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Playlist 07.09.25
Experimental song reaching out from all quarters tonight, in extremely different ways. A surprising South & Central American focus. We also have some experimental beats, some classical and jazz hybrids, and some sound-art.
LISTEN AGAIN and sing yourself awake… Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here.
SANAM – Habibon – حبيبٌ [Constellation/Bandcamp]
I was instantly hooked when I first heard the music of Lebanese singer Sandy Chamoun on some compilations a few years back. Two years ago, her new band SANAM released their debut album on London’s Mais Um, featuring other Lebanese luminaries like guitarist/electronic musician Anthony Sahyoun and two members of legendary Beirut shoegazers Postcards – their drummer Pascal Semerdjian and guitarist Marwan Tohme. Rounding out the band are Farah Kaddour on buzuq and Antonio Hajj Moussa on bass. The band have now signed to legendary Montréal postrock/experimental label Constellation – an unusual endorsement as they’re not Canadian let alone from Montréal. But the album was recorded & mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the Lebanese-Canadian musician who’s made astonishing music as Jerusalem In My Heart and who co-founded the Constellation-affiliated Hotel2Tango studio in Montréal. OK, that’s a lot of background; this second album is a brilliant synthesis of Arabic music, folk, experimental rock, and dream-pop; Chamoun’s auto-tuned vocals, the cascading keyboards, soft-but-motorik percussion and floating guitars take this in a very different direction from the first single. I note that the Bandcamp page has tags for both “post-folk” and “free rock”. Love it.
Crimewave – White Label [Fool’s Gold Records/Bandcamp]
Manchester’s Crimewave makes a pretty unique mixture of UK bass & experimental electronic styles with shoegazey indie guitar music. He now finds himself of New York label Fool’s Gold Records with new single “White Label“. It’s short & sweet and definitely hits those old-new vibes, kinda ’90s rock-gone-electric with near-d’n’b rhythms and jittery synths. Don’t leave us waiting so long this time, Crimewave!
plus44Kaligula – Home [plus44Kaligula Bandcamp]
Cally Statham, who performs as plus44Kaligula, hails from England’s north and makes the kind of pop music that lives somewhere between performance art and pop, in the experimental traditions of English pop songwriters like Kate Bush, David Bowie, Annie Lennox et al. There’s a political consciousness to the three songs on this short EP, hidden behind a sardonic, satirical image. And there’s an electronic backbone that takes it out of vaudevillian cabaret into something un-pin-downably modern.
Lucrecia Dalt – the common reader (feat. Juana Molina) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
Lucrecia Dalt – stelliformia [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
I’ve been following Lucrecia Dalt‘s music since she was The Sound of Lucrecia, making lovely indie music that only fainly hinted at the highly experimental electronics or Latin music that would come into her music in latter years. Her last album, 2022’s ¡Ay!, somehow combined her modular synth work with the music of her Colombian roots and incredible, counter-intuitive orchestrations – a masterpiece. On her new album A Danger To Ourselves, the connection to Latin America is still strong, but it feels like Dalt’s electronics take more of a leading role. There are violins and cello, saxophone and percussion throughout, with some bass and guitar on some tracks. And as well as Dalt’s now-partner David Sylvian, who co-produced the album, there are a few prominent South American guests including Mexican singer & sound-artist Camille Mandoki and the wonderful Juana Molina, whose loop-based, hypnotic songwriting was a favourite on Utility Fog since 2004, and it’s a treasure to hear her voice with Dalt’s here. The balance, if you could call it that, between the experimental and the “pop” elements on this album is thrilling.
Titanic – La dueña [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp]
Titanic – Gallina degollada [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp]
Guatemalan (Mexico-resident) cellist Mabe Fratti and longtime collaborator Héctor Tosta de la Rosa (who records as I. la Católica) released their first album as Titanic in 2023. The project is an outlet for I. La Católica’s compositions and arrangements with Fratti’s distinctive, creative cello playing and her emotive voice comfortably at home. Vidrio is now followed by Hagen. There’s some absolutely gorgeous songwriting on here, mostly by I. La Católica, with some co-writes by Fratti, whose singing on all tracks is possibly her best ever. Of course she plays cello too, all over these tracks alongside I. la Católica’s instruments and the pair’s electronics. Hagen has a guest spot from Daniel Oneohtrix Point Never Lopatin on one track, and Lopatin collaborator Nathan Salon adds instrumentation and production on about half the album; the brilliant drummer (and yes, OPN compadre) Eli Keszler also appears. As expected, this is evocative, glistening, and not quite like anything else.
Shapednoise – Repeater (feat. Armand Hammer) [Weight Looming]
When the last Shapednoise album came out, I pointed out that Nino Pedone has one foot in the noise realm, with releases on Prurient’s Hospital Productions among others, and one foot in the bass world, collaborating with Mumdance & Logos on the cyberpunk project The Sprawl. That was Absurd Matter, an ambitious set with many guest vocals, set to massively overdriven beats & bass, and electronic walls of noise (and sometimes melody). Out on September 17th, Absurd Matter 2 is the sequel you’d expect, with both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother returning as guests. And Armand Hammer are easily able to rap over the collapsing structures here – apocalyptic visions.
Ziúr – Though The Trees feat. Iceboy Violet [Kuboraum Editions/Bandcamp]
Based in Berlin, Ziúr has been taking her own path through club music and pop, punk and glitchy experimentation for about a decade, with releases on PAN and Planet µ among others. Her new album Home, released through Berlin’s Kuboraum Editions, reflects on what it means to be “home”, in both geographical and personal terms. This is Ziúr’s least dancefloor-oriented album, leaning more into a kind of cabaret-pop as explored by plus44Kaligula earlier tonight. But it’s also her most personal, featuring Ziúr singing in English and also for the first time in German. The guests helping her along here, who include Elvin Brandhi, Sara Persico, cellist/sound-artist Martina Bertoni, doom metal/electronic producer James Ó Ceallaigh and UK rapper/producer Iceboy Violet, make it clear that a found/chosen community is home too.
Sacred Lodge – A Bo Biboa [Avon Terror Corps]
Out through Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps is the second album from Paris-based Matthieu Ruben N’Dongo, under the alias Sacred Lodge. Ambam comes out of his ethno-musicological studies into the Fang people of Central Africa, from whom he’s descended via his father. On top of his dubstep-influenced beats, his own voice is central: he “uses the scream as a vocal act of liberation in the face of oppression”, joined on a few tracks by guests, including Sara Persico who we heard a few weeks ago, and Cairo-based producer El Kontessa. Elements from Equatorial Guinea, horrorcore rap and bass music come together powerfully on this album – just as exciting as the African metal/bass music fusion of Lord Spikeheart.
electroneya, MARTINA, TNSXORDS – (NO WAY OUT!) !مفيش مفر [raghoul/Bandcamp]
From Moroccan bass label raghoul here’s a three track EP, (SAFETY HAZARD) مخاطر السلامة, from Egyptian producers/DJs electroneya and MARTINA (Martina Ashraf), who each contribute one track and then collaborate together with London-based TNSXORDS. These tracks express claustrophobia and repression through deconstructed, percussive bass music.
Lila Tirando a Violeta, sideproject – Ostrich/Ñandú [Unguarded/Bandcamp]
An unexpected single-track collaboration, “Ostrich/Ñandú” is just what you’d expect to get when crossing Icelandic IDM duo(?) sideproject and Ireland-based Uruguayan producer Lila Tirando a Violeta – percussion-soaked frenetic beats, with even the backing tracks mostly jittering along in rhythm. Nobody here’s burying their head in the sand.
Brandon Juhans – The Saw I Saw [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
Brandon Juhans – Gardenia [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
And scant relaxin’ here despite Relaxin Records‘ name. They’re the home for North Carolina producer Brandon Juhans‘ latest album, Recycler which, true to its name, repurposes sounds from Juhans’ past music under his own name and previously as Hanz, much in the way that his own music freely samples from any kind of music and dices it up into material for his sui generis productions. When he gets going, Juhans’ music sounds like hip-hop trying to be jungle, or jungle turned inside out. It’s a disorienting approach in the most pleasing way.
Blawan – NOS [XL Recordings/Bandcamp]
In the last few years, Jamie Roberts aka Blawan has released some of the most forward-thinking, fucked-up bass music around. From 2021’s Woke Up Right Handed, the bass rumbles and throbs, the beats syncopate and shuffle but hit haaaard. In 2023, Dismantled Into Juice went considerably left-field, with a couple of tracks featuring vocals from Monstera Black. And if last year’s BouQ veered back towards the dancefloor, it’s no less experimental for that. Notably in the meantime he also paired up with longtime collaborator Arthur Cayzer aka Pariah for two albums of industrial grindcore & noise rock (with hints of bass music) as Persher. This all culminates in October with the full-length album SickElixir, of which only one of its 14 tracks has a title announced. “NOS” has the high-tech sound design of those recent releases, along with a chugging rhythm that suggests this album will be essential from start to finish.
POD & Edward Richards – Polar Phase [Kinetic Vision]
As POD, the Naarm/Melbourne producer also known as JXTPS and Wu Kush has tended to focus more on bass music, from dubstep to jungle. For the forthcoming Polar Phase EP he’s working with Edward Richards, his partner in running the Kinetic Vision label, exploring the potential of 100BPM – somewhere between bass music and techno. What we get is a verrrry nice slab of kind-of dub techno, with slow-growing synth drones and pulses. “Polar” seems apt.
Joaquín Cornejo – Garúa [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Cap I Cua from Ecuadorian producer Joaquín Cornejo is one of the prettiest releases YUKU have ever released. It doesn’t eschew complex beats at all, but they’re there more as hints at jittery IDM and footwork, with very little sub bass. It’s beautiful from top to bottom, and when you settle in, the rhythmic elements dance around you, like the skittering hi-hats in “Garúa”.
james K – Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream [AD93/Bandcamp]
While I loved the first trip-hoppy song I heard from james K, it’s indicative of her versatility that the first thing I really heard was the very avant-garde ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue), a 74-minute work interrogating the idea of the female voice, that came with a quote from Anne Carson that reads “Why is female sound bad to hear?” Carson is both specifically referencing the descriptions of women’s sounds as awful and wild in Greek mythology, and extending to the continued silencing of women’s voices in patriarchal society. In that work, james K and accompanying performers took the screams of Elektra in Sophocles’ tragedy as the starting point for their work. In contrast, her album Friend filters her voice through vapoury trip-hop, both a callback to the genre’s ’90s atmospheres and breakbeats and a futuristic take through vaporwave, dreampop and deconstructed club sounds. There’s a lot here, but it is a Friendly listen.
Bird Battles – oVo feat. Vanessa Farinha [Sleep In The Fire Records]
Earlier this year I was pleased to play the incredible debut “Bird Battles” from the duo of the same name – in fact there I am quoted on the Bandcamp page! I expressed hope that more was to come, and here is the album announcement! Bird Battles features the voice and other sounds of London-based Scottish musician Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as glacis and also one half of Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and of Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall. Here he’s working with visual and sound-artist Jesse Narens, whose love of birds is all over his visual art and audio work. And on this new single, Vanessa Farinha, who’s also known for her visual art, contributes some beautiful vocals.
Oli XL – CONSPIRACY GIRL (ft. Valeria Litvakov) [Warp/Bandcamp]
I’ve been aware of Swedish producer Oli XL since a 2018 compilation on Denmark’s Posh Isolation, but he signed to Warp in 2021, released a 2-track single and then fell silent until now (seems there were some legal/label issues, but he’s still on Warp!) Anyway, Lick The Lens / Pt.1 is in fact half an album, with Pt.2 still to come this year. Hopefully it’ll take him stratospheric, as this is pop, hip-hop, r’n’b, whatever you like, and it’s also super complex electronica. Heaps of great guests including the aforementioned james K, and the Berlin-based Valeria Litvakov on a couple of tracks. Rad.
Susannah Stark – Caochan [Night School Records/Bandcamp/STROOM.tv/Bandcamp]
When Utility Fog started back in 2003, folktronica was a genre of which I was very fond – but it was already pretty hazy as to what it was. Slightly glitchy hip-hop sampling acoustic instruments like Four Tet was what I thought, I guess, although when Tunng came on the scene literally later that year, it held a lot of similarity without quite being the same. And meanwhile The Books were doing studio-mediated music with acoustic instruments that somehow was something else entirely, despite arguably fitting the mould. So I love that in the years since, there have been untold different approaches to “folk” + “electronics”. On her forthcoming album Minor Gestures, Scottish musician Susannah Stark takes her Gaelic (Gàidhlig) folk music in experimental directions, which might involve drone passages on harmonium or modular synth, interpolated field recordings, or sample-based programming. The production touches only serve to heighten the sense of an arcane, otherworldly setting, as if being performed just out of sight or transmitted from a past-future. It’s quite a remarkable album, as you will get to hear in coming weeks.
Blue Lake – Flowers for David (single edit) [Tonal Union/Bandcamp]
It sometimes seems like Americana is a genre that’s kept alive by Scandinavia. You’ll hear its influence in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish jazz & folk, and it really does feel like it belongs in their landscapes. I do forget this sometimes, so it was a double-take moment when I realised that Blue Lake is not an American project – Jason Dungan is Danish, based in the lovely city of Copenhagen. With forthcoming album The Animal, technically his second album of 2025 after Weft, Dungan somehow imbues this acoustic music with the feel of gentle postrock or folktronica, without explicit electronic or electric sounds. As well as himself on various guitars, zither, keyboards and percussion, he has bass clarinet, strings and a drummer, most of whom sing as well (even though these aren’t really songs or choral works). It’s a joy to listen to.
Gabriel Prokofiev feat. FAMES European Youth Orchestra – Dark Lights [Nonclassical/Bandcamp]
I’m not quite sure how, but I was in with the Nonclassical label since the very beginning, with founder Gabriel Prokofiev‘s String Quartet No. 1 performed by The Elysian Quartet, accompanied – as many releases following were – by remixes from across the experimental, dubstep & club spectrum. Prokofiev (who is the grandson of the great Russian neo-classicist & modernist Sergei Prokofiev) continued writing works for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra, and incorporating electronics – I’ve played him quite a bit over the years. Now he’s back on Nonclassical with the first single from an upcoming album, “Dark Lights“, which incorporates the playing of the FAMES European Youth Orchestra with grime-influenced electronics. There’s also a remix by composer/producer Adhelm aka Beni Giles – both versions are great.
Johnny Richards & Dave King – Gene Heard Wrong [False Door Records]
The Bad Plus (especially when they were a piano trio) are one of the great crossover-jazz ensembles of the last few decades, known for their surprising covers (Aphex Twin, Pixies, Stravinsky etc) and their brilliant original material too. And if you know that Aphex Twin cover, you’ll know that Dave King is a machine of a drummer when he needs to be, as well as a sensitive ensemble member. Leeds, UK pianist Johnny Richards is a member of the Ethio-jazz-inspired Sorcerers (listen to their excellent new album!) and the virtuosic, surreal improv troupe Shatner’s Bassoon. Together, their duo album The New Awkward is out now. It was created remotely, started during COVID lockdown, but there’s no sign of that in the alchemical creations from the pair. Richards uses the piano like a percussion instrument, with layers of prepared piano and straight piano in conversation with King’s busy percussion. In keeping with Utility Fog’s longtime interest in music between the genres, Richards’ metal preparations recall Javanese gamelan, while the compositions draw from the counterpoint of J.S. Bach – elsewhere there are inspirations from Mr Bungle and Frank Zappa, 20th century composers like Hindemith and Schoenberg, early Robert Wyatt and more.
Flur – Nightdiver [Latency/Bandcamp]
New jazz from London-based trio Flur, released on the uncategorizable French label Latency. Made up of Austrian-Ethiopean harpist Miriam Adefris, and British saxophonist and drummer Isaac Robertson and Dillon Harrison, this is chamber jazz of an unusual nature, restrained where it needs to be, but willing to unleash as well. Sparingly-used production techniques add to the air of mystery.
Lea Bertucci – In This Time [Cibachrome Editions]
It should be well-known and universally acknowledged now that Lea Bertucci is one of the best sound-artist/composers of the last decade and a half. Whether site-specific works exploring & exploiting – for instance – the resonance of a hollow bridge in Köln (2020’s Acoustic Shadows), myriad works live-processing her own saxophone and other instruments, or her work with reel-to-reel tape machines, she’s a master of her craft. Recent times have seen a number of incredible collaborations from Bertucci: in 2022, she operated tapes & electronics around Robbie Lee‘s baroque & medieval instruments on Winds Bells Falls, while on Murmurations, her tapes were as prominent, but she also brought various wind instruments and her voice to the table, next to Ben Vida‘s synths & voice; and on her tectonic collaboration in 2023 with Brisbane’s own Lawrence English cello, viola and lap steel guitar emerge as well; earlier this year Lawrence’s ROOM40 released an astounding work of Bertucci together with another masterful sound-artist, Olivia Block. So needless to say her new album The Oracle, out on October 17th, is a tour de force, engaging her many instruments, field recoridngs and, importantly, her own voice, all filtered through tape manipulation and digital processing (unless it’s all tape!) Only on the last track are percussionists from the Wesleyan University Taiko Ensemble enlisted for a booming – yet obscured – finale. Of course, it’s not just technially interesting or impressive (although it is those things) – it’s also music that will draw you in and move you, despite the vocals being twisted into non-textual shapes. It’ll easily be high on my albums of the year list for 2025.
soccer Committee – Pretty little foxes [Morc Records/Bandcamp/soccer Committee Bandcamp]
I have been a dedicated fan of Dutch singer-songwriter Mariska Baars for many years, via Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek – both working with him under her own name, and then in equally mysterious projects such as Piiptsjilling and FEAN with the Kleefstra brothers and others. Where Jan Kleefstra performs his poetry in Frisian, Baars sings either wordlessly or in English. Her work, as soccer Committee and in other groups, is characterised by an exquisite restraint, whereby if you’re listening you can’t help but be drawn into the patiently unfolding melodies and subtle but essential textures. Even without Machinefabriek’s sensitive deconstructions around the edges of their collaborative work, Baars seems to dismantle and rebuild the fabric of her songs so that they are as attenuated as possible while still holding together. In 2023 she released ❤️ /Lamb, her most confident and fully-realised album yet, and only 2 years later, she’s back on Morc Records with eye, which will no doubt be equally gorgeous and tenuous.
I do want to point you to where I discovered Mariska Baars, with Machinefabriek on their incredible album Drawn, which birthed the Redrawn compilation of remixes and covers – an album I return to frequently.
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By Peter HolloExperimental song reaching out from all quarters tonight, in extremely different ways. A surprising South & Central American focus. We also have some experimental beats, some classical and jazz hybrids, and some sound-art.
LISTEN AGAIN and sing yourself awake… Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here.
SANAM – Habibon – حبيبٌ [Constellation/Bandcamp]
I was instantly hooked when I first heard the music of Lebanese singer Sandy Chamoun on some compilations a few years back. Two years ago, her new band SANAM released their debut album on London’s Mais Um, featuring other Lebanese luminaries like guitarist/electronic musician Anthony Sahyoun and two members of legendary Beirut shoegazers Postcards – their drummer Pascal Semerdjian and guitarist Marwan Tohme. Rounding out the band are Farah Kaddour on buzuq and Antonio Hajj Moussa on bass. The band have now signed to legendary Montréal postrock/experimental label Constellation – an unusual endorsement as they’re not Canadian let alone from Montréal. But the album was recorded & mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the Lebanese-Canadian musician who’s made astonishing music as Jerusalem In My Heart and who co-founded the Constellation-affiliated Hotel2Tango studio in Montréal. OK, that’s a lot of background; this second album is a brilliant synthesis of Arabic music, folk, experimental rock, and dream-pop; Chamoun’s auto-tuned vocals, the cascading keyboards, soft-but-motorik percussion and floating guitars take this in a very different direction from the first single. I note that the Bandcamp page has tags for both “post-folk” and “free rock”. Love it.
Crimewave – White Label [Fool’s Gold Records/Bandcamp]
Manchester’s Crimewave makes a pretty unique mixture of UK bass & experimental electronic styles with shoegazey indie guitar music. He now finds himself of New York label Fool’s Gold Records with new single “White Label“. It’s short & sweet and definitely hits those old-new vibes, kinda ’90s rock-gone-electric with near-d’n’b rhythms and jittery synths. Don’t leave us waiting so long this time, Crimewave!
plus44Kaligula – Home [plus44Kaligula Bandcamp]
Cally Statham, who performs as plus44Kaligula, hails from England’s north and makes the kind of pop music that lives somewhere between performance art and pop, in the experimental traditions of English pop songwriters like Kate Bush, David Bowie, Annie Lennox et al. There’s a political consciousness to the three songs on this short EP, hidden behind a sardonic, satirical image. And there’s an electronic backbone that takes it out of vaudevillian cabaret into something un-pin-downably modern.
Lucrecia Dalt – the common reader (feat. Juana Molina) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
Lucrecia Dalt – stelliformia [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
I’ve been following Lucrecia Dalt‘s music since she was The Sound of Lucrecia, making lovely indie music that only fainly hinted at the highly experimental electronics or Latin music that would come into her music in latter years. Her last album, 2022’s ¡Ay!, somehow combined her modular synth work with the music of her Colombian roots and incredible, counter-intuitive orchestrations – a masterpiece. On her new album A Danger To Ourselves, the connection to Latin America is still strong, but it feels like Dalt’s electronics take more of a leading role. There are violins and cello, saxophone and percussion throughout, with some bass and guitar on some tracks. And as well as Dalt’s now-partner David Sylvian, who co-produced the album, there are a few prominent South American guests including Mexican singer & sound-artist Camille Mandoki and the wonderful Juana Molina, whose loop-based, hypnotic songwriting was a favourite on Utility Fog since 2004, and it’s a treasure to hear her voice with Dalt’s here. The balance, if you could call it that, between the experimental and the “pop” elements on this album is thrilling.
Titanic – La dueña [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp]
Titanic – Gallina degollada [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp]
Guatemalan (Mexico-resident) cellist Mabe Fratti and longtime collaborator Héctor Tosta de la Rosa (who records as I. la Católica) released their first album as Titanic in 2023. The project is an outlet for I. La Católica’s compositions and arrangements with Fratti’s distinctive, creative cello playing and her emotive voice comfortably at home. Vidrio is now followed by Hagen. There’s some absolutely gorgeous songwriting on here, mostly by I. La Católica, with some co-writes by Fratti, whose singing on all tracks is possibly her best ever. Of course she plays cello too, all over these tracks alongside I. la Católica’s instruments and the pair’s electronics. Hagen has a guest spot from Daniel Oneohtrix Point Never Lopatin on one track, and Lopatin collaborator Nathan Salon adds instrumentation and production on about half the album; the brilliant drummer (and yes, OPN compadre) Eli Keszler also appears. As expected, this is evocative, glistening, and not quite like anything else.
Shapednoise – Repeater (feat. Armand Hammer) [Weight Looming]
When the last Shapednoise album came out, I pointed out that Nino Pedone has one foot in the noise realm, with releases on Prurient’s Hospital Productions among others, and one foot in the bass world, collaborating with Mumdance & Logos on the cyberpunk project The Sprawl. That was Absurd Matter, an ambitious set with many guest vocals, set to massively overdriven beats & bass, and electronic walls of noise (and sometimes melody). Out on September 17th, Absurd Matter 2 is the sequel you’d expect, with both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother returning as guests. And Armand Hammer are easily able to rap over the collapsing structures here – apocalyptic visions.
Ziúr – Though The Trees feat. Iceboy Violet [Kuboraum Editions/Bandcamp]
Based in Berlin, Ziúr has been taking her own path through club music and pop, punk and glitchy experimentation for about a decade, with releases on PAN and Planet µ among others. Her new album Home, released through Berlin’s Kuboraum Editions, reflects on what it means to be “home”, in both geographical and personal terms. This is Ziúr’s least dancefloor-oriented album, leaning more into a kind of cabaret-pop as explored by plus44Kaligula earlier tonight. But it’s also her most personal, featuring Ziúr singing in English and also for the first time in German. The guests helping her along here, who include Elvin Brandhi, Sara Persico, cellist/sound-artist Martina Bertoni, doom metal/electronic producer James Ó Ceallaigh and UK rapper/producer Iceboy Violet, make it clear that a found/chosen community is home too.
Sacred Lodge – A Bo Biboa [Avon Terror Corps]
Out through Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps is the second album from Paris-based Matthieu Ruben N’Dongo, under the alias Sacred Lodge. Ambam comes out of his ethno-musicological studies into the Fang people of Central Africa, from whom he’s descended via his father. On top of his dubstep-influenced beats, his own voice is central: he “uses the scream as a vocal act of liberation in the face of oppression”, joined on a few tracks by guests, including Sara Persico who we heard a few weeks ago, and Cairo-based producer El Kontessa. Elements from Equatorial Guinea, horrorcore rap and bass music come together powerfully on this album – just as exciting as the African metal/bass music fusion of Lord Spikeheart.
electroneya, MARTINA, TNSXORDS – (NO WAY OUT!) !مفيش مفر [raghoul/Bandcamp]
From Moroccan bass label raghoul here’s a three track EP, (SAFETY HAZARD) مخاطر السلامة, from Egyptian producers/DJs electroneya and MARTINA (Martina Ashraf), who each contribute one track and then collaborate together with London-based TNSXORDS. These tracks express claustrophobia and repression through deconstructed, percussive bass music.
Lila Tirando a Violeta, sideproject – Ostrich/Ñandú [Unguarded/Bandcamp]
An unexpected single-track collaboration, “Ostrich/Ñandú” is just what you’d expect to get when crossing Icelandic IDM duo(?) sideproject and Ireland-based Uruguayan producer Lila Tirando a Violeta – percussion-soaked frenetic beats, with even the backing tracks mostly jittering along in rhythm. Nobody here’s burying their head in the sand.
Brandon Juhans – The Saw I Saw [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
Brandon Juhans – Gardenia [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
And scant relaxin’ here despite Relaxin Records‘ name. They’re the home for North Carolina producer Brandon Juhans‘ latest album, Recycler which, true to its name, repurposes sounds from Juhans’ past music under his own name and previously as Hanz, much in the way that his own music freely samples from any kind of music and dices it up into material for his sui generis productions. When he gets going, Juhans’ music sounds like hip-hop trying to be jungle, or jungle turned inside out. It’s a disorienting approach in the most pleasing way.
Blawan – NOS [XL Recordings/Bandcamp]
In the last few years, Jamie Roberts aka Blawan has released some of the most forward-thinking, fucked-up bass music around. From 2021’s Woke Up Right Handed, the bass rumbles and throbs, the beats syncopate and shuffle but hit haaaard. In 2023, Dismantled Into Juice went considerably left-field, with a couple of tracks featuring vocals from Monstera Black. And if last year’s BouQ veered back towards the dancefloor, it’s no less experimental for that. Notably in the meantime he also paired up with longtime collaborator Arthur Cayzer aka Pariah for two albums of industrial grindcore & noise rock (with hints of bass music) as Persher. This all culminates in October with the full-length album SickElixir, of which only one of its 14 tracks has a title announced. “NOS” has the high-tech sound design of those recent releases, along with a chugging rhythm that suggests this album will be essential from start to finish.
POD & Edward Richards – Polar Phase [Kinetic Vision]
As POD, the Naarm/Melbourne producer also known as JXTPS and Wu Kush has tended to focus more on bass music, from dubstep to jungle. For the forthcoming Polar Phase EP he’s working with Edward Richards, his partner in running the Kinetic Vision label, exploring the potential of 100BPM – somewhere between bass music and techno. What we get is a verrrry nice slab of kind-of dub techno, with slow-growing synth drones and pulses. “Polar” seems apt.
Joaquín Cornejo – Garúa [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Cap I Cua from Ecuadorian producer Joaquín Cornejo is one of the prettiest releases YUKU have ever released. It doesn’t eschew complex beats at all, but they’re there more as hints at jittery IDM and footwork, with very little sub bass. It’s beautiful from top to bottom, and when you settle in, the rhythmic elements dance around you, like the skittering hi-hats in “Garúa”.
james K – Hypersoft Lovejinx Junkdream [AD93/Bandcamp]
While I loved the first trip-hoppy song I heard from james K, it’s indicative of her versatility that the first thing I really heard was the very avant-garde ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue), a 74-minute work interrogating the idea of the female voice, that came with a quote from Anne Carson that reads “Why is female sound bad to hear?” Carson is both specifically referencing the descriptions of women’s sounds as awful and wild in Greek mythology, and extending to the continued silencing of women’s voices in patriarchal society. In that work, james K and accompanying performers took the screams of Elektra in Sophocles’ tragedy as the starting point for their work. In contrast, her album Friend filters her voice through vapoury trip-hop, both a callback to the genre’s ’90s atmospheres and breakbeats and a futuristic take through vaporwave, dreampop and deconstructed club sounds. There’s a lot here, but it is a Friendly listen.
Bird Battles – oVo feat. Vanessa Farinha [Sleep In The Fire Records]
Earlier this year I was pleased to play the incredible debut “Bird Battles” from the duo of the same name – in fact there I am quoted on the Bandcamp page! I expressed hope that more was to come, and here is the album announcement! Bird Battles features the voice and other sounds of London-based Scottish musician Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as glacis and also one half of Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and of Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall. Here he’s working with visual and sound-artist Jesse Narens, whose love of birds is all over his visual art and audio work. And on this new single, Vanessa Farinha, who’s also known for her visual art, contributes some beautiful vocals.
Oli XL – CONSPIRACY GIRL (ft. Valeria Litvakov) [Warp/Bandcamp]
I’ve been aware of Swedish producer Oli XL since a 2018 compilation on Denmark’s Posh Isolation, but he signed to Warp in 2021, released a 2-track single and then fell silent until now (seems there were some legal/label issues, but he’s still on Warp!) Anyway, Lick The Lens / Pt.1 is in fact half an album, with Pt.2 still to come this year. Hopefully it’ll take him stratospheric, as this is pop, hip-hop, r’n’b, whatever you like, and it’s also super complex electronica. Heaps of great guests including the aforementioned james K, and the Berlin-based Valeria Litvakov on a couple of tracks. Rad.
Susannah Stark – Caochan [Night School Records/Bandcamp/STROOM.tv/Bandcamp]
When Utility Fog started back in 2003, folktronica was a genre of which I was very fond – but it was already pretty hazy as to what it was. Slightly glitchy hip-hop sampling acoustic instruments like Four Tet was what I thought, I guess, although when Tunng came on the scene literally later that year, it held a lot of similarity without quite being the same. And meanwhile The Books were doing studio-mediated music with acoustic instruments that somehow was something else entirely, despite arguably fitting the mould. So I love that in the years since, there have been untold different approaches to “folk” + “electronics”. On her forthcoming album Minor Gestures, Scottish musician Susannah Stark takes her Gaelic (Gàidhlig) folk music in experimental directions, which might involve drone passages on harmonium or modular synth, interpolated field recordings, or sample-based programming. The production touches only serve to heighten the sense of an arcane, otherworldly setting, as if being performed just out of sight or transmitted from a past-future. It’s quite a remarkable album, as you will get to hear in coming weeks.
Blue Lake – Flowers for David (single edit) [Tonal Union/Bandcamp]
It sometimes seems like Americana is a genre that’s kept alive by Scandinavia. You’ll hear its influence in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish jazz & folk, and it really does feel like it belongs in their landscapes. I do forget this sometimes, so it was a double-take moment when I realised that Blue Lake is not an American project – Jason Dungan is Danish, based in the lovely city of Copenhagen. With forthcoming album The Animal, technically his second album of 2025 after Weft, Dungan somehow imbues this acoustic music with the feel of gentle postrock or folktronica, without explicit electronic or electric sounds. As well as himself on various guitars, zither, keyboards and percussion, he has bass clarinet, strings and a drummer, most of whom sing as well (even though these aren’t really songs or choral works). It’s a joy to listen to.
Gabriel Prokofiev feat. FAMES European Youth Orchestra – Dark Lights [Nonclassical/Bandcamp]
I’m not quite sure how, but I was in with the Nonclassical label since the very beginning, with founder Gabriel Prokofiev‘s String Quartet No. 1 performed by The Elysian Quartet, accompanied – as many releases following were – by remixes from across the experimental, dubstep & club spectrum. Prokofiev (who is the grandson of the great Russian neo-classicist & modernist Sergei Prokofiev) continued writing works for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra, and incorporating electronics – I’ve played him quite a bit over the years. Now he’s back on Nonclassical with the first single from an upcoming album, “Dark Lights“, which incorporates the playing of the FAMES European Youth Orchestra with grime-influenced electronics. There’s also a remix by composer/producer Adhelm aka Beni Giles – both versions are great.
Johnny Richards & Dave King – Gene Heard Wrong [False Door Records]
The Bad Plus (especially when they were a piano trio) are one of the great crossover-jazz ensembles of the last few decades, known for their surprising covers (Aphex Twin, Pixies, Stravinsky etc) and their brilliant original material too. And if you know that Aphex Twin cover, you’ll know that Dave King is a machine of a drummer when he needs to be, as well as a sensitive ensemble member. Leeds, UK pianist Johnny Richards is a member of the Ethio-jazz-inspired Sorcerers (listen to their excellent new album!) and the virtuosic, surreal improv troupe Shatner’s Bassoon. Together, their duo album The New Awkward is out now. It was created remotely, started during COVID lockdown, but there’s no sign of that in the alchemical creations from the pair. Richards uses the piano like a percussion instrument, with layers of prepared piano and straight piano in conversation with King’s busy percussion. In keeping with Utility Fog’s longtime interest in music between the genres, Richards’ metal preparations recall Javanese gamelan, while the compositions draw from the counterpoint of J.S. Bach – elsewhere there are inspirations from Mr Bungle and Frank Zappa, 20th century composers like Hindemith and Schoenberg, early Robert Wyatt and more.
Flur – Nightdiver [Latency/Bandcamp]
New jazz from London-based trio Flur, released on the uncategorizable French label Latency. Made up of Austrian-Ethiopean harpist Miriam Adefris, and British saxophonist and drummer Isaac Robertson and Dillon Harrison, this is chamber jazz of an unusual nature, restrained where it needs to be, but willing to unleash as well. Sparingly-used production techniques add to the air of mystery.
Lea Bertucci – In This Time [Cibachrome Editions]
It should be well-known and universally acknowledged now that Lea Bertucci is one of the best sound-artist/composers of the last decade and a half. Whether site-specific works exploring & exploiting – for instance – the resonance of a hollow bridge in Köln (2020’s Acoustic Shadows), myriad works live-processing her own saxophone and other instruments, or her work with reel-to-reel tape machines, she’s a master of her craft. Recent times have seen a number of incredible collaborations from Bertucci: in 2022, she operated tapes & electronics around Robbie Lee‘s baroque & medieval instruments on Winds Bells Falls, while on Murmurations, her tapes were as prominent, but she also brought various wind instruments and her voice to the table, next to Ben Vida‘s synths & voice; and on her tectonic collaboration in 2023 with Brisbane’s own Lawrence English cello, viola and lap steel guitar emerge as well; earlier this year Lawrence’s ROOM40 released an astounding work of Bertucci together with another masterful sound-artist, Olivia Block. So needless to say her new album The Oracle, out on October 17th, is a tour de force, engaging her many instruments, field recoridngs and, importantly, her own voice, all filtered through tape manipulation and digital processing (unless it’s all tape!) Only on the last track are percussionists from the Wesleyan University Taiko Ensemble enlisted for a booming – yet obscured – finale. Of course, it’s not just technially interesting or impressive (although it is those things) – it’s also music that will draw you in and move you, despite the vocals being twisted into non-textual shapes. It’ll easily be high on my albums of the year list for 2025.
soccer Committee – Pretty little foxes [Morc Records/Bandcamp/soccer Committee Bandcamp]
I have been a dedicated fan of Dutch singer-songwriter Mariska Baars for many years, via Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek – both working with him under her own name, and then in equally mysterious projects such as Piiptsjilling and FEAN with the Kleefstra brothers and others. Where Jan Kleefstra performs his poetry in Frisian, Baars sings either wordlessly or in English. Her work, as soccer Committee and in other groups, is characterised by an exquisite restraint, whereby if you’re listening you can’t help but be drawn into the patiently unfolding melodies and subtle but essential textures. Even without Machinefabriek’s sensitive deconstructions around the edges of their collaborative work, Baars seems to dismantle and rebuild the fabric of her songs so that they are as attenuated as possible while still holding together. In 2023 she released ❤️ /Lamb, her most confident and fully-realised album yet, and only 2 years later, she’s back on Morc Records with eye, which will no doubt be equally gorgeous and tenuous.
I do want to point you to where I discovered Mariska Baars, with Machinefabriek on their incredible album Drawn, which birthed the Redrawn compilation of remixes and covers – an album I return to frequently.
Listen again — ~207MB