JULIEN MIER SUPER TROPIC TRAMP [VIDEO]

The Netherlands. Holland. Dutch place. Whatever you call it, it's the same area: a country in Western Europe. Why the brief snippet of geography? Because it's this country that the producer at the heart of this post, Julien Mier, calls home. Or if he doesn't actively do that, then at least we can safely say it's where he's from and is currently dwelling.

I have written about Mr Mier before, back in August, namely his song 'Porcelain Dust', which came from his LP Jane's Junkyard released earlier this year. It was a glitchy affair that was awash with lush, clattering percussion - a rich yet close-to-delicate sound. An interesting take on things, that's for sure. And what's better than interesting? Well, not much. Interest in stuff is what holds your attention; interest breeds "like" and "love".

This time around I have the brand new video for his equally brand new song, the nicely named 'Super Tropic Tramp'. The video was created by animators Koji Aramaki and Hiroki Kato and feels very much like an abstract and immediate reaction to the music itself. Prepare yourself for a colourful collage of rhythmic shapes.

Exploding out of one initial clap, the song's intro shines with long icy chords with a faint, panning delay to them that puts this sound very much in a space-age realm. Noises like, or that actually are, birds chirping join the show as the lead up to the song proper builds up. Again, it's a glitchy affair, frantically bubbling synth bubbles wild stuttering synth chords - it has this triumphant feel that is very difficult not to love. Under this a half-time beat provides a downtempo head-noddingly fine rhythm, a nice consistency for the synth-assault above.

After this stops, we're left with the nervously avian heartbeat of the kick and clinks of percussion continuing the song to its end as thin chords again take us into a floating, space-like place. It's a nice way to kick-start your senses - this intense slide from calm to crazy - yet at all times it feels masterfully restrained. The sign of a producer who knows how to get people's hearts racing, that's for sure. The song is from an upcoming collection by Julien Mier called When Will They Wake Up featuring remixes of his music from people like Sun Glitters and Alphabets Heaven, released on lovely Canadian label King Deluxe (Metome, Aleph, etc.), 11th November.

PS. I made a small test mix a few days ago that included this song at the end if you wanna hear it.

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JACOB 2-2 HERBIVORE LP

"Like all of nature's creatures, the child must one day go exploring by himself," one of the many samples taken from Jacob 2-2's brand new LP, called Herbivore, gives you a good insight into how the album sounds - to a certain degree, anyway. Herbivore is all about that wonder we all had as children, how amazing the world seemed, how small details of things existing in the world fascinated us, how exploration and adventure lay at the end of each newly discovered suburban road, each new park visited, each new videogame played.

Something somewhere said something about Jacob 2-2's music, something about the inspiration behind it. I think it was about classic 80s sci-fi movies for children, saying how they'd all start in some kid's bedroom somewhere before going on some crazy adventure. That's another theme. Not just actual childhood itself, but the imagined childhood of children in the different media we consumed in our younger years - the magical places where who we wished to be with all our hearts. And it's amazing how this heart-warming feeling transcends above the not-necessarily-heart-warming landscape of hefty beats that Jacob 2-2 throws around with rather a lot of skill.

I've written about just one of these songs before, 'Milo De Venus', a song that reeks of homely, close-to-the-heart nostalgia with a fidgety glitch-hoppin' beat, but now it seems quite a challenge to cover all of them comprehensively without being too waffly. Well, the next logical step is to bop over to 'Empire Plaza'; it contains the ticking of architecture, the glitter of industry, straight-talking beats - schizoid hi-hats and brief coughs of snares - that Jacob 2-2 has used to illustrate Empire Plaza, Albany, with its equally straight-talking brutalist buildings. Did you also hear the slowed-down sample of the opening chords of Tears For Fears' 'Everybody Wants To Rule The World'?

'Platforms' also contains another fantastic example of Jacob 2-2's beatsmithing razzmatazz, with its intricate beat bleeding a swaggeringly slow yet frantic hip hop style into the song's magical melodies; looping, chopped-up vocal samples in the second half are expertly executed and conjure a computerised, adventuresome otherworld - wishful thinking for a childlike mind. Likewise - swaggering, stumbling, half-dancing-half-sashaying onwards - laid-back bass and lickety-split beats give the mesmerising 'Red Heather, Yellow Heather' some attitudinal oomph. This is contrasted with the childhood-recalling sample of those read-a-long cassette books, "Turn the page when you hear the chimes…" The title refers to the tonguetwister constructed by varied sampled voices in the song: "red leather, yellow leather".

Jacob 2-2 animated this video himself as a trailer for the album - cool huh?

In the art of makin' beats the hip hop way, sampling does indeed play a massive part. Huge. So it's not surprising, but still damn cool, that Herbivore is packed full of delicious samples. Cut up bits of 90s-esque sounds hold up UK trackmaker Pogflipper's nostalgia-driven rap in 'Sunrises'. 'Lower 3rds' begins with the sample "In 1978…" and ends with the sample "…when teenage boys forget about girls" - between these two blasts the adventurous kinds of sounds that invaded people's heads when videogames first arrived on the scene. Dinosaurs were an obsession when I was younger - I am sure it was the same with a lot of people, seemingly including Jacob 2-2 himself, who in 'Struck Out / Foliage' samples archive footage of a man talking about the way the dinosaur world worked. This is only in the second part of the song, 'Foliage'; the first half, 'Struck Out', deals with the bummed-out feeling of losing in a game, namely being struck out in baseball, samples of "Hit it!" and "Here I go…!" giving the sense of a baseball field in soft focus, plush with rose-tinted memories. In near-heartbreaking opener, '2LTL', there's a child's sampled voice saying, "Boy, I'm too little for everything…" The song has, in its whirling synths and raining bleeps, the wild determination of a child who does want to do everything, despite their age, size, or lack of comprehension.

Feelings and images pop up out of everywhere: in title track 'Herbivore' there is leaf-eating innocence in its friendly bassline and glittering showers of synth (the carnivores can have their sharp teeth and mean looks, but triceratops, stegosaurus, brachiosaurus - they were pretty cool). 'Construxon Time Again' sounds like what scientific discoveries should be unveiled to - the soundtrack of progress - somebody demonstrating an email being sent for the first time; the slow, touching euphoria of 'Baby Duckbill'; the industrious bassline of 'So Long, Solaris' with its wondrous synths gives way to a vision of loss with lamenting strings (possibly a nod to the acquiring by IBM of Sun Microsystem's Unix operating system, Solaris. Possibly not); 'Rm W1' is a hypnotic dose of spaced-out echoing synths, an ambient journey into an adventure-movie-induced dream; 'Snow Brite' is like watching the frozen outdoors in winter from your window; 'Asphyxiation' - the majesty of a single human floating gracefully through space, without a space suit, but still marvelling at the grandeur of everything. There's such a lot that sparks the imagination.

Two contrasting tracks end this delightful album; whilst 'Quarantine Kid' exudes that listless feeling that went with being stuck indoors as a child, 'The Light Shines' sounds like the freedom of the summer holidays and the glory of playing outside in the sun. I think I've said enough. What more can I say? The exploration of the sometimes downright magical nature of childhood, all the entertainment and adventure and wonder and unanswerable questions, is something that I've never heard before - certainly not to the occasionally harsh nature of the hip hop-flavoured beats that underpin each floating synth, each retro sound. It is the clashing of a half-imagined world and one that is rooted in reality - yet in both there is discovery and ingenuity. So nostalgic. So nice.

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LIDLY TIME

Not only is it now Lidly time, as in 'it's time for Lidly', but it is also 'Time' by Lidly - fun isn't it? Now that we've got that cleared up, I'm very happy to introduce to you - whomever you happen to be - the fantastic beats of Tokyo producer, Lidly. I think I've probably said his names enough times now, so that'll be all for the moment anyway.

First time I stumbled across him was when I wrote about Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes貍貓's stunning track 'The Peach Blossom', which was produced by this Japanese beat-maker. It was clear then that his sampling and beat structures could do more than just compel you to bop your head: they could make you feel stuff as well. FEEL stuff. Imagine that. And that's always a good sign when it comes to someone who's known for making beats for other artists to sing/rap over. His beats, and beats are often just fanciful metronomes, are blankets of sound that can stand firmly on their own two feet. (If that is as many feet as a beat has).

When Aristophanes shared my article on her FB page, someone commented on it and said that they "hated" the Lidly beat: "makes my teeth hurt," they said. Well. Their teeth must be super sensitive to GREAT BEATS. That or they have utterly no taste.

Anyway, recently (like a few days ago) Lidlyさん released an album/mixtape called The Shabby Neophilia. There are so many great sounds on there, trippy multi-faceted sample-heavy hip hop that glows with attitude. But one really stood out to me and blew me away so I'm gonna write about this one. It's called 'Time' as you probably have guessed already and it sounds like dis...

Sullen organ sounds noodle with incomprehensible everyday-life kinda samples and crashing lazy cymbals before the song busts out. To a stumbling buzz of a bassline a hip hop beat drags itself through the song, ripping tearing along like someone with velcro socks staggering along a path of more velcro. Inescapable harsh claps and fizzy hi-hats.

The star here is, however, the intense scale and emotion of the synth chords. They hit you like a classical piece would, so expert is their progression within the song, except there's more depth here than a regular, non-electronic instrument could give you; the chords are broken, torn, distorted and, at the end, begin switching between left and right, chasing each other down, before fading with an echo. They give, moreover, a maudlin kind of sound: it has a feeling-sorry-for-myself vibe but there's a twist of glory and triumph that perfectly suits the majestic-yet-debilitating mystery of Time.

So... go listen to The Shabby Neophilia - u won't regret it.

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VIRTUAL FLANNEL NEON WAVES

Ok so this really old, well, the song is but I think the album has basically just been released so I'll just talk about the title track and if you like that then... then well the rest is up to you. You can go stream it all can't ya, cause this is the intonet and that's how it do.

What am I on about, I hear you ask. Well, I am talking about Virtual Flannel. I have never heard of this person before but you learn something new every day don't you, or that's what everyone says anyway. I like the name Virtual Flannel, but it strikes me as something imperceptible, like a virtual shower or bath - these things will only clean you virtually. Not actually. Maybe that's what the name is suggesting: that music is just a "virtual flannel"; it gives you a sense of feeling emotions, being someplace, or maybe actually being mentally cleaned or purified - it allows some sort of catharsis. And in that sense music could be seen as an artificial provocateur.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Probably am. But it's a little food for thought. In any case, the song is 'Neon Waves' and it's the title track from VF's new album Neon Waves (duh). Please listen to it now ok.

Those synths at the beginning create an otherworldly feel, almost like this music exists only virtually (haha) and not actually - like it can only ever be digital. Which is funny because the album has also been released on tape. Moving on, the song follows a swaggering hip hop beat and is shot with many noises that turn it into a luscious corridor of music. Record crackles and tiny super-high-pitched candy popping noise give it ambience, filling in the gaps where the beat cannot reach. A stair-climbing bassline smooths its way below the sounds. Glitch hop yeah.

It's like being taken on a journey - and one that feels like it won't end because it fades out magically at the end. It is space-age yet totally now in terms of its sound, the synth oh-so medically clean yet the beat clacking and clunky. Expect more of this kind of sound if you buy the album - it's glitchy and fluid and easy on the ears. A real treat.

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