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Playlist 24.08.25
Experimental pop hybrids, underground hip-hop, hip-hop-jazz hybrids, free jazz, free rock, dub, dub techno and industrial techno, experimental electronics of all sorts, North African electronic mutations, grinding drone, ambient-jazz Yolŋu, Norwegian folk-jazz…
LISTEN AGAIN to some really good shit. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here.
Water From Your Eyes – Spaceship [Matador Records/Bandcamp]
The follow-up to Water From Your Eyes‘ breakthrough album Everyone’s Crushed is maybe their most “pop”, but still decidedly odd & experimental. It’s A Beautiful Place features three short interludes under 1 minute and one slightly longer at 1:29, and then a bunch of songs that are influenced by grunge and earlier indie rock (hello The Pixies), but with Nate Amos’s many quirks of electronic production, and Rachel Brown’s always-laconic delivery. It’s great.
John Cale – 1000 Years [Domino]
Having just released two new albums in 2 years – Mercy in 2023, POPtical Illusion in 2024 – the now-83 year old John Cale has now released the outtakes & remixes album MIXology (Volume 1), because one volume is never enough. If anything, it feels like an even stronger & more interesting collection than those albums, but maybe that’s just because it’s the one I’ve listened to most recently. There’s a brilliant song driven by a perfect drumbreak from the late Tony Allen, and there’s the murky, almost trip-hoppy feel of “1000 Years”. Don’t mistake this for an aside: it’s the real deal, just the latest album from a musical legend whose influence stretches from the pre-punk Velvet Underground through avant-garde minimalism to orchestral pop, adversarial but brilliant work with Brian Eno, production on The Stooges as well as Nico’s astonishing three albums The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End…, epochal cover versions (“Heartbreak Hotel“, “Hallelujah“) and honestly so much more. He played with his band at Unsound in Adelaide in July and there were some transcendent moments (much though I missed hearing, well, just about any of the songs I’d hoped for, except for “Heartbreak Hotel”).
Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Nom De Guerre (feat. Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko) [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp]
Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Shadowstep [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp]
In 2022 billy woods released the incredible Aethiopes album, fully produced by Preservation. One of the guests was Gabe ‘Nandez and it was there that the seeds of this full-album collaboration were sown. The darkness of Preservation’s productions suit ‘Nandez’ searching lyrics, but also notable was the fact that both are French speakers: it’s ‘Nandez’ first language, via his Haitian side, and Preservation is half French. So apart from the album title Sortilège being French, some of the movie samples that always litter Backwoodz Studioz releases are here heard in French, and ‘Nandez swaps lines with his frequent collaborator Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, switching between English & French without breaking the flow. The range of sounds Preservation uses is wild, from weird proggy synth drones to piano jabs, beats that boom and bap and shuffle and slap. It’s a journey, it’s a trip.
Makaya McCraven – Technology (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay) [International Anthem/Bandcamp]
Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven has released a series of albums and mixtapes now on International Anthem, generally taking full performances with jazz musicians from around the world and ripping them apart and recontextualising them in a way that’s influenced by hip-hop but still mostly done with a jazz sensibility. He’s just announced a collection of four EPs, all to be released simultaneously, which will also be available as a 2CD and 2LP set titled Off The Record. The idea behind the four EPs is that each is built from a particular performance or session. There are four singles out now – one from each EP – and the comparatively electronic track I chose is from Techno Logic (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay), the only one directly listing the collaborators in the title. Theon Cross is credited to tuba and electronics, while we find Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, voice, percussion, synths, electronics and diddley bow! And in the post-production McCraven adds more keys & synths as well as vibraphone and other percussion – so the electronic sound (“Techno Logic” after all) is baked in, and perhaps no surprise this is the one I leant towards for tonight. You know all four of these EPs are going to be rad though.
Endlings w/ VNM – if all silence orders me [Whited Sepulchre Records/Bandcamp]
I’ve never been a big fan of Deerhoof somehow, but I admire what they do (e.g. recently pulling out of Spotify), and guitarist John Dieterich does lots of cool stuff, e.g. this duo with Mary Halvorson. Endlings is another duo, with the brilliant Raven Chacon, who works across noise music and composition – his astonishing Voiceless Mass won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022, and he’s released music on Faith Coloccia & Aaron Turner’s SIGE Records and remixed Turner’s band SUMAC last year alongside Moor Mother, among many other achievements. Their first two releases are fucking phenomenal noise/electro-acoustic/experimental whatnot – they’re on their Bandcamp. What’s this though? Parallels 03 is an album, made with longtime collaborators from the Vancouver New Music Circle. It’s also a website with a trippy matryoshka text which you should click around and you might learn something. I did. And yeah, it’s New Music, it’s free improv, it’s noise, it’s electro-acoustic weirdness.
Anna Högberg Attack – Hematopoesi [Radio Edit] [fönstret/Bandcamp]
There’s something in the water in Sweden that seems to help grow monstrous saxophonists. But comparisons are odious and the massive sound of Anna Högberg Attack is all its own – and all the vision of the brilliant Swedish saxophonist, bandleader and composer Anna Högberg, here leading a version of her “Attack” that’s a double sextet! Alongside her alto sax is tenor sax, trumpet, trombone & tuba, turntables from renowned Viennese experimental musician Dieb13, piano from Thanatosis label boss Alex Zethson, guitar from Finn Loxbo and double bass from Gus Loxbo (both of whom also play saw), and two drummers. The sound is immense, at times sounding like heavy rock riffage, at times the multi-soloing of free jazz, but utterly under control, beautifully structured (Högberg wrote it for her late father, so as heavy as it is, it’s full of love). This excerpt is awesome, but you need to hear it in context too – the first side spans nearly 18 minutes, the second over 15 minutes. fönstret is the label of edition festival, an experimental/free improv/jazz festival run in Stockholm by ex-pat Aussie John Chantler, who also released the massive 5CD set of free jazz quartet أحمد [Ahmed], recorded at the 2022 festival.
Phenomenal World – bliberdublub [Rock Is Hell Records/Bandcamp]
All three members of the experimental trio Phenomenal World have been active in the Viennese experimental music scene(s) for decades – they no doubt have connections with Dieb13, who played with Anna Högberg Attack above. Michael Fischer here plays “feedback saxophone”, an instrument he invented 2½ decades ago, which uses acoustic phenomena to generate feedback (not through amplification); he’s able to create percussive and otherworldly sounds which only sometimes sound like sax. Philipp Quehenberger and Didi Kern (aka Ddkern) have worked together for years, and both have had some involvement with the glitch/experimental electronic pioneers (Editions) Mego. Here Quehenberger plays synthesizer, DDkern plays drums, and they act as rhythm section and give the album foundation in electronic music, techno, krautrock etc. Whether you hear this as avant-garde or not, this fits well into the lineage of Austrian/German postrock/electronic, from Radian to Kammerflimmer Kollektief, To Rococo Rot to Trapist.
Adrian Sherwood – The Well Is Poisoned (Dub) [On-U Sound/Bandcamp]
Introducing Adrian Sherwood in the notes of this playlist would be a fool’s errand, and probably superfluous anyway, but suffice to say that Sherwood, sometimes credited as Crocodile, or Adrian Maxwell, pioneered dub production in the UK from the late 1970s, meaning he was able to work with the best first & second-wave Jamaican musicians, learning mixing and production from the ground up. And while he absolutely brings real authenticity and respect for the originators – having worked extensively with the likes of Lee Scratch Perry and The Roots Radics’ Style Scott – he also brought dub production into avant-garde territories (e.g. early African Dub Charge, Little Annie Anxiety), was involved in the cross-pollination of punk & reggae (with The Slits and with The Slits’ Ari Up in The New Age Steppers), melding dub with industrial and funk with TACK>>HEAD and more. I’m particularly partial to the blending of UK club & electro with dub & reggae on The Emotional Hooligan, credited to Gary Clail & On-U Sound System.
OK, that’s our little history lesson. The Collapse of Everything is Sherwood’s first solo album (not a collaboration or compilation) since 2012’s Survival & Resistence and only his fourth ever, by my counting. And the thing is – the thing is, often great producers and mixers are really great at that stuff far more than songwriting and composition. Of course Sherwood draws on many friends, from Tackhead/Dub Syndicate colleagues Doug Wimbish & the late Keith LeBlanc to the likes of Brian Eno and Gaudi, and the musicianship is impeccable. But there’s something too polite about this – vaguely Eastern European/West Asian scales, reggae off-beats, nice melodies, and awfully tasteful dub production. I mean, it’s lovely and special in its way, but given the range of groundbreaking work Sherwood’s done, I wish it had more edge. Anyway, this one I played is a nice’un.
Travis Cook – Australian brainrot [Travis Cook Bandcamp]
I love how Travis Cook just casually drops a tune or two on his Bandcamp when the feel comes over him. Travis was one half of Collarbones with our Marcus Whale, and he’s still based in Adelaide – I ran into him at Unsound in July and it was great to see him in the flesh. Here’s a cool little tune about a very common malady Down Under, with some kind of pitched-down vocal sample and energetic beats.
Microcorps – ZONA ft REGIS [ALTER/Bandcamp]
Seeing the evolution of Alexander Tucker from psych-folk troubador into (still psychedelic) experimental rock and through to the experimental beats he’s making as Microcorps has been extremely gratifying. Tucker brings great musicality to whatever he’s doing, and still plays strings (sometimes homemade, sometimes cello) and includes his voice (often manipulated). New album CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER promises to be the best electronic music he’s made, with help from the likes of industrial techno pioneer Regis, the great Justin K Broadrick and others. This is heavy beats with granular processing on strings and voice, at once high-tech and primitivist.
Grant Deane – With Less Of A Jolt Than We Were Braced For [◢sidehatch./Bandcamp]
UK producer Dean Grant Collier, who releases music as Grant Deane, presents us with A Coruscating Hope, an album of minimal techno with prisms of activity flickering around it, released on ◢sidehatch., the somewhat more dancefloor-oriented sister label of Woodland Creatures. Little vocal and instrumental snippets are tossed up in the foam, synths pulse and fizz. It’s surprisingly up-tempo, and “coruscating” indeed.
Brandon Juhans – Illusion Break [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
When I first discovered North Carolinan producer Brandon Juhans, he was known as Hanz, with a few releases on the now-defunct Tri-Angle Records. With new album Recycler due out from Relaxin Records on September 5th, his modus operandi is much the same, and still singular. This single shows that Hanz style in full effect: samples mangled and rearranged into detailed rhythms that sound like drum’n’bass without quite using the expected sounds.
ltfll – Nested Skins [irsh/Bandcamp]
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Cairo label irsh, the label founded by DJ Rama and genius producer ZULI in 2020. They released two compilations of rad experimental electronic music from Egypt, did you mean: irish and did you mean: irish vol. 2, and George Farid’s ltfll (that’s a lower-case L at the start) appeared on both. With nested skins, his new EP coming out on irsh on Sept 19th, Farid makes intricate bass music with rhythms from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, experimental but firmly aimed at the dancefloor.
Max Cooper – When I Sit Alone. In My Thoughts. I Am Crushed. (Sorcery Remix) [Mesh/Bandcamp]
Max Cooper – My Choices Are Not My Own feat. Tawiah, May Kaspar (Bredren Remix) [Mesh/Bandcamp]
Good ol’ Max Cooper‘s a bit of an oddity to me. There’s a significant proportion of his stuff that I always love, because he’s definitely into his IDM, drum’n’bass and the like. It’s just that he still has this commercial sheen that I can’t quite figure – I don’t think his music’s commercial? I think I just don’t quite know where to place him. Anyway, happy he continues to release stuff, and he’s long been a connoisseur of the remix, so here’s the latest collection. Last year’s On Being album was a kind of collaboration itself, in which Cooper encouraged his online community to respond to the question “What do you want to express, which you feel you cannot in everyday life?” The responses were surprisingly moving; the words sung by Tawiah on “My Choices Are Not My Own” were written by contributor May Kaspar, which is why she doesn’t otherwise have an online presence I can find. Belgian trio Bredren‘s remix builds on the drum’n’bass aspects of the original. Meanwhile Sorcery‘s remix takes the fuzzy ambient distortion of the original track, a collaboration with Aho Ssan, and drags it into uptempo 2-step territory. Nice.
Corps Citoyen – Barrani (The Double Absence) [Hundebiss/Bandcamp]
Corps Citoyen – أحنّ إلى خبز أمّي [Hundebiss/Bandcamp]
“I miss my mother’s bread” is the translation of the Arabic-titled second track I played here. Corps Citoyen (citizen body) are a multidisciplinary and multilingual collective of Tunisian and Italian artists, whose decolonising work aims at increasing access to cultural activities for those living in fragile communities in the fringes. In particular, they are concerned with “reclaiming who has the right to speak in the public sphere.” So where there are words, they’re in English, Arabic, French or probably other languages; there’s percussive tracks and ambient tracks, it’s very atmospheric, and yes the track about “my mother’s bread” has beautiful vocals. An excellent debut, and Hundebiss is a label well worth following.
Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie – Endless Not [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
When I went to the Planet µ 30th gig in London (and I apologise for constantly bringing it up), I got to see experimental electronic mastermind Rian Treanor performing some new material with experimental vocalist Cara Tolmie. It was really special, but it’ll help, I think, to be able to experience these works at home or on headphones. I also think it’s going to be very varied – from extended vocal techniques from Tolmie to spoken word and even singing(?), with Treanor slipping between post-rave deconstructions, glitched ambient and the more cerebral, academic or avant-garde, all of which connects and differentiates him from his father Mark Fell (Treanor absolutely has his own aesthetic and is extremely talented at whatever genres he sets his sights on). To my mind, the closing track, “Endless Not”, is already a huge drawcard, with Treanor’s spooky synth pulses and Tolmie’s dispassionate listing of “Not” things. It’s hard not to be reminded of Big Hard Excellent Fish’s 1990 broadside “Imperfect List“.
Ruben Borgers – Lofting [Colectivo Casa Amarela/Bandcamp]
Another winner from Portuguese Colectivo Casa Amarela, this is the full album debut of Belgian musician Ruben Borgers, who has also released wonky bass music under the name Maglim – there’s one track on a recent YUKU compilation. The sound design nature of that track is reflected in the impressive pieces here, which can be stark or dense, each a little journey mediated through very organic, physical-feeling synth work. Immersive and rich.
Kirin McElwain – Closer [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp]
If you know me at all, you know I’m a cellist and I collect adventurous cellists (not physically, at least not often) of all stripes. Brooklyn-based cellist Kirin McElwain is releasing her debut solo album Youth on October 10th. First single “Closer” demonstrates not just her cello but the cello-like halldorophone, a hybrid acoustic/electronic instrument created by Halldor Úlfarsson that has also been used by Hildur Guðnadóttir and Turkish musician Başak Günak among others. The halldorophone produces feedback through sympathetic strings and resonances, and these otherworldly drones are augmented with further electronics by McElwain throughout the album. On this track, electronic musician Matthew Ryals – an artist we’ve heard a bit on this show – adds additional modular synths.
Hand To Earth – Ŋurru Wäŋa Part II [Room40/Bandcamp]
When members of the Australian Art Orchestra collaborated with Yolŋu songmen Daniel and David Wilfred on the extraordinary album Hand to Earth in 2021, it must have already been clear this was a really special project. With trumpeter Peter Knight (who was AAO’s Artistic Director at the time), clarinettist (among other wind instruments) Aviva Endean and Korean-Australian vocalist Sunny Kim, the Wilfreds weave songlines, yidaki (didgeridoo) and bilma (clapstick) around sensitive sonic experimentation, with all three other members processing their sounds. On this third Hand To Earth album, their second on Room40, label boss Lawrence English also contributes sounds, and Peter Knight’s son Quinn contributes percussion (acoustic and electronic) on our selection tonight, “Ŋurru Wäŋa Part II”. In an echo of the millennia-spanning songlines, the group bend time, sculpting the songs in an iterative process following the original voice, yidaki and bilma recordings. There’s so much depth to this music, an evocation of our environment and the varied cultural backgrounds that find their home on this continent.
Benedicte Maurseth – Sommarbeite [Hubro/Bandcamp]
Since 2009 Oslo’s Hubro label has nurtured a strain of Norwegian music that has its roots in jazz and improv but deeply breathes the chilly air of Norwegian folk music while hybridising with electronic music and postrock. Hardanger fiddler, singer and composer Benedicte Maurseth started her career before Hubro existed, and on her second album for the label, Mirra, the distinctive sound of her Norwegian violin evokes the wildlife and windswept scenery of the Hardangervidda plateau, in Norway’s south. Maurseth is joined by Hubro-connected musicians Håkon Stene (on both 12-string guitar and various percussion instruments), bassist Mats Eilertsen and keyboardist Morten Qvenild, the latter two also bringing electronic touches. You think this is pure folk music until it takes a left turn into improvisation or pulsing krautrock. Wonderful stuff at home on a wonderful label.
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By Peter HolloExperimental pop hybrids, underground hip-hop, hip-hop-jazz hybrids, free jazz, free rock, dub, dub techno and industrial techno, experimental electronics of all sorts, North African electronic mutations, grinding drone, ambient-jazz Yolŋu, Norwegian folk-jazz…
LISTEN AGAIN to some really good shit. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here.
Water From Your Eyes – Spaceship [Matador Records/Bandcamp]
The follow-up to Water From Your Eyes‘ breakthrough album Everyone’s Crushed is maybe their most “pop”, but still decidedly odd & experimental. It’s A Beautiful Place features three short interludes under 1 minute and one slightly longer at 1:29, and then a bunch of songs that are influenced by grunge and earlier indie rock (hello The Pixies), but with Nate Amos’s many quirks of electronic production, and Rachel Brown’s always-laconic delivery. It’s great.
John Cale – 1000 Years [Domino]
Having just released two new albums in 2 years – Mercy in 2023, POPtical Illusion in 2024 – the now-83 year old John Cale has now released the outtakes & remixes album MIXology (Volume 1), because one volume is never enough. If anything, it feels like an even stronger & more interesting collection than those albums, but maybe that’s just because it’s the one I’ve listened to most recently. There’s a brilliant song driven by a perfect drumbreak from the late Tony Allen, and there’s the murky, almost trip-hoppy feel of “1000 Years”. Don’t mistake this for an aside: it’s the real deal, just the latest album from a musical legend whose influence stretches from the pre-punk Velvet Underground through avant-garde minimalism to orchestral pop, adversarial but brilliant work with Brian Eno, production on The Stooges as well as Nico’s astonishing three albums The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End…, epochal cover versions (“Heartbreak Hotel“, “Hallelujah“) and honestly so much more. He played with his band at Unsound in Adelaide in July and there were some transcendent moments (much though I missed hearing, well, just about any of the songs I’d hoped for, except for “Heartbreak Hotel”).
Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Nom De Guerre (feat. Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko) [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp]
Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Shadowstep [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp]
In 2022 billy woods released the incredible Aethiopes album, fully produced by Preservation. One of the guests was Gabe ‘Nandez and it was there that the seeds of this full-album collaboration were sown. The darkness of Preservation’s productions suit ‘Nandez’ searching lyrics, but also notable was the fact that both are French speakers: it’s ‘Nandez’ first language, via his Haitian side, and Preservation is half French. So apart from the album title Sortilège being French, some of the movie samples that always litter Backwoodz Studioz releases are here heard in French, and ‘Nandez swaps lines with his frequent collaborator Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, switching between English & French without breaking the flow. The range of sounds Preservation uses is wild, from weird proggy synth drones to piano jabs, beats that boom and bap and shuffle and slap. It’s a journey, it’s a trip.
Makaya McCraven – Technology (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay) [International Anthem/Bandcamp]
Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven has released a series of albums and mixtapes now on International Anthem, generally taking full performances with jazz musicians from around the world and ripping them apart and recontextualising them in a way that’s influenced by hip-hop but still mostly done with a jazz sensibility. He’s just announced a collection of four EPs, all to be released simultaneously, which will also be available as a 2CD and 2LP set titled Off The Record. The idea behind the four EPs is that each is built from a particular performance or session. There are four singles out now – one from each EP – and the comparatively electronic track I chose is from Techno Logic (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay), the only one directly listing the collaborators in the title. Theon Cross is credited to tuba and electronics, while we find Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, voice, percussion, synths, electronics and diddley bow! And in the post-production McCraven adds more keys & synths as well as vibraphone and other percussion – so the electronic sound (“Techno Logic” after all) is baked in, and perhaps no surprise this is the one I leant towards for tonight. You know all four of these EPs are going to be rad though.
Endlings w/ VNM – if all silence orders me [Whited Sepulchre Records/Bandcamp]
I’ve never been a big fan of Deerhoof somehow, but I admire what they do (e.g. recently pulling out of Spotify), and guitarist John Dieterich does lots of cool stuff, e.g. this duo with Mary Halvorson. Endlings is another duo, with the brilliant Raven Chacon, who works across noise music and composition – his astonishing Voiceless Mass won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022, and he’s released music on Faith Coloccia & Aaron Turner’s SIGE Records and remixed Turner’s band SUMAC last year alongside Moor Mother, among many other achievements. Their first two releases are fucking phenomenal noise/electro-acoustic/experimental whatnot – they’re on their Bandcamp. What’s this though? Parallels 03 is an album, made with longtime collaborators from the Vancouver New Music Circle. It’s also a website with a trippy matryoshka text which you should click around and you might learn something. I did. And yeah, it’s New Music, it’s free improv, it’s noise, it’s electro-acoustic weirdness.
Anna Högberg Attack – Hematopoesi [Radio Edit] [fönstret/Bandcamp]
There’s something in the water in Sweden that seems to help grow monstrous saxophonists. But comparisons are odious and the massive sound of Anna Högberg Attack is all its own – and all the vision of the brilliant Swedish saxophonist, bandleader and composer Anna Högberg, here leading a version of her “Attack” that’s a double sextet! Alongside her alto sax is tenor sax, trumpet, trombone & tuba, turntables from renowned Viennese experimental musician Dieb13, piano from Thanatosis label boss Alex Zethson, guitar from Finn Loxbo and double bass from Gus Loxbo (both of whom also play saw), and two drummers. The sound is immense, at times sounding like heavy rock riffage, at times the multi-soloing of free jazz, but utterly under control, beautifully structured (Högberg wrote it for her late father, so as heavy as it is, it’s full of love). This excerpt is awesome, but you need to hear it in context too – the first side spans nearly 18 minutes, the second over 15 minutes. fönstret is the label of edition festival, an experimental/free improv/jazz festival run in Stockholm by ex-pat Aussie John Chantler, who also released the massive 5CD set of free jazz quartet أحمد [Ahmed], recorded at the 2022 festival.
Phenomenal World – bliberdublub [Rock Is Hell Records/Bandcamp]
All three members of the experimental trio Phenomenal World have been active in the Viennese experimental music scene(s) for decades – they no doubt have connections with Dieb13, who played with Anna Högberg Attack above. Michael Fischer here plays “feedback saxophone”, an instrument he invented 2½ decades ago, which uses acoustic phenomena to generate feedback (not through amplification); he’s able to create percussive and otherworldly sounds which only sometimes sound like sax. Philipp Quehenberger and Didi Kern (aka Ddkern) have worked together for years, and both have had some involvement with the glitch/experimental electronic pioneers (Editions) Mego. Here Quehenberger plays synthesizer, DDkern plays drums, and they act as rhythm section and give the album foundation in electronic music, techno, krautrock etc. Whether you hear this as avant-garde or not, this fits well into the lineage of Austrian/German postrock/electronic, from Radian to Kammerflimmer Kollektief, To Rococo Rot to Trapist.
Adrian Sherwood – The Well Is Poisoned (Dub) [On-U Sound/Bandcamp]
Introducing Adrian Sherwood in the notes of this playlist would be a fool’s errand, and probably superfluous anyway, but suffice to say that Sherwood, sometimes credited as Crocodile, or Adrian Maxwell, pioneered dub production in the UK from the late 1970s, meaning he was able to work with the best first & second-wave Jamaican musicians, learning mixing and production from the ground up. And while he absolutely brings real authenticity and respect for the originators – having worked extensively with the likes of Lee Scratch Perry and The Roots Radics’ Style Scott – he also brought dub production into avant-garde territories (e.g. early African Dub Charge, Little Annie Anxiety), was involved in the cross-pollination of punk & reggae (with The Slits and with The Slits’ Ari Up in The New Age Steppers), melding dub with industrial and funk with TACK>>HEAD and more. I’m particularly partial to the blending of UK club & electro with dub & reggae on The Emotional Hooligan, credited to Gary Clail & On-U Sound System.
OK, that’s our little history lesson. The Collapse of Everything is Sherwood’s first solo album (not a collaboration or compilation) since 2012’s Survival & Resistence and only his fourth ever, by my counting. And the thing is – the thing is, often great producers and mixers are really great at that stuff far more than songwriting and composition. Of course Sherwood draws on many friends, from Tackhead/Dub Syndicate colleagues Doug Wimbish & the late Keith LeBlanc to the likes of Brian Eno and Gaudi, and the musicianship is impeccable. But there’s something too polite about this – vaguely Eastern European/West Asian scales, reggae off-beats, nice melodies, and awfully tasteful dub production. I mean, it’s lovely and special in its way, but given the range of groundbreaking work Sherwood’s done, I wish it had more edge. Anyway, this one I played is a nice’un.
Travis Cook – Australian brainrot [Travis Cook Bandcamp]
I love how Travis Cook just casually drops a tune or two on his Bandcamp when the feel comes over him. Travis was one half of Collarbones with our Marcus Whale, and he’s still based in Adelaide – I ran into him at Unsound in July and it was great to see him in the flesh. Here’s a cool little tune about a very common malady Down Under, with some kind of pitched-down vocal sample and energetic beats.
Microcorps – ZONA ft REGIS [ALTER/Bandcamp]
Seeing the evolution of Alexander Tucker from psych-folk troubador into (still psychedelic) experimental rock and through to the experimental beats he’s making as Microcorps has been extremely gratifying. Tucker brings great musicality to whatever he’s doing, and still plays strings (sometimes homemade, sometimes cello) and includes his voice (often manipulated). New album CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER promises to be the best electronic music he’s made, with help from the likes of industrial techno pioneer Regis, the great Justin K Broadrick and others. This is heavy beats with granular processing on strings and voice, at once high-tech and primitivist.
Grant Deane – With Less Of A Jolt Than We Were Braced For [◢sidehatch./Bandcamp]
UK producer Dean Grant Collier, who releases music as Grant Deane, presents us with A Coruscating Hope, an album of minimal techno with prisms of activity flickering around it, released on ◢sidehatch., the somewhat more dancefloor-oriented sister label of Woodland Creatures. Little vocal and instrumental snippets are tossed up in the foam, synths pulse and fizz. It’s surprisingly up-tempo, and “coruscating” indeed.
Brandon Juhans – Illusion Break [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp]
When I first discovered North Carolinan producer Brandon Juhans, he was known as Hanz, with a few releases on the now-defunct Tri-Angle Records. With new album Recycler due out from Relaxin Records on September 5th, his modus operandi is much the same, and still singular. This single shows that Hanz style in full effect: samples mangled and rearranged into detailed rhythms that sound like drum’n’bass without quite using the expected sounds.
ltfll – Nested Skins [irsh/Bandcamp]
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Cairo label irsh, the label founded by DJ Rama and genius producer ZULI in 2020. They released two compilations of rad experimental electronic music from Egypt, did you mean: irish and did you mean: irish vol. 2, and George Farid’s ltfll (that’s a lower-case L at the start) appeared on both. With nested skins, his new EP coming out on irsh on Sept 19th, Farid makes intricate bass music with rhythms from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, experimental but firmly aimed at the dancefloor.
Max Cooper – When I Sit Alone. In My Thoughts. I Am Crushed. (Sorcery Remix) [Mesh/Bandcamp]
Max Cooper – My Choices Are Not My Own feat. Tawiah, May Kaspar (Bredren Remix) [Mesh/Bandcamp]
Good ol’ Max Cooper‘s a bit of an oddity to me. There’s a significant proportion of his stuff that I always love, because he’s definitely into his IDM, drum’n’bass and the like. It’s just that he still has this commercial sheen that I can’t quite figure – I don’t think his music’s commercial? I think I just don’t quite know where to place him. Anyway, happy he continues to release stuff, and he’s long been a connoisseur of the remix, so here’s the latest collection. Last year’s On Being album was a kind of collaboration itself, in which Cooper encouraged his online community to respond to the question “What do you want to express, which you feel you cannot in everyday life?” The responses were surprisingly moving; the words sung by Tawiah on “My Choices Are Not My Own” were written by contributor May Kaspar, which is why she doesn’t otherwise have an online presence I can find. Belgian trio Bredren‘s remix builds on the drum’n’bass aspects of the original. Meanwhile Sorcery‘s remix takes the fuzzy ambient distortion of the original track, a collaboration with Aho Ssan, and drags it into uptempo 2-step territory. Nice.
Corps Citoyen – Barrani (The Double Absence) [Hundebiss/Bandcamp]
Corps Citoyen – أحنّ إلى خبز أمّي [Hundebiss/Bandcamp]
“I miss my mother’s bread” is the translation of the Arabic-titled second track I played here. Corps Citoyen (citizen body) are a multidisciplinary and multilingual collective of Tunisian and Italian artists, whose decolonising work aims at increasing access to cultural activities for those living in fragile communities in the fringes. In particular, they are concerned with “reclaiming who has the right to speak in the public sphere.” So where there are words, they’re in English, Arabic, French or probably other languages; there’s percussive tracks and ambient tracks, it’s very atmospheric, and yes the track about “my mother’s bread” has beautiful vocals. An excellent debut, and Hundebiss is a label well worth following.
Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie – Endless Not [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
When I went to the Planet µ 30th gig in London (and I apologise for constantly bringing it up), I got to see experimental electronic mastermind Rian Treanor performing some new material with experimental vocalist Cara Tolmie. It was really special, but it’ll help, I think, to be able to experience these works at home or on headphones. I also think it’s going to be very varied – from extended vocal techniques from Tolmie to spoken word and even singing(?), with Treanor slipping between post-rave deconstructions, glitched ambient and the more cerebral, academic or avant-garde, all of which connects and differentiates him from his father Mark Fell (Treanor absolutely has his own aesthetic and is extremely talented at whatever genres he sets his sights on). To my mind, the closing track, “Endless Not”, is already a huge drawcard, with Treanor’s spooky synth pulses and Tolmie’s dispassionate listing of “Not” things. It’s hard not to be reminded of Big Hard Excellent Fish’s 1990 broadside “Imperfect List“.
Ruben Borgers – Lofting [Colectivo Casa Amarela/Bandcamp]
Another winner from Portuguese Colectivo Casa Amarela, this is the full album debut of Belgian musician Ruben Borgers, who has also released wonky bass music under the name Maglim – there’s one track on a recent YUKU compilation. The sound design nature of that track is reflected in the impressive pieces here, which can be stark or dense, each a little journey mediated through very organic, physical-feeling synth work. Immersive and rich.
Kirin McElwain – Closer [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp]
If you know me at all, you know I’m a cellist and I collect adventurous cellists (not physically, at least not often) of all stripes. Brooklyn-based cellist Kirin McElwain is releasing her debut solo album Youth on October 10th. First single “Closer” demonstrates not just her cello but the cello-like halldorophone, a hybrid acoustic/electronic instrument created by Halldor Úlfarsson that has also been used by Hildur Guðnadóttir and Turkish musician Başak Günak among others. The halldorophone produces feedback through sympathetic strings and resonances, and these otherworldly drones are augmented with further electronics by McElwain throughout the album. On this track, electronic musician Matthew Ryals – an artist we’ve heard a bit on this show – adds additional modular synths.
Hand To Earth – Ŋurru Wäŋa Part II [Room40/Bandcamp]
When members of the Australian Art Orchestra collaborated with Yolŋu songmen Daniel and David Wilfred on the extraordinary album Hand to Earth in 2021, it must have already been clear this was a really special project. With trumpeter Peter Knight (who was AAO’s Artistic Director at the time), clarinettist (among other wind instruments) Aviva Endean and Korean-Australian vocalist Sunny Kim, the Wilfreds weave songlines, yidaki (didgeridoo) and bilma (clapstick) around sensitive sonic experimentation, with all three other members processing their sounds. On this third Hand To Earth album, their second on Room40, label boss Lawrence English also contributes sounds, and Peter Knight’s son Quinn contributes percussion (acoustic and electronic) on our selection tonight, “Ŋurru Wäŋa Part II”. In an echo of the millennia-spanning songlines, the group bend time, sculpting the songs in an iterative process following the original voice, yidaki and bilma recordings. There’s so much depth to this music, an evocation of our environment and the varied cultural backgrounds that find their home on this continent.
Benedicte Maurseth – Sommarbeite [Hubro/Bandcamp]
Since 2009 Oslo’s Hubro label has nurtured a strain of Norwegian music that has its roots in jazz and improv but deeply breathes the chilly air of Norwegian folk music while hybridising with electronic music and postrock. Hardanger fiddler, singer and composer Benedicte Maurseth started her career before Hubro existed, and on her second album for the label, Mirra, the distinctive sound of her Norwegian violin evokes the wildlife and windswept scenery of the Hardangervidda plateau, in Norway’s south. Maurseth is joined by Hubro-connected musicians Håkon Stene (on both 12-string guitar and various percussion instruments), bassist Mats Eilertsen and keyboardist Morten Qvenild, the latter two also bringing electronic touches. You think this is pure folk music until it takes a left turn into improvisation or pulsing krautrock. Wonderful stuff at home on a wonderful label.
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