ACQUANETTA M. SPROULE — MIDNIGHT VERSION SYMPATHETIC AGONY

⌾ LISTEN TO ACQUANETTA M. SPROULE, MIDNIGHT VERSION SYMPATHETIC AGONY ⌾

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When something sounds like a certain genre, but its visual style doesn't match up to said genre, the question of what it is — especially when the music doesn't seem to ascribe to any particular genre or style at all — becomes an enquiry that is lost in the ether. And that's where the music of Acquanetta M. Sproule comes in.

Feeling somewhat like the aural equivalent of outsider art, the unapologetically unpolished tracks created by this producer speak distantly of dungeon synth. Yet with no fantasty-daubed artwork to denote it as such, one can only wonder what it is. Nevertheless, with its midiwave vibe and simplistic composition, there is no question of its mood-summoning powers.

The imaginative, no-holds-barred eschewing of anything particularly traditional or trend-led helps make 'Midnight Version Sympathetic Agony' — and much of Acquanetta M. Sproule's oeuvre — refreshingly unexpected. And yet it has this world-painting drive behind it, the midi aesthetic calling to mind Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack for Secret of Mana, particularly this track, with bass elements that feel close to the Cosmo Canyon theme in Final Fantasy VII.

And akin to such scene-setting videogame music, 'Midnight Version Sympathetic Agony' sets a mood. Its bass, percussive and propulsive, creeps and sneaks as if through shadows, while a glittery, somersaulting refrain roots this music somewhere fantastical, with hollow, airy sounds decisively tipping the track into a hidden realm of caves and curiosity.

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• 🔔 Listen to more of Acquanetta M. Sproule's unique musical vignettes on their SoundCloud.

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🐣 TSUKI — OXYGEN

⌾ LISTEN TO TSUKI, OXYGEN ⌾ The feel of being bed-bound with the window open and nature spills in. Bright mornings. Birds chirping like book ends wrap the sweetness of the song in pastoral, the synth even feeling leafy and organic in its rhythmic sparrow-sized chords, pastel-coloured trembling with minute vibrato.

'Oxygen' by TSUKI – a duo comprising Chanlar Rose and Levi Chappell (and one of the first songs they wrote together back in 2015) – is part natural idyll, part honest convalescence, an atmosphere conjured by Chanlar's vocals. The lyrics, referencing lungs, oxygen, souls turning black, lacking strength to lend, were written by Chanlar "while she was recovering from a fairly invasive surgery," Levi tells us.

"She was out for a few months and the lyrics are a reflection of the strain that that the entire experience ended up putting on her personal relationships."

The gravity of those lyrics – the way Chanlar's voice vaults into the air, how words seem almost spit out, how light distortion touches them – contrasts with the candy-coated instrumental, resonating only with the thump and heft of the beat, comparatively brutal compared to the delicacy of the cute synths. The birdsong, by the end, is crushed as the song, instead of fading out, decays.

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• 🔔 You can stream TSUKI's 'Oxygen' variously, but it's on Spotify too.
• 🔔 It doesn't feature 'Oxygen', but if you liked this you should probably take a listen to TSUKI's debut album, Severance Package.

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MORE MUSIC BY TSUKI → LAPSE

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🐣 CABU — TRY FEAT. LILI N

The fluid sound of this track gives such a feeling of weightlessness, of floating on the gently swaying surface of the sea, or some turquoise pool under some powder blue sky and the sun tzzzang white light in it. Those keys, so luscious, start proceedings, liquid in their glossy clocking tones - or are they like boiled sweets, or are they like shellac? But it’s the kicks, those booming muffled robust thuds that reverberate deep in your ribcage, like pebble drops on a still pond surface and the ripples from that: the water droplet, evolved. The dust physicality of the snare, like palm fronds clacking together, leaves sheafing and scratching each other, as well as those gorgeous organic hi-hats, splendid in their minutely imperfect timing, tick tick like the living ambience of tropical shorelines and lakesides.

Born of the brain belonging to Australian beatmaker Cabu, ‘Try’ bumps along, a chill anthem of fluidity and glittering delicacy, joined by the voice of Rome-based singer LILI N, whose crisp tone - augmented by satisfying subtle layers of low pitch-shifts - seems to crackle amongst the clouded softness of the song. That tender heart of ‘Try’ is founded on fleshy sub-bass that engines along, an echo of the vocal melody and a whole gloop of sound that reflects the chill bubbly atmosphere below the surface of water as much as the trickling greenery above the glassy surface - the opposite, practically, to the higher pitched musicbox-esque plucked string sounds that zip tumbling in the hook.

It's very simple: just a few elements make up this incredibly beautiful track. Together they merge into a veil of soothing sound that has this indomitable relaxing atmosphere, helped by the satin synth chords that follow the bass. Yet it's not all about being this straight-up "chill" track; the hook melody isn't exactly all brimming with upbeatness - in fact, in its descending melody, and crossed with the root bass, it feels despondent and, especially in the last two bars of that synth refrain, somewhat conflicted, somewhere between cheery and despairing.

Ah~~ The rhythm of it, the laid-back swing, the crooning clarity of the vocals, the luscious opulence of the gemstone keys that light up this track, how it is all like a paradisical garden: the dual worlds of outer beauty and inner intensity.

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• 🔔 This wonderful piece of music is taken from Cabu's Twenty Three EP, which was released earlier this month courtesy of YouTube playlisters turned label, Majestic Casual. You may stream and purchase it via your favourite service here.

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🐣 PASTEL — CLOSE

The space afforded by this track, the expansiveness of it, how it manages to put you in this swirling realm of love, yet also retain this very intimate feeling, as if your ears are being privately whispered into, is testament to pastel's efforts as a musicmaker. And not only this, but this atmosphere is summoned with great simplicity, a seeming effortless swathe of sound that utilises sparse elements to maximum effect: mainly a simple beat, a bit of soft synth, and voice. The difference between the sense of space and intimacy is best illustrated in this song by the big rush of sound that is the chorus, the only moment where there is any sort of loudness, representing a swell of feeling. Still there is an underlying mist of loneliness here, a distant wind that is like a sadness that cannot be shaken.

But, that said, 'close' is a lovesong, that's for sure (it's dedicated to Valentine's Day, so it'd better be). And as such it's full of lovely moments, small parts like the sudden downturned chord change at 1:15, the constant fluttering heartbeat of the kicks as they propel the song nervously forward, the sparing use of a little soft melody that gently bloops on-and-off in this gorgeous minimalist morsel. Last time we heard from pastel it was a different story: the sandstorm ambient abrasions of 'stammer' from absent, just dust summoned an almost inexpressible sadness and isolation. His vocals were lost in the noise.

Here, however, the vocals are clear, liquid, bravely at the forefront and completely a capella sometimes: long tracts of the vocal begin the unexpected hook, "Do you think about my body? ..." Warm harmonies abound. It's beautifully honest, heart-on-sleeve songwriting sung with caramel smoothness, touching moments treated with gorgeous simplicity – "you held me a little longer than the last time we met" – inspire real images of real romance, and stealing your own heart in the process.

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• 🔔 This Valentine's Day special arrives courtesy of Very Jazzed (part of Frenchkiss Label Group)

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🐣 HOTWAX — ROCKAWAY FEAT. STEFFALOO

The ten ton, no ten-thousand ton, crush of the kicks here, like the engine room of a huge vessel as it hums cyclopean across the stars, is the glorious intensity that lies at the foundation of 'Rockaway' by Floridian musicmaker Hotwax. It is this slow-down techno rumble that perforates the stillness of the air, the blank pugilism of it summoning hard trebles as well as full-body bass for a robust beat. It's the simplest backdrop to a swishing of mists that rain down like veils—vocals that cut across your hearing and drip down like oil in water, fathomless reverb like galactic ghosts in this tract of minimalism.

These are provided by Steffaloo, a prominent voice in chillwave, whose simple harmonies resonate and vibrate to give extra texture to the already grainy phantasm of her tone as it reaches out across the dark of the track. Alongside this, simple synth clouds bop and gleam softly, a tangle of silken fibres that threads through the void. Ornaments orbit the beat: panning abrasive shakers, decayed metallic cowbell, shuffling hi-hats, handclaps followed by veils of fog. The atmosphere is a sunken one, where the heaviness of the water weighs huge and choking, and where the prettiness of life glistens and sparkles in the winnowing waves above.

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• 🔔 The quite wonderful Steffaloo-featuring 'Rockaway' is taken from Hotwax's debut album Communicator out now on 2060 Records. You can download it free-of-charge, or $7 for a cassette, from Bandcamp.

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🐣 SAUX — FOR I KNOW

Instantaneous. The lush pop rhythms and delicious pop flavours flowing and bubbling and resounding and spreading like a magical ether have a rare timeless appeal, an ease and fluidity that enables the track to reach you with instant effect. The first few seconds: the shuffling groove in the percussion, the indefatigable retro gloss of the glassy chords. It really is a lightning strike of pop. In 'For I Know' Netherlands musicmaker Saux has it covered: the simplicity, the sumptuous sounds, the summer-ready sulter. Barely any accoutrements dangle from the bones of the track, xylophonic luscious bones that frame the vocals lilting with pop melody, making this a minimalist's dream, a groovesome abstraction of cool longing.

Kicks thump, handclaps clop organically. The simplicity is one of the crowning glories of this track. Few elements come together to make 'For I Know' what it is. For added tropical poolside conjurations the constant stutter of a palm-muted guitar makes its sunlit entrance into the track, summoning a decades old adage of sound, heightening the retro quality, the simple lyrics as sung by Saux and friend Sjaak Thissen with its subtle harmonies slowly unfolding in the sashay forwards. Minor additions in the beat, the regularity of it, hi-hats, some shakers in the finale alongside, the guitar that mirrors the vocal hook. The sounds dissolve wonderfully into the well preserved space, reverb painting a sense of expansive universality whilst the dusty instrumentation, the intonation of the vocals rich and whispering, creates a sense of carefree intimacy, closeness not yet attained.

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• 🔔 'For I Know' can be downloaded courtesy of this link here.

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ISABELLA – BUDGE

Sometimes the best way to whip up a frenzy whilst also creating a wholly original track is not through any special secret method, but through simple addition, subtraction and repetition. When it comes to dance music, maybe all music, this surely is the golden rule—in 'Budge', a recent standalone SoundCloud upload from Isabella – producer of, she says, "odd acid and sloppy techno" – this is, quite gloriously, the case. Full name Isabella Koen, and previously known as Sitting Adult the musicmaker is not only ultra-pro at this dynamic setting down and extraction of parts in music, but also of creating sound itself: the sounds she uses are organic, like half-machines-half-lifeforms moving in unison rather than artificial noises.

The drums start proceedings with juddering kick, thin snare and harsh handclap, overdriven toms making their way into the mix weaving in an added complexity and precision, with a series of beeping bloops and bleeps like building blocks falling into place next, a shroud of shredded plasma gradually making its way to the fore like a mechanised spiritual presence. The track then begins in earnest, a four-note refrain, a digitised sound textured with knife-cut electric treble and plunging bass at the same time, seeming to hang in the air before sheaves of open hi-hat fall and propel the track forward, percussion tumbling now, through various changes in these parts, a tunnel of cold simplicity, a futuristic Hazy Maze Cave (that's a level from Mario 64 if you didn't know), an effortless feat of atmosphere and aesthetics, ghostly and physical, mathematics and rhythm.

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• Isabella's most recent release is the self-titled Isabella (a slightly harder, harsher sound in general than this decidedly minimalist standalone track) released tape-wise on Philadelphia label Embalming Lately; listen + download on their bandcamp.

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