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.
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".
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.
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.
In 2016, Jayda G moved from Vancouver to Berlin to pursue her career as a DJ/producer while simultaneously finishing her graduate degree in environmental toxicology. “It was a lot,” she tells Apple Music. “I would not recommend it.” But still, no regrets: The experience made her one of dance music\'s fastest-rising stars and inspired her first full-length album, *Significant Changes*. Split down the middle with odes to both science and serious clubbing, it’s a joyful, adventurous commentary on her double life. “I’ve learned a lot about people and culture and how much we have in common,” she says. All that accrued wisdom is pervasive throughout her electrifying debut, and she offers up her most useful life lessons here for you to learn as well. **Change it up:** “During the year that I made the album and moved to Berlin, my entire life changed to the point where it was unrecognizable to me: a new city, a new job, new people, a new language, on top of finishing my thesis. I found myself in situations that stretched me and learned a lot about what I was capable of. I grew up. The album title is also a really nerdy statistical reference inspired by the linear regressions in my thesis, which call for specific references to changes you find in your study. I won’t bore you beyond that—just trust me, there were parallels.” **Protect the environment:** “My thesis looked at how pollution affects the health of killer whales off the coast of Vancouver. \'Orca’s Reprise\' has found recordings of killer whales from off the coast in Alaska and a more melancholy melody. Learning about the health of these animals…they’re endangered already, you can imagine it’s pretty depressing.” **Put your phone away:** \"\'Stanley’s Get Down\' speaks to people being on their phones so much. Sometimes I’ll be DJ-ing and the whole front row of people are on their phones, which totally goes against the whole reason you\'re out in the first place. You’re there to dance, to meet people, to let loose. You\'re not doing that when you\'re on your phone. It’s important to be present.” **Girls to the front:** “My song \'Move to the Front\' is about how all the women in the club who dance their asses off seem to hide out way in the back. What’s that about? I\'m trying to telepathically tell them to come to the front and dance with me.” **Nerd out on nightlife:** “When you\'re in the field looking for animals, you have to be really observant. You’re not just going to happen upon a certain type of snake; you have to look at the environment and say, \'This is where that snake would like to be.\' It’s the same thing with DJ-ing. You have an audience, they don\'t really know what they want to hear, and the only way to present them with something they\'ll enjoy listening to is by being really observant—of the environment, the people, their reactions. It’s, uh, DJ science.” **Get thee to Berlin:** “It’s like a modern-day Renaissance community, but with more leather, piercings, and hedonism.” **Keep your chin up:** “I listen to a lot of disco, funk, and soul. A lot of my DJ sets have these elements, and when I make music I always try to have a funky bassline or a fun, light, soulful edge. Optimism: That’s what people need right now.”
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.”
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.
The title of this group’s second album may suggest a mystical journey, but what you hear across these nine tracks is a thrilling and direct collaboration that speaks to the mastery of the individual members: London jazz supremo Shabaka Hutchings delivers commanding saxophone parts, keyboardist Dan Leavers supplies immersive electronic textures, and drummer Max Hallett provides a welter of galvanizing rhythms. The trio records under pseudonyms—“King Shabaka,” “Danalogue,” and “Betamax” respectively—and that fantastical edge is also part of their music, which looks to update the cosmic jazz legacy of 1970s outliers such as Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra. With the only vocals a spoken-word poem on the grinding “Blood of the Past,” the lead is easily taken by Hutchings’ urgent riffs. Tracks such as “Summon the Fire” have a delirious velocity that builds and peaks repeatedly, while the skittering beat on “Super Zodiac” imports the production techniques of Britain’s grime scene. There’s a science-fiction sheen to slower jams like “Astral Flying,” which makes sense—this is evocative time-travel music, after all. Even as you pick out the reference points, which also include drum \'n\' bass and psychedelic rock, they all interlock to chart a sound for the future.
In 2016 Nathan Micay released Capsule’s Pride: a mixtape in tribute to Akira. The release was premiered with NPR First Listen and downloaded over 40 thousand times. Coveted by fans and supported by a wide range of music press, the record won many best of year awards. The following year, streetwear giant Supreme created an official Akira capsule collection that echoed the design of our release. Capsule’s Pride vinyl bootlegs have become sought after records with discogs collectors. Three years later and Nathan has released a string of renowned dance releases for a range of great labels. He returns to LuckyMe for his debut album. Four tracks from the forthcoming Blue Spring have become viral videos on the private facebook group IOM (Identification Of Music). The group exists for young fans of new dance music to share videos of their favourite DJs playing out big records at clubs or festivals. The album was sent to a select handful of DJs in 2018 and without any public track IDs, the uncredited clips of this record have risen to over a million plays with thousands of comments speculating the names of the songs. We continue to share clips from Nathan’s friends playing out the release to close DJ sets every weekend in front of large audiences. We are proud to finally present them here, on Nathan Micay’s debut album, released May 3rd on double vinyl and CD. Orders of the first press made here come with a copt of an original 'Blue Spring' comic. The story sees a young data miner rebel by attending a rave in the woods with her friends, only for the event to be broken up by the ranks of a futuristic police state. ‘Blue Spring’ is the start of the revolution.
“We’ve never really had anyone say to us, ‘All right, this song is good but we should try to push it to another level,’” Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard tells Apple Music. Seven albums deep, the band—Goddard, Alexis Taylor, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin—decided to reach new levels by working with producers for the first time, drafting in Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Sampha) and the late French touch prime mover Philippe Zdar. “They didn\'t really ask us to do anything mega crazy, but there were moments when they challenged us and pushed us out of our comfort zone, which was really healthy and good,” says Goddard. *A Bath Full of Ecstasy* handsomely vindicates the decision to solicit external opinion. Rather than abandon their winning synthesis of pop melodies, melancholy, and the sparkle of club music, the band has finessed it into their brightest, sharpest album yet. And they got there with the help of Katy Perry, hot sauce, and Taylor’s mother-in-law—discover how with their track-by-track guide. **“Melody of Love”** Alexis Taylor: “It’s about submitting to sound, and finding optimism within its abstract beauty. It’s about the personal as well as the more universal problems being faced by individuals, and overcoming those; it’s about connecting to something that resonates with you.” Joe Goddard: “I was initially imagining I would put it out without vocals on, without there really being a song. But I found this sample from a gospel track by The Mighty Clouds of Joy, and Alexis responded to the music very quickly and wrote these great words. Rodaidh is a very focused person, a bit like the T-1000, and was like, ‘OK, guys, we’re going to do this, this, this, this, this.’ And he cut it right down, which was a really good suggestion.” **“Spell”** AT: “This is a seduction song, but it’s not entirely clear who is in the driving seat, who has the upper hand, who holds the whip…” JG: “Alexis’ songwriting and lyrics are fantastic, but he is such an enormous lover of Prince, I felt like there would be places that he could go that would be slightly more sensual, sexual. And that he would really excel at it. But I don’t think it comes naturally to him. Then we were asked to do a few days in the studio with Katy Perry. We wrote a bunch of short demo ideas to play to her, and the beginning of ‘Spell’ was one of those. I think for Alexis, imagining writing something for her was quite freeing.” **“Bath Full of Ecstasy”** AT: “‘Bath Full of Ecstasy’ is a side-scrolling platform game in which the player takes control of one of the five band members on a quest to save the kingdom. A curse has ravaged the kingdom and eradicated all joy from the land, and the townsfolk and villagers can no longer see colors or hear music. With the help of the Bubble Bath Fairy, a magical microphone, and some friendly strangers along the way, the band must embark on a quest through five exciting worlds on a mission to find the secret source that will break the curse.” **“Echo”** JG: “The demo was another one that we wrote for the Katy Perry sessions. We were trying to do something a bit Neptunes-y, a bit Pharrell—quite simple hip-hop-y bassline and drums. Lyrically it deals with letting go of your past.” AT: “It was originally called ‘Hot Sauce’ and was written about my favorite hot sauce, made by my friend, the steel-pan legend Fimber Bravo.” Al Doyle: “This was Philippe bringing to the pool his concept of ‘air,’ putting in huge gaps and spaces and really reducing the sonic palette of the song—to the point where you’re almost like, ‘Oh wow, this is actually almost too sparse.’ But what is there is extremely powerful and crafted and razor-sharp.” **“Hungry Child”** JG: “It’s all about this real longing, obsessional kind of love—unrequited. Obviously, a classic subject for soul and disco music, and I was really channeling that. I love disco records that do that; I think there’s a real special power to them. And in Jamie Principle, Frankie Knuckles, that brilliant deep house classic Round Two, ‘New Day,’ you get this obsessional, dark love stuff as well.” AT: “I mainly played Mellotron and wrote the chorus—about things which are momentary but somehow affect you forever.” **“Positive”** AT: “The song talks about perceptions of homelessness, illness, the need for community, kind gestures or lack of, information, love. It’s a heartbreak song with those subjects and a fantasy relationship at the core.” JG: “It features this Eurorack synth stuff very heavily, which is screamingly modern-sounding.” **“Why Does My Mind”** AT: “A song written on Alex Chilton’s guitar, lent to me by Jason McPhail \[of Glasgow band V-Twin\], about the perplexing way in which my mind works.” **“Clear Blue Skies”** JG: “Once a record is 70 percent done, you’re thinking about how to complement the music that you already have. So we wanted to have a more gentle, drum-machine-led thing. I was really also inspired by ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ by Brian Eno, which has that feel. I find it really difficult, with the size of the universe, trying to find that meaning in small things. I find that really problematic sometimes—that’s the meaning of the song.” **“No God”** AT: “A love song, written with my mother-in-law in mind as the singer, for a TV talent show contest, but never delivered to her, and instead turned into a euphoric song about love for a person rather than God, or light.” JG: “The chorus and the verse are very, very simple pop music. It reminded us of ABBA at one point. We struggled to find a production that was interesting, that had the right balance of strangeness and poppiness. It reminds me a bit of Andrew Weatherall and Primal Scream, that kind of balearic house thing.” Owen Clarke: “It went reggae for a bit. It had a techno moment as well.”
“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.”
"One to watch"- Guardian/Observer "Album of the month - 9/10" - Future Music London based producer and DJ O’Flynn has announced his debut album ‘Aletheia’, to be released 6th September 2019 on Silver Bear Recordings, and shared the second single ‘Painted Wolf’, out 21st June 2019. His latest release follows a series of acclaimed productions which explored his wide-ranging style: from squelchy acid on Ninja Tune to loose and luscious jazz on Blip Discs, as well as the high-octane 12” released on his own Hundred Flowers imprint earlier this year. With his new single O’Flynn hones in on the expansive electronica style found on his previous 12” single, ‘Sunspear’. Continuing his recontextualisation of evocative world music samples combined with layers of percussion, O’Flynn builds a fluid but powerful energy on heady club cut ‘Painted Wolf’. "Painted Wolf has been 4 years in the making. The longest I've ever taken to finish an idea. It was probably my follow up to Desmond’s Empire in terms of style. This is my attempt to deliver something new to the world. With standout 12” debuts ‘Tyrion’ and ‘Desmond’s Empire’ in 2015, O’Flynn quickly established his reputation as “one of dance music’s most prosperous newcomers”, as put by Boiler Room. Having gained support from Four Tet, Gilles Peterson, Bonobo, Denis Sulta, James Blake and Hessle Audio and his debut album forthcoming, he continues his musical evolution to become a resonant force within dance music. Following the release of ‘Aletheia’, his UK album DJ tour will start in September. Tickets will be available to buy from 28th June 2019.
Offworld started off with the question: “what if Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex?” 80s soul meets Detroit electro *Metroplex* - the label run by techno legend Juan Atkins
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.\"
For their fourth Chase & Status album—a dynamic, muscular drum \'n\' bass set—Will Kennard and Saul Milton set themselves a challenge: They would pitch up at Big Yard studios in Kingston, Jamaica, and attempt to round up an ambitious squad of dancehall MCs. “It wouldn’t have been remotely possible without our friend \[and radio DJ\] Seani B,” Kennard tells Apple Music. “He came over to act as our fixer. Obviously our entire itinerary went out the window from the moment we got there. But I think we knew that would maybe happen.” The pair would quickly adapt. Their guests would largely lay down vocals over more familiar dancehall beats rather than the jungle intended for the record, and Kennard and Milton learned how to do business in Jamaica. “It was very much ‘OK, we’ve agreed on a fee, give us the money when we turn up and we’ll come and do a song for you,’” he says. “You fear you might be getting played a bit. But actually it makes everything so much more simple. You pay the money and you get an artist working incredibly hard for the next four, five, or six hours.” Let Kennard guide you through his learnings and his band’s thrilling album—track by track. **“Shut Up” (feat. Suku)** “One of the tracks we recorded in Kingston. Suku was someone we\'d worked with before and is part of an incredible group called Ward 21. He just has this fantastic baritone and an incredibly low, monotone, almost monosyllabic delivery. He\'s just so cool and moody and different. He’s the coolest dude—turned up on his own, no big entourage or anything. He was excited by the first beat we played him and took half an hour on his own to go and write down some ideas. He came back and just started delivering that crazy voice, and just immediately hearing that on something you’ve just made coming out of the speakers was so exciting. It ticked the box straight away.” **“Heater” (feat. General Levy)** “So this wasn’t done in Jamaica, and it was by total chance this record happened. We came across an a cappella of a famous General Levy dancehall song called ‘Heat’ from way back in the early ’90s. I couldn’t believe there hadn’t been a really good jungle remix—especially as he’s known for his ‘Incredible’ track, which was one of the big, iconic jungle tunes back in the day. We tried a few things and it gelled together really nicely. It didn’t feel like we’d done a remix. Fortunately, General Levy was really excited about what we’d done, and it’s just great to have this really summery, carnival-friendly record on the album. Something that wasn’t too hard. It’s added a totally different flavor to the album.” **“Original Business”** “This is one of my favorites. There\'s a lot of vocals on the album, and we\'re known for working a lot with vocalists and combining vocals with dance music. It\'s just really important to have a song that was back-to-bare-bones drum \'n\' bass with a nice groove, no vocals all over the place. Something really DJ-friendly. Everyone in drum \'n\' bass at the moment is making tunes to tear the roof off. Back in the day, there were a lot more cool, groove-led tunes. Some of the best records are like that: They don’t immediately have this big impact, but they grow on you.” **“Murder Music” (feat. Kabaka Pyramid)** “Kabaka Pyramid was just super cool. We\'d got in touch and he knew our music and was really excited to work with us, which was nice. While we were out there, his album was being launched—which was was executive produced by Damian Marley. They had a launch party in a big outdoor venue in Kingston and we all went down, hung out with Damian, and watched Kabaka perform. We immediately built a rapport with him when he got to the studio days later and put down all these wicked lyrics to his hip-hop beat and an old reggae sample we had. We went away, but couldn’t get the sample cleared and so had to redo all the music—the pianos, the horns, the strings, pretty much everything. I reckon it was a godsend, because it’s actually way better now.” **“Program” (feat. Irah)** “This is probably the biggest record in our set at the moment. Irah is a British-based artist, so we did this in London quite late in the project. We just felt there was one exciting, big, hard club moment missing. Irah came up with the verses right away before we suggested something more melodic for the chorus. People think there are three vocalists here, but it’s the guy’s tone—he’s sonically the most versatile character. A few hours after finishing the track, we were special guests at \[drum \'n\' bass icon\] Andy C’s residency at \[London club\] XOYO and played it with our childhood hero standing next to us in this wicked, intimate, packed environment. The place erupted.” **“Cool n Crisp” (feat. Natty Campbell)** “Last year we started doing these online sets called the Foundation Shows to introduce people to this project. We did the final one live at \[London club\] the Hangar and asked some DJs called Reggae Roast. Natty was their MC and he killed it. Two days later he came to our studio in Kings Cross and we asked him to just record whatever was in his head over this ’90s dance floor beat. Some artists hate this, but Natty didn’t even need the beat. He freestyled everything, chopped and changed and had a million and one little hooky ideas in there. We particularly loved the ‘Cool n Crisp’ line.” **“Weed & Rum” (feat. Masicka)** “Masicka is a massive name in Jamaica coming through. So it was definitely one of the more high-profile Jamaican acts that we wanted to work with, and also someone that had never been associated with anything to do with drum \'n\' bass or jungle. He\'d never been sampled. He turned up with about 50 guys wearing balaclavas and ski goggles. There was private security on the outside of the studio as well. Kingston can be an edgy place. We played him a couple of dancehall beats and he immediately picked one of them and asked for half an hour. Went into his car, came back, and just delivered. Smoother voices like his aren’t common across jungle tracks, so once we established how to make his vocal work across drum \'n\' bass beats, it felt very cool and refreshing.” **“Burning” (feat. Cocoa Tea)** “Cocoa Tea is quite an iconic artist, and our MC, Rage, sent us over the original sample. I don’t know how he managed to just swap out Cocoa Tea’s vocal—there wasn’t really an a cappella available—but he did and crafted this beat around it. It’s not full-on drum \'n\' bass, which for this I really liked—there’s a real groove here. It’s been a lovely record to DJ when you want to bring the vibes out a bit.” **“Retreat2018” (feat. Cutty Ranks)** “One of the first records we did for the project, before we went to Jamaica. We were listening to a lot more atmospheric, ethereal, liquidy, old jungle with long-ass intros. It would get called ‘intelligent drum and bass’ in the ’90s, which was a weird tag that people got pissed off with. We had recorded Cutty Ranks for a ‘Retreat’ dubplate—where you get artists to do versions of their famous tunes with your name featured. It brings the record back into the 2000s, which helped alleviate a concern of ours—that we were going to make a load of jungle music that DJs couldn’t really play in their sets because it sounded too dusty. But this is an example of how we’ve hopefully touched that ’90s sound but brought the production back to what’s happening now. This track gave us the confidence we needed.” **“Delete” (feat. Burro Banton)** “This came from a hilarious session in Jamaica with Burro Banton, a real old-school veteran of the scene. He’s got one of those true iconic, unique voices—the most gravelly, low, bonkers voice. He turned up, didn’t know too much about us, or care too much. Very business: “Where’s the money? Now I’ll do the beat.” We built the bassline around his vocal. There’s such a quirky groove to it.” **“Bubble” (feat. New Kidz)** “We went to Truckback studio as soon as we got off the plane. It’s basically a massive truck with a studio inside it run by this amazing group called New Kidz. Saul and I turned up—fortunately with Seani B too—horrifically jet-lagged and feeling very sheepish. No one knew we were turning up, but Seani basically stopped New Kidz as they were in the booth to come out and work on this track with us. It was an incredibly surreal night.” **“Disaster”** “A real mental, fun ending to the record. We had a vocal from David Rodigan recorded at a venue about five years ago that we had never used, but always loved. He’s very close to us and an incredibly important voice in drum \'n\' bass. So it was very cool to put him on a record and make one of those old-school messy, high-energy, bonkers jungle tunes. It’s quite poignant at the end, with Rodigan saying, ‘Don’t go anywhere, it’s not over.\' And it’s true: This has been such a fun project, it might not be the end of it.”
“How people may emotionally connect with music I’ve been involved in is something that part of me is completely mystified by,” Thom Yorke tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “Human beings are really different, so why would it be that what I do connects in that way? I discovered maybe around \[Radiohead\'s album\] *The Bends* that the bit I didn’t want to show, the vulnerable bit… that bit was the bit that mattered.” *ANIMA*, Yorke’s third solo album, further weaponizes that discovery. Obsessed by anxiety and dystopia, it might be the most disarmingly personal music of a career not short of anxiety and dystopia. “Dawn Chorus” feels like the centerpiece: It\'s stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful with a claustrophobic “stream of consciousness” lyric that feels something like a slowly descending panic attack. And, as Yorke describes, it was the record\'s biggest challenge. “There’s a hit I have to get out of it,” he says. “I was trying to develop how ‘Dawn Chorus’ was going to work, and find the right combinations on the synthesizers I was using. Couldn’t find it, tried it again and again and again. But I knew when I found it I would have my way into the song. Things like that matter to me—they are sort of obsessive, but there is an emotional connection. I was deliberately trying to find something as cold as possible to go with it, like I sing essentially one note all the way through.” Yorke and longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich (“I think most artists, if they\'re honest, are never solo artists,” Yorke says) continue to transfuse raw feeling into the album’s chilling electronica. “Traffic,” with its jagged beats and “I can’t breathe” refrain, feels like a partner track to another memorable Yorke album opener, “Everything in Its Right Place.” The extraordinary “Not the News,” meanwhile, slaloms through bleeps and baleful strings to reach a thunderous final destination. It’s the work of a modern icon still engaged with his unique gift. “My cliché thing I always say is, \'You know you\'re in trouble when people stop listening to sad music,\'” Yorke says. “Because the moment people stop listening to sad music, they don\'t want to know anymore. They\'re turning themselves off.”
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.
Part IV: Local Fuzz Just a few months since arriving to town and Gene has already found himself way in over his head. Several fortnights wiled away in the Rebound Lounge weren’t going to make a man’s life better - that’s as sure as sunrise. Just as sure was that the Discount Boys weren’t going to let him skip town without paying his due. Only from the prudent counsel of the canine oracle down in Chinatown does he manage to pull his head out of the sand and see the light. A swift flight out the gates and across the neon dunes to the East provides a brief respite - ‘brief’ being the operative word. The Discount Boys were one thing to contend with, but the Local Fuzz are another ballgame.
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
Clips: soundcloud.com/sneakersocialclub/soundbwoy-killah-halcyon-daze-album-clips Through a misty, nostalgic lens of long days and nights lost in front of sound systems, Soundbwoy Killah delivers his much anticipated debut album to Sneaker Social Club. True to previous drops on this and other labels, this is rave romanticism with a bite, as much viewing the good old days with a wry smile as longing for their return. Just listen to the opening strains of “Escape Velocity,” as the MC manages a sticky situation and tries to keep cool while sending the crowd on their way “in an orderly fashion.” As much as hardcore, jungle, acid, techno and house inform Halcyon Daze, the sonic signifiers of that ‘golden era’ of rave culture are bedded in a poignant, reflective shroud. From lingering pads to distant, reverb drenched vocal snatches, a hint of melancholy hovers over these scattered but vivid memory triggers. Reese bass has never reverberated so deep, sirens never sounded so lost at sea. The real art in Soundbwoy Killah’s craft lies in the juxtaposition between these languid, introspective elements and bright, sharply rendered arcs of sound that bring the music right into the foreground. This isn’t a pure exercise in nostalgia – stripped of their aggressive armour plating, a lot of these familiar elements take on a new expressive identity. Whether it’s the strafing arps in “Tom Loves To Rave,” or softly nudging the rolling breaks of “Under The Influence” into a downtempo, chill-out room headspace, Halcyon Daze proves how much mileage there still is in these battle-scarred sonic tools. It’s not all one-dimensionally downcast either – “Heartbeats” is a rude n’ ruff celebration of amen choppage, while “Wanna Hold U” channels the ghost of UK garage with one eye cast back to its US house roots. “All Night Long” finishes the record on a charging high, all tightly clipped tech step beats and bright synths that cast their gaze ahead with optimism. The themes of lost love and fuzzy memories echo throughout Halcyon Daze, but rather than wallowing in the past, this open-ended finishing move springs forward with purpose. One gets the feeling there’s plenty more to come from Soundbwoy Killah.
Once Upon A Passion is the debut album from Bella Boo, arriving on Studio Barnhus shortly after a sprinkling of releases through the label that have quickly established the currently LA-based producer (and longtime Stockholm dj hero) as one of dance music's most distinctive new voices. Throughout its 9 tracks we are treated to a fascinating, wider-than-ever view of Bella's uniquely intimate and personal world of sound. The album features vocal contributors Gnučči and Def Sound as well as Nils Janson on trumpet and Axel Boman on acid bassline. Cover photo by Bozi Borbély Espinosa, artwork by Alexandra Karpilovski. Once Upon A Passion is out on all formats and platforms November 1st, with digital-only single Can't Leave You Like This released September 13th. "I made the album this spring during an intense creative period back home in Stockholm. I was obsessed with my studio, I wanted to spend all my time awake there. I found out I was getting evicted from it, this sudden chock turned into a decision to do this album. It made sense, like an "end of an era" thing. I was pretty isolated back then, spending almost all my time outside of the studio with my daughter Bozi. She snapped the cover photo while I was picking out records for a gig. I never wanted to leave the studio during these months, but I realise now how the breaks with Bozi worked for the process - they gave me space to reflect on the music I was making. That dynamic was exactly what I needed to finish this album." - Bella Boo
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.
The long-awaited debut album from Fox drops this Autumn, featuring a close-knit group of collaborators (Sinjin Hawke, Famous Eno, Gafacci, Epic B, Zed Bias, SNØW, Equiknoxx, Murder He Wrote, Toddla T, Sharda, Finn, Anz, RTKal, Coco, Trigga & Shanique Marie) met largely through his adventures in the dancehall over the last decade. Born in Manchester, growing up in Kingston, Fox returned to Manchester in the 90's notorious 'gunchester' years. Things were wild and music was the escape from road life and a catalyst for change. He cut his teeth deejaying on Megatone Sound System before honing his craft with acclaimed group Subliminal Darkness. After a brief hiatus Fox returned to the music game with a fresh outlook, becoming a resident at some of the cities best-loved dances such as Dubspot, Hoya:Hoya, Hit & Run, Hotmilk & Swing Ting. He performed and became an Estate Recordings roster member home to the likes of DRS, Dub Phizix, Chimpo, Strategy & Skittles. More recently Fox joined LEVELZ, a super crew of Manchester-based producers, artists and creatives, becoming a resident and recording artist for Lenzman's The North Quarter whilst making time to collaborate with the likes of Mark Pritchard, Marcus Intalex (RIP), The Mouse Outfit, IAMDDB, Claude von Stroke, Calibre, My Nu Leng, FD, Spectrasoul, Omar & Biome. “Juice Flow” focusses on Fox’s journey whilst working with Manchester-based label, party & production crew Swing Ting and was recorded largely over the last 18 months with Samrai at their Ancoats-based studio. The set features a number of Manchester mainstays, but production and vocal collaborations with artists from Ghana, Jamaica, Ireland & North America maintain the worldwide connection. Fox’s journey has been an impressive one refusing to be boxed into one scene or sound so it’s no surprise the record traverses a myriad of colourful styles. There’s everything from reflective soulful numbers to club bangers, soundboy burials to bittersweet bubblers as well as slow jam for good measure! Whether providing powerful lines for the mind or a crooning hook for a future rave anthem Fox’s soothing tones will keep you reaching back in for more. “Squeeze it ’til the Juice Flows...”
In the three years since her seminal album *A Seat at the Table*, Solange has broadened her artistic reach, expanding her work to museum installations, unconventional live performances, and striking videos. With her fourth album, *When I Get Home*, the singer continues to push her vision forward with an exploration of roots and their lifelong influence. In Solange\'s case, that’s the culturally rich Houston of her childhood. Some will know these references — candy paint, the late legend DJ Screw — via the city’s mid-aughts hip-hop explosion, but through Solange’s lens, these same touchstones are elevated to high art. A diverse group of musicians was tapped to contribute to *When I Get Home*, including Tyler, the Creator, Chassol, Playboi Carti, Standing on the Corner, Panda Bear, Devin the Dude, The-Dream, and more. There are samples from the works of under-heralded H-town legends: choreographer Debbie Allen, actress Phylicia Rashad, poet Pat Parker, even the rapper Scarface. The result is a picture of a particular Houston experience as only Solange could have painted it — the familiar reframed as fantastic.
Free Love, the artists formerly known as Happy Meals return to Optimo Music with 'Extreme Dance Anthems' a phantasmic mini album from their hearts to yours. They say: “We recorded EXTREME DANCE ANTHEMS in our recently moved studio, 'Full Ashram Celestial Garden' which is now situated in a building that holds both a church below us and a sex club next door. Most of the tracks were formed from late-night sessions that we started to kind of ritualistically hold, inspired from a particular thought or idea that we later cut down and did a live mixdown of. The music is about physicality and the metaphysical - it is about a recontextualisation of the ineffable as a centre point of existence which in turn influences how we engage with everything around us. A celebration of the unquantifiable, unspeakable, indivisible EXPERIENCE as the throne from which all ideas are derived. Even though the world is fucked- we are here. On the face of it - I realise that this description might just seem like apolitical hippy bullshit but fuck that - as a deliberate result of the modern political landscape, our societies' individual and collective disengagement with the metaphysical has led us to treat other humans, animals and our environment like resourceful statistics rather than something that actually holds any inherent value. An Inner Revolution of the foundations of our reality in a way that reintroduces the essence of existence, and not merely its describable derivatives, into the conversation of how we should live our lives INFORMS our perception of the world in a way that demands us to ACT. The record is about a kind of gradual awakening between the two of us - a reconnection with the magic around us. The ineffable is not without moments of illumination- mostly in the form of immediate absurdity: ONE DAY WE WILL ALL BE DEAD BUT HERE WE ARE ALIVE INSTEAD. The record is called EXTREME DANCE ANTHEMS because it made us both laugh”.
Zambian-born hip-hop artist Sampa the Great (born Sampa Tembo) is based in Australia, but don’t call her an Australian rapper. “That’s not completely getting who I am,” she tells Apple Music. “Zambia is a part of my identity, and I wanted to show that story.” Her flow is as polished, exciting, and rich as the production, and her lyrics are poetic, clever, proud, and deeply, necessarily truthful. Tembo’s debut album isn’t just an introduction to her story, it’s part of it. And when she visited her home to perform for the first time, it changed her story altogether. “For me, I was the person who *had* a place to go to, a home to go to,” she says. “I was writing from that perspective until I did my shows there. People would say, ‘You know, you kind of sound different. You sound a bit watered down. You haven’t been home for a while, your accent has changed.’ It put me in this funny place. It hurt. I felt like I was finally home, but the people from home were like, ‘You’re not from here.’ And so it really opened me up to a part of my own life that I didn’t think existed. And it made me understand the emotions that come out of those circumstances for others—there are a lot of people from where I come from who *can’t* go home.” Read on to learn more about the stories behind some of her favorite tracks on *The Return*. **“Mwana” (feat. Mwanje Tembo, Theresa Mutale Tembo & Sunburnt Soul Choir)** “It’s the first song you hear on the album, on my journey. It’s literally my return home, physically, but also spiritually. My sister and mum are on the song, and it’s the first time I’ve ever done a song in Bemba \[the Bantu language spoken by Sampa’s family\]. The album is supposed to be about reassuring yourself of who you are, where you’re from, and how to navigate that, and this is such a special song to me and for the album. And the Sunburnt Soul Choir are amazing. Their voices are beautiful. I love the level of connection there.” **“Freedom\"** “It’s very important to me to talk about the risk that artists take. Everybody knows the artist through their songs, but they don’t know the artist *behind* the music. It’s important for me to highlight that sometimes the business, the money, and the hustle to put your music out there and earn a living can give you some compromises. ‘Freedom’ is me expressing how, as a young up-and-coming artist, it’s so important to know who I am and to not compromise that.” **“OMG”** “‘OMG’ reminds me of home and the music that I heard when I was young. Homesickness was getting in the way of me being content with everything that was happening professionally. Hearing my music is on a radio station \[in Australia\] is beautiful, but it’s not personally reaching me because I didn’t grow up here. It was different when we did go home. I was interviewed by a rapper I listened to when I was younger, who I’d wanted to meet as a child, and then the radio station by my high school played my songs. I don’t take \[being in Australia\] for granted, but I also know that my inspiration, all my music and artistry comes from my home. So to be able to bridge those two—who I am and where I’m based—has made me more assured of who I am.” **“Final Form”** “‘Final Form’ shaped the sound of the album. It’s very cinematic. I felt like I was bringing people into a movie of my life. I’ve not fully told my narrative or my story, and the problem with that is then the story is created for me, instead of the other way around. So I’m showing you where I’m from. In the video, I show you my parents, the school I went to. Whatever you create out of that, that’s your business, but this is my story. I needed to create that musically and visually.” **“The Return” (feat. Thando, Jace XL, Alien & Whosane)** “We broke down in the studio while recording this. It’s such a vulnerable, special song, because of the perspectives it brings to the forefront, stuff that I didn\'t write. Everyone on the song is speaking from their individual perspectives, their lives, and how they’re affected by the places they stay in. What I know to be true is that your real home is your soul. Your body. For people who can’t go home, that’s their alternative. They have to call a place that’s not really their home, their home. ‘The Return’ talks about getting to the crux of who you think you are and where you think your home is, and trying to recreate that within yourself. We really broke down, but we let the world hear how vulnerable and scared we are. That’s what I love about it.”
Sampa The Great creates a sense of home on her debut album - “The Return”. A characterful record, its reference points range from classic hip-hop to ancient Southern African sounds. Built on four years of personal and musical soul-searching, it’s an assured statement, the product of meaningful musical connections and of Sampa having to redefine her self-identity away from the comforts of family and old friends. The album follows the recently released single ‘Final Form’, which was hailed as Zane Lowe’s ‘World Record’ and received incredible support from the likes of The Guardian, OkayAfrica, The Independent, Clash, gal-dem and many more. It was also the #1 Most Played track on Triple J the week of release, and received love from Ebro Darden (Beats 1 / Hot 97), Annie Mac, Mistajam & DJ Target (Radio 1), Gilles Peterson & Lauren Laverne (6 Music), Jason Kramer & Anthony Valadez (KCRW), John Richards, Larry Rose & Atticus (KEXP), and more and more. On “The Return” Sampa has enlisted a string of esteemed collaborators and peers to create the album. Mixed by Jonwayne (of Stones Throw notoriety), MsM (Skepta/Boy Better Know) and Andrei Eremin (GRAMMY-nominated engineer for Hiatus Kaiyote and Chet Faker), productions are by Silentjay, Slowthai producer Kwes Darko, Clever Austin (Perrin Moss of Hiatus Kiayote), Blue Lab Beats and Syreniscreamy. The album also features collaborations with Ecca Vandal and London jazz collective Steam Down. Many of them are the fruits of the network Sampa has built since first making waves in 2015 - following time spent studying in San Francisco and LA - as a new arrival in Sydney’s hip-hop and jazz freestyle nights. Since then, she’s performed with Denzel Curry on his breakout track ‘Black Balloons’ for Triple J’s ‘Like A Version’, and toured globally, supporting the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Thundercat, Joey Bada$$, Hiatus Kaiyote, Noname, Ibeyi and Little Simz. Following recent live performances at Glastonbury, Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Dark MOFO (Tasmania - alongside FKA Twigs, Kelsey Lu, Nicholas Jaar), Down The Rabbit Hole (Netherlands) and a headline show at Hip-Hop Collection (Paris) - Sampa plays alongside Sons Of Kemet at Somerset House on 13th July, before joining Burna Boy - recent recipient of the BET Best International Act award - in New York’s Prospect Park on 19th July plus headline solo shows at Elsewhere in Brooklyn on 18th July and Gold Diggers in LA on 22nd July. She returns to the EU in November for a headline tour that includes XOYO in London, as well as stops in Manchester, Bristol, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and more.
Release digital and CD: 17.05.2019. LP release 14.06.2019.
Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica for their own Equiknoxx Music label, ‘Eternal Children’ is the first time all 5 members have appeared on record together, with all three producers - Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair, Nick “Bobby Blackbird” Deane, and Jordan “Time Cow” Chung - cooking up for their vocalist Shanique Marie, alongside the ruder styles of regular spars, MC’s Kemikal and Alozade. As such the album expresses the collective’s shared experience both at home in sunny JA, as well as on the road and their 2nd home in Manchester, home to DDS but where they’re also keenly supported by an extended family including Swing Ting’s Balraj Samrai and MC Fox, plus DJ Jon K, and their mastering engineer Nick Sinna. The resulting 8-track album is a bounty of eclectic productions tweaked for good times. Cherry-picking from dancehall, hip hop and even pop ballads, they effortlessly balance experimental tendencies with classic forms in each song. Opener ’Solomon Is A Cup’ places Shanique Marie and Kemikal’s timeless, poetic storytelling in abstract sound design to absorbing effect, while two highlights ‘Brooklyn’, and the ear-worming hooks of ‘Manchester’, featuring Brent Bird and Swing Ting’s Fox, perfectly display the diversity of their bonds with the Caribbean diaspora. Listeners snagged on the weirdness of Equiknoxx’s DDS albums will probably want to head to the album’s more wayward productions; namely their dark, scudding ‘Corner’ and the percolated pearl of ‘Good Sandra’, complemented by the witty pen of Kemikal and Gavsborg, while it all comes together most soulfully with Shanique’s blazing delivery on the rugged bounce of ‘Move Along’ and her balmy pop-soul duet with Bobby Blackbird, ‘Rescue Me.’ - Boomkat 2019
The wicked intensity of Toronto's E-Saggila takes on novel limits for her new album for Northern Electronics. Constructed out of her live works, there's a lack of restraint on 'My World My Way' that could only be forged in the moment. Following on from last year's album for BANK Records NYC, E-Saggila has put together something that addresses the club and the headphones in equal measure. Taking the approach of a documentarian of our virtual landscape, there's a deep motive that underpins the heavy digital signal processing. With plenty of storming mechanical rhythms that embark from gabber's chaotic neighborhood, the samples of voices, conversations, and phone calls, all wind the listener around the desperation that's embedded in the digital world's seamless mediation of our lives. Owing as much to power violence and industrial as to Rotterdam, E-Saggila's affinity for the extremes is as conceptually critical as it is stylistically present. Riding the BPMs high, and binding this all together with ambient music's sensibilities, 'My World My Way' moves in sharp strides between a political statement and a dancefloor assault.
An album featuring exclusively new material, and dedicated to a very close friend who passed away last year, this is by far the most personal and poignant record he has ever made. First coined in 2015, the album has taken four years to complete and in his own words ‘part of a slow metamorphosis that I have wanted to do for a long time’. Escaping to Valentia on the West Coast of Ireland, he sought solace away from the grind of modern living to write music and draw inspiration from his surroundings. It was during this time that he experienced great personal loss, which can be felt throughout the record, forming an emotional narrative that will make even the hardest of hearts shed a tear upon listening. The title track ‘Planet Hearth’ was made in Belfast a few weeks before losing his close friend, and in his own words: “I remember this one feeling very automatic and emotionally engaging, the timing for me has great meaning”. Whilst the track ‘Five Minute Flame’ was written in five minutes one morning in Valentia with the sun streaming in and the coffee being made, showing just how he can draw inspirations at any moment of the day, “I love the immediacy of writing music very much” he states. Largely ambient, there is a nod to his drum and bass roots with ‘Walking in Circles’, a track that can, and has been played in one of his dnb set. Whilst the album has been playing throughout the year in different club settings, opening the night with the sound that he so loves, the record wasn’t made for the club as such, ‘originally the idea was to put music together that didn't need to be played in a club, that it could be whatever I wanted.’ This is an honest and pure record that steps away from Calibre’s drum and bass persona that he’s so synonymous with. A somewhat melancholic and atmospheric piece of work, it still has that signature Calibre sound, attesting to incredible diversity of the man. A true master of his craft, his ability to constantly create and consistently deliver with such honest expression is staggering. A chameleonic creator in the purest form - as a painter, fine artist, multi-instrumentalist, writer and producer - he has a career stretching over two decades with over fifteen albums of varying genres.
Following on from Pictures Of You ft. DRS and Rain ft. Children Of Zeus earlier this month, Lenzman sparked an uproar of excitement as speculation arose for his next LP. Today, Lenzman makes a return to Goldie’s Metalheadz label to drop the Bobby LP. Gliding through sub-genres of hip-hop, jazz and soul, Lenzman’s new album is forward-thinking with complimenting crossovers that still connect with the current drum and bass scene. Across this boundary defying journey, Lenzman draws on a cascade of mellow and weighty subs, soft and rich vocal tones from collaborators DRS, Children Of Zeus and Konny Kon whilst guest producers Artificial Intelligence and LSB lend their notable skills to the LP with nostalgic melodies. Amongst the intricate sound design also lies sentimental influence of family and childhood that has served as the essential foundation to bind the LP together: “I became a father a year or so before starting the album. My daughter had also named her stuffed toy “Bobby” at the time,” Lenzman explains. Although the LP was already taking shape that was fitting for me as a title. Becoming a Dad had made me revisit my own childhood and look at it from a different angle. The memories, influences and music from that period of my life were the most vivid in my mind... the moods and feelings, all translated into the music on the LP. I was raised by my father and he used to draw a lot back in those days, so it was fitting for him to draw the cover, fragments of my childhood put onto paper.” Since stepping on the scene in 2007, Lenzman has continued to flourish as an artist known for his fluid approach and bold collaborations. Whilst producing his own originals including his debut LP Looking At The Stars in 2014 and Golden Age EP in 2016, the revered producer has also provided the remix treatment for Joe Hertz’ One Another and The Mouse Outfit’s Feeling High. Having released on the likes of Spearhead Records, SGN:LTD, Soul:r and his rising North Quarter imprint over the years, the Bobby LP on Metalheadz is primed to satisfy the bubbling cravings of patiently waiting Lenzman fans whilst capturing the ears of a wider global audience as he releases his most seminal body of work to date.
Mount Liberation Unlimited are Tom and Niklas, two Swedes from space who have spent the last 5 years carving out a particularly vivid niche in contemporary electronic music. Their previous work has seen them connect with an impressive list of global dance powerhouses: New York's Beats In Space, Melbourne's Superconscious and Munich's Permanent Vacation have all released 12'' heat from the duo, while their hometown buddies at Studio Barnhus provided an outlet for what has been perhaps their biggest and boldest release yet, 2017's double smash single Double Dance Lover. Their live shows are fervent, fast-paced and very multi-instrumental affairs, performed non-stop at an increasingly prestigious list of clubs and festivals, serving as prime examples of the MLU boys' core obsession: the interaction of human rhythm and electronic pulse. They have their own great little radio show on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide FM! Australia loves them! They got their artist friend Tom-Hadar Elde to sculpt their heads for their debut album cover! That self-titled debut, to be released May 31 on Studio Barnhus, has been in progress since the very formation of the MLU project in 2014. It contains some of their earliest work and of course their very latest – all perfected at the Neve desk of legendary Gothenburg studio Svenska Grammofonstudion, in cahoots with mix engineer Christoffer Berg (Depeche Mode, Robyn, Fever Ray). The result is a sonically fascinating, endlessly generous and straight up FUN record that takes the listener on a joyride through bittersweet stoner disco, frenzied scando-kraut jams and some of the sweetest dance pop to come out of Sweden this side of Super Trouper. The record is preceded by a limited 10'' release of album track Climb Me Up, complete with an exclusive club mix of the song.
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.
