during the late ’90s, but never did anything with the end products. Almost two decades later, via a series of fortunate events, he has been dug out from SoundCloud anonymity by Suction Records head Jason Amm (a.k.a. Solvent), who stumbled upon a treasure trove of lost beauties.

Finally, Jong is getting the recognition that he deserves. His debut releases as RX-101, all taken from an archive of cassettes recorded between 1997-99, sound something akin to early Aphex Twin recordings. Across two EPs and one album (made up of a selection of the tracks from both EPs), the spirited productions span IDM, techno, electro, all with a rich, excited character that often lacks in modern music.

In light of the curious new release, we decided to speak with those behind it. First up, RX-101:

All the music on your new series of releases was recorded between ’97-99 and was discovered by Suction Records label head Solvent a few years ago via recent SoundCloud uploads. What happened after that creative period?
Very little when it comes to making music. At some point I stopped with school and soon after that I found a full-time job. That was quite a big change in my life and therefore I had much less time to make music. I spent much of my spare time on the internet and I was mainly looking for new music.

Having a job also meant that I had more money to spend, so I started to make some changes to my studio setup. I swapped my Atari ST computer for a PC and a whole new world opened for me, with all possibilities like modern music software. At the same time, I also bought more hardware like analog synths, drum machines, and stuff like that. I spent a lot of time discovering new equipment. Through the years I played a lot with my musical equipment, but it never really came to making new tracks. I must confess that the urge to create new music was also much lower. Discovering new equipment gave me a lot of satisfaction.

Will there be more RX-101 releases of material from this same period?
Yes, absolutely. After I came in contact with Jason from Suction Records, he took a selection of tracks. Initially, there was a plan to release two EPs and an album, followed by another two EPs and a second album—so, four EPs and two albums. Meanwhile, plans have been made for a total of six EPs and three albums, so there is going to be a lot of material released from this period.

Are you producing these days (or considering to get back into it)?
Last year I made some tracks for the first time in 15 years. For a week, I tried to make one track per day, just to see if I still was able to do that. Actually, I was quite happy with the result. I always make my tracks in a short time. I can’t work on a track for days because I get bored at some point and I want to do something else. If I start today with a new track, it must also be ready today. That method still works well.

In the meantime, I’ve made some changes in my setup. I bought some new gear and I also sold some. I’m still working on discovering new equipment. Before I get serious about making tracks again, I want to know my gear 100%. In the end, the endless switching of equipment isn’t the best idea. In a way, it’s fun to play with a lot of different synths, but you make no progress in making new music. Sometimes I think about going back to my setup from the ’90s. The limitations of my old setup contributed in some way to the creative process.

Did you approach any labels with your music at the time you made it? If not, then why did you suddenly put it on SoundCloud? Were you actively seeking to have it released or did you merely want to share it with the world?
Actually no. When I bought my first synthesizer in ’92, I began to build a small bedroom studio. It was a big dream to release my own music on a label then. Over the years this dream faded and then when I really started to make tracks, there was really no more desire to look for a label. I can’t really explain what the reason was… I think I was too lazy back then and I didn’t want to make demo tapes to send to labels.

The reason I put my music on SoundCloud was purely for fun. Three years ago I recorded all my tracks from cassette to my computer and put everything in iTunes. After a while, it seemed fun to share some tracks with a larger audience. Many tracks had never been heard by anyone.

We also spoke to Solvent:

How did you discover RX-101 and what drew you to his sound?
When Aphex Twin started uploading hundreds of old, unreleased tracks to Soundcloud a couple of years ago under an account called “user18081971,” I got really excited about that and started regularly checking We Are The Music Makers, a forum for Aphex Twin mega-fans. The conversations there weren’t normal chatting about the music—it was all frenzied, analyzing his comments, and there was even a whole long thread about other SoundCloud accounts that some suspected might also be secret Aphex Twin accounts.

I started checking those out, and while I found most of it to be crap copycat stuff, I came across an account by Erik which immediately blew me away. There were about 100 tracks uploaded, and it was honestly the most authentic sounding early-Aphex material I’d ever heard. The quality level was so high. In fact, I found myself wondering if this was in fact a secret Aphex Twin account! Anyway, I decided, whether it’s him or not, I’m just going to send a message to this Erik account and offer to release some material on Suction. Erik turned out to be RX-101, and he agreed to the idea of releasing on Suction, so we started working on it right away.

As for what drew me to the sound: when I started recording music, and later when I launched Suction Records, my biggest musical inspiration came from labels like Warp, Skam, and especially Rephlex. You can hear that pretty clearly in the early material we released by Solvent, Lowfish, and Skanfrom. I’ve always loved that era, what I guess we would now call “early IDM”—specifically the stuff from the early to mid-90s that was all done with cheap hardware synths, samplers, and drum machines. By the late ’90s, I think that sound got totally derailed by the introduction of in-the-box computer production. Everything in the IDM realm seemed to go all glitchy, digital, and hyper-complex, and that’s when I lost interest in it. Discovering RX-101’s music has been like finding a treasure trove of some of the best Rephlex-style electronics ever produced – it sounds “of another era” in 2016, yet totally timeless. It’s a sound that I have always craved more of.

What’s in store for the label and where does RX-101 fit in?
We do have some other releases in the pipeline, including a new split 12″ by June and Lowfish that we just released. Next year there will be a 12″ by an early-90s Toronto EBM band called Digital Poodle, which includes killer remixes by Zoviet France and Adam X. Suction’s main focus for a while will be on RX-101. This is just the first batch in an extensive series of RX-101 archival releases; next year we plan to release four more EPs and 2 more albums. It’s a vast archive of material, with a lot of variety.

Is any RX-101 material recorded after ’99 in consideration for Suction Records?
Erik hasn’t played me any of that material yet! At the moment there is still so much material from his 1997-99 archive that we want to release, I’m scared to even hear any new material. Our RX-101 backlog is already big enough! Of course, I’ll be very curious to hear Erik’s new material when he’s ready to play it for me.

Nostique ‘Oxymoron’

Back in 2011, when Sebastian and Andreas used to DJ and produce music on their own, they met each other for the first time at an open air. Playing together from then on was not just a coincidence: it turned out that they both shared the same artistic visions.

Since that moment, they’ve been combining their shared love for house and techno by producing as Nostique. “Oxymoron” is now one of the the duo’s first tracks, the result of spending hours working in the studio in their home town of Berlin over the past two years. It is said to represent their current influences, mainly their love for melancholic synth lines and “touches of the avant-garde.”

The track emerged alongside other collaborations with friends and is scheduled to be released on their own upcoming label Mandatory. Until then, you can download it for free via the WeTransfer link below as one of today’s XLR8R free downloads.

Oxymoron

Eaves to Drop Debut Album on PTP

PTP (f.k.a Purple Tape Pedigree) will present the debut album by Eaves, entitled Verloren, set for release on December 2.

With the combination of his academic history in architecture and long-time interest in the internet both being inextricable from his music-making, this album sees the Brooklyn-based producer placing a lens to the relationship we have with digital environments. Using last year’s “GORILLA” as a blueprint, Verloren—meaning “lost” in German—is said to examine our role as a detached audience on a macro level.

The album has quite the apocalyptic feeling to it; dystopian and fictional representations of our future—and how are present day seems to mimic them—are mentioned as an inspiration.

Tracklisting:

01. New Babylon
02. Vascular
03. Exegesis
04. Moor
05. Dragliner
06. Burial Moth
07. Mare
08. Agafia
09. Wound
10. Crop Ruin
11. Linthen Heap
12. Sin
13. Seas 2
14. Roraima
15. Manual Children
16. Edgelands

Verloren LP is scheduled for December 2 release.

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