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Friday, December 28, 2018

Tunisian techno, Xitsongan rap and Satanic doo-wop: the best new music of 2019

From cheeky rappers to explosive hardcore punks, we introduce 50 artists sure to make an impact in the coming year

She has already sung backing vocals for Chance the Rapper, guested on Sam Smith’s last album and steals the show on Mark Ronson’s forthcoming LP of “sad bangers” – all because of a truly remarkable voice that marks her out as the coming year’s Adele. Here’s hoping her superhuman vocal control will be put to service on equally strong songs.

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Laura Snapes and Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sounds like? The best songs from 2018 ... that you didn't hear

From electro-punk to pop-soul, Guardian writers have picked their favourite underappreciated songs of the year

Check out a Spotify playlist of all the tracks here

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by Jim Farber, Katie Bain, Eve Barlow, Benjamin Lee, Laura Snapes, Jake Nevins, Lanre Bakare and Gwilym Mumford via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, December 27, 2018

The best party destinations for backpackers

If pumping bass is your thing, these cities and travellers’ haunts come alive at night, and boast friendly hostels when it’s finally time to hit the pillow

Best for: nights under the stars

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by Will Coldwell via Electronic music | The Guardian

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Dom Servini – Netil Radio Show #11

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Intro: Chillin’ on the rooftoop

ThE DiAboLIcaL LibERTieS – biGGeR ThAN yOU

Âme – The Line feat. Matthew Herbert

Penya – Cham Bomb (Photay Remix)

I Gemin and Castanea – Fall In Love

Rude & Mean – Moments in Soul

2000Black – Mononymous Persons

Yta Jourias – Adome Nyueto (Bosq Edit) 

Vaudou Game – Tata Fatigue 

Laraaji – All Of A Sudden (Scrimshire Edit)

Michael Garrick & Shake Keane – Rising Star

The Blackbyrds – Wilfred’s Gone

Stone Foundation – Standing on the Top

Children of Zeus – Kintsugi

Royal Krunk Jazz Orchestra – Fair

Rejoicer – Yesterday’s Forest Magic 

Lagartijeando –  Malandro De Boa

Time Grove – Jungle Bourjois

Chuck Mangione – Land Of Make Believe

Spiral Deluxe – E=MC2

Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines

Mildlife – Magnificent Moon

Flamingo Pier – Find Your Way 

Dowdelin – Eléphants Roses

Kadhja Bonet – Possession

Joanna Newsom – The Sprout and the Bean

Yazmin Lacey – Something My Heart Trusts

Oscar Jerome – Do You Really

Bishop Nehru – Potassium 

Pan Amsterdam – Greek Codfish

John Coltrane – Untitled Original 11383

Elkie Brooks – As 

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Wah Wah Radio – December 2018

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Servini, Scrimshire, Sausage and Swuni select their favourite three tracks of 2018.
Tough decisions are made, people get angry, Santa steps in to settle a fight, elves get hurt, fear and pain ensue, but in the end peace comes to all men and women, a lost and homeless person gets their angel wings, reindeer learn to fly, the essential goodness of human spirit is rediscovered, and balance is restored within the office, just before Christmas Eve, ensuring Santa will return with presents for all. Snow falls. The end.

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Suede, Earl Sweatshirt and the Lovely Eggs: readers on their albums of 2018

Following our critics’ vote, we asked you to tell us what you have been listening to this year and why you think it’s worthy of celebration

A stunning reinvention of their sound which nevertheless sticks with the classic crooning tendencies and clever observational lyrics of Alex Turner. Favourite track: Four Out of Five is the obvious contender – a lead-off single with a festival-ready chorus. I also find The Ultracheese to be strangely moving. Guillaume, 35, France

Thank you for all your contributions and comments on our critics’ list – you can continue the conversation below

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by Guardian readers via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, December 21, 2018

Rezzett: Rezzett review – distressed dancefloor classics

The Trilogy Tapes

A bit like a pair of jeans that come pre-distressed with frays and scuffs, the debut full-length from dance duo Rezzett sounds like a once-pristine master recording that has been sun-baked, waterlogged, sandpapered and worse. And like the jeans, some might see this as a pointless pose: why resist high fidelity? But the pair – Tapes and an anonymous producer believed to be Lukid – announce the beauty in degradation, perhaps a grimly salutary lesson as our environment and politics are eroded. The album opens with a trio of excellent 4/4 techno tracks, getting huge mileage out of ethereal melody lines that soar as if through the smog generated by the industrial kick drums below them. They might sound like they were made on an eight-track, but they are actually powerfully dense, threaded with imaginative details such as the vocals that roil meaninglessly under Longboat.

But the album then broadens out stylistically, from beatless ambient (Yunus in Ekstasi) to frenetic jungle (Worst Ever Contender). In between there is Wet Bilge, a stretch of dub as dank and glittering as the title suggests; Tarang, a confidently high-speed blur of tabla and hymnal organ; and Gremlinz, a grime instrumental (perhaps a Terror Danjah homage?) with bright video-game tones glinting through the pond-water. Certainly influenced by Actress but more determinedly rooted to the dancefloor, Rezzett’s album shreds the veneered surface of digital dance to find the rich, raw grain beneath.

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Tell us: what was your album of 2018?

We will publish a selection of readers’ favourite albums before the end of the year

After canvassing over 50 of our music writers and totting up their votes, we’ve announced our 50 best albums of the year, topped by Christine and the Queens’ sensual neo-boogie classic Chris.

But a list of 50 – and you can see the whole thing here – inevitably misses out out dozens of brilliant albums, so we’d love to hear from you about the recordings you think were unfairly overlooked by our vote. In love with the latest chapter of Father John Misty’s wry catalogue of self-obsession? Outraged that Guardian critics bucked their stereotype and didn’t reward Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s collaborative album? Did you think great soundtrack recordings – Black Panther, A Star is Born, Phantom Thread – should have been recognised?

If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here.

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by Guardian readers via Electronic music | The Guardian

Berlin government pledges €1m to soundproof city's nightclubs

Berlin’s club scene makes money for the city – and a lot of noise. A new initiative will soundproof venues, helping to protect clubs from closure

Clubbers of the world rejoice: the techno mecca of Berlin is to receive a €1m (£900,000) boost from the local government to protect its renowned clubbing culture.

The funding will go towards soundproofing projects, with the aim of improving relations between venues and local residents, based on a similar project in Hamburg. The noise protection programme, which was proposed last year and came into effect on 30 November 2018, indicates the importance of Berlin’s nightlife culture and its relevance to the city’s economy, including the tourism industry.

Related: Nightlife reports: clubbing in Berlin

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by Antonia Wilson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

The 50 best albums of 2018, No 2: Robyn – Honey

Gorgeous harmonies and unerring emotional intelligence dominate on this looser, clubbier follow-up to Body Talk

Eight years ago, Robyn released the three batches of songs that would become the album Body Talk. She had always been at pop’s vanguard: her 1995 debut Robyn Is Here had helped usher in Max Martin’s Cheiron Studios, paving the way for Swedes to go on to rule the charts. Body Talk’s taut, tough electronic pop and keenly feminist lyrics seemed to herald the birth of a new kind of pop star: smart, forward-thinking and in total control.

Related: How Robyn transformed pop

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by Alex Needham via Electronic music | The Guardian

The best DJ mixes of 2018

From Mumdance’s beguiling Shared Meanings to visionary blends from Ziúr and Eris Drew, our mix critics pick their favourites

Eris Drew’s Thundering Goddess Mix

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by Lauren Martin and Tayyab Amin via Electronic music | The Guardian

Monday, December 17, 2018

'This cuts across society': how singeli music went from Tanzania to the world

With up to 300 beats per minute, singeli could be the world’s most frenetic music. In Dar es Salaam, its creators explain how it helps to create a better life

On a neon-lit jetty overlooking the River Nile, a young Tanzanian DJ called Sisso is playing a bracing barrage of blips, bells and breakneck beats that could blast apart a heart-rate monitor. We are at Nyege Nyege, a pan-African festival in Uganda that curates contemporary club music from across the continent, and it’s the first time so many musicians from Tanzania have made it here. Sisso and his peers have taken a 30-hour bus journey and crossed two borders in order to play at the event. Their sets are being streamed live to the world via Boiler Room.

The music these Swahili speed freaks make is a street-level sound known as singeli. It has been ricocheting around the ghettos circling the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam for almost 15 years, with unbridled synth lines, percussion pitch-shifted up to alien frequencies and super-speed lyrical flows.

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by Kate Hutchinson in Uganda via Electronic music | The Guardian

The 10 best New Year's Eve nights out in the UK

From disco on rollerskates to ferocious gabber and lo-fi house, here are the best club nights to ring in 2019

Shave your head, pick out some obscure sportswear and prepare for total gabber meltdown at this summit of Europe’s most formidable hipsters. Evian Christ and his strobe-rich Trance Party series is joining forces with Swedish collective Year0001, continuing Christ’s mission to champion some of the most garish corners of dance. Here he recruits Waxweazle, the Dutch DJ whose hardcore productions redefine insistency, and goes back to back with the Justin Bieber of deconstructed club music, Kamixlo. Bladee, Yung Sherman and HVAD are the Scandi guests, playing fearsomely dystopian trap. A bracing start to the year that will either blow down the boundaries of taste or be a bit of a nightmare – most likely both. Oh, and the accompanying Wikipedia page for the event is quite something.

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Orbital review – techno giants still raging against the political machine

Hammersmith Apollo, London
Their sledgehammer polemic is brought up to date in an gloriously overwhelming visual and musical assault on the senses

With their torch-equipped spectacles, Orbital long ago turned the cliche of techno artists’ facelessness to their advantage, creating a brand as unmistakeable as the Ramones or Deadmau5. Tonight, they amplify that facelessness several leagues beyond 11, with a bone-crushing PA and a stage so dominated by the storeys-high video screens that the silhouetted duo – brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll – appear as glitchy stray pixels in the show.

There is precious little banter. As they have for almost three decades, the pair communicate through their music and images, sound and vision pulsing in often perfect sync. It’s the kind of show where you walk home whistling the video feeds; the visuals don’t so much overwhelm the music as end up an intrinsic, inextricable element of Orbital’s art. Those visuals aren’t always subtle. The pneumatic Impact, for instance, scores images of smoke-belching factories, Hazchem symbols and words such as “garbage” and “pollution”. Satan, their Butthole Surfers-sampling banger, fuses hard-edged industrial throb and imagery suggesting the military industrial complex as the root of all evil. The concept is hardly controversial 28 years on, but the blood-quickening track remains simplistic, powerful and compelling.

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by Stevie Chick via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, December 14, 2018

Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #23 on Soho Radio

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Best of Unherd Radio 2018
Joe Armon-Jones – Starting Today feat. Oscar Jerome
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – An Angel Fell
The Diabolical Liberties – Grief is a Thing with Feathers
Auntie Flo – Nobody Said It Would Be Easy
Modified Man – Blame’s On You Bruv’
Jazzanova – Everything I Wanted feat. Charlotte OC (Yoruba Soul Mix)
D. Lynnwood – Gospel Discotheque
Anderson Paak feat. Kendrick Lamar – Tints
Kassin – Relax
Cobby & Litten – Man Down
Bishop Nehru – Rooftops
Daniel March – Falling For You (Ashley Beedle’s North Street Remix)
Children of Zeus – All On You ft [KSR] & DRS
Keyon Harrold – Wayfaring Traveler ft. Georgia Ann Muldrow, Jermain Holmes & Robert Glasper
79.5 – I Stay You Stay
Jordan Rakei – Wildfire
Catching Flies – New Gos feat. Jay Prince & Oscar Jerome
The One-O-Ones – Radio Cosmo 101 (Bals Edit)
Prequel – Freedom
Hagan & Gafacci – Yenko feat. Gafacci
Detroit Swindle – Call of the Wild feat. Jungle By Night
The Mauskovic Dance Band – Down in the Basement
Glenn Astro – Discomania (Nelson Of The East Remix)
Peggy Gou – It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)
Retiree – Pumice Stone
Tierra de King Coya – Te Digo Wayno
Madison Washington – Djedet
Medikul – Objects
Yazmin Lacey – Something My Heart Trusts

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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

GRiZ: the EDM artist using his star power to make a difference

The 28-year-old DJ and producer has been helping to transform parts of Detroit through charity work while standing up as a rare LGBT voice in a mostly heterosexual music scene

The electronic music crowd isn’t famous for getting up early, yet here we are at 11am on a Sunday, rolling our yoga mats onto the marble floor of the most opulent building in downtown Detroit. A hundred people sink into chair pose as deep house, played by the DJ at the front of the room, reverberates off the soaring ceilings of the famous Fisher Building, an art deco palace built with auto industry money in the 1920s. Tourists snap photos of the scene as they pass through a lobby decorated with a dozen glittering Christmas trees. Behind a desk, the security guard nods his head with the beat.

Related: 'It will kill me' – behind the devastating Avicii documentary

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by Katie Bain via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

'It will kill me' – behind the devastating Avicii documentary

Avicii: True Stories was initially given a small release before the death of the EDM star but now the director discusses its uneasy relevance

The man who got as close as anyone could to the superstar musician Avicii still has no explanation for why he died six months ago. “I have this feeling of unreality,” says Levan Tsikurishvili, who spent four years filming the DJ for a documentary. “I’m still in shock. I don’t have a clear reason.”

But his film offers a startling number of clues. Avicii: True Stories, which will debut on Netflix in the US, UK and Australia on 28 December, presents an unflinching portrait of an artist coming apart. With fly-on-the-wall proximity, the camera shows Avicii repeatedly, and emphatically, telling everyone around him how exhausted, anxious and sick he is. “There was never an end to the shows, even when I hit a wall,” the DJ says early in the film. “My life is all about stress.”

Related: Avicii: the poster boy for EDM who struggled with the spotlight

Avicii: True Stories is released in LA on 14 December, New York on 21 December and on Netflix on 28 December

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by Jim Farber via Electronic music | The Guardian

Monday, December 10, 2018

HQ: (I Feel So Mezzaniney) review – follow the warped French maids!

Second Home, London
Disaffection trumps dynamism in Steven Warwick and Carlos Maria Romero’s site-responsive piece staged in a co-working space

The minimal electro beat ramps up and a gaggle of go-go dancers swivel their hips. Dressed like warped French maids in frilly wetsuits and heels (men and women alike), they are not dancing with joy, nor offering the hard sell of someone trying to persuade you to tuck a bank note in their knickers. But there is effort, no doubt about that. This is the unsexy sweat of work, and these workers are putting in their hours.

Part of the London contemporary music festival, this is a site-responsive piece by composer Steven Warwick and choreographer/dancer Carlos Maria Romero, a London-based Colombian mostly working in live art and queer politics.

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by Lyndsey Winship via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, December 7, 2018

Grammy nominations 2019: Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar and Drake lead the pack

Strong showing for female and hip-hop artists suggest renewed focus on diversity – but it’s a mediocre year for British acts

After controversy about the Grammys’ failure to recognise women’s achievements at the 2018 ceremony, female artists dominate key categories in the nominations for the 2019 awards. Country stars Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves, rapper Cardi B, pop futurist Janelle Monáe and Lady Gaga could all take home major awards at the 61st Grammy award ceremony in Los Angeles next February.

Elsewhere, Kendrick Lamar and Drake dominate proceedings, with eight and seven nominations respectively. Along with Childish Gambino, AKA Donald Glover, they could rectify the other dispute that emerged from this year’s awards – namely the Recording Academy nominating but not awarding major hip-hop artists.

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by Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, December 6, 2018

‘I love a good spanking’: Paloma Faith, Nao, Sleaford Mods and others on 2018’s music controversies

Artists including Kojey Radical, Let’s Eat Grandma and Róisín Murphy discuss the year’s biggest stories, from Childish Gambino’s This Is America to the rise of K-pop and Jessie J’s success in China

April: Kanye West reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump on Twitter, part of a turbulent year in which he claimed slavery was “a choice”, released several albums, visited Trump in the White House, handed out Yeezy shoes in Uganda and announced he was thinking of building a flying-car factory.

Kojey Radical: I feel conflicted. I’ve got Yeezys on right now. The problem is, for all the contribution he’s made to music, he’s gotten to the point now where he just likes the conversation.

I listen to drill from the comfort of my nice home, but it’s bleak. These lads are virtually crying on the microphone

Related: This is America: theories behind Childish Gambino's satirical masterpiece

Surely certain powers will be extremely happy to see the rise of K-pop. It’s cultural warfare, in a way

I get called to talk at Oxford because I’m a black female. Just by existing, I’m political

Related: Why has the UK stopped producing pop superstars?

Related: Has 10 years of Spotify ruined music?

If a young artist came to me now and said: 'Do I need to get signed?’ I’d probably say no

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

The Milk at Chinnerys on 08/12

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Monday, December 3, 2018

The 50 best albums of 2018: 50-41

Our countdown of the year’s most exciting music begins with pithy punk, political soul, pagan gospel and mutated rave. Check in every weekday for more

Nerds get bogged down in taxonomy when discussing Deafheaven – is it metal or not? – but the rest of us can get on with simply revelling in a gigantically heavy band at the peak of their powers. The solos are virtuosic and uplifting, the blast-beats cleansing, and the post-rock ballads so simple and affecting. Still anyone’s guess what George Clarke is roaring about, mind. Read our full review.

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Flohio review – frenzied flows from UK rap's most vital new voice

The Art School, Glasgow
The London-via-Lagos MC is small in stature but a giant on the mic, with an astonishing staccato style set to dystopian beats

It’s 1am when Flohio takes the mic. The decks are in the middle of the floor, and SE16’s brightest rapper is balancing on a block to make her small stature visible. Beckoning the eager crowd even closer, she grins: “I wanna make sure I have someone to catch me.”

Born in Lagos and based in Bermondsey, Funmi Ohiosumah has a crooked smile, androgynous style and a powerful, magnetic presence. She dropped her first EP Nowhere Near in 2016 and chased it with infectious, postcode celebrating collaborations with London producers God Colony. Since then, she’s shown genre-defying dexterity through shrewd producer partnerships, from the skittering, bass-heavy minimalism of west Londoner Cadenza to the monstrous energy of Berlin techno innovators Modeselektor. For this Glasgow stop-off on her first headline tour, the bill is curated by trusted local tastemakers OH141.

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by Katie Hawthorne via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Underworld review – pulse-pumping euphoria with dank dance superstars

Village Underground, London
The electronic alchemists serve up rich rave manna with tales of love, lust and squalor in a career-spanning set that shows them still at the height of their galloping powers

Those dirty numb angel boys and mega mega white things who are here on a nostalgic trip to the church of lager are welcomed by Karl Hyde with arms spread wide. The ferrety Underworld singer knows full well that Born Slippy .NUXX – the throwaway 1995 B-side that accidentally made them dank dance superstars – defined the narcotic breakdown of the 90s as distinctly as Parklife encapsulated its winking Britpop high; a feverish alcoholic’s diary entry pounding over the closing scenes of Trainspotting like a crackhead heart attack.

So he presents the track’s iconic space echo to the throng at this low-key club show (Underworld’s last London gig was at Alexandra Palace in 2017) like so much rave manna, worshipping the hook with the trancey pose of a synth-summoning shaman. But only at the end of the night, well into the early hours, once Underworld have proved themselves more pivotal electronic alchemists than the one-hit ponies behind Renton’s theme.

Related: Underworld: ‘It doesn’t matter where music comes from – it’s how it connects’

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by Mark Beaumont via Electronic music | The Guardian

The top 100 tracks of 2018

Guardian music writers have picked their favourite songs of the year – from UK drill breakthroughs to pure pop anthems – and put them all on a giant playlist

Kicking off our roundups of the best music of 2018, polled from votes by more than 50 Guardian music writers, we count down our favourite tracks of the year – topped by a man who managed to unpick US racial politics, launch a thousand thinkpieces and reach No 1 in the US charts, all with a single track. Read about the top 20 below, and hear the whole top 100 in playlists on Spotify and Apple Music. We’ll be counting down the albums of the year throughout the rest of the month, with No 1 announced on 21 December.

Related: This is America: theories behind Childish Gambino's satirical masterpiece

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, November 30, 2018

Clean Bandit: What Is Love? review – underwhelming chart catnip

(Atlantic)

Clean Bandit began with an undeniable aura of nerdiness. They met at Cambridge, where two members of the original lineup led a string quartet; their first hit was called Mozart’s House and merged the composer’s work with a squelchy dance beat. However, the studious trio soon garnered a reputation for being boffins of a different variety: as the Top 10 hits and online streams racked up (to date: nine and 4bn, respectively), it became clear they had masterminded a failsafe formula for churning out chart catnip.

In fact, these pop poindexters are so adept at producing standalone hits that releasing an album feels like a formality. This second album has already spawned five singles, including three No 1s. Still, hearing these songs side by side does helpfully expose some of Clean Bandit’s methods. While their 2014 debut, New Eyes, was built around pop-house and string-section flourishes, What Is Love? draws opportunistically on more recent chart trends, namely Latin pop and diluted dancehall. It also sees the band continue their teamwork-based approach to music-making. Each track sports at least one starry guest, be it Demi Lovato or Craig David – something that happens to be a reliable indicator of chart success (collaborations make up around one-third of hit songs).

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by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Wah Wah Radio – November 2018

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Georgia Anne Muldrow – Bobbie’s Dittie
Chip Wickham – (Soul) Rebel 23 (Reginald Omas Mamode IV Remix)

Tenderlonious – Broken TOM
NameBrandSound – Bebop
Paper Tiger – The Cycle
Modified Man – Hear Me Calling
Elsa Hewitt – Invisible Threads
Ambiance – Turnaround
Mental Abstrato – Samambaia Rainha ft. Claudya
Insólito UniVerso – Lloviendo en Guatire

Soothsayers – Watching The Stars (Lagartijeando Remix)

Jonny Drop – Among The Stars

Sade – Kiss of Life (Kaytranada Remix)

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Monday, November 26, 2018

Dom Servini – Netil Radio Show #10

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London Jazz Festival Special!

Randy Masters feat. Solar Plexus – Children of Bahia (EMI)
Creative Arts Ensemble – Flashback of Time (Outernational Sounds)
Medasi – Children (Rise Records)
Belair – Samba for a Cold Warrior (Belby Wetterman)
Billy Bang Sextet – Abuella (Soul Note)
Stan Clarke – Unexpected Days (Polydor)
Ntu with Gary Bartz – Singerella (Prestige)
Mr. Circle – Thi Nam (Stockfisch)
Gustav Brom – Calling Up The Rain (Opus)
Maisha – UK – Eaglehurst / The Palace (Brownswood)
Dick Griffin – Now Is The Time (Trident)
Stone Alliance – Sweetie-Pie (P.M. Records Inc.)
Web Web – Sandia (Compost Records)
Duke Pearson – The Phantom (Blue Note)
Yusef Lateef – Back Home (Atlantic)
The Andrzej Trzaskowski Sextet feat. Ted Curson – Wariacja na Temat “Oj, Tam u Boru” (Muza)
J. J. Johnson – Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (Columbia)

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Sunday, November 25, 2018

Jónsi: Frakkur 2000-2004 review – playful, engaging solo works

(Krúnk)

Bowed guitar to the fore, Jónsi Birgisson is one of the lodestones of 21st-century art rock. With Sigur Rós becalmed again (their last album was in 2013), and his other projects – Riceboy Sleeps and Jónsi solo – on mute, the Icelandic musician has corralled some previously unreleased electronic solo pieces under the name Frakkur. Some of these are loose on the internet in grainier form; a handful came out in a very short vinyl run last Christmas.

Dating from the early 2000s, these often engaging tracks take the form of amorphous ambient glides and playful digital sketches, each album corresponding to a different set-up of gear, locale, time and theme. The earliest tracks – SFTLB 1-9 – riff hard on innocence, while TB 1-8 find Jónsi sampling junk-shop toys into clubbier fare before a sonorous unease takes hold.

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

Afro Celt Sound System: Flight review – unflagging spirit and invention

(ECC)

On a visit to Senegal in 1991, the London-born producer-guitarist Simon Emmerson was struck by an odd but compelling notion that the folk traditions of west Africa and western Europe were entwined. Since 1995, his Afro Celt Sound System has been a changeling entity, while cleaving to Emmerson’s utopian concept of a griot-druid fusion. This eighth and arguably most accomplished album pares back the electronica of previous incarnations for a more organic approach that captures the exhilaration of their live shows. Much of it lopes along on Afro-house rhythms, augmented by Johnny Kalsi’s dhol drums, while voices and instruments morph effortlessly, at times startlingly, between African gospel and Celtic ballad, rippling kora and haunting uilleann pipes.

Some of Flight’s best moments are nonetheless its most restrained. Its central theme, migration, finds resolution on the poignant Night Crossing, while the opening Lament for MacLean is a stirring a cappella performance in Gaelic by hip-hop crofter Griogair Labhruidh. There is also a version of Sanctus (the African mass featured in Lindsay Anderson’s If…) by the Amani choir whose stately opening slides into thumping celebration. At 75 minutes, Flight is a long haul, but its spirit and invention are unflagging and uplifting.

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by Neil Spencer via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, November 23, 2018

Vessel: Queen of Golden Dogs review – a gloriously weird electro-odyssey

(TriAngle)

The Bristolian musician Sebastian Gainsborough made his name with a strain of dance music that’s not really designed for the dancefloor. His expansive, ambitious post-club compositions have drawn on everything from dubstep to post-punk in pursuit of an intelligent and often slightly contrarian sound. His third album takes the template a step further, combining classical instrumentation with the clanging dissonance and glitchy, unnatural tempos of the internet age. The result is a record that feels pretentious – but in a good way: carefully considered and aiming towards something more philosophical than your average electro-odyssey.

Made in rural Wales over an 18-month period, Gainsborough took inspiration from a romance with a violinist, and strings of varying levels of loveliness litter the album accordingly. But it isn’t only his partner to whom he pays tribute – the majority of songs are dedicated to various muses. Torno-me eles e nau-e (For Remedios) – a mass of dour chanting that evolves into sugary vocal harmonies – is a tribute to the Spanish surrealist painter Remedios Varo; the florid techno epic Argo (For Maggie) is named after novelist Maggie Nelson.

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by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian

My Brightest Diamond: A Million and One review – chilly art pop that grasps for greatness

(Rhyme & Reason Records)

The turn towards electronic music that Shara Nova took on the 2014 album This Is My Hand continues on her fifth full-length album as My Brightest Diamond. It is not really an album for the clubs, though, despite the title of the opening track, That’s Me on the Dance Floor. (The presence of chicken-scratch guitar does not a Chic record make.) Instead, Nova once again offers art pop that is best when it’s less concerned with the art than the pop. For instance, on the gorgeously sad Another Chance, the claimed influence of Anita Baker comes through in a ballad that combines regret and hope.

But there’s surely a reason why Nova has worked with so many fantastic artists – Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens and the Decemberists among them – without exactly establishing herself at their level.

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by Michael Hann via Electronic music | The Guardian

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

BNE: the Indonesian slum parties fighting for the underground

In Bandung, Indonesia, music is often suppressed by local authorities – but one series of shows is defying the restrictions with breakcore and folk-punk

‘Music in Indonesia cannot be severed from political domination and power,” says Kimung from his understated office in a residential area of Bandung, West Java. The mononymous music historian and stalwart of the underground music scene in Bandung pores through decades of DIY magazines and articles as he explains the tricky relationship between the city, provincial and national government forces in the west of this vast country, and the musicians who play here.

While Jakarta is dominated by skyscrapers, shopping malls and traffic jams, Bandung offers a more humble existence, where music and the arts infuse all facets of life – from the army barracks that have been turned into artist studios through to the violinist playing to drivers at traffic lights.

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by Gareth Main via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #22 on Soho Radio

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Maisha – Osiris
The Midnight Hour – Possibilities feat. Eryn Allen Kane
Georgia Anne Muldrow – Vital Transformation
Apollo Brown & Joell Ortiz – Come Back Home
Lost Twin – Butterfly Lake
O.Love – I Gotta Know
The Diabolical Liberties – Grief is a Thing with Feathers
Yoruba Singers – Frustration
Mental Abstrato – Suco de Acerola (Tribute to J Dilla)
2fox – Lonzania
Blood Wine or Honey – Brilliant Pebbles
EABS & Tenderlonious – Kraska
Thundercat – King of the Hill feat. BADBADNOTGOOD
Laneous – Modern Romance
Sonnymoon – Ideas
Jonny Drop – Flash Light feat. Grace Walker (Aeshim Remix)
Neue Grafik – I Miss Something (NameBrandSound Remix)
Paper Tiger – The Cycle feat. Steve Spacek (Shy One Remix)
Blair French – Standing Still is an Illusion (Aroop Roy Remix)
Waajeed – I Ain’t Safe feat. Ideeyah
Mutenoise – Midnight (Ashley Beedle North Street Remix)
Jackson Almond – As I Look at You (Original Mix)
DJ Center & Sly5thAve – Paradise feat. Thalma de Freitas
Chip Wickham – Snake Eyes (Ishmael Ensemble Remix)
Soothsayers – Watching The Stars (Lagartijeando Remix)
Swindle – Coming Home feat. Kojey Radical

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Monday, November 19, 2018

Groove Armada: how we made At the River

It was the chill-out classic that beguiled the 90s – and it all started in a 50p bargain bin in Ambleside

A schoolfriend suggested Andy and I meet, so he came up to my attic in my parents’ house. I was lying on a beanbag and a bit stoned when he walked in, all 6ft 8 of him. The ceiling was low anyway, so I thought I was hallucinating, but we clicked. After we left university we DJ-ed together for a little club night in London, called Captain Sensual at the Helm of the Groove Armada.

While we were recording, news of Princess Diana’s death came on the radio. Maybe that added to the melancholy feel

Groove Armada’s 21st anniversary tour starts at the Marble Factory, Bristol, on 29 November, and continues until 2 December.

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by Interviews by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Saturday, November 17, 2018

One to watch: Farai

This rising London duo will be warmly received by the ranks of the disaffected

“Theresa May, do you know how it feels to count days and hours till payday?” So goes London duo Farai’s single This Is England, a foreboding, state-of-the-nation address that berates the “toffs” over a minimal drum kick and scathing static – skeletal post-punk with the confrontational freeform intoning of a beat poet. It probably isn’t the kind of stuff that’ll get to No 1, but their bleak punctuation of Brexit Britain updates post-punk for millennial malaise.

Farai are Farai Bukowski-Bouquet and Tony “Tone” Harewood, whose origin story couldn’t be any more east London if you served it open on a brioche bun. She was a jazz singer and part of Shop Floor Sessions, a collective of musicians and poets who squatted a shop where they hosted jam nights. He was a musician in various indie-pop bands, until they met up at Dalston’s Gillett Square and spent the night recording at Harewood’s home studio.

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by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Dom Servini & Scrimshire at Bussey Building on 19/01

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Dom Servini & Scrimshire at Bussey Building on 19/01

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe on 11/01

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Dom Servini at Bussey Building on 05/01

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Café on 14/12

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Café on 07/12

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Dom Servini at Giant Robot on 15/11

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Honeyfeet at The Royal Exchange Theatre on 17/02

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The month's best mixes: Lil Mofo, Loka Salviatek and Kenya's brilliant Slikback

A concert for fireworks from Vasco Alves and co, Mama Snake and Solid Blake live at the Dekmantel festival and the latest Errorsmith mix

High-octane junglist stress relievers, anti-colonial war drums and exhilarating new club sounds from central and east Africa all feature among November’s best mixes – plus curios including a composition written for a signal-flare performance.

Related: The month's best mixes: Sarah Davachi, Octo Octa and hippy workouts

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by Tayyab Amin via Electronic music | The Guardian

Monday, November 5, 2018

50 great tracks for November from Sheck Wes, Ider, Architects and more

Deerhunter return, Bruce delivers the techno track of the year and Pistol Annies brilliantly sketch a loveless marriage – read about 10 of our favourite songs of the month, and subscribe to the 50-track playlist

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Molly Nilsson: the synthpop star embracing hope and loneliness

With her utopian outlook and determination to find magic in the everyday, the fiercely independent Swede swims against the tide

When synthpop singer Molly Nilsson plays live, she takes a CD of her instrumentals, hits play, then sings along with them in a glorious kind of self-karaoke. There’s no band, no instruments, just a woman singing about love, ennui and Milton Friedman. “If people are provoked by seeing a person on stage singing, that’s good,” she audibly shrugs down the line from her home in Berlin. “I think it’s punk. It’s not about skill, it’s the fact that you are human, on a stage where everything is focused on you and your expression. And that has all the value in the world.”

Her stark, mesmerising stage show is a neat visual representation of Nilsson Industries: she is a completely one-woman outfit, producing and performing all her music solo, booking her own tours, and releasing her own albums (this last task admittedly in tandem with indie Glasgow label Night School Records). Her debut came in 2008, and a decade later – following her masterpiece Imaginations, one of the best records of last year – she’s just released her eighth, the similarly excellent Twenty Twenty. Is 10 years a long time to spend by oneself? “I know that a lot of people are afraid of loneliness, and I don’t understand, because it’s nothing,” she says. “When you genuinely feel lonely, you can look at the situation and say: What if I just turn this around, and this is nice? And what if I’m just there for myself instead?”

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, November 2, 2018

20 best Australian tracks for November, featuring Middle Kids, Parcels, Hatchie and others

In our new monthly spot, we feature 20 new and unmissable songs. Read about 10 of our favourites below – and subscribe to our Spotify playlists

Related: Cash Savage casts an all-man choir: ‘I hoped it would drive home the words’

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by by Nathan Jolly; playlist by Guardian Australia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Glenn Copeland: the trans musical visionary finding an audience at 74

He worked for years on kids’ TV shows like Sesame Street while making ambient masterpieces in obscurity. Now Copeland is finally getting his dues – and finding comfort in his identity

“I was told when I was young that I would not be successful until I was very old,” Glenn Copeland says over Skype from his home studio in New Brunswick, Canada. Now 74, he released seven albums over the course of his career, mostly unknown at the time of release. But as was apparently predicted by the seers and prophets Copeland sought out as a young man, the audience he was searching for has finally found him.

To work ceaselessly without seeing your creativity appreciated, is a feeling that has driven many artists to the brink of madness. Copeland sees his time out of the limelight differently. “I was busy creating, that was the fundamental thing for me. Now the universe is saying: ‘This music we’ve been sending you, now is the time for it to be heard.’” His speech is measured and perfectly enunciated, every sentence delivered with a beaming smile.

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by Maya-Roisin Slater via Electronic music | The Guardian

The Prodigy: No Tourists review – music for the jaded generation

Take Me to the Hospital/BMG

Few bands captured the early-1990s zeitgeist as effectively as the Prodigy. Outdoor raves – notably the huge Castlemorton Common festival in 1992 – were seen as a such a threat to public order that John Major’s Conservative government brought in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in 1994, to outlaw gatherings of people dancing to “repetitive beats”. Although this could technically mean anything from Orbital to Morris dancers, Prodigy tracks such as Their Law soundtracked the music community’s fightback. As dance music shifted indoors and into the mainstream, 1994’s double platinum Music for the Jilted Generation defined an era.

Some 24 years on, producer Liam Howlett and dancers-turned-MCs Maxim Reality and Keith Flint don’t greatly deviate from a formula that has served them (albeit with slightly diminishing returns) ever since. Synths stab all over the place. Sub-bass rumbles like an earthquake, and Light Up the Sky’s electronic riffs rock like AC/DC. The two vocalists yell over the racket – but not often enough, bar an occasional “Shut your motherfuckin’ face” or the title track’s “No tourists, nothing to see”.

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by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Dom Servini – Netil Radio Show #9

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Time Grove – TG Theme
Richie Phoe – Thriller
Portable Patrol – Cop Bop (Serge Gamesbourg Edit)
Match – Boogie Man (Scrimshire Edit)
Jun Kamoda – Nightmare Club
Bobby Boyd – Rock On (Bob Blank Edit)
Little Dragon – Lover Chanting
SunPalace – Somebody’s Watching
Hot Blood – Blackmail (Alkalino Edit)
N’Draman Blintch – Cosmic Sounds
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put a Spell on You (Jeremy Sole’s Zombie Stomp Remix)
Horseman – Dawn of the Dread
Homeboy Sandman & Edan – Grim Seasons
Connie Kim – Túp Lu Ly Tng
The Mauskovic Dance Band – Things To Do
Murder He Wrote – All I Ever Needed
Paper Tiger – An Ancient Secret
Hazards of Prophecy – Minnie & Marcos
Daniel Crawford – Telepathy Feat. Maimouna Youssef & Kaidi Tatham
Mammal Hands – Becoming
Hot 8 Brass Band – Ghost Town
Grupo Magnético – Vampiras
La Mecanica Popular – Montame En La Tormenta
Time Grove – Sir Blunt
Bobby Hebb – Evil Woman
4th Coming – The Dead Don’t Die Alive
Roland Kirk – Freaks for The Festival

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Wah Wah Radio – October 2018

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Paper Tiger – An Ancient Secret
Lonely C – Make America Dub Again
Victoria Chomeka – Ochieng DJ Komoro
Mauskovic Dance Band – Things to Do
Solomon Gundy Band – Wadada
Boubacar Samaké & Tilébi’s Band – Bamanayake
Time Grove – Roy The King
The Expansions – Mosaic
Mokili Mokambo –  Adundi
Daniel Crawford – Revolution
Darshan Jesrani – Take Me
Hildah Namakhosazana – Ngiyakhumbula
De Gama – Cosmic Safari
Insolito Universo – Transmutada

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Friday, October 26, 2018

Julia Holter: Aviary review – sonic beauty and brains in a 90-minute epic

(Domino)

To say that Julia Holter’s fifth album is dense and difficult is an understatement – in an ideal world, Aviary would come with its own dedicated edition of York Notes. Laden with literary references, Latin text and lyrics that strain under the weight of impressionistic meaning, it’s a record that is difficult to parse but easy to admire. On her previous album, 2015’s Have You In My Wilderness, Holter proved she could squish her avant-garde sensibilities into soaring pop songs. This time, the Los Angeles-based musician has loosened the reins, creating a collection of tracks that are rich, expansive and only occasionally maddeningly obtuse.

Holter has said that it was her intention to use Aviary to meditate on the current chaos of the world, something that’s clear from the off – opener Turn the Light On resembles The Scream in musical form. Over the crash and screech of a malfunctioning orchestra, Holter wails flatly, her voice alternating between a foghorn bellow and a sheep-like vibrato. There is a track called Everyday Is an Emergency, which begins with amusingly dissonant bagpipes that morph into the sound of an alarm, and numerous allusions to war – both ancient and contemporary. Despite its concern with modern malaise, Aviary sonically harks back to the medieval via chants, references to Occitan troubadour songs and brass fanfares – but it’s also in possession of a more romantic kind of nostalgia, thanks to a heavenly string section that cushions the more abrasive sounds.

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by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

DOM SERVINI’S ALLO LOVE TEN :: OCTOBER 2018

  1. Chaka Khan – I Know You I Live You (Bugz In The Attic Remix) (White 12)
  2. Modified Man – Blame’s On You Bruv (Albert’s Favourites Promo DL)
  3. Andre Tanker – River Come Down (Jamwax 12)
  4. Vadoo Game – Tata Fatiguee (Hot Casa 7)
  5. Sidiku Buari – Advice From Father (Be With 12)
  6. Swindle – Reach The Stars feat. Andrew Ashong (Brownswood Promo DL)
  7. Trio Ternura – A Gira (Melodies International 7)
  8. Aeshim – Hot Scissors (Albert’s Favourites Promo DL)
  9. Noname – Room 25 (Noname Promo DL)
  10. Abstract Orchestra – Madvillain Vol.1 (ATA Promo DL)

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Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #21 on Soho Radio

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Space Invadas – Now That I Know
Swindle – Reach For The Stars feat. Andrew Ashong
Abstract Orchestra – Fancy Clown
Shadow Republik – Time & Space
Moods – Slow Down feat. Damon Trueitt
Ensemble Etendu – Peel Back
Winston McAnuff & Fixi – One Note feat. Pongo
Pat Kalla & Le Super Mojo – African Disco
Brandon Coleman – Addiction feat. Sheera
Anderson.Paak – Tints feat. Kendrick Lamar
Nubiyan Twist – Tell It Tom Me Softly (Radio Edit) feat. Nick Richards
The Expansions – Mosaic (Radio Edit)
Fatima – Waltz
Troublemakers – All We Love
Leatherette – Oh Lord
The Patchouli Brothers – Can’t Stop Christy
CN Williams – Mr Bump Man (Original Mix)
Kofi Magnetic – I Want You
Modified Man – Blame’s On You Bruv
Leatherette – Bracon
Claude – All Right
Folamour – I Know It Has Been Done Before
Sampology – Ricardo
Auntie Flo – Nobody Said It Would Be Easy
Time Grove – Roy The King
Jerry Paper – Grey Area
Gecko Turner – Pal Peru
Soothsayers – Watching The Stars (Lagartijeando Remix)
BADBADNOTGOOD & Little Dragon – Tried
Daniel Crawford – Telepathy feat. Maimouna Youssef & Kaidi Taitham
Time Grove – Latrun

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Dom Servini guests with Tim Garcia on Jazz FM

Listen again here!

Featuring a very special mix…

Dom Servini – Exclusive Mix for Jazz FM
Officialkankick – Intro
Wilkes – Welcome
Itiberê Orquestra Familia – Muito Natural
Elvis Phng – Loan Mt Nhung
Untitled forthcoming Wah Wah 45s release
Altin Gün – Seker Oglan
Ensemble Entendu – Peel Back
SunPalace – If You Wanna Be A Beggar
Test – Sam Sobie Żeglarzem (Lonesome Sailor)
Jun Makoda – Nightmare Club
Winston Mcanuff and Fixi – One Note feat. Pongo
Aunite Flo – Havana Rhythm Dance feat. Andrew Ashong
Paper Tiger – Time Travels (forthcoming on Wah Wah 45s)

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Monday, October 22, 2018

Do androids dream of electric beats? How AI is changing music for good

Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence make music composition easier than ever – because a machine is doing half the work. Could computers soon go it alone?

The first testing sessions for SampleRNN – an artificially intelligent software developed by computer scientist duo CJ Carr and Zach Zukowski, AKA Dadabots – sounded more like a screamo gig than a machine-learning experiment. Carr and Zukowski hoped their program could generate full-length black metal and math rock albums by feeding it small chunks of sound. The first trial consisted of encoding and entering in a few Nirvana a cappellas. “When it produced its first output,” Carr tells me over email, “I was expecting to hear silence or noise because of an error we made, or else some semblance of singing. But no. The first thing it did was scream about Jesus. We looked at each other like, ‘What the fuck?’” But while the platform could convert Cobain’s grizzled pining into bizarre testimonies to the goodness of the Lord, it couldn’t keep a steady rhythm, much less create a coherent song.

Artificial intelligence is already used in music by streaming services such as Spotify, which scan what we listen to so they can better recommend what we might enjoy next. But AI is increasingly being asked to compose music itself – and this is the problem confronting many more computer scientists besides Dadabots.

If you have a barrier to entry, you hack your way into figuring it out

Related: Are Spotify's 'fake artists' any good?

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by Tirhakah Love via Electronic music | The Guardian
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