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Thursday, May 31, 2018

FACT Magazine Tess Roby’s operatic Beacon is a synth-laced tribute to family and loss @ Musique Non Stop


FACT Magazine Tess Roby’s operatic Beacon is a synth-laced tribute to family and loss @ Musique Non Stop


Posted: 30 May 2018 10:44 AM PDT
FACT Rated is our series digging into the sounds and stories of the most vital breaking artists around right now. This week Claire Lobenfeld Claire Lobenfeld speaks to Italians Do It Better artist Tess Roby.
Singer-synthesist Tess Roby has been surrounded by music since she was a little girl. Her mother, who was from New Brunswick, played Acadian folk music and her father, a Wigan native who passed away four years ago, was a musician, as well. The family piano lived in the kitchen of her childhood home in Toronto where, twice a year, they hosted a "kitchen party": a gathering where each attendee brings over a musical instrument to play, dance, and drink with each other throughout the night. "It's definitely a maritime thing," Roby says over the phone from her place in Montréal. "Every Christmas, we still have one."
Unlike the anything-goes communal atmosphere of a kitchen party, Roby's debut album Beacon, released earlier this year by Italians Do It Better, was conceived in private. This included her brother Eliot, who she eventually invited to collaborate with her on the album and who plays with her live now. “I didn't realize I was keeping it so secret,” she says. “When I did eventually start to show people, people didn't necessarily know how to categorize the music.”
It is true that Beacon is hard to put a finger on. Roby, herself, notes that she was listening to a lot of Brian Eno and Cocteau Twins when she was writing the album, and that she has been compared to Kate Bush, Björk and Nico, and while echoes of all those artists can be heard in her music, there is no pantomime. Many songs have guitar that is reminiscent of mathier indie rock riffs, but they are just hints. It makes a lot of sense when she says that her main influence for the album was “trying to envision the landscape of England within the songs.”
What standouts most about the record is Roby’s vocals. They are deep and luscious, almost the opposite of her lithe synth work, but also a heady complement. Roby credits this to having spent eight years of her childhood as a member of the Canadian Children's Opera Company.


Musique Non Stop - Heavenly Sweetness


Musique Non Stop - Heavenly Sweetness




ALERTE RÉÉDITION // REISSUE ALERT



Vous étiez nombreux à nous le demander depuis des mois, et comme vous le savez, Guts préfère toujours faire des nouveaux projets plutôt que regarder dans le rétroviseur mais finalement nous rééditons en vinyle « Paradise for All ».
Sorti en 2012 (seulement en 500 exemplaires), il s’agit du 3ème album solo de GUTS et comprend des singles à succès tels que «Come Closer», «Brand New Revolution», «What Is Love» ou encore «Ghetto In Paradise».
Il y a deux versions de cette réédition :
  • Version vinyle Bleu. Limitée à 250 exemplaires et vendu uniquement chez nos amis et fidèles supporters de HHV. (Lien de précommande: http://urlz.fr/79ev)
À vous de choisir laquelle il vous faut et surtout ne tardez pas, il n'y en aura pas pour tout le monde.
//
Many of you have been asking us for months, and as you know, Guts always prefers to make new projects rather than look in the rearview mirror but finally we reissue vinyl “Paradise for All”.
Released in 2012 (only 500 copies), this is the third solo album of GUTS and includes hit singles such as “Come Closer”, “Brand New Revolution”, “What Is Love” or “Ghetto In Paradise”.
There are two versions of this reissue:
It’s up to you to choose which one you need and especially don’t sleep, there will not be enough for everybody !!


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Sunday, May 27, 2018

Chancha Vía Circuito: Bienaventuranza review – eclectic electronica

(Wonderwheel)

Contrary to reputation, music in Buenos Aires is not confined to tango. The city has developed a thriving “digital cumbia”’ scene that imports freely from South and Latin America and blends their styles with electronica. The lurching rhythms of Colombian cumbia, the stridency of reggaeton and even Andean pan pipes are all part of the mix distilled by producer Pedro Canale, who trades as Chancha Vía Circuito and whose third album, 2014’s Amansara, won international plaudits and a place on the Breaking Bad soundtrack.

Bienaventuranza (“Bliss”) is equally engaging. Some of its cuts are simple folk instrumentals: Los Pastores is played out on Cuban guitar, Sierra Nevada on Andean flutes and pipes (instruments usually dreaded thanks to shops selling scented candles), both given discreet bird and animal calls. Grittier are tracks that call on guest vocalists; Ilaló floats the elegant voice of Mateo Kingman over an insistent cumbia shuffle, while the reggaefied La Victoria comes with a rap by Colombia’s Manu Ranks. Canale is, however, a mystic child of nature as much as city hipster: his beats come from both drummed logs and synths, and he constantly evokes the high peaks of Peru and the forests of Amazonia. South America’s answer to Massive Attack.

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by Neil Spencer via Electronic music | The Guardian

Saturday, May 26, 2018

One to watch: Conner Youngblood

The Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist mixes folk and ambient electronica, writing songs about nature and travel

That Conner Youngblood’s latest track is called Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge feels telling. Making music that’s as exploratory, plaintive and soft around the edges as that peaceful title image suggests is the forte of this 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

Youngblood is based in Nashville but was born in Dallas. The first instrument he learned to play was the clarinet for his school band when he was 11. He now plays guitar, drums and harp, to name a few. He has been around for a few years, self-releasing EPs, tracks and demos since 2012, all with hand-drawn sketches that convey a down-to-earth, DIY mentality.

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by Tara Joshi via Electronic music | The Guardian

Dom Servini at MondoMix Festival on 02/06

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Friday, May 25, 2018

Contemporary album of the month – Jon Hassell: Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume I)

Hassell’s ‘fourth world’ fusion of hi-tech minimalism with world rhythms proves the 81-year-old is still experimental after all these years

In the late 70s, long before terms such as “world music” or “cultural appropriation” were in common usage, the trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell devised the term “Fourth World” to describe his music. It explored what he called “primitive futurism”, where shantytown squalor coexisted with hi-tech western studio technology, fusing Hassell’s early minimalist work with Terry Riley and La Monte Young with his studies of Indian, African and Indonesian music.

Brian Eno was an early adopter of Hassell’s aesthetic and, before long, other champions of pan-cultural fusion – David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, Ry Cooder – were collaborating with Hassell and employing his methodology. As dozens more musicians started plundering exotic global sounds and placing them through electronic filters, Hassell was off exploring other worlds – adding his distinctive trumpet sound for artists as diverse as Björk, Tears for Fears, kd lang and 808 State; flirting with hip-hop and electro; creating “coffee-coloured” classical music with the Senegalese drummer Abdou Mboup; exploring ambient jazz with the likes of Naná Vasconcelos, Jacky Terrasson and Anouar Brahem.

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by John Lewis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Soho Radio Label Lodge Special: A Short History of Wah Wah 45s

Listen again here!

and please excuse the dirty vinyl…

with Dom Servini & Scrimshire

Espen Horne – Magnetica

Cheyenne’s Comin’ – Come Back To Me

Scrimshire – When The World Was Young

Alison Crockett – UR (Yam Who? Remix)

Alison Crockett – Like Rain

Middlewood Sessions – Red Waters

Rosie Brown – Bliss (Quantic Remix)

Colman Brothers – El Nino

Luna & Bazis – Fatal Attraction

Talc – Robot’s Return (Modern Sleepover Part 2)

PTH Projects – What The Sun Brings

Stac – Balls Bounce (Bonobo Remix)

Ashley Thomas – The Same Love That Made Me Laugh

Paul Weeden – Flat Foot (Speedy’s Edit)

Alister Johnson – Invitation

Scrimshire – Certainly feat. Inga-Lill Aker

Jamie Finlay – Don’t Sleep

Hackney Colliery Band – Money

Resonators – Sweet Dub Affair

Paper Tiger – The Sting feat. Homeboy Sandman

Bev Lee Harling – Why Don’t You Do Right? (Suonho Remix)

Henri-Pierre Noel – A Fifth of Beethoven

Richie Phoe – Thriller

Dele sosimi – Sanctuary

The Gene Dudley Group – Inspector Norse

The Milk – Deliver Me

Honeyfeet – Sinner

Hunrosa – Ransome (Clap! Clap! Remix)

Soothsayers – Natural Mystic

 

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Chvrches: Love Is Dead review – Scottish pop stars pull their political punches

(Glassnote)
Lauren Mayberry’s vocals are strident and there are some brilliantly desolate ballads on the synthpop band’s third album – but a big single still eludes them

As a recent Observer profile noted, Chvrches’ career has a “strange trajectory”. The Scottish trio are a pop band who have achieved fame on both sides of the Atlantic through relentless touring, but who have never had a hit single. No shame in that, but it’s something their third album clearly seeks to rectify. The band themselves have shushed such an idea – “we aren’t really playing that game” – but frankly, you don’t call on producers Greg Kurstin and Steve Mac, the people behind Adele’s Hello and Clean Bandit’s Rockabye respectively, if you’re planning on making a 21st-century cross between the Faust Tapes and Diamanda Galás’s The Litanies of Satan.

Related: Chvrches: ‘It only takes two seconds to say: I don’t agree with white supremacy’

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Dom Servini – Netil Radio Show #5

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Damu The Fudgemunk & Flex Mathews – Welcome
Ame – The Line feat. Matthew Herbert
Joe Armon-Jones – London’s Face feat. Oscar Jerome
Emma-Jean Thackray – Red Bush
Potatohead People – Change of Heart feat. Illa J
Keshavara – Creators of Rain (Original Mix)
Magic Drum Orchestra – Original Nuttah feat. Bunty
Philip D Kick – Drown
Pan Am – Greek Codfish
Gabriel Garzon-Montano – Golden Wings
Katalyst – How Bout Us? feat. Steve Spacek
The McCrarys – On The Other Side
Kazumi Watanabe – I’ll Be There
Mighty Clouds of Joy – Glow Love (SMBD ’79 Edit)
Ilk – BITS
Folk & Rovere – Fortihouse (Petko Turner’s Delta Edit)
Winston McAnuff & Fixi – Big Brother
Kiefer – What a Day
Children of Zeus – Slow Down
Mildlife – Zwango Zop
Quango – Rock It Tonight (NameBrandSound Remix) feat. Eska
Ukokos – Saison
2000 Black – Mononymous Persons
Lavan – The Right Thing (The Hardest Thing)
G. Markus – G. Markus Lassos The Moon
Far Out Monster Disco Orchestra – Step into my Life (M&M Mix by John Morales)
Lukas Lehmann – Q&H (Lorenz Rhode Remix)
Tony Allen – Asiko (In a Silent Way) (Motor City Drum Ensemble Remix)
#NFROMTHEWAVE – Pashun
Chris Orrick – Bottom Feeders feat. Fashawn
Bluestaeb – Mind feat. Noah Slee
The Outsider – Sunshine
Starship Orchestra – Celestial Sky
Damu The Fudgemunk – The Verdict

 

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Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The big bangers: grime smashes into the Hadron Collider

They rapped in its tunnels and played instruments made out of old science equipment. Could this be Cern’s most amazing experiment yet?

‘Anyone attending the performances,” says Jack Jelfs, “will find themselves in a 12-dimensional quantum superposition.” This superposition, adds the artist, will contain three overlaid elements: our mythic past, our scientific present and our unknown future. “So,” concludes Jelfs, “you may wish to prepare appropriately.”

Jelfs is talking about The Wave Epoch, a high-concept performance piece that is the result of four British artists spending time at Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), where particles are accelerated and bashed into each other to reveal the secrets of the universe. When it’s described as “something between an installation, a music performance and a rave”, The Wave Epoch might not sound like anything particularly new, but it all becomes a lot more original when you realise it was conceived 175 metres underneath the Franco-Swiss border in the presence of the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest single piece of machinery in existence.

Scientists were asking me questions like: ‘Do you understand what we’re made of as humans?'

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by Tara Joshi via Electronic music | The Guardian

Hunrosa at Bussey Building on 01/06

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Scrimshire at Bussey Building on 01/06

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Dom Servini at Bussey Building on 01/06

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Wah Wah 45s at Bussey Building on 01/06

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Dele Sosimi at The Crescent on 08/06

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Dele Sosimi at Manchester Academy on 07/06

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Sunday, May 20, 2018

Wah Wah Radio – May 2018

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Jordan Rakei – Wildfire

Leon Vynehall – Movements (Chapter III)

Chip Wickham – The Mirage feat. Matthew Halsall

Joe Armon-Jones – London’s Face feat. Oscar Jerome

Paul White – Set The Tone feat. Denai Moore

Quantic Y Los Míticos Del Ritmo – Doombia

Momenta – Your Love feat. Niara Scarlett (Fradinho Remix)

The Showfa – Praising (The Showfa Edit)

The Expansions – Miles Away (Dub)

Nat Birchall meets Al Breadwinner – Hail Don D Jr

Resonators – Why I (Discomix)

Soothsayers – Sleepwalking (Black Man’s Cry) feat. Dele Sosimi

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Chvrches: ‘It only takes two seconds to say: I don’t agree with white supremacy’

The Glaswegian synth-pop trio rose to fame on the back of relentless touring, even as frontwoman Lauren Mayberry fended off online abuse. Their new album finds them aiming for the top

Lauren Mayberry has two boiled eggs waiting for her at home. Chvrches are about to go on tour for a year and a half, and she wants the protein. When I first met the band, in a Thistle hotel in east London in 2012, Mayberry was strengthening her diaphragm for the demands of singing live. On the back of their debut album, they played 365 dates in two years and the diaphragm worked out fine.

Chvrches could not have known, sitting in that unremarkable hotel, what direction their rise to fame would take. Mayberry is a frontwoman developing in plain sight, through a well-publicised struggle with particularly vicious internet trolls to where she is now: living in New York and making records with wizard producer Greg Kurstin. There have been some impressive associations along the way: being interviewed by Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney; campaigning for girls’ empowerment with Amy Poehler; support slots for Depeche Mode. She is coming to terms with the fact that if you are famous, you will always be someone’s projection. “I definitely fall into one of two categories,” she says brightly, sucking an ice tea. “Diminutive, wet-blanket snowflake or angry feminist bitch.”

I don’t want to sound negative here but I don’t know any lady that was surprised by #MeToo

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by Kate Mossman via Electronic music | The Guardian

Monday, May 14, 2018

Move over Sia: how young Australian songwriters are making it big in LA

They’re the brains behind the catchiest songs on Spotify but they’re rapidly becoming celebrities in their own right

You’ll be aware of the “Spotify mafia” even if you don’t know their names. The songs that dominate the streaming service bear the hallmarks of a select group of young international songwriters who have gravitated to LA. And they seem to be cleaning up.

Nat Dunn is one of them, part of a wave of Australian songwriters following in the wake of Adelaide’s Sia Furler. One of Dunn’s songs, Friends, was recorded by London singer Anne-Marie and DJ/producer Marshmello (who keeps his identity under wraps by never being seen without his marshmallow head). It reached number 21 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, clocking up nearly 300m plays on Spotify. With its no-nonsense chorus – “Haven’t I made it obvious? Haven’t I made it clear?” – it’s been dubbed “the official friend-zone anthem”.

Related: Eurovision: Jessica Mauboy sings up a storm to put Australia into grand final

Related: The Sia conundrum: if fame is so damaging, why pass it on to a child? | Bonnie Malkin

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by Jenny Valentish via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, May 10, 2018

DOM SERVINI’S ALLO DUB TEN :: MAY 2018

 

1. Resonators – Something Special (Wah Wah 45s 7)

2. Errol Dunkley – A Little Way Different (Arawak 12)

3. Soothsayers – Natural Mystic (Wah Wah 45s 7)

4. Freddie McGregor – Natural Collie (High Times 12)

5. Cornel Campbell -New Ages (Jamtone 12)

6. Gladstone Anderson – Queen of my Throne (El-Tone 7)

7. Harold Butler – Out if Bondage (Water Lily LP)

8. The Tamlins – Baltimore (Taxi 12)

9. Cornel Campbell meets Soothsayers – Ja Ja Me No Born Ya (O.B.F. Remix) (Riddim Chango Records 12)

10. Jackie Mittoo & Jo Jo Bennet – You Have Forsaken Me (Rite Sound 12)

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50 great tracks for May from Florence + the Machine, Christina Aguilera, Deafheaven and more

From Róisín Murphy’s erotic disco to Onyx Collective’s post-bop jazz and Deafheaven’s soulful metal, here’s our roundup of the best new music. Subscribe to the playlist of all 50 tracks and read about our 10 favourites

Related: Sign up for the Sleeve Notes email: music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras

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

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Honeyfeet at Stramash on 26/05

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Soothsayers at Jam On Rye on 28/05

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Soothsayers at Hope Festival on 26/05

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Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #15 on Soho Radio

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Yazmin Lacey – Something My Heart Trusts
Jonny Drop – All This Trouble
Mo Kolours – Right Before My Eyes
Jimi Tenor – My Mind Will Travel (Teen Party Edit)
Otis Sandsjo – Yung
The Last Poets – Understand What Black Is (Radio Edit)
Resonators – Something Special (Radio Edit)
Tamil Rogeon – Does Nothing End? feat. Krystle Warren
Maajo – Defo
Kamasi Washington – Re-Ron (Kon Rework)
Ron Basejam – After The Rain
The Mouse Outfit – I Wonder feat. IAMDDB + Fox
XamVolo – Lose Love
Chrome Sparks – I Just Wanna feat. Kilo
Moodymann – Pitch Black City Reunion
Cleo Sol – Miles Song
Emma-Jean Thackray – Red Bush
Joe Armon-Jones – Almost Went To Far
Uniting of Opposites – Dr Roach
Sam Irl – Split River
B From E – The People
Modified Man – Croydon Rooftop Cafe Culture
Mac Gregor – Nan Ye Likan
Soothsayers – Sleepwalking (Black Man’s Cry)

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Sunday, May 6, 2018

Blossoms review – homecoming is the stuff of dreams

The Plaza, Stockport
There’s much to celebrate as the band return to their home town as local heroes for a euphoric opener to their UK tour

When Blossoms spoke to the Guardian in 2016, they revealed that their wildest fantasy would be to have a set of road signs in their hometown, reading: “Welcome to Stockport: home of Blossoms.” Just two years later, the signs are in place, courtesy of the council. The band’s name is also emblazoned on the back of struggling Stockport County FC’s Edgeley Park stadium and in front of the vintage Wurlitzer organ in this beautiful art deco cinema.

In between, there have been two top five albums (including a No 1 with their eponymous debut) and gigs at Wembley Stadium with the Stone Roses, which would have been the stuff of dreams when they were rehearsing in a scaffolding yard and making videos for £60.

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by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Jon Hopkins: Singularity review – not enough fuel for the feet

(Domino)

Hopkins’s last album was an intriguing meld of expansive and introspective compositions, hitting a sweet spot between Nils Frahm and Four Tet. Where Immunity was the soundtrack to an imaginary big night out, Hopkins delineates a natural psychedelic experience on Singularity. To get you to share his trip, he weaves wordless vocals around warped found sounds in his pointillist, semi-improvised productions.

Strangely, this creates an album pretty similar to its predecessor. Intricate floorfillers dissolve into austere piano pieces and recombine, with lots of longueurs. Even weirder, Hopkins deliberately starts and ends Singularity on the same note. Being brought back to where you began is what you want from a hire van, not a psych trip – it’s why the Merry Pranksters didn’t get the Circle Line.

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by Damien Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian

Saturday, May 5, 2018

The eight weirdest collaborations in pop

From Janet Jackson and Cliff Richard’s Two to the Power of Love, to Shaggy and Sting’s new record, here’s a rundown of the oddest musical melanges

Have you ever wondered, perhaps in a darker moment, what an album featuring noted lutenist Sting crooning alongside sporadic novelty hitmaker Shaggy might sound like? Well, wonder no more, because last month they unleashed 44/876, an “island-influenced” collaborative album that honours “the duo’s mutual love of Jamaica”. If you’re now thinking: “OK, but why?” then Sting has the answer. “The most important thing to me in any kind of music is surprise,” he told Rolling Stone. “And everybody is surprised by this collaboration – by what they’re hearing. We’re surprising.” Indeed.

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by Michael Cragg via Electronic music | The Guardian

Friday, May 4, 2018

Jon Hopkins: Singularity review – well-crafted techno is oh so shallow

(Domino)

Written amid calculated mind expansion, via transcendental meditation and naturally occurring psychedelics, Jon Hopkins, the Mercury-nominated producer who has credits with Brian Eno and Coldplay, hones his exploratory take on HD electronics on this smoothly sequenced trip. The level of craft is extremely high. The way the beats on the two big techno numbers, Everything Connected and Emerald Rush, crunch and splinter to blur the quantization requires expert sound design, and the latter swings with an almost reggaeton groove – it is exceptionally good. But what use is craft if you have nothing to say? Just as what seems universe-sharpeningly significant on drugs is revealed to be laughably obvious the morning after, the tracks in the album’s more ambient second half appear deep while being nothing of the sort. Luminous Beings pulses prettily for 12 minutes like a light-up mobile you let your baby stare at while you neck some wine, and C O S M nicks the reversed-strings effect Four Tet came up with 15 years ago – compare its blinkered emotional range with the brilliant peak of Emerald Rush, where anxiety and dread muscle in to push the chords downwards. The title track works as an overture but not in isolation, and Neon Pattern Drum’s mood doesn’t deviate from mild peril (though it may bang in his live set). The nadir is the three tracks – inevitable among him and his posh-trance peers – of maddeningly basic and unimaginative piano minimalism, like Ryuichi Sakamoto robbed of his spatial awareness. Too much of this album is the sort of thing people stick on to make their drug comedowns feel meaningful.

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Trans producer Elysia Crampton: 'In Bolivia, my body was a beacon, a good omen'

The experimental Bolivian American on finding strength and creative inspiration in her Aymaran heritage – a culture that has been a champion of trans identity for centuries

In Elysia Crampton’s Bristol hotel room, we stare at the furniture on offer: a neat armchair and a chaise longue. “I’ll be the analyst,” she decides. It’s no wonder: the experimental Californian producer has had a tougher life than most. Her music often feels like a lifetime of violence and confusion being worked through in Afro-Latin rhythms and frictious digital overload.

Crampton identifies as Aymara, a native American tribe from Bolivia who were suppressed by the Inca and then the Spanish in the middle of the last millennium, but who survived to the present day. Her parents moved from La Paz, the Bolivian capital, to Barstow, California, in the 1960s, where she was later born into relative poverty; her education ended, she said, because of “disability” (she won’t elaborate on this or her age) and a lack of funds.

Related: Elysia Crampton: Elysia Crampton review – Aymara polymath invents dancefloor mythology

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Eleanor Friedberger: Rebound review – deliciously droll electro pop

(Frenchkiss)

In 2016, Eleanor Friedberger spent a month in Athens, Greece, ending up in what the half-Greek American describes as an “80s goth disco” – called Rebound – where everyone did a solitary dance routine called the chicken dance. “I copied the slouchy strut,” she remembers, “swinging my arms in time to music that sounded like Joy Division but was probably a knock-off by an unknown Baltic band. It was alienating and exhilarating.”

Two years later, this same sense of giddy disconnection fires her fourth and best solo album, but although Rebound resurfaces as the location for It’s Hard (“where time stands still”), it’s otherwise a long way from crimped hair and eyeliner. Instead, vaguely gothic themes of loneliness, miscommunication and isolation are channeled into warm, quirky electronic pop that’s more gently uplifting than melancholy. It’s a radically different musical landscape to that which Friedberger occupied in her indie rock Fiery Furnaces days (with brother Matthew), or on previous solo albums. Guitars are used sparingly but effectively. Mostly, synthesisers and drum machines produce beatific electronic pop with traces of Laurie Anderson or Yellow Magic Orchestra, while Friedberger’s soaring singing recalls Russell Mael of Sparks.

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by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Readers recommend playlist: songs about pragmatism

Among artists picked for seeing things as they are come Run DMC, Van Morrison, Nina Simone and Beyoncé

Here is this week’s playlist – songs picked by a reader from hundreds of your suggestions last week. Thanks for taking part. Read more about how our weekly series works at the end of the piece.

War, infidelity, flat tyres – the musicians in this week’s playlist will put up with a lot to keep life running smoothly. Pragmatism can be painful, or it can be an effective strategy, depending on your perspective.

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by Samantha Birchard via Electronic music | The Guardian

DJ Koze: Knock Knock review – stunning songs from pop's parallel universe

The eccentric producer uses samples and collaborations to brilliantly exploit the spaces between deep house, trip-hop and R&B on an appealingly odd album

In January 1987, Smash Hits tried to address the unexpected rise of house music by printing the lyrics to Steve “Silk” Hurley’s chart-topping Jack Your Body. In an attempt to circumvent the fact that the lyrics to Jack Your Body consisted entirely of the words “jack your body” repeated ad infinitum, the page was padded out with parenthetical descriptions of how the record sounded: “(Rather a long bit where it goes bing bong diddle a lot, then sort of dum-de-dum).” If the 21st century equivalent of the song words in Smash Hits is the YouTube lyric video – a phenomenon kickstarted by a cheap placeholder clip for Cee Lo Green’s 2010 hit Fuck You, and now warrants its own category at the MTV video music awards – then its Jack Your Body moment may have come with the release of DJ Koze’s Pick Up, a single that preceded this fifth solo album, Knock Knock. It was promoted with a video featuring nothing more than white words on a black background, offering not just its three lines of lyrics but a wry running commentary on the track: “vocal sample … beat kicks in … disco sample loop x6 … brain realises song consists only of these few elements … deep feeling of happiness” etc.

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Wah Wah 45s at Soho Radio on 21/05

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Dom Servini at Giant Robot on 31/05

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Scrimshire at Bussey Building on 19/05

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Dom Servini at Bussey Building on 19/05

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Scrimshire at Ghost Notes on 19/05

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