The distorted arpeggios that wind their way through 'Pretty Boy' by Glasgow producer Wuh Oh give it this final act suspense. Instead of drops, the track opens up into gaping chasms, the suspense weaving its way through like the last level on a platformer; all the difficulty with the final boss yet to rear its head.
Different elements fade and fall from the scathing, sharpness of it all, with only the gleaming vocal harmonies (what Wuh Oh calls his "angelic choir impression") lancing in like the glow of some unholy machine, innocent in its unholiness—a sense of discovery, uncovery, delving deeper into an expansive, but increasingly claustrophobic world.
The synth scuttles and twangs, the bugs on the underside of a rock in a parallel dimension.
"The track Pretty Boy happened in a weird way," Wuh Oh tells
yes/no over email. "I set myself the challenge of writing a track using only one synthesizer and no drums to see if I could achieve enough tension and release without resorting to typical build up and drop tropes.
"[But] the arpeggios were all major key. It sounded like an advert for a cruise holiday or some shit."
Moving the notes around, 'Pretty Boy' then transformed from his "corniest song yet" to his "spookiest." It's spooky alright. Sinister and demented in its last moments, everything comes to a stop as the synth takes on a new, garbled flavour; the motion of this final stage ends and the game's final boss appears. It's that scene-setting.
⌾ LISTEN TO LIL BIRTH CONTROL, IF I SEE ANY TOSSED SALAD IN THESE SCRAMBLED EGGS I AM GONNA GO FULL CRANE ⌾
Referencing the sitcom Frasier in its deceptively lolious Morrissey-length song title, this morsel of music from Toronto-based producer lil birth control is a simple one, but there's a evocative atmosphere at work here. Though set to intense flurries of overdriven kicks, and the metallic crack of a snare bursting the air later on, 'IF I SEE ANY TOSSED SALAD IN THESE SCRAMBLED EGGS I AM GONNA GO FULL CRANE' is a partition of softness.
"i really put my heart into this lil shit," the musicmaker told us, "and im very glad that it shows."
Glancing gleams of half-sparkle, half-music box synth play a childlike three-note melody throughout, summoning a sort of happysadness. Not necessarily in its simplicity but with the synth that is cocktailed with it, the swirling phasing haze of synth that washes behind it as the backdrop.
And its in this childhood-summoning atmosphere that it actually resembles parts of Jim Guthrie's Sword & Sworcery OST. Maybe 'Little Furnace' or the 'Cabin Music' from the actual game itself (both with a similar sort of basic delicacy in its nursery rhyme major key melodies). Differently to that, however, lil birth control provides a destruction of that carefree atmosphere with the intrusion of crazed kicks—how everyday life is super effective against dreams and nostalgia.
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Listen to more lil birth control over on SoundCloud.
Described as an "adventure to a long-forgotten space station/arcade orbiting the now-vacated planet once known as Earth," the two morsels of music that comprise R23X's latest release – Terra_II – act like a soundtrack to an imaginary videogame. They set the mood, induct you seamlessly into the world at the heart of this project.
The two parts to this single represent of the adventure to the eponymous space station/arcade: Terra_II. Partly summoning the steady pace of a space shuttle journey with its swaying march of layered beats, this track for the most part feels like walking around an abandoned space station.
There are the hollow synth boops that summon this sense of forlorn loneliness, the emptiness of robots with nothing to do—something once great rediscovered. But there's a cheerfulness to the coldness in the track: the two-chord vox sounds, the cut sample in the background, the videogame noises throughout that still erupt from the forgotten arcade machines.
But the last part of the track changes tack. Following a tiny break, where you feel the silence of creeping through a dripping tunnel to a new area on the station, the airy, analogue chords (conjuring the soundtrack of Final Fantasy VII) change dramatically. A now brooding, maybe more monstrous atmosphere hides in the hallways.
Part of the "mystery" at the heart of Terra_II as a whole.
'G.A.I.A. Probe' represents the (perhaps) discovery of something that might shed light on how the "thought-to-be destroyed space station has thrived and adapted in ways thought previously impossible."
It's just 54 seconds of sound, but for the duration of its series of rising, textured synth chords it shifts between beauty and decay, discovery and devastation. Synth vox suggests a hint of eerie humanity, no matter how long ago; the clinking bleeps ping a simple melody of inevitable but untimely shutdown.
Equal parts delicate and laden with the possibilities of space, shades of human emotion mingle with overtones of the sad uselessness of prodigious machines mired in neglect. In Terra_II, R23X marries with vivid colour and detail a scene of moody mystery with that strange lightness and gravity with which videogames consume and enthrall.
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Part of a project called EarthCade, created by R23X (Marc Junker) and Drew Wise (game developer, artist), which originally began as a game idea: "an exploration of bright and colourful animal characters who built a a self-sufficient arcade (The EarthCade) where everyone is welcome and included."
Junker explains a little further. "We started the project with the idea of donating a portion of profits from every item sold to various charities (VOKRA, WCS, etc) that may prompt the audience (or their kids) to discuss/think about ways they can change/contribute for a better future on Earth!"
It's musicmaker extraordinaire Eugene Cam with gis uncompromising, unapologetic fusion of beats and videogame aesthetics. This time around we're at the starting gate, stumbling in a pre-World 1-1 soundscape, a tottering, unstable feel thanks mainly to the producer's ability to put minutely arrhythmic patterns together in an easy-to-catch swaying flow. The kicks thud-thump richly deep, sub-bass bouncing warmly beneath it all, snares crack and hi-hats and other zippy janglings tap-crackle circuitboardly. The beat scuttles along, skittering and pounding, weighted but giving this impression, between each percussive pop, of weightlessness and wall-jumps.
Stars of the show are those synth chords: partially lost to the void and colourful yet abrasive, they provide the perfect scratchy high-end antidote to the lower frequencies in 'Grain'—as does the marimba: gleaming clonking sounds that play mystic melodies, the untitled mystery of what may or may not lie ahead. These arrive whilst the track is calm, there are even people talking in the background; and as the difficulty curve begins to show itself, as the challenge presents itself, the beat grows intense, overdriven, synth wheels over sirenlike.
And the brash boom of the track dies down to its previous intensity, night noises help portray the passing of time, or rather these insectoid whirrings signify just one of a few different areas to a 'hub world' (which is what this track is tagged as). You realise that there is no immediate danger, no actual peril going on here: it's setting the scene for something larger, each differing level of intensity in sound, beat alteration, addition or subtraction of an element, each one could be the basis for a whole tangential level theme. And in that way, 'Grain' sparks imagination, encourages you to fill in the blanks that it itself has created.
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Like this? Well then you literally must check out Eugene Cam's BOOLIN EP from earlier this year. Released on SoundCloud-label Mekaplex it's a pure crossover of trappy beats and videogames with a scrappy spirit and a world-building aesthetic at heart. You gotta check it out. We particularly liked 'The Gate'.
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Oh and in case you didn't know: Eugene Cam made this LIVE on Twitch. V impressive!
The slow and breezy original 'Secret of the Forest' is a track taken from SNES game Chrono Trigger, playing in Guardia Forest; it conjures the freshness of nature and its greenery, the dappled light and leaf shadows faintly swaying on the ground mirrored in the glistening arpeggio that chimes throughout, spreading at the same time with its ambivalent pattern of notes a veil of mystery; the piano midway is steady with jazz flavour, reflecting a sort of laid-back tranquillity that goes with chilled nature; there's wheeling high-pitched melody with lingering glissando that feels like birds swooping and singing. It's almost spiritual.
But there's this deep fragmented bass and a semblance of percussion that gives it this poised edge, like something's about to kick in—the dense forest as not only chilled hideaway for humans, but a place of vague looming danger, too. And that's where Leon comes in. Increasing the tempo of the track, this musicmaker introduces a robust boom-bap flavoured beat to the gleaming soundscape, picking out the distinct but sparse groove of the bassline and carving into something full-bodied with thudding kicks and abrasive snares; turntablist edits pockmark the new jogging-paced 'Secret of the Forest' for extra texture, the swing-beat breeziness matching the irresolute magic of the glittering florafauna conjured in the instrumental.
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Little thing: the description for Leon's edit simply reads: items: strength capsule (2), shelter — Nice inventory~
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The creator of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, Yasunori Mitsuda, got the job after he told then-Square vice president Hironobu Sakaguchi that he would quit if he couldn't compose (he had worked on sound design for previous titles such as Final Fantasy V and Secret of Mana). Sakaguchi agreed, and Mitsuda ended up composing all 54 tracks for the Chrono Trigger OST, working so hard on it that he gave himself stomach ulcers.
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For a masterpiece from Leon you should check out his album bird world, made especially for a game that had been imagined but never made; and it makes you think of that uncreated game and how it would be to play it. Listen to that splendidly fun soundtrack over on Leon's SoundCloud.
Remember the Nintendo WFC music from Mario Kart Wii? The opening of 'Dependent' on Maxo's very recent Skyriser EP recalls this. There are the spacey synths, the stuttering drums, the feeling of restrained ecstasy that a person feels as they do something immensely exciting controlled by their thumbs and contained within a screen. Ultimately there is no actual wind rushing through your hair, no real monstrous tortoise shells rifling at your head. It's even better: it's in another world. And to add to that already beguiling prospect there is this hyperactive, highly kinetic sound, just to ensure you get the message that this is escapist fun.
Similar cool, breezy synths run through 'Tears In The Wind' with their alien modulation. Starry melodies plink gently across this carpet of percussive electronic activity, leaving behind a trail of stardust reverb. There is also a touch of Earthbound in how the synth chords are muffled at times, how they sometimes seem atonal, and in the rhythm with which they hit your ears, a similar modulation and fuzzy feeling that's in the 'Battle Against a Machine' theme.
Clearly VGM, videogame music, is an influence. But alongside this, infused with it, is an almost outlandish experimentalism, which results at all times in bold dynamic eruptions. The overall intensity of 'Tears In The Wind', for instance, how buzzes abrasively, its bass scowling and gonna-blow, how the chords at times (e.g. around 2:39) chromatise with rapid ascension through semitones, and how cuts in the music itself create these sudden jumps through negative space, literally startling your brain as it attempts to react (0:58); similarly at 0:29 in 'Dependent' the unexpected rush of space into ears is then counteracted with stumbling staccato sound. There's the unforeseen switch in 'Kite' from intense rainbow synths to playroom xylophones (1:05), plus its mad wobbling sounds from about 1:55. Or simply the chord progression itself in 'Grow Wings', a beacon of composition with its breakcore beats, glitching electronics and smooth subtle and sparingly used vocal samples. Dynamics, knowing how to play with sound as much as when to create an absence of it for maximum effect, seems to be a Maxo forte.
Little details like these hide away in the Skyriser tracks like Easter eggs, giving each one a high replay value. The album opener and also its certified most-cute 'Plushlined' is a good example of these small parts both making up the whole and being exceptionally enjoyable on their own—the way it starts with this World 1-1 ease and freshness, the plinking melody, the hyper marching band drums, the luscious fingerclicks, snippets of birdsong, rapidly arpeggiating bleeps, airplane sounds, two or three different vocal samples, then the wonky Earthbound-esque synth chords. And that's just the intro. It's intentionally maximalist and bristling with numerous elements without ever seeming overly busy, each one placed precisely whilst retaining a carefree haphazard quality.
But aside from the tiny details there is an overarching theme, or at least seems to be. We begin with cute and happy, then it gets spacey and far-flung, then a bit more serious in the fluffy threats of 'Tears In The Wind', then downright dark at the start of 'Grow Wings' with its brooding vibe in the bulging synth bass and scuttling heavy half-speed beat, before making an intense volta around the midpoint of that track, and going into 'Kite', which begins as a resolution – with vocals presumably from Maxo himself gently crooning over hard beats and that plonking tuned percussion, a concluding sort of track sounding like sunlight glinting on raindrops left after a storm still with dark grey clouds rolling away to reveal endless blue – and which ends as triumphal pogosticking disco.
Indeed the track's titles suggest this sonic storyline, too: 'Plushlined'—well, it conjures cuteness, comfort. 'Dependent' has somewhat negative connotations, especially regarding drugs or even a dependency on people. 'Tears In The Wind', well it's almost self-explanatory: tears are sad enough, but when they are whipped away by the wind, so that even nature finds your sadness ill-fitting, it has even more lonely, repressive symbolism. 'Grow Wings', like the track itself, sounds like a kind of volta, a change—or there is a desire to change there, to view a situation from further away, from a more objective viewpoint than on the ground, figuratively speaking; or perhaps it is a desire for escapist wish-fulfilment, to grow wings, to gain a superpower. And then 'Kite'. Kites are simple, fun, associated with childhood wonder not-a-care-in-the-world-ness in this non-committal stage of life. Another meaning is of a bird, also called a kite: birds mean freedom, escape.
Thus in Skyriser, even in the title itself we have the point of the EP, the story: from start to finish, from ground to sky, our central character is happy and fine, experiences attachment and then rejection, wanders lonely and sad, somehow grows wings and ascends into the sky.
The EP comes with three remixes, essentially different tracks rather than recognisable reworkings. Two are of 'Grow Wings'—Tomggg flips it into a virtuosic tumble of bleeping sounds, uptempo skittering dopamine-firing electronic melodies and low bassy booms; on the other hand TREKKIE TRAX-affiliated producer Carpainter turns the track into a frenzy of happy hardcore. The other remix is TORIENA, who puts a breakcore-flavoured spin on 'Tears In The Wind' with glitched-out chiptune sensibilities. These are stylistically likeminded artists, ones who help with the colour palette of Skyriser even further, adding to its moodboard of high-powered fun: absolutely this is dance music that eschews lyrics and formulae for imagination and free association, swaps populism for poptacular, paints a fresh nightclub – if only in our headphones, in our bedrooms – for nerds and internet people and gamers and creatives and for anybody else who wants to be taken elsewhere by music.
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Maxo's Skyriser EP was released on 11th October by Japan-located label TREKKIE TRAX. You may purchase the EP by clicking this hyperlink and subsequently deciding exactly which service you would like to use in order to do so.
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The artwork for Skyriser was created by visual artist and also musicmaker Yung Slav. It features Maxo's musicmaking logo – the interlocked cubes – hurtling into a splash of crystalline aquamarine liquid. There's a lot of kineticism and fluidity in the visuals, reflecting the movement and natural, effortless flow of the compositions on the EP; or else, in opposition to the EP's title, the logo, textured smoothly rocky like an asteroid, falls towards the Earth. Perhaps that is the silent, visual beginning of Skyriser, and after this comes 'Plushlined' which sonically describes the newly-arrived-on-Earth creature whose story we subsequently follow.
Visual distortion and contortion, twisting, trapped in a virtual world: this is the video for 'Distrust' by Canadian DJ and producer, Lunice, the videogame feel of it evident not only in the glorious glitching visuals but also in the music, in the atmosphere-conjuring sounds that Lunice lovingly sets into motion throughout. We have these stoic synth bass hits, rounded and gloopy, the foundation for this macabre march of music, the slow rolling snares, the soft wonky sounds that have this veilsome spooky quality to them fluttering phantomatic alongside it all. On top of this, we have three vocals that perforate the polished parade of this track: Nell and Denzel Curry, as well as J.K. The Reaper, who starts proceedings with nihilistic flair—"I'm an outer body experience, my ligaments attached to this soulless corpse i been living in"—before he asks existentially, "am I the only human in truest form?"
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The wonderful digital gore of this video has been created by director Sam Rolfes, which was recorded "live within a game engine." The resulting warped human forms that are thrown and skewed around the screen reflects the revolt of the soul intimated by the lyrics (notice the decayed confederate flag in the still we took from the video up top), the unconventionality and affront of these same images a suitable accoutrement for the noisy sonic experimentation in this track.
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Listen to and/or purchase 'Distrust' via this link here.
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'Distrust' is taken from Lunice's debut album, CCCLX, which will be released on 8th September via Scottish label LuckyMe. Pre-order it here.
Wow there is nothing quite like listening to something that is instantly loveable, but not just that but more like completely coursing through veins from the first few seconds, literally merging with your blood cells and sailing the capillary network to your heart with all the calories and cholesterol and electric energy of it all. That is 'New Space' by Montreal-based keyboardist and producer Anomalie. Citing everything from J Dilla and George Gershwin to Daft Punk and Skrillex, as well as his classical background and jazz study, the musicmaker explains the track and the EP its taken from: "basically a melting pot of all my major influences while featuring the keyboard as the centrepiece."
And as the central tenet of this track the virtuoso keyboard canters gloriously throughout, displaying effortless glassy lounge chords that tremolo blissful while underpinned with fuzzy texture basslines, a whirl of bold colour set to a lush crackling raw organic beat that shuffles with hip-hop breeziness and bright metallic zing. Keys drip-drop with pliant cuteness, flowerbuds popping open with cartoon vigour, so easy so easy Anomalie creates this ultimate VGM-leaning instrumental odyssey, a tantalising teeter between lounge horizontality and the hyperactive funk dynamism of jazz, the composition jumping jostling atmospheres, stable instability bursting at the seams.
Well well well well well, here I am. Here we are again. Always had a soft spot for music from videogames, and subsequent music that sounds like it could be/have been used in videogames – VGM (videogame music) if you like – so it comes as no surprise that today's little musical morsel arrives from an apparent videogame soundtrack composer/maker of videogame soundtracks. How many times can one person say videogame in a paragraph? Five six times.
This composer in question is Emanno. One look at his (ostensibly; there's no preference for male or female pronouns here) Twitter shows him to be a complete PlayStation nut – in that he's clearly a major fan of all things Sony PlayStation®, tweeting and retweeting PS news all over the place, as well as a self-confessed maker of "original game sound tracks" (I'm unsure if this is just describing the style of their music or simply telling us about their actual work). I've decided to rather impulsively share the first track I stumbled upon, 'Quality Game Pad'.
"It's kind of old school with a mixture of alternative & experimental soundtracks," says Emanno on the track's SoundCloud description. And that's exactly it. Analogue percussion makes its way to the forefront early on, constructive kicks mixing with unidentifiable shuffle clusters, subtle snares and a the dynamic tick of a snaking ebullient hi-hat. These ingredients for the beat jostle amongst each other, marking out a bustling foundation that feels at once wholly adventuresome, either urban-based or carved out in the deep unexplored depths of some fathomless fantasy world.
Over this constant of rapid-fire beat-led intrigue is an expectedly ordered series of staccato muffled organ-sounding struts and a series of lead synth sounds, calling out as if to herald the dawning of something wholly new, the siren-song of a gritted-teeth odyssey, danger and mystery conjured in the proclamative retro-futuristic heralding of these wide and wonderfully treated swells of sound. The gleaming metropolis, or the wild ancient planet-wide jungle, of a distant alien world – painted with pixels, of course – would sit just perfectly to these imaginative sounds.
If you're interested, and it's relevant to you, this guy's PSN account is Emanno_EAO.
I don't often write about drum & bass or jungle stuff because, well, a lot of it seems quite... what's the word? – uninspired. Yes. It just feels, despite ramping up the bpm past the point of caring, unenergetic, lethargic almost. Just goes to show that you don't necessarily need to make FAST music to provoke a FAST (i.e. excited, energised) reaction. So when stuff like this does come along and sounds different to the rest of it, well, it's instantly recognisable. And in some cases it's really good.
Like with 'Battle Race' by Czech producer Andels, real name LukΓ‘Ε‘ PuΕ‘ka, from Ostrava, Czech Republic. This track feels less like a drum & bass or whatever track, and much more like a theme to some kind of high-speed racing Γ la F-Zero that just happens to have these d&b beats in the background. Beginning with these fluttering synth chords that pan left and right, we're soon dropped into a bass-bubbling beat littered with many instances of synth all over the place. Bleeping arpeggios, string synths rising and soaring into ecstatic heights, and a vocal sample singing its triumphant wordless stuff. A break in the song plays with the beat, trilling the snares and putting in these amazing little fills that are impossible to ignore.
After this break, things get even better in the second section: saw-wave bass judders to the end, synth leads summon a nostalgic mood, strings hang like a mist. And that nostalgic mood is something that is pretty much inherent in the whole track – even the beat, sampled no doubt from somewhere, is something you'd find in a 90s jungle track for sure. And the synths appear joyfully reminiscent, as if lifted directly from an old-school racing game. It's full of undeniably delicious sounds.
Looking back to the past is something that a lot of people seem to be doing to find their feet in the music world. Whether that's because their favourite music is from when they were growing up, or if they feel an affinity with sounds and styles which, though before their time, still excite their mind with an artificial but simultaneously strong sense of nostalgia – who knows. What it does seem to do, however, is be the basis, the foundation, for a lot of very good tracks in all sorts of genres from all over the world. 'Battle Race' is a prime example: a power-synth-jungle medley from the Czech Republic.
Oh goddd this like everything else has taken ages to actually get from my ears to my brain to my fingers to the keyboard. It was released over a month ago. What is "it"? God damn— it's Meishi Smile with his debut album Lust. Yes indeed it's "The 1st Album" – there can never be another one by Meishi Smile, no no nope. This is the 1st album and it always will be.
But what is it like? Lust is essentially a mix of rough and smooth, a mix of harsh self-berating distortion and endless reverb free-floating out into the gulf of digital voids, all beset with J-pop sensibilities; it's sugar-coated white noise, it's dance music for bedroom dwellers and indoors inclined individuals, it's idealised. Within its 8 tracks, there are many moments where it soars past the boundaries of euphoria with a post-Balearic furore, too happy to be real; a gentle, dream-induced kind of EDM, not the type you'd hear in a massive tent at a festival, but the type that takes you away to weird worlds in the middle of the lonely nights.
Opener 'AJS' perhaps embodies this EDM style most clearly, keeping all the tropes of the so-called genre – like multiple drops and trance-like melodies skirling away in hookish fashion; likewise, 'Honey' drops in with octave-skipping bassline and clean-cut fast-paced synth melodies. However, here is a quirk of the album: the vocoder. There is something retro about the vocoder, yet in its very nature it IS a modern device. It is at odds with itself. But this works perfectly for Meishi Smile. The vocoder appears as a mainstay of 'Pale', which alongside its icicle-esque synth glistenings gives the track an atmosphere of coldness, of chill in the nominal sense. It's also in the chilled atmosphere of the next track, 'Still' – looping vocoders battling high-register hollow synth and wide washes of dreamy chords.
These chilled vibes start the proceedings on 'Heart', a song that moves between swaying seabed ambience and bouncing electro-dance; thick synth bass grooves in a pop mood and the vocoder seems here to be "singing" more than anywhere else. It's a song of slow and fast. That slowness, however, is portrayed so much better on the almost-surprise track 'Ai' – this one sounds like a super-reverbed and super-distorted version of the kind of slo-house synthpop that the infamous Drive soundtrack popularised with artists like College and Kavinsky (in this instance, more by the former than the latter). It reeks of nocturnal stylings, a simple melody and a steady, driving beat fogged by reverb and underpinned by formative rows of saw-wave bass jounce.
That's in direct contrast to the happy-happy pop of previous track 'Summer Blue', a foray into something maybe you'd find on a videogame – squelchy bass, simple but very effective synth raining down in showers of 8-bit bleepery with an overriding melody played by synth lead and vocoder, syncopated toytronic chords in lieu of house piano for extra oomph. This is in direct contrast to the closer and most crazy of all tracks, 'Tears'. Meishi Smile mysteriously describes it on SoundCloud: "Dedicated to the one who was lost." And indeed, in title and in its near-happy hardcore extreme distortion, this aims to reflect not the moroseness, the lassitude, of being sad, but the fury and frustration of sadness, wholly up-tempo yet down-beat, tear-like droplets of synth raining down amidst the whirlwind haze of twisted grey noise synth.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. There are remixes. KOSMO KAT keeps 'Summer Blue' close to the original, adding touches here and there – percussion, a sunset-conjuring breakdown, droplet sample – for what is 'Summer Blue V2' basically. 'Heart' retains its washes of sound, yet is given a gentle touch of officious industry by Uio Loi, and la pumpkin turns it into an almost beatless slice of bassy experimentalism with added instruments, with the original melodies picked out and spotlighted. mus.hiba does likewise with 'Pale', extracting the song from its up-tempo frame and giving it a semi-trap makeover with added 80s synth melody and waves of trance synth. My favourite, I think, is gigandect's redoing of 'Honey' – now essentially a chiptune number, completely overrun with glorious bleeps, from its low-low buzzing bass all the way up to its fluid telephonic melody.
Phew. Well, this ain't conventional dance music; Meishi Smile ain't conventional. This is dance music hazed over with influences from videogame music to shoegaze and beyond, dreams converging like clouds to rain down startling reworkings of various recollections, feelings, and recollections of feelings. It's icy and robotic, but this cybernetic feel exudes nostalgia and emotion with subtle effortlessness; behind a mist of idealised sounds, just as anybody URL is veiled by idealised monikers and titles, Meishi Smile is there with boundless feeling.
In any creative vocation there is usually a trade-off between quality and quantity. I say USUALLY because it's only the usual thing; sometimes you get both at the same time, but often you make a LOT of stuff of wildly varying quality or you make REALLY GOOD stuff, just not very much of it. Harrison seems to be one of the rare few who has to make absolutely no trade-off whatsoever. He makes a lot of music at a consistent level of (very good) quality. From edits, remixes ('Zelda Menu', anyone?) and future funk joints dripping with obscure samples, to more recent stuff that is almost wholly "original", Harrison's back catalogue already bulges with greatness.
Particularly interesting is his very recent 'Connect ✿' series, in which Harrison tries to portray the thoughts and feelings of his female friends based on conversations with them. Not only is the concept itself unique and rather sweet, but the nature and styles of sound that Harrison can explore here goes beyond the boundaries of his inaugural sounds: compare the already-classic 'Sunshine The Street Cat' with the most recent Connect, 'Charlotte', and you'll see what I mean. A summer-flavoured soulful funk mirage, and a pattering juke track with Rainbow Road flights of fancy. Totally different.
Happily! The clearly quite busy Harrison was happy to delve into a Lazy Interview exclusively for YES/NO. Actually, forget that, not exclusively, cause, well, I just asked him. That was all. EXCLUSIVE is in its meaning and its origins an ugly word. Read up.
Who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?
My name's Harrison based out of Toronto and I'm a producer or instrumentalist.
Why did you decide to start creating music?
I was super bored and was going through a "rough" time in my life. It really actually started out as a joke with a few friends and I didn't want to stop. Boar M'londe showed me how to use Reason and we actually started out as a group (HMPF). We didn't break up or anything we just didn't make music at the same time because one of us would be gaming while the other one was on his computer.
How would you describe your sound? What makes you and your style stand out?
I honestly can't answer that because I don't know. I haven't found it yet which is starting to piss me off.
Is there a perfect time and place for listening to your music?
Depends on the album. When it Rains was made for the Fall and Prom King was made for the spring. Anything in between I really just made so people would dance and stuff.
What inspires you most when writing a song?
Females.
What is your most memorable musical experience?
My first show. It was at a tea shop that my friend's brother owned. She started this event called "wholehearted" which essentially brought artists together in the least non-pretentious way. I just remember my hands shaking so heavily and shit. The girl I was into showed up with a guy and I drank too much and all this shit. After it happened, I don't shake anymore.
What are your favourite three songs at the moment?
Forever by Chris Malinchak
Loving Free by Spazzkid
California Soul by Marlana Shaw
Who do you most admire in the music world?
Definitely people who aren't giving up on the old school. The people who don't need to express their music through words and the people who aren't afraid to make happy sounding music. Onra basically.
In your opinion, what is the future of music?
My opinion is really strong on that. I can't answer that without sounding like a dick so I won't.
What's the future of your music - what do you hope to do next?
I don't know. Going to release an EP and an edit tape hopefully. I hope my "following" is open minded though. I'd really like it to be my best one yet.
What, aside from music, is most important to you?
Females.
So it's clear that Harrison likes females. An inspiration, a great importance in his life, and literally the basis of some of his newest, most different tracks, it's nice to hear an honest love appearing – for whatever reason, Harrison and females just go, like peanut butter and jam (jelly whatever). It's clear to see in his 'Connect ✿' series, how he reflects the mind-numbing boredom of a girl daydreaming at school, thinking of better things to do, the lack of direction, the somehow sunny and vague sense of worry. Even without lyrics, Harrison makes his music deliciously human, connective and energetic and at all times hopeful.
Feeling as he is "pissed off" at not finding a definitive style, well, if I may speak for a wider group of listeners, it's fine. In fact, the variety is great. We dip in here, we dip in there, we are never bored with your sound. I mean, perhaps this reflects an overstimulated generation, of which I am also a part, one that is indecisive, unsure – but why can this not be a good thing? Why can this not be a thing in itself? It might be the case that Harrison's style is one of fluid mutability, underpinned by a continual search for a "defining sound" – no exhaustive goal but the variegated journey itself – and if it is so then let it be: people clearly love him for it.
LEAPING LIZARDS! How did I miss this? I mean, I'm sorry for saying "leaping lizards" – I don't think I've ever said it before and I'll be damned if I ever say it again. Sorry. But in all seriousness: how did I miss this? Rhetorical question, mind you; reckon there's a whole load of reasons why I missed it, the main one being I just wasn't vigilant enough. Gotta stay vigilant. If you want to hear nice sounds, gotta keep an ear to the ground. Not the ground but at least in the direction of music sources. SoundCloud for example. Not fucking Vice magazine, that's for sure.
Words words words that's all I'm saying wordy word-word word. And they mean pretty much nothing, too. However, let's break the cycle and say some meaningful words; not in the poignant, single-tear-tumbling-down-a-soft-cheek kind of meaningful, but meaningful as in the "has meaning" sense. So, I wrote about Lindsay Lowend's Wind Fish EP after I a) freaked out about the name of the EP, b) freaked out about the music of the EP, and c) freaked out with regards to both of these things. I'm a Zelda fan (sorry if u hate but haha on you u suk) so it was natural to check it out. The sound was like nothing I'd heard before so I just wrote like a madman until I was limp and dried up like washed up sea cucumber. And I waited for more stuff to appear and it didn't so I treasured the EP and listened to it a lot.
FLASH FORWARD to five minutes ago and I played Lindsay Lowend's latest 'Basement Dweller Overture' for literally a couple of seconds (I enjoyed it nonetheless), but I'm tired right now and want/need to go to bed/do something else. Flash forward to a full day later and I'm writing this again, but now in the safe wakefulness of daytime.
The song begins with this indomitable bounce led more by the bass than the beat itself, which forms a nicely styled backdrop to the whole thing, the drums themselves thick and meaty. Something about the synthwork in this song is clean as anything – there is no dust to be found – surgical precision leads the way, with vocal samples or at least what sound like vocal samples sliced and diced and spread skillfully around like a clean mosaic of a buffet. The drums leave wonderful offbeat trails, oozing the heft of dubstep. But halfway through, what the egg happens? A piano solo; virtuosic and rich, it detaches your ears from the previous playground of electronic noises in that nodding-head hip-hop style beat, bringing you into a world where the music speaks for itself, painting colours of wonder and imagination.
That's before you're thrown into a chunk of electro-funk, filled with buzzing and elephant trumpeting sounds in a glorious section of glitch-laden cut-up style, filling your ears until the inspirational few notes that play at the end. There's always something intensely satisfying when you listen to a Lindsay Lowend song – maybe it's just me, but he seems to be able to conjure the same magic as the best videogame soundtrack without having to rely on any visuals whatsoever. His music is defined by jazz sensibilities – breaking off at tangents, having no main theme, exuding a wholly improvisational talent. It seems as though, with this in mind, this is the music of nerds or geeks or let's just say "the marginalised" – especially with this particular title, like an anthem for hikikomori – but then there are elements that boast the swagger of hip hop, the popular glitchgasm of dubstep, or juke's quick-step addictiveness, which throws any listener off with regards to pegging this in any particular genre or indeed annexing it for the benefit of some appreciation group or another.
What this really is… well it's the sound of a generation. It mirrors years of drip-feeding on popular culture and overstimulation thanks to gaming and the internet, retaining a retro nostalgia that makes for a clash of pre- and post-internet mindsets quite evident in the frenetic and wildly imaginative tracks from Lindsay Lowend.
I came back and then I went away again then came back again and disappeared for like a week but here I am. Yes, I have proverbially returned. It has been a chilled time but all chills must come to an end – one cannot chill forever. And although I posted a new track on New Year's Day ('Everything Happens To You' by miii) it was kind of a stand-alone thing. So now here's something to properly start 2014. It's something dark and stormy and it's from the Brighton producer himself, Eone.
Whilst it's not an original, it shows an interesting side to this man's sound. When I first stumbled across his sounds, I was under the impression that he made a dark brand of techno and only that, but after I listened to his guest mix for YES/NO it was clear that his tastes and influences ran wider and deeper than I'd imagined – grime and hip hop played a large part in his musical repertoire. And it's displayed most of all in this newest track, something old rediscovered and uploaded – as such, it's new. A refix of 'Notice Now' by rapper Trim, previously part of super grime collective Roll Deep, Eone injects the track – previously an electronically charged number with dubstep flavours – with a new bass-laden ethnic ornamentation.
Trim's swarthy, plosive vocals are extracted from the original's zeitgeistical dubstep surroundings and placed in a deep creeping basement of shadowy reverb, where an atonal, grimey bassline leads into bristling swathes of percussion – shakers, drums, tinny hits, a waterfall of sound that gives this essentially urban medium of art a faraway exotic twist, something from another dimension almost. And it reminds me a little bit of the music for Hazy Maze Cave from Super Mario 64 – man I'm just listening to it now and it's almost a perfect match. The name is really nice too: 'Raiders of the Lost Dark'.
Anyway, it shows another side to Eone and one that I hope he'll revisit soon, cause I know this is an old song. Perhaps these flavours will be revitalised, and perhaps there'll be more remixes/fixes like this, too. Bye-bye!
I got like food poisoning or something. It's not very fun. I'm only eating the freshest, most sanitarily made food ever from now on. I probably won't, but that's really all I want to do. No more germs, I've had enough. So I'm in my dressing gown sitting on the sofa feeling generally shiddy. But it's ok because I thought of something nice to write about to perhaps lift my spirits.
I've been meaning to write about this guy for a while now, but much of his recent SoundCloud stuff is mixes, live sets - basically not original songs that I could pick out and pin down with writing for you all here (whoever is reading). His name is Meishi Smile and he's a DJ, producer and co-founder/owner of Zoom Lens, a label/collective that releases some pretty leftfield, experimental stuff. I'm happy that finally I have found something that I can write about, an original Meishi Smile song to send everyone blissfully into a nostalgic dream. Indeed, the man himself describes his own music as "an eternal homage to the feeling of summer and youth taken by 2D form." Taking many cues from videogames, anime, and Japanese pop culture in general, that's certainly what it sounds like.
This particular song I believe had an earlier form, as it's apparently the "2013 Ver." but I've not heard it so let's imagine I never said that and listen to it instead. It's called 'Seoul' and it's ready for your ears now.
Delicate glitter needles of synth like shards of magic ice raining down provide the first melody that melts in your mind. Soft rolling chords provide a wash of cushioning for the piano notes and the minimalistic house-style beat with its thin open hi-hats and reverbing claps. Magical chimes glissando into to the main section of the song, where saw-wave bass synth alternates between octaves and white noise hisses throughout. The melody is now layered to include strings and popping flute sounds, too - an ecstasy of noises - all the way to the all-too-early end of the song.
Inspired as it is by Bomberman 64 (I actually spent a while getting sucked into its soundtrack) and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (two grrrrreat games for the N64!) the song contains in it that charming, memorable, melodic feel of videogame soundtracks - the ability for music to both soak into the background AND into your memory is quite a feat indeed. Speaking of videogames, 'Seoul' is taken from the new Zoom Lens-curated Untitled Mix, a downloadable collection of songs that goes towards supporting indie game developers and their projects. Go for it!
For ease I am not going to be dealing with the Korean characters, although here is a fun fact: it's called Hangul and instead of being written straightforwardly, each word is a 'block' of these little characters. Isn't that fun? Someone should create some blocky typography of English in this way. It'd look nice I think. What am I saying? Who cares. The Hangul here - γ·γΉγ γ - if you want to know, is like an acronym or abbreviation, cause it's in letter and not word form, and says: d r ch s. DRCHS - a truncated form of Dreamchase(r)? I guess.
Anyway, in the depths of the night I found this song and I enjoyed it a lot so I am writing about it right now. It's probably really bad for LA trackmaker Strangehead because I'm writing about this in a not very good mood so I don't think I'll do the song as much justice as I normally would, however I do hope that you - whoever is reading, skimming, or ignoring this writing right now - enjoy the song no matter what gibberish I blather, what garbage words I tip-tap into this word box right here. Pls enjoy it. Let's call it 'Dream Chaser'.
Caught up as I was in the 80s synth dreamscapes offered by people's musical reaction to the film Drive and its College & Kavinsky-dominated soundtrack, the love of this type of music has never left me so the opening to 'Dream Chaser' is like a sudden step into an alternate world populated by electronic beauty and the tough undertones featured in games like Streets of Rage. However, this song is the kind of thing you'd hear once you've cleaned up the city in that game, don't you think? It begins as a foray into dubstep tinged by bleeping arpeggios and a smooth lead synth heralding good news.
Claps lead up to a lovely winding build-up awash with freestyle beats, snares roll and hi-hats buzz with insectoid surgicality, the second part of this song being marked by the fun vocal sample of "Readyyy... Go!". It's a plunge pool of low melodies bopping over wide Sonic-inspired chords, clean and smooth and delicious. A second "take-off" at like 1:38 sends us into fantastically happy world, where house piano chords stab and vox synth provides simplistic melodies (sounding like a K.K. Slider song from Animal Crossing). More dynamic changes - strings join the show for drama - claps in a frezy. Then everything suddenly fades out leaving you with candy-popping soft synth mixed with a pop song sample from where I don't know.
How nice was that? And with all the videogame references I've made it's clear that, whether intentionally or not, the often underrated, earworming videogame sounds have made their influence known. With the song levelling-up its atmosphere of fun and magic, the title seems very apt indeed.
In keeping with the motto of Shigeto's new album, No Better Time Than Now, I decided that there was no better time to write about it than now. I can't regret neglecting to write about it when it was released last month, and I can't put it off any longer - it's now that's the best time. Now is always the time. "Time" is "now".
There is an interesting concept of "now" in the form of what is called the "specious present". "Specious" means, well, it means kinda misleading or something like that. Specious present is related to that because it is a notion that asserts that what we deem to be "now" or "the present" is incorrect, and it's actually a perception over an interval in time. Basically, because things are always happening, moving, doing stuff around you, there is no pinpoint to where or more precisely when our senses actually lie when we talk about "the present" - therefore, our perceptions cover past, present and future all at once. When you listen to a song, the sounds seem as if they are ever-present, but in actual fact you keep brief recollections of what's just gone, what you're currently hearing, and what you're anticipating. Isn't this fun?
But enough of that. Here I am now, writing about this now-thing. Two things are quite obvious from the very start of this latest offering from Shigeto: 1. Nice beats, 2. Atmosphere. Each song simply revels in varying mixtures of these two elements. The beats are varied in texture and flavour. You have the bold, sharp-as-a-knife hip hop beat that swaggers along as in 'Detroit Part 1' (which I covered in more detail earlier this year) with snap-sound snares, as well as the super-slow hip hop lethargy of 'Silver Lining', then there's the understated pulse kick of 'Safe In Here' with its cascade of bristling glitter rainstick noises - that kind of beat is elevated on the underworld carnival track 'Ringleader' (again, more detail on that here); of course, the beat can add to atmosphere as well, for instance in the glitchy rumbles of 'Ritual Howl' and 'Olivia', where it serves as a support to the moody air of each - especially the latter, which is especially brooding with its all-encompassing bass.
My favourite beats lay in the following, however: Title track 'No Better Time Than Now' has an indefinable, almost constantly changing beat, basically switching from an electronic sound to a live, raw drum sound in the second half - an equally raw but more intensely bassy beat adorns the clattering 'Tell A Tale'; 'Perfect Crime' chases your thoughts away with unrelenting claps. What I really like about the general beatness of this album, however, is the amount of attention that's given to creating detailed beatscapes - almost every track has a plethora of ornamentation gathered around its main beat like clouds around a mountain. Woodblocks tap, tin-pan percussion steps in from the background, fizzy static pierces through, maracas shake, insectoid frenetic mandible-gnashing sounds bristle all around. Incredible detail.
But right next to this beatness, this beatscape, beatitudinal beatonomy, lays Shigeto's imagination - his ear for conjuring some really lovely atmospheres almost gives the sense that this album could be set to film or animation: some tracks are just bursting at the seams with the magical spirits of actual things, actual places, that for some reason or another I am hearing. 'Detroit Part 1' is one very good example, lamenting and conjuring images of a tired city. 'First Saturn Return', the beatless wonder, is like a galactic journey from the centre of your mind to the rest of the world, beginning with purely ambient noise and ending in an almost street-wise succession of melodies that sounds a little bit like the title screen to videogame Streets Of Rage. 'Soul Searching' has a dreamily determined air, with large doses of wobble and hopeful glockenspiel tinklings. Emotions, like the empty loss in 'Miss You' whose plaintive electric piano melodies touch the heart, or the reluctant grimacing happiness in the pseudo cheery tones and ghostly vocal samples of 'Silver Lining', play their part, too.
What more can I say? I've already said too much. Damn look how much I've written. Anyway. Here is a marvel of talent, not just in the making of supremely variegated beats, but in the creation of believable atmospheres that whisk you away from where you're sitting for as long as you listen for. In that atmosphere lies the sense of something soaring when before it had been downtrodden, the weary soul energising itself once more - despite the drowsy doldrums, there's the realisation that there truly is no better time than now and the gritted teeth determination of acting on that realisation.
I really like the video for this song. But I'm confused because I just checked Jolly Mare's SoundCloud for an image - he'd only JUST uploaded 'Castlemare' and in its description he said he had "a lot of fun making a soundtrack for this amazing video". But I'd say that the video is an illustration of his music. No? Well. I dunno. You be the judge. For me, I think they just work really nicely together. As for the music though, that's what I'm really here to talk about.
I last wrote about this Italian producer - Jolly Mare, that is - when I found his song & video 'Nobody Cares'; it was a wildly synthesised track, loaded with funk and a solid-as-a-rock bassline. Most notably, it was rather retro in its stylisation - not just in the video, but in the sound itself of course. The same goes for the retro sounds in this song, 'Castlemare'. However, it's a very different style. Instead of beachy, sunny, funky stuff, it's videogamey triptune (see what I did there?) synthy 8-bit kind of stuff. Still retro, but a different twist, a different facet of "retro".
It's the videogame sound that rings true with me mostly. It's like the type of music you'd find skulking in the air of the last level of a quite hard retro videogame - set in a castle, obviously; the title being a portmanteau of "castle" and "nightmare", it makes sense really. Why not watch the video and get into the atmosphere of yesteryear, sword in hand, magic in mind, courage in heart.
Space between the synth melodies gives it a careful-where-you-tread,-there-could-be-traps kind of atmosphere, an eerie sound that conjures cold torchlit corridors with their echoing reverb. The melodies themselves are cast in a gloam of foreboding - a little bit dark - helped along by the fidgety beat that seems itself reluctant to get into a full, undisturbed rhythm. At about 2:00 in the song, a regular build-up starts and drum machine toms pound and roll up to a change in the song. The synth becomes fuller, other shining beams of electronic noise wail in, until towards the end when they disappear altogether - bar the clean, glossy bass - and focus shifts instead to that distinctly two-step beat.
Did you beat the boss?
Other than the sound, that video - I am not sure where it's from but it's pretty cool and I think I'd like to watch it now. It's some obscure retro supernatural martial arts film, lots of flying and energy beams involved; a bit like the precursor to Dragonball or at least perhaps an influence on it. Anyway. The music fits perfectly. Bye!
I wrote about Koloto, real name Maria Sullivan, last month - her track 'Fox Tales' was a hotbed of organic sounds and glitchy beats. I suppose in many ways it still IS. But we are forever moving forward. So let's move on. It'll be on her forthcoming EP (no name nor date for that yet) in any case. We now arrive at her new musical creation, 'Kill Screen'.
It's very different from 'Fox Tales', which was a very natural-sounding track. Full of innocence. This one instead is unnatural, in that it's pretty much wholly synthesised, and it is also not innocent. Not at all. Instead 'Kill Screen' brims with a looming menace from the very outset. A low and gloomy ambient atmosphere is cast with waves of dwindling hollow synth and a glitched-out harp arpeggio; aching sounds, like something being tightened, pressure rising, conjures images of something lurking in the background. A shuffling shifty clipping noise builds up to the drop.
And when it comes it's quite a change.
The harp turns into chiptune synthesisers, wildly bleeping in that same arpeggio; that tightening sound becomes a frantic frenetic beat. It's easier to hear the progression now - a kind of fugue that I guess even Bach might have been proud of - which gives it an epic kind of sound. Those bleeps though, aren't they delectable?
And it gets even more wild after the second drop. The synths are layered on top of each other, the beat more full yet still staccato. It conjures an image of an old castle from some old videogame - it would naturally be like, a boss fight or something, and it wouldn't be easy either. Or a chase scene. In any case, it's a menacing, Dracula-is-coming-for-you vibe that is still whizzing around in my head even after I've stopped listening to it - wholly worthy of its title, I say.
Finally we're here. I'm writing about Crystal's new EP, Get It. This vivacious Japanese electronic music foursome are the latest addition to Paris label Sound Pellegrino, headed as you may or may not know by DJ Orgasmic and Teki Latex, the latter featuring in the first song on Crystal's EP, 'Get It?!', and I wrote about DJ Orgasmic the other day. They're active as opposed to passive label owners.
Of course, if you read YES/NO often you'll know that I have written about Crystal (or is it CRYSTAL?) before - a while ago they recorded a video-game-esque version of a traditional song called 'Haru no Umi' ('The Sea in Spring'), a song that's popular at New Year in Japan. On the other hand, in the UK we have Slade, I suppose. Anyway, it was a really cool song and I was excited to hear more.
Since then they have joined Teki Latex and co. at Sound Pellegrino, and this EP - their first release on the label - proves them to be capable of a variegated and vibrant sound, sometimes like this, sometimes like that, but always at the very root of it heralding a unique vibe; Teki should be happy to have them aboard.
And judging from the apparent fun he had making the video for and appearing on the first song on the EP 'Get It?!' he is happy indeed. The video itself is like a bizarre videogame, where Teki's disembodied head acts as the main character, sucking up various foodstuffs in bonus levels and trying to woo a robotic Japanese lady... it's directed by Shinya Seto, from Crystal and filmed by Daisuke Miyoshi. Listen.
The song combines retro sensibilities in percussion and synth sounds with a feeling of appreciation for the catchy melodies and experimental synthetic sounds of early videogames, too. One really nice detail is the 90s-type vocal sample of "G-g-g-get it!" - gives it a back-in-the-day vibe. Teki's contribution comes in the form of sung metallic vocals, as well as strange digitised deep-voiced spoken-word stuff - this comes between zany breaks of candy-popping synth. All in all, it's like a galactic arcade-turned-disco.
Bass-ridden 'Telephonic' is next, named seemingly because of the frequent sounds of a telephone ringing in the song - the samples have been twisted around and played with, sometimes sounding like a bitcrushed till opening, other times sounding like drops of sunlight or electricity falling on the ground; robotic voices creep in and out of the soundscape. Swooping rhythmic synth chords provide a break between the dancing snares and zipping hi-hats, giving an expansive nocturnal atmosphere to it all. Listening to this one is like getting an eardrum massage.
A contrast to the final track 'Crystal Forest'. Using the various sounds of the song, they create the soundscape of a forest - hissing hi-hats and trilling snares become unseen noisy insects, synth percussion is the call of frogs and birds. But then the melody begins to play and the size of the forest becomes apparent: it's huge. The drop is beautiful, really chilled - the melody, played by what sounds like altered steel pans, has a Japanese sound to it, all backed up by arboreal xylophone sounds and sweeping synth. Using dynamic, the song moves from these synth-filled sections to ones dominated by minimalist murky and bristling percussion (the two sides of a forest: stunning and mysterious) - all set to a dubstep rhythm. It's a summery number at the same time as it's evocative of exactly what the title says: a forest, done in Crystal style. The beat is beautiful pendulous, swinging slowly in time across the chilled sweep of the synth.
Lovely stuff. As you can tell, I really like it. They add quirks and an imaginative atmosphere to the occasionally unquirky and unimaginative sector of house music - refreshing. Anyway, you can listen along with the preview of the Get It EP, but you should probably just get it, get it? You can get it on iTunes (but I can't find it) or you can get it on vinyl along with some 3D glasses from Sound Pellegrino.
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