IRL — QUEST MASTER (SUPPORT ARCANE OUBLIETTE, PORTCULLIS) AT KOLA, PORTSMOUTH ⚔️ 5/4/26

BY ALEX GIBSON
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

VENUE: KOLA, PORTSMOUTH, UK
DATE: 5/04/2026
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX GIBSON

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Beneath clinking glasses and moody electric candle-lights, wizard hats and Renaissance dresses sway to the descending Korg staccatos of ARCANE OUBLIETTE. This magician, hunched over his synthesizer in resplendent red robes, transforms this lively Portsmouth dungeon into a glittering, mesmerising tavern.

Attendees chatter in low, excited voices, bobbing and teetering as Arcane Oubliette enchants the room, one wavering sawtooth chord at a time. Mellow arpeggios trickle up and down against ambient blasts of synthesizer organs. It is a curious blending of medieval ruins and twentieth century videogame OSTs, simultaneously comfortingly nostalgic and daringly unfamiliar — the halcyon days of long summers, fantasy RPGs, and make-believe. He beckons us to join him on this adventure.

Scrying with synth: Arcane Oubliette takes to the stage

From time to time, this dungeon master triumphantly raises Easter eggs above his head. The sword in the stone parallel is not lost on this crowd, who cheer in excitement each time an egg is raised. For a lot of attendees, Arcane Oubliette is their introduction to the vast, sprawling world of dungeon synth. And what better introduction than one which hurls Easter chocolates across an ecstatic crowd, their arms up in cheer, their fingers splayed.

PORTCULLIS, a one-man fellowship of keyboards, guitar synthesizers, and drums, usurps Arcane Oubliette to draw us further into the mysticism of fantasy synth. As Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 Lord of the Rings animation projects onto the backdrop, Portcullis leads the audience in chants and cheers, bellowing a ‘HEY!’ into the crowd, who – their voices canyon-deep and their fists tightly clenched – reply with a ‘HO!’. The audience might as well be a brotherhood of dwarves egressing their subterranean domain.

Portcullis weaves magic with a digital guitar and tabor

Between pounding drumbeats and enchanting refrains on his oddly-shaped guitar synthesizer, Portcullis’ call to adventure is a tranquilising contrast to the epic ambience of Arcane Oubliette’s atmospheric electronica. Here, audiences sway to instrumental odes on gentle seaside life, Tolkien’s Shire, and the South Coast’s own Hiorne Tower, projected in fantastical raven’s view behind the master musician. As Portcullis strolls up and down the synth fretboard in gentle, mesmerising licks, we can almost hear the lapping of waves against the shore, or the lackadaisical dancing of grass blades beneath Gothic towers.

Lowering the drawbridge into ruins of ancient magic is Australian dungeon-synth sorcerer QUEST MASTER, a warlock of dark ambience and textual synths. Quest Master ensnares the audience in a swirling cauldron of N64-era Korg keyboards, imitation cathode ray graphics, and dark fantasy-inspired harmonies. Oscillating between the sepulchral and the sylvan, Quest Master’s setlist strides confidently through a nostalgic fantasy land, from ‘Holy Glass Monolith of Rose River Canyon’ to ‘The Radiant Glow of the Submerged Temple’ (both on his 2021 album The Twelve Temples).

Dungeon synth stalwart Quest Master concentrating on his spells

Where many other dungeon synth maestros – including the UK’s own Arcane Oubliette and Portcullis – incorporate robes or crowns or on-stage roleplay into their repertoire, Quest Master enchants the room with his epic instrumentals alone. Like the most pensive wizard, he is silent in this darkened stronghold. One moment, the crowd sways with shut eyes to the crystalline, plinking keyboard drip-drops of a cascading waterfall. The next, they rock out to epic organ drones, led by hand and horse through crumbling cathedrals and cursed towers.

In between these epic juxtapositions of serenity and noise, the crowd chatters. Quest Master is not merely a musical moment but an enveloping experience. The audience themselves, enrobed in wizard hats and medieval dresses, understand dungeon synth as a soundtrack to their own lives. This is their tavern — as Quest Master warps through his blending of PlayStation cyberspace and Nintendo RPGs, they drink, debate, and dance.

In these mellow interims between dark wizards and elven crusades, the audience take each other’s hands and twirl. Others pump their fists to the pounding dungeon drumbeats. No two people dress the same. All dance together. This is dark magic. This is dungeon synth.

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「PREMIERE」COLIN RILEY, LOTTIE P, NIC PENDLEBURY & STEVE PRETTY — EBB AND FLOW

How do you capture the sea in sound? Maybe you'd record the sound of waves on a shoreline, or perhaps you'd focus on replicating the contrasting sides of the ocean, calm and catastrophic. Or, as is the case with 'Ebb and Flow', you create a piece of music that sounds instead like a grand adventure on the open seas.

"It's a huge blank canvas," says composer Colin Riley, "and we wanted to have lots of sounds to draw on."

Along with violist Nic Pendlebury, Riley is one half of Sonic Collaborations, the creative partnership behind 'Ebb and Flow' in its initial form. It began when the pair were tasked with creating a soundscape for visitors to the Cutty Sark (a late 19th-century tea clipper and once the fastest ship of its day).

"One of the pieces was crying out to be a song," says Riley, "and we really just followed our nose with it." For this they enlisted Lottie P (vocalist of London band Goat Girl).

The piece was 'Ebb and Flow'. It begins as if in ancipation of a voyage, pizzicato strings tense and poised with potential play a simple, shanty-aligned melody in kinetic syncopation with soft minimalist piano. Rising from this mist, slow vocals provide a textured sirensong crossed with a dawn chorus, aching for the land and sea simultaneously.

“Writing ‘sea music’ is a huge blank canvas and we wanted to have lots of sounds to draw on”

The percussion skitters, clattering like ropes fidgeting in the wind against sturdy a mast — in fact, these sounds are sampled rigging ropes, sampled and manipulated to form the sparse, echoing rhythm section of the song. Reflecting these rapid percussive elements, chopped vocals stutter throughout, providing an organic, human gabber that helps soften the harsh sounds of the ship.

The addition of a vocalist turned 'Ebb and Flow' into a song. But with the addition of trumpeter Steve Pretty, the song is elevated once again, and will be appearing in this form on Sonic Collaborations' upcoming album, Ocean Songs.

Pretty came aboard after performing back-to-back at sunrise with Nic Pendelbury at the UK's First Light Festival.

"Steve uses a lot of conch shell sounds treated with electronics in his recent music, and Nic uses electric viola with electronics, so there was a musical affinity," says Riley. "Plus, of course, Steve's work uses sounds that are literally from the ocean!"

As this piece of music continues onward, we hear the flugelhorn in all its splendour, adding not only a playful jazz lilt to proceedings but a sense of maritime charm. "The title of the track is so evocative," Pretty tells us. "When improvising flugel horn lines, I was very much working with this idea of overlapping, swelling, and the cyclical but unpredictable nature of the way that water - especially large bodies of water - moves."

Part epic voyage, part meditation on the nature of the sea itself, holding a mirror up to both ourselves and the briny deep, 'Ebb and Flow' showcases the power of collaborative songwriting — and how the life of a piece of music itself can evolve in fluid, oceanic ways.

✧

Ocean Songs · Ebb and Flow

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• 🔔 'Ebb and Flow' is out on 16th February, ahead of the upcoming album Ocean Songs, which is set for release on 24th March.
• 🔔 You can read more about the soundscape that Sonic Collaborations made for the Cutty Sark over here.

  "The idea for the soundscape is that it provides an alternative to the spoken audio guide," Riley says. "You listen in your headphones while walking around Cutty Sark. There’s no voiceover, just music and sounds of life at sea blended together, so it’s more meditative. We created music for different decks, each in three versions to match weather conditions from calm to near gale. Remixes if you like."

  Continuing, he says: "Participants in the immersive experience around the boat have an ever-shifting sonic experience, with the music changing automatically as they enter each deck, but they importantly also have some control. They can, in effect, make their own story by changing the weather conditions and hearing the music develop, growing or receding."

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「PREMIERE」PEIRIANT — SONG IN PARTS

At the risk of sounding prosaic, 'Song in Parts' is a song in parts. But that's putting it too simply. The first musical morsel taken from Plant – the upcoming third album by Hay-on-Wye-based duo Peiriant (Rose Linn-Pearl, violin, and Dan Linn-Pearl, guitar) – rather than "parts", or even the modest label of "song", this piece of music evolves like a tone poem (see the dynamic waveform on Soundcloud for visual evidence).

Folk-spun violin and glimmering guitar strike a balance between earthy and mystical, the atmosphere deepening with columns of drone, dipping into quietude with theremin-esque synths calling like slow electric whippoorwills. It's a contrast of textures, the organic skitter of bow on strings vs. blooms of synthetic bass — part jam session, part country dance, part ambient reaction to space and sound.

Structurally reminiscent of a sonata, the folksome melody that introduced 'Song in Parts' at the beginning returns in the final richly layered portion of the piece, where in bright bold tones it almost erupts into a jig among the watching trees, but restrains itself.

'Song in Parts' speaks of the illusions folk songs have always cast over their listeners – of better days, spring, winter, of outlaws, love, landscapes – stories fashioned by strings and vocal chords. Except Peiriant do more: not only do their violins soar and spin grass-fed cloud-borne melodies, their guitars picking notes like threads of tales, but true to their name (peiriant means machine in Welsh) they drone and beep, glistening with spells worked in production, granting them further capacity to evoke unnamed, unknown things and feelings in the air.

✧

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• 🔔 'Song in Parts' is the first single from Peiriant's new album Plant (their third; and which means "child" in Welsh), due out on 27th February via Recordiau Nawr. You can pre-order it as a limited edition 12" vinyl, or indeed as in compact disc form, over on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 The album artwork is taken from Violette enters the world by glass artist, painter and sculptor Amber Hiscott.

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AUS + THE HUMBLE BEE — BELOW THE SURFACE WE SHIMMER AND SHINE

The connection between music and place is inextricable, both the power of the former to soundtrack the latter, and for location to alter our listening experience. This is deftly put into practice by Tokyo-based producer and musician aus (Yasuhiko Fukuzono) on 'Below the Surface We Shimmer and Shine', a track originally intended to be listened to whilst bathing in an onsen — a hot spring, thousands of which are nestled in the forested folds of Japan's mountainous interior.

This piece of ambient music, with additional production magic courtesy of Manchester-based the humble bee singularly encapsulates the onsen experience. In its granular textures are promises of mineral goodness, countless intricate rough-hewn gemstones that speak of hygiene in body and mind, while a golden glimmer of sound illustrates a refraction of light in the hot spring waters.

Not only the onsen itself and its ephemeral liquidity but its surroundings, captured by aus in his field recording work, are brought to life. A coarse backdrop echoes a bristling tree-clad mountainside and the vast unknowable nature that surrounds the onsen town. Icy tuned percussion hints at frigid winter air contrasted with the waves of warm synth representing the steaming hot spring waters themselves. (A warm bath outdoors is super nice).

Though there's a contrast between human warmth and our desire to control nature (i.e. bathing in an onsen, comfortable hotel surroundings), and nature in its giant forboding splendour (i.e. the reason hot springs exist naturally, the harshness of the mountains), here they exist timelessly and harmoniously etched in sound.

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• 🔔 'below the surface we shimmer and shine' is taken from the collaborative album Chalybeate, which is scheduled for release on 13 February via flau. Originating as a sonic document of the onsen (hot spring) town Ikaho, Gunma Prefecture, by aus during a month-long stay, he enlisted the humble bee (Craig Tattersall, known for his releases for labels like Dauw and IIKKI) for production and mixing duties.

  The album is available for pre-order on Bandcamp, either in compact disc or vinyl form.

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A. G. COOK — SILVER THREAD GOLDEN NEEDLE

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Hefty plumes of ambient glitterfuzz make the nebulous vanguard charge into producer, person and head of PC Music (now defunct) A. G. Cook's first piece of new music of 2024, 'Silver Thread Golden Needle'. A truly modern sonata, it shifts and evolves through an ice cream parlour of flavours, running like a shifting Windows screensaver through beatscapes, looping soft vox and distortion.

Thudding kicks jostle with techno intensity, decorated with the zings and pings of percussion, adding an intense living spark to proceedings. This evolves into this next movement, synthetic voices like digital choir giving way to strobing trance keys that stutter with destructed static.

Soon we're in dance circle, a halo of handclaps and warm columns of bass lending a footwork-esque feel, with synths gittering somewhere in the background, lilting with analgoue '80s. This retro hue continues as the piece morphs gradually into its final euphoric portion, where snares snap with gated reverb speaking of late 20th-century drum machines, while pitched vox tick and chirrup with digital-age distraction.

“New year new track new”
— A. G. Cook introducing the track on Twitter

Like a sonata, 'Silver Thread Golden Needle' follows a loose, mutating structure throughout its 10 minutes of playtime. After the slow, gentle introduction the first techno-infused section introduces the arpeggiating progression (the exposition), with the mid-section (the development) building on what came before, with a different set of gabbering melodies and glassy synth solos.

Round about the halfway point, this development continues with a short ridge of hard beats, with further evolutions until the 8-minute mark, where the third section (the recapitulation) restates ideas and themes of the exposition in an evolved form of celebratory, triumphal proportions. Then comes the coda — those miniature sonic spirits that bounce around like heated molecules — a shiny, decorative bow.

Far (very far) from being 10 minutes of the same beat, with slightly different percussive elements or melodies added throughout, Cook's track has structure, and direction. It's a house with walls and a roof, not a one-track pathway from A to B. He treats the thumpiest of kicks, the zingiest circuitboard miniutiae and harsh snippets of white noise distortion as a legitimate part of this musicological legacy, permitting texture and beats to play their part in a skillfully manipulated sonata-esque soundscape, joyfully bringing electronic experimentalism and modern dance music into a meandering, yet tethered and thoughtful form.

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strobe warning

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• 🔔 The video for 'Silver Thread Golden Needle' by A. G. Cook (above) was created by code-focused graphic artist Lena Weber and video artist Aaron Chan.

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FOREST SWORDS — THE LOW

⌾ LISTEN TO THE LOW BY FOREST SWORDS ⌾

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'The Low' cuts a mysterious figure. From the outset it's a cavalcade of metallophonic glonking, bone-rattling clacks, rusted but razor sharp hi-hat sheafings and thumping distorted tambor booms to keep time. A druidic ritual crossed with a downtempo warehouse number, this altered beast of trip hop crouches loaded with potential to pounce at any moment.

Vocals rise up, plucked from the air and woven throughout the bristling beats like a sea breeze blowing through craggy sea stacks and yawning arches. But in a triumph of dynamism, rather than trail off like a will-o'-the-wisp the phantom noise is cut short, suddenly revealing once more the silence and scratch of the song. (In fact, the whole thing is truncated, snipped at the end into a full-stop).

Add to this a skirling, distorted call of distorted brass proportions — how you might imagine a carnyx to sound — and there is urgency here, but a fogged ancient urgency, like a message from the actual earth, but summoned in a Liverpool warehouse by Forest Swords.

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• 🔔 It's official: there's a new Forest Swords album coming out. It's called Bolted and it's arriving 20th October via Ninja Tune; you can pre-order it on Bandcamp now digitally, on vinyl, CD and cassette. 'The Low' follows previous single 'Butterfly Effect', also taken from the upcoming album.

  Forest Swords (aka Matthew Barnes) explains that it's "based on a beat I’d originally intended for Yoko Ono." It's an important track, too, and "features elements I made both at the start and end of the album," he says, "so ties together a lot of the sounds and emotions I was exploring during the writing process."

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FOREST SWORDS — BUTTERFLY EFFECT (REMIXES)

⌾ LISTEN TO BUTTERFLY EFFECT REMIXES BY FOREST SWORDS ⌾

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Last month Forest Swords (real name: Matthew Barnes) gave us a taste of a longform project to come. Arriving in the form of a double single, 'Tar' and 'Butterfly Effect', these showcase the eminence of a composer-producer in sculpting new worlds using the same electronic materials, quarried deep from the earth in muddy handfuls, precious clumps.

'Tar' sees Barnes conjure a distorted sonata, skittering noises creeping in the background, like a lament for preserved Neolithic body encased in the track's titular substance. And featuring a previously unheard Neneh Chery sample, 'Butterfly Effect' cracks with living-and-breathing percussion, shards of ancient noises, mosaicked into a beat fit for a bog bonfire.

Most recently come the remix treatments for the latter in a love-letter to UK dance music. A fragmented, shuffling garage beat plays out in 'Drizzlah's Club Remix', the Neneh Cherry vocal weaving among scrambled popping melodies, while the 'Basement Dub Remix' slows things down, imbuing a dub groove with the soul of the original, synth skirling like a haunted melodica.

More dance-inflected fun arrives in the clean-cut collage of percussion in the 'DJ Ron Dixon Clubstep Mix', which is beset with a mash and melding of dissonant synths. Perhaps most fitting partner for the original 'Butterfly Effect', however, is the 'FS Ambient Air Mix' - like a phantom stretched thin, it falls as a giant sheet enveloping moorland, all fizzing greys and gleaming calls to the other side. Throughout these nocturnal, evnveloped remixes, there's a satisfying contrast at work, bringing the twigs and tarot of Forest Swords into distinctly synthetic, contemporary spaces.

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• 🔔 This collection of new music from Forest Swords is available to purchase and stream at your leisure over on his Bandcamp. They've been released ahead of some tour dates (below)
• 🔔 Forest Swords tour dates:
  Saturday 2nd September - Varpalota, Hungary: INOTA Festival
  Sunday 17th September - Sofia, Bulgaria: Wrong Fest
  Thursday 2nd November - Manchester, UK: White Hotel
  Friday 3rd November - Newcastle, UK: Cluny 2
  Saturday 4th November - Glasgow, UK: Mackintosh Church for Great Western Festival
  Friday 10th November - London, UK - ICA
  Saturday 18th November - Paris, FR - Badaboum
  Monday 20th November - Brussels, BE - AB Club
  Tuesday 21st November - Amsterdam, NL - Bitterroot
  Wednesday 22nd November - Arnhem, NL - Willemeen
  Thursday 23rd November - Leipzig, DE - UT Connewitz
  Tuesday 28th November - Athens, GR - Municipal Theatre Of Piraeus
  Tuesday 5th December - Copenhagen, DK - Hotel Cecil
  Wednesday 6th December - Stockholm, SE - Slaktkyrkan
  
  Tickets available from forestswords.co.uk.

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[PREMIERE] MARCUS HERNE — FORMS

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"I have always been fascinated by evolution," says UK-based composer Marcus Herne, and it certainly shows. 'Forms' is a track that begins as practically nothing — whispering wind with glimmers of sound like dappled light — and evolves into something momentous.

What starts as ambient haze, this fragile, pastoral scene with shimmering synthetic birdsong (almost) gradually grows into something more complex and nuanced. A twinkle of piano here, a croon of cello there; analogue synths tumble in from the distance, falling like angular rain, a hail of colorful, textured static. Finally 'Forms' gallops into life.

It's an apt title, as each formless element entering into earshot is sculpted into something recognisable — that rainy synth, for example, rolls into a galloping frenzy of melody. It also refers to the interplay of organic and artificial sounds, something that Herne is eager to blur the lines between: "My sound lives somewhere in the expanded middle," he says.

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• 🔔 'Forms' is taken from Marcus Herne's Forms EP, which is out today. Listen to it over on Spotify.

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INWARDS — RAINDROPS

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Highlighting negative with glossy, unobtrusive columns of bass, Inwards aka Kristian Shelley throws handfuls of sparkling synth into the air — clean clusters of beeps, tracts of phasing fizz — for his latest track ‘Raindrops’. Throughout, amorphous vocal samples snap like elastic, burst with watery clarity, matching the track’s title.

Though lacking its techno thump, ‘Raindrops’ recalls the freestyling antics of the synth at work in the Chao Lobby theme from Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Perhaps it’s that carefree reminiscence, or maybe it’s the sheer cartwheeling joy involved in Shelley’s soundscape, but ‘Raindrops’ is like a sonic expression of innocence.

The warm bass envelops you, the vocal samples and synth spin like toys, the percussion hopscotches along like a clapping game, then there’s that nostalgic 8-bit element. Shelley's track inches very close to being a small portal opened on an idealised, pixel art remix of your childhood home; yet at its core yawns a bristling void of detachment, an inane world-weariness.

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• 🔔 Feeling So Fun Reality EP, scheduled for release via Brighton-based label Small Pond on 7th October. You may pre-order it and listen to 'Raindrop' over on Bandcamp.

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EMMA JOHNSON'S GRAVY BOAT — SUN STONES

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⌾ LISTEN TO SUN STONES BY EMMA JOHNSON'S GRAVY BOAT ⌾

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If there was ever a fitting title for an album, Worry Not is one. You can thank jazz outfit Emma Johnson’s Gravy Boat for that. It’s on this collection of tracks is where you’ll find ‘Sun Stones’, a joyful piece that flits between boundless energy amid ozone skies, and the drugged, tender haze of an afternoon alcoholic beverage.

Angular, minimalist riffs persist in a storm of skittering drums, while Emma Johnson, the Leeds-based bandleader and saxophonist, brings a wakeful dreaminess to proceedings, swaddled in waves of piano like scudding clouds. Bubblingly bookended by clusters of kinetic ostinato, and with this floating core of calm, ‘Sun Stones’ feels like a reflective yet escapist soundtrack for these times.

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• 🔔 'Sun Stones' is taken from Worry Not, the debut album from jazz quintent Emma Johnson's Gravy Boat. You may purchase it or just steam it over on Bandcamp.

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THEO ALEXANDER — BRIGHT-EYED HUNGER

⌾ LISTEN TO BRIGHT-EYED HUNGER BY THEO ALEXANDER ⌾

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Wild and skittering, the melodies weaving into each other in London composer Theo Alexander’s ‘Bright-eyed Hunger’ at first appear nursery rhyme in nature. They skip and dance in a sort of random uniformity, naturalistic but synthetic. Piano glides in, cool and glassy, counteracting the frenzied woodwinds; gradually this set of jovial intricacies becomes a cohesive whole.

Beneath it all, beneath the dappled light on leaves and insects tumbling in the air, an unknown something looms large — the “hunger” to the otherwise “bright-eyed” sentiment of the song — organic and growling, a carnivorous spirit shuddering inside the body of a double bass (played by George Cremaschi). As light and playful as Alexander makes this track seem on the surface, underneath it is positively snarling.

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• 🔔 'Bright-eyed Hunger' is the first track taken from Theo Alexander's upcoming Sunbathing Through A Glass Screen, out 21st May on Canadian label Arts & Crafts. You can pre-order it on limited edition 12" vinyl on Bandcamp now.

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CHIHIRO ONO — HACHIREN

⌾ LISTEN TO HACHIREN BY CHIHIRO ONO ⌾

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A bell rings three times, announcing the apparition of Chihiro Ono’s suite. Ono, a violinist and violist born in Chiba, Japan, but now living in London, based these four short movements chiefly on the music (and life) of pianist and composer Rentaro Taki. She calls it "super Romantico Classical music" not classical nor experimental, and certainly not pop.

Born in 1979, Taki attentended Leipzig Conservatory in 1901 as the third Japanese musician to study in Europe. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and travelled back to Oita, Japan in 1902, where he died in 1903. He is perhaps most famous for ‘Kojo no Tsuki’ (Ruined Castle by Moonlight) appropriately inspired by the ruins of Oka Castle in Oita, and with lyrics penned by poet Bansui Doi (1871-1952). "His musical life had many Western influences, yet he never lost the strong core of his nation in his heart, which I can relate to," says Ono. "Doi’s words and Rentarou’s music resonate strongly with me."

‘Kojo no Tsuki’ is fairly well known and has been given renditions throughout the years. For one example, it was jazzed up (literally), albeit without its title, by Theolonius Monk as ‘Japanese Folk Song’.

It’s Taki’s song that works its way through Chihiro Ono’s HachiRen, particularly in ‘Kojo’ (Ruined castle), strings crooning smooth in lament, harsh chords scrape into the air, the whisper of the bow falling silent. That whispering, like a dry brush stroke, flecks of sound colour against the void, feel characteristic of the suite as a whole, particularly in final track ‘Ren’ — a poignant, if melancholic, reflection on mujō (無常) or impermanence, and a fitting coda to the all-too-short life of Rentaro Taki himself.

Violin is the main component of the suite, of course, but that doesn’t stop other elements from making an appearance. What sounds like a steam locomotive appears in ‘8 (Hachi)’ — the first movement, signifying Taki’s summertime birth (24th August); strings appear ghostly and agitated, taking inspiration from Niccolò Paganini’s turbulent playing. Japan’s summers are humid and stifling, the air so crammed with the untethered scream of cicadas that it feels the sky could break open, and worthy of the addled sound Ono has portrayed them with.

On the subject of summer and Paganini (sort of: “La Campanella”) are the bells. In Japan, their clear sound is supposed to inspire cooling thoughts during the heat of summer. At the same time, fūrin (most often glass wind chimes) are symbolic of keeping evil at bay. With HachiRen concerned mostly with ghosts — of Taki, of Oka Castle, and even in the analogical “death” of cherry blossom falling to the ground in pale pink whirlwinds (in ‘SakuraFubuki’) — it makes sense that chimes punctuate the suite, marking a delicate boundary between inspiration, memory, intangible things, and the music itself.

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• 🔔 HachiRen is out today (9th April) on London label nonclassical. You can stream and download it from Chihiro Ono's Bandcamp.
• 🔔 Here's a recording of 'Kojo no Tsuki' by tenor singer Yoshie Fujiwara — the first person to record a version of the song. It's from 1925, and definitely has that '20s feel.

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MAXELL D — SERIOUS 2020 FT. CAPO LEE, NOVELIST, SO LARGE, BRUZA & TEMPA T

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In 2004, Lethal Bizzle released the hypesome track 'Pow!' — it pops with energy and vocal fire from a who's-who roster of early '00s grime artists. Fast-forward 16 years and we have a modern counterpart in the form of 'Serious 2020'. A fuzzed synth summons the mood of triumphal brass, while a frenzy of restrained beats allow plenty of space for vocal acrobatics.

Assigned to Maxwell D, who first released 'Serious' back in 2001, and whose vocal provides the classic UKG stylings for the hook, this remixed edition features fearsome vocal performances from a roster of fresh feature-spots. Novelist riffs on the "serious" theme — "Dark blue is a serious colour / I got raised by a serious mother / That's why I'm a serious brother" — while Tempa T's finale recalls the unbridled aggression of 'Pow!' with his imagery and vocal tone.

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• 🔔 This all-star remix of Maxwell D's 'Serious' features on the soundtrack for Against All Odds, a film about the '00s grime scene. Both the OST and film are scheduled for release on 13th November. It's actually the first project for newly launched Motown Records UK.

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☟ Maxwell D Internet Presence ☟
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VISCO CITY — SIXTH WEEK

⌾ LISTEN TO VISCO CITY, SIXTH WEEK ⌾

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There's more meaning behind the title 'Sixth Week' than an arbitrary measurement of time. It actually refers to when UK producer Visco City actually created it: during the sixth week of the country's nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus.

As such, the track bristles with anxiety — tracts of clattering metallic sounds, gnawing and insectoid, appear crushed and crinkled like the sound of a car crumpling sped up a hundredfold. But there are hints of hope here, optimism (or nostalgia for "old times") spelled out by a melody dancing over it all, thick warm plumes of bass enacting a sonic embrace.

The focus, Visco City tells yes/no via email was "to try and highlight the contrast between something anxious and something beautiful." And though shattered lines of chaos spark through 'Sixth Week', in essence it is a lush soundscape of better days, a slice of blue sky beyond the giant clouds.

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• 🔔 'Sixth Week' is from Visco City's Solstice EP, released via Birmingham (UK) based Brox Records. Download and/or stream it from your favourite among on this list of various streaming services.

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☟ Visco City Internet Presence ☟
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PAUL COUSINS — THOUGHTS IN THE ETHER

⌾ LISTEN TO PAUL COUSINS, THOUGHTS IN THE ETHER ⌾

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Written "as a soundtrack to daydreaming," London-based producer Paul Cousins track 'Thoughts in the Ether' is all-encompassing. It toes a balance between warm pianos and gossamer threads of synth that tick with icy intent. It evolves organically, like the moment of pouring a drop of milk into the darkly glimmering black-gold depths of tea, or how smoke curls through the air.

"The scene changes reflect the different thoughts we have as we let our mind wander," Cousins says via email.

The gentle touches of piano, its chords and descending notes, serves as a heartfelt metronome to the shifting sounds. It may be intended as the soundtrack to daydreaming, but the slow piano melody seems to step into a fog of melancholy, a gentle realisation of deeper feelings when the mind steadies itself. The rhythm of the natural world floats past us, insubstantial; conversations, cars, convenience stores drift by; and inside, the slow tick of ourselves.

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• 🔔 Purchase, stream or otherwise admire 'Thoughts in the Ether' in hypertext stasis over on Bandcamp.
• 🔔 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfDABxWSF0Y There's a film to accompany 'Thoughts in the Ether'. Created by director Edward Harber, it's "an aerial study of the North Sea from Happisburgh in Norfolk, documenting a week in the evolving appearance of the water."

  Cousins adds: "I wanted the video to take place from a floating viewpoint, and to be similar to the phosphenes we might see when closing our eyes for a few minutes."

• 🔔 Inspired by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, the track artwork — following the form of videos on Cousins' Instagram account — was created in collaboration with London-based graphic artist Signalstarr.

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☟ Paul Cousins Internet Presence ☟
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HEIGHTS — SILLY

⌾ LISTEN TO HEIGHTS, SILLY ⌾

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Occupying its time of existence with plumes of bass that collapses in on itself with potential, and with a restless energy curled like a cosmic spring that provides the aesthetic casing for the track, 'Silly' by Brighton-based musicmaker HEIGHTS is a tale of willing one thing leading to another, of inching towards what you desire.

While the propulsive kick-snare pattern and misty tick of cymbals keeps impatient time, the voice of HEIGHTS herself skips over the lyrics, the vocal nonchalant, lilting and heady, turning fully acrobatic in the chorus, splitting sentences in graceful slices: "And I want you to take this / lip lock / No shock / I like this kind of vertigo / From time / to time / I see you when my eyes are closed / No low / no lie / Seen a little light now I want to see the full storm."

Washed with an icy haze of ambient synth throughout, summoning a cityscape at night, HEIGHTS builds a story on tantalising lyrics, weaving between cryptic self-enquiry and concrete, relatable imagery. The opening lines paint this interplay with particular skill — "Would you believe I’ve still not made it home? / I still have the city underneath my bones" — and later announcing "Summer inside my soul" before a harmony of realness erupts with the refraining "all I wanna feel is love".

Splicing this poetic deftness and effortless songwriting with a moody instrumental that feels as though a post-night out atmosphere has been bottled up and presented in sonic form, somehow, the other triumph of 'Silly' is how its title belies its brilliance.

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• 🔔 'Silly' is taken from HEIGHTS' debut self-released EP, also called HEIGHTS, which you can stream on SoundCloud.

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☟ HEIGHTS Internet Presence ☟
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GALTIER — DANCING ON RUINS

⌾ LISTEN TO GALTIER, DANCING ON RUINS ⌾

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What begins as a dark take on the Hazy Maze Cave theme from Super Mario 64 — which certainly had its own set of subterranean-flavoured rapid-fire drums — soon proves itself to be much more than a tumble of pugilistic percussion. In fact, this is more like the rave going on in the level's underground lake that Mario must have missed.

Any imagined similarities aside, 'Dancing On Ruins' is a frenzied beast of its own. Syncopated snares crack, punching their own time over a cavalcade of kicks, glossy razor cymbals splashing a liquid sharpness to the thud and gravel of the track. A bass wanders in, wooden and clackety.

It's around the halfway mark that UK producer Galtier seems to have summoned whatever was sleeping beneath the ruins themselves, plasma synths oozing their miasma onto the scene, ever more agitated robust sounds diving bombing the air like a swarm of steam-powered bees.

'Dancing On Ruins' is the sound of whirling over giant boulders and half-standing buildings, unearthing ancient technology and long-buried treasures. Its simplicity, space between sounds, and textures make for a terrifying storm of drama and dance.

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• 🔔 This track is taken from the eponymous Galtier EP which arrived on Mexico City-based label Infinite Machine. You can stream and purchase (if you like) Galtier's Dancing On Ruins EP from their Bandcamp.

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☟ Galtier Internet Presence ☟
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ODOX — IN MY ROOM

⌾ LISTEN TO ODOX, IN MY ROOM ⌾

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The far-off, splashy reverb in the soft synths that swirl in instrumental of 'In My Room' by Wolverhampton artist Odox transforms an ordinary bedroom into an angular icy cavern. Notes clamber over each other, merge into each other like interweaving thoughts and worries; emotions bounce off the dark, glossy walls, reflecting, refracting in a mystical prismatic space.

It's no surprise, really, as Odox himself tells yes/no how this track was created during the UK's lockdown.

"My thoughts when making this track was about me getting used to being inside learning to be happy being in my room, instead of my happiness depending on if there is any events or friends to see," he says.

"Lockdown has been a time where I have really looked inside myself and thought about what I want to create. It's been positive for my creativity: the amount of ideas I've been able to pursue and time I've had to do that is crazy."

He adds: "Time's always what you make of it."

As the minimal beat rattles, clacks and thumps with sparse surety, producer Hughie preserving space in the track, lines like "stress makes it hard just to breathe" adding a tender counterpoint to the cool ambition of "count them bands..." And in adding his own voice to the cosmic frost of the instrumental, Odox completes its sense of understated majesty.

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• 🔔 For more music from Odox, check out his SoundCloud.

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☟ Odox Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 BIG HEATH — PLAN

⌾ LISTEN TO BIG HEATH, PLAN ⌾

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Cambridge rapper Big Heath unveils his plan in the video for, well, 'Plan'. Set in a support group for something or the other, Heath jumps up and delivers bars in fast-paced triplet flow, packed with dynamic layering and laced with humour throughout. For example, from the moment he uses "porkie pie" (Cockney rhyming slang for "lie", FYI) and then busts out

"Yo, I rap the brothers that wake up early in the morning just to eat a Weetabix"

the level of humour is real.

Added to this is the intricate ticking and rolling of hi-hats of the trap-flavoured beat, and dusty music box instrumentation for a spooky backdrop, allowing for a juxtaposition in light of Big Heath's humour — something that pelts you throughout the track, and sometimes poignantly.

Speaking about rappers who "take a life then... rap about it," he sums up that it "doesn't make that stuff right." As always though, he jokes to get the point across:

"Yeah I could've been up in the street
Could've shot a coupe Gs
Could've served a couple fees
But that really weren't for me
I could not run from police"

Self-deprecating, funny, self-admittedly feeling "happy just to be alive" when he's rapping, and shot through with positive messages, 'Plan' shows Big Heath as a refreshing addition to the UK's rap scene.

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• 🔔 Purchase or stream Big Heath 'Plan' via your fav service.

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🐣 TWIN GALAXXIES — EMOTICON VALLEY

⌾ LISTEN TO TWIN GALAXXIES, EMOTICON VALLEY ⌾

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Aa faraway sea of sound punctuated with an effervescent tick of synth — the restless heart and mind of industry tottering through the crashing waves of muted emotion. 'Emoticon Valley' by London-based musicmaker Twin Galaxxies may begin with this warm chatter of age-crushed sound, but it is a lifecycle of sound, a harmony of homo sapiens and hard machinery.

A splash of realisation, the spark of understanding, floods the space at before pianos begin to gallop into view. The second part of the track begins; waves of blissful synth ebb and flow in rich harmony, signifying a mutual recognition, understanding, acceptance.

"The theme for the the song is communication," Twin Galaxxies says via email. Explaining the sequences as "robotic inhuman subtext" and the piano as "human input", the producer continues: "Communication is layered — we use technology to communicate with each other, but also everything on our phones or laptops are built around a basic computer language."

Synths may rise, may buzz with proclamatory brightness, but at the core of 'Emoticon Valley' is hollowness. The sonic illustration a cyclical drama in which the parts are all the same, whose ending is pre-determined at every new beginning — something which the producer calls a "dark falseness [of technology] that we’re all aware of but seemingly ok with."

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• 🔔 Listen to more from Twin Galaxxies over on SoundCloud.

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☟ Twin Galaxxies Internet Presence ☟
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