Mischa Blanos has unveiled his second album, City Jungle.
Blanos, a pianist with Romanian and Russian roots, began his classical training at the age of seven. He’s widely known for his work with Cristi Cons and Vlad Caia as Amorf, and as a solo artist he creates mesmerizing groove with synths and unexpected arrangements. He released an EP, Second Nature, in 2018 and a debut album, Indoors in 2019 on InFiné, based in Paris, France.
City Jungle, his latest album, refers to the monolith, concrete structures humans have built around themselves, and which, along with most of their culture and social life, stopped dead in 2020. We’re told that it sees him stepping past the boundaries of classical music and into “borderless creativity.”
Ahead of the album’s release, Blanos has shared the lead single, “Silicon Road,” a soulful blend of jazzy, avant-garde piano and organic, driving, electronic grooves. The track combines a myriad of influences that Blanos collected during his travels, and uses the Japanese Hiroshi scale, played with a Romanesque touch and underscored with beats that remind us of the early Detroit techno age.
For more information on Amorf, check out their thrilling XLR8R podcast here.
Tracklisting
01. Silicon Road 02. Tiptoe 03. Audition at 9 04. City Jungle 05. Fluorescence 06. Crystal 07. Innervision 08. Steppe 09. The Aerie 10. On Cue
City Jungle LP is scheduled for May 21 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Silicon Road” LP in full below and pre-order here.
Habitat is inspired by the drawings of Italian architect Ettore Sottsass, and each track represents a room in an imaginary building. They wrote it during the summer of 2020.
Across eight tracks, Kramer and Foerster layer, loop, and merge sonic textures and patterns into fluid blocks without the restraint of statics. African log drum, Bolivian chajchas, vibraphone, kalimba, and various other percussion instruments are processed, pitched, and filtered through modular synth and script-based sample cutting to form a collage of asynchronous layers. This result of this, we’re told, is a “vague intimacy,” and “a curious state of comfort in the unknown.”
Kramer is best known for his work in Still Parade, where he produces soft, summer pop. Soon Enough, their latest album, came in November 2018.
For more information of Leaving’s new future, check out Matthewdavid’s XLR8R podcast, recorded last month.
Tracklisting
01. Entrance 02. Air Flows 03. Botanique 04. The Fountain 05. Four Glass Steps 06. Moon Corridor 07. Curved Hallway 08. Levitation Room
Habitat LP is scheduled for April 9 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Air Flows” and “Four Glass Steps” in full via the player below and pre-order here.
With each passing week comes another wave of vaccines, and therein lies an optimism that live music might return soon. To help you pass the time, we’re delivering another musical fix through our latest roundup of submissions from our valued XLR8R+ members. Transcending well beyond the realms of straight up house and techno, February’s list is notable for its diversity, from the woozy, downtempo hip-hop of Asta Hiroki to the ambient jazz of lifelong friends Olec Mun and Michael Sarian. There’s also some deconstructed pop from Canada’s Saint Idiot, a slice of euphoric melancholia from London’s Wandour, and an improvisational jazz fusion delivery from Vulcan Nightclub. Among these new names, we welcome back Erik Strauss, Stature, and Aspetuck, all of whom have featured on the XLR8R pages before. (The latter of these delivers a sumptuous all-originals mix.) As always, there’s sure to be something for everyone, so please dig in and support the artists.
Editor’s note: we’ve made a point of linking each artist’s name to their social media page, or a place where you can buy their music, and we encourage our readers to support these independent artists by buying their music. Let’s keep independent culture alive.
For those unfamiliar, XLR8R+ is a member-supported music community and curated music experience. Every month, you will get three exclusive tracks—sometimes more—by a wealth of amazing artists that XLR8R has supported over the years, as well as access to the member’s area where you can submit tracks and DJ mixesto be showcased in this feature series and to the XLR8R+ community, as well as exclusive editorial content, mixes, FREE passes to music festivals and events, playlists, and more.You can find out more here.
Sistema Aero is the collaborative effort between Charles Taciturn and xenonyms label boss GFXIII. The title-track from Running Parallel, their new EP, captures its genre-bending mood by incorporating distorted jungle breaks inside a dreamy, buoyant atmosphere. It’s joined by “Tierra Maldita,” a sinister four-to-the-floor mutation full of hypnotic synths and eerie vocal sections. A highly recommended release and one of our favorites of recent months.
lo fi spiritual, a label based in Thirroul, Australia, releases “a sonic balm for the spirit.” Most recently, they’ve released Postcards, an ethereal collaborative release by Dylan Regtop (a.k.a SääD) and Ambien, an alias of Chris Hancock. The two musicians have long been musical muses; they each have two children and met in the playground while on dad duties. Sadly for their friendship, Chris has now moved out of the city and this record is therefore more of a postcard from Chris to Dylan—a record of their former lives. Expect lush atmospheric sound beds with auto-tuned, male falsetto to guide the tracks’ emotive direction. We’re streaming “Hold On,” a gorgeous and affecting beat cut, here.
Okay Vivian is the project of Turkish singer and producer Pervin Güzeldere, whose music combines ethereal silent spaces with heavy beats, scattered vocals, breaths, and whispers. “Taşın Kanayan Kalbi,” the first single from her new album, Saye, available now, is an unnervingly beautiful and captivating listen.
With its rough-edged modulations, looping rhythms, and haunting pads, James Vernon’s “Web Flight” is a standout on Stories, Chapter One, a compilation on UZ MI Records. The young label, headed by Vernon and Rick Silver, focuses on stripped-back, dubbed-out sonics. Previous releases from the two label bosses and the enigmatic Yallahs have captured the attention of some established names, and Stories, Chapter One is the latest extension of their musical vision.
In their first collaboration, lifelong friends Michael Sarian and Olec Mün created MAKARA, channelling the legendary sea creature from Hindu mythology. Whether a dragon, a crocodile, or a gigantic fish, MAKARA is an ever-changing being, adjusting its form to fit its surroundings. Using trumpet, flugelhorn, and effects, plus copious synthesizers, Sarian and Mün bridge the gap between their respective homes in Brooklyn and Barcelona with a 20 minute EP inspired by the depths of the ocean and its magical creatures. Ambient jazz rarely sounds this good.
Saint Idiot, real name Tomáš Andel, is an independent musician based out of Edmonton, Canada. His music is a sort of deconstructed pop, characterized by familiar forms and sophisticated sound palettes. Inspirations for Andel include the multi-sensory worlds of Björk and David Bowie, but also ambient, deep-listening music. With “Bubblewrap,” his newest work—and an early taste of an upcoming album—he was inspired by the book “Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames,” by the Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. It’s a rich, uplifting musical experience with world-class sound design.
Lorenzo Filips is a 24-year-old London-based producer who in January launched his new alias, Desk. The project is focused on merging the vast world of electronic music with classic jazz, funk, blues, and rock, using drum machines and glitchy drones with guitars and pianos. “t0rch,” a chunky groove-led cut, is the first taste of this project; expect more soon.
Fitzzgerald, a DJ-producer from Minsk, Belarus, resurfaced last year with Suncream, a collection of soulful edits. Then, earlier this year, he went one step further with an all-original EP on Mysidian. The record comprises three deep house cuts plus a Roy Comanchero remix of “Moon Jam.” We’re streaming the original version here, but we encourage you to check out the full EP—a feel-good collection of summer jams if you ever needed one!
Asta Hiroki is an experimental producer based in Brighton, United Kingdom. Having honed his craft composing in the world of moving image installations, he laces his music with textural beats and an ethereal quality that’s common across film scores. His sound flutters between downtempo hip-hop and ambient but always possesses the sensibilities of jazz. He’s also inspired by electronica, lo-fi, and glitch, and through a handful of singles and an EP, he’s built up strong support. After a period of studio hibernation, he’s set to emerge with his debut album, Entropy, recorded across studios in Colombia, United States, and Cyprus. “Slumber” feat. Dontmesswithjuan is the first taste, and it turns our excitement up a notch.
Erik Strauss is a musician and visual artist based in Venice, Italy who grew up listening to jazz and funk from his family’s vinyl collection. Only later did he begin digging into more electronic sounds. He’s part of French label Nuit Blanche but he also independently shares trip-hop and downtempo tunes like “Into the Greenwood,” a swinging beat that perfectly encapsulates his sound. He’s featured on XLR8R before with “Darkside” and “Behind and Over.”
Marco Tracks is a mysterious DJ-producer from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a deep passion for ambient, dub, and house music. “Emerge” is a new track that’ll have you coming back for more with its insatiable drum-machine rhythms and fizzing samples.
Apriori, the third EP of Wandour, is rooted in memory. The opener, “September in London,” explores the more melodic side of the north London producer, and it’s named after the experience that inspired it. As with all Wandour’s work, it’s a euphoric combination of melancholia and nostalgia, with distorted but lush atmospheric melodies.
Connor Harrison, better known as Stature, is an electronic music producer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. An avid music fan, he makes high-energy garage-based beats, and “Astral” is a new track that has us lusting for the return of the dancefloor. Earlier this year, he released “Otto,” a piano-led jam that made it into our September 2020 roundup.
Thomas Blondet, from Washington, has teamed up with improvisational producer Steven Rubin to create Sea Sons. For the record, the pair turned to the likes of Thievery Corporation and other major names in trip-hop, resulting in a similar style but there are also sonic references to Portishead and Boards of Canada. “Seascapes” is the delicious lead single that touches on the work of the aforementioned acts whilst presenting something new and intriguing.
Like many bands, before the pandemic hit, Vulcan Nightclub, an improvisational jazz fusion band from Kitchener, Ontario, were gearing up to hit the road. Unlike most groups, however, their music is created live, in front of your eyes and ears. So with the stage off-limits, the band developed tools to get their music out through live stream performances and this led to Anthropomorphize, a debut EP of groovy, progressive jazz-tinged rock. “Halfling” is the stunning opening track that will have your head nodding.
Afar is the project of Matthew Gibson, an artist based in Australia. Not much is known about Gibson, other than that he featured in our May 2020 roundup with “Division.” Afar is the portal to his deeper, heads-down productions, and “Masked Pets” is another killer tune that shows his deft hand at creating smooth and swinging dubby grooves. (“Can’t Swing My Cat” is also worth a listen.)
Almost 12 months have passed since Italian-Congolese producer BLCKEBY released “Origin’s Riddim,” taken from the INNER mixtape. Following on, doubledoubleu, the Milan, Italy label, has released a remix EP featuring five alternative versions of mixtape originals, realized by producers chosen by BLCKEBY. We’ve picked Fight Pausa’s remix to showcase here.
Elijah Nang spent his south London youth playing around with genres such as grime, garage, and rap, and around 2010 he began to create his own niche: a type of downtempo hip-hop flavored with Asian elements. His latest track draws inspiration from the book “Outlaw Ocean,” written by Ian Urbina, and the idea was to communicate the experience of being lost at sea through music—an idea we think he has nailed.
Politaur, from Budapest, Hungary, started to make music in 2000 but he’s only recently adopted the new alias. His goal is to synthesize his feelings, and with the Solaris EP he directs his attention to the book of the same name by Stanislaw Lem. Expect four transfixing ambient cuts in the style of “Newcomer.”
Aspetuck, whom we’ve featured in March and June, is the alias of Griff Fulton, a Vermont producer fascinated by groove, percussion, and the influence of dub on electronic music. Following his feature in our September roundup, he’s now submitted a thrilling all-originals mix, recorded last month. Most of these tracks will be released later this year on various labels, he tells us, and we’ll be awaiting on each drop to snag some of these killer grooves.
Following the release of his second EP, Everyone Knows Malcolm Is Full Of Shit, Malcolm prepared a mix for Ransom Notes’ Shine A Light On series. Across its one-hour run time, Malcolm, head of Global Warming Records, shifts through half-time drum & bass and futuristic dub beats. Tune in for original edits and unreleased tunes from Identified Patient, Mutant Joe, and Gamma Intel—it’s a wild ride.
Alexander learned to DJ and produce in Chicago, and his music has taken him through San Francisco, Berlin, and Malmö, Sweden. He released his first records through the mid-to-late noughties, pushing a rich deep house sound, and he’s since put out work on Secretsundaze and, more recently, Thomas Melchior’s My King Is Light. His second of two albums came in 2018 on Just Jack Recordings, based in Bristol, United Kingdom.
Ricky Spitzz, Alexander’s trap alias, first surfaced in 2019, and The Hour of The Time is the project’s first album. Its title is drawn from Bill Cooper’s shortwave radio show that it’s dedicated to. It aims to assist the listener in “waking up” to the true realities of the “socially engineered matrix of lies we were all born into.”
The album comes on Vanguard Sound!, Alexander’s label specializing in deep house and techno, but also any left-of-center sound.
Tracklisting
01. Hour of The Time Intro 02. Brave New World 03. Gang-Nem 04. Ricky Spitzz! 05. Crop Circles 06. The Hour of The Time 07. Turn Up! 08. Rap Beef 09. Club Goofies 10. Stop Flaugin’ 11. Magog Megiddo 12. Fly 13. Organic Robotoids 14. Who Ya? 15. Thots 16. Brooklyn (Netflix and Chill Episode One) 17. The Wolves 18. Red Pills 19. Trigger Immunity 20. 92 Til’ Infinity (Netflix and Chill Episode Two) 21. Country Girls 22. Burnt Offerings
The Hour of The Time LP is available digitally now. You can stream it below and order it here.
Cunabear, an artist based in Savannah, Georgia, has unveiled a mixtape of jazzy, psychedelic rap.
Sometime between late 2018 and early 2019, Cunabear subscribed to his first Patreon account, where he acquired beats from Steel Tipped Dove, “an awesome producer, engineer, and all around kind person,” Cunabear explains, based in Brooklyn, New York. He downloaded the beats and challenged himself to write to as many of them as possible, just to develop his writing. The first song he wrote, “PEEL”, landed on a compilation in 2020, and now he’s offering up a slow-cooked refinement of his other favourites.
Cunabear, born in Richmond, Virginia, is a rapper, producer, illustrator, painter and multi-instrumentalist. His music is a powerful fusion of jazzy, boom-bap hip-hop with intimate lyrics and psychedelic atmospheres. He forms part of BearTooth, a multi-genre DIY music and artwork collective.
Bambounou will launch his own imprint, Bambe, with a new EP.
Cascade, with four mesmerizing rhythmic cuts, is the French artist’s first outing of the year, and it follows his 033 EP on AD 93. It features additional vocals by Manuel Hildebrand on A2, and it’s mastered by Neel at Enisslab.
Looking forward, Bambe will be a home for “passionate minds,” we’re told, “roaming freely in a world of eclectic backgrounds.”
The record comes in a laser-cut sleeve, designed by Dimitri Erhard.
Born Jeremy Guindo, Bambounou distills his love for astrophysics and dystopian sci-fi into futuristic interpretations of techno, IDM, and tribal. Besides AD 93, he’s put out his work on the now-defunct 50 Weapons.
Tracklisting
A1. Cascade A2. Up A While B1. Craig.py B2. Send When You Land
Cascade EP is scheduled for March 29 release on vinyl with digital following on April 2. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream “Craig.py” in full below.
Anthoney Hart will release his second Basic Rhythm album for Planet Mu, titled Electronic Labyrinth.
Electronic Labyrinth follows 2019’s On The Threshold, released in 2019, and it marks a maturation of the Basic Rhythm sound. The title itself conveys the overarching theme of the album, which captures the musical labyrinth that Hart has undertaken over the last 30 years or so, following a path through to the centre where these disparate strands have coalesced and solidified into today’s coherent whole.
The cover photo shows St. Fabian Tower where Hart first joined the Rude FM pirate station in the late ’90s.
Hart, born in Hastings, England in 1979, is also known as East Man, and he released Prole Art Threat on Planet Mu last year. He grew up on the boundary of East London and Essex, playing drum & bass on pirate radio. As Basic Rhythm, he draws more directly upon these years, while still pushing forward into new territories. He launched the project in 2016 on Type Recordings.
Tracklisting
01. Craft 02. Hayward Road 03. Acid Track 04. Larkin Around 05. Electronic Labyrinth 06. Techno 07. Palace Of The Peacock 08. The Secret Ladder
Electronic Labyrinth LP is scheduled for May 14 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Hayward Road” below and pre-order here.
Hiatus Kaiyote, a twice-Grammy-nominated band from Melbourne, Australia, is comprised of Naomi “Nai Palm” Saalfield (guitar, vocals), Paul Bender (bass), Simon Mavin (keys), and Perrin Moss (drums). Their new album follows 2015’s Choose Your Weapon on Flying Buddha.
The album’s six-year journey began on the road, as they added new material to their sets in support of Choose Your Weapon. By the fall of 2018, the backing tracks had largely been laid, ready for vocals. Then, during a brief swing through the United States, Saalfield was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her mother’s death from the same disease was never far from her mind. She returned home to undergo a life-saving mastectomy. As she recovered, the band turned back to their work with altered perspectives. Her lyrics, even those written before her illness, took on a prescient quality, we’re told.
“When you think your life is going to be taken away from you, it makes you think about who you are,” Saalfield says. “I guess after the breast cancer scare I decided that I needed to prove to life that the offering I have is genuine. My only wish is to live and offer my experience of time and beauty.”
Later, in 2019, the band travelled to Rio de Janeiro to work with legendary Brazilian artist Arthur Verocai, which shifted the vibe of the entire album. The sessions also brought two new songs onto the album, namely “Stone Or Lavender” and “Red Room”
The result is an album that “relaxes into a groove,” we’re told. Behind everything is Hiatus’ familiar sense of musical adventure, their knack for making the complex sound simple, or in their own words “wondercore.”
Tracklisting
01. Flight Of The Tiger Lily 02. Sip Into Something Soft 03. Chivalry Is Not Dead 04. And We Go Gentle 05. Get Sun feat. Arthur Verocai 06. All The Words We Don’t Say 07. Hush Rattle 08. Rose Water 09. Red Room 10. Sparkle Tape Break Up 11. Stone Or Lavender 12. Blood And Marrow
Mood Valiant LP is scheduled for June 25 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Get Sun” feat. Arthur Verocai below and pre-order here.
PAN has announced a new album from Ziúr, an experimental producer based in Berlin, Germany.
Antifate is the third album that Ziúr has released, following two on Planet Mu. On 2019’s ATØ, she re-introduced songs to her canon, contorting her vocals over an electronic backdrop, and with Antifate she takes this idea further, pushing abstracted pop forms into mists of digital euphoria and extracting unexpected instrumental flourishes.
“Electronic instrumentation is melted into acoustic sounds and vice-versa, creating a breathing organic universe that’s entirely Ziúr’s,” we’re told.
The album title references a mythical land where wine flows freely and houses are made of cake. With this in mind, Ziúr crafts a soundtrack that’s “fantastical and magical, hinged on the idea of closeness and connection at a time when distance is mandatory,” the Germany label tells XLR8R.
A longtime fixture in Berlin’s nightlife, Ziúr has cut through decades of threads to arrive on a sound that accurately represents her journey. She’s founder and resident DJ of Boo-Hoo, a series of club nights championing diverse lineups. Alongside Julianna Huxtable, she forms Off License, an audiovisual collaboration, and the two performed last October in collaboration with visual artist Theresa Baumgartner.
The album was mastered by Rashad Becker, and it follows Patrick Belega’s Blutt on PAN, scheduled for April release.
Tracklisting
01. Alive, Unless? 02. Orange Cream Drip 03. Antifate 04. Gravity’s Gravity, Clout is Clout 05. Fringe Casual 06. Aid Is What It Is 07. Sister Lava 08. Aka Doctor Opp 09. The Dip 10. The Carry
Antifate LP is scheduled for May 7 release. Meanwhile, you can pre-order here and stream the title-track below.
On March 19, 51Beats will release the latest EP from Italian producer Joao Ceser, titled Fiumi.brz.
Following releases on Tiptop Audio, Black Nite, Cocoon, Foll’s Gold, and Pitch The Noise, the four-track EP finds Ceser in an introspective mood, with a set of deep and dreamy atmospheric cuts that will “reset your body and your soul,” we’re told. Recorded in Brianza, the four tracks feature stunning modular synth lines and subtle wandering percussion from Ceser’s analog-focused collection.
In support of the release, Ceser has offered up the EP’s closing cut, “Seveso,” as an XLR8R download, available to XLR8R+ subscribers below. At almost five minutes long and completely drumless, “Seveso” is a masterclass in restraint and layering, with each of its synth lines dancing around the frequency spectrum in euphoric harmony.
