Fjaak may look like three young H&M models, but they make machine-tooled techno with plenty of old-timer grease under its fingernails. Childhood friends from Berlin, Felix Wagner, Aaron Röbig and Kevin Kozicki have been an item […]
Category: Just In
William Basinski’s droney, disintegrating Bowie tribute — For David Robert Jones
Of all the tributes, cover versions and live celebrations of David Bowie around the anniversary of his death, this meditative piece by avant-garde composer William Basinski taps into Bowie’s unrelenting obsession with experimentation and reinvention. Referencing […]
Mr Tophat & Robyn’s loose, snaking disco — Right Time
Two tracks this week have punctured a few peepholes through January’s general grimness, and they’re both 10-minute disco-house belters — The Black Madonna’s He Is the Voice I Hear and Mr Tophat & Robyn’s Right […]
Mapping out infinity: Brian Eno – Reflection
Brian Eno will always be known the ambient pioneer who made Music For Airports, and his new album comes with more baggage than an international airline. The fact that it’s a new ambient LP called […]
‘I make music on wild, stormy days’: Acid Feen – Cid Sex
There must be thousands of electronic music labels worldwide with abstract names — but We Play Acid doesn’t leave you guessing what it’s all about. The Portuguese label exclusively focuses on underground acid house and techno and […]
I dug myself a cocoon: Snow Ghosts – Vetiver
It’s been a big week for London’s Fabric nightclub, with the iconic techno venue overturning a much-publicised shutdown after settling a dispute with Islington Council and the local cops – albeit with the strictest venue […]
‘Sharp and strange sonics’ from Irish techno artist tuuun
Irish electronic producer tuuun describes his first release FINESTEXPORT as “the sound of instruments and ideas being pushed into their discomfort zones” – a perfect one-line primer for his shape-shifting abstract techno. The six-track FINESTEXPORT […]
Dog-eared sci-fi psychedelia from The Pattern Forms – Man and Machine
The song title Man and Machine might evoke images of sci-fi and cyborg technology, but The Pattern Forms is a parallel universe away from the cold lines and minimalism of Kraftwerk’s Man Machine. If the […]
Don’t be afraid, it’s only blood: Jenny Hval – Period Piece
“Don’t be afraid, it’s only blood,” says Norwegian artist Jenny Hval in an interlude on her new album Blood Bitch – surely the only concept album touching on menstruation and female vampires this year. The line […]
Rainy day woman: Laura Ann Brady – Masterpiece
The first time I heard Laura Ann Brady she was at Dublin’s Sugar Club supporting Canadian country singer Lindi Ortega, and making the headliner seem like an afterthought. Playing solo with an autoharp, the Dublin […]
Head cases: Brujeria go after Trump the only way they know how
I don’t need to go into all the reasons US Presidential candidate Donald Trump has pissed off Mexicans all through his maniacal campaign, but the rapists/drug dealers thing wasn’t a good start. So far the protests […]
Gonjasufi – Callus: ‘America needs to hear this fucking record’
While 90 per cent of the internet lost their shit over the weekend to the new Frank Ocean things, another release was also howling from a different corner in black & white. Gonjasufi has just […]
Beyond Stranger Things: SURVIVE – A.H.B.
Half the internet has been losing the plot in the last week or so to Stranger Things – the biggest TV binge epidemic of recent times. Stranger Things is a supernatural chiller set in 1983, […]
Sums it all up: MathMan & Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Where I’m From
Any time you’re on the lookout for some hazy summer hip-hop, your classic safe bets are the likes of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, and maybe even Chance the Rapper in […]
Boy’s in the hood: Schoolboy Q: By Any Means
Compton rapper and frequent Kendrick Lamar tag teammate Schoolboy Q is set to release his fourth album next month — the follow-up to his 2014 major label debut Oxymoron. Oxymoron was a gritty, doped-up street album full […]
