LOUISE SHRØDER — UNG KVINDE

⌾ LISTEN TO UNG KVINDE BY LOUISE SHRØDER ⌾

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The repeating rhythmic sway of the piano in 'Ung Kvinde' (Danish for "young woman") is one thing, but after a few turns of this arpeggio comes one crashing chord, ushering us into the world of Louise Shrøder. Charged with this swaying motif throughout, like cyclical thoughts unravelling, the to-and-fro of daily tasks, morning feelings, nightly reflections, 'Ung Kvinde' contrastingly flutters with a sense of freedom. But freedom in itself, its achievement and maintainence, is a flighty burden.

Written by the Danish composer to reflect "the development from a young girl to a young woman", the song feels close, intimate, with samples and ambient fragments making up the soundscape alongside the strains of cello, which ebb and flow like waves of vague memory. By the song's close, all that's left are picked pizzicato strings, playfully extolling the lightness of life. Joyous but anchored in reality, 'Ung Kvinde' is a song that soars up to see how far you've come since yesterday.

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• 🔔 'Ung Kvinde' is part of Louise Shrøder's Flyv EP (her second), set for release in the near future via Copenhagen-based neoclassical record label, ExoPAC.

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🐣 EAUXMAR & CAIUS — HURT U

⌾ LISTEN TO HURT U BY EAUXMAR & CAIUS ⌾

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It's the far-off vocal sample in 'Hurt U' that gives it a sense of instant feeling; stretched, pitch-shifted and flung into the distance, this scratchy, soulful voice gives the track its name. Partway between hearing somebody sing in the shower and listening to bootleg MP3 of your fav new pop song, the sample is all love and reminiscence—sometimes close to your ear, sometimes a ghostly recolletion.

Teaming up for this number, Caius and EAUXMAR lay warm classic chords on a bed of thick, clarified bass, seasoning it with sparkling ornamentations and gooey plasma synth. Layering the dusty grandeur of old-school funk and futurist glitter, it shifts between classic house piano desire lines and the robust fizz of mechanical bass with sweeps of chiptune sensibility. The aural equivalent to a mouthful of tangy, wholesome food, the production on 'Hurt U' is deliciously stodgy and packed full of textures.

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• 🔔 'Hurt U' by EAUXMAR and Caius is out now on STMPD RCRDS.

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🐣 THE ENTREPRENEURS — JOAQUIN

⌾ LISTEN TO JOAQUIN BY THE ENTREPRENEURS ⌾

The open road tumbling ahead, the scenery struggling to appear correctly because of just how quickly you're moving along it. This is the sense of wild freedom that explodes out of 'Joaquin' by Danish band The Entrepreneurs; thick bass and guitars with frazzled distortion play rumbling and loose with drums thumping out a frolicking heartbeat. It's a galloping horse, a rushing train, a dog with its head out the window as a car speeds on an open highway.

But you soon realise the song isn't a pure celebration of freedom—it's a yearning for it, tearing a space for yourself in the fabric of the world. The vocals suddenly yell out:

"Feels like / We should / Take a trip outside / See what’s all around / In this part of town / Where the lights are out / And the doors are unlocked at night / And time flies right on by..."

From that moment, 'Joaquin' is more than just a powering engine: it's a heartfelt casting off of a hometown, like shedding skin. It's painful, though it's something that feels necessary. It explodes poetically with the desire for moving onwards, with almost childlike imagery that evokes absurd visions: "Get away / I might just get away / This place is way too small / Standing 8 feet tall in an 18th century hall."

That childlike nature continues into the instrumental itself: the guitar and bass guitar turn playful, pedalling over each other in twists and turns of math rock style arpeggios as the song becomes quiet and introspective as singer Mathias Bertelsen asks, "What comes to the one who stays around?"

And as much as the dreary feeling of trapped in a small town courses through your veins, there's an unending nostalgia attached to it that chills your heart to think you ever wanted to leave in the first place. And this is the romantic soundscape The Entrepreneurs have created: the crushing joy of running free from the only thing you've ever known.

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• 🔔 You can stream and/or purchase the lovely 'Joaquin' by new indie rock trio The Entrepreneurs over on their their Bandcamp. It's taken from their upcoming album Noise & Romance scheduled for release on 1st February 2019. Pre-order also on Bandcamp if you like what you hear.

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🐣 SONNY — AGORAPHOBIA

The momentum in this one, the wintry movement the piles of snow beside the road zapping past the window as whatever vehicle passes by whatever. This kinetic morsel, this quest of sound, has been created by Danish musicmaker Sonny—and despite this sense of motion it's titled 'Agoraphobia'. But perhaps in all the jostling drums with the skittering cymbals and the tumbling tip-tapping snares, in the refraining bassline, the gradual crash of hi-hats, there is the tension of psyching oneself up to venture outside, the sweat and the empty indoor comfort; the snow flurries out the window.

And that coldness: huge robust piano chords crunch – later in the track moving between menace and triumph as the agoraphobe reaches trembling clammy hand to the door (03:45) – the glistening marimba sounds, the hi-pitch synth all snowflakes, the whirl of icicles in the cyclical build of the ending. The explosions throughout the song, and the contrast with the bass-and-drums simplicity otherwise, this is the indecision that is always the hypeman of fear, the enduring legacy of watching a wished for world unexplored from a window many times looked through.

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• 🔔 'Agoraphobia' is taken from Sonny's debut C.E. EP, which is out now on newly launched Copenhagen-based label Koldt Bord. You can purchase the EP here.

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🐣 AUGUST ROSENBAUM — NEBULA

The sense of space, the resounding sense of vast expanse, the music here frames a snapshot of infinity, the conjuration of something gargantuan. Before its delicate guitars and dustyroom ancient pianos – vital human instruments, organic and tactile, the strings of the guitar pealing rounded and faint glimmer in the gloom of space, the gentle pluckings made intense in the hold-your-breath quiet of the track – before all that, August Rosenbaum crafts orchestral awakening sets the scene: majesty, and awe in the scale and glow of that majesty. The piano that follows gloops drily with melancholy, a lament under the eaves of wonder and fear, clanging with reverb that seems to call out, cello aches wooden and earthly, bass thumps subtle like heartbeat in your ears.

And a plaintive song, an analogue melody pings out with microdelay, plinking and blinking in tempo rubato, an alien sense at odds with the anthropoid regularity of sound blanketing the canvas, its dendro-life physical and easily manifested beneath this new noise, this unidentifiable sound, non-physical, abstract, void-born. It plays out a future romanza amidst the strewn neoclassicism vibrating through space. The music dissolves and rematerialises a whole new beast, shining beacons javelin through an ominous arpeggio, a brass growl, an ascension of strings, an introduction of the proverbial bigger picture. 'Nebula' paints loneliness, a sense of being small, an intergalactic search for more-than-this—and it paints discovery, the response to our calls, the giant unknowable to our minute but powerful and personal curiosity.

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• 🔔 'Nebula' is the first track to demonstrate August Rosenbaum's upcoming album Vista, due for release via Copenhagen record label Tambourhinoceros on 24th November. You can download the track from Bandcamp.
• 🔔 The unnerving video for the track was directed by Andreas Emenius and made in collaboration with Prxjects, "a culture laboratory initiated by Mercedes-Benz."

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FORTUNE HOWL - INTERZONE EXPORT (BWOY DE BHAJAN REMIX)

Maybe the title of this track is influenced or inspired at least by William S. Burroughs collection of short stories Interzone (or maybe just the place mentioned in his more-famous Naked Lunch) - maybe it's not. Either way, although it's nice to know details like this, we shouldn't get tied up in the details.

I found out that an artist from Orlando, Florida, called Fortune Howl (whom I'd not heard of before) is releasing a remix version to his album Earthbound. Again my curiosity was piqued: What? Did he mean Earthbound as in the really cool SNES game Earthbound? Getting distracted again. In any case, this remix album is scheduled for release on label Relief in Abstract and, I've read, includes remixes from artists such as London Shibuya-kei enthusiast bo en and merchant of ultimate chill XXYYXX, amongst others.

One of these remixes is by Bwoy De Bhajan, the subject of this post right here. He's an 19-year-old beatsmith from Copenhagen called Søren Thygesen who already has his own distinct style of abstract experimentalism that's sure to turn a few heads as time goes on (he himself describes it as "mind bending glitched out ethnic bouncy abstract whompy bass music" which is pretty much on the nose). He's remixed 'Interzone Export': a watery, ballad-like, somewhat epic number in its original form, turned now into something from another dimension.

Putting parts of the original to good use - the sweeping, faraway vocals, the watery noises, the snippets of acoustic guitar and those occasional tuned percussion (marimba?) flourishes - Bwoy De Bhajan puts his own spin on it. From the first crunching punch-thump of kick, river sounds ever-flowing in the background, a warm ambience pervades the song, decorated with an assortment of scratches, clanks, and gravelly crashes. The bass is finely distorted, a smooth gloss with a grainy-sand roughness to it. There is no in-your-face glitchiness here; everything is measured, the various percussion and other noises seeping into your mind rather than attacking it outright.

It's an ambient yet powerful treat that exudes a lonely-but-it's-fine-really feel, a curious vibe of necessity in being alone. Maybe it's just me. In any case you can cop this remix and more when this is released on 19th November, available for streaming & download on Fortune Howl's Bandcamp/SoundCloud pages (below).

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