Page 83 – XLR8R

Yves Tumor Shares New Single; Listen Now

Yves Tumor has shared Jackie, a new single with an accompanying video.

Jackie is the Sean Bowie’s first new material since Heaven To A Tortured Mind, released on Warp last year. It arrives fierce, with powerful emotive guitars, and is co-written and produced by Chris Greatti. It comes with accompanying visual directed and produced by Actual Objects, a creative studio based in Los Angeles that specializes constructing fully realized, lived-in worlds.

“We loved collaborating with Yves Tumor on Jackie,” Actual Objects said in a statement. “We’ve been massive fans for years. Their work is always so forward looking, and has always been a major inspiration for us. Jackie was a chance for us to dig deep into our toolkit and work with some of our most experimental techniques.”

Today also marks the announcement of Yves Tumor’s return to the live space with 28 dates booked across the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe through 2021 and 2022. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 18, 10am local time, and can be purchased here. See below for full list of dates.

Jackie is available now, with a full stream below.

Podcast 701: 40 Winks

40 Winks is the instrumental hip-hop group of Padmo’ and Weedy, based out of Antwerp, a port city in northern Belgium. For nearly 20 years, they’ve maintained a low profile but what we do know is that after they met during the late ’90s, and started to DJ together, their attention shifted towards making instrumentals by sampling bossa nova beats, sax riffs, and dusty jazz records. In 2002, they came together as 40 Winks with April to July, a collection of eight of their favorite instrumental loops they’d made until that point. Their drive for the perfect beat strengthened through the noughties, moving through Hit the Hay and ending with 2008’s The Lucid Effect, their first on the mighty Project Mooncircle. Their work is defined by laid-back beats and lounge vibes, built around lo-fi hip-hop rhythms, blues, funk, and jazz.

The Belgian pair’s newest album, Field Recordings, is their first body of material in a decade. After 2011’s It’s The Trip, they continued to make music “here and there” but they never finished an album. “We both got kids around then, so free time became an issue,” Weedy tells XLR8R. But the lockdown situation triggered him to dive into the studio more, and the seeds for the new album began to grow. The pair had always loved recording sounds from their environment so they started to experiment with it more, carrying a field recorder everywhere, and these recordings became the theme of the album, interlaced with live instrumentation like piano, xylophone, guitar, and flute. “Pretty much everything that was laying around in the studio,” we’re told.

Compiled in Belgium over the last few weeks, 40Winks’ XLR8R podcast is the work of Weedy, who also masterminded the album and answered our questions below. It pivots towards the more soothing music that 40 Winks puts out. This is also a part of the music that they’ve dedicated the back end of Field Recordings to, and across this “transcendental mix” they’ve showcased the music that inspires them to make these tracks. There are no drums or beats, so plug your headphones in and close your eyes for 60 minutes of pure, meditative bliss.

01. What have you been up to recently?

Working on my piano skills for a while. The intention was to practise every day.

02. What have you been listening to through lockdown?

Jazz and soul mostly. Ahmad Jamal Trio, Sahib Shihab, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Barbara Lynn, Gwen McCrae, The Impressions. And more Latin now that the sun is out.

03. Where did you record this mix?

Recorded in the studio. Mixing and finalizing in the garden.

04. What setup did you use?

Record player, laptop, Cubase.

05. How did you go about choosing the tracks that you’ve included?

On side D of the Field Recordings album I’ve recorded some more meditative songs, what we call “mindful harmonics.” This mix is a selection of music that inspired us in making those songs.

06. What can the listener expect with it?

Exactly 60 minutes that might take you on a transcendental trip. No drums, pure harmonic beauty. Preferably taken in with headphones.

07. What’s next on your horizon?

To keep working those piano skills, and slowly building new songs. But let’s not wait a decade this time!

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. Joseph Shabason “Gymnopédie No. 1” feat. Drew Jurecka (Western Vinyl)
02. Natureboy Flako “Silver Forest Spirits” (Materialized Moments)
03. 40 Winks “Deeeep Diiiive” (Project Mooncircle)
04. Susobrino “Despertar” (XXIII)
05. Harvey Mandel “Christo Redentor” (Cleopatra Records)
06. The Beach Boys “Wind Chimes” (Capitol Records)
07. Alabaster DePlume “If You’re Sure You Want To” (International Anthem)
08. Alice Coltrane “Wisdom Eye” (Warner Records)
09. Held By Trees “Next to Silence” (Tweed Jacket Music)
10. Bobby Hutcherson “Now” (Blue Note Records)
11. Kara-Lis Coverdale “Touch Me & Die” (Sacred Phrases)
12. Roberto Musci “Nexus On The Beach” (Music From Memory)
13. Kidkanevil, Daisuke Tanabe “The Other Day We Thought Of Our Friends” (Project Mooncircle)
14. Hans Otte “Wassermannmusik I.” (Amiata Arte)
15. Green-House “Peperomia Seedling” (Leaving Records)
16. 40 Winks “Mindful Harmonics III” (Project Mooncircle)

TSHA Unveils EP of Uplifting, Summer House on Ninja Tune

Ninja Tune will release a new EP from TSHA, real name Teisha Matthews.

Matthews became inspired to begin producing after spending some time in Berlin, and her approach to music is diverse and intricate, and influenced by the work of Bonobo, Jon Hopkins, Floating Points, and Four Tet. OnlyL is her first full release of the year, and it arrives off the back of her Essential Mix and Flowers, released last year on Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint.

Alongside today’s announcement, Matthews has shared the title track, an exhibition in her genre-defying, classy electronic pop. It features vocals from NIMMO (a.k.a Sarah Nimmo and Reva Gauntlett), with Matthews juxtaposing the dark lyrics against the track’s upbeat instrumental.

Artwork for OnlyL is by illustrator Felicity Marshall.

Tracklisting

01. OnlyL (feat. NIMMO)
02. Power
03. I Know

OnlyL EP is scheduled for Augst 27 release. Meanwhile, you can stream the title track featuring NIMMO in full below and pre-order here.

XLR8R+031 is a Dome of Doom Special, Curated by Wylie Cable

We’re ready to present the 31st edition of XLR8R+, and it’s curated by Wylie Cable—head honcho of Dome of Doom.

We’re delivering this package in celebration of the Los Angeles label’s 10th anniversary. Founded in 2011 as a platform for Cable’s unshackled musical musings, Dome of Doom has since moved beyond the beats scene where it made its name to focus more broadly on artists who are expanding and altering the rules of their chosen genres in radically creative ways. For this edition, Cable has chosen three artists who underline this ethos in CLYDE, a mysterious English producer; Gnome Beats, the alias of Timo Ceniceros; and QRTR, real name Meagan Rodriguez. Cable, a prolific producer in his own right, has also delivered an exclusive track.

We open the edition with CLYDE’s “ESCORT MK1,” which nods to hardcore and jungle but in its whirlwind ending you’ll find a sign of how the rising producer envisages himself structuring his tracks moving forward. Then there’s Gnome Beats, who has sampled some old sketches across “Systems,” a slice of woozy psychedelia. QRTR, a new signing of Dome of Doom, and one of only a few to make bass-driven house beats, comes next with a sun-tinged hypercolor groove, before Cable wraps up the edition with “Mike Gao Flips 147,” an atmospheric rework of melodic loops he received during lockdown. “These are all artists on Dome of Doom that I feel have brought unique sounds into the fray and continue to release music with us,” Cable says.

The artwork this month comes from Gnome Beats.

Here’s to another 10 years!

Tracklisting

01. CLYDE “ESCORT MK1”
02. Gnome Beats “Systems”
03. ambientkitty “scritch” (QRTR Sweaty Girl Summer Rework)
04. Wylie Cable “Mike Gao Flips 147”

The music, PDF zine, and wallpaper art can be downloaded once you SUBSCRIBE HERE. If you’re already a subscriber, you can download the package below.

Manchester’s W. H. Lung’s Second Album is an Ode to the Dancefloor

W. H. Lung will release their second album on Melodic Records.

Vanities is the Manchester group’s first release since 2019’s Incidental Music, a vivacious concoction of krautrock, synth-pop, and shimmering, infectious grooves. We’re told to expect a “bold electronic leap forward” into the dance music they’ve been missing.

“We wanted to move away from easing people in and grab them by the heart straight away,” vocalist Joe Evans tells XLR8R. “I reflected on how we played live shows and romanticised about launching onto the stage in a bundle of energy and starting the party, no messing. We were writing music that affirmed how much we missed dancing in sweaty rooms, enjoying the company of a collection of beautiful friendly strangers.”

Alongside today’s announcement, the group has shared lead single “Pearl in the Palm,” which Evans describes as a transition from the old W. H. Lung to the new. It marries pulsing synths, galloping drums, and a vocal take that is both caramel smooth but also fervently intense. Directed by Evans himself, the video was shot in January across the beauty of the Irish midlands.

W.H. Lung’s journey goes back to 2017 when they released the seven-minute track “Inspiration,” which paved the way for Incidental Music. The group now comprises Evans plus Tom Sharkett (guitar), Alex Mercer (drums), Hannah Peace (synths), and Chris Mulligan (bass).

Tracklisting

01. Calm Down
02. Gd Tym
03. Pearl In The Palm
04. Ways Of Seeing
05. ARPi
06. Showstopper
07. Figure With Flowers
08. Somebody Like
09. Kaya

Vanities LP is scheduled for September 3 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Pearl In The Palm” in full below and pre-order here.

Podcast 700: Moin

We’re celebrating our 700th podcast with a mix from Moin, the experimental rock project of Joe Andrews, Tom Halstead, and Valentina Magaletti. Andrews and Halstead are best known for their work as Raime, through which they present a uniquely bleak take on post-dub music, with each work grounded in live instrumentation, gloomy synth lines, and unsettling, abstract vocals. The pair met Magaletti, an Italian multi-instrumentalist, just before the project started out, and in 2013 they put out an EP on Blackest Ever Black. But with Andrews and Halstead consumed by Raime, and Magaletti working on myriad projects, they put the project on ice.

That was until the pandemic began. Suffering from writer’s block, Andrews and Halstead opted to take some time away from Raime, and Moin felt like the safe space to go. It was a way to refresh their creative palette. Linking up with Magaletti again, they entered the studio to explore whatever musical whims they had. With eight tracks under their belt, AD93 head Nic Tasker reached out and snapped the album up for the label. We’re told that it originates from a desire to explore the fringes of guitar music, and the priority was to be “direct at first and then change the edges perhaps.”

To celebrate Moin’s return, Andrews, Halstead, and Magaletti recorded an XLR8R podcast last week in London. The vibe is centred on a bunch of Mark Freedman (a.k.a Powerman) records and from here they delved into their collections of post-punk released by artists and labels based in New York, Europe, and Japan through the ’80s. “The outpouring of experimental but deeply enjoyable music on the underground around that time never gets old,” they tell XLR8R and, at one hour in length, this mix delivers just a few of their favorites.

01. What have you been up to recently?

Much the same as everyone really, keeping things local and pretty reserved. Lockdown was a break with the speed of normal life which has caused most things to operate at a different pace. Which, while frustrating at times, has done some good, too. Music is always central to our lives so that never changes. Moin has been a great way to switch up and refresh the creative practice. Re-visiting guitar based music has also been a real source of inspiration.

02. What music have you been listening to through lockdown?

We’ve been getting a steady stream of packages in the post to keep the spirits up covering a huge range of stuff. Highlights have been Still House Plants, Graham Lambkin, Bobby Would, Mosquitos, Maths Balance Volumes, and Mark Fell & Will Guthrie. We’ve also been listened to labels Regional Bears and Stucco. But that really just scratches the surface. Our shelves are stocked right now.

03. How did this new Moin album come about?

A slice of chance and spontaneity caused an old idea to be revisited really. We had put time aside to make music and due to some writer’s block with the Raime project we just decided to make a Moin record as an experiment. We had done a small EP years ago so it was always in the back of our minds to do something bigger at some point. As luck would have it the idea was a good one and a record came out pretty fluidly. Nic Tasker of AD93 then got in touch out of the blue to enquire about the project and its fate was sealed. Creativity seems best this way really.

04. Where and when did you record this mix?

At home. Last week.

05. What can the listener expect with it?

Listeners can expect the rhythmic and more positive side of post-punk with some choice oddities thrown in.

06. How did you go about choosing the tracks that you’ve included?

Recently we picked up a few Powerman catalogue releases from Commend in New York. We’ve been meaning to acquire them for a while so we were chuffed when they came up in that condition. We used them as a jump off point really, sticking to that time period and mainly New York, European, and Japanese productions. This isn’t a collector flex; there’s nothing on there that’s going to surprise the diggers but we just enjoyed the flow of tracks really. We wanted to keep things positive and bright in the main rather than leaning on the darker side of music from that era. The outpouring of experimental but deeply enjoyable music on the underground around that time never gets old. Or maybe it does and we are creatures of habit! Either way. Also shouts to Sean Canty for the EP-4 intro and Steve and Nat at the World of Echo record store for the hook up!

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. Ralph Dorper “Eraserhead” (Operation Twilight ‎)
02. Floating di Morel “White Nights On The Moon” (Play Loud!)
03. Bedtime For Bonzo “Dirty Pigs” (Teraswing)
04. NON baNd “あわのうた_Bap Pang” (TAL)
05. Powerman “P-Jam” (Battery Sound)
06. EP-4 “Elementary Poem” (Telegraph)
07. Powerman “Lost Tribe” (Battery Sound)
08. Phew “Closed” (Pass Records)
09. Steven Grandell “Burn My Eyes” (Straight Face Records)
10. Mick Karn “Lost Affections In A Room” (Virgin)
11. Gerry and the Holograms “Increased Resistance” (Absurd Records)
12. Golden Palominos “Clean Plate” (Celluloid)
13. Arto Lindsay “Let’s Be Adult” (Editions EG)
14. Daktari Lorenz “Die Fahrt ins Reich der Menschentrümmer Parts I to V” (One Way Static Records)

DJ Seinfeld’s New Album is Incoming on Ninja Tune

DJ Seinfeld, real name Armand Jakobsson, has unveiled a new album on Ninja Tune.

Mirrors sees the Swedish artist deliberately moving away from his lo-fi production techniques to bring his music “firmly into focus.” “On this album I wanted to retain a lot of the raw emotionality that brought people to my music in the first place,” the Swedish artist says, “but I also wanted to become a much better producer.” He describes it as a “real statement” of where he is as an artist right now.

Recorded between Berlin and Malmö, the album follows Seinfeld’s 2017 debut album, Time Spent Away From U. It’s named after Seinfeld’s favourite writer, Argentinean novelist Julio Cortázar, and captures the melancholy caused by his father’s stroke a few years ago, which prompted him to move back to Sweden.

The album’s title is a quote from Cortázar, who wrote “You were always my mirror, to see myself I had to look at you,” which made sense to Seinfeld as he recorded the album. “I don’t know who I am but perhaps it’s easier to see the silhouettes through things like heartbreak, family trauma, but also through the peculiar flickers of light and love that enter your life,” he says. “If the first album was about getting past a breakup, this one is trying to understand who’s standing on the finish line. This album is my mirror.”

To accompany the announcement, Seinfeld has shared “U Already Know,” which features vocalist Teira, whom he met at a warehouse party in Los Angeles. “There’s a touch of Italo and it’s got a real funk feel to it,” Jakobsson says. “I was happy with it as an instrumental but I added the vocal and it just fitted perfectly and brought the track to life.”

Tracklisting

01. She Loves Me
02. Walking With Ur Smile
03. U Already Know
04. The Right Place (feat. Teira)
05. Home Calling
06. These Things Will Come To Be
07. Tell Me One More Time
08. Someday
09. I Feel Better
10. Song For The Lonely

Mirrors LP is scheduled to land on September 3 via Ninja Tune. Meanwhile, you can stream “U Already Know” in full below and pre-order here.

Manchester’s Space Afrika to Release Album of Cosmic Downtempo on Dais Records

**Photo by Chloé Magdelaine & Timon Benso**n

Space Afrika, the experimental duo of Joshua Inyang and Joshua Tarelle, will release an album on Dais Records.

As Space Afrika, the Manchester pair make music of what they term “overlapping moments,” which is to say oblique mosaics of dialogue, rhythm, and texture. Honest Labour, their first full-length since 2020’s hybtwibt?, one of our favorite releases of 2020, expands the project’s palette with classical strings, shimmering guitar, and vocal cameos. We’re told that it leans further into the pair’s “enigmatic fusion of ambient and cosmic downtempo.”

The album title refers to a patriarch from Inyang’s Nigerian family tree, who was lovingly called “Honest Labour” for his loyalty and resilience, as well as the nature of Space Afrika’s music: a “labor of love.”

When Reid relocated to Berlin last fall, the pair began sharing files, piecing together poetic vignettes of looping haze and found sound, inspired by the notion of “records that leave an impression, and help the listener deal with their life.” As the isolation of the pandemic compounded with the worsening winter, the songs skewed towards introspective and emotive, reflecting a mood of “dissipating futures and the infinite nocturnal unknown.”

The motivations for Honest Labour are to transcend the sum of the pair’s influences, and “to show what we’re capable of,” we’re told. It features LA Timpa, blackhaine, and Bianca Scout.

In 2018, Inyang and Tarelle put out Somewhere Decent To Live, their debut album. And more recently, they shared Untitled (To Describe You), a patchwork EP of drill, bass, and reflective musique concrète.

Tracklisting

A1. yyyyyy2222
A2. indigo grit ft. guest
A3. lose you beau
A4. solemn
A5. lv
A6. preparing the perfect response ~
A7. ny interlude
A8. rings ft. guest
A9. noise sweet
A10. B£E ft. blackhaine
B1. like orchids
B2. meet me at sachas
B3. u ft. kinseyLloyd
B4. —
B5. girl scout cookies ft. Bianca Scout
B6. ladybird drone
B7. with your touch
B8. strength ft. LA Timpa
B9. honest labour

Honest Labour LP is scheduled for August 27 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “B£E” feat. blackhaine in full below and pre-order here.

Philadelphia’s Moor Mother Signs to ANTI-Records with Mesmerizing Single

Philadelphia poet and musician Moor Mother has signed with Epitaph‘s ANTI-Records with Zami, a new single.

“Zami” was produced by Moor Mother’s regular collaborator, Madam Data, and it’s characterised by grinding, swelling synths below softer, ambient tones. It follows a prolific run of releases for Moor Mother, real name Camae Ayewa, which includes the solo albums Circuit City and Clepsydra, and her billy woods collaborative album, BRASS. Then there was the debut from her new group project, Moor Jewelry. On top of that, she’s launched a series of releases with Olof Melander, titled Anthologia, which raises money for disability justice.

Explaining the direction of the new work, Moor Mother says: “Using the lenses of Black Quantum Futurism, the lyrics speak to Time and Space, injustice, racism, erasure of African identity. ‘Zami’ speaks of agency and something beyond freedom. It speaks of another future. It speaks about connections free from the stains of colonialism. It speaks about the expansive temporalities of Afro Diasporan people around the world.”

Tracklisting

01. Zami

Zami is available now. You can stream the video below and order it here.

Masha Mar, Jeniluv, and Heidi Lawden’s New Label Compilation is a “Love Letter” from Los Angeles

Masha Mar, Jeniluv, and Heidi Lawden have launched a new label, Dusk Recordings, with a 14-track compilation featuring John Tejada, Dave Aju, Masha Mar.

Back in 2019, the three Los Angeles-based music curators took the concept behind their Surround DJ collective and event series, a fixture in their local underground musical community, to launch Dusk Camp, a festival in California’s desert lowlands. It’s born from their ethos to champion their local scene’s emerging talents by merging them with invited guests.

The label is inspired by the same principles, which is to say the freedom represented by the vast California landscapes and the independence represented by Los Angeles’ warehouse parties. We’re told to expect a “thriving platform for radical inclusivity balanced by the chill vibe inherent to California.”

The inaugural compilation, Dusk Volume One, is a “love letter” from Los Angeles. Woolfy VS Projections, John Tejada, C.Love, and Dave Aju have contributed exclusive and previously unreleased tracks to the cohesive release, which is best enjoyed from start to finish, we’re told. All tracks were commissioned, conceived, and produced during the pandemic as a way to stay connected locally, and now globally, upon its release.

Tracklisting

01. Dave Aju “Desierto”
02. Woolfy VS Projections “Graffiti Fonta”
03. C.love “Deux Femora”
04. Heidi Höven “Dancefloor Dreams”
05. Warehouse Preservation Society “Body Station”
06. Juliet Mendoza “Soul Rhythm”
07. Masha Mar “Last Light”
08. John Tejada “Ashes”
09. Tevo Howard “Television” (JP & Vulinej Fantasia Remix)
10. SONNS “Texas 84”
11. Force Placement “Her Feet Never Touched The Ground”
12. Initial Sequence “R & R Time”
13. Aldridge Brothers “Traffic Jammers”
14. Tevo Howard “Television” (Bonus Track)

Dusk Volume 1 is available now. You can stream it in full below and order it here.

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