LONG — FUIMOS ELECTRIC

The hope of warmer days and uncertain love lies in the glittering chimes and laid-back guitar of 'fuimos electric' by New York band long. We start appropriately enough with an audio walk in the park, what with the spring reverb drums and allegretto bass, the sun-summoning bossa-esque guitar chords. Lilting vocals weave themselves in: “Fuimos al parque / para conocernos un poco más...”¹

Lyrically (in Spanish, in case you didn't notice) the lines shift between statement-of-fact and figurative, such as “me mirabas como el río”² — the poetic contents of the heart wrapped in city-flavoured indie pop packaging.

The song grows in vignettes parallel to the love story told by the vocals – meeting each other in the park, sharing a bottle of wine, not knowing what to say. Before long, we are in a triumphal block party crescendo, crashing cymbals and brass breezily lifting us up and out of the park, out of the moment, to look back on all that has been, joy and more joy still in the unknowable tomorrows.

✧

¹ We went to the park to get to know each other a little more
² You looked at me like the river

---

• 🔔 You may stream the song 'fuimos electric' by long over on Spotify, if you feel like it. In addition, you may see a video for the demo version of the song on YouTube also.

---

📠
☟ long Internet Presence ☟
instagram ⚘ spotify

---

⌾

METROPOLIS ENSEMBLE, ERIK HALL & SANDBOX PERCUSSION — CANTO OSTINATO SECTIONS 74-87

In 2023 Erik Hall released his fresh take of Canto Ostinato by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt. The 1976 work "voor toetsinstrumenten" (keyboard instruments) took on Hall's now characteristic aesthetic, with the softness of felted piano and robust electric piano creating a sense of intimacy, like a miniature symphony played within the feather-lined court of a pillow fort.

Three years later, Hall, along with Andrew Cyr of the Metropolis Ensemble and members of Sandbox Percussion, have announced the release of a collaborative recording of Canto Ostinato.

The new interpretation sees the flavour of ten Holt's composition much altered — and the first offering from the release, 'Sections 74-87', gives cause for anticipation. Taking up the reins of freedom offered by the composition, we see mallet instruments of Sandbox Percussion give a muscular yet chiming backdrop to the piece, while an octet of woodwinds (led by saxophonist and composer David Leon and eighteen strings, headed up by violinist Kristin Lee, give the piece a new, soaring direction. Hall's grand piano ties the piece together, providing a link to the toetsinstrumenten for which it was first intended.

Arriving in its entirety 3rd April, Canto Ostinato has been transformed, morphing – via some of the foremost talents in contemporary classical music – from a monumental but minimalist chamber music journey into a multifaceted symphonic epic.

✧

---

• 🔔 Canto Ostinato by Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall & Sandbox Percussion releases 3rd April on the Austin, Texas-based label Western Vinyl. You may pre-order it in vinyl or compact disc form (or indeed digitally) via Bandcamp.

---

📠
☟ Metropolis Ensemble Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify ⚘ discogs

☟ Erik Hall Internet Presence ☟
bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ instagram

☟ Sandbox Percussion Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify ⚘

---

⌾

🐣 INDIGOS PARADISE — UNDERGROUND

⌾ LISTEN TO INDIGOS PARADISE, UNDERGROUND ⌾

---

The ambience of a city — the apartment blocks with glowing windows, the brake lights flashing in the rain, the parades of people on the pavement, umbrellas, dog-walkers, stairs down to metro stations, neon eateries — is at the heart of the imagery conjured by 'Underground' by Boston-based indigos paradise.

On a blurred, watery backdrop acting as a melodic palette where all the fatigue that glittering city life can have is mixed, the producer adds snappy handclaps and sharp hi-hats for the the inescapable regularity of it all: the rectangular buildings, the traffic lights, the endless grids.

"How I see my hometown, with big buildings through the skyline, brings out different visuals and imagery I put towards my music," says indigos paradise via email. "Let's say that you are walking down a path, and it's good warm day to go for a walk. You hear this elegant track when you click to the play that gathers the whole surroundings around you. The wind starts breezing through your scalp and goes down to your neck while hearing it.

"I kinda picture my music as the 22nd century."

Adding to the beat and the all-encompassing shades of the synth whirling like a deluge, staccato synths hop smartly throughout for a bustling atmosphere, as if, now that you have the city, here is the life — the people — to jostle around it, here are their silhouettes and footsteps. Nocturnal and doused with faded uptown glamour, 'Underground' is the malls and walkways of yesteryear, still just half-empty with promise.

---

• 🔔 'Undeground' is taken from indigos paradise's New York EP — find out more about it here. Alternatively you can also listen on Spotify.

---

📠
☟ indigos paradise Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify

---

🐣 BRIAN FENDER — RUNNING OUTTA TIME FEAT. TXTHEWAY

⌾ LISTEN TO BRIAN FENDER AND TXTHEWAY, RUNNING OUTTA TIME ⌾

---

"Hands up, don't shoot, I can't breathe: Famous last words when you look like me." One of the many lines in 'Running Outta Time' that show raw emotion, effortless flow, rhythm and rhyme — an emotive response from LA-based TxTHEWAY to the murder of George Floyd by police officers.

"My brother Brian is busy marching today but he's really the catalyst for this song," he tells y/n via email. "Since social distancing went into place he started diving head first into music and would send me several beats and scratch ideas every couple of days."

'Running Outta Time', with its simplicity, its gleaming yet careworn feel, is one of those ideas. The nebulous vibe of the instrumental, the delicate skittering beat, feels soft — comfortable even — and paints a gentle, intricate backdrop to a track already laced lyrically with tenderness. Though it's a "space to not be okay", TxTHEWAY explains further what is at the heart of 'Running Outta Time'.

"This song is us processing," he says. "It's us asking for understanding while letting our brothers and sisters know that we understand. If people leave from this moment with nothing else, we hope they take that understanding and share it among friends, family members, and coworkers."

Both from Broward County, Florida — TxTHEWAY now based in LA, Brian Fender in New York — the track artwork depicts a childhood photo of the brothers with added crosshairs: a harrowing reminder of the reality, and a reflection of the humanity, and inhumanity, explored in the track; notably the interruption of a gunshot as Brian Fender delivers the hook: "Many things in this life of mine that I survived / Many wrongs I wanna right, I hope don't run outta time."

"Even though the music came to us easy, the subject matter did not," says TxTHEWAY. "The more we watched the news it became clear that even in this new world, even as humanity fights Covid-19 (our invisible enemy) there is another enemy in front of us that is older and just as sinister... racism."

"As we watched the life slip away from George Floyd we saw ourselves, we saw our own mortality, we recognized how easily that could be any person of color. We, like George in his last moments, are running out of time."

From Brian Fender's bouncing, optimist flow and TxTHEWAY's imploring and melodic "Someone say a prayer for me / Promise you'll be there for me", to the detached determination of the instrumental, the softness of 'Running Outta Time' makes digestible the hard-to-swallow reality, bitter hardships delivered from the heart.

---

• 🔔 Purchase or stream 'Running Outta Time' via your favourite service, or support Brian Fender and TxTHEWAY's message by sharing.

---

📠
☟ Brian Fender Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud

☟ TxTHEWAY Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick

---

ALTOPALO — MUD

⌾ LISTEN TO ALTOPALO, MUD ⌾

---

---

Backdropped by a collage of an instrumental, 'Mud' by New York outfit altopalo spins a story of everyday actions woven through with the turmoil of a mind stuck in the midst of cyclical thoughts. The mundanity is real from the first line: "once a day or almost every day I put my clothes away in drawers, check off a chore." It's already rooted in relatable realness.

It's a song of two parts. Pockmarked by soft ping-pong ball synths in the first parts — the soundtrack to going through the motions — the domesticity of the sound is cut with knives of metallic distortion. The chorus refrain "stuck in the mud all night while the brain rain pours" illuminating the downbeat mood of the track. Scattered drums patter like incessant thoughts.

Broken up by a wordless scrawl of vocordered noises denoted by the lyrics "awf efjjjf iiewl" on their SoundCloud page, the second part soars into a realisation of emotion with trailing guitars and a haze of synth softening proceedings as the lyrics take a decidedly nihilistic tone: "you're stuck in the mud don't fight what's the effort for."

---

• 🔔 'Mud' by arrives courtesy of Samedi Records. You can stream or download it from their Bandcamp and listen at your leisure.

---

📠
☟ altopalo Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick

---

🐣 VARSITY STAR — SOFT NOTHING

Here there is the sound of a vague dwindling hope sailing through the air like a stream of faint aurora lights, against the void of despair and the absence of hope. The rounded, clanging synths have a delicious texture to them – tinged with warped decay – as they play the downcast melody, but things do begin to look up, the plaintive song teeters between giving-up and persevering, the beat propelling it forward with clusters of thin snares, and later a shimmering parade of icy cymbals. An ambient hiss whooshes as a backdrop, making this feel all the more vital, authentic, a mild eruption of life amidst a broken landscape.

It arrives from the mind of New York-based musicmaker Varsity Star. Beginning life as an idea on a friend's Roland Alpha Juno, recorded on an iPhone and archived, it was two years until it surfaced again. "The morning after the 2016 election in the US, I came across the recording again and immediately felt where it could go," the producer told us via email. "The working title was "Hopeless", but after I got more of a blooming sound into it, I felt like there was more to the track than that, so I called it "Soft Nothing". I like to keep titles short if I can, and for me that was the shortest way to describe my late-2016 feeling of insignificance."

---

• 🔔 This is from Varsity Star's self-released album Model Home. Speaking to us about the ideas behind it, the musicmaker told us that it was inspired by the scenery of the New England suburb in which he grew up. "I don't expect anyone listening to necessarily see those same things that I do when they hear the music," he explained, "and that's why I chose the title Model Home: it's there for people to put their own 'furniture' into and visualize their own experiences in." You can stream it, and purchase it, on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 The art for the album is by London-based studio Partners In Crime; Varsity Star told us about them: "The designers who worked on the album cover did a really beautiful job of bringing that kind of vague notion of the area [of New England] to life, especially considering they're from another continent."

---

---

📠
☟ Varsity Star Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ bandcamp

---

---

🎥 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.

---

---

📠
☟ Gianni Paci Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 YAEJI — DRINK I'M SIPPIN ON

The space here runs off into the distance like an endless profusion of cut-out apartment blocks and the black sky blanketing it all above with dim hundreds of lights below and the receding traffic, lonely open urban caverns and canyons; it is the silken void between angular concrete, the difference between tangible feeling and architectural corners, spirits and shapes—humans, the distances between them. This is the vital crux of 'Drink I'm Sippin On', a moonless city and its skyward turrets and those who inhabit the harsh environment, and how this landscape is conjured by its creator Yaeji. Each soft explosion of bass is the ghostly shape of a tower popping into your periphery, the trap-flavoured scuttling needling hi-hats the bird's-eye view of buglife people swarming and cars lurching, and smart snares cracking with the unforgiving tarmac, the flat pavements, the signs traffic lights the metal and glass and cement.

All of it is placed like building blocks with a minimalism, a brutal but soft stark sparseness, that allows this literally awesome sense of space to gush through and into the cityscape like a waterfall, like a dam destroyed and the flood pouring in lakeishly, oceanic; but it is not water, though it is as fluid as it. Yaeji's vocals come in here, the sea of soul that makes up the spaces between the percussive pillars of the beat, her voice in Korean and English somehow harsh as it whispers almost abrasive fizzing with satin smooth texture and the reverb of it dropped into this expanse and sweeping and deepening and besides this the catchy hook is the haunting reminder of rhythm and individuality, a lone isolated voice, amidst the illustration here of non-rhythm and non-individuality, of sprawling structures and the giant of humanity in all its multiplication. The spirit of Yaeji, though expressed through a hushed susurration, grows and fills the gaps between the coldness the bluntness of the beat, a single person speaking in a silenced crowd.

---

• 🔔 This wonderful track is taken from Yaeji's EP2, her second release this year, a six-track offering that will arrive into the world for your listening pleasure on 3rd November via Godmode.

---

---

📠
☟ Yaeji Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 LEXI THE LEXICONIST — I MADE THIS FOR YOU

The first loving touch of this track is that guitar, those sun-tinted chords that sweep deliciously, an all-seeing eye of jelly-bodied chillment and curling slumber with its lounge jazz flavour, the fingers slowly sliding on the strings mellow and breezy yet sultry and moody, light and sophisticated, two interrupted whiskies waiting on the veranda with ice sweating and the full length gossamer drapes fluttering like slow-motion ghosts and the long shadows cutting up the glow of light on the marble floor. 'i made this for you' is already artfully atmospheric with its jazzy sixths and sevenths reverbing into the neardistance a slight decay gently warping its clean sheen, dripping with warmth and sun and skin-sapping humidity.

The vocals of New York-based Lexi the Lexiconist enter the equation, the tone of her voice like rich silk rippling, the way her words tail off, the echo of it, the soft whispering velvet washing into the silent voids of the song. A trap flavoured beat adds slo-down percussive kinetic energy to the languorous veils of mist that the vocals effuse—created by producer kloudbeats these soft solid bumps are soaked in muffled vintage lo-fi, this contemporary sound poached in a gorgeous cocktail of yesteryear, the kicks dusty thudding, the hi-hats distorted tip-tapping rattling, the snare clack emptily resonating across this simple scene of love and lassitude. And at 2:33 the bpm decreases and low pitch-shifts accompany Lexi's vocal, sub-bass quakes rumbling beneath this new sense of slowness and silence, hearing your own heartbeat in the push and pull of passion, plumes of pastel smoke erupting in a someplace of pleasure.

---

• 🔔 Collect some of Lexi's music on Bandcamp.

---

---

📠
☟ Lexi the Lexiconist Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 RADICULE — BLUE LOTUS

Visions of what you should be doing whilst this song is playing rise up like sea fog or hazy summer memories: should you be reading books in a minimalist European café, should you be wheeling your suitcase through the arrivals section of a white-tiled airport anticipating a new city, should you be melting on Monacan yacht? It has this rich mahogany-and-teak feeling to it, probably effused mostly by the wide robust warmth of those piano chords just lightly touched with the decay of existence, a conjuration of insta-sophistication that is very wooden floors and old world cocktails, image-heavy magazines and leather armchairs—ceilings high and jostling with spirits of the past who never left these rooms of leisure once they broke free of their skins.

This open-armed embrace of classic flavours is the main body of 'Blue Lotus' by New York beatmaker radicule, that piano really drenching the air with all the sensations that this warmest of seasons evokes and inspires, relaxation especially with the multiple thudding kicks and the wonky offbeat slide of hi-hats and snares that swaggers throughout. An undeniable thickness of life lounges in the cradle of gemstone clinks and pecuniary chiming clanks that flow tapestry-like scuttling sewn-together bag of jewels spilling out, a luscious lawn of legal tender lolling along for gorgeous texture, a vital candelabra of ornamentation, working with a small flute interlude to dutifully deck out this ephemeral track with the sparkle and glitz of idealism.

---

• 🔔 'Blue Lotus' comes from radicule's 9-track beat tape COMFY CAR CHRONICLES out now via Grape Records. You can listen to it here if you like.

---

---

📠
☟ radicule Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 AMELIA AIRHORN — NY IS RED HOT

The glaze of future funk, glossy vaporwave offshoot, sparkles in the big city flavours of 'NY Is Red Hot', broiling in cola sweetness and carving out a groove that bubbles with feel-good-ness, and in fact with summery red-hot-ness as well. In Amelia Airhorn's single, with its wanna-join-in communal-feeling vocals, the guitar chords hit with a robust shimmer of funk, the brass blares triumphal like beacons of upscale uptown sheen, strings glimmer like streetlights, the bass croons in subtle columns weaving with the deep thump of the beat, the jostle of it all a whirlwind of disco and dancing, the keen future funk fade-ins and fade-outs providing not only subtle parallel to builds and drops in terms of dynamic feels, but also with its irregular amplitudinal consistency conjuring a real life setting: moving through a club, nearer further from the speakers, outside for a cigarette, leaning in for a warm lips-to-ear conversation.

This track, at once flavourful both in danceability and in the inherent nostalgia-summoning, somewhat filmic nature, is or at least was a common feature of the earlier music of Ryan DeRobertis aka Skylar Spence, the pop-infused retro sample collages that awoke from then-vaporwave component Saint Pepsi. This is one half of Amelia Airhorn—the other being The Knocks, a duo with a similar penchant for funk though with a more polished surface, more Kitsuné-ready, more mainstream friendly: they never had to contend with actual Pepsi Co.'s legal team, for instance (DeRobertis' moniker change occurred in 2015).

The evocative yesteryear collage nature of the track plus album artwork and the retro airbrushed typography, this mirrors the collaborative cocktail. On its own 'NY Is Red Hot' brims with energy and noise, shines bright in the nocturnal glitz that surrounds it like mist, conceptually frames it; but with context, this merging of underground SoundCloud musicmaker and pre-initiated pop producers represents a meeting of the new unexplored avenues of making a success in music and the well-trod halls of namedrop beatmaking, traditional and unconventional, past and now, the span of time and attitude that is the foundation of future funk.

---

• 🔔 This single is taken from Amelia Airhorn's 18-track debut release, The Knocks & Skylar Spence Present...Amelia Airhorn. You can download it for free from ameliaairhorn.com, where you'll also find fun background on characters in the Amelia Airhorn universe, i.e. NYC itself.

---

---

📠
☟ Amelia Airhorn Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ official site ⚘ ios app

☟ Skylar Spence Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ SAINT PEPSI BANDCAMP ⚘ twitter ⚘ wikipedia

☟ The Knocks Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ wikipedia ⚘ beatport

---

---

🐣 DOMCO X BOBBY WOODY — PASS THE WATER [初演 • PREMIERE]

The way this track just goes instantly with no delay, no intro, no front, only drops you straight like the steepest flume into the cooling plunge pool of this track with a zoom and it's a smooth patchwork of chopped up samples flutes and sunlight grooves the chimes glittering and warm vocal snips, textured and blissful—the way there's no losing time here is one of the first things about this track that endears itself.

"Touch down like Neil Armstrong"—the first words of DomCo conjure space, being unearthly, above it all, and put you in good stead for the tight laid-back flow that follows. His switching tempo, wordplay, references are memorable, polished, reeling off a rhythmic list of big hitters – "I'm a mix of Satan, Martin Luther, Malcolm, Eddie Jr, Obama, your baby momma and JFK's shooter" – and self-deprecatingly hinting at his personality: "Always got a chip on my shoulder like it's fucking Lay's / I keep my hair nappy and natural, fuck waves."

'Pass The Water' continues in the hands of Baltimore-based Bobby Woody who jumps in for instant tag-team appeal with bars that bounce elastically, dispersing his thoughts with humour: "Bump the DomCo EP or we not speaking / Bump the DomCo EP or we not eating," going on to claim, "I'm just passionate and I look dumb when I'm indifferent / I shit better bars than you when I'm freestyling tipsy." He references videogames – "Niggas say they respect women, but play games with cheat codes" – as well as anime – "Full Alchemist I don't need no metal / Fuck no hands, bitch I bike without pedals" – well put mentions that subvert regular tropes and titles; DomCo chats about Gohan in the skit-ish outro too, in what is a lighthearted end to a playful-fiery track, the start of what sounds like it's gonna be something serious.

---

• 🔔 'Pass The Water' is taken from DomCo's upcoming FOURTEEN EP, whilst Bobby Woody has his Cartoons Are For Kids EP set to drop in August.

---

---

📠
☟ DomCo Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter

☟ Bobby Woody Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 5THPLANET — SPACEROXX

What at first is reminiscent of the menu screen for the online mode of Mario Kart Wii, with the same jostling digital sounds and a similar vibe with smart snappy beat, is in fact a piece of music that charts a journey from here to Jupiter, the fifth planet, something much more raw and adventurous than what you first hear.

Actually naming themselves 5thPlanet, too, the production twists with racing-stripe arpeggios raining down and wiggling weirdly as thin gasping hi-hats, bouncing toms and constant kicks keep up a keen sense of urgency with stuttering tick-tick fills, and this wonderful creeping electronic chord that gradually fizzes into existence with all the drama and suspense of a noir stakeout or surreptitious chase scene; the danger as the ship javelins through the asteroid belt separating us from the outer planets is highlighted here with a breezy uptempo quality suggesting calm. That's where the videogame element comes in: the peril is mild because the character is an old hand at navigating through asteroids.

The imagery conjured by 'SpaceRoxx' – a reference to those pesky obstacles – is fresh and exciting, a less jazzy approach to space travel than that of Cowboy Bebop's soundtrack, but just as evocative in its own somewhat lo-fi futuristic minimalist house with just a pinch of techno. And the warm sounds, the fuzzy flushes of thick synth that well up behind twinkling plaintive melodies, and those too, these suggest a return, an attainment of safety, an escape even just for a moment from running the gauntlet, a homely feel. The hazards and weirdness of galactic goings-on, the kinetic energy of deep space manoeuvres, the tension of sci-fi, it's all alive, gorgeously organically so, in this descriptive piece of sonic imagination.

---

• 🔔 More of 5thPlanet's experimental illustrative world can be found on their 2016 EP, BIGCITY$OUND—catch it over on Bandcamp.

---

---

📠
☟ 5thPlanet Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

---

---

Y/N GUEST MIX 019 :: IZZY'S CUP OF JOE W/ CREAMER MIX

Ok, so I tried to put this guest mix up the other day and it got blocked from being uploaded because of copyright. On one hand, fine, everyone needs to make money, I get that. But on the other: ¿why be so mercenary about it? What benefit do you get, really, from not allowing an tiny little music site like this one to upload a mix done by an up-and-coming artist just because it contains one track? "Oh but if everyone did it blah blah blah" – NEWSFLASH: everyone's NOT doing it. This isn't a protected beach that keeps getting all of its coral stolen.

This is people sharing things they like, telling a story with music, showing appreciation for other artists who might inspire you or just help you to get through the day thanks to their music. Shout out to all lines of code and robots and spiders out there blocking our freedom (not to mention the intellectual-property-appropriating jargon-spouting business boys and girls that create and endorse them).

Speaking of which, this is a mix by Izzy, one to help you get through the day, or one that at least illustrates a working day. Called his Cup of Joe w/ Creamer Mix (it is the second iteration of the mix with the offending track removed; the first had no creamer), this is the coffee you'd want at the start of a working day. What is creamer? I do not know. Is it this (non-dairy creamer)? Something milk-inspired, at least.

---

I am Izzy, an individual looking to express myself through various creative mediums.

IZZY

---

So now you might be wondering, Who is Izzy? Well, let's find out shall we? (A little bit, at least). "You may be able to find me trekking between the NY/Philly/Jersey area," he says cryptically. What does Izzy do? "I create. Whether it be music, photography, my sales job, I make sure I incorporate my own perspective to enrich my experience," he tells me. "I grew up on copious amounts of music. After a while making music just became something that I had to do."

Izzy briefly talks us through the inspiration for the mix: "These artists are all people who have inspired me in one way or another. People like AbJo, Toro y Moi, and Matt Martians, just to name a few, are constantly thinking about how they can further the music; I can relate to that." And with those artists he's weaved a simple background story for the mix itself: "Thematically, it feels like a recapitulation of an average morning," he explains, "the mellow feel of hitting the snooze button ('Aches' by me), literally getting into the 'Grind' midway (Mr. Carmack). Just gradually becoming acclimated to a new state of mind."

I imagine a lot of computer-based clicking and typing happening to the sound of 'Orange Juice Simpson' by Odd Future affiliates The Jet Age Of Tomorrow, with Izzy's own and fluidly brilliant – with its fragmented beats and warming sounds – 'Traveler's Cheque' being like a break for lunch or something, before the hectic 'Silvicide' and 'Navi's Dance' (by AbJo and PYRMDPLAZA, respectively) kick in to soundtrack the bustle of urgent bidness. I like to think the mad synth of aptly titled 'Synth City' by also aptly titled Chaos Kid is put in its place here for rush hour effect, the motion and movement of the track combined with its busy resonance to illustrate the quick crowds of hometime; which is where 'Mothership' (also by Izzy) with its feeling of exhaustion and desire to be someplace else comes in, back to the mothership for the night before another day at the grind.

---

• T R A C K L I S T •

1. Telescope Thieves – R U Still Down
2. FKA Twigs – Ache (Reimagined by Izzy)
3. Toro y Moi — Rose Quartz
4. Sango — The Differences
5. Mr. Carmack — Grind (Lex)
6. The Jet Age Of Tomorrow — Orange Juice Simpson
7. Izzy – Traveler’s Cheque
8. AbJo — Silvicide
9. PYRMDPLAZA — Navi’s Dance
10. Flying Lotus — Such A Square
11. Chaos Kid — Synth City
12. Izzy — Mothership
13. Ta-ku — We Were In Love

---

---

☟ Izzy Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Twitter

---

---

TOO MANY ZOOZ – TURTLEDACTYL

I don't think that I've ever heard anything quite like this before – I almost (almost) guarantee that you, yeah you, have probably never heard anything quite like it, either. Aside from this rather incredulous sounding opening gambit, I'd like to introduce you to a trio of musicians (or as they say, "harlem born brain-squid-child") from New York City making self-styled "brasshouse" music: Too Many Zooz.

One of them plays like, a trumpet thing, another of them plays a large saxophone (?), and another is a one-man beat-progenitor aka percussionist (I guess). They create dance music that's made up only of brass and beats: all organic, all live/living instruments. With SO MUCH/MANY electronics around right now it's a refreshing take on music made to make you move your feet. It's kind of like swing, but without the big band-type structure, with more housey rhythms and looping melodies. Plus the blare of brass is p much so foreign in this context that it might as well be a new instrument.

They recently released an EP, Fanimals, which is the perfect showcase of their sound. Since I've already spent what seems like loads of time explaining their uniqueness, I'ma focus on just one song, the nicely titled 'Turtledactyl'.

Built on a foundation of booming bass drum and syncopated baritone sax blasts, the trumpet laces frenetic patterns over the top, a glorious four minutes of soulful, heartfelt dance music that is as far away from EDM as is humanly possible because there is no E involved. Not unless you count the mastering / production – little hints of infrabass and an uplifting white-noise-whoosh towards the end – courtesy of Team Supreme member, JNTHN STEIN. Reaching a subtle crescendo of harmonising brass, it's got this chemistry that you can't help but succumb to, a kind of sweaty and cheerful joy.

In comparison to the rest of the stuff on their EP, it's melodically and dynamically more tame, but there is more wildness on their EP in the form of more dubstep-y (brass-step?) numbers, and bursting-cheeks trumpet virtuosity. Good on them I say.

• If you wanna hear more go stream the Fanimals EP on SoundCloud, or mosey on down to the Too Many Zooz Bandcamp and buy it for $5 or more.
• Oh, and if you need to see actual evidence of their greatness irl, then please check out this video of them performing at a subway station in New York.

---

---

☟ Too Many Zooz Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Bandcamp • Twitter •

---

---

NOLA WREN – SOUL SUCKER

Ha ha! Well. This just flew into my inbox from far across the ocean – the Atlantic ocean btw. It instantly jumped into my ear and started doing cartwheels, carrying out a spot of light raving, and sending basically some really nice soothing sounds. Why did it do that? It did that because it IS really nice, and nice things tend to act upon you instantaneously – it's physiological yo.

I will hark back to a moment I was told about once; a friend told me about a random commenter who said that it was probably "a bad sign" that they liked a piece of music straight away. What sort of garbled tripe-shit nonsense is that? I instantly liked Ace of Base's 'All That She Wants' when I heard it as a child, and when I hear it now, I still like it. I didn't WORK to like it. Anyway. Don't believe the hype: like what you like however you please.

Sorry. What was I saying? YES these are the sounds of New York City resident, musicmaker and self-confessed "nocturnal creature", Nola Wren (real name Kara Francavillo). In her most recent track, 'Soul Sucker', she evinces a certain pop nostalgia in a cradle of comforting sounds, a mix of organic and electronic stuffed full of vocal hooks and a driving beat.

Founded on a clattering acoustic guitar (which minutely reminded me of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in a good way ofc) with glistenings of electronic scatter-beeps decorating like glitter, the song shoots along with emotive intent, totally encased in pop trimmings, Nola Wren's supersweet voice crooning out the melody amidst light synth chords and harshening for the rapid-fire "Soul sucker, soul sucker, you'll n-n-n-n-n-n-never get my…" in each freshly reverbing chorus as distortion juts upward against the thumping beat.

All in all, it's a treat for the ears, an unabashed pop song that holds no pretence, injecting at the same time a particular marginal attitude – an essence, at least, of punk (perhaps) – into the music at the same time; no mean feat. Honestly I think this is a very good song, how can I stress that any further? And it's only a demo!! But it sounds great!

---

---

Like Nola Wren on Facebook
Listen to Nola Wren on SoundCloud
Hear more Nola Wren on Bandcamp
Visit Nola Wren official site
Follow Nola Wren on Twitter
Check Nola Wren on Tumblr
Watch Nola Wren on YouTube
Look at Nola Wren on Instagram

---

---

LIFE & LIMB FOOL'S NEST (LIES "PROMISES" REMIX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Hello. Remixes, not always but often, are really fun. It's not just a re-tweaking of a finished song, it's a whole new song, a whole new person's creative vision based on the original elements launched into the world by the original creator of said elements. It goes to show not only how interesting it is to have somebody else's take on things every once in a while, but also that "art" - yeah that includes music - can never be finished. Even Marcel Duchamp "remixed" the Mona Lisa by drawing a moustache on the original and calling it L.H.O.O.Q (which is a pun cause in French, the reading sounds like elle a chaud au cul). As long as remixers are out there in the world, art of any kind can never be considered utterly finished. In anything's contemporary, original format, however, it is difficult to see a new beginning - that is, unless you are the kind of person who can remix things.

But I'm talkin' too much! About stuff! Stuff!

So let's talk about this song. It is, as you may have guessed by now, a remix. And it is a very nice example of a kind of completely different take on the original. In this instance, the track - 'Fool's Nest' - is originally by a one-half-Italian, one-half-New-Yorker duo called Life & Limb. It's a nice chunky slice of synthpop that is buzzing with saw-waves and sentimental overtones.

Enter LIES. This Italian duo - Oscar Cini and Piero... something - (whom I've written about a couple of times before) have essentially softened the original and turned into something more dreamy, more intangible in a way, than the structured original. They've sped up the pulsing lead synths of the original, teasing with the hint of tumbling hi-hats in the background as the vocals come in ghostishly looped on one syllable with forever-eternal glassy synth chords sweeping the whole song with their ambience.

It's the kind of thing that makes you drift off a little; LIES' style of embedding an addictive, cyclical beat in amongst a bristling thicket of noise has that kind of effect on a person. Thin snares pummel the offbeat with minimal hi-hats riding high above a constant click and the steady, sometime-rolling thump of the kick. A wonderful take on a song which is now similar to this one in title, and a bit in sound, only: even the atmosphere changed from sentimental and slightly sad to one of feelingless dreaminess. Hooray for the (good) remixers of the world!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like LIES on Facebook
Listen to LIES on Soundcloud
Hear more LIES on bandcamp
Follow LIES on Twitter
Check LIES on Tumblr

JACOB 2-2 MILO DE VENUS

Some tender loving beautiful sounds for you today. Hello. It's been raining all day. It's not a matter of it stopping, just a matter of it fluctuating from drizzle to downpour and back again. It's just that kind of day. Nobody's home. The sound of Moto GP yawns through the house from the neglected television. It's so dim that I'm tempted to turn the lights on but then it would almost seem darker outside. Gotta treasure this late-August malaise.

Anyway, it's the kind of day where in past summer holidays of your childhood you'd be aimless, bored, stuck indoors. None of your vast library of videogames appeals to you, the TV seems crashingly dull - what do you resort to? Board games? Arts & craft? READING? Or literally just doing nothing: lying on the sofa complaining, raiding the kitchen every hour or so for a bowl of Coco Pops (or whatever your cereal-fancy happened to be)? Nostalgic, innit. And so is this song 'Milo De Venus' by Jacob 2-2.

I hadn't properly seen the cover for the album where this song comes from, Herbivore, out 23rd September on Canadian label King Deluxe; but you can see - there is the colourful custody of childhood.

This Brooklyn-based producer seems to have burrowed his way straight into my heart with his music. It reminds me of so much, on a general scale, that I cannot even begin to list it, but on the other hand, it reminds me of nothing at all: it's an illusion. Nostalgically charged sounds to float you to that sometimes-bleak irrecoverable state-of-mind that tries to reach far back into the mists of time and search for your dreamily romanticised past.

There are ambient sounds of some cosmic pinball machine at work as clunky percussion, accompanying the nicely scatty beat all the way through, 1980s-adventure-movie synth bass gunning for our collective memories, and the gloriously nostalgic crackle of a record player - all decorated with sparkling high-pitched synth and magical cheese-pop bells. It's the malady and dream of the birth of consumer culture all at the same time, those repetitive images - like the Venus De Milo, here subverted by Jacob 2-2 - all wrapped up in this song that exudes the atmosphere that pervaded all our sunny endless lazy summers. Even if it is a borrowed sense of nostalgia, do we not all feel it?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Jacob 2-2 on Facebook
Listen to Jacob 2-2 on Soundcloud
Hear more Jacob 2-2 on Myspace
Visit Jacob 2-2 official site
Follow Jacob 2-2 on Twitter
Check Jacob 2-2 on Tumblr
Watch Jacob 2-2 on YouTube
Listen to more Jacob 2-2 on Bandcamp

ANAMANAGUCHI ENDLESS FANTASY [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I don't know what Anamanaguchi means, but whatever it means (if it means anything) it certainly suits the style of music they make all the same. What style is that? It's like so nice. It is wholly chiptune - I'd say 8-bit, like many people do, but it ain't because it's more 16-bit and it doesn't have the same ring as 8-bit. So let's just leave it as chiptune.

What am I basing this off? I am basing this off a couple of months ago when I first heard them and was umming-and-ahhing about covering them, and also I am basing this off this particular song, 'Endless Fantasy'. It is the title track from their new album, the funds for which was raised by a frenzied fanbase overdonating to their kickstarter project.

But all the same let's not get caught up in details. It can sometimes be like untangling several pairs of headphones all at once, so let's leave it out and get to the music eh? 'Endless Fantasy' is basically an already-hit, sounding like the end-credits theme to your favourite anime, or the soundtrack to the greatest level of Sonic The Hedgehog that there ever could be. It's a rather incredible show of recycled videogame noises, tweaked and pushed into a real galloper of a track. (You can download it for FREEEEE).

What's more, it's filled with the same artful dynamism of your favourite dance music. Whilst high hollow whistles speed by to a pummelsome beat in some places, dragging you along for the ride, at other times you're exposed to the meaty distorted bass beneath the glistening shell of blips and bleeps (like at around the 1:00 mark). Indeed, around halfway through there's a great breakdown: only saw-wave chords, increasingly modulating, keep time before a great drop at 3 minutes where the chords beef up.

Crunching electric guitar joins the show, as do more sparkling drops of sound - all of it helping to create a wide atmosphere. Boundless. Yes that's it. Expansive. Forever horizons. The melody is nicely emotive and strikes a balance between nostalgia and anticipation; leaving home for an endless fantasy. There, I said it. This song literally sounds like an endless fantasy. It's gorgeous, and especially gorgeous if you are into videogame-type music anyway.

This comes as the second single from the album Endless Fantasy by the Brooklyn foursome.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Anamanaguchi on Facebook
Listen to Anamanaguchi on Soundcloud
Visit Anamanaguchi official site
Follow Anamanaguchi on Twitter
Check Anamanaguchi on Tumblr
Watch Anamanaguchi on YouTube

DILLON COOPER COZMIK [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Dillon Cooper is an up-and-coming rapper from Brooklyn. I wrote about his song 'Kung Foo' last week - a sudden open-palm strike to the chin filled with raw beats and raw rhymes. It was genuinely exciting to hear from a rapper who wasn't just new, but also good. He had a mixtape, Cozmik on the way at the time and now, since 28th June, it's out online and available to download for free.

It's a tricky one to tackle because it feels as though it should have been two separate releases under two separate names by two separate artists. But maybe that's just me.

On one hand you have revitalisation of a retro rap sound that looks back to its roots in old-school hip hop. These songs go to town on samples, live-sounding instruments, and reality-check beats that seem to put extra swagger into Dillon's bars. You have the straight-talking 'State Of Elevation', complete with the crackling thunder of a double-bass, whose chorus gives a catchy break to a stream-of-consciousness-style rap. A similar catchiness lies in the choruses of 'Every Day Life' - perhaps my favourite song on the album - which is like a time machine back to 90s rap. The sounds in this song are totally chilled, verging on lounge-bar music, and the lyrics are a happy blur of clever phrases.

It's the same story with 'I Ain't Havin' It' and 'Survival Of The Fittest', except these two are brimming with body-shaking bass. A more minimalist sound can be heard in 'You Don't Know Me', whose beautiful piano ditty accompanies what could easily be the best beat on the album, a live drum kit pounds an off-kilter rhythm with little accents on the rattling snare. Beautiful stuff.

On the other hand, you have the newer-sounding tracks, starting at 'Put It To Rest' and finishing at 'Fuck That'. These are unfortunately a little bit unmemorable. Not only does the music fall flat in comparison to the lush sampling work on songs like 'Yes Suh' and especially in the R&B-tinged 'Off With Their Heads', but for some reason his voice doesn't shine out like it does on pretty much all of the first half of the album.

Perhaps this means there's just a darker side of DC that I'm not really fond of, or maybe the second half is just not as good, but it certainly splits this mixtape into two rather distinct parts: old and new. You might like 'Warning Shots', combining the often-dark sound of London grime with dirty Southern beats, in which DC revels in rapid-fire vocals, punctuated with deep sub bass kicks, like in the rumbling 'Fuck That'. I just think that the more badman sound of these tracks brings out a different Dillon who doesn't seem as genuine.

What's quite cool is that the whole of Cozmik is twisted at both ends like a nicely wrapped sweet with the resounding piano chords of 'Intro' and 'Outro', both seeming at least to be genuinely heartfelt. In fact, when I arrived at the 'Outro' it was like slipping into a pair of comfortable shoes. That same feeling y'know? Those piano chords come back, rich in tone and giving such a soulful backdrop, Dillon's voice serious and fixed absolutely on his words, and I felt suddenly that every song on the album should have been dipped in this nostalgic reality. It's where his voice - his most important asset - sounds best.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Like Dillon Cooper on Facebook
Follow Dillon Cooper on Twitter
Watch/listen to Dillon Cooper on YouTube