SAVNKO — WHYUFALLIN

Italian producer savnko delivers a high-octane treat with 'whyufallin', a breakcore number that mixes the symphonic heights of Balearic-leaning dance music with the murk and crunch of various lofi-infused '-core' offshoots. The beat scampers and soars alternately, intricate yet destructed, providing the jet fuel that underpins the rising synths and glimmering syncopated chord stabs, the pitched vocals like rare polygonal birdsong. And, despite the variegated textures and vitality of the track, there's conscious attention to a minimal soundscape here.

Ultimately, and if the title is anything to go by, in this track the Milan-based producer illustrates troubled flight and hindered movement — the desire to ascend or push forward while weighed down by futility, fear, anything that anchors us. 'Why are you falling? What is holding you back?' Or to put it another way: it's the last lap on Rainbow Road and you're in 11th but still you push on to the finish.

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• 🔔 'whyufallin' by savnko is taken from his BIGTHINGS EP, which you can listen to via spotify or apple music if you like.
• 🔔 You also might like to check out savnko's previous work, such as his notgood@sports EP for Milan label 51beats, where he exhibits a decidedly more analogue approach and aesthetic.

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☟ savnko Internet Presence ☟
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SQUAREPUSHER — THEME FROM ERNEST BORGNINE

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⌾ LISTEN TO THEME FROM ERNEST BORGNINE ⌾

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A frenzy of drums propels ‘Theme From Ernest Borgnine’ along, metallic snares rifle and tumble over themselves, a torrent of hi-hats and cymbals splash as a backdrop. Listening to this storm and surge of percussion is like feeling the weight of a waterfall: unceasing, multifaceted, and in the tumult of both, strangely soothing.

The natural connection to Squarepusher’s track doesn’t stop there. Lead synths chirp in snippets of stave-hopping brightness like the songs of robotic birds; soft, muffled chords provide a heavy haze, the type that fogs the sky on hot days. It’s only in its coda, the final minute and a half of the track, that it feels suddenly synthetic — human, basically.

The ambience falls away, revealing the true harshness of the drums, while acid synths wobble and crack in energetic celebration. Squarepusher symphonises jungle, creates rollicking rave beats garnished with emotive washes of sound, but he also wakes the dreamer from their peaceful slumber.

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• 🔔 'Theme From Ernest Borgnine' is taken from the upcoming remastered re-release of Squarepusher's Feed Me Weird Things — his debut studio album released back in 1996. The remastered edition is due out on 4th June on Warp Records. You can pre-order it on vinyl, CD or just digitally from Bandcamp.

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☟ Squarepusher Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 IGLOOGHOST — SŌLAR BLADE

Firstly it's like an overdose of caffeine and the juddering jitters that go with it, the free-form jazz of thoughts that hurtle round the mind on this sort of high, thigh-jiggling anxiety, dopamine cranked up rounds of it uzi-fire like a fanfare of madness. None of this negatively. The hyperactivity at work in 'Sōlar Blade' by UK musicmaker IGLOOGHOST is nothing short of addictive, compelling; it is not going on around you but instead it flows into you, it vibrates you, it enjoins us to join it enjoying the Jupiter storm swirls of it caught up in itself all wonderful, all jelly beans and jewels tornado jam. The never-faltering full-speed footwork beat pops and thuds in rapid-fire flurries like Bruce Lee punches, pugilistic, simultaneously knocking you into a, and out of your, stupor.

Pulsating columns of buzzing synth bass paw at your ears as they pour through the track like molten canals of lead and electricity, creating instant solid robust intensity, and over them crackling and fizzing like sparks and popping candy are gold-dust clusters of melody in an out-of-control strobing zoetrope of different textures and flavours – pizzicato strings, squeezy needling synth, triumphal trumpets, wheezy flute-esque noises—literally blink, with your ears, and you'll miss them, such is the depth of details dredged up from IGLOOGHOST's mind. And wiggling with these is a tract of sped-up nightcoreish vocal, whence it came is unknown; however it does infuse the cosmic playroom feel of the track with something external and real world, albeit warped and gibbering.

'Sōlar Blade' dips somewhere in the middle, and towards the end, where we enter this playful otherword courtyard garden of sound with birdsong and a dark mystic melody flashing interdimensional oddities at the windows, in the lightbulb, through the walls.

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• 🔔 This wonderful track is just one of many wonderful tracks taken from the wonderful new and debut album by IGLOOGHOST, Neō Wax Bloom, out today on Brainfeeder. You may attain it for yourself digitally and physically via this piece of clickable text.

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🐣 ZENXIENZ — MISSING CALIFORNIA

A self-destructed blare of lights and colour, of rocks and cosmic material, a delicious morsel of music that mixes these things in a heady unidentifiable salad of matter and anti-matter. Cacophonous and bustling, the sounds crammed into this track fuse together without dissolving into one another, like those vintage psychedelic visuals of oil and water swilling in a tray atop an overhead projector but sped up, these sounds crash and rollick, storm and surge, smack and clatter, synths and percussion alike, all of it alive and wriggling for being alive. This is 'Missing California' by zenxienz, something that begins slow and composed despite the sloshing of colours and sounds, the bleeperie of electronics like the conjurations of circuitboards.

Beneath these slower sections a heavy beat cranks muffled and smothered by synthetics, distant booms and clacks close-at-hand but stifled in the bubbling heat of the sounds, some of them jostling woodblock smacks and clatterations—and then this segment of breakbeat-flavoured percussive patterns, the drum & bass toppling of this sonic tower into a kinetic mash of music, wide horizon-searching synth playing a solo, an aching landscape intoxicated lead, and later on the psychedelic infusion is evident with a scramble of freeform melodies and irregular shapes, zooming towards the end, a dizzy psychic joyride into the wonderfully chaotic imagination of this musicmaker.

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• 🔔 'Missing California' is from zenxienz's second album Brainforest, to which you can listen via SoundCloud.

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🐣 MOLEMAN — OVERLOAD

Absorb this into your ears and you will feel that sensation of flying, of soaring through orange sunset skies cutting through the chill of clouds, of racing racing divebombing pulling up and twisting in the air. It is the undeniable momentum of 'Overload' that summons these images, firstly of course for being buttressed by drum and bass flavoured beats, but secondly for the rapid-fire synth arpeggio charged with energy, the juice that dresses the track in skittering start-line potential throughout. A good arpeggio will do this—just peep this track theme from SNES wonder Top Gear. It's literally racy.

Sufficiently doused with bright hyperactivity, Moleman drives the music along with hefty judderings of electro bass, locking with the punchy beat and its thicket of hi-hat shuffle for extra kineticism, a four-note pizzicato sound expressing urgency, willing it along. But despite its velocity, its crackling energy, there is sadness woven into this audio: at 01:14 electronics laid bare play a lament of longing, synth chords stretch out hopefully, glockenspiel chimes out a plaintive melody, and strings cry high and emotive. Like saying goodbye, or the feeling of freedom with fear of loneliness looming ever close, here is bittersweetness in all its beauty and tragedy, hope and regret.

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• 🔔 Moleman is from Bournemouth, UK, and has been making music since 2010. You can see and hear more on his Patreon page, where he admits that "2017 has been a huge turning point in my life in many ways," having stopped worrying about record labels, audio equipment, marketing—all the small but stressful stuff that he said "totally killed the fun and creative process" in recent years. It might perhaps explain the free and expansive sound of 'Overload'.

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☟ Moleman Internet Presence ☟
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ANDELS – BATTLE RACE

I don't often write about drum & bass or jungle stuff because, well, a lot of it seems quite... what's the word? – uninspired. Yes. It just feels, despite ramping up the bpm past the point of caring, unenergetic, lethargic almost. Just goes to show that you don't necessarily need to make FAST music to provoke a FAST (i.e. excited, energised) reaction. So when stuff like this does come along and sounds different to the rest of it, well, it's instantly recognisable. And in some cases it's really good.

Like with 'Battle Race' by Czech producer Andels, real name Lukáš Puška, from Ostrava, Czech Republic. This track feels less like a drum & bass or whatever track, and much more like a theme to some kind of high-speed racing à la F-Zero that just happens to have these d&b beats in the background. Beginning with these fluttering synth chords that pan left and right, we're soon dropped into a bass-bubbling beat littered with many instances of synth all over the place. Bleeping arpeggios, string synths rising and soaring into ecstatic heights, and a vocal sample singing its triumphant wordless stuff. A break in the song plays with the beat, trilling the snares and putting in these amazing little fills that are impossible to ignore.

After this break, things get even better in the second section: saw-wave bass judders to the end, synth leads summon a nostalgic mood, strings hang like a mist. And that nostalgic mood is something that is pretty much inherent in the whole track – even the beat, sampled no doubt from somewhere, is something you'd find in a 90s jungle track for sure. And the synths appear joyfully reminiscent, as if lifted directly from an old-school racing game. It's full of undeniably delicious sounds.

Looking back to the past is something that a lot of people seem to be doing to find their feet in the music world. Whether that's because their favourite music is from when they were growing up, or if they feel an affinity with sounds and styles which, though before their time, still excite their mind with an artificial but simultaneously strong sense of nostalgia – who knows. What it does seem to do, however, is be the basis, the foundation, for a lot of very good tracks in all sorts of genres from all over the world. 'Battle Race' is a prime example: a power-synth-jungle medley from the Czech Republic.

• Andels is part of Czech collective KOSMOSPIEL – check em out.

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Listen to Andels on SoundCloud
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ALEPH FOURTH WAY EP

Here's a damn nice treat today. Future sounds. Not really like anything I can think of off the top of my head. That's always the sign of an interesting song. When something doesn't really sound like much else, there's a vibe to it that's wholly new, and that leads your mind to go off into new, unexplored clouds of thought, nearly indescribable and unquenchable quiet raptures of feeling or imagination. Too deep? Too much? Well, whatever.

In some ways, it's an assault on the ears, but in other ways it's such a glorious mix of sounds that my ears don't mind. Or maybe I should just turn it down. This is the Fourth Way EP and it comes from young (19!) producer Ivan Erofeev, born in a remote Siberian village and now living in kind-of-no-less-remote Omsk, south-west Siberia. Released on the ever-cool King Deluxe, the Canadian label that brought us Jacob 2-2 and Metome, the EP is a quartet of heterogeneous songs that command your complete undivided attention. The EP is named after P.D. Ouspensky's interpretation of one of esoteric teacher George Gurdjieff's theories, the "Fourth Way" - Ouspensky put it as follows:

There are three recognized ways of self-development generally known in esoteric circles. These are the Way of the Fakir, dealing exclusively with the physical body, the Way of the Monk, dealing with the emotions, and the Way of the Yogi, dealing with the mind... there is a Fourth Way which does not demand its followers to abandon the world. The work of self-development takes place right in the midst of ordinary life. (says Wikipedia)

And maybe that's what Aleph's EP is getting at - experiencing life by actually experiencing it, simply being in amongst it all. Maybe, anyway. In any case, it starts with a killer of a song, 'Overheat' - aggressive, dark, brimming with unrelenting bass and buzzsaw-like distorted synth, pushing a brooding, ballsy breakbeat-style rhythm into your eardrums. Just the kind of song that I would literally be overheating to on a claustrophobic and sweaty dancefloor. Chopped-up samples glitch-out in the middle, a police siren screeching from somewhere. Sheer energy.

But next is the actually-quite-esoteric-sounding-itself title track, 'Fourth Way'. It is a rich weave of sounds, a veritable tangle of percussion that snaps to a rhythmic dubstep beat, a thick and heavy atmosphere illustrated by waves of synth punctuated by a procession of 8-bit bleeps. There's a really cool video to this track, created by Namibian animator Gero Doll - it's basically psychedelic 3D-rendered madness. You can watch that below.

Next is the subverted party tune, 'Crown of Slave', whose summery synth chords and slow house beat soon turn dark and stormy: trap-esque vocal samples slot in amongst menacing sub-bass, the percussion gets crazy with rolling toms and screeching synth. Yet it's back to its calculated stabs of symbiotic melodic synth chords and bass till the end of the song. Which kind of brings us perfectly onto the goofball sounds of twisted after-party gurner, 'Vodka on Patio'. Kooky popping percussion joins with weird my-head-is-spinning piercing whirls of synth. A funky little melody joins in alongside an equally funky bassline. The beat falls over and into itself, clashing and skipping the whole way. It takes a bizarre twist when around halfway through it breaks out into a smart bossa nova rhythm, and the image of having vodka on the patio transforms into a mockery of some classy cocktail bar. A clippy, still-bustling beat - with so many bouncy percussive sounds - and a Mediterranean, maybe like French or something, acoustic guitar melody gives a coolly .

An incredible work in sampling, dynamism, the difference between light & dark, and the construction of beats, Fourth Way is a lovely slice of sounds from Aleph, a promising producer and one who hopefully will thrive after this release from King Deluxe. I'm so glad I was sent this to listen to. I'll be watching for new stuff, and maybe you will too.

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Listen to Aleph on Soundcloud
Hear more Aleph on Myspace
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Check Aleph's page on King Deluxe

ALEKESAM SUMMER JAMS

It's handy when you have a surname like Masekela. You can reverse it to spell something quite similar to that universal magic word, alakazam. Very handy.

This is the convenient nomenclature that has fallen into the lap of Selema Masekela, aka Alekesam.

He is releasing an LP tomorrow, 15th May, called The Sound of Alekesam and if it's anything like the teaser song 'Summer Jams', it will be well worth a listen - if not a purchase. Take a listen for yourself below to discover the summer goodness of this song:

LISTEN TO SUMMER JAMS HERE. TASTY STUFF

As you can hear, it's a great, dance-friendly, blare-it-out-your-car-window, play-it-to-your-friends-at-a-balmy-night's-social-gathering, groove-laden, refreshing track about summer in a summery place. There's this pulsing bassline that goes steady throughout, becoming rather addictive by the end of it, overlaid with glistening synth sprinkled like tiny beads of the sea.

Sal (as he is known - he is something of a personality, having presented the X Games on ESPN quite a few times) provides some ultra-smooth vocals over the top, cruising words that dip in and out of the water, that roll in the sand, cascade like sunshine itself through cool windows and weave in and out of the bare legs that promenade wonderfully in the hot, breezy air of summer. It's poetry. And matched against the silken virtues of the delectable drum and bass rhythm, it's much more than that. It's R&B for people who don't like R&B, basically: cool, tropical, atmospheric. Forget all those summer staples, which would no doubt along the way include something by Will Smith; all you need is Alekesam.

To help illustrate, here's a helpful caption on his Twitter bio:

A black cowboy riding a dolphin, shoveling sunshine!

Sounds like that.

Don't forget: The album The Sound of Alekesam is out tomorrow, 15th May

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• Here is Alekesam on SoundCloud - listen
• Follow him on Twitter if you like
• The official site of Alekesam
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BATTLES GLOSS DROP REVIEW

Battles' second album effort resounds with all the elements that made the first, 'Mirrored', so good. But it comes with a slightly different tone, one that seems less experimental in character and more structured in terms of classic songwriting.

This may be something to do with the departure of Tyondai Braxton: frontman, singer, guitarist and all-
round experimenter. Whether he was the driving force behind the insane rhythms and progressions of their first full-length album - characterised by my personal favourite from the album, 'Tonto' - is something up for debate; this change may have occurred without Braxton's amicable farewell.

But what is clear is that their instrumental jams are just as intense, interesting and listenable as ever. The aural pleasure you get from this band is something else, something like eating food you'd never think about making yourself: a medley of flavours and new tastes that shake up your insides - in a good way.

Saying that, the first single from the album, 'Ice Cream', is nothing like the rest of the album. Matias Aguayo provides vocals that could've been Braxton's next step with the band, but it falls short of being its star attraction. The sugary sounds and summery vibe whizz around without making a full impact. It's a glancing blow; if it's impact you want, you get it elsewhere with the girthy industrial madness of 'My Machines' (possibly due to Gary Numan's input), or the crazy cascading math sounds of the high-speed 'Wall Street'.

What you really notice with this album, generally, is its speed. Songs with an almost drum and bass tempo, like 'White Electric', 'Wall Street' and 'Rolls Bayce' - the last especially with its thundering sub bassline and ballsy beginning - stick out as being Battles as they were: machine gun drumming, distortion, and staccato, music-box noise. There's not a track I don't like on 'Gloss Drop', and I actually think my favourite, the opener 'Africastle', eases you into the new sans-Braxton Battles with beautiful sweeping chords that reverberate underneath pizzicato chatter, until choppy guitars bring you up to an explosive mathletic breakdown.

It's Battles as before, but with more freedom. And with that freedom they have chosen, for the most part (minus the slow hypnosis of 'Sundome', and the weird filler that is 'Toddler'), to play with the idea of being a more guitar-based band, the huge jam that is 'Futura' being crucial evidence of this. More traditional funk basslines have eschewed the more sporadic playing on their first album. The drums have been taken up a notch, as would naturally happen in a jam band, and some of the fills you will hear interlaced into the irregular math rock rhythms of this fantastic band are genius.

Released today, this album comes featuring other artists for vocals and more. It's an interesting way to go, and something that could form some amazing collaborations - 'Sweetie & Shag' with Kazu Makino (of Blonde Redhead) has that potential, dragging Battles halfway to the dancefloor, stopping short to rock out on the way.

'Gloss Drop' does not run as smooth as 'Mirrored', and seems to be taking the band down an avenue that is lined with similar treasures to that which took them through their debut - treasures which are slightly lacking their once-alien lustre.

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WE'RE NEW HERE

Gil Scott-Heron is no longer with us. But what a tribute that had been prepared in his last months: the talents of a new star in production to take his voice, his words, and put them in a sanctuary of beats and synth. Jamie xx has immortalised the godfather of hip-hop, the grandfather of rap, the forward-thinking beat poet of years ago, in his own future sound of music. Let's take a look back at this amazing music, or if you're new to it, welcome to these sonic works of art. This is beautiful stuff, people - beautiful.


This is the star track from the album, first released as a single in late 2010. Its dubstep rhythm with a core essence of something like UK garage is very telling of Jamie xx's style. I love this sound, all of it: from the ghostly samples of Scott-Heron's voice to the bouncing kick that rises and falls throughout the song. Jamie sums it up himself:

I wanted it to sound like everything I had been listening to in London. I wanted it to sound like something you’d hear on pirate radio.

Jamie xx

This one has much more of a drum & bass feel to it, though the chopped up beats are something more akin to breakbeats. Jamie xx is another one of those producers who, like I mentioned about Clams Casino yesterday, knows how to utilise space to enhance its dynamic strengths of creating breathing space and tiny blips of quiet in which your ears naturally anticipate the sound carrying on. Much of this tempo of music is populated with guys who fill it all with tinny cymbals, giving the listener no rest or respite.


What a song. That piano chord progression gives it a sound like early house. The beat is much less ambitious in this song as the other two above, but it still packs a punch and means just as much as the complications between the kick and snare in 'The Crutch'. This one really shows off how well Jamie has treated Gil Scott-Heron's voice. It sounds absolutely perfect. I don't know what else to say. I cannot wait for Jamie xx to come up with something else, I suppose. I feel like I'm addicted to it all over again.

All of these songs are on 'We're New Here' - the Jamie xx remix album of the late, great Gil Scott-Heron's 2010 'I'm New Here'.

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