🐣 MAX ANXD — WAITING

The textures here are gorgeous, soft snow flurries and twinkling icicles, the crackling fruit juice appeal of Fox’s Glacier Mints in hologram format, the pixelated glassy clink of Chaos Emeralds, the sparkling metallic impact of the gleaming Big Key falling from the sky when you defeat Bowser in Super Mario 64; the sound of treasured trinkets now airborne and floating in a speckled cloud of crystalline decay; memories held dear now swirling in the contemporary realities of life.

These are the synth sounds that take flight and conjure exotic nothingness in ‘Waiting’ by Cluj-Napoca-based Romanian musicmaker Max ANXD. Ascending melodies paint intrigue whilst its irregular patterns and seeming randomness summon up an elsewhere yet to be explored, unfolding in the mists before our eyes.

It moves in three parts: firstly the glistening synth of the beginning soon is joined by swathes of thick sound like hurricanes in slow motion or the slow unfolding of an alien landscape as your mind hovers above it; secondly there is a bold crunch of distortion which heralds this new minimalist urgency as the synth, equal parts soft and sharp, stutters in rapid-fire bursts; thirdly, we emerge into a cradle of sound where the hush of vox synth becomes the overriding voice, a finale of soothing synth chilliness, the atmosphere calming itself in choir, re-balancing after the anxious midsection. It is a sonic illustration of the impatience as much as the resolve of an active imagination, the expanse of externality as much as the depths of internality.

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• 🔔 Hear more tracks from Max ANXD over on SoundCloud.

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☟ Max ANXD Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 ANNE DEREAUX — ROCK AWAY (SHINES REMIX) [初演 • PREMIERE]

"I listened to the original quite a few times and really just tried to put myself in that situation," Shines tells us, talking about the creation of this remix, debuting today on yes/no. The original 'Rock Away' by Nashville-born LA-based Anne Dereaux is imbued with a brooding attitude and beset by hard thudding beats. Shines takes that looming atmosphere and stretches it out over a collage of percussion, knife-edge cymbals and clanking hi-hats and organic clops and clicks, sub-bass glooping with subtle confrontational booms, vital and spooky, like noises of a nocturnal forest. Dereaux's vocals float ghostly with reverb, resonating in the mysterious thickets of sound.

The track moves via an insectoid flourish at 01:45 from its first, trap-inflected tract to a midsection whose lo-fi clacking beats underpin a bubbling cauldron of synth, tick-tocking in its slow-motion clock swaying rhythm, heady ambience swirling with phasing coils of twinkling sound like watching a meteor shower in an intoxicated haze, the sound building from the sparse yet viscous brutalism of its first section into something ambiguous. The third and final section is doused with clarity, the sounds warmer, less abrasive, glimmers of glitter as the vocals call out and whirl like dappled sunlight. "The goal was for you to go on an introspective trip," explains the producer—and as we move from the dense depths of the forest, lost, stumbling unwittingly through thick undergrowth, and make it into spots where finally you can see the sun through gaps in the trees, it feels as though this goal was thoroughly achieved.

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• 🔔 In related news, Shines' self-titled EP is out now.

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☟ Shines Internet Presence ☟
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☟ Anne Dereaux Internet Presence ☟
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🌭 FIREWOOD POETRY — SKIN

This music spreads out beautifully, like a waterfall, like watching water spill from a vessel onto the floor in slow-motion, the gradual coursing-through-veins feeling of warmth, of gentle-handed bliss, a gradual shiver through the body. And just as liquids fit the space they're in, the spillage unfurls and seeks all available channels and carvings and gouges and forms expeditionary rivulets that snake and wind along the earth. The atmosphere in 'Skin' by Canadian producer Firewood Poetry is one of searching, one of blankness becoming unblank, of unknown becoming known.

Fractional fears skitter and creep as the percussion ebbs and flows sharply textured, a grainy crackle like a geiger counter spits and stutters familiar throughout the track; totems of half-knowledge loom in the mild glower of the gloom, that sub-bass outlining indistinct far-off forms; a thin stream of ambient synth materialises and goes through a process of dissolving and then solidifying again; snippets of soulful saxophone exhibit almost sultry longing, illustrate carnal humanity; and the vocals, soaked in reverb, resonate past what we can hear, lilting heartfully, with a rich tone, and are on occasion spun backwards; it is a tract of esoteric flavours, a soundscape that dazzles and bewitches, the spice of occult in the cooling sub sandwich of trip-hop angularity.

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• 🔔 You can download 'Skin' by clicky-clicking on this link.

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☟ Firewood Poetry Internet Presence ☟
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🐣 MOON BOOTS — THE LIFE AQUATIC

Diving right into the watery depths now is Moon Boots, whose latest track 'The Life Aquatic' is alive with liquid-leaning sounds, a sensation of floating through an undersea expanse, the mystery and panic of below the waves illustrated with just a few simple elements. Keeping momentum, bravery as the light is almost dim around you, a well crafted kick drum thuds through it all with sheafing hi-hats shaking alongside, a thin snare counting down the time you've been in this submarine world. An arpeggio of modulating synth, sometimes soft and muted, other times sharp and abrasive, plays a bubblesome melody, supplemented by steel drum pings at certain points, the notes shifting dramatically with a baroque chord change, lending a sense of majestic urgency, of being very small in a very big place.

Downcast almost gloomy synth javelins through with ambience, laserlike, futuristic, reflecting the alien nature of our obscure oceans—according to the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, humans have explored only 5% of this territory, though it makes up 70% of the earth's surface. It might as well be a different galaxy. Further allusions to the secretive seas are made in the synth vox that seems to call into the distance, illustrating the vast underwater world with reverb fizzling into the furthest stretches of vision in the big blue of it all.

Perhaps being titled 'The Life Aquatic' (probably named after that film) helps with all this imagery, but still the track suits it very well, you can imagine the slow-moving wetsuited diver in the cover art above, uncovering unknown places in the deep, fear as much as wonder summoned in the glorious melody that does not cut out or fade out but achingly beautifully slows down, the ending of a symphony, halting with realisation: is it a marvel of a discovery or unimaginable peril that looms in that final note?

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• 🔔 You who are reading this can download 'The Life Aquatic' if you choose to do so. The track arrives on independent label Anjunadeep.

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☟ Moon Boots Internet Presence ☟
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