MARY OCHER — THE NARRATIVE (FIRST MOVEMENT)

How so much power exists in one minute and thirty-seven seconds of music! 'The Narrative (First Movement)' by Berlin composer and musician Mary Ocher exists in a state of defiance, atonal chords and stuttering staccato rhythms battling against a tide of silence, with such force exerted on the keys in some places that my own fingertips started aching.

An essentially minimalist piece, we move quickly from a conventional arpeggio into a frenzy of figuration, a simple melody exploded into frenetic collages of rapid-fire playing, notes cut up in a succession of glitching fractions of themselves, shifting between soft moments of surrender and violent fury — occasionally the left hand erupts in storms of thundering bass notes leaving a thick smoke of sustain in their wake.

We have a narrative, as intimated by the title of the piece. But in trying to spell out that narrative, in telling her story, Ocher jettisons the regulated ascending notes in triple time like a deadweight and takes the wheel, cutting through the void in sturdy acrobatics, siphoning her craft not to tell us listeners but rather show us the de-profundis-clamavi depths.

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• 🔔 Mary Ocher's 'The Narrative (First Movement)' has also been visualised by artist Boris Eldagsen in video form. Using generative AI, the video depicts a psychically pained man merging with, and being destroyed by, a derelict piano that folds in on itself, falls apart and deposits ephemera among other things, kind of like a dream in which one's teeth fall out, in a series of monochrome vignettes. You can watch the video here.
• 🔔 This piece of music is taken from her upcoming album Weimar which is will be released on 13th March 2026. You may, if you choose, pre-order the vinyl or digital form of the album on Bandcamp.

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LUCRECIA DALT — COSA

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⌾ LISTEN TO COSA BY LUCRECIA DALT ⌾

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It may only be 32 seconds in duration, but ‘cosa’ by Berlin-based Colombian producer Lucrecia Dalt is a dense piece of music. The distant hum of a machine growls in the background, something continuously and secretly working — calculating, processing. The ambient fuzz of this hidden room gives Dalt’s micro-song a voyeuristic, or more correctly entendeuristic quality of listening to something obtained from a concealed recording device.

Knowing that the album from which 'cosa' is taken aims to be "a reflection of how we consume as a society today," the rasping sounds and wheezing organicity of it take on a more foreboding air. It's a chilling thought: the wonder, or worry, of exactly what it is you're streaming, liking and sharing.

Biomechanical insectoid clicking and fizzing constitutes a slow beat, synthetic but gruesomely organic; twice, like a dynamic cymbal, a screeching sound whips the air. A start-up sound gleams at the end — as if the tape were turned off at some crucial moment, or the recording device were discovered — and voices disjointedly murmur.

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• 🔔 Lucrecia Dalt's track 'cosa' is taken from the collaborative album PRSNT. Also featuring 32-second tracks by artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Visible Cloaks and more, it's scheduled for release on Barcelona-based label Modern Obscure Music. You can pre-order PRSNT on vinyl (black or white, shown above) or digitally on Bandcamp.

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MASAYOSHI FUJITA — BIRD AMBIENCE

⌾ LISTEN TO BIRD AMBIENCE BY MASAYOSHI FUJITA ⌾

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The natural world. That’s the overriding force at work in ‘Bird Ambience’ by Berlin-based vibraphonist and composer Masayoshi Fujita. But that — signalled by the track’s robust percussion, tumbling marimba and keen ceramic reverberations — is only half of the story here. For all of its organically glossy and glomping collisions of beater against solid object, there’s a smattering of inorganic glitch, sharp and harsh, zooming around within; an ancient computer of some forgotten century still whirring brokenly amidst vast trees and choking vines. And all around, ghosts — the nebulous vocals of singer Hatis Noit cooing through the canopy.

The sheer space between each knock, each tap, hit and plonk — and the constrasting soft, sheafing ambience of each successive contact — gives Fujita's ‘Bird Ambience’ an empty-yet-full feeling: Navigating the voidsome depths of woods, its trees and the heavy air between the trunks and branches. There’s an essence of kankyō ongaku or “environmental music” here, with textural elements reminiscent of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s ‘Time After Time’. There's less in the way of melody, of rigidity, Fujita's track instead creeping along almost at random, solidly and yet as if it were mist.

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• 🔔 This track is taken from Masayoshi Fujita's upcoming album Bird Ambience, scheduled for release on Erased Tapes on 28th May. You can pre-order it from Bandcamp digitally, as a CD or limited edition 2LP.

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MADANII & LLUCID — DANDELION

⌾ LISTEN TO MADANII & LUCID, DANDELION ⌾

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It's not only the combination of lush textures and minimalism that makes 'Dandelion' so captivating. The beat is a collage of snares, metallic percussion and whispering cymbals, crisp handclaps — I mean, you could even count the found sound natural noises of outdoors, birdsong, footsteps on gravel, among the songs percussive elements. This by itself affords MADANII & LLUCID's track a certain flow, each click, tick, slap and crash the like a stream dancing between its rocky banks.

There's the delicious syncopated clonk of the marimba (or whatever it may be), lending a fresh flavour, a cucumber and soda water fizz, to proceedings. All that's left is the foundation, the smooth synth of the bass, rounded and acrobatic enough without being too busy or overpowering. LLUCID's production is cooling, allowing the warmth of singer MADANII to radiate outwards.

Her vocal lilts with a touch of onstage crooning, but stays within such a digestible range that makes it feel conversational, close-at-hand, as the lyrics to 'Dandelion' spill diary-like into the stream. While the song begins with the mention of "a little town, not far out" — the sparkle of storytelling firmly set — the chorus whirling listeners into a satisfying cycle of relatable feelings:

"Leave it all behind out of sight / Following the sun / On my homesick run..."

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• 🔔 You can listen to and/or download 'Dandelion' via MADANII & LLUCID's Bandcamp. You'll also find the full lyrics there too, which are pretty cool to read.

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MINDSIGHT — STILL

⌾ LISTEN TO MINDSIGHT, STILL ⌾

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With its synths like liquid metal glittering darkly in the intoxicated slosh of a cold starry night, 'Still' is a nocturnal number from a collection of tracks created by Berlin producer Mindsight. He attributes their creation to "a fascination with the world", coincidences, moments revisited in memory and expressed with music.

'Still' thumps with a rapid heartbeat, punctuated with lo-fi mechanical percussion, timeworn snares shot with industrial rust — the propulsion behind the flowing pulse of synths. Mindsight's vision is a vital one, unrelenting in its forward motion; flocks of high-pitched sounds soar, the sonic embodiment of a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings.

And as the mind inches away from memory, the present moment crawling into consciousness, the fantastical synth falls away, leaving only the beat, the pistons and cogs of the brain and body moving on and on.

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• 🔔 'Still' is taken from W___ EP, which you can stream and download from his Bandcamp.
• 🔔 And if you like, you can stream or download 'Still' by Mindsight via whatever service you feel most comfortable with on this list.

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🐣 RIP SWIRL — LONG ISLAND MEDIUM

Extending the legacy of fairly new style lo-fi house, Berlin-based producer RIP Swirl (it’s like rip curl, you see) not only gives us a satisfying overdrive crunch-gloop in the kicks that bump and propel this track along, but also transports us into a retro realm of beige computers and fax machines: sharp metallic orchestra hits squeak out of the hazy crackle in ‘Long Island Medium’, with laser gun zips and turntable scratches cutting in for good measure. Synth chords bulge softly below with dance sensibilities in their refraining nature.

The old-school keyboard sounds, like the lo-fi veil draped over this track, aren’t all about nostalgia but instead add to the subtle abrasions of the track—it isn’t necessarily the sound itself that is the focus of our attention, but the quality of that sound and how it fits into the vessel of sonic imperfection that RIP Swirl has carved out. The hi-hats trickle-tick distortedly, the snare is crushed; both are jagged, whilst the synths are nebulous cushions that these harsher sounds strike against and pierce; the soft yet shattered atmosphere of new becoming old, old becoming obsolete.

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• 🔔 The artwork for the cover was created by Conrad Hübbe, a photograph of something new and pretty—and yet it's a grainy photo; like RIP Swirl's track, it is a skewed representation of novelty, a new feeling or concept as much as a physical thing, by which we encounter newness through an old medium.
• 🔔 RIP Swirl's 'Long Island Medium' is out now on PARADISE HOUSE.

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🔮 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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🐣 CORD LABUHN — HEARTSHIPS

Sounds from here, sounds from there, sounds from everywhere in this buzzing collage of sound, a list of luscious samples located and lifted into the frame of 'Heartships' by Berlin-based musicmaker Cord Labuhn. Record scratches, vintage crackling thumps, bass kicks, a delicious fingerclick, trickling hi-hat ticks—a treasure trove of percussion beats out an exploded hip-hop rhythm, sparse and minimalist to an extent, but on the other hand it's also packed full of flavour, each sound texturised and four-dimensional, a snippet of life, Cord Labuhn as the lepidopterist of sound pinning each one in new shapes and patterns.

Guitar pings add to the percussive nature of this collage so far, reverbing into the gallons of negative space that brim with chill either side of the punctuation perforating the quietude. Aching moments from unidentifiable songs appear throughout, rapid sonic snapshots that resonate even after their brief flash on the bustling canvas. Things agitate towards the middle: the feeling of running or rolling downhill, picking up momentum, new samples sliding into the mix getting ever busier, packed with flavours, and then it falls back to the cooling patterns as before, subtly and simply dynamic; funny how something so clearly constructed, so abstract in execution, can also be so smooth and natural to our ears.

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• 🔔 Like previous track 'Asap Daddy', this one is also taken from the Berlin producer's OUTTAKES project. You can download the track here.

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🐣 ZIÚR — U FEEL ANYTHING?

Here we are inducted into a harsh world of cliffs and outcrops, jagged mountains, errant bewildering boulders, an arid landscape strewn with stones and with suitably tough greenery dotting the brown-grey-red of it all with mossy juttings; totemic natural or are they natural structures tower into the pale tangerine sky half-toppling above it all. It is an alien landscape, something wholly foreign, a visual conjuration courtesy of these breakneck bone-shattering beats built by Berlin-based musicmaker Ziúr. The pugilism, the violence at work here cannot be understated: this is a brutal piece of work, the alarm clock of the deep cosmos calling you, wrenching you awake, rollicking machine-gun snares, sub-bass-explosions opening up fissures in the earth, an avalanche of perilous percussion.

Yet behind these hard and hefty tracts of beating battering drum sounds there is something more gentle at work in 'U Feel Anything?', noises erupting from the cracks opened up by the piledriver bangs and booms of the beat, sonic awakenings, modulating unidentified sounds pouring out and into the air. In the midst of this irregular pneumatic drill almost grime-flavoured uptempo-ness, this seismic doom, ectoplasmic synth bulges and bubbles in simple patterns, high-pitch needling insectoid sounds sharp and lasering, augmenting the sense of alien unfamiliarity in the already far-flung force of the drums—those drums, textured with crunching, crushing, exoskeletons bursting, the fragmentary abstract ADD itch, the champion drum, the charred earth, the nucleus of energy cracking the frame of terrestrial reality.

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• 🔔 This amazing track is taken from Ziúr's debut release, also called U Feel Anything?, which is out via Planet Mu / Objects Ltd. on 6th October.

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🐣 CORD LABUHN — ASAP DADDY

That constant flicker like the screen of a terminal or the flashing buttons and lights of a spacecraft bridge, the glimmering tiny computerised sounds of it providing the perfect cold and distant backdrop to this track, it plugs you firmly into the digital realm, a sleek world of glass and metal and circuitry and the chilly unhuman reception of simulated inorganic beings. These starry trills and glistening drizzlings of high frequency bleeps warble throughout, the glitching canopy of it patrolled by prowling rounded swampy gloops of bass and overdriven thumping kicks, bolstered by light rainstick crinkles and the staccato crack of a lo-fi snare, the groovesome beat behind the masterfully textured electronics.

Berlin producer Cord Labuhn builds this artificiality called 'Asap Daddy', sets it up as an airy retro-futuristic interpretation of a boom bap beat, the muffled pummelling beat perforating the frozen hip-hop chillment of the track, its laid-back feel made more whimsical by the addition of organic samples, the vintage crackle shrouding a vocal that thinly creeps out like steam from a sewer, the warm chords of an ancient piano sounding like blood returning to a numbed limb, biological human functions in the midst of cold machinery. This addition manmade sounds to artificial ones is not dystopian however—it is nostalgic, happysad, remembrances made as hands that never touched a piano, never heard the crooners of the 20th century, gesture in the air, bring up archival art of yesteryear.

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• 🔔 'Asap Daddy' is taken from the Berlin producer's OUTTAKES project. You can download the track here.

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KIDKANEVIL – INAKUNARU FT. PHASMA

Last time I wrote about Kidkanevil, it was to do with this madly bristling tree-laden remix of Polish producer UKU's track 'Forest 5 am' – further detailing the UK-based Kidkanevil as a master of glitchtronic atmospheres, of delicacy and dynamism. Not that his part in Kidsuke, the collaboration with Japanese glitch king Daisuke Tanabe didn't show off his talents well enough – it's just nice to hear new stuff with his mark on it.

Speaking of which, did you know that Kidkanevil has a new album approaching? Well if you didn't, you know now. And because of that, there are a couple of songs floating about in the digital sphere – new songs that are very good. One of these is the gloriously addictive 'Inakunaru', in which Gerard Roberts – Kidkanevil's name irl – shares production & creation duty with Yokohama-based Phasma. This is the subject of this post.

Now I've been having a bit of trouble translating 'inakunaru' – literally it means something like "be not here" or "not being here" or "being absent" and I guess in a way "disappeared"; on the other hand I google translated it and it gave me "poof" as a translation (as in "poof— it was gone") but I'm not sure about that. Either way, it's with that sense of un-here-ness, of transitional unreality, that we descend into the track, feeling its intricate organic percussion, its various mechanical clunks and clicks, drawing into its gallery of gently ping-ponging bloops and marimba and long flute-like bleeps. Cutesy yet ghostly vocals deliver sweetness above this cerebral beat, above the solid bass washed over by the harsh waves of noise (Phasma's touch perhaps?); the end of the track is a mash of sharp hi-hats and beeps 'n' boops bouncing like blops of neon.

The business in the track gives it colour, yet there's a sombre tone to it, perhaps in the simply fluctuating flute-like melody – an atmosphere that fits the name of Kidkanevil's aforementioned album: My Little Ghost – a name that instantly conjures a kind of endearing friendliness, yet within the frame of things passed, of phantomic proportions. And if it's all toeing this delicate balance of sombre fun, of cute lament – as well as featuring Japanese talent including the likes of Cuushe and Cokiyu – then it's gonna be a lovely album.

• My Little Ghost is out 9th May via a split between Berlin based Project: Mooncircle and the endlessly cool Tokyo label, flau.
• Get it from P:MC's Bandcamp (over here)
• Check out Kidkanevil's Q&A with YES/NO :)

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PREMIERE 初演 • UMA – VANITY

Something a little bit special now. Yes, it's happened again. After the first ever premiere ever on YES/NO ever in the History of Time, another song surfaces like a new, mysterious island in a sea painted with beauteous calm. This time around it comes from Berlin two-piece, UMA. Comprised of couple-duo, Ella and Florian Zwietnig, they released a debut EP last year titled Drop Your Soul, a soothing yet menacing collection of electronic sounds, an electropop outing that sees the "pop" part of this wide genre twisted and subverted.

That characteristic of an essentially dark atmosphere carries through into this brrrand new single, 'Vanity'. Yep, it's brand new and it's out today. Arriving into your ears firstly with glittering, metallic feedback and a distorted beat made up of kicks and toms in a heart-thudding tribal-esque rhythm, we're quickly introduced into a world of mechanical iciness, a robotic aesthetic at work throughout. Plinking chords reverb in wintry succession as icicle-like synth leads glisten out of the shadowy sounds.

The vocals certainly help with the atmosphere, chanted out in an almost monotone series of rich harmonies soaring over the insectoid stutter of the hi-hats and thin snares. But it's at the beginning of the song's second half where its groove comes into place. The beat regularised now regularised and augmented with percussion, a saw-wave bassline underpins the gloomy chord progression with a pattern buzzing booms. Then, left with background noise and pretty guitar licks, the vocals return in a more understated way, crooning with a glass purity amongst the sleepily forboding sounds until the song ends.

It's an exercise in atmospheric electropop and minimalism, yet also in subtle dynamics that sees the track soaring in a wash of noises, bustling and expressing themselves alongside gloriously nonchalant vocals. Indeed, Ella - the voice of the duo - "grew up in the middle of nowhere, spending her early life studying classical music and singing in choirs" and it certainly shows in the arrangement of her vocals, and in the differing parts of the song, fitting mini-movements, mini-themes into this mini electronic symphony.

This is out TODAY as a co-release between Bad Panda Records and Seayou Records.

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CLARA MOTO BLUE DISTANCE LP

So the time has finally come. I've known about Austrian-born Berlin-based artist Clara Moto for a few months now, firstly when I wrote about her track 'Disposable Darling', taken from her August-released EP Disposable Darling. Her brand of pop-tinged techno - or techno-laden pop - was evident from the get-go and it's still something that makes her sound particularly interesting. As far as mainstream listeners go, techno has been a bit of a black sheep in the "dance" family; disco, house, drum and bass, and dubstep (amongst other genres) have enjoyed quite a bit of crossover in pop music (and as "popular" music itself) from the 90s onward. To my mind anyway, techno has been largely ignored.

Clara Moto, however, whether by chance or by choice, has made a step forward for techno in this respect. Whilst not mainstream, nor technically "pop", her new album Blue Distance - released on Monday (4th November) - not only softens the edges to the often quite stony facade of techno, but it also adds subtle pop nuances that have the potential of giving the genre a friendly facelift.

Songs like 'Things We Almost Did', with its Beatles-like positioning of sitar swoops and clinking marimba type chords, and 'In My Dream', whose soft, glistening synths, vocal hooks and lovesong lyrics, provide a gentler techno sound. Kicks still thud, snares slap, yet there's a touch of ambient beauty that is less nightclub and more bedroom. Likewise, 'For All Reasons So Sad' exudes a certain haunting delicacy: a music box melody and heavily reverbed faraway vocals, with reverse-string sounds alongside, play over sub-bass before a beat complete with bongo sounds comes in; final song 'Lyra' - featuring the aching, breathy vocals of Paris-based graphic designer & singer/songwriter Mimu - has a gentle lullaby feel to it, dotted with grand piano flourishes, washes of synth and a slow, muffled beat.

Then there are tracks that, whilst effusing darker sounds, still don't seem to belong in the club. The lonely shades and almost mournful ambient strings of 'Holy' cover up its rumbling kicks. There's the strong beat and booming bass of 'My Double Edged Sword', with a film-score scale to the song - thanks to thick, soaring strings and ornamentations of altered vocal samples, like birds flocking - that makes it a rather grand listen. 'I Saw Your Love' is another grand number - rich, almost indefinable strings rise like a tide throughout the song as an increasingly busy beat, almost like that of a marching band (the rapid, raw hi-hat here is particularly nice), injects it with energy.

A couple of tracks do however keep things strictly dance-oriented. The percussive jitters of 'Hedonic Treadmill' sit perfectly above its constant beat as unnerving swooshes of atonal synth chords swoop in and out of earshot - the bassline here, a simple two-note affair, is wholly conducive to head-nodding and foot-tapping. 'Placid Kindness' mirrors this track later on in the album with a similar driving beat attended to by skiffling hi-hats yet with a less dark sound, glittering bell sounds giving it a kind of happy, innocent feel.

A good gauge for the general sound of the album, however, comes from opener 'How We Live In Each Other' - which I wrote about in more detail in September. It begins ambiently enough, but soon sends you into a whirlwind of heavy techno bounce, kicks exploding and vocals heady with disarming layers and a Middle Eastern-style melody. It's here where the mix of dark melody, soft ambience and techno-flavoured beats first occurs. It has been said previously that Clara Moto brings a feminine or female touch to the male-dominated world of techno; however, just because something is soft or delicate it does not - or rather should not - govern its immediate association with one gender or another.

Clara Moto has not brought her femaleness to techno - she has brought intelligence, thought, feeling. Blue Distance, a line taken from a Sylvia Plath poem referring to remoteness and isolation, is an album that has been thought-through, a process that has taken place in someone's head, their mind and their mind alone, as opposed to someone thinking only in terms of the club where the collective likes and dislikes of the crowd can sway how a person makes music. Here is an artist who thinks for herself, who sounds the way she does because of the way she makes music - not because of her gender.

It's out now on Paris-based international record label InFiné.

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CLARA MOTO HOW WE LIVE IN EACH OTHER

Last month I probably should've written about Clara Moto's new EP, Joy Departed, but instead I just wrote about one of the songs from it called 'Disposable Darling'. This was essentially a slice of techno infused with pop sensibilities, kind of like sitting the Techno Viking down and dressing him up in more fashionable clothes (putting a T-shirt on, for starters) and teaching him about pop hooks and things. Something like that. Anyway, it was nice.

And again, there's something really nice from Clara Moto, the Berlin-dwelling Austrian: 'How We Live In Each Other'. This is one of the songs from her upcoming album called Blue Distance, out 4th November on InFiné records. It is named after a phrase used by Sylvia Plath in her poem 'Years'. Quite a beautiful poem don't you think? I wonder why she chose that particular phrase from that particular poem from that particular poet. Who knows, not I. Not I. But the meanings behind things, as fascinating as they are, do not get us listening to a song, do they? So please, click play below and get stuck into the all-encompassing 'How We Live In Each Other'.

It is a song of two halves, which is something I really like anyway so she's already got points for that. The first half is an unnerving wash of sound that summons an atmosphere that is dark and unnerving. Images of trees shaking in the wind, something suffocating at the same time, disturbing almost. Synth blips pulse in and out like something from the future. Rainstick sounds ebb and flow. A gusty set of wildly reverbing piano chords play their morose melody. It's really atmospheric. Maybe it's a reflection of the song's title, the suffocating nature of a too-close relationship or something. I'm sure there are other explanations.

And then the vocals come in, I think they are Clara's own, leading the charge of the pretty brutal beat that barges in belligerently with a big boom. Yeah it's aggressive and ballsy, like any good techno beat should be, but leaving aside genre-specificity it's safe to say that it's great. The punchy kick with its two-tone flavour, bouncy - almost reversed - in one instance and rumbling in another; the snare with its mighty slap-sound, like a punch sound effect from an old action movie. Going back to the vocals for a second, their melody is dark and almost eastern-sounding, they pierce in like something from the future, something foreboding. They drip with a kind of straight-talking trance-like vibe. How great are the things that Clara Moto is doing, right? Genre-bending. Is it techno is it this is it pop is it what. It's experimental techno pop probably or something like that.

Anyway, will probs write about some more of her songs before the album release. Keep an eye out yo.

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CLARA MOTO DISPOSABLE DARLING

Here today we have a nice versatile piece of techno from Clara Moto, an Austrian-born, Berlin-based producer. Now, my preconceptions of what "techno" was exactly were pretty much influenced by that line from that Eminem song: "Nobody listens to techno!" I just thought, "Well, I guess if nobody does, then I shouldn't either" - not that I actually ever stumbled across this misunderstood genre until much later in life. Somebody introduced it to me and I decided that it was actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

But aside from the rumbling intensity of "actual" techno, Clara Moto has created a track here that dips its feet in a lot of different sounds, resulting in a smart, well-composed and intuitively dynamic piece of music. If you don't believe me, then perhaps you should have a little listen to it. Just below here. Yep, that play button. Click it - yep - there you go.

Starting off with an lightly industrial-sounding set of percussion, all drenched in a steely variety of reverb - and my favourite being the subtle church bell/tubular bell noise - the kick soon makes its appearance, muffled and organic, more like a heartbeat than anything else. The smooth-smooth bass that joins later seems to meld with the kicks, giving it a wonderful dimension of low-layer sound. On the top layer, a ghostly xylophone flickers like an oil-lamp in fog, and an unintelligible (to me, anyway, perhaps it's in German or Austrian - idk) vocal sample floats in echoing treble like something otherworldly.

But yes. A really nice use of dynamic. Things get turned on and off, the vocal gets the spotlight, then just the bassline, then the kick and bass get a turn to shine. Ambience disappears as intensity takes its place. Everything is switched around and brought back in just at the right moments - precision stuff. Towards the end, in the last minute, I like how all but the strongest of noises begin to disappear - you can really get to hear that intricate percussion, sounding as if somebody is doing some very rhythmic and well-thought out DIY next-door. A very nice tune.

It comes from an EP, Joy Departed, out 26th August on the Franco-German label InFiné.

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CUUSHE TWILIGHT

I first stumbled across Japanese artist Cuushe when I covered her for Dummy magazine - in particular it was the beautiful video for her equally beautiful song 'Airy Me'. Lovely stuff. It came as a re-edit of a track from her debut album Red Rocket Telepathy. Now, however, we are focused wholeheartedly on her new album called Butterfly Case, which is where this particular song - 'Twilight' - comes from.

It's quite beautiful, much like the other song of hers that I wrote about. And I think in that point you can find a comfortable level of constancy within the work of the Kyoto-born-but-Berlin-based Cuushe (real name I-don't-know): beauty. The first thing you notice, regardless of what the music is doing - which is not to say that the music, the "sounds", are not important - is Cuushe's voice. It's always quite a breathtaking experience listening to her voice. If not breathtaking, then at least undeniably relaxing. Which is kind of the same thing: it takes your energy away, saps you, lays you down and caresses your eyelids and eardrums. It's really no different in 'Twilight'; whispering, it feels closer to you, more personal, heartfelt, even secret.

Get involved.

Produced by flau records label boss aus, there's glossy bass like crystal water rushes behind wobbling synths and real instrument (piano) sounds that glitter over the top like little drops of sunlight. Everything is in some way distorted, especially when it reaches the shimmering middle section, where a muffled kick sound begins to take control, and trance-like synths bust in. Frantic percussion, sounding like the rapid turning of pages, joins in whilst the whirlwind of slow sounds continues to blow its gusts of hazy synth wash.

It calms down towards the end, becoming much like it was at the beginning. Twilight is a time of not-day and not-night, and this song is not-energetic and not-chilled at the same time: it is a world of magic floating-down-a-river meditative relaxation combined with active movement that brims with life. It really is something that's nice to listen to - this contrast works really well. If you like this then you'd probably like it all - it's out 23rd September on the indomitable flau records.

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RROXYMORE FLTNORDF [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Yes, I am similarly confused. What exactly is 'FltNordf'? Well, for starters it's a song by rRoxymore - aka Hermione Frank. I don't know where she is from, I'm afraid. I read that she started making music in Montpellier, but then I also read that she is from Berlin. Third culture kid, perhaps. But the true mystery is this song title. What even–?

Not to worry because whilst mysteries puzzle me, and a lot of people, I am not concerned with mysteries I am concerned with music. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief and get back to our frozen pizzas or whatever. Pheee-eww! Whew. So this is music. It's kind of techno house kind of stuff kinda. Maybe it's house techno. Either way: it's different.

Yup. It's a busy collection of sounds, all industriously creeping into your ears with each other. Some fly, some crawl, some are emailed there, some get thrown haphazardly: it's a mix. What is certain about this track is that it is an odyssey of sound, like witnessing a waterfall of various treasures pouring into a cave lit with glow-in-the-dark spores or incandescent mushrooms or something. It's a genuine adventure, a journey - being 8 minutes long obviously helps, but you can get longer songs that don't have half as much variation as this one.

For instance, at 2 minutes it goes through a transformation, falling back on a warm bass synth to carry it onwards to a break at the 3:30 mark, where these wonderful glitchy synths hop up and down the octaves - as these parts frolic on their own you realise it's a point of introduction, and at the halfway point the beat and bass comes in again. The true industry of the beat is highlighted when it's given the spotlight towards the end, allowing the exhaling claps to show themselves, as well as the hammering snares which seem to be a theme throughout, knife-sharpening hi-hats playing a big part too. An interesting beat is always appreciated.

I got lost in this one. It's got guts and boy are they labyrinthine, rolling and rollicking, encouraging you to take a stroll through its flashing tunnels and experience the temporal disturbance that seems to be at the very heart of this track. 8 minutes or no 8 minutes, allowing it to seep into your ears gives you the impression of no time at all. Time to dance, more like.

This comes as the first release from rRoxymore's upcoming Precarious/Precious EP, out 19th August on Human Level Recordings.

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TOUCHY MOB DAYS GO BY

What a beard, eh? I have to admit I have never seen the bowlcut-beard combo before - it's rather striking. A strong look indeed. Love it. Anyway, I'm not actually here to talk about beards or haircuts, nor am I qualified to do so. I ain't no barber yo.

Instead, I'd much rather talk about the-man-in-this-picture's music. He goes by the name of Touchy Mob (really great name, actually, for some reason - think it's cause you don't usually describe a mob as touchy, nor is one person ever counted as a mob; it's fun with words) but his real name is Ludwig Plath and he lives in Berlin, Germany. I was recently very wowed by his song 'Days Go By' and vowed to write about it. A few days later, here I am. I stuck t'me guns din' I?

And I'm very very glad I did.

If there's ever a quite original sound, here it is. This song is very unique indeed - for me anyway (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). The different noises in it combine to create quite a variegated musical scenery, from the blustery synths gently cut off with buffeting modulation, to the clip-clop raindrop tongue-click percussion; from the gentle bass notes locked in with the muffled kick, to the ambient cooing vox synth that hush in the second half of the song. It's a painted picture that is bittersweet, not overly optimistic but not an extremely dark sound either, as shown in the lyrics, "Days go by and I'm still in love with you / It won't last forever / what ever does?". Those lyrics actually coincide with a clash of raised synth chords and it's all very beautiful together. Take a listen for yourself.

There's just something about this song, this guy - the way he sings gently altered with echo and WHAT he sings also - that's very difficult to ignore. Mr Ludwig Plath I think is on to a winner here. The sound, the whole atmosphere of the song in fact, is very honest - presented without overproduction, oversinging, overanything. He certainly sees and understands the whole less-is-more thing (he calls it lichtschwertjazz: light-hearted jazz), or so it seems - in any case there's a bleak-yet-bright feeling I get when I hear this song. Kinda like a lovesong: but bittersweet, as I said.

Anyway, I looove it. It is kind of James Blake-y in a way - not in the exact way that it sounds or is put together, but in the feeling that it evokes. Heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Not an easy thing to do.

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COSMIN TRG NEW STRUCTURES FOR LOVING

How did I find this? I can't even remember. I was going to relate to you a tale of how I did so, but I don't know. I found it, didn't I? It's nice nice nice. Nice! This is German techno maestro Cosmin TRG (aka Cosmin Nicolae, aka TRG)'s new track 'New Structures For Loving'.

The song actually does sound like new structures for loving, ya there's definitely a certain romantic vibe floating around it, something touching and warm. But what is certainly true about the title and the song is that there is STRUCTURE. V important in any song really, but here it's as formulated as a logic puzzle. The different parts to the song pop in and out to heighten or decrease dynamic; a veritable lesson in the structure of a song for us layfolk but for Cosmin it's just another way of expressing something. Or it's just fun. It must be fun to make music.

In any case, the build up of different tracks is pretty glorious yeah it is, from the beat to the melody, everything fits all at the same time, yet it can be broken down into its more basic parts and still sound just as good, even with other sounds missing. NICE. Listen.

Alien radio static marks the first part of this song, blips and bleeps signalling above a crackling loop that - at its very essence - could be a very diluted beat. It's an heartaching start to the song - you're certainly in suspense, that's for sure. Buuuuut, then the BEAT does actually arrive... and then the next thing and the next thing. More bass to the kick. Thin razor sharp open hi-hats like crickets chirping. Trickling rain stick type noises. Staccato muffled synth. Sub-bass. Always with the static. The minutiae of a tiny xylophone clipping.

This is the very first track, as in Track 01 and the first to be released, from his upcoming album Gordian (Greek mythology innit, the impossible-to-undo Gordian Knot was cut apart by someone - it's a little fable about lateral thinking), out 26th April on 50 Weapons.
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