🐣 ALBERTA BALSAM — FEELS / I CAN'T SAVE YOU

It’s the enchantment of synthetic regularity and modern-day decay, and what that decay leaves roiling and gushing behind in its wake - absence, void - that fills the soundscapes of Rotterdam’s very own Alberta Balsam. Both ‘Feels’ and ‘I Can’t Save You’ are pristine currents curdled by a sense of warped disintegration, the synth burbling like overused magnetic tape, the tinge of distortion like fabric frayed at the edge and sun-bleached; ‘I Can’t Save You’ feels cold, a light phaser hypnotic and thin on its fuzzing columns of clouded sound, but a constructivist arpeggio (late-20th century documentary footage of money being printed; cameras panning up half-built skyscrapers) keeps spirits up, along with a soulful sirensong of a vocal oscillating in and out of earshot.

In both tracks too, the beat is this set of building blocks - in ‘I Can’t Save You’ patterns of polyrhythms layered on each other mix themselves into a cocktail of organic clacks and synthetic ticks, a snappy clatter of lightly cudgeling percussion almost nudging the track into the realm of broken beat. The decidedly darker ‘Feels’ uses percussive sound to punctuate the track with glistening mystery, golden exotic clockwork on electrified fields of thick synth with liquid ghostly vocals running through, and crunching columns of synth and a stuttering sling of skittering beats.

These two morsels illustrate a deeply embedded duality that is always recognisable - that idea of dark and light, night and day. Though icy, robotic and eaten-at, ‘I Can’t Save You’ is Alberta Balsam’s bright-side, no matter how lonely the minimalism makes it seem; ‘Feels’ is its antithesis. And yet how its creator is recognisable in both, like sonic siblings they complement and oppose each other, each a distorted reflection of the other.

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• 🔔 You can stream and download 'Feels / I Can't Save You' from Bandcamp, if that is something you wish to do. This double single arrives after Alberta Balsam's debut track which dropped back in January, 'Ngelem'.
• 🔔 ‘I Can’t Save You’ comes with a music video too. Shot in Rotterdam, it “follows a lost spaceman on a journey through a desolated city filled with alienating architecture,” Alberta Balsam herself tells us. Directed by Rick van de Dood, and with Boris Chomette starring as the Spaceman, it illustrates the angularity and singular feeling of detachment with which the track is imbued. You may watch the visual treatment below at your convenience.

• 🔔 Unsure whether the moniker Alberta Balsam is based on the title of the Aphex Twin song, or whether it’s based on Alberto Balsam, the line of shampoos and other potions which is the song’s namesake. Maybe we’ll never know. On the other hand, her human name is Aniek de Rooij.

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🐣 ERSTAV — INK & GLUE [初演 • PREMIERE]

Alien flavours dominate the backdrop to this track, a swirling of lost-in-space radio signals that chirp and click and pulse like inhuman vocal chords expressing an inhuman language, fluttering with abrasive tiny ping-pong balls clattering energy, a rapid helicopter chop of grinding synthetics – like the atmospherics of space disaster-themed videogame music – and at the beginning a low voice introduces the track with unintelligible guttural digitised sounds. 'Ink & Glue' by Italian duo Erstav shows off the respective interests of the musicmakers behind the name: Marco's "careful balance between minimalism and musicality" mixed with Alessandro's "industrial and punk background," influenced by "the d.i.y. ethos of punk and power-electronics." The sound-design-esque immersive ambience of that constant extragalactic sound in the track certainly owes itself to the brooding nature of these two producers' tastes.

But if it is that fractional communication, or the buzzing of pipes and machinery and interstellar background chatter, which provides the atmosphere, it is in the beats of this track where we find immediacy. The here-and-now of 'Ink & Glue' is in its hard percussive punctuation throughout, in the broken beat nature of the hits that tumble in swinging, holding onto the dark air that comes before and piledriving that which stumbles afterward, a rabble of overdriven kicks and burnished metallic hi-hats sheafing and shuffling throughout with satisfying syncopation, switching after 0:53 with more rapidity rolling and raining down, the industrial influences clear, the hard spartan essence of these pugilistic drums reflecting the large mechanical megaliths that float through the galaxy in a distant future of unidentified radiowaves and deepspace mystery.

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• 🔔 You can download 'Ink & Glue' above. It is taken from Erstav's White Windmill EP, which can also be downloaded for free via the duo's SoundCloud.
• 🔔 Their debut album Cold Europe is available to purchase on Bandcamp courtesy of San Francisco label Muti Music.

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🐣 M-CUBED — ACQUAINTANCES

As soon a this track by Atlanta-based M-Cubed starts you sorta know you're in for it, in for something popping and energetic, and that is definitely what you get. What literally first came to mind was Sonic CD (a game what else), specifically the themes for some of the "Bad Future" levels, not that its reminiscent but the futuristic feel of it all, the industrial cog in the machine spirals of grandslam percussion tickety-tickety clackclackclacck thumping diagonal or like a fly bumping into a window, the dystopian flavour of the voxy chord-pads syncopating through the first section, those arpeggiating synths thoughts of digital brains. Got that dark jazzy atmosphere of that soundtrack with the same sorta speed and Sonic you know he's a fast hedgehog isn't he. Chaotic beautiful, yet also very laced with precision and mathematics.

But the track gradually slows down, morphs through a couple of phases, goes from this speedball clatterraucous mayhem into one just a little less busy from 1:25 on, adding these atonal organ chords and hyper little melodies like an injection of Bach. Then 2:07 the beat's accents and ornamentations fly away and leave only a slow nodding beat, gently wobbling electric piano chords warming out the rest of the track as things gradually fall away, the last mechanical sounds of before slowing and distorting at the very end. To arrive at that point from those stuttering robotics and shattering beatscapes of before is astounding, that change in dynamic and feel throughout making this broken beat-feeling half-footwork half-experimental track a playground of sound.

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• This arrived courtesy of M-Cubed of course but it arrives also courtesy of COMPUTER GHOST URL MUSIC, an online music collective. They release electronic computery music on their SoundCloud as far as I can tell.
• The artwork in all its crystalline distortion glory is by ASTRAL, who also created the logo for Computer Ghost URL Music, too. The blue and pink merging in these skeletal lines fit the jagged beatisms of the track, that's for sure.

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🐣 DTTØ — REEF BREAKS

First and foremost what I have to say or at least what I had to say was that the chords in this song reminded me of the same soft wobbly wibbly muted chords in some battle music from Earthbound. It turns out that actually the feel of the music is very different, but the spacey texture of the chords is overall the same, and that is attractive for me. I have Glasgow producer Rory Green to thank for that I suppose, who is the real name behind DTTØ and this track 'Reef Breaks', a study in sampling and broken beat style sonic craftsmanship, a collection of sounds like an exhibit of trinkets, treasure trove for your ears.

So aside from those chords which persist warmly through the song there is a wealth of rich sounds floating through and falling down into the cradle between 0:00 and 3:02, this authentic homely scientific white noise crackle, these flashes of percussion insectoid and bristling with the whole bustling rest of found sounds – the fragments of conversation and other vocal samples – bing-bing-bing somewhere along, scratching raspy snare-clap on robust body of sub, all of it combining in a fizz that whilst busy-busy is floating over you breezy casual, collage of chill and intrigue like half-drawn geometric patterns in pastel with striking blobs of oilpaints dashed on. Violin sampled refraining and amateur touches the heart, helps it to feel even more like cosy orange light in a small comfy friendly friend's house.

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• 'Reef Breaks' is from the album Botanics which came out at the end of November and there's a lot more of the broken beat-feeling rhythms and found sounds and cut-up samples and wavysmooth synths, particularly liked this track obviously and the opening track 'Azure' and 'Push Me'. You can download it for freeeee here.

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SLUGABED – I LUV U & I MISS U

It's beats galore here, a deft command of lounge-feeling groove, continues with this tumbling beat and then drops into a deeper gorge of sound, heavier, pummelling with punches of bass, percussion strewn about, some of it woody and scuttling, some jangling, crunching. A distant feel with soft tropical sounds playing sweet glittering melodies over breaths of synth, and awkwardly slanted with metallic cutting sounds. It's as wonky and robust as it is light and spacey, and it's fascinating how much slugabed can put into one track without it transitioning into complete difference.

Later in the song its title becomes clear. 'I love you... and I miss you... and I really want you to call me back' spoken over the phone, despairing and crooning like an aching ghost in the dead blank loneliness of night. The faraway exotica of the broken beat echoes this distance, this bobbling mantra of beats and reflecting the unease and sadness of whoever might be saying these words and feeling these things. At the same time, the seeming disconnect between the vocal sample and the sometimes happy-go-lucky sounds breathing throughout might be illustrative of someone who, upon hearing the words, doesn't care all that much. It's open to interpretation.

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• This track is a free download, which is lovely isn't it.
• Also, you know slugabed right? If you don't, he is called Greg I think, he's been making music for five maybe more years, he's from London, and he runs a fun label by the name of Activia Benz.

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JULIEN MIER – THE HAND FOLLOWS THE EYE

Getting hooked to this track is as easy as pressing play and beginning its ping-pong insectoid clatter percussion noises simmering away. It's a treat for a brain that wants to listen to these luscious noises, combined with and underpinned with a heady wave of rich bass. Click click clatter click pop. The beat develops and evolves with a skipping syncopated snap, percussive stringy sounds adding to the soft crunch of this popping candy soundscape, colourful atonal chords bouncing along.

The way it breaks into something more sombre is beautiful, the beat suddenly falling away to reveal a wash of rain, an intensifying slosh of sound. Then— nothing. Nothing: brief silence, room to breathe, and then the beat and the percussion enjoy their final fizzing fade to the end. It feels gloriously cluttered, a meandering progression, a busy mind gradually adding more weight and more thoughts until that rainy drop into brief oblivion... and then— and then, it starts all over again. Or its a portrait of going through the motions, automatic living, perhaps, until you begin to think about it too much.

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• This is taken from Julien Mier's new album Shiny Silver Lining, released on Canadian label King Deluxe. You can listen to that or buy it here.

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EVM128 FEAT. OLMO CASSIBBA – TREATMENT

Wooowww, well well well. This captured my imagination a great deal when I first heard it. A month or so later, it's still teetering on the borders of my memory like a candy wrapper glimmering in sunlight, or like something else that might draw your attention – crystals strewn across a beach, finding a prize (plastic funny-smelling figurine) in your cereal as you pour it into your bowl. That sort of thing.

It arrives from EVM128, real name Luke Meads: Bristol progeny who now dwells in London. It's called 'Treatment'. Heralded in descriptions and press releases as a revival of another Bristol product, broken beat, it's easy to discern the fragmented nature of the beat through your own ears: irregular patterns in the alternating kick and abrasive-fluid snare, jangling tambourine cut and placed between these, hi-hats skiffling in unusual order, additions of flighty cymbal bell-hits, assertive hyperactive snare rolls, other percussive syncopations, all offbeat in a style that fits rhythmically between house and hip-hop. People 'in the know' will say 'ah yes this broken beat rite here'. Sounds broken – simple.

Hmmmm, well, actually, thinking about it… it seems less simple the more you think about it. Despite knowing about the style beforehand, despite listening to 'Treatment' on repeat, the pattern of the beat feels fresh every time. Is it its seeming irregularity that makes it harder to pick up on? Are there genuinely predictable and unpredictable rhythms in music? I suppose you could become used to it after a long while… These are questions for a neurologist.

But it's not just the beat that makes EVM128's track so salted-caramel-delicious; add to the neurone-stimulating skiffle-thump a modulating wobble of airy ghostly synth – woo-oo-oo-oo, like that – the occasional singular soft chord simply asserting its existence in the midst of the beat thicket, the drippy-splash melodic synth painting chilled lounge melodies in miniature; add all this and you have a special sound, seemingly effortless and wonderfully basic.

And that's not forgetting Olmo Cassibba, the Sicilian-Scottish alto saxophonist and person-of-percussion, whose blissful work on the flute completes 'Treatment', making it a great clashing together of these fractured even garage-lilting beats, these trip-hopping future-facing electronics, and horizontal lounge exotica sunshine pouring in, jungle-beach-cosmopolitan-hangout jazz flavours, the phantom of cigarette smoke hanging like a thin veil in a basement club, nocturnal car-driving under illuminated palm trees.

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• And there is more of this delightful beatwork and instrumental goodness on EVM128's debut album, Nova. It's out now and you can listen to / purchase it here.

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MINCHA – BEING WITH YOU

What first struck me about this track is its delicious noises – the sumptuous tongue-twizzling ear-tickling sounds at the upper end of the spectrum trickling and bouncing, eye-poppingly alive and full of the essence of found sounds: actual real world sounds put into music.

What is it? It's called 'Being With You' and it's by Mincha a musicmaker from Bordeaux, France. Aside from the noises I mentioned above – the subversive opulence of broken glass, running or maybe even boiling water, a crunchy noise that sounds like someone taking a huge bite out of an apple, little insectoid metallic noises, sharp ticking hi-hats – it is propelled forward by a broken garage-flavoured rhythm, offbeat thudding kicks working alongside syncopated cleanly clacking snare hits, supported by the constant cascade of percussion, resulting in a highly kinetic vibe.

On top of this shuffling beat we alternate between icy, atmospheric feeling – with cymbals shimmering silver into the void, slivers of synth providing cold singular hits, gentle phasing sounds, soft muted bloops, the occasional smart jazzy flourish of double-bass, unintelligible vocal samples echoing in the freezing expansive frame of the track – and something more intense, with just-as-icy synths skirling with slow trance flavour, piercing the cloudy atmosphere with angular sides

The whole thing ending with rich piano to round off what has been a voyage into a cosmos of unknown twinkling objects, an outpost of cleansing energy in cold, dark space; a tale of deeply nocturnal dance music, highlighting the unknown echoes of the night and thoughtful introspection with a collision of styles and an impressive inventory of imaginative ornamentation.

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• This song exists as one of a pair: 'Excuses / Being With You', which you can download from Bandcamp.

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