Los Angeles’ Kenny Segal has unveiled his second LP for Ruby Yacht, INDOORS.
INDOORS finds some of its deepest roots within Segal’s earliest musical influences, which is to say the early raves and specifically drum & bass that first inspired him to make music. “With this album I tried to go back to some of those original inspirations, ideas, and techniques but through the lens of where I’m currently at with my sound,” Segal says. It features many artists from Segal’s orbit, including Jason Wool (a.k.a Woolymammoth), Aaron Shaw of Black Nile, and The Jefferson Park Boys bandmates Mike Parvizi and Mr. Carmack.
Alongside today’s hard announcement, Segal has shared second single “limited daps,” setting the stage for “an entrancing body of work that straddles the line between electronic and hip-hop,” we’re told. According to Ruby Yacht, it’s Segal’s most eclectic record as a featured artist, producer, or songwriter, filled with haunting piano loops, lush percussion, spacious synths, poignant guitar lines, fiery sax lines, and jazz-ridden Rhodes fills.
Since the release of Segal’s debut Ruby Yacht full-length in 2018, (happy little trees), he’s gone on to produce albums for Billy Woods (Hiding Places), Hemlock Ernst (Back At The House), and Serengeti (Ajai). As part of The Jefferson Park Boys, he’s also produced R.A.P. Ferreira’s debut album, Purple Moonlight Pages.
In April, Segal shared “lollllbye,” the album’s lead single.
Tracklisting
01. lollllbye 02. limbic friction 03 oskmdtb 04. little dinosaurs 05. wave function of the universe 06. the great outdoors 07. limited daps 08. nuclear winter 09. in my next life i want to be me and meet you again
INDOORS LP is scheduled for June 11 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “lollllbye” and “limited daps” below and pre-order here.
Blanck Mass, the project of musician Benjamin John Power, will release Mind Killer, a live set of original material.
Recorded in April 2020 at the beginning of the lockdown, Mind Killer is fully improvised using a core setup of the Korg VOLCA Series. The result is a 40-minute-long voyage into improvised techno and loop-work, warts and all. The only alteration is a slight edit in length so it fits onto a piece of vinyl. The release is extremely limited: one pressing only of 1,000 copies worldwide on black vinyl.
Mind Killer follows the recently released Blanck Mass album, In Ferneaux. The album is made of an archive of field recordings from a decade of global travels. It’s divided into two long-form journeys that gather the memories of being with now-distant others. You can read more about it here.
Tracklisting
01. Side A 02. Side B
Mind Killer LP is scheduled for May 14 release. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here. We’ll add clips as they become available.
The three-track EP is Barker’s first full release since Utility, his breakout debut solo album that featured among our favorite releases on 2019. The album itself followed on the heels of Debiasing, an EP that sounded completely different to anything he’d put out before. Over four tracks, Barker experimented with making dance music “while avoiding the deeply ingrained cues,” which, in this case, meant removing the kick-drum altogether.
As its title suggests, BARKER 002 follows on sonically from BARKER001, a low-key white-label packing three hyper-detailed techno cuts. The opener, “E7 E5,” was one of Barker’s my first attempts at kick-less stuff around 2015, and the other two tracks he made last year. it’s available now for digital download and as a physical pre-order in all shops. Hand-stamped vinyl will ship in June.
For more information on Barker, check out his in depth feature with William Ralston, “Moving with Melody,” here.
Tracklisting
01. E7-E5 02. Bent 03. Polytely
BARKER002 is available digitally now with vinyl coming next month. Meanwhile, you can order here and stream it in full below.
Pool is the Munich artist’s third solo album as Skee Mask, following the inimitable Compro, which he released in 2018. It comprises 18 tracks spanning ambient, breakbeat, IDM, and techno. He released it as a surprise drop yesterday for the final Bandcamp Friday. It’s not available on major streaming platforms, which is no surprise given that Skee Mask, real name Bryan Müller, has been critical of Spotify. It comes via Ilian Tape, Skee Mask’s regular label home.
There’s little else known about the album, other than that it’s mastered by the Zenker Brothers and Klaus Arnold. Artwork photos come by Lara Köcke.
Tracklisting
01. Nvivo 02. Stone Cold 369 03. LFO 04. Rdvnedub 05. CZ3000 Dub 06. DJ Camo Bro 07. Collapse Casual 08. Breathing Method 09. Ozone 10. Rio Dub 11. Testo BC Mashup 12. Dolan Tours 13. Absence 14. 60681z 15. Crosssection 16. Harrison Ford 17. Pepper Boys 18. Fourth
Pool LP is available now. You can stream it in full below and pre-order here.
For our first drop, we’ve worked with a set of artists to offer a wide range of NFTs, from rare one-of-one collectibles featuring both physical and digital products to audio-visual tracks, a 90-minute live show recording, and an accessible synth-wave album in an edition of 200.
We’ve put together a roundup of the NFTs available on the first drop, with links to the respective NFT pages. All prices are set in xDai, the blockchain powering XNFT, which is pegged to the US dollar. We chose xDai for its speed, low gas fees, and minimal energy consumption. You can find detailed instructions for setting up xDai here.
Please note that this is a beta version of this platform and, going forward, we will be adding new creators, NFTs, and functionality features, such as categories and tagging, showcases, payment options, and community pages, daily.
We believe Web3 technology and NFTs could become the most important distribution channel for recorded music and other forms of content, allowing creators to earn a decent living from their craft. We look forward to building this platform, with your input, to serve the music community.
FLUMDOT, the artist formerly known as Jad Taleb, is a London-based DJ-producer and digital artist born in Lebanon. After 10 years spent working in the middle east and northern Africa, Taleb has released music through Get Physical and Exploited. His brand of acidic techno takes influence from the obscure sounds of the middle east, making him one of the most interesting electronic artists to emerge from the region.
“Cryptic Polyphony,” his NFT, is a deep, driving club track, with an analog synth line and a vocal sample that will make your hairs stand on end. The buyer will receive the track in .wav form complete with a fascinating animation accompanying it to round off the package. The buyer will also receive FLUMDOT’s debut album, Dormant, on CD, signed and shipped by the artist. Taleb says the NFT revolution “brings the power to artists to take control over their creation and widen their reach in a self-curated environment.”
French-duo Scratch Massive are celebrating 10 years since the release of their breakthrough album, Nuit de Rêve, which earned them cult status among electronic heads. They’ve recently worked with Moritz von Oswald, Cristian Vogel, and Jimmy Somerville, and they’re now making their colossal homecoming show in Paris available through an NFT. The pair, comprising Maud Geoffrey and Sebastien Chenut, played La Gaite Lyrique in the French capital in March 2019, rolling through classics like “Last Dance” and “Waiting for a Sign” to a rapturous audience. On purchase, one buyer will be able to view and own the footage from the 90-minute gig as it happened, with no editing or retouching, filmed in all its glory from the front-of-house.
Producer-DJ duo John Dimas and Claus Voigtmann met at Gottwood after exchanging music online. Within moments of meeting it was like they had known each other their entire lives. Both interested in technology, science fiction, and, of course, techno, they formed an intuitive connection that has resulted in a collaborative album.
They talk about INTERNAL TRANSMISSION like it’s some scientific miracle rather than a piece of music. “In a secret laboratory in an unknown location, two lifeforms not of this world were at work,” reads their description. “They did not talk. They did not move. They simply sat, doing the impossible.” True to form, each track on the album is named after a chemical element, which combine to make a compound they’re calling VOIGT.MAS.
Making the album available as an NFT made a lot of sense. “It’s the future,” says Dimas. “We call it sci-fi techno.” Besides the album itself, long before its scheduled July release on vinyl and streaming services, the buyer of the NFT will receive a dubplate featuring an unreleased Voigtmann track, an unreleased John Dimas track, and the VOIGT.MAS track “Cloud Synergy,” previously released on the 2020 Gottwood compilation, Nottwax. The NFT also includes an exclusive six-minute video to accompany the album track “CARBON” by Italian visual artist Lucia Bertazzo, as well as two additional 4K frames extracted from said video.
Voigtmann and Dimas hail the way NFTs could change the music industry. “It’s about taking back control over your own art,” says Voigtmann. Dimas agrees: “The artist has the power.”
An Argentinian who has found his musical home in Berlin, Alejandro Mosso has been playing house and techno to audiences around the world for over 15 years. Through DJing and live sets, he has played such clubs as Fabric, Tresor, and Amnesia. As a producer, he has released through such labels as Cocoon, Third Ear, and !K7, and he’s been remixed by legends like Ricardo Villalobos and Burnt Friedmann.
In typical Mosso style, his NFT track, “Tourist,” is a rolling, late-night epic, described by the artist as “unique and quirky minimal house music.” Buying the NFT will allow exclusive access to the track and 16 stems in .wav form, plus its high-resolution artwork. “Tourist” will not be available on any streaming services.
Maelstrom sounds unlike any other artist in the world. A master at techno and electro, the veteran French producer has released through a range of labels in the last 20 years, including CPU, Cultivated Electronics, Private Persons, and Clone, under an unspecified alias. He released his debut album, Rhizome, on his RAAR label. His NFT tracks “A Comfortable Cage” and “Patience” pick up where Rhizome left off, with metallic rumbling underscored by a dancefloor sensibility reminiscent of Objekt’s Cocoon Crush. The “Patience” NFT comes with tracks stems and a signed copy of Rhizome on vinyl, making it a coveted collectible for fans of Maelstrom’s work.
Andy Thomson is a producer and sound designer who makes music for television as GroundBIRD. After working in the UK house scene for several years, he’s gone on to make music for the likes of BT Sport and Tesla.
GroundBIRD’s NFT, Into the Wave, is a 12-track album of synth-wave, which buyers can use in film production or purely for their own enjoyment. 200 copies of the NFT are available, and each track comes with a non-exclusive music license and complete stems, meaning you can edit or remix it any way you like upon purchase. “NFTs have the potential to revolutionize the whole game in terms of writing for television,” says Thomson. “They can give production companies complete control over their soundtracks and once more make music a valued asset rather than a post-production afterthought.”
The brains behind two record labels in Fathers & Sons Productions and Girada Unlimited, Spanish DJ Julian Perez has been releasing electronic music for over a decade. Inspired by the ’90s rave sounds of the US and the UK, he has played in Moscow, Paris, London, Offenbach, and a host of clubs. 10 buyers of his NFT will receive Perez’s much-anticipated second album, Break-Even, on vinyl before it’s released to the general public.
Remute has released over 300 singles in the past decade, including cuts on labels like Tresor, Bedrock, and Ladomat 2000. And he is no stranger to obscure methods of distribution. In 2019, he released his album Technoptimistic on a Sega game cartridge. Following a string of rave reviews, he repeated the trick with 2020’s The Cult Of Remute, which he released on the Super Nintendo, and 2021’s Electronic Lifestyle. Making an NFT is a natural transition then.
He describes “Nobel,” his 27-minute track, as a “vibrant sound compendium,” and it features an AI voice reading the names of all Nobel laureates until 2015, plus further sounds synthesized from the names’ phonemes. The buyer will get exclusive access to the track, as well as .wav files of the instrumental version and a separate AI speech stem.
Spanning six instrumental tracks, Architecture III marks the first new music from DāM-FunK, real name Damon Garrett Riddick, since his STFU II EP in 2019. It follows 2016’s Architecture and 2018’s Architecture II as the third instalment of a series that showcases the Los Angeles producer’s signature style of funk, house, and soul. Last year, he released Private Life III under the Garrett moniker.
The album is said to be a “progressive step to the future” and serves as a “good representation” of DāM-FunK’s “ideal fusion of tech-house and electronica.”
DāM-FunK is a California-bred self-taught artist and producer. He has been recording music since he was a young child, and found inspiration from Leon Sylvers III. He released his debut album, Toeachizown, on Stones Throw in 2009. In 2016, he set up Glydezone Recordings, his own label.
Tracklisting
01. Grow 02. Night Kruise 03. Think 04. Feel 05. Sun Gospel 06. Shine
Signals In My Head marks a “new chapter” in DJ Manny’s career, we’re told. Born in March 1990 in Chicago but raised in Harvey, Illinois, Manny, real name Manuel Gaines, encountered juke and footwork before he was 10 years old while out with his brother at a party he was too young to be at. Dancing became a big thing for him—and he began throwing parties, where he met Rashad and DJ Spinn, and made his first recordings at his cousin’s house. His first release, Kush On Deck, came about in 2010 with DJ Rashad’s help.
Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Manny’s sound has widened out and taken on a more romantic edge. His goal for the new album was “to do something that nobody (in footwork) had ever done before,” which is an R&B-type of album but still keeping it footwork, juke, house, and techno, with a few breaks. “I just want people to know it’s love out there,” Manny says.
We’re told that the album also brings in a drum & bass flavor on cuts like “Good Love” and “Havin’ Fun.” Meanwhile, tracks like “Club GTA” and “That Thang” call back to classic Chicago house, and “Smoke ‘n’ Fade Away” and album closer “At First Site” both “recall the golden era of Detroit techno,” the label tells XLR8R. “Wants My Body,” created with DJ Chap, and “All I Need” are “classic Footwork workouts sure to ignite dance floors.”
Tracklisting
01. Never Was Ah Hoe 02. U Want It 03. You All I Need 04. Club GTA 05. All I Need 06. Wants My Body (ft. DJ Chap) 07. Havin’ Fun (ft. DJ Phil 08. Good Love 09. Signals In My Head 10. That Thang 11. Smoke ‘n’ Fade Away 12. At First Site
Signals In My Head LP is scheduled for July 23 release. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream the title-track below.
Amir Alexander, a veteran DJ-producer currently based in Malmö, Sweden, recently featured in DJ Three‘s Halluciendatakeover of XLR8R+. Alexander met Three in the early ’90s while attending school in Tampa, Florida, where he was exposed to a range of musical styles, from house and hip-hop to acid jazz and rare groove. One night he went out to a party in Cocoa Beach, where Three’s set caught his ear. The music blew him away, Alexander recalled in an interview, so he approached Three to learn about his work. It didn’t take long for Alexander to begin spinning records himself.
In the years since that moment, Three has remained a good friend and a mentor of sorts, while Alexander’s music has taken him through San Francisco, Berlin, and Malmö, his home since 2014. His first stop, however, was Chicago, where he fell in love with the city’s deep house sounds. He’d attend parties, mixing with and learning from the likes of Angel Alanis, Gene Hunt, and Jaimie 3:26, and soon he wanted to make his own music. Through the mid-to-late noughties, he released his first records, prompted by local hero G. Marcell to join Bearatonerecordings. 2009’s “Necessary Sanctuary,” with its raw, deep groove, became an instant classic, making its way across the Atlantic where it became fodder for the likes of Zip, Ricardo Villalobos, and Sammy Dee.
Upon leaving Chicago, Alexander has become ingrained in European dance music circles, putting out work on Secretsundaze and, more recently, Thomas Melchior’s My King Is Light, where he’s showcased a wonkier style. His second of two albums came in 2018 on Just Jack Recordings. Meanwhile, he helms Vanguard Sound!, a left-of-center label specializing in deep house and techno, but also cutting-edge trap, drill, and hip-hop. The label’s latest release came from Ricky Spitzz, Alexander’s trap project, titled The Hour of The Time. He’s scheduled to release a new EP on Hallucienda this summer.
Alexander’s XLR8R podcast showcases the material on Micro/Minimal, his second album in as many months. He recorded the material especially for the XLR8R podcast, focusing on making people dance using only a few elements. He then performed these “ultra minimal tracks” live in real time with EQing, filtering, and effects. Through this live set of original material, you fully absorb Alexander’s vision of raw, gritty tracks for the head, body, and soul. You can buy the album here, and download the mix below.
01. What have you been up to recently?
Spending as much time as possible with my six-year-old son. Working on a one-man-band heavy metal album. With a traditional setup: guitar, bass guitar, drum kit, atmospheric keys. Staying positive. Eating clean. And being fit.
02. What have you been listening to through lockdown?
A lot of classical and jazz at first. A bit of hip-hop. Lately all blues and heavy metal. With this new album, my aim is to fuse the guitar music-based forms I love into something fresh. I hope. Plus there’s been some extreme metal and a touch of progressive. However, I rarely find the time to simply listen to music; I’m usually making music. So I listen to myself! And when I do listen, it’s for research, study, and just to absorb the vibes and living the life of a musician of the particular form(s) I am “soaking up.”
03. Today you’re releasing a new album, Micro/Minimal. What’s the story behind it?
Micro/Minimal is a Detroit minimal techno album, and it’s name comes from the type of music therein. And the synth I used to make it. Every synth sound was created with the mighty Korg MicroKorg. It’s a hugely popular yet still highly underrated little beast of a synth and I wanted to showcase the power, subtlety, nuance, and moods it’s capable of generating. 80% of the drums on nine of the 10 tracks were created with my DRM1 MKIII drum synthesizer. With the other 20% or so coming from my Yamaha RY30 Rhythm Programmer. Which is a sample-based drum synth. The track “Song of Solomon” was made with the MicroKorg and my Roland TR-909 before I sold it. I used my Akai MPC 1000 to sequence. As well for overdubbing a few synth leads from the MicroKorg. I wanted to pack in as much emotion and vibes with as few elements as possible. So ultra minimalist tracks. One main loop and or groove. With minimal embellishments. Just raw, gritty tracks for the head, body, and soul.
03. What can we expect with the mix?
The podcast is a live set recording of the new album project I made especially for this XLR8R feature, Micro/Minimal. I created the album then recorded the tracks as a live set. I then chopped the set into individual tracks and sent them off to be mastered. After getting them back I pasted the set back together, then loaded it into Acid Pro and recorded a pass of me doing live EQing, filtering, and effects the way I would have if I were playing the tracks in a DJ set. The mix is the best of both worlds: a live set and DJ mix hybrid of sorts!
04. When did you do all the recording and mixing?
I recorded it all two or three weeks ago. The XLR8R podcast was the motivational spark I needed to gain the inspiration needed to pursue a project I’ve wanted to do for several years: a minimal album. Thus I set up a list of limitations. Then I gave myself a deadline of one week to compose nine tracks to go with the one I had already made, “The Song of Solomon.” Which was the vibe template for the entire project, and I based the style of the other nine tracks on that one. So first I made the tracks, then I recorded a live set of all the material. After that, I chopped the set into individual tracks to send off to be mastered. Once I got the music back from my mastering engineer, Gabe from Spatial Mastering, I pasted the set back together, then I ran it once in my number two favorite DAW, Acid Pro. Which for what I wanted to do was a better choice than FL Studio. I pressed play in Acid Pro and recorded in Sound Forge so I could run the set like a DJ and do some live EQ drops, filtering, cuts, and effects. These are things I refrained from doing when first I recorded the set because I knew that I would be dividing it up into individual tracks to be mastered. Basically chopping two proverbial trees with one stroke of the axe.
05. What are your plans for the rest of the year?
I hope to spend as much time with my son creating happy memories for him so when the old man is gone he remembers me fondly. I’m also probably going to write two of three more albums. Stay calm, healthy, and positive. Dive deeper into my Metal Head/Blues Man alter ego(s). I’ll probably also continue searching for a “regular job.” And also try to stay alive!
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. Amir Alexander “Blood” (Vanguard Sound!) 02. Amir Alexander “Gene Therapy” (Vanguard Sound!) 03. Amir Alexander “The Fathoms” (Vanguard Sound!) 04. Amir Alexander “Survive” (Vanguard Sound!) 05. Amir Alexander “Song of Solumon” (Vanguard Sound!) 06. Amir Alexander “Zombie” (Vanguard Sound!) 07. Amir Alexander “The Way Of The Future” (Vanguard Sound!) 08. Amir Alexander “Minions” (Vanguard Sound!) 09. Amir Alexander “Resist” (Vanguard Sound!) 10. Amir Alexander “Too Late” (Vanguard Sound!)
Artefakt have released Chimes At Midnight, a new single on Sound of Berlin.
At the root of Nick Lapien (a.k.a Lapien) and Robin Koek’s Artefakt project is a shared love for melancholic, hypnotic voodoo music. Their sound is pensive with deep, rich textures; while long track lengths give the Dutch duo an expansive framework in which to make small changes of texture and tone, creating cerebral, balanced atmospheres that absorb and engage. “Sometimes we just take a short element, like the sound of a falling drop of water, and from this recording we extract the rhythm and use it as a starting point,” they say. “It’s a very organic way of creating new material.”
After a period of self-reflection, the Lapien and Koek returned in 2019 to launch a label with a new EP. De Stijl serves as a platform for their musical explorations and those of their close friends. The imprint’s inaugural EP, Far and Wide, a lesson in dancefloor-ready techno, preceded Monsoon, Artefakt’s second album, this time on Svreca’s Semantica Records.
“Chimes At Midnight” is a modern electronic hypnotic techno track with introspective melodies and a bassline that is both groovy and gentle. The track feels open-ended and creative, a kind of instrumental storytelling where new drum patterns float in and out. Expect seven minutes of gorgeous inertia.
For more information on Artefakt, check out their XLR8R podcast here.
City Jungle is set to arrive later this month on InFiné and finds Blanos expanding his neo-classical framework across 10 tracks that combine his deft piano performances with polyrhythmic percussion and the driving electronic grooves of his work with Cristi Cons and Vlad Caia as Amorf.
Following on from the album’s first single, “Silicon Road,” which also opens the LP, the second single, “Innervision,” lands with a killer groove-led remix by Cons, which is being offered as an XLR8R download, available to XLR8R+ subscribers below. For his interpretation, Cons buries the soaring, expansive synths of the original and instead focuses on the shimmering keys and a swinging, ever-changing breakbeat groove that sits somewhere between the trippy minimal of Cons’ solo work and the introspective dancefloor bliss of Amorf.
You can pre-order City Jungle from Infiné here, with Cristi Cons’ remix of “Innervision” available below.
Full XLR8R+ Members can download the track below.If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.
