OLIVIA BELLI — VALADIER

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⌾ LISTEN TO VALADIER BY OLIVIA BELLI ⌾

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Speaking about her new track 'Valadier', composer and pianist Olivia Belli states that she was "inspired by the homonymous temple in Genga: a place of pilgrimage where many seek silence, introspection and spiritual growth." That's the town Genga, in Marche, Italy, not the Pokemon Gengar. That said, it seems there's a spiritual, ghost-adjacent energy to Genga: "It is the place where I go to train myself to see what is real but invisible," Belli adds.

Hailing from Mantova, aka Mantua, home of ancient Roman poet Virgil (if you know, you know, right?), Belli has moved from the ambient intricacies of her earlier releases (2018's Other Lines EP, for example). The Belli of today looks back, waving, atop her most recent masterful work. It arrives accompanied by a video of Belli herself wandering the Sanctuary of Santa Maria Infra Saxa, hidden in a karst cave system since 1029 (the octagonal temple, crafted from travertine, was finished in 1827).

In 'Valadier' her piano brims with kinetic potential, as if the galloping flurry of notes could send it to the skies at any moment. Rhythm and melody intertwine throuhgout, the one being the other and vice versa, allowing for this sense of movement in the mind, a wondering at history and primordial rocks and the centuries of people who have come before. Warm yet razor sharp, with strings providing additional colour and texture, 'Valadier' is a dynamic and powerful illustration of introspection.

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• 🔔 'Valadier' is the first single taken from Olivia Belli's forthcoming album, Intermundia, scheduled for release 23rd February, 2024, via XXIM Records.
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☟ Olivia Belli Internet Presence ☟
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RUUD VOESTEN — THE CRYPTO SHUFFLE

⌾ LISTEN TO THE CRYPTO SHUFFLE BY RUUD VOESTEN ⌾

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The meandering noir jazz morsel that is 'The Crypto Shuffle' toes a balance between groove and chaos, organised structures and freeform forays into the abyss. Though it's kind of the saxophones that steal the show here, fluttering and squealing and smooth caramel all at once, the track comes from the the mind of drummer amd band leader Ruud Voesten, who says it's "about the capital sin of greed".

Ultimately it follows a concept of setting Dante's Inferno to music, this being the portion occupied by greedy people "who constantly bicker" with each other, as exemplified by rapid-fire frustrated feeling in the duelling saxophones, played by Mo van der Does (alto) and Wietse Voermans (tenor).

To lead his third single through this capitalistic subject matter, Voesten channels his stream of percussion, a successive fluid parade of ghostly liquid knocks and taps that tumble alongside a satisfying buzz and twang of bass. Ultimately, like I said, saxophone rules 'The Crypto Shuffle', being given ample space to wander, but perhaps that's a reflection of the "greed" that inspired the track - more, more, more - and it's a banger beacuse of it.

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• 🔔 'The Crypto Shuffle' is taken from a forthcoming Dante-inspired album. It's set for release later this month on Nethelands indie jazz label ZenneZ Records.

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☟ Ruud Voesten Internet Presence ☟
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PRECOCIOUS NEOPHYTE — MY ELECTRONIC IDOL

⌾ LISTEN TO MY ELECTRONIC IDOL BY PRECOCIOUS NEOPHYTE ⌾

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A shining candy floss sky, the sun merely a white blinding circle behind hefty clouds. It's the scene conjured by the warped scuzzy chill of 'My Electronic Idol' by South Korean, Chicago-based aritst Precocious Neophyte, aka Jeehye Ham. Imbued with shoegaze aesthetic, all fuzz and delay pedal, waves of guitar provide a soothing wash of noise while the chorus jostles with riffy muscle for an exercise in deftly dynamic balance.

In the tossed salad of it all there is a mingling of genres, the shoegaze sensibilities centre stage, while Ham's vocals summon the ethereality of dreampop, floating cirrus-like and carefree amid the din of distortion. The bass hums with laid-back psychedelic flair, wandering with the drums to create an effortless groove, a stoned-by-the-lake kind of feel that feels at once feels as awesomely aimless as it does pointed and present.

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• 🔔 'My Electronic Idol' is fresh, new music. It's the first track taken from Precocious Neophyte's upcoming album Home in the Desert, scheduled for release on 1st September on Graveface Records. You may pre-order it on Bandcamp, if you like.

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FOREST SWORDS — BUTTERFLY EFFECT (REMIXES)

⌾ LISTEN TO BUTTERFLY EFFECT REMIXES BY FOREST SWORDS ⌾

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Last month Forest Swords (real name: Matthew Barnes) gave us a taste of a longform project to come. Arriving in the form of a double single, 'Tar' and 'Butterfly Effect', these showcase the eminence of a composer-producer in sculpting new worlds using the same electronic materials, quarried deep from the earth in muddy handfuls, precious clumps.

'Tar' sees Barnes conjure a distorted sonata, skittering noises creeping in the background, like a lament for preserved Neolithic body encased in the track's titular substance. And featuring a previously unheard Neneh Chery sample, 'Butterfly Effect' cracks with living-and-breathing percussion, shards of ancient noises, mosaicked into a beat fit for a bog bonfire.

Most recently come the remix treatments for the latter in a love-letter to UK dance music. A fragmented, shuffling garage beat plays out in 'Drizzlah's Club Remix', the Neneh Cherry vocal weaving among scrambled popping melodies, while the 'Basement Dub Remix' slows things down, imbuing a dub groove with the soul of the original, synth skirling like a haunted melodica.

More dance-inflected fun arrives in the clean-cut collage of percussion in the 'DJ Ron Dixon Clubstep Mix', which is beset with a mash and melding of dissonant synths. Perhaps most fitting partner for the original 'Butterfly Effect', however, is the 'FS Ambient Air Mix' - like a phantom stretched thin, it falls as a giant sheet enveloping moorland, all fizzing greys and gleaming calls to the other side. Throughout these nocturnal, evnveloped remixes, there's a satisfying contrast at work, bringing the twigs and tarot of Forest Swords into distinctly synthetic, contemporary spaces.

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• 🔔 This collection of new music from Forest Swords is available to purchase and stream at your leisure over on his Bandcamp. They've been released ahead of some tour dates (below)
• 🔔 Forest Swords tour dates:
  Saturday 2nd September - Varpalota, Hungary: INOTA Festival
  Sunday 17th September - Sofia, Bulgaria: Wrong Fest
  Thursday 2nd November - Manchester, UK: White Hotel
  Friday 3rd November - Newcastle, UK: Cluny 2
  Saturday 4th November - Glasgow, UK: Mackintosh Church for Great Western Festival
  Friday 10th November - London, UK - ICA
  Saturday 18th November - Paris, FR - Badaboum
  Monday 20th November - Brussels, BE - AB Club
  Tuesday 21st November - Amsterdam, NL - Bitterroot
  Wednesday 22nd November - Arnhem, NL - Willemeen
  Thursday 23rd November - Leipzig, DE - UT Connewitz
  Tuesday 28th November - Athens, GR - Municipal Theatre Of Piraeus
  Tuesday 5th December - Copenhagen, DK - Hotel Cecil
  Wednesday 6th December - Stockholm, SE - Slaktkyrkan
  
  Tickets available from forestswords.co.uk.

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☟ Forest Swords Internet Presence ☟
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RAYONS — A FRAGMENT OF SUMMER

⌾ LISTEN TO A FRAGMENT OF SUMMER BY RAYON ⌾

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Images of summer float by to the drifts of piano in 'A Fragment of Summer'. A cicada screams in the humid green park. Bright blurs of dappled sun wave on tree-shaded grass like living islands. A collection of clouds cruise in a pale blue sky. Cricket and frisbee, sunset drives, salt-washed skin and sandy feet, mopping sweat off your brow on a melting pavement beneath tall gleaming buildings. While the song is a fragment of summer, it evokes many fragments of summer, like a beam of light shot through a prism, dazzling with an iridesence of vignettes and beaming photos.

This is the quiet power of Rayons, aka Masako Nakai, whose playing feels like waves, rhythmic and organic. Nakai weaves in a melody like a tapestry pattern, a motif following a swing beat like the rhythm of a train, a cantering horse, an active hearbeat. Washes of emotion range throughout, encapsulating the contentment, sadness and promise of summer. In Japan, this season comes and goes in a whirl of mind-altering heat, merging the human world and something altogether more earthly, deeply entrenched in the buzz of insects, the burning green of leaves, the hot grey heavy skies.

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• 🔔 This slice of new music is the second in Rayons' digital single series, following on from her previous release 'Luminescence'. Stream and/or download it courtesy of her label home, Flau.

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