🐣 POLES — MOTION FT. SOFT JAW

⌾ LISTEN TO POLES, MOTION FEAT JAW ⌾

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The elastic instruments of 'Motion' is something that gives it the dynamic energy that absorbs you and then bounces you away, the rubber sway of the stumbling-down-a-corridor synths, an intoxicated sound that feels like a twirling mind. Not just the flapping synth, but the zooming acceleration and then dead stops of the bass give it this kineticism. It's a minimalist, leftfield approach to R&B, as producer Poles explains over email.

"I knew I wanted my music to continue in that direction as opposed to the more poppy, future bass music I was writing," he writes. "'Motion' draws from my history in hip-hop, but incorporates my love of odd, bass-hitting electronic music. The fusion gave us something really unique."

Not just the plasma synths, nor the taffy heft of the bass, or the punchball training thuds of bass drum that pummel throughout, but the twisted musicbox clinks, the phantomatic chords that squeak across the glossy surface of 'Motion' like a disjointed dancer, add to that definitively unconventional approach to musicmaking.

A slice of normality comes at the end, the piano, damaged and dusty, like the sun rising after club sojourns, the haze of alcohol exorcising itself from the spirit; Poles' hazy full stop to vocalist Soft Jaw's pitch shifted croons that gave this track its sultry, nocturnal character.

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• 🔔 Download and stream the Poles and Soft Jaw collaboration 'Motion' via your fav platform.

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📠
☟ Soft Jaw Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

☟ poles Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 ANOMALIE — CANAL

From literally the first few seconds of 'Canal' we're dropped into an ultrachill atmosphere, one that begins smooth and viscous, hefty on the sub-bass and the lounge-flavoured piano that meanders throughout—and which turns cinematic, with flashes of freewheeling strings that zing on beds of wide warm synth; this morphs into a tract of hard-boiled electronica, with wibbly synths and brash columns of synth-bass buzzing beneath. Canadian musicmaker Anomalie sets us floating down this chilled flow, actual water noises and waves washing on sand interspersed throughout.

And besides the obvious chill of this track there's the dynamism of it all – very much helped by the rattle and thump of the prodigious drums ; the way it sways between different atmospheres and different textures, being neon bubbling contemporary synth jam one moment before reverting to peals of kinetic piano the next: the corollary being this contemporary nocturne, a highly polished, ornately sculptured piece of noir that remains light instead of weighed down by the world. The six seconds between 2:24 and 2:30, with the piano's motif at the end before those synth chords again, sums up the playful virtuoso and expansive subdued nature of 'Canal', sitting somewhere at the juncture between gorgeous inactivity and exciting hyperactivity.

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• 🔔 This wonderful slice of classy piano is taken from Anomalie's upcoming second EP, Métropole Part II (out 13th April), the follow-up to last year's Métropole EP, which featured tracks like the well balanced jazz of 'New Space' and the elastic 'No Way'.
• 🔔 You can download and stream 'Canal' variously here.
• 🔔 The artwork was created by fellow Montreal resident Ali Hassanein.

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📠
☟ Anomalie Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 STAR CHAMBERS — MATERIAL NOSTALGIA

This track is interesting in that it plays like a deconstruction of an original song into what might be argued to be its most memorable parts. Or rather, not memorable, but its most elementary components. We have the tumbling metallic slapped bass, flute synth scorching like a melted sunset, we have vocal fragments, faded keyboard synths. All of these, together, differentiating in melody, rhythm, these create a song. But what Star Chambers does here instead is leave them as extracts of the essence of a song, using them as building blocks to assemble the fragmentary retro dream that is 'Material Nostalgia'.

The sound is essentially compartments of sound interspersed with silence, over into which that bass, the vocal samples, the reverb from these noises, spills and fades into the quiet, creating an instantly dynamic soundscape where each break in audio is cushioned with warm whispers of reverberation, and where each node of noise is sharpened by the spaces between. At 01:00 the beat rolls in, thudding kicks, sword-from-a-sheath hi-hat, popping snare, disappearing between 02:24 and 03:12 where a new vocal hits rhythmically, pans left and right, a breathy almost alien section in the song that soon takes us back to sunny swagger of the beat. A retro reverie, and an exercise in what actually constitutes a song – simply the rhythmic placement of musical elements on a soundless backdrop – 'Material Nostalgia', if its title is anything to go by, plays on ideas of nostalgia, and how it can be summoned into our consciousness with just sub-second-long slices of sound.

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• 🔔 You can go listen to 'I Was Born Twenty Years Too Late', which you can also purchase for $1000. It's the first release from upcoming album Material Nostalgia, out sometime this year digitally and on cassette, too.
• 🔔 Does the name Star Chambers refer to the English court that existed at Westminster from the 15th to the 17th century? Who can say. More likely it comes from the related modern meaning of "legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings"—that's from Wikipedia.

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📠
☟ Star Chambers Internet Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Bandcamp

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MINO MINO – GLOWING

Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO? Who is MINO MINO?

Somebody has to be MINO MINO. Obviously, someone is going to be them. You don't just… or maybe you do… but generally you don't set up a SoundCloud and then almost overnight get like a zillion plays. I reckon it's the side project of somebody already established. I went back to see the first people they followed, and the very first one was Maxo. Maxo… Mino… Hmm. But that can't be it. Then again, maybe you really can set up a SoundCloud, follow the right people, get noticed quick-fast. BUT I am not a detective! What do I know! I know absolutely nothing! Who am I! GRAAAAARRRRGH!!1

Anyway, MINO MINO or Mino Mino or mino mino is a new musicmaker and their name is a repetition of the word Mino which is the name of a number of places in Japan as well as the name (kanji: 蓑) for a traditional Japanese straw cape, see here for details. It could also be a truncation of 'Minogue' maybe that's it. Etymology and identity aside, the music itself is really interesting. Most recently they put up a track called 'TBH' which kinda sounds like an electronic djent track vaguely crossed with the suspenseful music from Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine.

However, I first stumbled across them thanks to a track called 'GLOWING' or 'Glowing' or 'glowing' so, yeah. Again there's this atmosphere of tension, a impending threat, a mist of grit to it, sonically illustrated with schizophrenic insectoid synth rapid-chirruping high up the register, a bulging bassline – the type from Goldeneye (N64) – enacting a few notes of threat for some sweaty-palmed terror.

Elsewhere it glitters with nocturnal sophistication, sweeping pianos lending it a noir jazz air. All the time it is hotly dynamic, always shifting, an ADHD étude where hi-hats tick and shiver, morphing from glassy to abrasive, where toms tumble together, breaks in the low end of the track – including clusters of polished kicks – giving the track, and you, some room to breathe. It's the soundtrack to looking round the corner of a corridor you don't wanna go down. Or a road you don't wanna walk down. Or a fantasy heist. More than anything else it sounds like videogame music and that's a mega plus for me; that it can conjure so many things, I think this says more about the production (which is super-polished and fine-tuned as it is, regardless of imagination) than it does about me.

It also does say a lot about how being an enigma or operating with a certain air of mystery makes everyone lose their shit over you, i.e. makes you a more attractive artist to want to follow / listen to.

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• The newer track 'TBH' is taken from a compilation called Fam Volume 1, curated by label (?) Candid Music Group. It's out 26th January, which is Monday, which is tomorrow.
• Also, who is Mino Mino? Actually it doesn't matter really does it.

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☟ Mino Mino Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Twitter

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ARCHIVIST ARCHIVIST EP [STREAM & FREE DOWNLOAD]

It's not often you hear something like this. In fact, I'm not sure if I've heard this kind of sound exactly as it appears here before. It's certainly a very interesting listen. What is "it"? What is "this"? It is the debut self-titled EP from South London duo Archivist - known separately as Ed Begley (vocals, lyrics, piano, guitar, programming, synths, percussion) and Rory Simmons (guitar, programming, synths, trumpet). The multi-instrumentalism and programming know-how certainly make for a dynamic combination; this is a very accomplished piece of work. In just five songs, you - the eternal listener - are taken on a wild ride through variegated realms of rhythm and sound, all with an overarching theme of poignant and pretty dreaminess.

The introduction to Archivist's world comes in the form of 'Wonder Through'. Against sounds that summon the hustle-and-bustle of everyday city life, with the jittering tick of hi-hats and loops of blustery electric piano chords, a sense of calm - of wonder even - effuses from the standing-still-in-the-midst-of-madness vocals that sing of "streets paved with gold"; sweeps of guitar and glittery synth crash around as Ed Begley's powerful falsetto belts lungfuls of emotion. Indeed, that voice is something that makes this EP what it is. Undeniably and gloriously English, it's also an extremely well-polished voice that is certainly put through its paces throughout the EP.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the riff-heavy pumping rock of second track 'Whatever You Are' - cymbal-laden drums smash out the beat as the looping guitar riff accompanies Begley's mean drawl in the verse, clinking percussion dotting the spaces between the cold sounds. It's in the final third of the song where the vocals scream loud, holding long lung-bursting notes in rock-god fashion - not an actual human sound I've heard nor been more impressed with since I heard The Mars Volta's 'L'Via L'Viaquez' - just sayin'. It's good!

'We Can't Be Friends' features a weirdly unnerving sense of funk against near-menacing spears of thick synth, all to a hip hop beat underpinned with meaty double-bass. This one feels very English indeed - there's a touch of Kasabian (maybe even Gorillaz) in here, yet rinsed in a waterfall of decorative sounds. Closing track 'Chancer' has a similar feel to it. Beginning with industrial synth heaped with delay we're soon plunged into an electronic wonderland of progressive sound set to a constant minimal beat where Begley's voice reigns over it, richly layered in some parts but always reverbing mistily into the meld of noises. With a slightly different sound, 'Swim' is an ambient illumination of rippling liquid waves, busy with chords and percussion, and haunted by lamenting falsetto vocals. At about 2:42 the beat suddenly breaks into a rapid uptempo samba-style affair, percussion shaking like lines of dancers in the background, and a delayed, distorted trumpet begins a futuristic jazz solo as ascending guitar notes provide a delicately fluid ornamentation - a very fun change in dynamic.

If you're looking for something exciting and different, this is what you should be listening to. Though only their debut EP, it already sounds like Archivist have years of experience under their belts. Counting amongst their influences Radiohead and Aphex Twin, their sound is telling of a love of particularly British musical acts; this release not only celebrates this kind of intelligent and meticulous half-electronic-half-live affair, but steps into its midst as a co-conspirator and takes the scene even further forward.

The EP is out now as a free download on SoundCloud and a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.

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Like Archivist on Facebook
Listen to Archivist on SoundCloud
Hear more Archivist on Bandcamp
Visit Archivist official site
Follow Archivist on Twitter

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