DJ Mag's Top 50 Albums of 2019

Loraine James was enticed into the world of music making through her mother, who would go from playing the steel pans to blaring out music from Metallica to Calypso. Having grown up in Enfield, London, she credits the multiculturalism in the city for “broadening my mind and ears”, having listened to jazz, electronica, uk drill and grime, and the results of this exposure can be heard on the mix-up of For You And I. Part of For You and I explores the complexities of being in a queer relationship in London, and the ups and downs that come with that. “I’m in love and wanted to share that in some way. I wanted to make songs that reflect layers of my relationship. Reflected in the song titles and mood of songs like So Scared and Hand Drops she says "A lot of the time I’m really scared in displaying any kind of affection in public…This album is more about feeling than about using certain production skills.” Of her process, James says she aimed to make something that wasn’t overthought. For You and I is rhythmically free flowing and sprawling, with melodies that evolve into rippling keys. It feels like a live jam session with a jazz mentality, contrasting the delicate and abrasive. She also says “The other half of the album is about me, and I wanted it to be about only me.” On three tracks, guest vocals from rapper Le3 bLACK and singer Theo brilliantly articulate Loraine's emotional feelings. The artwork, which features a photo of James holding a photo of her estate from ten years ago is a tribute to her upbringing. “I started making music in those flats, news of my Dad and Uncle passing away happened in that flat, I came out to my mum crying in that flat. Most of my life has been there and in so many years time this area will no longer exist.” This album is a deeply intimate and personal offering, expressing happiness, anxiety, joy, sensuality and fear through a vivid sound palette and an experimental sense of rhythm.

slowthai knew the title of his album long before he wrote a single bar of it. He knew he wanted the record to speak candidly about his upbringing on the council estates of Northampton, and for it to advocate for community in a country increasingly mired in fear and insularity. Three years since the phrase first appeared in his breakout track ‘Jiggle’, Tyron Frampton presents his incendiary debut ‘Nothing Great About Britain’. Harnessing the experiences of his challenging upbringing, slowthai doesn’t dwell in self-pity. From the album’s title track he sets about systematically dismantling the stereotypes of British culture, bating the Royals and lampooning the jingoistic bluster that has ultimately led to Brexit and a surge in nationalism. “Tea, biscuits, the roads: everything we associate with being British isn’t British,” he cries today. “What’s so great about Britain? The fact we were an empire based off of raping and pillaging and killing, and taking other people’s culture and making it our own?” ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ serves up a succession of candid snapshots of modern day British life; drugs, disaffection, depression and the threat of violence all loom in slowthai’s visceral verses, but so too does hope, love and defiance. Standing alongside righteous anger and hard truths, it’s this willingness to appear vulnerable that makes slowthai such a compelling storyteller, and this debut a vital cultural document, testament to the healing power of music. As slowthai himself explains, “Music to me is the biggest connector of people. It don’t matter what social circle you’re from, it bonds people across divides. And that’s why I do music: to bridge the gap and bring people together.”

Sam Barker is a resident DJ at Berghain, Berlin’s celebrated temple of techno, and as one half of the duo Barker & Baumecker, he has crafted plenty of hard-hitting tracks perfectly calibrated for the club’s cavernous post-industrial interior. On his debut solo album, though, Barker takes a different tack, excising the drums and other outward attributes of conventional techno until all that’s left is a billowing swirl of richly colored synths. Yet for all the music’s resemblance to the ambient techno of the mid-’90s, *Utility* isn’t really ambient music, save for the ethereal “Wireheading” and the downbeat closer “Die-Hards of the Darwinian Order.” Pulsing and flickering, filled up with pumping chords reminiscent of the Chain Reaction label’s dubby drift, the end result is a kind of techno by another means, where all the hard surfaces have melted away. Like rushing floodwaters, it carries real force beneath its fluid exterior.

“We all dance away our lives to the tune of the sovereign pleasure-pain axis.” – David Pearce, The Hedonistic Imperative Pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance as a rave metaphor fits the music of Sam Barker. The Berghain resident and Leisure System co-founder has spent the last few years exploring the euphoric potential of altering key variables in dance music formulas. This was especially true on his 2018 Ostgut Ton debut EP ‘Debiasing’, which was flush with unconventional rhythmic chord stabs, melody and percussion but devoid of kickdrums. Now, on his debut solo LP ‘Utility’, he turns his focus toward melding experimentation and dancefloor pragmatism with the psychology behind the musical decision making process. ‘Utility’ is a playful but non-ironic musical approach to a whole spectrum of utilitarian and transhumanist ideas: from models for quantifying pleasure and “gradients of bliss” to abolishing suffering for sentient beings (not just people) through the ethical use of drugs and nanotechnology. Over nine tracks his vision ebbs and flows through waves of deeply psychedelic musical vignettes; free-floating and futuristic melodies and rhythms as targeted brain stimulation. The sound draws heavily on modular synthesis, as well as self-built mechanical instruments and plate reverbs to create atmospheres that are at once alien and emotionally recognizable, functional and utopian.

Dolos is the story of a man who escapes the city in search of solace. It takes the form of a 15-track album, a 36-page graphic novel and a series of limited edition art prints – everything handcrafted by Murlo. Dolos is out 22nd February 2019 – you can preorder now. All books and prints include a download code for the album.

“It feels quite sinister,” Kano tells Apple Music about the title of his exceptional sixth album, *Hoodies All Summer*. “But a hoodie’s also like a defense mechanism—a coat of armor, protection from the rain. It’s like we always get rained on but don’t worry, we’re resilient, we wear hoodies all summer. We’re prepared for whatever.” That description is fitting for 10 songs that tear down stereotypes and assumptions to reveal the humanity and bigger picture of life in London’s toughest quarters. On “Trouble” that means reflecting with nuance and empathy on the lives being lost to postcode wars and knife and gun crime. “People become so used to the fact that these situations happen that they are almost numb to it,” he says. “Young kids dying on the street—it gets to a point where it’s like you lose count, and you just move on really quickly and forget a person’s name two minutes after hearing about it.” Like 2016’s *Made in the Manor*, this is an album rooted in his experiences of living in East London. This time, though, the focus is less introspective, with Kano, as he says, “reversing the lens” toward the communities he grew up in. “I just wanted to speak about it in a way where it\'s like, ‘I understand, I get it.’ I\'ll get into the psyche of why people do what they do. It’s about remembering that these unfortunate situations come about because of circumstances that are out of the hands of people involved. Not everyone’s this gang-sign, picture-taking, hoodie-wearing gang member. That’s the way they put us across in the media. Yes, some people are involved in crime, and some people are *not*—they just live in these areas, and it’s a fucked-up situation.” Kano’s at his poetic and potent best here. Lines such as “All our mothers worry when we touch the road/\'Cause they know it’s touch-and-go whether we’re coming home” (“Trouble”) impact fast and deep, but he also spotlights hope amid hard times. “I feel like we’re resilient people and there’s always room for a smile and to celebrate the small wins, and the big wins,” he says. “That’s when you hear \[tracks\] like \'Pan-Fried\' and \'Can\'t Hold We Down\'—you can\'t hold us down, no matter what you do to us, you can\'t stop us. We’re a force, you can\'t stop us creatively. I want more for you: I’ve made it through, I want you to see what I’ve seen. It’s about everyone having the opportunity to see more, so they’ll want more, to feel like they are more.” If the wisdom of Kano’s bars positions him as an elder statesman of UK rap, the album as a whole confirms that he’s an undisputed great of the genre. Musically, it sets new standards in vision and ambition, complementing visceral electronic beats with strings and choirs as it moves through exhilarating left turns and dizzying switches of pace and intensity. “I wanted it to be an exciting listen,” he says. “Like the beat that comes in from nowhere in ‘Teardrops’—it’s like a slap in the face. This ain’t the album that you just put on in the background. I didn\'t want it to be that. You need to dedicate time out of your day to listen to this.”

It takes a village to raise a child; Holly Herndon’s third proper studio LP, *PROTO*, holds that the same is true for an artificial intelligence, or AI. The Berlin-based electronic musician’s 2015 album *Platform* explored the intersection of community and technological utopia, and so does its follow-up—only this time, one of her collaborators is a programmed entity, a virtual being named Spawn. Arguing that technology should be embraced, not feared, Herndon and her human collaborators, including a choral ensemble and hundreds of volunteer vocal coaches, set about “teaching” their AI via call-and-response singing sessions inspired by Herndon’s religious upbringing in East Tennessee. The results harness *Platform*’s richly synthetic palette and jagged percussive force and join them with choral music of almost overwhelming beauty. The massed voices of “Frontier” suggest a combination of Appalachian revival meetings and Bulgarian folk that’s been cut up over Hollywood-blockbuster drums; in “Godmother,” a collaboration with the experimental footwork producer Jlin, Spawn “sings” a dense, hyperkinetic fugue based on Jlin’s polyrhythmic signature. The crux of the whole album might be “Extreme Love,” in which a narrator recounts the story of a future post-human generation: “We are not a collection of individuals but a macro-organism living as an ecosystem. We are completely outside ourselves and the world is completely inside us.” A loosely synchronized choir chirps in the background as she asks, in a voice full of childlike wonder, “Is this how it feels to become the mother of the next species—to love them more than we love ourselves?” It’s a moving encapsulation of the album’s radical optimism.

Holly Herndon operates at the nexus of technological evolution and musical euphoria. Holly’s third full-length album 'PROTO' isn’t about A.I., but much of it was created in collaboration with her own A.I. ‘baby’, Spawn. For the album, she assembled a contemporary ensemble of vocalists, developers, guest contributors (Jenna Sutela, Jlin, Lily Anna Haynes, Martine Syms) and an inhuman intelligence housed in a DIY souped-up gaming PC to create a record that encompasses live vocal processing and timeless folk singing, and places an emphasis on alien song craft and new forms of communion. 'PROTO' makes reference to what Holly refers to as the protocol era, where rapidly surfacing ideological battles over the future of A.I. protocols, centralised and decentralised internet protocols, and personal and political protocols compel us to ask ourselves who are we, what are we, what do we stand for, and what are we heading towards? You can hear traces of Spawn throughout the album, developed in partnership with long time collaborator Mathew Dryhurst and ensemble developer Jules LaPlace, and even eavesdrop on the live training ceremonies conducted in Berlin, in which hundreds of people were gathered to teach Spawn how to identify and reinterpret unfamiliar sounds in group call-and-response singing sessions; a contemporary update on the religious gathering Holly was raised amongst in her upbringing in East Tennessee. “There’s a pervasive narrative of technology as dehumanizing,” says Holly. “We stand in contrast to that. It’s not like we want to run away; we’re very much running towards it, but on our terms. Choosing to work with an ensemble of humans is part of our protocol. I don’t want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage. I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty.” Since her arrival in 2012, Holly has successfully mined the edges of electronic and Avant Garde pop and emerged with a dynamic and disruptive canon of her own, all while studying for her soon-to-be-completed PhD at Stanford University, researching machine learning and music. Just as Holly’s previous album 'Platform' forewarned of the manipulative personal and political impacts of prying social media platforms long before popular acceptance, 'PROTO' is a euphoric and principled statement setting the shape of things to come.

Special Request returns from hibernation with four albums he made in his underpants. Of the new material, he tells us: "I had a right fucking doss making this. Fuck all that conceptual guff m888" Strictly bowel-evacuating bangers. Those of a nervous disposition should also watch out for incontinence. Many people think you can't do anything truly NEW in electronic music. Special request disagrees. He elaborates: "nah, that's bollocks" Upon playing some of the new tracks to a friend, the question "are u alright m8?" was asked. Now you, the avid listener, can answer for yourself.

Since his 2013 mixtape *100% Galcher*, Cleveland-born, New York City-based DJ and producer Galcher Lustwerk has been honing a unique strain of hip-house that combines luxurious electro-inspired beats and stream-of-consciousness spoken-word narratives. Like the protagonist in a noirish detective novel, Lustwerk is a guide through this smoky world of hedonistic dance floors and late-night drives. On the bouncy “Cig Angel,” he details an encounter with a potential lover who could “hit the club and go to work in the same clothes.” Tracks like “I See a Dime” and “Another Story” are packed with hypnotic hooks, but the key here is mood, whether Lustwerk is drawing on influences from techno and house past or on jazz and quiet storm R&B.

First, the intel: since the emergence of 100% GALCHER, his first mixtape in 2013, Cleveland-raised, New York-based producer and DJ Galcher Lustwerk has operated in his own lane of low-key hip-house music. Deep, smooth, psychedelic, equally cut for the club, after-hours, night drives, and headphones. The sound was set from the start: a smokey stream-of-consciousness baritone shadow-boxing with beats, informed by funk, rap, rhythm and blues. He runs the label Lustwerk Music, an underground home to friends' work and several of his releases including the collaborative project Studio OST. In 2017 he issued his debut album, Dark Bliss, via White Material, and the following year shared a 20-track sprawl, 200% GALCHER, sharpening his craft. Now, the Information: Galcher Lustwerk’s Ghostly International debut is a clandestine rendezvous of half-dreamt nightlifes and smudged club dossiers, redacted like faded memories. Free associations on life as a recurring visitor, a deep house cover agent swaggering on and off the beat from city to city. As with most sleuthing, there are dead ends, transient (dis)engagements, faked documents, puzzles, and half-truths illuminated by strobe lights and cell phones. As he fills the file on Information, evidence suggests that Lustwerk is a singular and savvy logician. Stylistically, the tracks on Information are certainly in the same realm as Galcher Lustwerk’s previous output, but a noted inclusion of more live drums and jazz saxophone create a new dynamic. As does a pivot in mindset, he explains: “Being from the midwest and with Ghostly putting it out, I think it’s fitting to cull together my most midwest-minded, ‘hookier’ tracks. I wanted to capture a bittersweet quality that I hear in a lot of other Cleveland producers.” “Cig Angel” bubbles to life after dark, with a skipped out drum break bouncing through signature murky melodies and a hazy incognito narrative; the gumshoe ricochets late after a chance encounter, bailing to dust for prints at the penthouse. Similarly, on “Another Story,” a tight drum groove with reverberated claps pace through hovering clusters of major/minor synth structures. Every P.I. is due their own diligence, and here we see Galcher Lustwerk fronting lyrically, casting off idiosyncratic crows as he glides through the shimmering gutters of the city at night. “I See a Dime” bounds off at a chase sequence pace, with bongos and tightly wound high hats, syncopated lyrics and scratchy voicemail memos glinting in an out of focus, synth saws and clipped house melodies casting the sequence in hard lighting and deep shadows. One thing is clear, straight from the man himself, “Information doesn’t equal knowledge, though we may be getting facts, the truth may not be clear.” He isn’t as interested in decoding reality as he is playing with it, letting fragmented memories inform his fiction, fusing the exaggeration of rap with the suspended belief of dance music. Any uncertainty aside, on Information, Galcher Lustwerk is characteristically and conspicuously on point.

The more music Dave makes, the more out of step his prosaic stage name seems. The richness and daring of his songwriting has already been granted an Ivor Novello Award—for “Question Time,” 2017’s searing address to British politicians—and on his debut album he gets deeper, bolder, and more ambitious. Pitched as excerpts from a year-long course of therapy, these 11 songs show the South Londoner examining the human condition and his own complex wiring. Confession and self-reflection may be nothing new in rap, but they’ve rarely been done with such skill and imagination. Dave’s riveting and poetic at all times, documenting his experience as a young British black man (“Black”) and pulling back the curtain on the realities of fame (“Environment”). With a literary sense of detail and drama, “Lesley”—a cautionary, 11-minute account of abuse and tragedy—is as much a short story as a song: “Touched her destination/Way faster than the cab driver\'s estimation/She put the key in the door/She couldn\'t believe what she see on the floor.” His words are carried by equally stirring music. Strings, harps, and the aching melodies of Dave’s own piano-playing mingle with trap beats and brooding bass in incisive expressions of pain and stress, as well as flashes of optimism and triumph. It may be drawn from an intensely personal place, but *Psychodrama* promises to have a much broader impact, setting dizzying new standards for UK rap.

My body is resonant; it has the capacity to radiate power and love. My body is energy; it pulses every moment as it ebbs and flows. My body is forever; it has a form now and will hold new patterns in the future. “Resonant Body”, the third studio album by Octo Octa (Maya Bouldry-Morrison), is her most spiritual and nature--connected work. Maya recorded the songs at her cabin in New Hampshire inorder to channel the resonance of the forest, the beauty of the river, and the energy from the rituals she conducts within it. The album was written and produced at the end of December 2018—after a year of near constant touring—in order to process through art an intense and magical year of change. “Resonant Body” is the second release on T4T LUV NRG, the label co-run by Maya and her partner Eris Drew. It draws on the same themes of togetherness (“Power To The People”), embodiment (“Spin Girl, Let’s Activate!”), love (“Deep Connections”), healing (“My Body Is Power”) and survival (“Can You See Me?”) that animated her acclaimed “For Lover’s EP” (Technicolour, 2019). The album’s art was created by Maya’s partner Brooke, who painted two canvases after a magical day-trip Brooke, Eris, and Maya took earlier this year on the “Sweet Trail” in New Hampshire. Octo Octa’s live performances and DJ sets are known for calling the dancers to move their bodies to a message of love. The dancefloor can be for all of us. It is a communal space that can provide healing when respected, where the dancers can actualize if they can let go and embrace themselves and each other. When we engage with music that heals, through dance or deep listening, we use an ancient technology for its original purpose. Octo Octa believes in the healing power of her music. “Resonant Body” transforms her life and intentions into healing art. 50% of the profits from the album will be donated to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), which works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.

rRoxymore's long-anticipated debut album, Face To Phase, was born of her annual creative hibernation practice. Whereas her previous appearances for Don't Be Afraid - Thoughts Of An Introvert, Parts 1 & 2 - revealed inner worlds of saturated colour and natural expressiveness, she retreated into her studio at the turn of winter 2018 occupied with the idea of dismantling the dancefloor-centric pressure paradigm. The resulting album, Face to Phase, finds rRoxymore methodically and mindfully stripping back to fundamentals: rumbling minimalist dub, sparse polymetric drums, boldy unpredictable melodic narratives and subtleties which hover out-of-reach or disappear into vapour. Forged by the spirit of club music cultures, Face To Phase favours deep listening; resisting the temptation to reflect on the past or project towards the future, it's an album that is firmly rooted in the contemporary. Sparked by her own archive of field recordings, and produced primarily but not exclusively in the box, Face To Phase adds several facets to rRoxymore's already wide repertoire. The pensive and beatless opener "Home Is Where The Music Is" was inspired by her longtime friend Planningtorock, while "Forward Flamingo" is a spiraling dream-state of house music dissociation; elsewhere "Energy Points" remains anchored to the ocean floor, radiating heavy dub waves, "Passages" is a ghoulish skeleton of UK break beats, "What's The Plan" closes the album in a blissfully blunted fashion, while twisting, shape-shifting rhythms push and pulse "PPS21" into series of ever-evolving shapes and forms. Through and in between the eight songs of Face To Phase, rRoxymore fortifies her status as a seasoned artist, grounded by over a decade of live performance and touring, collaboration, composition and experimentation. With a new live performance collaboration with a percussionist set to debut the LP at Atonal on 1st September, rRoxymore is primed to expand her reputation even further as one of the most vital and distinctive artists on the fringes of contemporary club culture.

Photonz is the alias of Marco Rodrigues a DJ, producer and driving force of Lisbon's underground scene. For little over a decade now, he's been crafting his own deeply personal style of Portuguese house and techno. As a DJ, Photonz grew a reputation for deep crates and intensely euphoric sets and in 2017, together with Violet (co-founder at his Radio Quantica) and Lisbon's own Rabbit Hole collective, he started the now infamous Mina parties - a monthly, sex-positive, queer and intersectional-feminist techno party aimed at using the dissociative potential of intense raving to create a temporary space of suspension away from patriarchal expectations. Nuit is Photonz’s debut album and a simultaneous reference the Egyptian Goddess of the Stars or Night. Marco was really swept away by the concept of ‘freedom of form under the night sky’, the accepting embrace of Nuit. Ancestral, but also socially advanced and utopian; a deification of the night time. These ideas manifest themselves as eleven songs spread across two LPs that wax and wane like the moon. Photonz channels early techno, Drexciyan rhythms, balearic & atmospheric house; layering sounds, creating moments. All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in a royal blue and neon yellow jacket with duality/birth symbolism and trance-hieroglyphs designed by Eloise Leigh.

In the middle of writing his sixth album *Flamagra*, Steven Ellison—the experimental electronic producer known as Flying Lotus—took up piano lessons. “It’s never too late!” the 35-year-old tells Apple Music. “It\'s always nice to have someone checking your technique and calling you on your bullshit.” For the past decade, Ellison’s primary tool has been his laptop, but for this album, he committed to learning each instrument. “It actually made me faster,” says the artist, who is a product of LA’s beat scene and the grandnephew of John and Alice Coltrane. “Suddenly, I could hear every part.” Inspired by the destructive wildfires that swept California\'s coastline and the deadly 2016 Ghost Ship fire, which broke out at a warehouse in Oakland, *Flamagra*—a jazzy, psychedelic concept album that spans 27 tracks—imagines a world in which Los Angeles was lit by an eternal flame. “One that was contained, and good,” he says. “How would we *use* it?\'\" To explore that heady framework, he tapped some of pop culture\'s most out-of-the-box thinkers, including George Clinton, David Lynch, Anderson .Paak, and Solange—all visionary artists with specific points of view who, Ellison knows, rarely do guest features. \"The fact is, most of these artists are my friends,\" he says. \"I like to do things organically. That\'s the only way it feels right.\" Read on for the story behind each collaboration. **Anderson .Paak, \"More\"** \"I first met Andy a long time ago. He\'s a drummer and grew up around Thundercat and Ronald Bruner Jr., two amazing musicians Andy was probably inspired by. So I chased him down and we recorded the demo to \'More.\' It was dope, but it was never done. There were things both of us wanted to change. For years I\'d run into him at parties where he\'d be like, \'What\'s up with the song, man? Is it done yet? Why ain\'t it done yet?\' It became this running joke with his big ol\' toothy smile. Then, finally, we got it done. And now we don\'t have nothin\' to talk about.\" **George Clinton, \"Burning Down the House\"** \"I made this beat while I was in a big Parliament phase. One day, George came through and I threw it on. We sat next to each other working on it—the lyrics, the arrangements. And even though he\'s so brilliant, I was able to help fill in little gaps that made it work with the album\'s concept, so it was truly collaborative. It also gave me more confidence writing lyrics, which isn\'t something I normally do that often.\" **Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon, \"Spontaneous\"** \"I\'d been trying to work with Little Dragon for forever. We\'ve always been playing similar shows, passing each other at festivals, being like, \'We gotta do something! We gotta do something!\' Finally I was like, \'I\'ma reach out and get this poppin\'.\' The song was actually one of the last to get added onto the album.\" **Tierra Whack, \"Yellow Belly\"** \"Honestly, I was just a fan of hers from SoundCloud. Then, one day, Lil Dicky came over to play some music and brought her along. He didn\'t really give her the proper introduction. He was just like, \'This is my friend Tierra, she makes music.\' She didn\'t say much, but she was cool and we were vibing out. A couple hours later, Dicky was like, \'Okay, wanna listen to some of this Tierra Whack music?\' I was like, \'Wait a second, you mean, you\'re the—oh my god! I know all your songs. I mean, you\'ve only got two of them, but I know \'em both!\' I super-fanned out.\" **Denzel Curry, \"Black Balloons\"** \"The thing I love about Denzel is that he\'s got so much to prove. He\'s got a fiery spirit. He wants to show the world that he\'s the greatest rapper right now. I love that. But the difference is that he actually comes back better every time I hear him. He\'s putting in the work, not just talking shit. He cares about the craft and is such a thoughtful human. So there\'s an interesting duality there. He\'s got the turn-up spirit, but he\'s very conscious and very smart.\" **David Lynch, \"Fire Is Coming\"** \"This album has a middle point—like a chapter break moment—and David Lynch couldn\'t have been more perfect to introduce it. You know, initially I thought it should be a sound design thing, something weird and narrative and unexpected. I wasn\'t thinking about chopping David Lynch on the beat. But when I sent them a version that was basically atonal jazz—you know, weird sounds—they hit me back like, \'Hey, so we think this would be so cool if it had that Flying Lotus beat!\' I was like, \'Oh, all right, okay, I got you.\'\" **Shabazz Palaces, \"Actually Virtual\"** \"This one is special to me. He came out to my house, stayed in my guest room, and we worked on songs for three days straight. And the truth is, we made so much stuff that we forgot about this track. When I found it later, randomly, I was like, \'What the fuck is this? It needs a little TLC, but man, it could really be something.\' After I spent some time on it and sent it back over to him, he just goes, \'That\'s hardbody.\' Such an East Coast line.\" **Thundercat, \"The Climb\"** \"The thing is, Thundercat is on every track. He\'s pretty much playing on 90 percent of the album. But this is the only one he\'s singing on. We started this song the way we start everything: frustrated and depressed about the world, knowing we want to make something that reminds people that most of the chaos out there is just noise. Be above all that shit. Be above the bullshit.\" **Toro y Moi, \"9 Carrots\"** \"Toro is the person I always wind up in vans with at festivals. Somehow, I always wind up in the van with Toro. We play a lot of the same shows, we get picked up from the same hotels, and he\'s just always in the van, or on the plane, things like that. Over time, I guess I started to feel a kindred spirit thing, even though he\'s someone I don\'t know too well. But finally we were like, \'We gotta make something happen.\'\" **Solange, \"Land of Honey\"** \"I\'d been trying to make this song happen for a long time. We initially started it for a documentary film that didn\'t pan out. But I really loved the song and always thought it was special, so I kept on it. I kept working on it, kept to trying to figure out how to tie it into the universe that I was building. Eventually, we recorded it here at the house and just felt really organic, really natural. She\'s someone I\'d definitely like to keep working with.\" **Honorable Mention: Mac Miller** \"A couple songs on the album, like \'Find Your Own Way Home\' and \'Thank U Malcolm,\' were inspired by Mac. \'Thank U Malcolm\' is special to me because it\'s my way of thanking him for all the inspiration he left behind in his passing, and for all the fire he inspired in me, Thundercat, and all of our friends. He made us want to be better, to let go of the bullshit. And now, you know, none of us are out here experimenting with drugs or anything. That\'s largely because of him. After he left us, everyone was like, \'You know what? Fuck all that shit.\' In a way, in his passing, he\'s got friends of mine clean. He\'ll always mean a lot to me.\"

Rian Treanor will release his anticipated debut album ‘ATAXIA’ on Planet Mu this March. The striking full-length follows singles for The Death Of Rave and Warp’s Arcola imprint as well as live sets at Boilerroom x Genelec, Nyege Nyege festival, tours in India and various high profile EU shows. The title ‘ATAXIA’ means 'the loss of full control of bodily movements' and relates to Rian's music which is “intended to make people’s bodies move in unpredictable ways.” He adds “the angles in the letters, the phonetics seem to mirror the geometry and idiosyncratic patterns in the music.” Rian explains that components of the tracks were made by generating a series of irregular events and re-structuring them, or by destabilising a pattern that is constant.   When asked how the album compares with his previous releases, he says “My earlier EPs share a similar interest in angular and asymmetrical rhythms that are designed for club sound systems,” adding “they were more improvised, focusing on sequencing and pattern modulation, using standard drum sounds and synthesiser patches. ATAXIA is more focused and stricter, it’s more co-ordinated in terms of the track selection and the rhythmic structures. I spent more time refining the synthesis and sound design, pushing it further than the previous releases.” He expresses an interest in exploring opposites in his music: “fluidity and syncopation,” “systematic and unpredictability,” “reduction and extremity,” “irregular symmetry,” “easy listening and brutal”. There’s clear a conceptual backdrop, but the music itself is not overthought. There’s an immediate joy to much of the album – check out ATAXIA_D3 with its wonderful cut-ups and modulations of the phrase “people don’t understand people.”   The roots of Rian's playful sound are directly linked to his love of the music he grew up with. Coming from Sheffield, you can hear elements of industrial, synth-pop, bleep, extreme computer music and speed garage at play. From Cabaret Voltaire to Warp and beyond; the sound of his city has been, and is, an integral part of his musical development and is still a direct influence.   Last year, he noted in an interview that "I'm not a computer programmer, I'm not an articulate person in that kind of way. I'm a visual artist." Now he elaborates “I meant more that I’m a visual thinker.” Drawing and visual art have been a fundamental part of his life “since I was a child. I got really into graffiti as a teenager and around the same time I got into mixing and these both developed together.” You can sense the mind of a visual artist at work in his music which is also reflected in the artwork he created for this project.    As well as his visual art, installations and multichannel sound works he is involved in numerous collaborations such as with composer Nakul Krishnamurthy exploring the common ground between Indian classical music and electronic music and his work with improv saxophonist Karl D'Silva, plus his time studying with Lupo at Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin (who taught him the “importance of reduction”) have all helped shape and push his sound into other unique and adventurous zones. Treanor is developing on different levels and in different forms all at the same time, re-imagining the intersection of club culture, experimental art and computer music, presenting an insightful and compelling musical world of fractured and interlocking components. 

She first emerged as an avant-garde violinist who channeled her playing through loop pedals. Then songwriter, vocal performer, and beat-maker. She's captivated audiences at festivals around the world, touring her trail-blazing EPs Sudan Archives (2017) and Sink (2018). Sudan's many identity coalesces in her debut album, Athena: a psychedelic, magnetic take on modern R&B. "When I was a little girl, I thought I could rule the world," Sudan Archives announces in the sparse, string-plucked opening bars of Athena, on the strident "Did You Know". Her musicality and sense of self-belief developed as a young child in the church. Born Brittney Parks, but called Sudan from a young age, she moved around Cincinnati, Ohio many times as a child; religion and music were the most stable forces in her life. It was in church that Sudan began learning to play the violin by ear, participating in ensemble performances. "I remember begging my mom to get me a violin," she says. "From there I just never let it go – it felt like I had a purpose." Growing up with a twin sister, Sudan also learned young that she was the "bad twin". Her stepdad – a one-time music industry executive – tried to turn the two into a pop duo when they were teenagers, but Sudan would miss rehearsals and curfew so frequently that the project was abandoned. Still, the experience was valuable: "My stepdad basically planted this whole idea of artistry as a career," she remembers. Though she left the band behind, Sudan clung onto the idea of pursuing music when she moved to Los Angeles at age 19. While studying and holding down two jobs, she would spend her spare time "fucking around with some beats and making some weird shit", which she released tentatively under the name Sudan Moon – a combination of her childhood nickname and her love of Sailor Moon. The ethereal quality of those early lo-fi, G-funk-inspired beats would eventually make its way into Sudan's current sound. It was once she discovered ethnomusicology, and learned to incorporate the violin into her beats, that she really unlocked a new level. Cameroonian electronic music pioneer Francis Bebey was an early inspiration: "His music is so simple, and the way he combines strings and electronic music is such a vibe.” From there, she educated herself about other artists and ethnomusicologists, learning about the history of one-string fiddling in Ghana, Sudan, and all over the world, which "blew my mind". Now a fervent crate-digger with ambitions of studying ethnomusicology, she changed her artist name to Sudan Archives. After she met with Stones Throw A&R and Leaving Records founder Matthewdavid, Peanut Butter Wolf signed her to Stones Throw. Her self-titled debut EP introduced the world to Sudan's fusion of North African-style fiddling, layered R&B harmonies, and pared-back production. Her second EP Sink was a resounding six-track statement that, according to Jenn Pelly at Pitchfork, saw Sudan "level up as a songwriter" — especially true of the bold self-love song "Nont For Sale". Those EPs, Sudan says, were "like a haiku of what the album is". Athena is "more in your face, more confrontational – and that's also how I've grown as an artist. I used to be a hermit who would make beats in her bedroom, but now I'm working with other writers, producers and instrumentalists, I've learned how to communicate. It feels like I'm almost back in church." At first, it was tough for Sudan to cede any control in her creative process, but as she got stuck into the sessions with producers Wilma Archer (Jessie Ware, Nilufer Yanya), Washed Out, Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Sampha, King Krule), and Paul White (Danny Brown, Charli XCX), she opened up. The resulting album, whittled down to 12 taut tracks from around 60, is her most ambitious work yet. On the album's cover, she poses as a Greek goddess sculpted in bronze. Simultaneously at her most powerful — channelling the energy of her princess warrior heroes Xena and Sailor Moon — and her most vulnerable, Sudan challenges the viewer to see what's under the surface. "I'm naked!" she says. "I don't have anything to hide at all, it's all out there."

Sam Shepherd aka Floating Points has announced his new album Crush will be released on 18 October on Ninja Tune. Along with the announcement he has shared new track 'Last Bloom' along with accompanying video by Hamill Industries and announced details of a new live show with dates including London's Printworks, his biggest headline live show to date. The best musical mavericks never sit still for long. They mutate and morph into new shapes, refusing to be boxed in. Floating Points has so many guises that it’s not easy to pin him down. There’s the composer whose 2015 debut album Elaenia was met with rave reviews – including being named Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Music’ and Resident Advisor’s ‘Album of the Year’ – and took him from dancefloors to festival stages worldwide. The curator whose record labels have brought soulful new sounds into the club, and, on his esteemed imprint Melodies International, reinstated old ones. The classicist, the disco guy that makes machine music, the digger always searching for untapped gems to re-release. And then there’s the DJ whose liberal approach to genre saw him once drop a 20-minute instrumental by spiritual saxophonist Pharoah Sanders in Berghain. Fresh from the release earlier this year of his compilation of lambent, analogous ambient and atmospheric music for the esteemed Late Night Tales compilation series, Floating Points’ first album in four years, Crush, twists whatever you think you know about him on its head again. A tempestuous blast of electronic experimentalism whose title alludes to the pressure-cooker of the current environment we find ourselves in. As a result, Shepherd has made some of his heaviest, most propulsive tracks yet, nodding to the UK bass scene he emerged from in the late 2000s, such as the dystopian low-end bounce of previously shared striking lead single ‘LesAlpx’ (Pitchfork’s ‘Best New Track’), but there are also some of his most expressive songs on Crush: his signature melancholia is there in the album’s sublime mellower moments or in the Buchla synthesizer, whose eerie modulation haunts the album. Whereas Elaenia was a five-year process, Crush was made during an intense five-week period, inspired by the invigorating improvisation of his shows supporting The xx in 2017. He had just finished touring with his own live ensemble, culminating in a Coachella appearance, when he suddenly became a one-man band, just him and his trusty Buchla opening up for half an hour every night. He thought what he’d come out with would "be really melodic and slow- building" to suit the mood of the headliners, but what he ended up playing was "some of the most obtuse and aggressive music I've ever made, in front of 20,000 people every night," he says. "It was liberating." His new album feels similarly instantaneous – and vital. It’s the sound of the many sides of Floating Points finally fusing together. It draws from the "explosive" moments during his sets, the moments that usually occur when he throws together unexpected genres, for the very simple reason that he gets excited about wanting to "hear this record, really loud, now!" and then puts the needle on. It’s "just like what happens when you’re at home playing music with your friends and it's going all over the place," he says. Today's newly announced live solo shows capture that energy too, so that the audience can see that what they’re watching isn’t just someone pressing play. Once again Shepherd has teamed up with Hamill Industries, the duo who brought their ground-breaking reactive laser technologies to his previous tours. Their vision is to create a constant dialogue between the music and the visuals. This time their visuals will zoom in on the natural world, where landscapes are responsive to the music and flowers or rainbow swirls of bubbles might move and morph to the kick of the bass drum. What you see on the screen behind Shepherd might "look like a cosmos of colour going on," says Shepherd, "but it’s actually a tiny bubble with a macro lens on it being moved by frequencies by my Buchla," which was also the process by which the LP artwork was made." It means, he adds, "putting a lot of Fairy Liquid on our tour rider".

June 21st 2019 sees the release of Leif's 'Loom Dream’ LP. Made up of six tracks but presented as two ~17-minute pieces, the record meanders through warm chordscapes, glistening synths and loose live percussion, weaved together with field recordings and ambience. Loom Dream invites us to peacefully reconnect with the living world by placing us amongst lush sonic verdure. An interactive site created by Joseph Pleass and Alex McCullough accompanies the release, where users can navigate a virtual world, learning more about the plants referenced throughout the record (the site is best experienced on mobile via chrome) - whiti.es/020/ Artistic direction: Alex McCullough Design: Alex McCullough and Joseph Pleass Photography: Dexter Lander Web development: Joseph Pleass Video editing: Olivia Pringle

SOUNDCLIPS: soundcloud.com/darkentriesrecords/violet-bed-of-roses-clips We are honored to release the debut album from Violet, the alias of Inês Borges Coutinho, Lisbon born and raised DJ, producer boss of Naive records, co-founder of Rádio Quântica, and mina resident. Violet began producing music in 2012 and has released music on One Eyed Jacks, Love on the Rocks, Paraíso and Naive. Inês uses her seemingly boundless energy to amplify other artists all the while progressing her own creative practice. ‘Bed of Roses’ contains 10 songs made as a sort of childhood-teenage memories diary, a return to things Inês liked then and also the difficult things she’s been through. The feeling behind the album is self forgiveness in an optimistic way but also in an adult way, aware of the bruises (thorns) but also of the invaluable love and life experiences (roses). The title comes from the Bon Jovi song that Inês loved as a 9-year old and doubles as an intent of positivity paired with the inescapable darkness of life. Inês says, “I wrote this music as a healing device that I hope can somehow help heal others too.” All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The jacket features an original design by Eloise Leigh incorporating themes of self-inspection and hope, mixing a teen bedroom girly vintage scrapbook aesthetic with contemporary 3D mapping techniques.

On ‘Ways Of Seeing’ Konx-om-Pax has switched up the mood and hit gold. He has made an album that is filled with joy and sunshine, saturated with the classic feel of Berlin Techno.   Tom Scholefield has moved on from the dark ambient and brittle rave of the first two Konx-om-Pax albums, which were a reflection of his hometown Glasgow's electronic music scenes. After a recent move to Berlin, the textures of Glasgow's musical strains have fused into an accessible and friendly mix of poppy melodic electronica built from a stricter 'less is more' sound pallete, closer in spirit to the music of his adopted city. It is also a record which was made in opposition to recent music he has been hearing, in particular the troubled, dark and noisy experimental music coming out of Berlin. Tom wanted to focus on more joyful qualities, making this a record imbued with warmth and happiness, a panacea to the darkness and disorientation all around in 2019.   Having a social scene full of producers has also influenced the album. The opening track 'LA Melody' came from staying with Ross Birchard (Hudson Mohawke) at his house in LA, hanging out in the glorious sunshine with him and Lunice working on tracks. "Initially Ross asked me to write some melodies to use in a project he was producing, but I ended up liking it so much I decided to keep the riff. I generally write music alone, but being around other producers gave me a certain excited energy that reminded me of after-parties back in Glasgow where Ross and myself spent our youth together. Spending time in Clark's studio also helped me improve my workflow and sequencing the album by seeing the way he does things". On 'Säule Acid' he collaborates with Silvia Kastel and in 'I’m For Real' the vocals of Glaswegian DJ/producer Nightwave filter around the track. Stripped away to just the good bits, 'Ways Of Seeing' is a pleasure to listen to.

A bold step forward, Dawn Chorus is also Greene’s most collaborative project to date, featuring additional production and instrumentation from film composer Brian Reitzell (Lost In Translation), cello by London’s Oliver Coates, additional production from Clams Casino and original vocal contributions from ambient artist Julianna Barwick, rapper Cadence Weapon and singers Ebhoni and Rochelle Jordan, all sampled, processed and stitched back into the album. The Album is available on Limited Edition Clear Vinyl (Exclusive to LuckyMe and Rough Trade) CD and Digital Formats Artwork by Hassan Rahim

"Nick Cave said music should be a vehicle” says Phil Kieran, “a thing you can put yourself inside, to be taken on a journey; to let your own imagination create the connection between life experience and the sounds you hear". Kieran has been one of Ireland’s best producers for almost two decades, and when he spoke with Maeve about an album he’d been working on, he sounded a note of caution that, maybe, well, it wasn’t the sort of thing Maeve would like. If this was a shameless attempt at reverse psychology, it worked. Interest was piqued, the conversation continued, and the result was an enchanting, hypnotic album unlike anything heard from Phil, or anyone, before. That album was Life Cycling and it was quickly agreed that this would be the perfect record to serve as Maeve’s first full-length artist release. In a world where everything is speeding up, Life Cycling slows things down, a painterly mosaic of the artist’s life, a vehicle into which he has placed his own experiences. Drawing in references as broad as Kraftwerk, Popol Vuh, even Bach, It’s a paean to the organic and human, drawn through the hum and whirl of machines and it taps a greater personal resonance for Kieran himself. “It’s not easy to work out who you are deep down” he says, “never mind what that might sound like. For the last few years, I have truly been making music that is just me. I have collected all these experiences along the way and find I have finally got to a point I can describe a feeling I have inside; to look for that vibration that really resonates with me, to create it. Life Cycling is a vehicle, and place you can put yourself”.

Carla dal Forno announces her second full-length album, ​Look Up Sharp​, on her own Kallista Records. The London-based artist enters a new era in her peerless output pushing her dub-damaged DIY dispatches to the limits of flawless dream-pop. In a transformative move towards crystal clear vocals and sharpened production, Look Up Sharp is an evolutionary leap from the thick fog and pastoral stillness of her Blackest Ever Black missives, You Know What It’s Like (2016) and The Garden EP (2017). Three years since her plain-speaking debut album, the Melbourne-via-Berlin artist finds herself absorbed in London’s sprawling mess. The small-town dreams and inertia that preoccupied dal Forno’s first album have dissolved into the chaotic city, its shifting identities, far-flung surroundings and blank faces. Look Up Sharp is the story of this life in flux, longing for intimacy, falling short and embracing the unfamiliar. Dal Forno connects with kindred spirits and finds refuge in darkened alleys, secret gardens and wherever else she dares to look. In her own territory between plaintive pop, folk and post-punk dal Forno conjures the ghosts of AC Marias, Virginia Astley and Broadcast through her brushwork of art-damaged fx and spectral atmospheres. The first half of the record is filled with dubbed-out humid bass lines, which tether stoned hazes of psychedelic synth work as on ‘Took A Long Time’ and ‘No Trace.’ These are contrasted with songs like ‘I’m Conscious and ‘So Much better’ that channel the lilting power of YMG and are clear sequels-in-waiting to dead-eyed classics like ‘Fast Moving Cars.’ The B-side begins with the feverish bass and meandering melody of ‘Don’t Follow Me,’ which takes The Cure’s ‘A Forest’ as its conceptual springboard. It’s the clearest lyrical example since ‘The Garden’ of dal Forno’s unmatched ability to unpick the masculine void of post-punk and new wave nostalgia to reflect contemporary nuance. Look Up Sharp reaches its satisfying conclusion with ‘Push On’ - dal Forno’s most explicit foray into an undiscovered trip hop universe between Massive Attack and Tracey Thorn. The album’s last gasp finds personal validation in fragility: ‘I push on / I’m the Place I’m Going,’ a self discovery lifted by reverberant broken beats and glass-blown vocals. Adding further depth to Look Up Sharp are the instrumentals, which flow seamlessly between the vocal-led pieces. ‘Hype Sleep’ and ‘Heart of Hearts’ drink from the same stream as The Flying Lizard’s dubbed-out madness and the vivid purple sunsets of Eno’s Another Green World. While ‘Creep Out of Bed’ and ‘Leaving for Japan’ funnel the fourth-world psychedelia of Cyclobe’s industrial-folk into the vortex of Nico’s The Marble Index. Conceived as a whole, Look Up Sharp is a singular prism in which light, sound and concept bend at all angles. A deeply personal but infinitely relatable album its many surfaces are complex but authentic, enduring but imperfect, hard-edged but delicate. A diamond. Look up sharp or you’ll miss it.

From the outset of his fame—or, in his earliest years as an artist, infamy—Tyler, The Creator made no secret of his idolization of Pharrell, citing the work the singer-rapper-producer did as a member of N.E.R.D as one of his biggest musical influences. The impression Skateboard P left on Tyler was palpable from the very beginning, but nowhere is it more prevalent than on his fifth official solo album, *IGOR*. Within it, Tyler is almost completely untethered from the rabble-rousing (and preternaturally gifted) MC he broke out as, instead pushing his singing voice further than ever to sound off on love as a life-altering experience over some synth-heavy backdrops. The revelations here are mostly literal. “I think I’m falling in love/This time I think it\'s for real,” goes the chorus of the pop-funk ditty “I THINK,” while Tyler can be found trying to \"make you love me” on the R&B-tinged “RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” The sludgy “NEW MAGIC WAND” has him begging, “Please don’t leave me now,” and the album’s final song asks, “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” but it’s hardly a completely mopey affair. “IGOR\'S THEME,” the aforementioned “I THINK,” and “WHAT\'S GOOD” are some of Tyler’s most danceable songs to date, featuring elements of jazz, funk, and even gospel. *IGOR*\'s guests include Playboi Carti, Charlie Wilson, and Kanye West, whose voices are all distorted ever so slightly to help them fit into Tyler\'s ever-experimental, N.E.R.D-honoring vision of love.

Fresh 86 191 Album is lush bro.. Bigups! -Black Orchid Album sounds awesome man, lots of tracks hurting me! -Dead Man's Chest Holy fuck m8 this fuckin slaps, this album is next level bud sheeeessshhh -Motëm Quality jungle with a rarely heard sense of ease -Om Unit Beautiful collection of tunes man -FFF Your album is fucking amazing -Mantra Mate. Future classic!!!! OMG -Sonic Listened to your whole album on the train to work, love it mate! Can't wait to hold the vinyl :) -R Hawk Thanks for sending us that Fresh 86 album, I need to have a listen to it.. That's on my radar -Hughesee Wicked wicked album! -Double O Wicked record, lovely warm dusty trippy vibes all through it, Classic Coco! -Sully Even with a name like "The Concept LP 2.5 Reprize BBoy Edit Sessions Live Reflections" this would still be a brilliant LP -Tom Redeye Best thing I've heard in ages. Too many vibes -Necrotype This album, NAILED!!! -Threshold This album is tight man! Wish We Didn't is wicked -Pixl

UK mastermind Phil Gamble aka Girl Unit makes a powerful return with Song Feel, his debut full-length album and first release since 2012’s acclaimed EP Club Rez, featuring Kelela, Taliwhoah, Ms Boogie and more. An essential member of London’s eclectic Night Slugs camp, he’s back with a fully developed body of work featuring six key vocal collaborators. While still steeped in low-end pressure like his past work, Song Feel reaches toward a classic timelessness: time-honoured elements of production sit seamlessly alongside the most contemporary sounds, as Girl Unit densely layers radio gloss and big melodies over beats that take influence from a variety of Club and Pop sources. Since the start Girl Unit has always taken influence from pop, preferring to hear music with vocals both on and off the dancefloor. Here he has created a unique sonic environment for each of his collaborators to tell their story. The record opens with ‘WYWD’, featuring R&B iconoclast and long-time collaborator Kelela gliding over intimate street soul sonics and luminous funky leads. Next, a volatile West Coast bassline and stadium-size dancehall percussion guide British singer Taliwhoah through elegant synth washes on ‘Stuck’. On ‘Wreck’, Brooklyn rapper Ms Boogie spits hardcore verses that twist and turn along GU’s erratic lows, creepy atmospheres and drillin’ drums. ‘Pull Up’ featuring Tampa’s Thast delivering a menacing confrontational flow over gliding subs and eerie staccato. Los Angeleno Rush Davis sings metaphysical soul over a saccharine choir on the slow-burning ‘Evidence’. Lastly, London’s Brook Baili dances with big piano chords and jubilant basslines on the radio-ready swing of ’24 Hours’. Though Girl Unit gave his features free reign vocally, clear themes of changing relationships in a modern era emerge across Song Feel, lending the record a curiously frothy yet intimate sensation. In-between, blissfully stripped-down instrumental interludes bind everything together, giving the album’s host and creator some much-deserved solo time.

Five years after *Psychic 9-5 Club*, *Venus in Leo* presents a markedly different portrait of HTRK, the Australian duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang. Gone, for the most part, are the aching sub-bass rumbles and the dub delay that made the former album such a darkly velvety listen; also gone, for the most part, are the synthesizers that had played such a central role in their music since their 2005 debut. In place of densely woven layers of electronics, the focus lies mostly on clean-toned electric guitar and bass, skeletal post-punk drum beats, and Standish’s voice, which is left almost unprocessed. The lack of treatment on her vocals leaves her melancholy singing all the more vulnerable, while the spacious, stripped-down arrangements summon memories of other duos and trios—The xx, Everything But the Girl, Cocteau Twins, Low—that dared to do less with more. It’s HTRK’s Unplugged album, a daring foray into minimalist goth.

The fourth album from HTRK, the duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, arrives five years on from 2014's Psychic 9-5 Club. While some much-loved HTRK hallmarks remain—the combination of space and intimacy, the unmistakable interplay between Yang's guitars and Standish's vocals—Venus in Leo differs markedly in its energy, returning to HTRK’s underground rock past with the stylistic playfulness and variety of a modern mixtape. Over the soft strums of acoustic guitar, the album’s introduction, “Into the Drama,” posits a theory that “what was once considered self-sabotage could be revisited as being under the influence of Venus in Leo,” Standish explains. Fingerpicked guitar loops rise slowly and fall over a cold, brittle beat. Previously released lovesong “Mentions” finds Standish exploring the lack of physical intimacy in the social media age. Elsewhere, there are emotional highs, like on the kaleidoscopic single “You Know How to Make Me Happy,” which details a suspended state of ecstasy, Standish commending her partner’s conscious efforts to prop her up with compliments. “New Year’s Day” traces a flimsy resolution to get healthier, instantly busted by an evening of debauchery, recalling “the worst possible start to the year with bad friends and bad behavior.” The silver lining is the sunrise: “pink, red, orange, white, peach” Standish repeats as the track laps with a velvety, hypnotic refrain. Archetypal themes emerge as the band explore the makings of personality. Standish revisits her childhood home in a recurring dream (“Dream Symbol”), a doomed first kiss (“New Year’s Eve”) and high drama (“Venus in Leo”). Recorded more or less live in HTRK’s home studio in the Dandenong Ranges outside of Melbourne, the album’s simple production reveals gorgeous, toned-back arrangements and an evolving, idiosyncratic songcraft. It's been ten years since HTRK released their breakthrough first album, Marry Me Tonight. The band has undergone profound changes, with the first two albums released amid the deaths of close friend and collaborator Rowland S. Howard and HTRK co-founder Sean Stewart. Psychic 9-5 Club set them on a path of self-discovery, and Venus in Leo marks a spirited new chapter by one of the most distinctive bands of the past decade.

Efdemin (Berlin’s Phillip Sollmann) is among minimal techno’s most sensuous producers: No matter how reduced his arrangements, his sounds are unusually sumptuous. That fullness of tone comes to the fore on *New Atlantis*, his first album for Ostgut Ton, the label arm of Berlin’s iconic Berghain nightclub. Unlike that club’s famously austere, industrial vibe, *New Atlantis* is more inspired by Indian ragas—that’s a hurdy-gurdy in the opening track—and 1960s minimalists like Terry Riley and La Monte Young, along with Sollmann’s electroacoustic experiments in improvisation and installation art. *New Atlantis* can go hard: “A Land Unknown” is a driving cut that weds microtonal drones to the rigid pulse of classic trance, while “Black Sun” plays Detroit techno’s plush synths off a stern, thumping kick drum. But cuts like “At the Stranger’s House” and “The Sound House” step away from the dance floor to explore shimmering fields of pure texture, and “Oh, Lovely Appearance of Death” even incorporates an 18th-century Methodist hymn about the divine beauty of mortality—making *New Atlantis* an example of minimal techno that’s as heartfelt as it is heady.

Over eight tracks, New Atlantis oscillates between fast, kaleidoscopic techno, multilayered drones and acoustic instrumentation, fusing for the first time Sollmann’s deep dancefloor productions as Efdemin with his sound art and experimental music projects. The latter include 2017’s Harry Partch- inspired Monophonie performance and 2018’s Panama / Suez EP with Oren Ambarchi and Konrad Sprenger. Long drawn to utopian musical traditions, Sollmann took inspiration for New Atlantis from Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name, which describes a fictional island devoted to social progress through the synthesis of art, science, technology and fashion. In the story, Bacon imagines futuristic ‘sound houses’, which contain musical instruments capable of recreating the entirety of the sounds of the universe; a 400-year-old prophesy of today’s digital sonic reality. Through Sollmann’s lens, Bacon’s vision ebbs and flows over 50 minutes in varying speeds and colors, emerging as a tapestry of different utopian musical traditions – through billowing synth lines, early Detroit techno, resonant wooden percussion, trance, droning organs, dulcimer, electric guitars, hurdy-gurdy, just intonation, poetry, hymns and murmuring voices.

Full Metal Jacket’ is the new album from one of the founding members of UK Grime crew, infamous Roll Deep MC Flowdan. Flowdan’s ‘Full Metal Jacket’ unites unforgettable characters in the grime scene today, linking both purists and its younger disciples. The legendary Plastician sits alongside newcomer Muszolini as Flowdan continues to work alongside key producers such as Footsie, Filthy Gears, Riddla and Maniac, bringing a hefty balance of body and weight to the Flowdan sound. Marc Veira, the man behind the Flowdan alias, grew up in London and the influence of the city is prominent throughout ‘Full Metal Jacket’. Lead single, “Welcome To London” tackles the daunting nature of the city; one that may seem welcoming and beautiful to tourists, but not to those who experience it in day to day life. Shining a dark light on his hometown, Flowdan explores the melting pot of London and the instincts that bring its diverse population together in tracks “Cash Flow” and “One Question”; “We might not always see or understand them, but everyone has pressures and because of this you must be versatile in order to survive”. “News At Ten feat. Irah” hones in on the exposure of this underbelly; whatever occurs, however big or small, it will be a newsworthy issue and you will hear about it.

If *No Geography* is The Chemical Brothers\' most daring album in 20 years—and it is—that’s partly due to Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons tapping back into the mid-’90s, a time when they were helping to radically redefine the possibilities for UK dance music. To sow that spirit of experimentalism into their ninth album, the pair exhumed the old samplers they used to make their first two albums. “I set up a corner of my studio that was ‘The 1997 Corner,’” Tom tells Apple Music. “It was very rudimentary, the sort of thing that I’d have set up in my bedroom a long time ago. There’s a particular sound in these old samplers, and their limitations spur you being more creative in how you use samples and throw things together.” Another inspiring throwback was to play unfinished music in their live sets, allowing the songs to evolve and change on stage, as they had done while making 1995’s *Exit Planet Dust* and *Dig Your Own Hole* in 1997. The result is uplifting, aggressive, and contemplative, meshing breakbeats, samples, and multiple shades of dance music with a keen understanding of psychedelia and melody. Here, Tom takes us through the album track by track. **“Eve of Destruction”** “I saw \[Norwegian alt-pop singer-songwriter\] Aurora on TV, playing at Glastonbury, and I was blown away by the power of her voice and the raw feel she had. She came to the studio and we had such an inspiring time. She was so open to ideas and so full of ideas. She came up with Eve of Destruction as a character, this goddess of destruction. It starts with a discordant voice, but as the track grows, it turns into celebration. The response to this foreboding, forbidding nature of the lyric is to cut loose, to come together, go out and find a friend and be with other like-minded people.” **“Bango”** “Aurora’s response to playing her bits of music was so unexpected, brilliant, and inspiring. \[For ‘Bango’\] I’d play her something and she’d come back and with angular words and ideas about unbalanced relationship dynamics and gods bringing thunder upon you. That\'s the excitement of collaborating with someone—arriving at something that neither of you could have thought of on your own.” **“No Geography”** “The vocal sample is from a poem by Michael Brownstein, a ’70s New York poet. They did this series called the Dial-A-Poem Poets where you could phone up and have poets read to you. That bit seems to be dealing with the idea that the physical geography between people is not a barrier to their connection. But, yeah, on a bigger scale it’s saying something about people being connected and how we all share something together. It’s recognizing that we are codependent on each other, I suppose.” **“Got to Keep On”** “You’ve got the sparkly drums and the ‘Got to keep on making me high’ sample \[from Peter Brown’s ‘Dance with Me’\] and then it has this strange, off-kilter moment in the middle, which was a late night in the studio making everything as deranged as it can be—everything feeding back and all the machines squealing. It’s too much, basically. And when it’s too much, it’s just enough. And then it kind of resolves out and the bells come in. We love to have these really intense kind of psychedelic moments in our music and then it resolves into a joy—you’ve come through it, almost. It’s something that feels very natural to us.” **“Gravity Drops”** “This is the first breathing moment of the record, really. It’s got heavy beats but the music is moving around, and then you’ve got very full-on *d-d-d-drong* bits. It all comes from setting up the studio to play it live—we set up lots of instruments and processors so we can play it as a kind of jam and then see where we get to. This is definitely made of trying to have those sections where it just freaks us out. And then we go, ‘Yes, it’s freaked us out.’” **“The Universe Sent Me”** “Aurora really made this by coming up with these amazing images. Sonics-wise, there are a lot of ideas and a lot of movement. There are moments where it almost feels that whole thing has gone too far, the way it builds and then you’re back down. It’s a rolling psychedelic journey, for want of a better word.” **“We’ve Got to Try”** “This reminds me of records that we would play at \[legendary London club night\] The Social when we first started. We’d play quite a lot of soul next to mad acid records. When we were making this track, it really reminded me of that—this idea that we were trying to reach for but never really realized in our own music. If this song had arrived in our record bags, we’d have gone, ‘Wow! This is the sound of what we want to play.’” “Free Yourself” “This samples another Dial-A-Poem poet, Diane di Prima. We loved hearing that vocal in a nightclub. It was exciting to build a new context for that song, to have a new meaning. We played it live a lot in 2018, and that really fed into how the final thing turned out. It’s also got that ‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah’ kind of noise. We just like instant delirium noises.” **“MAH”** “Once, we would probably have felt this was too big a sample to use \[the line \'I’m mad as hell and I ain’t going to take it no more\' from El Coco’s ‘I’m Mad as Hell’\]. But the excitement of playing it live and the release of the music after the vocal was an amazing moment. Even though we\'re not the kind of artists who will be very explicit in what they\'re feeling, the record was made in a time when, every day, you had constant national discussion and arguments going on. Even though we’re speaking through a sample, another sentiment from another time, when we made the song and put this whole feeling together, it was like, ‘Yeah, that somehow relates to how I\'m feeling today.’” **“Catch Me I’m Falling”** “One of the sampled vocals is by Stephanie Dosen–we worked with her on *Further* and the score for *Hanna*–from a Snowbird track, which is her and Simon Raymonde, who used to be in the Cocteau Twins. The other is from \[Emmanuel Laskey’s\] ‘A Letter from Vietnam,’ this very emotive song from 1968. Stephanie’s singing in a different way—in a different room, in a different time—but the music we\'ve written somehow brings these two disparate things together and makes new sense out of them. But it only makes sense if the thing at the end of it is something you want to listen to, something that moves you.”

When producers Blawan and Pariah kicked off their Karenn project in 2011, the idea of UK bass musicians busting out industrial-strength techno was still relatively novel. Eight years later, it’s practically de rigueur. Yet on *Grapefruit Regret*, the duo’s debut album together, Karenn demonstrates what separates them from so many of their fellow dungeon-dwellers. For all the severity of their music, they’ve long since bowed out of the harder/faster/meaner arms race; these tracks, all of them floor fillers, are plenty powerful, but there’s a sense of restraint to even their most walloping beats. The menace of the growling “Lemon Dribble” is more implied than overt; “Strawbs” barrels along at a fearsome clip, but moves with lithe, slippery grace; “Peel Me Easy” foregrounds the nuance of its all-hardware production, served up in such exacting detail it could almost pass for vintage minimal techno. The thrills come fast and thick, but even at their most intense, all that space between the beats leaves plenty of room for armchair dancers to catch their breath.

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“In this post-industrial, post-enlightenment religion of ourselves, we have manifested a serpent of consumerism which now coils back upon us. It seduces us with our own bait as we betray the better instincts of our nature and the future of our own world. We throw ourselves out of our own garden. We poison ourselves to the edges of an endless sleep. Animated Violence Mild was written throughout 2018, at Blanck Mass’ studio outside of Edinburgh. These eight tracks are the diary of a year of work steeped in honing craft, self-discovery, and grief - the latter of which reared its head at the final hurdle of producing this record and created a whole separate narrative: grief, both for what I have lost personally, but also in a global sense, for what we as a species have lost and handed over to our blood-sucking counterpart, consumerism, only to be ravaged by it. I believe that many of us have willfully allowed our survival instinct to become engulfed by the snake we birthed. Animated — brought to life by humankind. Violent — insurmountable and wild beyond our control. Mild — delicious. This is perhaps the most concise body of work I have written to date. Having worked extensively throughout my musical life with dramatics, narrative, and ‘melody against all odds’, these tracks are the most direct and honest yet. The level of articulation in these tracks surpasses anything I have utilized before.” -Benjamin John Power

press release from 2019: "Transsexual Rave Hymns is Bored Lord’s recent release from Knightwerk. As evoked from the title, this full album is a meditative, spiritual approach to dance music, specifically situated within Daria’s experience. Amongst the dissonance there is melody, and amongst the resilience there is despair. This duality allows for Daria to present a complex and honest portrait of what it means to exist as a trans woman, all within the context of highly danceable club tracks. Pairing distorted pop with acid house, Rave Hymns blends genres to create a hypnotic club sound. The album moves between her signature energized sound (“Spit in Your Mouth,” “My Loneliness Is Killing Me”), to tracks that channel a contemporary take on classic rave sounds (“Broken Heart Broken Hearted,” "You Make Me Feel So Good”), to reflective, melodic trans anthems (“No More Hiding Who I Want To Be,” “Keep Your Hands Off My Body”). Rave Hymns firmly reflects Daria's position not only within the tradition of other trans DJs, but at the forefront of a growing movement and sound."