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Playlist 31.08.25
Tonight we’re showcasing quite a lot of genre-bending songcraft, with metal, hardcore punk, electro-pop, hyperpop, Afro-Caribbean, post-folk and other tendencies melting together. We’ve also got percussive workouts, minimal techno, maximal jungle, unclassifiable rhythmic noise and glitched ambient piano in there somewhere.
LISTEN AGAIN a bend your own genres. Stream on demand over at fbi.radio, podcast here.
Rún – Your Death My Body [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
Rún – Terror Moon [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
The Irish word that gives the uncategorizable trio Rún its name can mean “secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three”. The sense here of multiple possibilities and elusive meanings is not a bad metaphor for the band and their debut, self-titled album. Each member comes from distinct backgrounds: singer Tara Baoth Mooney has worked as a voice actor and experimental filmmaker, and has experience with folk and choral music traditions; Diarmuid MacDiarmada has been collaborating with industrial/sound collage pioneers Nurse With Wind and has performed with/arranged/produced musicians across folk, ambient, metal and elsewhere – and his brother Cormac is a member of drone-folk pioneers Lankum; and Rian Trench is a sound engineer and member of psych/jazz-tinged electronica duo Solar Bears, whose earliest releases were on Planet µ. But this album is released on Rocket Recordings, known for prog, postrock & metal’s outer limits as much as anything else, and the folk & electronics here do feel mediated through a kind of psychedelic rock and doom miasma. Yet, the most melodic parts are very beautiful. There’s so much to this album that I don’t think I’ve had time yet to fully appreciate it, but I know it’s going to be up there with the best this year.
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Radioactive Dreams [Computer Students/The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Oklahoma is surprisingly rich with heavy and raucous bands, but the band that’s made it to the top of the pile, so to speak, are Chat Pile (named after the piles of chat, or toxic waste from lead-zinc mining), who combine sludge and hardcore with highly-strung noise rock and postpunk. They are apparently big fans of Hayden Pedigo, a man who embraces contradiction – or at least, is a lot of things all at once: a model, a politician (having run for mayor in his hometown of Amarillo, successfully exposing corporate corruption, if not actually winning) and a fingerpicking guitarist who embodies the avant-garde elements that were there since John Fahey at least. Chat Pile themselves always match their songs with experimental material and strange off-genre detours. So this is going to be an interesting & unpredictable album to say the least, and the first single is distinctive for Peligo’s much deeper-voiced delivery and its quiet/loud dynamics.
Wreck and Reference – All That I Want [The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Wreck and Reference – Dogtracking [The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Also released via The Flenser are the emo/black/post-metal/electronic/noise originals Wreck and Reference, who we haven’t heard from since 2019’s occasionally-noisy, incredible Absolute Still Life – except for one spot-on Deftones cover. The duo are made up of drummer/noise musician Ignat Frege (aka Hand Model) and singer/multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner. Here, again, their sound is predominately electronic, yet it can switch from minimal into screamo and back if it needs to. It’s all anxiety and only a little catharsis, and it doesn’t really manage to obey its own directive to Stay Calm.
Darian Donovan Thomas – OhNo [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Darian Donovan Thomas – Flourescents [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting & production. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus here’s A Room With Many Doors: Day. Inside you’ll find looped, glitching violin, experimental pop, gently-autotuned vocals, drum machines and splashes processed violin. As I’ve said regarding the earlier singles, it’s perfectly-executed neo-classical hyperpop, and highly recommended.
ROMÆO – Something New [ROMÆO Bandcamp]
Something (else) new from Eora/Sydney’s ROMÆO, second track from her forthcoming EP. Starting with her voice low, this song quickly jumps into Four Tet-like house with bouncy, clicky percussion, as the narrator tries to make the most of daily tedium.
Del4raa – Tehran [Apranik Records/Bandcamp]
The Apranik Records label was setup by Iranian DJs Nesa Azadikhah and AIDA to embody the #womenlifefreedom movement, promoting the work of Iranian women. Delara Toyuri aka Del4raa is one half of Iranian techno duo Antechamber with Doci, and now releases her debut solo EP Zhian on Apranik. The EP is a musical chronicle of her experiences leaving her home in Iran to live in exile in France – the trajectory of grief to strength & resilience, and how “remembrance becomes resistance”. It begins beatless, moving through dense electronic textures until the beats finally arrive. There continues to be an incredible wealth of electronic music coming out of Iran.
Obeka – Pressure ft. Entrañas [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Manchester-based producer Obeka draws substantially on his Afro-Caribbean roots, moving from Bermuda to the UK as the country’s history of colonialism and class divides has brought itself fully into the open. His heavy bass music is showcased on his forthcoming album A World No More, drawing from gqom, kuduro, batida, dancehall and Afrobeat, but the album also features his own voice for the first time, heard on the first single which also features Ecuadorian producer Entrañas. It’s powerful work, auguring a brilliant album in late October.
Valentina Magaletti & YPY – One Hour Visa [AD 93/Bandcamp]
Valentina Magaletti & YPY – Her Own Reflection [AD 93/Bandcamp]
Koshiro Hino, aka YPY, is leader of the percussion-centric math rock band goat (jp) (so named to differentiate them from the Swedish prog/psych/whatever group Goat…) The Japanese goat wield percussion and electronics with mathematical precision, and that’s present here too in YPY’s collaboration with the ubiquitous, brilliant drummer/percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Obviously rhythm is at the centre of the duo’s work, and there’s a magical confusion of where the live drums end and the electronic interventions begin – sometimes you hear reversed percussion hits and splatters that make it obvious, but they’re beautifully integrated into the live playing. Honestly it’s kinda crazy genius, I don’t know how these two musicians play so tightly and yet loosely.
L own – Reincarnation [Western Lore/Bandcamp]
Out on Western Lore, the jungle label run by Alex Eveson/Dead Man’s Chest are the incredbily evocative sounds of Russian producer L own. Daybreak Survivors Pt.1 is the first half of an album from the producer, who builds his jungle and breakbeat techno beats into cinematic works that recontextualise the nostalgic feel of the rave beats into a different kind of nostalgia.
DJ Breathing Exercise – Homicide [DJ Breathing Exercise Bandcamp]
London’s DJ Breathing Exercise usually makes electro & breakbeat, UK garage and the like. His just-released Same Thing Remixes enlist hardcore techno specialist DJ Persuasion and Bristol’s elusive Ghost Phone on the remix, as well as Noah Tucker of Ulterior Motives Records. But the most break-fuelled jungle tune on here is a DJ Breathing Exercise original. Absolute classic.
Mineral – Shaolin [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Helsinki d’n’b producer Mineral is no stranger to Metalheadz, but his latest EP Kage No Michi is a cut above. Dark atmospherics, razor sharp beats melding jungle with drum’n’bass… Superb.
Klahrk – Sent Spinning [Different Circles/Bandcamp]
Back in 2014(!), UK bass producers Mumdance and Logos founded the Different Circles label, with their first 12″, Weightless Vol. 1 also coining a new genre. “Weightless” is a vibe, but it’s one you can clearly recognize, combining grime and sound-art, somehow inverting bass music… Now there’s a new label compilation, Ping Volume One, which brings with it a new genre again. What’s Ping? You’ll know it when you hear it, but it’s the focal point that can be found in Weightless music where a single percussion hit (or synth ping) – not a kick drum – embodies the music’s rhythmic centre. This seems to me to extend from the real innovation of dubstep and grime, which turned the assumptions of jungle-drum’n’bass-uk garage on their head: rather than the beats impelling the music forward, garlanded by the basslines, it was the bass itself that held the rhythmic impetus. The beats were often able to syncopate and rubato out of their expected subdivisions – so theoretically, here those errant beats take centre-stage. The tracks on this compilation are pretty varied around UK bass styles; here trickster Klahrk sits the ping on the upbeat (the fourth beat of a 4/4 bar), surrounding it in frenetic bass-heavy electronic percussion which is kind of like jungle turned on its head.
Scott Gordon – SKIM 3 [Superpang/Bandcamp]
In a scant 5 years, Rome-based label Superpang has made itself an essential portal into experimental music worldwide, whether digital sound-art, avant-garde classical, free noise or, I dunno, anything! For some reason I find myself out of sync with Scott Gordon, aka SDGORDON aka Hiax, who I used to follow when he was making something like uk garage as Loops Haunt. Earlier this year he released an incredible album called Metals on Diagonal Records – not heavy metal, but electro-acoustic music made from metal bars hit mechanically with beaters, creating sounds which were predominantly not rhythmical! On the other hand, SKIM, his new release on Superpang, takes as its source material various power tools and miscellaneous debris (full list is on the Bandcamp page) which are processed through modular synth and laptop. And on this release, abstract though it often is, the results are somewhat more rhythmic. This is a parallel universe industrial music, or equally a parallel universe IDM. Put your headphones on and be boggled.
Bogdan Raczynski – Say It Before [Disciples/Bandcamp]
I have a weird relationship with Bogdan Raczynski‘s music. When his earliest albums came out – and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before – they were mixed in mono, which I found uncomfortable listening, and the Raczynski’s quirks of spoken word and other interludes didn’t quite click with me. It’s hard to deny that often Bogdan’s style is one of self-undermining, and more power to him. Now Disciples have released a new album called Slow Down Stupid, a sentiment many of us could take on board. And yes, this album features somewhat ambient pieces and beats which are like 45-played-at-33pm compared to IDM/rave stylings. The self-deprecating humour of the track titles notwithstanding, this is some deep stuff which really rewards sitting with it and avoiding the distrations. You know… slow down, stupid.
Damian Valles – Acicular [Damian Valles Bandcamp]
Ottawa musician Damian Valles appeared quite a bit on these playlists a while ago when making drone/sound-art that slowly moved into noisier territories. It’s been more than eight years since the last “solo” release from Valles, although in the last few years there was a series of techno/IDM releases under the name Nats (and I just discovered there’s a whole album too). But new EP Assemblage, released again under his own name, slips away from techno into sound-as-sound – although the noises here are arranged more or less into rhythms, whether juddering pulses or strange industrial orchestrations. It’s really good, and makes me hope there’s more on its way. If you dig this, don’t sleep on 2017’s Frameshifting while you’re there.
Grischa Lichtenberger – 0225_05_re_0824_22_lv rs 1 [saga.domaine/Bandcamp]
I’ve been following German producer Grischa Lichtenberger for many years, mostly through his albums on Raster (and previously Raster-Noton). A cross-media artist, Lichtenberger works in visual arts, making multimedia & installation works as well, but it’s from his complex, glitchy electronic music that I know him. Somewhere along the way I came across the Berlin-based saga.domaine label, and their recent compilation from July, V/A I happens to feature Lichtenberger with some lopsided, glitching beats, along with artists across many genres – there’s some intense double bass improv from Erez Meyuhass, for instance. Interestingly, the label has roots in Tel Aviv, but the label is donating earnings (and matching them) to various humanitarian aid & human rights groups operating in Gaza & the West Bank.
Will Glaser – Illusions of Abundance [Not Applicable/Bandcamp]
London-based drummer Will Glaser is very busy in the London jazz & experimental scene, appearing on records or live with the likes of Yazz Ahmed, Kit Downs, Sly and the Family Drone, Ruth Goller, James Allsopp, Alex Bonney and more. Prior to this release, the only solo works Glaser has released are the all-drums Some Drum Sounds and the mostly-drums Some Drum & Other Sounds (both of which are excellent mind you). However, on October 24th comes his first major solo work as auteur, the name of which is hard to even fit into a sentence: Music Of The Terrazoku: Ethnographic Recordings From An Imagined Future is about as sci-fi as you can get, imagining a musical artefact from sometime in the late 21st century, after the oncoming climate collapse. Glaser’s drums/percussion and electronics are accompanied here by brilliant musicians including Ruth Goller, Agathe Max, Tara Cunningham, James Allsopp and Alex Bonney (I’m mostly listing people whose work I know). The album claims influences as wide as Harry Partch, Tom Waits, Justin Broadrick (see below) among others, and there’s no dearth of electronics there too – appropriately for the avant-garde Not Applicable label, co-run by both members of Icarus among others. It’s super weird and great. I’ll be playing more off this as it approaches release date.
Justin K Broadrick – 28 [Avalanche Recordings]
Justin K Broadrick – 15 [Avalanche Recordings]
It’s been a long time since you could have thought of Justin K Broadrick as just a metal musician (if a hugely influential one). In fact, it was never true, even when he was part of Napalm Death’s original lineup as a kid. Godflesh pioneered industrial metal, often featuring Broadrick’s more electronic & experimental dubs, while for much of the ’90s Broadrick also collaborated with Kevin Martin (aka The Bug) as Techno Animal. In the early 2000s he released a series of hard-hitting drum’n’bass EPs as Tech Level 2 and invented shoegaze metal with Jesu, while since way back in the 1980s he made ambient drone-noise as Final. But the album JKB just released on Bandcamp is presented under his own name. SOLO GUITAR. 1997 is an oddity: 40 short solo guitar vignettes, almost a kind of sound library. Each track presents simple guitar chords or motifs, perhaps run through some effect, little minimalist demos. There’s something spooky about a lot of these, but also quite soothing. JKB’s a genius in my estimation, and this does nothing to tarnish that.
Tracy Chen – Untitled [Tracy Chen Bandcamp]
Naarm/Melbourne composer, musician, sound-designer Tracy Chen hardly ever releases music, and when she does it’s created with the most incredible restraint. With maybe one instrument (piano, acoustic guitar?) and maybe her voice, she takes languid performances slathered with seemingly-extraneous noise and chops them up, often in a seemingly haphazard way that’s actually carefully constructed. Last year, a new track from Chen called “something true (draft)” appeared on New Weird Australia’s Worlds Only World compilation, which appears now (no longer labelled “draft”) on a self-effacing two-track release on her Bandcamp with a second piece, both with her glitched vocals and quietly hazy instruments. Her small discography is a must to check out.
Romeo Moon – Like Rain [Romeo Moon Bandcamp]
Romeo Moon – Patterns D1.2 Pad Gtr [Romeo Moon Bandcamp]
It’s been a long wait, but Naarm/Melbourne artist Romeo Moon has released his new Spirit Phase, and yeah, it’s extremely worth the wait. I first heard Kevin Orr’s music as Romeo Moon on the 2019 EP It Unfolds. In late 2023 there was an in-between release, but it’s been a while since that one too. I love his style, which takes in Talk Talk-style postrock, Radiohead-style songwriting and production, elements of krautrock but also acoustic folk (dare I say Nick Drake?) I had the pleasure of playing cello on the closing track, “Like Rain”, which Kevin has some very kind words about, but as you can hear, cello or not it’s a beautiful song that floats in and floats out again, like a not-unwelcome cloud blowing over and leaving sparkling water on everything. Elsewhere you can hear the experimental techniques Orr uses to construct his songs, which are rarely structured with typical verse/chorus/verse. Orr writes on the Bandcamp page that these songs were rescued from a hard drive crash, but nothing seems incomplete – it’s raw and honest as he says. (And… multiple backups, kids. It’s Rule #1!)
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By Peter HolloTonight we’re showcasing quite a lot of genre-bending songcraft, with metal, hardcore punk, electro-pop, hyperpop, Afro-Caribbean, post-folk and other tendencies melting together. We’ve also got percussive workouts, minimal techno, maximal jungle, unclassifiable rhythmic noise and glitched ambient piano in there somewhere.
LISTEN AGAIN a bend your own genres. Stream on demand over at fbi.radio, podcast here.
Rún – Your Death My Body [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
Rún – Terror Moon [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
The Irish word that gives the uncategorizable trio Rún its name can mean “secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three”. The sense here of multiple possibilities and elusive meanings is not a bad metaphor for the band and their debut, self-titled album. Each member comes from distinct backgrounds: singer Tara Baoth Mooney has worked as a voice actor and experimental filmmaker, and has experience with folk and choral music traditions; Diarmuid MacDiarmada has been collaborating with industrial/sound collage pioneers Nurse With Wind and has performed with/arranged/produced musicians across folk, ambient, metal and elsewhere – and his brother Cormac is a member of drone-folk pioneers Lankum; and Rian Trench is a sound engineer and member of psych/jazz-tinged electronica duo Solar Bears, whose earliest releases were on Planet µ. But this album is released on Rocket Recordings, known for prog, postrock & metal’s outer limits as much as anything else, and the folk & electronics here do feel mediated through a kind of psychedelic rock and doom miasma. Yet, the most melodic parts are very beautiful. There’s so much to this album that I don’t think I’ve had time yet to fully appreciate it, but I know it’s going to be up there with the best this year.
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Radioactive Dreams [Computer Students/The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Oklahoma is surprisingly rich with heavy and raucous bands, but the band that’s made it to the top of the pile, so to speak, are Chat Pile (named after the piles of chat, or toxic waste from lead-zinc mining), who combine sludge and hardcore with highly-strung noise rock and postpunk. They are apparently big fans of Hayden Pedigo, a man who embraces contradiction – or at least, is a lot of things all at once: a model, a politician (having run for mayor in his hometown of Amarillo, successfully exposing corporate corruption, if not actually winning) and a fingerpicking guitarist who embodies the avant-garde elements that were there since John Fahey at least. Chat Pile themselves always match their songs with experimental material and strange off-genre detours. So this is going to be an interesting & unpredictable album to say the least, and the first single is distinctive for Peligo’s much deeper-voiced delivery and its quiet/loud dynamics.
Wreck and Reference – All That I Want [The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Wreck and Reference – Dogtracking [The Flenser/Bandcamp]
Also released via The Flenser are the emo/black/post-metal/electronic/noise originals Wreck and Reference, who we haven’t heard from since 2019’s occasionally-noisy, incredible Absolute Still Life – except for one spot-on Deftones cover. The duo are made up of drummer/noise musician Ignat Frege (aka Hand Model) and singer/multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner. Here, again, their sound is predominately electronic, yet it can switch from minimal into screamo and back if it needs to. It’s all anxiety and only a little catharsis, and it doesn’t really manage to obey its own directive to Stay Calm.
Darian Donovan Thomas – OhNo [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Darian Donovan Thomas – Flourescents [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp]
Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting & production. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus here’s A Room With Many Doors: Day. Inside you’ll find looped, glitching violin, experimental pop, gently-autotuned vocals, drum machines and splashes processed violin. As I’ve said regarding the earlier singles, it’s perfectly-executed neo-classical hyperpop, and highly recommended.
ROMÆO – Something New [ROMÆO Bandcamp]
Something (else) new from Eora/Sydney’s ROMÆO, second track from her forthcoming EP. Starting with her voice low, this song quickly jumps into Four Tet-like house with bouncy, clicky percussion, as the narrator tries to make the most of daily tedium.
Del4raa – Tehran [Apranik Records/Bandcamp]
The Apranik Records label was setup by Iranian DJs Nesa Azadikhah and AIDA to embody the #womenlifefreedom movement, promoting the work of Iranian women. Delara Toyuri aka Del4raa is one half of Iranian techno duo Antechamber with Doci, and now releases her debut solo EP Zhian on Apranik. The EP is a musical chronicle of her experiences leaving her home in Iran to live in exile in France – the trajectory of grief to strength & resilience, and how “remembrance becomes resistance”. It begins beatless, moving through dense electronic textures until the beats finally arrive. There continues to be an incredible wealth of electronic music coming out of Iran.
Obeka – Pressure ft. Entrañas [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Manchester-based producer Obeka draws substantially on his Afro-Caribbean roots, moving from Bermuda to the UK as the country’s history of colonialism and class divides has brought itself fully into the open. His heavy bass music is showcased on his forthcoming album A World No More, drawing from gqom, kuduro, batida, dancehall and Afrobeat, but the album also features his own voice for the first time, heard on the first single which also features Ecuadorian producer Entrañas. It’s powerful work, auguring a brilliant album in late October.
Valentina Magaletti & YPY – One Hour Visa [AD 93/Bandcamp]
Valentina Magaletti & YPY – Her Own Reflection [AD 93/Bandcamp]
Koshiro Hino, aka YPY, is leader of the percussion-centric math rock band goat (jp) (so named to differentiate them from the Swedish prog/psych/whatever group Goat…) The Japanese goat wield percussion and electronics with mathematical precision, and that’s present here too in YPY’s collaboration with the ubiquitous, brilliant drummer/percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Obviously rhythm is at the centre of the duo’s work, and there’s a magical confusion of where the live drums end and the electronic interventions begin – sometimes you hear reversed percussion hits and splatters that make it obvious, but they’re beautifully integrated into the live playing. Honestly it’s kinda crazy genius, I don’t know how these two musicians play so tightly and yet loosely.
L own – Reincarnation [Western Lore/Bandcamp]
Out on Western Lore, the jungle label run by Alex Eveson/Dead Man’s Chest are the incredbily evocative sounds of Russian producer L own. Daybreak Survivors Pt.1 is the first half of an album from the producer, who builds his jungle and breakbeat techno beats into cinematic works that recontextualise the nostalgic feel of the rave beats into a different kind of nostalgia.
DJ Breathing Exercise – Homicide [DJ Breathing Exercise Bandcamp]
London’s DJ Breathing Exercise usually makes electro & breakbeat, UK garage and the like. His just-released Same Thing Remixes enlist hardcore techno specialist DJ Persuasion and Bristol’s elusive Ghost Phone on the remix, as well as Noah Tucker of Ulterior Motives Records. But the most break-fuelled jungle tune on here is a DJ Breathing Exercise original. Absolute classic.
Mineral – Shaolin [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Helsinki d’n’b producer Mineral is no stranger to Metalheadz, but his latest EP Kage No Michi is a cut above. Dark atmospherics, razor sharp beats melding jungle with drum’n’bass… Superb.
Klahrk – Sent Spinning [Different Circles/Bandcamp]
Back in 2014(!), UK bass producers Mumdance and Logos founded the Different Circles label, with their first 12″, Weightless Vol. 1 also coining a new genre. “Weightless” is a vibe, but it’s one you can clearly recognize, combining grime and sound-art, somehow inverting bass music… Now there’s a new label compilation, Ping Volume One, which brings with it a new genre again. What’s Ping? You’ll know it when you hear it, but it’s the focal point that can be found in Weightless music where a single percussion hit (or synth ping) – not a kick drum – embodies the music’s rhythmic centre. This seems to me to extend from the real innovation of dubstep and grime, which turned the assumptions of jungle-drum’n’bass-uk garage on their head: rather than the beats impelling the music forward, garlanded by the basslines, it was the bass itself that held the rhythmic impetus. The beats were often able to syncopate and rubato out of their expected subdivisions – so theoretically, here those errant beats take centre-stage. The tracks on this compilation are pretty varied around UK bass styles; here trickster Klahrk sits the ping on the upbeat (the fourth beat of a 4/4 bar), surrounding it in frenetic bass-heavy electronic percussion which is kind of like jungle turned on its head.
Scott Gordon – SKIM 3 [Superpang/Bandcamp]
In a scant 5 years, Rome-based label Superpang has made itself an essential portal into experimental music worldwide, whether digital sound-art, avant-garde classical, free noise or, I dunno, anything! For some reason I find myself out of sync with Scott Gordon, aka SDGORDON aka Hiax, who I used to follow when he was making something like uk garage as Loops Haunt. Earlier this year he released an incredible album called Metals on Diagonal Records – not heavy metal, but electro-acoustic music made from metal bars hit mechanically with beaters, creating sounds which were predominantly not rhythmical! On the other hand, SKIM, his new release on Superpang, takes as its source material various power tools and miscellaneous debris (full list is on the Bandcamp page) which are processed through modular synth and laptop. And on this release, abstract though it often is, the results are somewhat more rhythmic. This is a parallel universe industrial music, or equally a parallel universe IDM. Put your headphones on and be boggled.
Bogdan Raczynski – Say It Before [Disciples/Bandcamp]
I have a weird relationship with Bogdan Raczynski‘s music. When his earliest albums came out – and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before – they were mixed in mono, which I found uncomfortable listening, and the Raczynski’s quirks of spoken word and other interludes didn’t quite click with me. It’s hard to deny that often Bogdan’s style is one of self-undermining, and more power to him. Now Disciples have released a new album called Slow Down Stupid, a sentiment many of us could take on board. And yes, this album features somewhat ambient pieces and beats which are like 45-played-at-33pm compared to IDM/rave stylings. The self-deprecating humour of the track titles notwithstanding, this is some deep stuff which really rewards sitting with it and avoiding the distrations. You know… slow down, stupid.
Damian Valles – Acicular [Damian Valles Bandcamp]
Ottawa musician Damian Valles appeared quite a bit on these playlists a while ago when making drone/sound-art that slowly moved into noisier territories. It’s been more than eight years since the last “solo” release from Valles, although in the last few years there was a series of techno/IDM releases under the name Nats (and I just discovered there’s a whole album too). But new EP Assemblage, released again under his own name, slips away from techno into sound-as-sound – although the noises here are arranged more or less into rhythms, whether juddering pulses or strange industrial orchestrations. It’s really good, and makes me hope there’s more on its way. If you dig this, don’t sleep on 2017’s Frameshifting while you’re there.
Grischa Lichtenberger – 0225_05_re_0824_22_lv rs 1 [saga.domaine/Bandcamp]
I’ve been following German producer Grischa Lichtenberger for many years, mostly through his albums on Raster (and previously Raster-Noton). A cross-media artist, Lichtenberger works in visual arts, making multimedia & installation works as well, but it’s from his complex, glitchy electronic music that I know him. Somewhere along the way I came across the Berlin-based saga.domaine label, and their recent compilation from July, V/A I happens to feature Lichtenberger with some lopsided, glitching beats, along with artists across many genres – there’s some intense double bass improv from Erez Meyuhass, for instance. Interestingly, the label has roots in Tel Aviv, but the label is donating earnings (and matching them) to various humanitarian aid & human rights groups operating in Gaza & the West Bank.
Will Glaser – Illusions of Abundance [Not Applicable/Bandcamp]
London-based drummer Will Glaser is very busy in the London jazz & experimental scene, appearing on records or live with the likes of Yazz Ahmed, Kit Downs, Sly and the Family Drone, Ruth Goller, James Allsopp, Alex Bonney and more. Prior to this release, the only solo works Glaser has released are the all-drums Some Drum Sounds and the mostly-drums Some Drum & Other Sounds (both of which are excellent mind you). However, on October 24th comes his first major solo work as auteur, the name of which is hard to even fit into a sentence: Music Of The Terrazoku: Ethnographic Recordings From An Imagined Future is about as sci-fi as you can get, imagining a musical artefact from sometime in the late 21st century, after the oncoming climate collapse. Glaser’s drums/percussion and electronics are accompanied here by brilliant musicians including Ruth Goller, Agathe Max, Tara Cunningham, James Allsopp and Alex Bonney (I’m mostly listing people whose work I know). The album claims influences as wide as Harry Partch, Tom Waits, Justin Broadrick (see below) among others, and there’s no dearth of electronics there too – appropriately for the avant-garde Not Applicable label, co-run by both members of Icarus among others. It’s super weird and great. I’ll be playing more off this as it approaches release date.
Justin K Broadrick – 28 [Avalanche Recordings]
Justin K Broadrick – 15 [Avalanche Recordings]
It’s been a long time since you could have thought of Justin K Broadrick as just a metal musician (if a hugely influential one). In fact, it was never true, even when he was part of Napalm Death’s original lineup as a kid. Godflesh pioneered industrial metal, often featuring Broadrick’s more electronic & experimental dubs, while for much of the ’90s Broadrick also collaborated with Kevin Martin (aka The Bug) as Techno Animal. In the early 2000s he released a series of hard-hitting drum’n’bass EPs as Tech Level 2 and invented shoegaze metal with Jesu, while since way back in the 1980s he made ambient drone-noise as Final. But the album JKB just released on Bandcamp is presented under his own name. SOLO GUITAR. 1997 is an oddity: 40 short solo guitar vignettes, almost a kind of sound library. Each track presents simple guitar chords or motifs, perhaps run through some effect, little minimalist demos. There’s something spooky about a lot of these, but also quite soothing. JKB’s a genius in my estimation, and this does nothing to tarnish that.
Tracy Chen – Untitled [Tracy Chen Bandcamp]
Naarm/Melbourne composer, musician, sound-designer Tracy Chen hardly ever releases music, and when she does it’s created with the most incredible restraint. With maybe one instrument (piano, acoustic guitar?) and maybe her voice, she takes languid performances slathered with seemingly-extraneous noise and chops them up, often in a seemingly haphazard way that’s actually carefully constructed. Last year, a new track from Chen called “something true (draft)” appeared on New Weird Australia’s Worlds Only World compilation, which appears now (no longer labelled “draft”) on a self-effacing two-track release on her Bandcamp with a second piece, both with her glitched vocals and quietly hazy instruments. Her small discography is a must to check out.
Romeo Moon – Like Rain [Romeo Moon Bandcamp]
Romeo Moon – Patterns D1.2 Pad Gtr [Romeo Moon Bandcamp]
It’s been a long wait, but Naarm/Melbourne artist Romeo Moon has released his new Spirit Phase, and yeah, it’s extremely worth the wait. I first heard Kevin Orr’s music as Romeo Moon on the 2019 EP It Unfolds. In late 2023 there was an in-between release, but it’s been a while since that one too. I love his style, which takes in Talk Talk-style postrock, Radiohead-style songwriting and production, elements of krautrock but also acoustic folk (dare I say Nick Drake?) I had the pleasure of playing cello on the closing track, “Like Rain”, which Kevin has some very kind words about, but as you can hear, cello or not it’s a beautiful song that floats in and floats out again, like a not-unwelcome cloud blowing over and leaving sparkling water on everything. Elsewhere you can hear the experimental techniques Orr uses to construct his songs, which are rarely structured with typical verse/chorus/verse. Orr writes on the Bandcamp page that these songs were rescued from a hard drive crash, but nothing seems incomplete – it’s raw and honest as he says. (And… multiple backups, kids. It’s Rule #1!)
Listen again — ~207MB