For Those I Love: Ireland's potent new poet of grief

Recalling the delivery of the Streets and the music of James Blake, David Balfe’s project is a cathartic document in the wake his best friend’s death

• Irish drill, jazz violin and supermarket musicals: 30 new artists for 2021

When the Irish recession of 2008 shattered the country’s economy, communities from Dublin’s inner city neighbourhoods of Coolock and Donaghmede were struck hard. The frank lyrics of David Balfe, under the pseudonym For Those I Love, illuminate a generation who emerged from the wreckage.

“I’ve been with people whose families had lost their livelihoods because of the recession,” says the 29-year-old. “At that younger age you don’t have the vocabulary, but you see that displacement, and you think: ‘Why are we suffering? Why has this happened to us?’”

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by Aniefiok Ekpoudom via Electronic music | The Guardian

Irish drill, jazz violin and supermarket musicals: 30 new artists for 2021

From the ferocious hardcore punk of Nicolas Cage Fighter to the ultra-meditative ambient of KMRU, discover new music from right across the pop spectrum

Which new artists are you excited for in 2021? Leave your recommendations in the comments below.

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

'All that mattered was survival': the songs that got us through 2020

Butterflies with Mariah, Bronski Beat in the Peak District, Snoop Dogg on a food delivery ad … our writers reveal the tracks that made 2020 bearable

When it came to lockdown comfort listening, there was something particularly appealing about lush symphonic soul made by artists such as Teddy Pendergrass and the Delfonics. But there was one record I reached for repeatedly: Black Moses by Isaac Hayes, and particularly the tracks arranged by Dale Warren. Their version of Burt Bacharach’s (They Long to Be) Close to You is an epic, spinning the original classic into a nine-minute dose of saccharine soul. But their cover of Going in Circles, another Warren exercise in expansion, is their masterpiece, reimagining the Friends of Distinction original as a seven-minute arrangement with stirring strings and beatific backing vocals that builds into a story about lost love that transcends the genre’s usual parameters. A perfect, if slightly meta, balm for the repetitive lockdown blues. Lanre Bakare

Related: AG Cook: the nutty producer behind the decade's most divisive music

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by Guardian music via Electronic music | The Guardian

Musician, heal thyself: how ambient music brought solace in 2020

With no clubs or gigs to go to and pandemic anxiety to quell, ambient music chimed more strongly in a year when artists reconsidered their sense of purpose

“A balm to your soul” – so went the Observer review of Julianna Barwick’s album this July, which was inspired by the musician’s move from New York City to the wellbeing mecca of Los Angeles. Her one-woman choir of celestial vocals is as calming as the bit at the end of a yoga class where you get to shut your eyes and lie under a blanket, and the album, along with its title Healing Is a Miracle, had extra resonance in 2020. Music is so often a communal experience, but with those possibilities snatched away this year, many of us have looked to sounds like this to soothe us where human connection couldn’t. Another reviewer agreed, writing that Barwick’s new music was “a salve for the collective wound”.

Barwick wasn’t the only one. Earlier this year, I interviewed a collection of musicians, including the pop performer Robyn, about the music of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a cult Canadian musician whose spirited, otherworldly incantations are only just reaching new audiences, decades after they were first released. A retrospective of Glenn-Copeland’s music, Transmissions, came out last month, and Robyn noted the particular reassuring quality of his songs, especially on his New Age lost treasure Keyboard Fantasies: “It’s the purpose of his music,” she had said. “We all need to release, feel and heal, and Glenn helps us to do that through his own experiences.”

Soundscapes spoke to the claustrophobia and drift of isolation … ethereal singing suggested possibility in some untethered parallel universe

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by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Aunt music: how the lost sounds of Great Aunt Mirry were unlocked

Musician Tom Fraser has reclaimed a late relative’s musical legacy, thanks to the chance find of a scratchy record on a doorstep

The musician Tom Fraser’s memories of his Great Aunt Mirry are few. “I remember her once on the sofa, just sort of being quite a jolly little old lady,” he says. “And I went to her funeral, I remember that.”

It was a long time after her death that he came to learn of another side of Mirry’s life. A box of belongings, left on the street outside his grandmother’s house in Notting Hill, held a record that suggested she was more than just a jolly little old lady.

It just felt right, playing on this woman's music who I'd never met, from over 60 years ago

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by Laura Barton via Electronic music | The Guardian

The 10 best contemporary music albums of 2020

We survey the best albums from the experimental edges of classical, jazz and more, from ambient sludge to blissful electronica

• More on the best culture of 2020

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by John Lewis via Electronic music | The Guardian

The 10 best global albums of 2020

Away from the English-language mainstream was a world of mindblowing sound from Indian raga to Malian mayhem, and Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela’s final work

• More on the best culture of 2020

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by Ammar Kalia via Electronic music | The Guardian

'It speaks to an ancient history': why South Africa has the world's most exciting dance music

Styles like afrohouse, gqom and amapiano are thriving – but with ‘half-baked white kids getting a lot more airplay’, South Africa’s inequalities still hold the dance scene back

Many people got their first taste of South African dance music this year via six Angolans dancing in their backyard, dinner plates in hand. Their viral video, with casual but masterful moves set to Jerusalema by South African producer Master KG, created a global dance craze; the track ended up all over Radio 1 this autumn and topped streaming charts across Europe.

Jerusalema is just one track amid what has now become arguably the most vibrant and innovative dance music culture on the planet. In South Africa, dance music is pop music, from townships like Soweto and KwaDabeka to cities like Durban and Cape Town. The country has 11 official languages, each with their own cultural practices, and even the national anthem of the so-called Rainbow Nation is comprised of the country’s five most commonly spoken: Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English. Out of this rich cultural heritage, and in a country that has long had distinct dance styles like jaiva, marabi, kwela and mbaqanga, has come wave after wave of astonishing work.

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by Marcus Barnes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Guardian albums and tracks of 2020: how our writers voted

We’ve announced our favourite releases of the year – now the Guardian’s music critics reveal their individual top picks of 2020

• The 50 best albums of 2020
• The 20 best songs of 2020

Here’s how our writers voted: favourite choice first.

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by Guardian music via Electronic music | The Guardian

Andrew Weatherall remembered by David Holmes

6 April 1963 – 17 February 2020

The composer pays tribute to a brilliant polymath with singular musical vision, who was also a warm and wise friend

• Diego Maradona remembered by Angus Macqueen

I’ll start by saying that DJing, remixing and producing were just something that Andrew did. I always looked at him as a much bigger presence. Spending a day with Andrew with a spliff and a cup of tea was an educational experience. I used to leave those meetings with fire in my belly, raring to go. He couldn’t wait to tell you about the new record he had just heard, or the new film he had just watched, or the new book he had just read, because he wanted you to taste what he had just experienced. He wasn’t precious or pretentious. He wanted to share the love.

In 1990, I saw him play at a club in London. He was already this mythical, brilliant DJ. I remember getting up the courage to say: “Hi, my name’s David. I live in Belfast. Will you come and play at my club Sugar Sweet?” He said: “I’d absolutely love to come to Belfast. I’ve read so many books about it.” He arrived with his corkscrew curly hair, motorbike boots, leather trousers and Breton top. He looked amazing. Back then, a lot of DJs wouldn’t come to Belfast, and rightly so! I get it. But Andrew was fascinated by it. He liked to go to the weird, off-kilter, dangerous places. He loved outsiders.

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by David Holmes via Electronic music | The Guardian

One to Watch: Babeheaven

This London duo, one of them behind the scenes, make deceptively sweet, intensely introspective electronic pop

You’d suppose post-rave pop duo Babeheaven were bound to be in a band. Singer Nancy Andersen’s dad makes music for adverts, while producer Jamie Travis’s dad built the Rough Trade empire and his brother once threw up on Morrissey, something we’ve all probably felt like doing at some time or other. Yet Babeheaven ran from their fate. The Londoners became friends as teens, drifted apart, then reconnected while working in retail on the same north Kensington road. Making demos after work, they eventually slipped out some well-received music four years ago, played a few shows and then retreated, resurfacing last year. Now they’ve accidentally finished a debut album, in the absence of any distracting gigs with their five-piece group.

Home for Now is the perfect title for that debut. The pair promise “home” with their unobtrusive grooves and Andersen’s siren voice, then undermine those reliable comforts with her desperately personal lyrics. Nothing is beyond question; everything is only “for now”. Identity, fears, insomnia and desires are the themes that Andersen roams around, trying to map the human icebergs beside her, always worrying away at what may lie beneath. The duo’s songs, despite their playlist-friendly moods, leave you trapped inside questions with no answer, the stasis reflected in the calmly repetitive music. At their best, they raise a quiet thunder, like Friday Sky’s shoegaze soul or Fresh Faced, a heart-stopper about being drowned in infatuation. Enjoy them before they disappear again…

Home for Now is out now on AWAL

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by Damien Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian

Harold Budd's sublime music was a gateway to a brighter world

The work of the composer, who has died from Covid-19 aged 84, can’t be contained with the term ‘ambient’ – it is a guide to dreamworlds and a haven in tough times

It’s no coincidence that so many people discovered Harold Budd’s music this year. Restrained and sedate – even sedative – the disembodied drones and rapt minimalism of 1978’s The Pavilion of Dreams and 1984’s The Pearl feel as if they’d been made to confront unsettled times. His albums are a gateway to a beyond and an invitation to exist, however briefly, above yourself. As he continues to be added to playlists curated to help listeners focus, unwind and, yes, navigate “unprecedented times”, the musician – who died this week aged 84 – is the closest thing contemporary music has come to engendering pure solace in sound.

Related: US composer Harold Budd dies aged 84

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by Brian Coney via Electronic music | The Guardian

US composer Harold Budd dies aged 84

Composer of calmly beautiful works who rejected the term ‘ambient’ collaborated with Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins and more

Harold Budd, the left-field American composer whose work straddled minimalism, jazz, dream-pop and more, has died aged 84. His death was confirmed by his close collaborator Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, who wrote on Facebook that he was “feeling empty, shattered lost and unprepared for this”.

Cocteau Twins wrote on Facebook: “It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Harold Budd. Rest in peace, poet of the piano.”

Related: Harold Budd: the ambient music master floats again

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

Rico Nasty: Nightmare Vacation review – offbeat rapper is impossible to ignore

(Atlantic)
The high-volume delivery may be an acquired taste but there are gems to be found in this album of chaotic experimentalism

Rico Nasty has never played nice: as her moniker suggests, she’s aggressive, in your face, and refuses to back down. Having amassed a strong cult following through multiple mixtapes, the 23-year-old rapper’s debut album doubles down on her raspy, crushing sound.

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by Timi Sotire via Electronic music | The Guardian

The Avalanches' teenage obsessions: 'I cried hearing Strawberry Fields Forever'

With the release of their new album this month, the Australian psych-poppers reminisce about BMX bikes, Christian Slater and Morrissey’s potent melancholy

My first guitar

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by Interview by Rhi Storer via Electronic music | The Guardian

The 50 best albums of 2020: 50-31

The sounds in our countdown turn to horny pop, neo-soul fantasy, a trap masterclass and some robotic dance moves

This list is drawn from votes by Guardian music critics – each critic votes for their top 20 albums, with points allocated for each placing, and those points tallied to create this order. Check in every weekday to see our next picks, and please share your own favourite albums of 2020 in the comments below.

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

The 20 best songs of 2020

Our writers considered hundreds of contenders – and here are their picks of the year. Listen to all 390 tracks they voted for on our playlist

• Delivered from a nightmare: why our No 1 song works so well

We kick off our end of 2020 music coverage with Guardian critics’ favourite songs, with our album of the year countdown starting tomorrow. As ever, each critic votes for top 20 songs and albums, with points allocated for each placing, and those points tallied to make these lists. There were 390 songs voted for in all – we’ve put (almost) all of them in a Spotify playlist. Please share your own favourite songs of the year in the comments below, and we’ll hopefully see you in a festival field in 2021 …

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

One to watch: Porij

In just a year, this carefree dance foursome have traded the Royal Northern College of Music for the 6 Music playlist

Squeaky-new foursome Porij (as in porridge) became a proper band quicker than they’d planned. Eggy (vocals and keys), Tommy (vocals and guitar), Jammo (bass) and Tom (drums) were sharing university halls and studying popular music together at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and had tentatively started to make beats. But when a friend’s band pulled out of a live show, they were asked to step in with only a week to write a setlist.

Just over a year later, and they look like four Christine and the Queenses in their matching check suits – the kind of band you can imagine performing at the prom in Sex Education. And whatever came out of those hurried sessions has bloomed into an endearing blend of house, garage, new wave and lo-fi pop.

Porij’s Breakfast mixtape is out now on Oat Gang Records

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by Kate Hutchinson via Electronic music | The Guardian

Flohio: No Panic No Pain review – rapper leaves no mould unbroken

(AlphaTone)
The south Londoner broadens and deepens her emotional range, while continuing to select unexpected production partners

Flohio escapes labels. In fact, she actively contests them, asserting she’s not a grime artist as so many observers assume London rappers are. Since 2016 the Bermondsey rapper, who goes by a portmanteau of her real name Funmi Ohiosumah, has become known for unabashed stage presence and rapid-fire flows, spitting over the beats of electronic artists such as God Colony and Modeselektor rather than only rap producers. These daring, genre-resistant tracks earned her a place in the BBC’s Sound of 2019 poll.

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by Kemi Alemoru via Electronic music | The Guardian

The xx's Romy: 'I can now write about loving a woman and not feel afraid'

Her forthcoming solo album is a love letter to formative years of queer clubbing and 00s Euro-dance, as the singer swaps black clothes and bleak moods for Technicolor euphoria

The problem with being an introvert writing dance music is that eventually you will have to dance in front of other people. “I’m definitely quite a shy dancer,” says Romy Madley Croft over a video call from the home she shares with her girlfriend, the photographer Vic Lentaigne, in north London. In lockdown, with no prospect of live shows, this wasn’t a problem, but now she’s starting to nervously ponder how she will perform her upbeat, house-indebted new music. “It’s taken a long time to get to the place where I really enjoy being on stage.”

Fifteen years, in fact. The familiar image of Madley Croft is as bassist and singer with the xx, the band she formed with London schoolfriends in 2005: dressed in black, shielded by her guitar, expression ranging between pensive and troubled. Even performing a sparkling dance track on stage, such as Loud Places by her fellow wallflower and bandmate Jamie xx (“I go to loud places to find someone to be quiet with,” she sings on the chorus), she stayed largely rooted to the spot. Yet on the cover of her debut solo single, Lifetime, in an acid-hued image captured – like the ones accompanying this article – by Lentaigne, she is caught in motion, arms raised high, hair swooshed.

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by Aimee Cliff via Electronic music | The Guardian

Cabaret Voltaire: Shadow of Fear review – a fittingly dystopian fantasy from Sheffield's industrial pioneers

Mute
The first Cabaret Voltaire album in more than two decades feels oddly of the moment, their grim presentiments about disinformation, curfews and crackdowns fulfilled

Between 1974 and 1994, Cabaret Voltaire made a career out of being slightly ahead of the curve. They may well have been the world’s first industrial band. Throbbing Gristle coined the genre’s name, but more than a year before they formed, Cabaret Voltaire were ensconced in a Sheffield attic, experimenting with tape cut-ups inspired by William Burroughs, looped recordings of machinery in place of rhythms and churning electronic noise. When their sound shifted in the early 80s to something more commercially palatable, involving funk, the influence of New York electro and, eventually, collaborations with Chicago house pioneer Marshall Jefferson, it presaged their home town’s unique take on dance music, which eventually produced revered techno label Warp.

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

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Doctor Who's sonic pioneers to turn internet into giant musical instrument

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop made the famous science fiction theme tune and worked with the Beatles. Now it is preparing to make history

The Radiophonic Workshop has always broken new sonic ground, from the Doctor Who theme to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now they’re at it again – this time using the internet as a musical instrument.

A performance of Latency will take place at a special online event on 22 November using a technique inspired by lockdown Zoom calls. The band includes composers from the original BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which created soundtracks for most BBC shows from the 60s to the 90s and influenced generations of musicians from Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield to Aphex Twin, Orbital and Mary Epworth.

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by James Tapper via Electronic music | The Guardian

'She made music jump into 3D': Wendy Carlos, the reclusive synth genius

She went platinum by plugging Bach into 20th-century machines, and was soon working with Stanley Kubrick. But prejudice around her gender transition pushed Wendy Carlos out of sight

This summer, an 80-year-old synthesiser pioneer suddenly appeared online. She had been silent for 11 years, but now something had appeared that she just wouldn’t tolerate. “Please be aware there’s a purported ‘biography’ on me just released,” wrote Wendy Carlos on the homepage of her 16-bit-friendly website, a Siamese cat and a synthesiser behind her portrait. “No one ever interviewed me [for it], nor anyone I know,” she went on. “Aren’t there new, more interesting targets?”

Given that Carlos is arguably the most important living figure in the history of electronic music, it’s remarkable that Amanda Sewell’s Wendy Carlos: A Biography is the first book about her. This is the musician who pushed Robert Moog to perfect his first analogue synthesiser, from which pop, prog, electronica and film music flourished. Her smash-hit 1968 album Switched-On Bach made the Moog internationally famous and became the second classical album ever to go platinum in the US. Then came her extraordinary soundtracks for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron. She made an ambient album five years before Brian Eno did, and jumped from analogue machines to do leading work in digital synthesis, but worried that her status as one of the first visible transgender artists in the US would overshadow it.

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by Jude Rogers via Electronic music | The Guardian

Iklan: Album Number 1 review – impressively taut electronica

(Soulpunk)
This collective with connections to Young Fathers and Soho offer up a bold, fat-free debut

It takes a certain year-zero chutzpah for an artist to release a debut album that omits all of their singles to date, but that’s what London/Birmingham/Edinburgh collective Iklan do on Album Number 1. Centred on sometime Young Fathers producer Timothy London, AKA Tim Brinkhurst, and vocalist Law Holt, with able backing from sisters Pauline and Jacqui Cuff (best known for their work with London as Smiths-sampling 90s pop act Soho), they’ve been working together for three years, and their recent prolific output – four standalone singles, with more promised – has almost felt like a clearing of the decks ahead of the album.

Given how much material they’ve chosen to exclude, it’s a surprise that Album Number 1 is so concise. Its 10 songs – all warped and distorted beats, alternately jarring discordance and woozy trip-hop – rattle past in just 23 minutes, their clipped, fat-free structures owing more to early Wire than any more obvious electronica peers, with no idea lasting long enough to outstay its welcome. Against this ever-shifting backdrop, Holt, an NHS nurse, holds centre stage, her unambiguous lyrics addressing racial identity (Who Am I) and police brutality (Pray for Timeless – musically, imagine a more austere take on Anohni’s 4 Degrees). It’s telling, however, that the outstanding moment comes with the irresistible momentum of No Use, wherein lie the most conventional pop dynamics of anything here.

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by Phil Mongredien via Electronic music | The Guardian

Lime Cordiale, Le Pie, The Whitlams and more: Australia's best new music for November

Each month we add 20 new songs to our Spotify playlist. Read about 10 of our favourites here – and subscribe on Spotify, which updates with the full list at the start of each month

Related: Midnight Oil: The Makarrata Project review – a chorus of anger over stolen land

Related: Blake Scott: Niscitam review – Peep Tempel frontman's sprawling and powerful solo debut

Related: ‘Loud and proud, wrong and strong’: the ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

Related: From Faith No More to faith healing: Melbourne’s Festival Hall sold to Hillsong Church

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by Nathan Jolly and Guardian Australia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Splendid Isolation: The Second Wave

Listen here!

Intro
Sergio Mendes – Stillness
Kathy Smith – The End of the World
Tenderlonious – Lockdown Boogie
Nu Yorican Soul – The Nervous Track (Horny Mix)
Black Science Orchestra – Holdin’ On
Billy Paul – America ( We Need The Light)
Jarrod Lawson – Be The Change
Benny Sings – Rolled Up
Monkey Business – ‘Ain’t No Fun
Anderson.Paak x Busta Rhymes – Lockdown
Barbara Mason – World In Crisis
Brief Encounter – Human
Iraina Mancini – Shotgun
Mark Capaani – I Believe In Miracles
Family of Swede – Set You Free
Wool – If They Left Us Alone Now
The Doors – The End
SAULT – Scary Times
Jacob Miller – Healing of the Nation
Winston Reedy – World Crisis 2020
The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Likkle Jordee – Stay Home Order
Jonny Chingas – Phone Home
Flako – Lonely Town
Blaze – Wishing You Were Here
Felipe Gordon – We Got All The Time
Quantic- Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five
Marker Sterling – Silk Rock
HNNY – Cheer Up My Brother
Wham! – Everything She Wants 
Sandy Barber – I Think I’ll Do Some Stepping On My Own
The Main Ingredient – Happiness Is Just Round The Bend
The Rance Allen Group – Peace of Mind
Rev. Ray L. Weaver – We Are Family
DJ Shadow – This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way)
Bill Withers – Lonely Town, Lonely Street (live at Carnegie Hall)
Mel & Tim – Keep The Faith
Busta Rhymes – You Will Never Find Another Me feat. Mary J. Blige 
The Bees – I Love You
Kahil El Zabar – How Do We Mend A Broken Heart?
Gil Scott-Heron – Winter In America
Timi Yuro – Fever
Paul Murphy presents The Take Vibe EP – Golden Brown 
The Jazz Renegades – Do It The Hard Way
Mud – Lonely This Christmas

The post Splendid Isolation: The Second Wave appeared first on Wah Wah 45s.

via Wah Wah 45s

Grammy awards rename world music category to avoid 'connotations of colonialism'

Category to be renamed best global music album, described as ‘a more relevant, modern, and inclusive term’ by Recording Academy

The Grammys are changing the name of their “best world music” album category to “best global music” album, to avoid “connotations of colonialism”.

In a statement, the Recording Academy said the change came “as we continue to embrace a truly global mindset … Over the summer we held discussions with artists, ethnomusicologists, and linguists from around the world who determined that there was an opportunity to update the best world music album category toward a more relevant, modern, and inclusive term ... The change symbolises a departure from the connotations of colonialism, folk, and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied while adapting to current listening trends and cultural evolution among the diverse communities it may represent.”

Related: 'So flawed and problematic': why the term 'world music' is dead

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by Ben Beaumont-Thomas via Electronic music | The Guardian

'I'm an alchemist': Nova, the unknown MC with the Scottish album of the year

With an English accent in a scene dominated by white men, the 24-year-old rapper felt like an outcast at first – but a £20,000 award win is set to supercharge her career

At £20,000, the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) award is one of the most lucrative in the UK. But for this year’s winner Shaheeda Sinckler – AKA Nova – it’s about more than money: the prize is a vindication of her total self-sufficiency.

The rapper is virtually unknown – she had only around 300 monthly listeners on Spotify prior to her win – but her coolly confident, lyrically deft debut album Re-Up is a deserving winner, spanning grime, trap, Afrobeats, dubstep and frosty electronica in collaboration with some of Scotland’s fastest-rising producers. It beat far more prominent nominees, including Lewis Capaldi and Anna Meredith, by capturing the spirit of the nation’s underground nightlife, but most importantly it cements Sinckler’s own identity as an artist.

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by Katie Hawthorne via Electronic music | The Guardian

Shut Up and Dance: the Hackney rap duo who raved against racism

By accelerating hip-hop breakbeats, and pouring the pain of bigotry and authoritarian rule into music, Carl ‘Smiley’ Hyman and Philip ‘PJ’ Johnson blazed a trail that led to rave and jungle

In British dance music history, the likes of Shoom, Spectrum and the Haçienda are often held up as the defining clubs from the scene’s formative years in the late 1980s. But for Carl “Smiley” Hyman and Philip “PJ” Johnson, better known as pioneering duo Shut Up and Dance, the aforementioned clubs paled in comparison to Dungeons on Lea Bridge Road in east London.

“You’re never gonna find a spot like that again,” PJ insists. “There were all these tunnels, each with their own sound system, all linked together like some sewage system. By the end of the night there’d be sweat dripping from the ceiling.”

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

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by Michael Lawson via Electronic music | The Guardian

THE JAZZ CHILL CORNER John Finbury | "Quatro"

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• John Finbury | "Quatro"
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John Finbury | "Quatro" Posted: 26 Oct 2020 12:59 PM PDT John Finbury's new album "Quatro" premieres new music with broad Latin American and Spanish influences, mixed and matched in an unorthodox fashion. Alternating vocal and instrumental tracks, the album was produced by Latin Grammy winner Emilio D. Miler, and features Magos Herrera on vocals, Chano Domínguez on piano, John Patitucci on bass, and Antonio Sánchez on drums. Recorded over two sessions in New York in 2019, "Quatro" is both a celebration of cultural diversity and immigration, and a condemnation of those who seek restriction based upon prejudice. The album opener, "Llegará El Día" ("The Day Will Come"), is a "Freedom Song" and a fierce assertion of the album's concept, with influences of Peruvian Festejo and Mexican Huapango. The lyrics, penned by producer D. Miler, knit a poetic landscape with references to Mexican iconography and to someone, unnamed, who will soon disappear. The pianist offers a solo cadenza to present the first instrumental, "Independence Day", Finbury's take on Spanish Flamenco, specifically Bulería. With John Patitucci on electric bass, the trio flies high, with Chano taking more solo spots throughout the song. "La Madre De Todos Los Errores" ("The Mother Of All Mistakes") features an intricate melody delivered with passion by Magos, which develops over a driving bass ostinato. The lyrics, written by Roxana Amed, are directed at someone whose assumptions and narcissism overlook the beauty that lies in the details which shape identity. "All The Way To The End", featuring lyrics by Patty Brayden, is a sultry Son-Bolero dance around the pledge of eternal love, sung in English with Spanish Flamenco ornaments. Chano Dominguez's solo enters, piercing and playful, becoming the other 'tease' in this conversation. When the song appears to be over, a final section emerges featuring a melancholic vocalise in exquisite interplay with the band. A solo acoustic bass cadenza resolves into an a capella vocal, and so "Comenzar" ("To Begin (again)" ) is born. With lyrics penned by Magos Herrera herself, the song is a homage to our capacity to reinvent ourselves and find new beginnings within the same story. The music displays influences of Argentine Zamba, and other folkloric music from the Andes that share similar rhythms. Reminiscent of old school dance halls "Salón Jardín" ("Garden Ballroom"), is the trios's take on a slow Bolero, fertile territory for an outstanding acoustic bass solo by John Patitucci. Chano Domínguez's reprise of the melody is so personal that it feels like a solo in its own right. Antonio Sánchez's solo cadenza at the beginning of "Romp" feels like a disruption of the smooth tone set by the previous track… and it isn't the last one! A clave-based, New Orleans Second Line groove takes shape, a musical reminder that the South of the United States was once part of the same melting pot as the Spanish Antilles. "Romp" is the jam after the party, when musicians and a few lucky guests blend together in a celebration of togetherness. John Finbury redefines his being American, not just as a native of the United States, but as a citizen of the Americas. His music on QUATRO often defies strict stylistic classifications, and finds unity in organic, intense renditions by a world-class band. Make no mistake: "Quatro" is a political statement; a musical and poetic expression of freedom and the power of collaboration to contradict the fiction that those who are different should remain apart. Though written and recorded before the world was stunned by a pandemic that has hindered our ability to gather and celebrate, "Quatro" presents a musical meeting place that strives to bridge that distance, and convey the certainty that we are better together.

Oneohtrix Point Never: the warped genius behind Uncut Gems's spine-chilling score

His soundtrack shredded audiences’ nerves. Now producer Daniel Lopatin is using radio to bring Trump’s America together

It has been a peculiar 2020 for many of us, but Daniel Lopatin’s has been odder than most. In January, the warped electronica that he makes under his pseudonym Oneohtrix Point Never soundtracked a hit Netflix movie, the nerve-shredding Adam Sandler thriller Uncut Gems. On 8 March, he tasted the primetime life, playing a song he had written with the Weeknd on Saturday Night Live. Daniel Craig introduced them, a few weeks before the new Bond film was due to be released. “I was shitting bricks if I can be totally candid,” the slightly less famous Daniel says.

Fifteen days later, Covid-19 locked down New York. Stuck in his flat, his studio out of bounds, Lopatin had to make music in his bedroom like he did when his recording career began. Granted, life had changed since his 2007 debut, Betrayed in the Octagon: he’d spearheaded a genre, vaporwave, by narcotically slowing down excerpts of well-known songs, and collaborated with David Byrne, FKA twigs and Iggy Pop. He still had a poky bedroom, though. “If I’d pushed my chair back making music, it would hit the bed and I’d end up hurting my ankle,” he laughs, sitting in the same room on an autumn afternoon.

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

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by Jude Rogers via Electronic music | The Guardian

'The way I am is an outrage': the Indigenous Brazilian musicians taking back a burning country

A vibrant underground of rap, metal, folk and more is thriving among Brazil’s embattled tribes, who are standing up to Bolsonaro’s environment policies

As Brazil’s world-acclaimed biodiversity turns to ashes, President Jair Bolsonaro has praised the country as an environmental role model. “It is not only in environmental preservation that the country stands out,” the far-right leader affirmed in a UN speech on 22 September. “In the humanitarian and human rights fields, Brazil has also been an international reference.”

At the same time, the New York Times has reported that a team of Brazilian lawyers are drafting a complaint to the International Criminal Court in the Hague with a view to bringing Bolsonaro to trial for crimes against humanity, for removing environmental protections for indigenous peoples. Bolsonaro has not responded, but has said: “Where there is indigenous land, there is wealth underneath it,” and in February proposed a bill to legalise mining in Indigenous lands.

I am afraid of whitening myself. I have to be careful to keep my roots and accomplish my mission: infiltrate power structures that say Indigenous peoples no longer exist

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by Beatriz Miranda via Electronic music | The Guardian

Gorillaz: Song Machine Season One: Strange Timez review – playful and potent collaboration

(Parlophone)
Damon Albarn is the melodic anchor to this pioneering album that balances concept with fun

The Now Now (2018) was one of those Gorillaz albums that dispensed with the hip hop-led collaborations that have often defined this band of ink and flesh. Guests are in full effect, though, on its follow-up: what’s billed as Season One of the band’s Song Machine concept, compiling the tracks Gorillaz have released monthly via their YouTube channel since January, plus extra helpings.

Everything that has ever been engaging about Gorillaz is present in spades here. Playfulness and conceptual ambition are all anchored by Damon Albarn’s melodic melancholy and his side-eye at the suboptimal state of things. His Bowie fixation waxes hard on unreleased tracks – such as The Lost Chord – as well those already in the public domain (Aries).

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sun Ra Arkestra: Swirling review – out of this world

(Strut)
The Arkestra’s first album in 20 years is an intoxicating, cosmic tribute to Sun Ra

For much of his long, prolific career, the late Sun Ra (born plain Herman Blount) found his music marginalised. Though rooted in jazz tradition, its atonal tunings and proto-electronica, along with its space-age themes and gaudy costumes, were too way out for an era of studied, mohair-suited cool. Since his death in 1993, however, Ra has become hailed as a pioneer of Afrofuturism, whose influence runs from Funkadelic to Black Panther. Meanwhile Ra’s band, the Arkestra, have toured tirelessly, presided over by alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, now 96.

This first album in 20 years proves an inspired tribute to the master, revisiting celebrated pieces like Satellites Are Spinning, with its promise “A better day is breaking/ The planet Earth’s awakening”, beautifully sung by violinist Tara Middleton. The vocalised, upbeat mood (Ra was essentially utopian) maintains through the bebop riff of Rocket Number Nine, and Allen’s title track, whose finger-snapping big band arrangement evokes a nightclub on Mars, while the swaying Egyptian melody of Angels and Demons at Play and the foreboding Sea of Darkness come from deeper space. It’s a heady brew, challenging but intoxicating. Ra always said his music was from the future… and now it has arrived.

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by Neil Spencer via Electronic music | The Guardian

Ela Minus: Acts of Rebellion review – techno-pop for dancing, thinking and resisting

(Domino)
Making her debut album alone on analogue machines, Minus has come up with an inspiring manifesto for 2020

As acts of rebellion go, Ela Minus’s is an intimate yet powerful one. On her debut album, the Colombia-born, Brooklyn-based artist makes personal-is-political statements amid alternately soothing and rousing electronic soundscapes, all of which she crafted alone in her apartment using analogue equipment.

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by Aimee Cliff via Electronic music | The Guardian

Wah Wah Radio – October 2020

Listen here!

Intro

Soothsayers – We Are Many

Nightmares On Wax – Les Nuites

Linkwood & Other Lands – VSR

Alabaster de Plume x Danalogue – Gull Communion

Thijs Enterprise – Another Digital Handshake

Dan Kye – Raro

Buscrates – Cruise Control

Eddie C – Hipos

Fila Brazillia – Bumpkin Riots

Take Vibe – Golden Brown

Soul Supreme – Check The Rhyme

The Stance Brothers – On Top (Organ & Vibes)

Aquiles Navarro & Tcheser Holmes – Pueblo

Colman Brothers – The Chief

Le Commandant Couche-Tôt – La Vénus de 1000 Hommes

Felbm – SonambulantIll

Considered – Upstart (Live at the TRC)

Outro

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Mirwais on producing Madonna: 'I'm not comparing her to a bull but –'

The electrofunk star is releasing an apocalyptic anthem fuelled by Trump, Covid and Kubrick’s 2001. He talks about his Afghan origins, overcoming drugs – and his role in Madonna’s yoga rap

Mirwais Ahmadzaï is trying to sum up his frequent collaborator Madonna. “You know bullfighting?” he begins ominously. “It works because the bull is so powerful that you have to weaken it.” Right. “Look, I’m not comparing Madonna to a bull,” he quickly adds, “but she was so powerful at that time.”

The Parisian, who turns 60 on Friday, peppers our 90-minute phone call with similar flights of fancy, ponderously linking Brexit to Baudrillard and dropping situationist truth bombs. And he has witnessed that power up close. A cult musician in France since the late 70s, and cited as an influence by the likes of Air and Daft Punk, Ahmadzaï was plucked from the sidelines by Madonna in 1999. He helped coax out her most experimental era, bolting his brand of heavily filtered, minimalist electrofunk on to the superstar’s 11m-selling album Music. His sonic fingerprints were all over two singles that immediately slotted into the already heaving Madge canon: the delicious electro-bounce of the title track and thigh-slapping country curio Don’t Tell Me.

Like the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey that appear at a change in society, it's the right time for my album

I like to be provocative … I was an artist before Madonna. This is one of the secrets of our relationship

Related: Your vinyl choice: Record Store Day 2020 – in pictures

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by Michael Cragg via Electronic music | The Guardian

'We are meant to gather': organisers of global dance festival refuse to cancel – or give refunds

Ticket-holders are angry that organisers insist the Global Eclipse festival will go ahead in Argentina, despite the government there banning international tourists

Thousands of people from around the world partying for 10 days in the middle of the Argentinian wilderness sounds like an ambitious endeavour even before Covid-19. But a global pandemic has done little to sway organisers of the Global Eclipse –Patagonia Gathering, who are determined to charge ahead and refusing to refund ticket holders.

Despite Argentina nearing 1 million Covid-19 cases and authorities currently refusing to let international tourists into the country, the electronic dance music (EDM) trance festival is still scheduled for December 2020.

Related: Symbiosis: last vestige of authentic festival culture or hippie theme park?

I think that it really brings to light the question of their integrity

I know that they didn’t set out to screw anyone over

Related: Burning Man beach crowds criticized as 'reckless' by San Francisco mayor

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by Matilda Boseley via Electronic music | The Guardian

Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #47 on Soho radio

Listen here!

Intro

JISR – Musaka

Say3 – Akoben Pt.1

Grupo Almendra – Tu y Yo

Dele Sosimi x Medlar – Gudu Gudu Kan (Daz-I-Kue Remix)

Sun Palace – Rude Movements (Moodymann Remix)

Scrimshire – Lost In Time & Space feat. Bessie

Jarrod Lawson – Be The Change

Gabriels – Love and Hate in a Different Time

SAULT – Strong

Studnitzky – Prophet (Kyodai INS Remix)

Disclosure – Expressing What Matters

WheelUP – You Need Loving

PVA – Talks

Trioritat – Inelegant Peeing

The Quiet Ones – Mawjood feat. Lama Zakharia

Valéria – Moreno

Pete Josef – Must Be In Love

GODTET – Womens Choir

Samuel Sharp – Fireworks From The Tower

Da Lata – Dakar (Emanative Remix)

Cinephonic – Béton et Feraille

Jimetta Rose & Voices of Creation – Let The Sun Shine In

Warsaw Afrobeat Orchestra – Invitation

Souleance – Aquarelle

Web Web – Land of the Arum Flower (Khalab Remix)

Quakers – Approach With Caution feat. Sampa The Great

Pan Amsterdam – Kun G Chicken

Georgie Sweet – The One

Yumi Murata – Watashi No Bus

Mermaid Chunky – Gemini Girls

The Twilite Tone – Baby Steps 

Paul White – Smile (See The Light) feat Iyamah 

Fradinho – A Bright Future (Karmasound Remix)

Emanative x Bex Burch – Disrupt

Mark Pritchard – Be Like Water

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Autechre: Sign review

(Warp)
A surprisingly melodic proper album is welcome from the electronic pioneers, but its dystopian soundworld is now in a crowded market

As the devastating and the downright uncanny both become normalised, few things still have the power to surprise in 2020. That said, few would have expected Autechre to conjure up an album-length album, actually conceptualised and sequenced true to the format. The Rochdale-originated duo’s recent output consists of weighty folder dumps, marathon radio residencies and other swathes of experimental electronics, club deviations and wee-hours abstractions. These exciting, befuddling drops are often left raw and unsorted for fans to construct their own canons from the pair’s extensive discography. Now relocated and working remotely from one another long before lockdown, Autechre have been mining away at a sound influenced more temporally than geographically: electro, bleep techno, funk and old-school hip-hop styles of the 80s and 90s continue to shape the direction of the Warp Records mainstays.

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by Tayyab Amin via Electronic music | The Guardian

One to watch: Cookiee Kawaii

Blending Jersey club music, Chicago footwork and silky slow jams, the TikTok star is much more than one viral hit

Before it became an unexpected target of the Trump administration, TikTok was best known for catapulting songs like Cookiee Kawaii’s song Vibe (If I Back It Up) into virality, with more than 100m streams. The New Jersey singer’s tune feels tailor-made for the app: it stands at only 84 seconds, features whip-cracking sound effects, and the looped vocal snippets lend themselves to lip-syncing. But Cookiee’s songs are more than catchy internet ringtones; they are giving life to Jersey’s club scene – perhaps that’s why the rapper Tyga reached out to her to collaborate on a remix of the song.

Cookiee’s parents were both DJs, and she grew up listening to house music. She also performed in choirs while attending Catholic school. She has been recording music for more than 10 years and her latest EP Club Soda Vol 2, boasting raunchy lyrics, choppy vocals and speedy tempos, is inspired by the Baltimore club genre. It also has the energy of Chicago’s footwork (with its snares, drum kicks, and samples) and the silkiness of R&B slow jams.

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by Kadish Morris via Electronic music | The Guardian

London members' club invites musician Gaika to explore slavery links

Artist is descendant of family enslaved by former owner of House of St Barnabas

The descendant of a family enslaved by a British plantation owner in Jamaica has been invited to take part in an art project at a private members’ club in London that is delving into its own history and connection to slavery.

The House of St Barnabas, which was rebuilt by Richard Beckford, a Bristol MP who enslaved hundreds of people and owned more than 3,650 hectares (9,000 acres) of land in Jamaica, has invited the musician and artist Gaika to create a work that helps “address the house’s links to slavery”.

To buy the Guardian’s Black history wallcharts, visit the Guardian bookshop.

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by Lanre Bakare Arts and culture correspondent via Electronic music | The Guardian

Mallrat, Powderfinger, Flowerkid and Cry Club: Australia's best new music for October

Each month we add 20 new songs to our Spotify playlist. Read about 10 of our favourites here – and subscribe on Spotify, which updates with the full list at the start of each month

Related: ‘Everything I do is about feelings’: Mallrat on making music for forgotten teens

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by Nathan Jollyand Guardian Australia via Electronic music | The Guardian

Jónsi: Shiver review – ethereal steel for strange times

(Krunk)
Co-producer AG Cook strips back Jónsi’s first album in a decade to a clever mix of crunchy electronica and floating vocals

Twenty-six years into an experimental career where he’s still generally thought of as the indie boy Enya, Jónsi Birgisson has recruited a 30-year-old co-producer to help change his game. Step forward AG Cook: Charlie XCX’s creative director and a master of glitchy, peculiarly skewed modern pop. On Jónsi’s first solo album for 10 years, Cook encouraged him to strip each song to its bare bones and add stranger, steelier muscles.

The results veer between the kind of palatably edgy, ethereal fare for which Chris Martin would give his eye teeth, and crunchy electronica ripe for club remixes. Jónsi’s voice takes on different incarnations, at times being heavily processed, at others floating free. Good gentle moments come early, like Cannibal, on which the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser guests delicately, and Sumarið Sem Aldrei Kom [The Summer That Never Came], which carries in its slowness a soft, fluid sadness.

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by Jude Rogers via Electronic music | The Guardian

Why Radiohead are the Blackest white band of our times

Radiohead released Kid A 20 years ago today. It pointed a new direction for rock music – and mirrored radical Black art by imagining new spaces to live in amid a hostile world

Ask anyone who is the Blackest white rock band to emerge over the past 30 years, and my hunch is that few would say Radiohead.

The hypnotically wonky Oxfordshire quintet are lauded for intricate, challenging music that is now far from their grunge-era breakthrough. Their rapturous second album (1995’s The Bends) yoked together symphonic alt-rock melodies with even bigger feelings, and their post-prog-rock masterpiece OK Computer (1997) delivered darkly ominous late 20th-century dread about everything from rising neoliberal alienation to the coldness of technology. It prompted stop you in your tracks superlatives from critics, who became even more rapturous for the follow-up, Kid A, released 20 years ago today.

What makes Radiohead so radical are their deeply introspective other worlds, built as bulwarks against the tyrannies of everyday life

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by Daphne A Brooks via Electronic music | The Guardian

Working Men's Club review

(Heavenly)
The West Yorkshire band take the stark electronics of the post-punk scene and warm them with Detroit techno and Italian house – while addressing Andrew Neil with mischievous one-liners

The Golden Lion pub in Todmorden gives locals the chance to meet and talk about the high number of UFO sightings in the isolated West Yorkshire town. It’s also the centre of a thriving music scene, where 18-year-old Sydney Minsky-Sargeant’s band have undergone lineup changes to evolve from a guitar band into a New Order-type rock-electronic hybrid.

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by Dave Simpson via Electronic music | The Guardian

DOM SERVINI’S ALLO LOVE VINYL TEN :: OCTOBER 2020

1. Theo Parrish – Wuddaji (Sound Signature LP)

2. Marcy Luarks & Classic Touch In – Electric Murder (Kalita 12)

3. Flako – Lonely Town (Karizma Rework) (White 12)

4. Derboukas – Camel Bossa (Pepite 7)

5. Felipe Gordon – I Think It’s Too Late (Off Track 12)

6. Pan Amsterdam – HA Chu (Def Pressé LP)

7. Kon & The Gang – We Like It feat. Rick James (Star Time 7)

8. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Love Is Always On Your Mind (Buddah 12)

9. Mildlife – Automatic (Heavenly LP)

10. HNNY – Cheer Up My Brother (Omena 7)

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DOM SERVINI’S ALLO LOVE VINYL TEN :: SEPTEMBER 2020

1. Duval Timothy – Help (The Vinyl Factory 2 x LP)

2. Oscar Jerome – Breathe Deep (Caroline LP)

3. Tenderlonious – Quarantena (22a LP)

4. Velvet Season & The Hearts of Gold – Love Directions (Resista 12)

5. Soul Supreme – Check The Rhime (Soul Supreme 7)

6. Elado / Eddie C – Hipos (Red Motorbike 7)

7. Khruangbin – Mordechai (Dead Oceans LP)

8. Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – Shaman! (Strut LP)

9. Angela Munoz – Introspection (Linear Labs LP)

10. Osmose – Magic Wand 15 (Magic Wand 12)

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DOM SERVINI’S ALLO LOVE VINYL TEN :: AUGUST 2020

1. Guilherme Coutinho e o Groupo Stalo – Rio Corrente (Mad About LP)

2. Zogo – Please Please (Banquise 12)

3. RBJ – Ron’s Reworks Vol. 3 (White 12)

4. Various – Door To The Cosmos Dancefloor Sampler (On The Corner 12)

5. Peter Croce – Revival (Rocksteady Disco 12)

6. Abstrack – Abstrack Edits (Abstrack 12)

7. Mothership – Let Me Ride (Kon Remix) (Mothership Konnection 7)

8. Riff Edits – Riff Edits Vol. 1 (White 12)

9. Buscrates – F.T.F. (Freak The Funk) (Razor & Tape 7)

10. Lord Funk & MOAR – Caminho (Nova Onda 7)

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DOM SERVINI’S ALLO LOVE VINYL TEN :: JULY 2020

1. Etuk Ubong – Africa Today (Night Dreamer 12)

2. Bruise – Presentation EP (Meda Fury 12)

3. Blair French – Faded By The Sun (Rocksteady 12)

4. Frank Pisani – Please Don’t Make It Funky (Patchouli Brothers Edit) (Pepite 7)

5. John Beltran – Back To Bahia (MotorCity Wine Detroit 7)

6. Tenderlonious – The Piccolo: Tender Plays Tubby (Jazz Detective 12)

7. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band – My Jamaican Dub (Big Crown 7)

8. Dr Togo – Be Free (Best Italy 12)

9. Gigi Testa – Latin Jazz Dance (Cut My Recs 7)

10. Bordeaux – Paradise’s Love (Remix) (Fantasy Love 12)

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Dom Servini at Brixton Village 10/10/20

Details

• Artist:
  Dom Servini
• Date:
  10/10/20
• Time:
  6:00pm
• Venue:
  Brixton Village
• City:
  London
• Country:
  United Kingdom
• Admission:
  Free
• Age restrictions:
  No Minors
• Notes:
  DJ Dom Servini (BLM set)
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe 06/10/20

Details

• Artist:
  Dom Servini
• Date:
  06/10/20
• Time:
  5:00pm
• Venue:
  The Jazz Cafe
• City:
  London
• Address:
  5, Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG
• Venue phone:
  +44 20 7485 6834
• Country:
  United Kingdom
• Age restrictions:
  No Minors
• Notes:
  The Oriolles live + DJ Dom Servini (Sold out)
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

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Marie Davidson: ‘We were the under-under-under of the underground’

The deliverer of electropop’s most withering putdowns talks club culture, workaholism and making French rock cool again

Empathy and gentle encouragement are all well and good, but sometimes you need browbeating into action. How else to explain the appeal of fitness instructors, BDSM and Marie Davidson? Since her first dancefloor-adjacent release in 2014, the French-Canadian producer has made intimidation her brand, disparaging the shallow side of club culture and its self-destructive behaviours in a voice that could shrivel ripe plums. It wasn’t just a pose, either. Each record, from Perte d’Identité (identity loss) to Adieu au Dancefloor (goodbye to the dancefloor) to her breakout, 2018’s Working Class Woman, sought enlightenment amid the sadistic aesthetic.

The latter was conceived as an “anti-burnout” record, even if lead single Work It, with its exhortations of “sweat dripping down your balls”, was often misinterpreted as a productivity doctrine: the real work, Davidson avowed at the song’s conclusion, was nurturing oneself. Planning to tour it for a year, then take a year’s sabbatical, she thought she had built-in limitations that would allow her to do just that. Yet she succumbed to burnout anyway, ending up plagued by chronic insomnia, a sleeping-pill addiction and strange rashes. “It’s like a domino effect,” she says. “You get caught in a spiral until you realise: this is not working any more.”

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips

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by Laura Snapes via Electronic music | The Guardian

Wah Wah Radio – September 2020

Listen here!

Intro

Unforscene – Don’t You Worry (Domu Remix) feat. Alice Russell

Kinitch & Kuna Maze – The Leak (Domu x Sonar’s Ghost Epic Remix Mix)

Paper Tiger – Bioluminescent (EVM128 Remix) feat. Olivia Bhattacharjee

Seiji – Loose Lips feat. Lyric L

Nuspirit Helsinki – Honest (Jazzanova Remix)

The Milk – Feels So Good (Scrimshire Bruk Up The Family Remix)

4-Hero – Dauntless (Restless Soul South Pacific Remix)

Marvin Jupiter – Reach (Dego & Lord Remix)

Dele Sosimi x Medlar – Gúdú Gúdú Kan (Daz-I-Kue Remix)

Bugz In The Attic – Booty La La

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Róisín Murphy: Róisín Machine review – still inventing new moves

(Skint/BMG)
Pop outsider and lockdown living-room star Murphy distils her disco expertise and musical idiosyncrasies in songs pulsing with dancefloor power

The first thing you hear on Róisín Murphy’s fifth album is a snatch of spoken word, an extract from a monologue that appears in full later. “I feel my story is still untold,” she says, “but I’ll make my own happy ending.”

Murphy’s fans may concur with the sentiment. It’s an article of faith among them that the former Moloko frontwoman should be more famous than she is: look online and the word “underrated” seems to attach itself to her like a nickname. Watching the footage of her performing her former band’s 2003 single Forever More at Glastonbury, or the videos she posted from her living room during lockdown, you can see what they mean. The former offers eight minutes during which Murphy manages to sport four different, preposterous headdresses and execute a mid-song costume change from late-80s raver in puffa jacket, beanie and KLF T-shirt into a glamorous red dress and feather boa. The latter’s high point might well come during a rendition of Murphy’s Law, a single from Róisín Machine, that also involves several changes of headdress: high-kicking around her coffee table, she falls flat on her arse, rectifying herself with a defiant bellow of “I’m alright!” You watch them and think, yes, the charts probably would be a more interesting place if, say, Dermot Kennedy or James Arthur made way for Murphy.

Related: Róisín Murphy: ‘In my pregnancy I was fed like a goose being fattened up’

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

Dom Servini – Unherd Radio Show #46 on Soho Radio

Listen here!

Intro

Keno & Tristan De Liege – Speak The Language feat. Elodie Rama

Quiroga – Dabbler In Love

Machinedrum – Believe In U

STR4TA – Aspects

Earth Boys – Piff Party

Letherette – Break My Heart

Nikitch & Kuna Maze – The Leak (Domu Remix)

Tush – Leh We Guh feat. Alexa Belgrave

Lady Blackbird – Beware The Stranger (Ashley Beedle Remix)

Ariwo – Flameback Dance 

Soothsayers – Love And Unity

Kahil El’Zabar – How Can We Mend A Broken Heart

Zero 7 – Shadows

Monzanto Sound – Lead The Way

Mammal Hands – Late Bloomer

Takuya Kuroda – Fade (KEARL Remix)

Pete Josef – Lavender

Huw Marc Bennett – In My Craft

Thornato – Out Here

Darius x Wayne Snow – Equilibrium

ECHLN – Come Around feat. Amarafleur 

Reuben Vaun Smith – Photosynthesizer

Rabii Harnoune & V.B. Kühl – Yomali (WheelUP Remix)

Tiana Khasi – Whole Lotta Shine (Sampology Remix)

Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Roy Ayers – Gravity

Souleance – Les Mouches

Pan Amsterdam – Debtor’s Skyline

Quakers – Boogie Electric

Placebo – Balek

Emma Donovan & The PutBacks – Pink Skirt

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Drill, hardcore punk and pop about snails: new artists for autumn

Despite the pandemic, there are dozens of exciting new music acts coming up, from British rappers Pa Salieu and Millionz to offbeat pop by Annika Rose and Benee

Bartees Strange, who combined a full-time job (which he only recently quit) with a stream of releases, is hard to pin down. The Ipswich-born, Washington DC-based artist has put out fizzy powerpop, lo-fi synth ballads, house-y electronica and an EP of National covers. What links them is songwriting quality and Strange’s rich voice. His forthcoming album, Live Forever, should be an eclectic treat. AP

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

Sleaford Mods review – a bracing stream of class consciousness

The Nottingham punk duo let rip with a livestreamed battery of barbed lyrics, bizarre noises and back-to-basics beats

Across town at the Royal Albert Hall, the Last Night of the Proms is under way. In the basement of London’s 100 Club – a famous venue in the annals of punk, granted “special status” by Westminster council before Covid struck – a man from Nottinghamshire is, not for the first time, at the end of his tether.

“Fuck England! Fuck my country!” he bellows to an empty venue, “Lob it in the bin!” Singer Jason Williamson doesn’t recognise his homeland any more. BHS has gone down. The “rich list” grows ever bigger. “In the snakes and ladders,” people like him, he snarls, “are the Baldricks, son, and Blackadders.”

Williamson says out loud the things people would like to say but would get sacked for if they did

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by Kitty Empire via Electronic music | The Guardian

Sault: Untitled (Rise) review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Forever Living Originals)
Just 12 weeks after their previous double album, the British group dance from sorrow to resistance, mixing fearless lyrics with house, funk and disco

Over the last two years, Sault’s music has arrived out of the blue: no interviews, no photos, no videos, no live appearances, no Wikipedia entry, a perfunctory and entirely non-interactive social media presence. Physical copies of their three previous albums have credited Inflo as producer – otherwise best-known as the producer of Little Simz’ Grey Area and co-writer of Michael Kiwanuka’s Black Man in a White World, each of which won him an Ivor Novello award. Kiwanuka got a guest artist credit on their last album, Untitled (Black Is), released in June. So did Laurette Josiah, the founder of a north London children’s charity, who it turns out is Leona Lewis’s aunt. The only other available fact is that proceeds from the album “will be going to charitable funds”. Speculation about the collective’s other members has neither been confirmed nor denied, nor has anyone claimed responsibility for music that’s thus far been rapturously received on both sides of the Atlantic.

You could decry this approach as counterproductive. Perhaps a higher profile, a modicum of desire to play the game, might have helped turn Wildfires, the exquisite and excoriating standout from Untitled (Black Is), into the hit it deserved to be. Yet Sault seem to use the time they save by not promoting their albums or engaging with the public profitably. Untitled (Rise) is not only their fourth album in 18 months, it’s their second double album in just over 12 weeks. It’s a work rate that would seem remarkable at any point in pop history, but feels positively astonishing today, compounded by the fact that its predecessor gave the impression of having been largely written and recorded in response to the murder of George Floyd, less than a month before it was released. Pop history is littered with swiftly released singles reacting to events in the news – two of them made No 1 during the Covid-19 lockdown – but you struggle to think of an entire album doing so, let alone one as good as Untitled (Black Is).

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by Alexis Petridis via Electronic music | The Guardian

AG Cook: the nutty producer behind the decade's most divisive music

Having polarised pop with the abrasive PC Music, he’s now going solo. ‘I trust my own dislike of things’, he says

Describing AG Cook’s haircut is a challenge. Part mullet, part moptop, it also features elements of shag, perm and bowl. The more I try to place it the context of hair history (Paul McCartney? Joan Jett? Late-80s Deirdre Barlow?) the more disorientated I become. It is not the only thing about him that is liable to confound. Cook, 30, from London, is the man behind PC Music, the record label whose sickly, abrasive and ultra-synthetic output doubled as the most divisive sound of the decade.

Yet, in typically contrarian style, the lead single for Cook’s new solo album, Apple, sounds completely different. Oh Yeah is a catchy guitar ballad pumped full of brain-tickling nostalgia for late-90s pop-rock. Much like his hairstyle, it evades all my attempts to find any close relatives (Natalie Imbruglia? Deep Blue Something? Hanson?). According to Cook, his main influence was actually Shania Twain.

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by Rachel Aroesti via Electronic music | The Guardian

'A voice for our emotions': Poland's club scene fights for LGBTQ+ rights

As towns declare themselves ‘LGBT-free zones’, Polish DJs and musicians are leading furious opposition to widespread homophobia and police brutality

In August, as a giant bouncy castle was throwing a shadow on Warsaw’s baroque-style Ujazdow castle – home to the Centre for Contemporary Art – a party was under way. It was the last in To Be Real, an events series aimed at maximising the space’s fleeting inclusivity of Poland’s LGBTQ+ community. One of the artists was running late. “I came almost straight out of jail and played probably the most aggressive set in my life,” says DJ and producer Avtomat.

A day earlier, he had been arrested at a protest against the pre-trial detention of an LGBTQ+ rights campaigner known as Margot. Human Rights Watch described the government’s violent crackdown on activists as an attempt to crush dissent against state-sanctioned homophobia: the ruling Law and Justice party has pledged to fight “LGBT ideology” to protect the so-called traditional Polish family unit.

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by Mariia Ustimenko via Electronic music | The Guardian

Dom Servini at Myddleton Road Market 04/10/20

Details

• Artist:
  Dom Servini
• Date:
  04/10/20
• Time:
  11:00am
• Venue:
  Myddleton Road market
• City:
  London
• Address:
  Myddleton Road
• Country:
  United Kingdom
• Admission:
  Free
• Age restrictions:
  All Ages
• Notes:
  Having been involved in running a hugely popular Black Lives Matter street event in Haringey, North London, across the summer, Dom and a group of local friends are moving it to the first Sunday of the month at this gorgeous market street. Whilst adhering with COVID restrictions, the BLM Harringay Soundsystem (in association with Audio Gold) will be supplying a conscious and uplifting soundtrack to your day at the market as well as featuring live special guests, spoken word, percussion and a vinyl stall so you can dig for the finest soul, disco, funk and more all day long. Join us!
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Dom Servini at The Jazz Cafe 19/09/20

Details

• Artist:
  Dom Servini
• Date:
  19/09/20
• Time:
  6:00pm
• Venue:
  The Jazz Cafe
• City:
  London
• Address:
  5, Parkway, Camden Town, London, NW1 7PG
• Venue phone:
  +44 20 7485 6834
• Country:
  United Kingdom
• Age restrictions:
  No Minors
• Notes:
  To celebrate the re-opening of this iconic London venue (and our spiritual home) Dele Sosimi and friends will be playing two shows in one night. Only the finest Afrobeat vibrations, plus DJ support from our very own Dom Servini. Everybody say YEAH YEAH!
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