Wednesday 27 December 2017

🔮 IN PARTICULAR ORDER: TEKI LATEX'S TOP 10 TRACKS OF 2017

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Paris resident and human person Teki Latex has done a lot. From associating with production company and artist collective Kourtrajmé, appearing in videos and shorts alongside people like Vincent Cassel, as well as rapping with seminal French rap group TTC, to heading up A&R on pioneering underground label Sound Pellegrino which he co-founded with fellow TTC member Orgasmic, as well as his own online "DJ-centric" show Overdrive Infinity, Teki has been spearheading a new style of sound this year: Bérite.

Earlier this year Teki posted a mix on SoundCloud called 'Bérite Club Music'. He accompanied this with a description which outlines the birth of the new genre, originating from a group of online acquaintances who would come to Overdrive Infinity every week. "They were all lovers of Grime, US Club styles, Ballroom, Kuduro, Global club music, you name it, just like me," recalls Teki. "As I befriended them, we got the idea to try and think of a new identity for a french club sound that didn’t exist anywhere else and that would be a confluence of some of the various electronic music styles which had an impact on the French audience."

However, as this "embryo of a new genre was slowly being born" a gas explosion in the building next door made the studio unusable and later forced the parent company Dailymotion to shut down all the projects attached to it, including Overdrive Infinity. "We no longer had a place to meet regularly," Teki tells us, "but that idea of a new french sound kept flourishing, becoming more and more concrete as we all kept getting together at club nights and whatnot."

Towards the of 2016, and named after Rue de Bérite in honour of the street where the studio was situated, the first Bérite tracks appeared online and at small club nights.

"And just like that a movement was born."

And as 2017 lays itself to rest, we ask Teki for his top tracks of the year. Arriving from musicmakers 50% French, 50% other European, these morsels are indicative of newness, Bérite, experiments in merging forms and styles, and though dance-ready very suitable for home listening. Plus a surprise at the #1 slot. Read on

10) Lorenzo Senni – XAllegroX

I've praised Lorenzo Senni's music so often in the last few years it has almost become ridiculous but what can I say, his latest one is yet another beautiful slice of drum-less trance. With 'XAllegroX' it's almost as if he has reached a point where the difference between his music and the music of Swedish House Mafia has gotten virtually non-existent, which is obviously a fantastic thing.

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9) Finn – Sometimes The Going Gets A Little Tough

I am amazed by Finn's skills and cleverness of selection behind the decks, as I am obsessed with his ability to create music which applies a grimey way of chopping up samples to classic soul-sampling house music. This big end of year banger is a perfect example of that. Even better when played at 150 bpm in the middle of a juke/ghettotech set.

8) Clubkelly – Need U

A French Bérite Club Music-sympathising member exiled in London and signed to Crazylegs, Clubkelly is a musical prodigy, a lovable troll, a troublemaker but also an amazing person to hang out with. With 'Need U' he explores a sound at the crossroad of weird broken club music, vintage Roulé/bangalter house, and Bérite. Filtered house, but distorted and raw with no fucks given.

7) Lanark Artefax – Touch Absence

This one is already in everyone's end of year list, what can I say that hasn't been said already? It's a dope track with a definitive "Detroit by way of Glasgow" feel. I missed electro as a genre and even though it never went away, it's great to have it back in the spotlight through a new generation of producers like Lanark Artefax.

6) Images – Les Démons de Minuit (Le Dom Edit)

A Bérite Club Music anthem and a favorite of my year-long residency at Nuits Fauves in Paris. To foreigners it's a dope Bérite edit of a catchy French boogie song but to French people it carries a whole different sort of weight. 'Les Démons de Minuit' is the song that was playing at my mother's wedding. Since the '80s it has been a bit synonymous with low-brow mainstream French pop in the mind of a lot of so-called purists. So remixing it and tapping into that sort of weird French popular music heritage to create something new and avant-garde is almost a political act in itself. On French dancefloors, it gives that track a kind of "Oh no did he really go there?" dimension which I absolutely live for. Le Dom's Castle Owner EP dropping in 2018 will confirm that he is an absolute genius and a master at creating a new form of electro-tinged Bérite sure to become a landmark.

5) Sunareht – Hyul

Like Le Dom, Sunareht is a member of the Paradoxe Club label/crew and like Le Dom he makes Bérite Club Music except his approach to the genre is completely different. His way of paying homage to the French club genealogy is to apply a sort of experimental approach to the art of sampling filtered loops as heard in the classic "French touch" era. He takes French touch music and turns it on its head, mutating it into a drum-less, post-everything, permanent-build-up-with-no-drop state. The result is a beautiful home listening experience which remains playable (or at least mixable – superimposable in clubs – akin to Lorenzo Senni's work). With this first EP he established his signature sound and the demos I heard from the 2nd one confirm that he has now fully mastered this incredible unique style.

4) Kekra – 9 Milli

This was a big hit in France in 2017. Basically a dope French rapper dropping super catchy bars on top of an old school 2-step garage beat. So fresh and alien and made with style and different from everything in the French rap world these days. This song really made a difference and it's a pleasure to hear French kids singing it by heart whenever I played it this year.

3) Errorsmith – My Party

I have been a fan of Errorsmith and all the projects he's been involved in since the early 2000s and his album Superlative Fatigue is the album I've always dreamt he would make. Techno in spirit but rhythmically closer to African and Caribbean dance music rhythms mutated through the filter of the synth he created: Razor. This track is just his voice gone through weird effects + a hand clap. It's a simple as fuck techno-organic crazy weirdo party starter and you wish it would never end. I have never heard anything like this.

2) De Grandi – 94120 Groove

The one original Bérite Club Music hit we needed in 2017 by De Grandi the most active producer in the genre, another member of Paradoxe Club label. This Afrotrap-influenced banger goes so well with everything and bangs so hard as a standalone track as well. I'm so proud of that whole crew for creating a genre and a scene in Paris in 2017. We needed that so much.

1) The Super Mario Players feat. Kate Davis – Jump Up Superstar

So this one has a story. It started when I first watched the trailer for Super Mario Odyssey early in the year. I was scared to commit to buying a Switch, I was still living in my old TV-less apartment with vague dreams of moving in the near future. Zelda looked great but felt like too much of an emotional investment (I remember getting nightmares through Ocarina of Time when I was younger, same with the one where you turn into a wolf – way too stressful – and I never managed to finish any of them) but Mario is the kind of stuff that appeals to an old casual gamer uninterested in first person shooters and fascinated by colorful Japanese graphics like me. So the trailer blew me away and I thought the music was perfect. I moved into a new apartment later in the year and got myself a giant-ass television and I thought, you know what let me treat myself to the maxxx and get a Switch with Mario. I enjoyed the shit out of that game but halfway through it i remember thinking "when the hell are they going to play the fucking awesome song from the trailer already??? Probably at the very end..." Spoiler Alert: it comes right in the middle, in an unforgettable sequence taking place in the fake-New-York-equivalent-level in the Mario Odyssey world "New Donk City" (actually the city where the ancestral game Donkey Kong took place). It's the level that made everyone go "oh that new Mario game looks like GTA Mario!"

So Basically Pauline the girl you saved in Donkey Kong back in the '80s is now the mayor of the city and she asks you to help her putting together a festival. Once that is done, the reward comes in the form of a truly beautiful sequence; It's night time in New Donk City and the whole population is outside celebrating, there are lights, beautiful visuals, business men and women in fedoras (as they should) and fireworks. While the mayor and her band are singing the incredible 'Jump Up Superstar' song, you are required to play a rendition of the old school 8-bit Super Mario Bros. game (actually a cross between that and Donkey Kong) on big transparent panels held in between the skyscrapers of the city, and each segment of the song corresponds roughly to a segment of the game, so it creates some sort of semi-synchronized rhythmic build-up between the action and the music... all the while this crazy, insane, catchy, perfectly-executed Broadway showtune is really resonating with someone like me who grew up with those cliché images and sounds of classic New York with its yellow cabs and pastrami sandwiches and who is fascinated by nocturnal views of big cities with skyscrapers. Add to that the nostalgia effect of playing 8-bit Mario... It was an incredible moment, I was playing alone with the lights off and wondering "what the hell is happening to me, am I, for the first time in my life, ACTUALLY crying while playing a video game?" Simply put it is the most beautiful sequence in a video game EVER and you can quote me on that.

  • 🔔 Keep up to date with the latest Sound Pellegrino releases on SoundCloud.


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Friday 22 December 2017

🔮 NO PARTICULAR ORDER: KAREFUL'S 10 UK PRODUCERS TO WATCH 2018

UK producer Kareful has been recently tumbling into view from the internet right into real life on the energy of wave—not a wave, but Wave, the majestic monochrome atmospheric SoundCloud tag-turned-genre. Pushing the style and its general aesthetic forward and helping to incubate new producers is his nascent but fast-growing label Liquid Ritual, co-founded by LTHL and Stohou.

A year on from its radio show beginnings in 2016, the label looks set to burst with the spreading popularity of the wave scene. Their latest release is a Kareful collaboration with Nottingham producer Pholo called 'Atlantis', an icy zinger with a tapestry of textured percussion rattling beside trance-flavoured hollow synths, lush and wintry.

With his status as director and A&R for Liquid Ritual evident of the newness he's always on the look-out for, we asked Kareful if he would join us in celebrating the talent that 2017 has seen and he put together a list of exciting UK producers for you to copy and paste into your memory. Read on

The UK has always been at the forefront of intuitive electronic music, 2017 being no exception. With the power of the internet we are seeing more international producers pioneering interesting styles and sounds in little pockets all over the globe, but wherever I tour in the world, I'll always being hearing that UK influence in modern bass music. Here is my list of 10 UK producers that I believe everyone should be looking out for in 2018.

≈ Skit ≈

Fellow London producer and owner of Yusoul Records, Skit has always been on the ground pushing the young genre 'Wave' in London. In my opinion (along with some others) he helped shape the now very typical 'Wave' sound. Skit has a very popular show on Radar Radio + an EP on the way, so definitely one to watch.

☸ Vacant ☸

Vacant is one of those producers who is always in their room making music, and we'll probably only hear about 5% of it: whether it's future garage, grime, dubstep or trap, Vacant always excels. I've always been impressed by how large and loyal Vacant's following is considering his minimal use of social media, I guess good music will always shine through.

☯ Glacci ☯

Out of all the electronic LPs of the year the one that caught me the most was probably Nottingham's Glacci with Lifeforce (out on Plastician's label Terrorythm). I'm a real sucker for some melodic music – add some hard hitting drums and a big bassline and I'm hooked. Glacci fulfils all my music needs with this release.


"Quite often when I'm writing my best tracks I'm experiencing a feeling or a memory that is
guiding my musical intuition. It is a reaction to my surroundings and personal perspective."

ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏᴜʀ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴠɪᴇᴡ ᴡɪᴛʜ Glacci

ⅇ Pholo ⅇ

Nottingham's new kid on the block Pholo has really shined for me this year, essentially coming out nowhere, I've been been thoroughly impressed by this kid's grind. His mix of emotional synths and organic world music percussion really caught me and even with his young catalogue of tunes behind him... Pholo has easily earnt his place on this list.

♾ Rapture 4D ♾

Perhaps the youngest producer on this list, at only 20 Rapture 4D has been one of the kids leading the pack of Glasgow's grime scene. Him and his crew have been making serious waves among the UK scene and rightly so. Probably one of my favourite grime producer at the moment. This list would not be complete without him.

☽ Klasey Jones ☽

When I first discovered producer Klasey Jones I was very surprised to find out he was also from Romford. His first official EP Foreign Buyers Club really pushed the boundaries of what Wave could be; I've always been taken aback by his impressive use of sampling layered with '80s synth work.

☄ Compa ☄

I first discovered Manchester's Compa before I ever took producing seriously, I think I was 16 or 17 at the time, following his radio show and relistening to radio rips of unreleased tracks uploaded by fans on YouTube. It was insane an insane moment as a fan when Compa started making some wavy stuff of his own. I've been spoilt with large folders of unreleased beats that will probably never see the light of day, but luckily enough a few made it out of the record bag and onto the online stores. I'm excited to see where Compa's musical direction goes next.

⚑ Aesthetic Kid ⚑

Yung Ldn's founder Aesthetic Kid is definitely one to look out for next year. His atmospheric update on 'Sweetboy Grime' never fails to impress me. I often find myself reaching for an Aesthetic Kid track when DJing without any hesitation.

⚘ Palence ⚘

I've known this London-born producer for a long time; we met when he still went by HVRXLD, and even collaborated in the early days. Palence re-found himself after dropping his Glider EP on Armada's brand new sublabel Vaypor. His moody ambient music makes for some great home listening, and I'm curious to see where he'll take the Palence rebrand in 2018.

⚱ Muttley ⚱

Bristol producer Muttley first entered my radar in early 2017 – his style of production heavily varies from track to track which has always kept me interested. Making splashes in Bristol's tight but buzzing electronic music community, I hope to see Muttley make it on more London line-ups in 2018.



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Tuesday 19 December 2017

🐣 ONLY REGAL — SIDE2ME FEAT. QENDRESA

The clattering Latin beat is the complex somersaulting grammar of this piece, beautifully written, percussive punctuation here all a-glitter all a-tumble, the whole of it giving a blissfully contrasting feeling of chill, not of bustling business or stress as a result of bustling business, but instead the clop tap clack of the beat, perhaps because it puts you in mind of the coursing flowing energy of Latin music, of ease and effortlessness. It's all glass and wooden, all organic and luscious, ticking with a light veil of noir settling over its city-flavoured atmosphere.

British-Armenian musicmaker Richard Melkonian aka Only Regal adds ghostly hollow organ sounds to increase the tension, just slightly, just enough to lift the track off the ground somewhat, so it levitates lightly, all diagonal and unconventional. Intensity builds with the addition of buzzing bass synth, plumes of sound fit to burst with their body of robust frequencies, a hefty foundation for 'Side2Me'. Also joining with Only Regal is London-based singer Qendresa, injecting groove and effusing not exactly smooth soul but the jaunt and intrigue of jazz with a strong silken tone, something retro and angular in how she whispers in the deep booming rumble of this sidewinding track.




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Thursday 14 December 2017

🐣 BOD [包家巷] — EMPTY MOUNTAIN WEEPS ALONE [空山独哭]

The screaming cosmic synth that hits at the start of this track, it arrives scathing and scorching, but shot through in the midst of its scratchings and scrapings is this plasma modulation, a sense of the steel and unbridled progress of the present and its outstretched hands craving the years ahead and beyond. The decayed whistle and muffled impact of a bomb, the PA system speaking to the crowd as you embark a ship to a future industrial megacity. This is the scene-setting power of two-thirds noise one-third classical in 'Empty Mountain Weeps Alone [空山独哭]' by LA-based musicmaker Nicolas Zhu aka bod or Baojiaxiang[包家巷] ('Baojia Alley'), presumably named after the same street in Chengdu. Maybe not.

Halfway through this short sharp snippet of sound we are introduced to this gargantuan construction site, the glitching beat like heavy machinery working in unison clashing together cranes and cement mixers and all the movement and drills and hammers and metal and muscle carving away at the surface of the earth and constructing a cradle of consumerism. In the background the silken tones of a traditional Chinese lute-like instrument (there are many so to name one would be a guess), like a sigh of nature drowned out by the grunts of advancement, reminscent of the hole-boring mall-making and gaudy grandiosity at tourist destination Yangshuo. Nature as stomped on by humanity. And it ends, the rush of cars in the rain, piano sounding a gentle shrug as protest, a casual hands-in-pocket lonely lament.


  • 🔔 This wonderful experimental piece arrives from bod's upcoming release for Zoom Lens called Piano Compositions: a 17-minute piece of which this snippet is in fact the 3rd movement. It's out and available tomorrow (15th December).
  • 🔔 Read about the strange carnival that is Yangshuo right here, which we wrote about as part of our Visits travel series.


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🐣 NITEROOMS — HEADWAY

One of our favourite tracks of 2017 so far now and yeah that's 100% sincere and it's this track by South Wales trio Niterooms. What makes it so interesting? Well, there it isn't just the atmosphere of the track—that in itself is intriguing, a swirl of a picture so melancholy so swooning sad, but at the same time so interestingly done, so nuanced, that it cannot be called simply sad but needs to be addressed for its tight and stylistic attention to detail. The drums tap and tick, thump and thud with all the laid-back authority that trap-infused percussion commands, helped into a realm of oozing monochrome and disappointment by fantasy guitar that twangs and resonates all liquid oblivion. The basic effective dynamic achieved by removing the hi-hats and letting the beat click naked in a tide of sub, the structural ease of it calms the spirit, nothing to remember, nothing to challenge, only a story to hear, a painting to be engulfed in.

Niterooms are from Brithdir, "a small forgotten mining town in South Wales," and fittingly their music sounds like that of something forgotten, something discarded, something glittering and vital left at the bottom of an empty well, the tatters of a dream now whipped into some semblance of being by sheer emotive energy. Whilst a "band" they manage to create the same soundscapes that you'd hear in Drakean pop, that sort of post-R&B trap-flavoured sound with confessional lyrics, a candid soul laid bare in the whirls of something dreamy and unreal. The vocals croon low on the brink of despair and in various meters, quick triplets mixed in with slow lines. A clear lament of lost love, sorrow as old as time, like the story of Orpheus that moved even ghosts as he ventured to find his wife in the Underworld.




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🐣 ROXINY — THE LIGHTS

At first it's like this beguiling machine that's just been fired up, something dusty and proto-analogue, a powerful piece of engineering, some sort of vehicle with which to reach some out of reach place, conceptual locations and sectors of emotion. Firstly you notice that synth don't you, modulating like an off-balance spinning top, some sort of antique Beyblade, but in its true actuality is something like a benevolent swarm of bees – like ideas lit up and in motion – buzzing and bustling brightly and busting speakers with a tape delay sort of sound, warped but warm. It's called 'The Lights' and it's by NYC-based Dominican-born Roxiny, "granddaughter of a revolutionary who helped mobilise against Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo."

As it builds with all its added elements into a refraining mantra, this song whirls with intensity. The constancy of the buzzy bee melted synth chords, laying a simple progression down like a veil over the song's backdrop, keeps it ticking over, jostling like electrons heated up, the noise of potential energy, whips the track into a frenzy by the end. In this supercharged soup we also find a sparse vintage beat keeping time from somewhere in the past, as well as guitars that slapdash and croon metallic, raw and unadorned. But it is the voice of Roxiny, with its intimate glam-garage-rock echo, the movement from lulling tones smouldering to yelling loud fiery powerful, it is this that drives the machinery, adds lightning to the growling tumult of clouds growing on a bluesky horizon, a hazy forward-march.


  • 🔔 'The Lights', which is a free download as you can see from the SC embed above, is taken from Roxiny's upcoming Rituals EP.


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Friday 8 December 2017

📣 LAZY INTERVIEW #34 — LOOM

What does London Ambient mean?

That's what we asked London-based producer Loom of his recently released EP. He tell us over email that it's "an imaginary musical history that's in the air in London." In fact that is almost exactly, to the finest detail, what London Ambient sounds like. Snippets of acid-inflected synths wibble and writhe throughout; rave drums crash plosive and tribal; a conjuration of the city at night, its dimly lit streets, its hidden clubs. "So much great stuff has come out on London," he continues, "so I wanted to touch on that."

It begins with 'Heavy Glow', a beatless prelude in hefty synth and sub that sets the atmosphere for what follows—but you'll have to read our review to see what else we thought (a lot of things). We may have established that it's a love-letter to the UK capital's heritage of dance and electronic sounds, but what we were really bursting to know was if he was named after Loom, the 1990 Lucasfilm graphic adventure game. Could it be? "I've got no idea what that is mate," he wrote back. "It's not really the name that matters, it's the work attached to it." Touché. But still.


🐤



w h o   a r e   y o u ?   w h e r e   a r e   y o u   f r o m ?   w h a t   d o   y o u   d o ?
I am a person who enjoys making music, eating kebabs and DJing. I was born in the 90s and raised in rural (farmland, raves and dogging) Suffolk. Now I live in South London with my girlfriend.


h o w   d i d   y o u   s t a r t   c r e a t i n g   m u s i c ?


I thought So Solid Crew were really cool when I was like 11 and wanted to be DJ Oxide. I got some decks for Christmas started DJing, I was DJing in bars at 14 around Ipswich, playing old house music. I wanted to learn how to produce so I got Reason or Fruity and it went from there. 


h o w   w o u l d   y o u   d e s c r i b e   y o u r   s o u n d ?


It changes, right now I'm really feeling a lot of house, techno & jungle, so I'm trying to work them into my music. It’s very UK sounding, but I love the older US stuff as well. 


i s   t h e r e   a   p e r f e c t   t i m e   a n d   p l a c e   f o r   l i s t e n i n g   t o   y o u r   m u s i c ?


Club, if it's a banger, or on the motorway at night if it's one of my moody, beatless ones.

Even if everyone hated what I was making, I don't care as long as I'm challenging myself
w h a t   i n s p i r e s   y o u   m o s t   w h e n   m a k i n g   a   t r a c k ?
I run purely on instinct – I enter a brain-dead state to write music and try not think at all. Certainly other music influences creep in, plus moods/atmospheres/memories.


w h a t   i s   y o u r   m o s t   m e m o r a b l e   m u s i c a l   e x p e r i e n c e ?


Probably going to a grime/DnB rave at 14. We all knew the owners daughter and she would get us in. The first time there I felt real sub bass, saw live DJs/MCs, saw people fucked, drug dealers, gangs, plus the fear of my mum finding out made it an amazing experience. That real hit of adrenaline, fear and wonder I felt, I always try to capture in my own music and DJ sets.


w h a t   a r e   y o u r   f a v o u r i t e   t h r e e   s o n g s   a t   t h e   m o m e n t ?


1.
Or:la – Wendy Wild


2.
WK7 – Rhythm 1


3.
S.O.N.S – Acid Dreams (Trance Jungle Mix)



w h o   d o   y o u   m o s t   a d m i r e   i n   t h e   m u s i c   w o r l d ?


I don't admire anyone but my mum.


i n   y o u r   o p i n i o n ,   w h a t   i s   t h e   f u t u r e   o f   m u s i c ?


New music will be released, some good, some bad, same as ever innit. I hope underground music keeps evolving. Most producers quickly become comfortable and lazy. Even if everyone hated what I was making, I don't care as long as I'm challenging myself and keeping things interesting.


w h a t ' s   t h e   f u t u r e   o f   y o u r   m u s i c   –   w h a t   d o   y o u   h o p e   t o   d o   n e x t ?


Start a label, DJ around the world, keep releasing tracks I'm happy with.


w h a t   i s   m o s t   i m p o r t a n t   t o   y o u ?


           Kebabs.


🍃





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Thursday 7 December 2017

🎥 RARE FACTURE — VERSE GIRL

This track, with its indelible europop atmosphere, is wave of euphoria, but dimly lit and soaked with rain. Icy chords wobbly softly, snowy and glacial, sadly fall like an electronic hail, strings spin tension, descending icicles of sound sparkle, a cradle of sharp throwback arpeggios whirling over a pulsing beat and the propellant bass both bumping the track into overdrive below the stuttering serenity of the track. There is this serenity to it, somewhere in there, the light at the end of the tunnel of urgency that it does summon, and it sounds like this for good reason.

Salt Lake City duo Rare Facture tell us that 'Verse Girl' was inspired by women "who have ended up in abusive or controlling relationships but can't escape." Continuing, they explained further over email: "It's about the reality of there being a happier world out there with someone who loves you for you. I guess in the end, like much of the songs we write, 'Verse Girl' is about love."

This simultaneous heartbreaking and heartwarming quality, brightness and darkness, energetic and unfathomably kinetic trance sound yet downcast and slow-motion, the dual nature of love spun with throwback synth-pop that feels as timeless and as timeworn as the inspiration for the track itself. The duo went on to talk about the video for the track itself, which in its monochrome and snow-filled way reflects the song's lyrical and sonic elements—and, in yet more echoes of the track's inspiration, in a case of "art imitating reality," the duo tells us, "the girl in the video is literally the girl the song is about."

Euphoric and dysphoric, the hard, sad realities of life and the specks of hope that come with it are reflected with this digital fantasy of sound.




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Wednesday 6 December 2017

🎥 GIANNI PACI — IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT [初演 • PREMIERE]

Gianni Paci tells us that he wrote 'In The Middle Of The Night' "at a time when many of the pillars of stability in my life were crashing and burning like it was the end of the Roman Empire." And with that in mind the savagery of the song doesn't just blast satisfyingly out: it makes sense.

"Rather than turning inward," he continued. "I took all of that anger and incredulity and channeled it out into this kind of nasty send off."

There's the guitar, turning in on itself, the exploding distortion. And not to mention the drums, which similarly pound their way supercharged and fuzzed-out between the roaring open chords and the regular crunch of that deathly palm-muting. The raw energy, particularly of the drums which sound as though they're being played in the room next door but still loud and popping enough to be featured, is delicious.

But alongside the incendiary drums and the gravely sweeps of abrasive guitar, the vocals play out in a different way. Not only does that guitar summon something dark in its quality, there is something in what it plays also, something sultry, close to flamenco in key and rhythm, which combined with the distortion gives it a harsh, metal edge. Further mix this with the crooning vocals and you have this subversion of doo-wop flavoured garage rock which has the vocals falling in line with that tone when Paci sings the titular mantra "In the middle of the night, it's a scary place / In the middle of the night, won't you keep me safe."

'In The Middle Of The Night' is jarring – not beautiful, soaring, heavenly – but clashing, verging on strange. But it is a fruit punch: Paci's voice spins catchy pop-leaning lovelorn lyrics, parts of the song are familiar – the pre-chorus "So what am I to do?" – and this is the sweet fruit; simmering throughout however is the punch, pungent and pugilistic, intoxicating, woven with overdrive and broken wavelengths. Together it makes for this wonderful inversion of norms which has arisen from what Paci himself calls "feelings of great loss and abandonment."


  • 🔔 The video for this track, echoing the decayed aesthetic of the music, was directed, shot, produced and edited by Gianni Paci.
  • 🔔 'In The Middle Of The Night' is taken from Gianni Paci's I Tried To Right My Wrongs, But I Made A Left EP, which is out now. You may purchase it from Bandcamp.


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Monday 4 December 2017

🐣 WILD & FREE — FERNS AND STUFF

The groove piledrives through this track, the glossy dancefloor sparkles its glitter and the lights cut through the dark and dust. But mainly let's address that groove: bass guitar seems to somersault and cartwheel, it's an acrobatic full-bodied bass, tinged at the edges with metallic pugilism, something thudding about the way it curls like a snake covered in scaly armour around the bumping beat, the kick and abrasive handclap. Groove lies at the heart of this one, powers it, propels it forward.

LA duo Wild & Free, aside from these disco-summoning rhythmic patterns, also inject some faraway sense of darkness, of faded neo-noir, into 'Ferns and Stuff'. Stuttering synth arpeggios blip and boop twinkling in the air, and gradually there are these high pitched string sounds fluttering around this one particular note and effusing a sort of ambient tension with that soft persistence it has; and with wide sweeping chords that wobble with wonky progressions there is the guitar, half-surf half-late night jazz, distorted and starkly angled against its foundations. Vocals seem to speak from all sides, from beyond the vanishing point, a thin ghostly croon adding human intrigue to the dance steps painted boldly all over this one.


  • 🔔 'Ferns and Stuff' arrives courtesy of Lisbon-based label Discotexas, and is taken from Wild & Free's album Shapes on Shapes, which is out now also on Discotexas. You may purchase it via this hyperlink.


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Wild & Free Internet Presence ☟
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Friday 1 December 2017

💽 LOOM — LONDON AMBIENT

JAAAAAA. The first big chords of producer Loom's London Ambient EP bristle with drama. The complexity of them and the progression as the opening track 'Heavy Glow' soars onward. The space between the chords and the robust sub that drops depth charges in these ambient moments. The orchestral clarity of the sampled violin hits versus the twangs of metallic synth that play syncopated melodies ending each phrase in a series of satisfyingly jarring triplets. The darkness and distortion of it. And the thing is that it feels like late-night London, the looming exterior of a club on an empty orange-lit street, and the slow-motion crowd of its interior; the camera turns slowly on its axis. It is the prelude to the three juddering tracks that follow.

First up: 'Aacccid', a track true to its name, featuring the overdriven booming kicks and handclaps that conjure warehouse dancefloors, distant smoke machine times, the vomit of strobes, the uptempo rave counterpart of house music that was born and nurtured in the UK. But over the top, in place of the squeegee elastic synths typical of this '90s style, there are clarion clusters of synth boops that cut the air glacially, less soft fizzy Refresher bar and more hardboiled tang of a melody pop; rave cymbals crash.

A slosh of crushing handclaps is the abrasive punctuation of aptly 'Dog In The Fight', combined with plasma kicks and a constant gloop anti-groove of sub-bass that gives it this urban swamp sort of feel. Beginning like an unaccompanied grime instrumental the track morphs into a UK funky sort of rhythm, complete with wobbling wah-wah synths, something closer to the acid that gives the previous track its title, a retro sound; one of the things that characterises London Ambient as a whole, these sounds of yore, a motif extracted not from nostalgia but from objective heritage and contemporaneous revivalism in electronic dance music.

Raving breakbeats thud and thump at the heart of 'Saturday Job At Laser Quest', part throwback dancefloor destiny and part heart-thumping excitement and fear of a laser quest party. The middle section is tense, poised, all the smell of the smoke machines and the strobing lights and the heavy laser gun in hand. Slimy synths drip-drop all over this one, a biohazard sort of sludge that gives this track a wonderfully dark edge to its retro-facing beats.

But ending as it began, beatless and textured, London Ambient bows out with 'Forever', a postscript to everything that's gone before. It's a touching swansong of crunched rumbling synth that fizzes with crackling decay and chugs along with a flanger effect, decorated with zipping little plasma synths resonating like echoes of the synths from the previous track in a cosmic void, chirruping like alien animals calling out to each other, and bitcrushed little trinkets. A simple melody plays on glossy blooping synth, melancholy and heartbroken but innocent in its melody, something human and emotive above the harsh electronics, the contrast of glassy clarity and the drone of the bass below, humans doing what they can in the murk of reality. A robotic voice wheezes the word "Forever…" The lights come on, the music stops, everybody has to go home.

London Ambient is both fantasy and reality, cinematic and observational, pushing forward but with a reverence to the sounds of the past. Crucially, atmospheric drops abound—even from looking at the waveforms as the tracks play on SoundCloud you can tell this. It's another relic of the past – another motif for Loom in this instance – taken carefully from the UK's earliest love affair with dance and a trope of the collection of genres that make up "rave"; the beat falls away and there is this ambient void in which sweat-jewelled dancers sway and eyes-half-open leaning on each other, an almost motionless vacuum; a chance to breathe, let the music sink in, feel. And that is London Ambient.




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Loom Internet Presence ☟
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