Bård Aasen Lødemel (a.k.a. Skatebård) will drop his latest LP, CDIII, on October 23 via Norwegian imprint Balsa Wood.
Lødemel’s colorful musical background—he’s played the part of heavy metal drummer, techno and electro producer, and MC for one Norway’s best-selling hip-hop acts—is plastered all over the sprawling, cosmic journey that is CDIII. Spread across 10 tracks, the LP presents a diverse selection of cuts taking in slow-mo house, old-school electro, primitive drum workouts, and Detroit-inspired techno, all stitched together with Lødemel’s signature stripped-back, psychedelic sound.
CDIII is available for preorder now over at iTunes, or Brilliance, with the chunky disco cut “Donko Donko” streaming in full via the player below.
Kid Smpl should be a name that is quite familiar with XLR8R’s regular readership. In the past, he’s provided us with a brilliantly sprawling podcast, as well as numerous world class cuts for our downloads section, and we featured him as a Bubblin’ Up artist back in January of 2013. Now, the Seattle producer returns with a twisted and industrialised remix of Deebs and Jarell Perry’s track “Home.” Originally released as part of Deebs and Jarell Perry’s EP Shift, “Home” gets a complete overhaul in the hands of Kid Smpl, who flips the R&B-tinged cut into a haunting sonic slab full of metallic percussion, detuned vocals, and sand-papered synth textures. You can pick up the track for free below and for those in Seattle, you can catch Kid Smpl at dB2015 Optical Kick-Off Party.
The long-running NYC affair known as the Bunker has been heralded as the “Godfather of Weird Techno Parties”—and its year-plus-old affiliated label, the Bunker New York imprint, has been as avant-garde and experimental as their murky bashes. Deep inside NYC’s burgeoning experimental-music scene, fellow New Yorker Clay Wilson is the producer behind the label’s 14th release. It’s not the first time that Clay has the brought the fuzz to the hallowed vaults of the Bunker, and the Skandha EP continues the producer’s knack for unsettling and challenging musical excursions.
The Bunker’s moody credentials shine with the throbbing title track, laying witness to Wilson’s textural nuances and and knack for droning percussive atmosphere, rather than on the driving, pounding 16-bar formula that’s endemic to the majority of middle-of-the-road techno. The beats sound more akin to pieces of sandpaper causing friction burns on soft hands, and the track’s bell-tuned percussion resonate like blips on a radar.
“Cataleptic” comes equipped with synthesizer echoes and stiff, swollen 4/4 kicks, delivered through a hazy veil of lo-fi sonics, with gusts of vocal chants and field recordings of birds chirping before being fading into mere echoes. There’s lots jam-packed into the nooks and crannies of this track—its sub-level base of dark and inviting atmosphere beckons you in, yet doesn’t divert from the unrelenting, metronomic rhythm laying at its core. It’s like Throbbing Gristle and Radio Slave combining their individual weirdness and forces.
“Feres” features wailing sirens and echoing, unsettling noises, as a skippy techno beat and bell-chime groove onward in the background, while the eerie sounds of the night taking precedence in the foreground. Finally, Clay serves up “Pict,” a dizzying track with swirling synths, zipping and strained echoes and razor edged snares, adding up to a voyeuristic, darkly delicious outing that shifts focus towards its unique melodies, long atmospheric flourishes and layers of sonic nuances.
Max Cooper‘s Quotient series is a free download series that has allowed the renowned producer the freedom to veer away from the dancefloor, as he explains himself:
“The Quotient Series has been a nice opportunity to experiment with new music outside of the restrictions of record labels and their need to sell product. This freedom has left me open to put out a piano solo and feedback matrix, a 10 minute ambient to drum and bass glitch remix, a track scored to a video, a one off club collab and more – all projects that I wanted to try, and am glad I did, but that wouldn’t easily fit into the usual EP/LP formats.
It’s been a sort of sketch and experiment project, much of it tied to the Emergence visual shows, where I’ve been experimenting with how I can perform music and visual in sync in a live format.”
The last and final track in the series, “Eve,” is a collaboration with Monkeytown artist Alex Banks and, this time, is a much more club-focused affair, perfectly melding the signature sounds of both producers into a monolith of deeply wound textures and wall-shaking beats.
“Eve” can be heard in full below, with the track also available as a free download at maxcooper.net.
Francis Harris returns to his own Scissor & Thread label—under the Aris Kindt alias—with the release of a new album titled: Floods. This most recent project has been written in collaboration with longtime friend and guitarist; Gabe Hedrick and precedes Harris’ sophomore solo album, Minutes of Sleep, released on the same imprint in 2014.
As stated in a press release, it took the artists over a year to write the entire project, “using a vintage 808, a modular eurorack and two guitars” as main tools. According to Scissor & Thread, Floods’ main focus will be on “W.G. Sebald’s profound interpretation of Rembrandt’s 1632 master work, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.”
Hear a preview of the album below.
TRACKLISTING:
A1 Now Grey
A2 Floods
A3 Blue Sky Shoes
A4 Snowbird
B1 Every New Thing
B2 Embers
B3 Braids
Floods will be released via Scissor & Thread on November 16, 2015.
Every year since its inauguration in 2010, the Crosstown Rebels curated party Get Lost Los Angeles has always served as a transition from Summer to Fall, a farewell to those headed out to the dust of Burning Man, and as an early indicator of what tunes will dominate the world’s best dance floors in the coming months. This year, despite a slight delay in timing, that tradition continues as Crosstown Rebel’s head musical shaman, Damian Lazarus, returns to his familiar stomping grounds for the 5th edition of Get Lost Los Angeles.
To show its love for the Los Angeles community this weekend, XLR8R is giving away two tickets to Get Lost, taking place at Le Jardin on Sunday, September 27. For your chance to win two tickets to this Sunday’s gathering, give us a follow on Instagram and then enter your full name and email information below. XLR8R will choose one winner that will be contacted this weekend via the email provided. Terms and Conditions apply.
Pre-sale tickets and more information for Get Lost LA can be found by clicking here.
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Terms and Conditions:
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Hailing from Mexico, producer Cesar Urbina (aka Cubenx) is set to release his second album via French label InFiné Music. Having previously featured a number of downloads from Cubenx, we have come to truly appreciate his sonic adaptations as he has moved from producing dancefloor-centric techno to crafting the eclectic, dark, and orchestral sound that shines through in his newest release, Elegiac, which is set to release on November 27. Constantly moving between Mexico, Paris, and Berlin, Urbina has embraced his life of travel wholeheartedly, adopting a nomadic mentality that has come to influence his music. His roving lifestyle is a central theme of the album, which he sums up in this statement:
“We’re not tourists, we’re travelers: tourists are those who think about going home from the moment they arrive, whereas a traveler might not come back at all.”
The album features four different vocalists who come from Mexico, Lebanon, France, and Berlin, further adding to the wanderlust vibes that Cubenx embraces in his music. While much of the music in the LP is lush and euphoric, the eclectic nature of the album features elements from a variety of genres that he has garnered from the road including UK Bass, Jungle, Trap, and a bit of field recording as well.
You can stream LP cut “Banquet,” which features french singer Pris Wayland, below and you can pre-order your copy of Elegiac on Bleep by going here.
Jacques Renault‘s been a local New York all-star for years, in part through his production work with Marcos Cabral under the Runaway moniker (they also ran the On the Prowl imprint together), in part because of his relentless Gotham DJing schedule through the mid ’00s to this day, and certainly through Let’s Play House, the label and roving party he runs with Nik Mercer. The last few years have seen his national and worldwide profile rise as well, largely through a busy touring schedule and a series of hot four-to-the-floor solo releases, edits and remixes that hit all the right spots. But now Renault’s really ready for the spotlight: He’s just released his debut LP, Zentrum, on Let’s Play House, and it doesn’t disappoint. The album—which features an all-star array of friends that includes Cabral, the Rapture’s Luke Jenner, Mark Verbos, the Emperor Machine, and a/jus/ted‘s Teddy Stewart—references classic house and disco, but filtered through his own idiosyncratic prism for a fun set of tunes that’s fully of the here-and-now. But Renault has a not-so-dirty little secret—he grew up in the D.C. area not as a dance-music acolyte, but as a fan of hardcore, postpunk and leftfield rock. A stint in Chicago—marked by a job working for the famed Gramophone record shop—helped to bring our young hero to the side of all that is good and right. But once a rocker, always a rocker, at least to a degree—and below, find Renault’s five fave (guitar-heavy) seven-inch singles of the ’90s.
Jacques Renault’s fave seven-inch singles of ’90s.
Jawbox “Motorist”/”Jackpot Plus!” (Dischord Records) I might as well start off with one of Jawbox‘s 7″s for Dischord, a label that I was constantly buying from directly with almost every catalog update. I didn’t have a lot to spend, so to mix it up, I’d always pick out something new and something old. Fugazi, Shudder to Think, Flex Your Head, etc. The list goes on. I had a few tapes in the car, too, one of which was Jawbox’s Novelty, an album I know pretty much inside out.
The Make-Up, “Substance Abuse” (Time Bomb Recordings) Along with Jawbox and Fugazi, I listened to a lot of Nation of Ulysses. I never saw them live, but I did catch the short-lived Cupid Car Club at Fort Reno one summer before the Make-Up started playing a bunch. There were amazing lineups at the Black Cat and their benefit-type shows. Slant 6, the Cranium, Crom-Tech, etc. all stand out for me, and those shows always felt like such performances. Super-fun, and always a bit different from the other punk shows going on around the city.
Monorchid, “Imposter Costume” (Lovitt Records) This band was birthed from another Dischord fave of mine, Circus Lupus. I missed seeing them live, too, but this hybrid was even better. Killer riffs and serious band presence. They played with the Make-Up, Blonde Redhead and other indie bands from Arlington, Virginia. I used to joke how I saw Blonde Redhead the most because they opened up for so many bands back then. Now I see one of the group’s twin brothers in my local grocery store and ask myself, “What are you guys up to?”
Jonathan Fire*Eater, “Give Me Daughters”/”The Search For Cherry Red” (Deceptive Records) First time I saw this band was at 9:30 Club. They were different from the other D.C. bands, and I liked that a lot. Sort of like the U.K. bands I was getting into, too. Anyway, this sort of got me more interested in what was going on in New York, what the band scene was like up there. I’d only go to NY for day trips, so I didn’t get to spend that much time there to feel it out, but when I saw the Walkmen years later, at the Bowery Ballroom, it made me miss this band a little bit. I guess that’s how people feel when they see Ian MacKaye or Chain and the Gang.
Berlin “The Metro” (Geffen Records) I wanted to include this because it’s actually one of the first 7″s that I ever had. My older sister’s friend gave me a handful of records and this was in the batch. He also gave me my first skateboard and shared stories about the local skate shop, the Sunshine House, and about Ian MacKaye coming in all the time to buy his signature maroon Vans. At the time, I didn’t really get it, and this record didn’t stand up to Henry Rollins or Government Issue, but years later I discovered it again along with Grauzone, Bush Tetras, Human League, Soft Cell, etc., which were pretty much my gateway to my disco-digging.
Following the release of his self-titled debut album earlier this year, Hessle Audio co-founder Pearson Sound (a.k.a. David Kennedy) reenters the fray with a new 12″, Thaw Cycle. Resident Advisor reports that the two-track affair is more club-oriented than the preceding album, and will be self-released by Kennedy on October 16. Until then, EP clips are streaming below.
