🐣 MEISHI SMILE, LLLL & U-PISTOL — ALWAYS FEAT. CALENDULA

We heard from a pairing of Tokyo producer LLLL and Manila-based artist U-Pistol quite recently, on the happysad trance-pop-gaze of 'Falling', but now the musicmaking team extends, including Zoom Lens label boss Meishi Smile as well as sometime vocal collaborator Calendula lending their voices to a brand new song: 'Always,' — with a comma, like an unfinished sentence, the miasmic spirit of it hanging there unformed, waiting for the right words to emerge.

From the extensive introduction – a building of excitement with twinkling lights (reminiscent of the marimba arpeggio on The Who's 'Baba O'Riley') above a propellant house beat, exploding into the spaced apart synth chord hits synced with the drums this triumphal showstarting prelude quality to them – from this a spark for the rest of the track is lit.

Calendula's vocal sings quietly but swims in close-to-your-ear intimacy, vocodered layering courtesy of Meishi Smile giving the lyrics a futuristic feel, a sense of distance that fits the lyrical content of two people grasping at mirages of each other as they drift apart in their relationship, the present hammering down in the crashing snares of the beat; U-Pistol's vocals croon the story in juxtaposing upbeat pop fashion: "Slowly we've become two entities / used to be as one, which was you and me."

The track goes through a zippy synth solo, a progression that oozes positivity, heightening the feeling of this song as something "happy", the glitter and soft focus of a cherished memory, before reaching its coda; everything quietens down, the chords summon this sunset melancholy, the happiness of knowing that it happened, looking back, twinned with the all too real feeling of loss. It is romantic, sentimental, looking tentatively ahead, evocative of days gone by, the closing credits of your life.

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GO TO SPOTIFY AND STREAM THE TRACK AND ALL THE REMIXES OF IT* BY CLICKING THIS HYPERLINK

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🔔 The track is out today (!) on a partnering of Zoom Lens and Maltine Records. *It also comes with remixes by: Kristofferson (slow gossamer synths and bass above a house beat in a nebulous reworking); パソコン音楽クラブ (a synth heavy remix with a barrage of footwork-ish beats bumping the track along); ANAMANAGUCHI (faithful to the original, though even more a pogosticking dancefloor of noisy pop); Yoshino Yoshikawa (hefty and cute at the same time with clonking percussive elements and a tumbling beat); Sayohimebou (clattering experimental breakcore remix that fulfils our desire for speed and noise and glitch). Purchase it all as a nice bundle over here.

🔔 The artwork for 'Always' was created by FANGRRLZ, and it really evokes not only the spirit but the content of the song: with melancholy yet neon lighting it reflects the bittersweet feeling, the setting of the Japanese train with its sort of end-credits placement, the way the couple sits in different positions facing away from each other, their face sadly reflected in the windows of the train. Plus an easter egg—the Maltine logo as a sticker stuck below the seat on the right; and the girl is wearing a Zoom Lens badge. It's perfect.

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🐣 ROBOKID — WORTH IT

Right from its heavenly shining intro, with the gently clomping percussive synth and gradually gleaming chords, 'Worth It' feels like a perfect pop song: the syncopated synth bass that bloops and bops along in this pastel plaintive progression totally bumps the track along, the falling away of that lighter atmosphere into this hook – "I hope you know / how far this goes / it was worth it though / I'm never going home" – in which Robokid evokes emotion and intrigue, the very thought of never being able to go home, to anywhere, being a world-shattering prospect. It's a veritable story told with very few words; it's what's not said that makes it so effective.

"For this track I was trying to keep the lyrics less literal and be a little more cryptic," he explains to us via email. "I want people to make their own conclusions for sure, but it's a lot about everyone in my life however also talking to myself."

And that literal-cryptic mix comes to life in lines like: "I know you've had a bad year / and you keep saying you just wanna die / I think we have the same fears / cause you don't ever go outside." Whilst very literal, the captivating element of these words is their lack of divulgence: they don't tell you everything, just enough to touch your heart, not your mind. The rest of the track is characterised by a lack of lyrics, and an intensification of synth, spreading gossamer trance veils above garbled pitch-shifted vocals as it leads to its end; the whole thing a powerful parcel of music, like a deep and emotional DM sent to somebody but manifested in music form and seeded with upbeat pop accessibility.

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• 🔔 'Worth It' is out today on Robokid's debut EP Apart, released via Moving Castle. You can grab that here.

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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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🐣 DUCKY — WHAT U SAY

To find a sort of absolutism for sounds and styles of sounds in the music world today is something of a rare thing. Genres have become so fluid and superfluous a notion that, instead of being rallied around and defining a fanbase, they are treated more like palettes, or moodboards, and can be blended in new ways according the artists' desires. And so it is with musicmaker DUCKY. In particular 'What U Say' is a cocktail of chiptune, VGM, dubstep, pop, footwork, drum and bass, an experimental track, as many tracks that make their way into the pages of yes/no tend to be; gone is the label of 'experimental' as mere code for 'abstract' or 'unlistenable', experimental is vibrant and fresh and very online.

But to say that is to discredit the clear leaning towards, or rather the roots in, rave and specifically dubstep and the combination of sweet upbeatness – euphoria – and hard, noisy, quite dark manifestations that loom in both. 'What U Say' begins something like a track from SNES racer Top Gear, triumphal synths blaring overdriven abrasive, pulsing bass bobbling with excitement. It builds, handclaps taking us to the apex from where we plummet into grinding squelching synth and a punchy thudding beat. Vocodered vocals skip like a robotic sirensong. A small bridge where marimba-like chimes resound darkly amidst warm crackles and ominous tides of sub-bass gloop. And at breakneck speed: rapid kicks take us back into the chaos of neon bubblegum high-end melodies and scraping searing synth that storms with the beat.

Delicately, that chiming once more in earshot, DUCKY's track ends. And you realise, despite the squalling dubstep sounds at work, despite the familiar rhythms, it is alive with freshness, with emotivity, illustrating chaos and calm like an electronic symphony.

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• 🔔 The wonderful 'What U Say' is track number 3 on LA-based DUCKY's new EP I Fall In Love With Everyone I Meet, which you can stream and download variously here.

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🐣 VENESSAMICHAELS — AFTER HOURS

Here we are in a world where past and future meet, a teetering limbo of a place that pops with pastel lightness, bold bass booms buttressing beneath the breezy surface. Here is a slice of post-rave late-'90s-early-'00s electronic dance music with syncopated synth chords chewy and sweet, wobbly fluttering neon chords like cotton candy, and all with a rumbling backdrop of beats that tumble noisy mouthwatering. 'After Hours' is a bright lamination of sucrose flavours founded on substantial elements that give the cradling haze of cuteness a standoffish sense of dance dislocation, highly impersonal but also highly loveheartable too.

Created by LA-based producer VenessaMichaels and inspired by Yūta Nishio (西尾雄太)'s manga After Hours, the track feels smooth to the touch, light but heavy like freshly kneaded dough, decorated with variegated tracts of synth that swirl sometimes half-abrasive and reflective of a feeling of confusion, echoed by the vocal samples which also call out not necessarily celebratory or triumphal but more like internal yells of life and living. The intro feels somewhat grave, verging on melancholic in the guitaresque arpeggio resonating with a cooling loneliness over the stumbling stutter of the beat. Raving and cute, inward facing yet extroverted, solid but hazy, 'After Hours' blows hot and cold in a really neat way, displaying two sides of the coin at the same time for an illustration of internal struggle and finding one's place in the world.

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• 🔔 VenessaMichaels collaborated with Viz Media for this track, which is of course named after the manga which they licensed towards the end of last year. The media group describe Yūta Nishio's After Hours as "a heartfelt story about a young queer woman coming into her own and finding her place in the world."

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🐣 ANNA OF THE NORTH — SOMEONE

In a hypnotising swirl of '80s flavours, a wash of mind-cleansing synth that spreads like nocturnal mist or faux fog from a smoke machine at a retro disco, Norwegian-New Zealand duo Anna of the North spin an expansive track in the form of 'Someone', exuding a sense of hopefulness, a filmic reverie whose soft focus scenes of neon-pink-and-green-on-black flash in your mind, a balance of feel-good fun and melancholy romance swinging to the rhythm of the thumping electro drums. "It’s about how easy it is to break your promises when you’ve had a couple of drinks," the band explains in a press release.

"Going deeper," it continues, "the song is about accepting that you’re only human and to learn how to forgive yourself for your own mistakes and accepting that sometimes we need someone to save us from repeating any old habits." You can definitely, definitely feel the drama of that explanation imbued in the track, something highly emotive at work as Anna literally sings asking for someone to come and save her. The wide, vast synths of this track suggest a newness, a discovery, a revelation, the feeling of having been closed up now cast aside in light of new acceptance, something about the cold light of day blaring bright as the glistening sheen of synth sparkles atop the juddering electro bass, sobriety and honesty set sail in a vessel of retro pop.

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• 🔔 'Someone' is taken from Anna of the North's debut album Lovers, which is getting released on 8th September via, for some reason, three labels (Different Recordings / Honeymoon / +1 Records). You can pre-order it variously via this link.

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🐣 NSAY MADA — UNDER COVER

The vocals here are so softly done so falling over everything mistily like a veil, the long curls of its silken tones unfurling, whispers into the night air, the nocturnal desire effusing as from a smoke machine at an otherdimensional disco, how it is slowly serpentine like this, how it coils with the leisure and languor of looming lust, the low tones of Nsay Mada and her fluttering highs rich with feeling and focus, fragranced by its textures, pastel spray paint above the neon crunch of the throwback synth that frames this track perpetually in another realm of time where midnight is dark yet chequered with colours and promise of something more.

'Under Cover' keeps to this juddering syncopation, the clang of its electro mainstay providing the foundation, the simple alternating beat with the trebly kick and the shhff shaker shifting sand spray can snare (allegedly Joy Division achieved a similar drum quality in 'She's Lost Control' by spraying an aerosol can into a microphone), the sparse hi-hat chit-chat with the open sharpness echoing blissfully, drum machine tom tumbling occasionally, augmenting the sparse feel of the track, with the modulating synth, the hazy nebulous chords, the icy pings, all decorating and helping to augment that late night feeling with starlight apartment block window twinkles and slow hum of traffic taillights extending into night. Still, that voice, "under cover, under cover," this refrain unusual and fragmented, satin sheen on this sparkling bed of sounds.

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• 🔔 'Under Cover' was produced by Cyenna Bay. You can catch more from Nsay Mada on SoundCloud.

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