SPAZZKID – AT FAULT (FEAT. THERE IS A FOX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I love Spazzkid. How can you not? I mean, even as a person (called Mark Redito) he's really nice, so the fact that he makes really lovely music is a bountiful bonus if ever there was one. If you don't know this guy then, um, get to know: the best way is to trawl his Bandcamp page where you'll find everything from Early Demos (2004–2006), to the wholly immersive experience that was his album release of last year, Desire (願う). His lovingly crafted sounds ring with electropop, with chillwave, with J-inspired melodies, with footwork flavours and above all, with touching positivity.

I managed to miss the uploading of his latest track 'At Fault', however, but thanks to Oliver (s/o The 405) I heard it today and I knew instantly that I had to write about it and share it. This track is unique in that it features the cooperation and collaboration of fellow SoCal resident, There Is A Fox. Real name Hiro Makino, I wrote about him and his dreamily endearing brand of indie-folk-pop last Autumn, and was therefore pleased to find his sound and style permeating this song alongside Spazzkid. Beginning life as something that sampled & re-arranged a There Is A Fox original, 'Bad Day', it grew until these two artists were working alongside each other on the track.

Tagged "folktronic" I think this just about sums it up. Folk-pop guitar appears out of the void in vibrantly choppy succession with xylophonic sounds raining down in the slow sway of the song; by the end everything is jumbling together in a colourful mash of sound, from right down low with the booming bass and muffled kicks to the high registers of rattling percussion and looping guitar riffs. Vocals sing out innocently with lashings of dream-laden reverb, "It's not my fault…", calm in the zinging euphoria of the track. It is expansive, opening up as it goes along, evolving all the way, filled with wonderfully living-and-breathing organic samples and sounds residing harmoniously next to wholly electronic fabrications. At every moment it is endearing; did you hear the little cough/clearing of the throat at the start? Just another magic touch.

So there it was. Hoo-hah! It's lovely. I can't help but love it. I'm a fan. I hope you're a fan too. Fyi this song was supposed to feature on Spazzkid's upcoming EP (which I'm v excited for), but it grew and grew and, as he describes, "ended up wanting a life of its own. It stands for itself, pure and beautiful." Well well well indeed it does.

• Go and download 'At Fault' for absolutely nothing.
• Enjoy this little interview that Spazzkid was kind enough to agree to.

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JON HOPKINS FEAT PURITY RING BREATHE THIS AIR

This is a really beautiful song. If I start with that, it makes me feel like everything I write from here on in will just be superfluous gumpf. Despite that, I'm gonna go on with it. Is that ok with you? Is it ok with me? I think so. Because, as I always say, good music deserves kind words. So if I go into raptures, that's ok. Think of it as a star-rating system, but with the quality of the words being the guiding light. Stars and numbers... that's for the NME and other things. Who needs words when you can just listen to a song and, instead of respecting the effort that goes into it, just say, "Mmmmyeah it's an 8/10, stick it up on the site, print it – NEXT!" Not my style.

Anyway. Sorry about that. Today we have Mr Jon Hopkins, a London-based producer, doing a song with pretty-vocal'd chill-step duo Purity Ring called 'Breathe This Air'. (I made up chill-step, but that just goes to show how silly genres are). Hopkins, on his Facebook, describes it as "A new version of Breathe This Air with vocals by Purity Ring" - the original is a much bassier, dancier affair. In the Purity Ring version, it's condensed, prettied up, ambientised and generally blooms in wonderful clouds of sound around your ears - it's a less abrasive sound, I guess. Let us listen.

Isn't it lovely? There are some lovely details at the beginning that really catch the ear. That gentle tinkling piano, the atmospheric noises of endless space, the reversed and spliced samples of the vocal that comes in quite soon, and - a small detail, but an important one for me - the skiffle of the snare drum at 0:29, a great live-drums-sounding technique that pops up throughout the song. The drums themselves are nice: glitchy, catchy, lovely. What Jon Hopkins seems to do is hold things back, giving you a lot of good sounding things but keeping stuff for later - like the lightly crunched modulated synth that hops in after about 1:25. It's this progressive sound that keeps your ears quite excited for what will come later. Brief synth glitches jut in like arrows from heaven.

The vocals from Purity Ring - the female half of the duo, obviously - are just perfect. They're treated carefully, like a rare bird; people always say that to hold a bird, it's a careful balance of not-too-much and not-too-little. This is just how these vocals are laid on the track, not over-produced, yet glittering with a seemingly unending reverb, touched with a little electronic autotune for stylistic purposes (or at least that's what I hear). As for the vocals themselves - what a voice. Beautiful. It's hypnotic.

This comes as a single from Jon Hopkins' 4th album, Immunity, out on Domino records. You can download it digitally on 23rd September.

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LIES FT JUNO// ORIENTE [FREE DOWNLOAD]

Last time I wrote about Italian duo LIES and their song 'Escape I/S/M' it was thanks to them, or one of them at least, sending me a message. Now I'm writing about them again and it's down to the same fact of their sending a message. It's difficult to keep tabs on everything at once so to have lovely music delivered right to you is very nice indeed. So, thank you!

This time around, however, they have teamed up with fellow Italian producer JUNO// to create a very nice song indeed: 'Oriente'. I've gotta admit I was quite surprised at the result. It's a pretty intense sounding song, with a very solid beat and some very solid bass, all tied together with some wonderful crackling synth arpeggios. It's a veritable electro playground, having all the fun of retro music crossed with the nice production methods of the modern day. You'll find it difficult not to bop your head, wiggle your toes, tap your fingers, raise your eyebrows or whatever it is you happen to do when you find rhythmic solace in music.

Those bass synths are something else, aren't they? Really get under your skin and into your body. Very loud. Those along with that slo-house beat give it an epic feel - especially with the occasional battering of tom drums. There's a dose of the tropical in there, too, with some beach-friendly tubular bell-type things, heavily accented with reverb and other things, making them seem a little unearthly. Screaming synth streams over the top in some places, heavily modulated and sounding like a waterbeam (a Pokémon move for those who don't know) or something similar. Javelins of neon electricity.

Add to this a laid-back, 1990s-songstress-type vocal sample and you have a pretty interesting sound. The dynamic breaks are really nice too - the one at 2:49 for example that only lasts for seconds is perfect; it's just a small break from the intense rumblings of the song, but it's enough to give those same rumblings some massive "oomph" when they come back in. Nice sounds all nicely composed. In fact it actually reminds me of something... kind of a slowed down version of 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)' by Eurythmics. Get what I mean? Similar synth. Anyway.

You can download this song for free. FREE. Download it and put it on your iPod/Phone or whatever other device you happen to own for listening to music on-the-go and just wait till it pops up. Imagine it would be especially cool if you listened to this on a crowded rush-hour tube train on the way home. I don't usually give recommendations like this so I don't think I'll make it a regular thing.

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