🐣 EUGENE CAM — GRAIN

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'.
• 🔔 Oh and in case you didn't know: Eugene Cam made this LIVE on Twitch. V impressive!

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📠
☟ Eugene Cam Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 KERO KERO BONITO — TIME TODAY

Taking off into a world of ceaseless leisure, whimsical hope, the hefty air of summer and free time finding its way into our hearts, this is the wonderful 'Time Today' by the trio that is Kero Kero Bonito. Usually and perhaps more well known for their bilingual Anglo-Japanese playground-rhyme-raps and polished analogue collages of electronic sound, 'Time Today' is a bouncy bopper of a track, with all the airiness, kinetic journeymaking rhythm, and tomorrow-never-comes sweet stoicism that'd make for a good ending theme for a slice of life (or other genre of) anime. The outward appearing of the track says as much, but so do the lyrics, cradling ambition in simple lines like opener, "I got so much time today / I got hopes and dreams and plans all yet to be made" and "But I don't / Even know / Where I should be trying to go / So I guess I'll follow my nose." All honest, all relatable.

It bears a resemblance to Shibuya-kei, the Japanese genre defined by its mix of styles, and yep it's all here: the lounge atmosphere, the electronic keyboard sounds, the jazz chord progressions, the busy upbeat tempo. Those gently unexpected progressions – founded on lovely warm bass, which really complement the cosy, comfy texture of the organ-ish chords – make it colourful and full of feeling, whilst typically KKB musical asides like chiming little melodies, sun-glinting sparkles, whoopy instrumental warbles, and drum machine fills decorate it with engaging nuance and keep things fun.

It is also brief—not too brief, but the sort of brief that mirrors how the song feels and what it says: that time, especially when everything feels right, seems to stretch on and on ahead of you – that "I got so much time today" refrain right? – but before you know it you're thinking, where's it all gone? With its lyrical references to day and night, dawn and sunset, you can see that it's a hopeful start-of-the-day song for the end of the day, a late afternoon reflection for tomorrow's bright morning.

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• 🔔 This lovely song is taken from the upcoming NEW Kero Kero Bonito album Time 'n' Place, which is coming soon. That's all we know.
• 🔔 KKB also took part in YES/NO's Lazy Interview series all the way back in 2014. Have a lil' read if you feel like it~

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☟ Kero Kero Bonito Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ tumblr ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ wikipedia ⚘ songkick

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🐣 CHRONO TRIGGER OST — SECRET OF THE FOREST (LEON EDIT)

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~
• 🔔 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.
• 🔔 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.

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📠
☟ Leon Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

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🐣 PETTICOAT — POMPOUS

You know in Super Smash Bros. how Kirby's Down Special Move turns him into some heavy object, like a spiked ball, 100-ton weight, a stone, a Thwomp, or a block of trash? Well this track is sort of like that. (If we assume that Kirby in his regular form is soft, then it works). 'Pompous' by the LA-based newcomer Petticoat is squishy, taffy-esque, pastel-coloured and popping with pizzazz, but then there is this constant, stony pugilism in the beat and the rolling modulated synth blasts that gives it a hard but sugary coating.

Kicks thump with a balance between gloopy and thudding, cementing the rhythm of the track and sending it up like karst landforms for a dramatic soundscape that juts out and jostles with jungle greenery; dreamy gleaming chimes chase each other in spears of glistening metallic dust—another similarity to the sparkly world of Kirby. And now piano chords clonk and clank polyrhythmic in the gorgeous goo of 'Pompous', pitched vocals squall heavenly in triumph at the terraforming foundation of it all. Durable, colourful, serious, soft, fantastical: get lost for a moment in the lovely world that Petticoat's created with his music.

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• 🔔 This is literally Petticoat's first original track so keep your ears peeled to his SoundCloud and follow him and stuff if you want to hear more.

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☟ Petticoat Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

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🐣 CURXES — THE STARS, LIKE DUST

This is the tightrope walk between nostalgia and a sort of despairing doom, the warmth of uncovering objects entangled with happy feelings yet in the miasmic embrace of the baleful knowledge that it is but a fleeting glimpse into the past; this is 'The Stars, Like Dust' by UK musicmaker Curxes, where the synths skew and fizz with something memorial, the beat – dusty, sharp, abrasive – ticks and stutters with mechanical stamina, where the bass bulges in ominous waves.

Formerly a trio, the now solo Curxes (aka real human Roberta Fidora) herself spoke to us via email to explain the track, which she admitted she wanted to sound "somewhere between ocean and space organ waves." And there is that sense of organic vs. synthetic broiling in the almost living-and-breathing irregularity with how the synths dip and peak minutely but remain zingy and metallic.

The lyrics are desperately alive, calling from this pocket of bright, submerged flavours, this whirling and swirling of sound—the words feel like they've arrived via signals that are lightyears away, rebounding and crackly, crooning with nonchalant distress about "an age of infinite dread."

"The lyrics were written at a period when I felt that the entire country was going through a transitional phase and not for the better, fuelled by misplaced nostalgia," explains Fidora. "I think many of us have our own nostalgia to deal with, but generally it isn't anything that has the ability to distort or disrupt people's lives." And so 'The Stars, Like Dust' is a cocktail of that childhood yearning for the stars and that deathly, adult fear of what we might find there; the reluctant progression of vast swathes of humanity.

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• 🔔 Curxes tells us a bit more about the creation of the eccentrically British visuals for 'The Stars, Like Dust' - complete with triangle sandwiches, a chihuahua, and reclusive behaviour.

  "I worked with portrait photographer and 50s sci-fi enthusiast Rob Luckins to make a video based on our collective love of space travel, which seems to be undergoing a resurgence, maybe because it gives people the hope that they can escape the things to which they don't belong."

• 🔔 This song is taken from the 2017 Curxes album Gilded Cage.

• 🔔 You may stream and purchase 'The Stars, Like Dust' via Bandcamp.

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📠
☟ Curxes Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ spotify ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ songkick ⚘ hype machine

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