Resident Advisor's Best Albums of 2022

Marking the 50th release-proper on SVBKVLT, we are excited to present ‘Mutate’, a new album by ABADIR. ‘Mutate’ started when I was trying out Maqsoum loops at high bpm blended with Jungle tracks during one of my DJ sets. I noticed that the Maqsoum rhythm complements the Amen break in a refreshing way. The first time I actually tried integrating both in my productions using “call and response” was when Ice_Eyes asked me to remix one of their tracks. The result was the closest to what I had always imagined to be my own club sound. I set out to make an album using the same technique with some of my favorite club genres. My aim was to mutate those genres, collecting different types of Arabic rhythms and cooking them with Jungle, Jersey Club, Reggaeton, Footwork, etc. It’s an irreversible equation, like a chemical reaction, where the output is a melted piece which cannot be broken down into its separate inputs. Instead of ‘deconstructing’ or generally looking beyond club music, I made some fatty, straight up dance floor music.’ – ABADIR ------ AِBADIR (Rami Abadir) is a music producer and sound designer born in Cairo, Egypt. His work focuses on experimental, club, glitch and ambient music, and he’s one half of the duo 0N4B.

*Read a personal, detailed guide to Björk’s 10th LP—written by Björk herself.* *Fossora* is an album I recorded in Iceland. I was unusually here for a long time during the pandemic and really enjoyed it, probably the longest I’d been here since I was 16. I really enjoyed shooting down roots and really getting closer with friends and family and loved ones, forming some close connections with my closest network of people. I guess it was in some ways a reaction to the album before, *Utopia*, which I called a “sci-fi island in the clouds” album—basically because it was sort of out of air with all the flutes and sort of fantasy-themed subject matters. It was very much also about the ideal and what you would like your world to be, whereas *Fossora* is sort of what it is, so it’s more like landing into reality, the day-to-day, and therefore a lot of grounding and earth connection. And that’s why I ended up calling *Fossora* “the mushroom album.” It is in a way a visual shortcut to that, it’s all six bass clarinets and a lot of deep sort of murky, bottom-end sound world, and this is the shortcut I used with my engineers, mixing engineers and musicians to describe that—not sitting in the clouds but it’s a nest on the ground. “Fossora” is a word that I made up from Latin, the female of *fossor*, which basically means the digger, the one who digs into the ground. The word fossil comes from this, and it’s kind of again, you know, just to exaggerate this feeling of digging oneself into the ground, both in the cozy way with friends and loved ones, but also saying goodbye to ancestors and funerals and that kind of sort of digging. It is both happy digging and also the sort of morbid, severe digging that unfortunately all of us have to do to say goodbye to parents in our lifetimes. **“Atopos” (feat. Kasimyn)** “Atopos” is the first single because it is almost like the passport or the ID card (of the album), it has six bass clarinets and a very fast gabba beat. I spent a lot of time on the clarinet arrangements, and I really wanted this kind of feeling of being inside the soil—very busy, happy, a lot of mushrooms growing really fast like a mycelium orchestra. **“Sorrowful Soil” and “Ancestress” (feat. Sindri Eldon)** Two songs about my mother. “Sorrowful Soil” was written just before she passed away, it\'s probably capturing more the sadness when you discover that maybe the last chapter of someone\'s life has started. I wanted to capture this emotion with what I think is the best choir in Iceland, The Hamrahlid Choir. I arranged for nine voices, which is a lot—usually choirs are four voices like soprano, alto, or bass. It took them like a whole summer to rehearse this, so I\'m really proud of this achievement to capture this beautiful recording. “Ancestress” deals with after my mother passing away, and it\'s more about the celebration of her life or like a funeral song. It is in chronological order, the verses sort of start with my childhood and sort of follow through her life until the end of it, and it\'s kind of me learning how to say goodbye to her. **“Fungal City” (feat. serpentwithfeet)** When I was arranging for the six bass clarinets I wanted to capture on the album all different flavors. “Atopos” is the most kind of aggressive fast, “Victimhood” is where it’s most melancholic and sort of Nordic jazz, I guess. And then “Fungal City” is maybe where it\'s most sort of happy and celebrational. I even decided to also record a string orchestra to back up with this kind of happy celebration and feeling and then ended up asking serpentwithfeet to sing with me the vocals on this song. It is sort of about the capacity to love and this, again, meditation on our capacity to love. **“Mycelia”** “Mycelia” is a good example of how I started writing music for this album. I would sample my own voice making several sounds, several octaves. I really wanted to break out of the normal sort of chord structures that I get stuck in, and this was like the first song, like a celebration, to break out of that. I was sitting in the beautiful mountain area in Iceland overlooking a lake in the summer. It was a beautiful day and I think it captured this kind of high energy, high optimism you get in Iceland’s highlands. **“Ovule”** “Ovule” is almost like the feminine twin to “Atopos.” Lyrically it\'s sort of about being ready for love and removing all luggage and becoming really fresh—almost like a philosophical anthem to collect all your brain cells and heart cells and soul cells in one point and really like a meditation about love. It imagines three glass eggs, one with ideal love, one with the shadows of love, and one with day-to-day mundane love, and this song is sort of about these three worlds finding equilibrium between these three glass eggs, getting them to coexist.

Soma proudly presents Functional Designs, the latest collection of nocturnal environments from Deepchord, marking his first full length album release on Soma in 5 years. The enigmatic Detroit based producer once again transports us into his sonic realm via night-walks through numerous cities before being transmuted into aural excellence through field recordings, holographic synth tones, cosmic sounds and the hiss of electric wires. All swimming around in filtered 4/4 beats and subterranean basslines. The album is a perfect example of electroacoustic techno transmitted from undisclosed locations, the amalgamation of swirling tapestries of sound, deeper than night and lifeforms moving around underneath the grid. The album glistens into existence with the beatless Amber breathing life into the project before the eventide of Darkness Falls offers a beautifully subtle and contemplative atmosphere. The guiding light of Transit Systems continues to offer up melancholy with echoing percussion and drifting soundscapes. The highly processed acoustics of Strangers brings a sense of intrigue to the album’s journey as Modell works in the most percussive track so far. Panacast is exotic dub techno at it’s finest, with warping and perfectly crafted synth work building gently over the top of sub heavy beats, glued perfectly together by the hiss of the collected found-sounds. In a slight rise in tempo, Cloudsat, makes a journey skyward, collecting mood and feelings from high altitude with its emotive synth work. The reverberating halls of Pressure again work as a testament to Modell’s sonic crafting - honing in on specific artefacts from his field recordings, imbuing them with deeper purpose. The perfectly titled Ebb and Flow drifts effortlessly on a tide of evolving, blissful sound waves crashing to shore as each one overlaps the other. Beginning the descent into the final part of the album, you begin your ride across a cosmic plain, lit by the glistening and ethereal Sun. The meditative Memories opens a conduit to other realms as the album closes out with the elysian melodies of Drassanes. Deepchord once again proves he is a producer like no other. A true sonic sculptor who uses his real world experience to create vast, unparalleled soundscapes that captivate and enthral the listener.

Gqom pioneer DJ Lag has always been a forward-thinking producer, and his 2022 release sees him move the genre forward by incorporating fresh flavors into the sound that’s defined Durban’s dance music scene since the 2010s. “There are a few tracks that are slower than my usual tempo,” DJ Lag tells Apple Music. “I am seeing it as a shift of gqom; I like to call it ‘gqom 2.0.’ We started at 124 BPM, slowing down with ‘Samba Ngolayini,’ which went viral and still bangs in the clubs, and now I am taking it all the way to 116 BPM.” For *Meeting With the King*, DJ Lag employs a broader palette consisting of amapiano, Afro-house, and Afro-tech. The best example of this marriage of different styles is “Khavhude,” a collaboration with trailblazing amapiano producer Mr JazziQ. Amapiano’s defining kick roll and log drum are mashed up with high-pitch synths and hissing pads, further decorated by the vocals of Vic\_typhoon and late yanos icon Mpura. “I can make gqom that sounds exactly like it did back in 2014, when we started making it, but I am no longer there. I have grown,” Lag explains. But with all the experimentation, DJ Lag’s sound remains uncompromisingly gqom, with the genre’s trademark thwacking drums, automated digital chants, and hypnotic synths and pads. Here, Lag (Lwazi Asanda Gwala) breaks down key tracks from the album. **“Khavhude” (feat. Vic\_typhoon & Mpura) \[DJ Lag & Mr JazziQ\]** “This is an extremely important track, as it features the late Mpura. I sent the beat to JazziQ, who got Mpura and Vic\_typhoon on it. When we listened to their vocals, everyone was convinced that we wouldn’t touch it further. It was just so raw and honest that everyone felt it strongly, and we knew immediately it would make the album. Mpura was one of those artists that just delivered like that. When the news came out about the accident and his passing \[in 2021\], listening to this song was very intense. Gone too soon and a big loss to the industry.” **“DJ Lag” \[DJ Lag, Babes Wodumo & Mampintsha\]** “Babes and Mampintsha performed in one of my events, Something for Clermont. At the show, they came up with this chant, ‘DJ LAG,’ that went on for about 45 minutes of the set between them and the audience. I decided to include it in the album because it is a personal moment. That was an epic night. The show was amazing, and we danced until the sunrise. A couple of weeks later, I made the beat and worked on this with them at their place. We also worked on ‘iKhehla’ at the same time. Babes is amazing, and I wish nothing more than she finds her feet and does a major comeback. She is the full package.” **“Lucifer” \[DJ Lag & Lady Du\]** “This was one of the late additions to the album. Lady Du had sent back the vocals and, somehow, it got lost amongst a bunch of other music I was exchanging with other artists at the time. I went back and reworked some of the production and didn’t only decide to include it on the album—we also decided to make it the first single. The one thing about Lady Du is that she strongly gets behind her music; she has been around for so long, and she understands the industry and her audience.” **“Raptor” \[DJ Lag & Sinjin Hawke\]** “‘Raptor’ is a collaboration with Sinjin Hawke. He also mixed and mastered this song himself. He is technically impeccable. I have so much respect for his work and his ethic. He is also a great DJ and performer. We have bumped into each other in the US and Europe on the same event or festival lineups, so it was \[just\] a matter of time to do a track together. The first version had a ROSALÍA vocal on it, which sounded incredible. Unfortunately, as she has hit superstardom, this is not the easiest sample to clear, so Sinjin worked on the current vocal to replace that.” **“Destiny” \[DJ Lag & Amanda Black\]** “Amanda Black is a whole mood. She is a strong and very outspoken woman and has, over time, been attacked for this on social media. I have respect for her because she continues to stand her ground. The song is about self-empowerment and Amanda sings, ‘I will remember who I used to be’ and, later, ‘I will choose my destiny.’ This song gave me quite a hard time technically, and I was so adamant that it needed to be on the album that we ended up mixing it with seven different mixing engineers, literally from all around the world. People were saying, ‘Just leave it out of the album,’ but I was not having any of it.” **“Yasho Leyonto” \[DJ Lag & Dladla Mshunqisi\]** “It’s all in the energy of the performance for me in this song; I think Dladla Mshunqisi did a great unpolished, fun, and heartfelt vocal take. ‘Yasho Leyonto’ is a chant that people on the dance floor call back to the DJ; we call it ‘ithemu,’ which means ‘theme.’ It was started by DJ Jelzin in Durban, and now everyone is doing it.” **“Keep Going”** “This track was added at the end of January 2022, less than a month before the album release. I made it in the middle of the night in Durban sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We wanted to add it because it brings in this new ‘gqom 2.0’ direction and the fusion to amapiano into focus. The BPM is much slower than most of what I do—it’s down to 116 \[from the usual 127 for gqom tracks\]. The team loved the track, and I’m glad we managed to fit it in. I haven’t even played it in my sets yet.” **“Chaos” (feat. General C’mamane & Omagoqa)** “The song features the new producers General C’mamane and Omagoqa. It’s a showcase of some younger Durban talent that I really connect with. We worked on this during the lockdown from different studios, bouncing files back and forth even though we only live 30 minutes away from each other. It has an ominous energy about it—police siren-like sounds in the background and all. It is also sexy and slow, with a build-up of layer upon layer, and a friendlier twist towards the end. I am big into gaming, and this could be a soundtrack to a hero’s journey through a post-apocalyptic world.” **“Into Ongayazi”** “This one is a dance-floor favorite in Durban. It is hard and for the very late hours, but people love it. What is special in this track is that I am singing all the vocal ad-libs, hums, and whistles. It was one of my first experiments with my own voice and it is unusual. We released it as a pre-add in November because people wanted to play it on their sets and hear it on the dance floor.”

Much like his Afrofuturist duo Drexciya with the late James Stinson, Gerald Donald’s Dopplereffekt project is drawn to big themes. Working alongside fellow Detroiter Michaela To-Nhan Bertel, he’s channeled topics like fascism, eugenics, and particle physics into dystopian electro. On their first LP since 2017’s *Cellular Automata*, Dopplereffekt sound even more dour than usual on the austere opener “Epigenetic Modulation.” But there’s a newfound sensitivity in songs like the swirling “Visual Cortex” and the wistful “Neuroplasticity,” and Dopplereffekt’s music has rarely sounded more emotional than on the sweeping “Optogenetics,” whose pinging arpeggios hold their own against the Berlin school’s 1970s *kosmische* greats. A concept album about wordless communication, *Neurotelepathy* imparts an unambiguous message of wonder.

7th October 2022, Hagan shares his long-awaited debut album Textures with previously unheard fusion single ‘Telha ft. Luedji Luna & Sango’ - a sun-kissed percussive track with lush vocals dancing over sparkling guitar riffs and broken beats - out now on Python Syndicate. A stunning debut that showcases Hagan’s carefully honed production skills - the product of a life in music - Textures is an homage to global sounds and influences, an expression of his journey of self-discovery and reflection on his British-Ghanaian heritage, and showcases his keen love for collaboration. Recorded between London and Accra, the project draws out a range of Afro-influenced sounds while listing the collaboration of emerging talents across the vibrant landscape of contemporary African music, Aymos, Bryte, Meron T, Ayeisha Raquel, Griffit Vigo and more. A bold step into Hagan’s Afrocentric sonic realm and creative vision.

Listen to the fourth album by Scotland-born, LA-based Ross Birchard and you’re liable to feel a little overwhelmed. Sugar rush or religious epiphany? The elation of a good roller coaster or the nausea that sets in when the ride loses control? Birchard likes it all, and by the fistful. Nearly a decade out from his public christening as a producer for Kanye West (“Mercy,” “Blood on the Leaves”) and half of the jock-jam festival phenomenon TNGHT (with Lunice), he’s become the kind of musician it seems like he wanted to be all along: bright, weird, funky, funny, and guided by an optimism so irrepressible you wonder if, deep down, he feels a little sad. “Stump” is the most beautiful music that didn’t make *Blade Runner*. “Bicstan” is Aphex Twin for a seven-year-old’s birthday party. He can balance tracks as abstract as “Kpipe” with ones as direct as “3 Sheets to the Wind,” and the soulful lag of American rap (“Redeem”) with the momentum of UK bass (“Rain Shadow,” “Is It Supposed”), not to mention whatever neon-halo hybrid “Behold” is. This is opera for people raised on anime. And as easy as it is to imagine listening in a big, sweaty room, he knows that most of us will end up taking it in alone on headphones—and he wants us to have fun.

Since the early ’90s, Kerri Chandler has been one of New Jersey house music’s foremost ambassadors, and on *Spaces and Places*, he puts his diplomatic passport to good use. Over the course of four years, recording wherever he touched down to play, he assembled the album on a mobile studio he set up in 24 different nightclubs around the world: London’s Printworks, Glasgow’s Sub Club, and Paris’ Rex, among other similarly hallowed venues. By doing so, it seems, he managed to capture something of the essence of each room—not just its acoustics, but also its spirit. “Sunrise (Watergate)” bounces along with a heads-down intensity that’s reflective of the Berlin riverside nightspot’s blissed-out morning hours. “Tenacity (Output),” recorded in Brooklyn, summons the soulful legacy of classic New York house music. And the acid-driven “Feelin’ Red (DC10) \[Pull the 9 Out Mix\]” channels the hedonistic vibes of Ibiza’s infamous after-hours party. All of it, though, remains steeped in the no-nonsense drum grooves that typify New Jersey house and the moody keys and soulful vocals that make Chandler one of deep house’s most reliable practitioners. *Spaces and Places* ends up being a two-way street: By taking his music around the world, Chandler makes us at home in his world.

For Hyperdub founder Kode9, aka Scotland-born, London-based producer Steve Goodman, dance music and futuristic philosophy are inextricable, and their bond appears especially tight on *Escapology*, his first album since 2015’s *Nothing*. The LP serves as the soundtrack to Goodman’s evolving multimedia project *Astro-Darien*, a science-fiction narrative about British colonialism, Scotland’s history in the slave trade, and the future of space travel. Though those themes may not be immediately apparent in the music itself, there’s no mistaking the avant-garde nature of Goodman’s off-world fantasies. Where Kode9 has historically danced on the fringes of styles like dubstep and UK funky, here he largely leaves the club behind, teasing flickering stretches of footwork-inspired rhythms (“The Break Up,” “Angle of Re-Entry”) and then letting them dissolve in glistening pools of beatless, atonal synths. Rather than causing whiplash, though, these unexpected transitions only draw you deeper into the album’s labyrinthine dimensions, bringing Goodman’s imaginary world vividly to life.

‘Escapology’ - Kode9's first album since 2015's ‘Nothing’ – is the first audio document of a wider project, Astro-Darien, ongoing since last year. His most ambitious work yet as a multi-disciplinary artist, ‘Escapology’ is the soundtrack album to the sonic fiction Astro-Darien, which will be released in October on Hyperdub’s sub-label Flatlines. The music reconfigures Astro-Darien's tense, off-world atmospheres into slices of high definition, asymmetric club rhythms, woven through thrilling sound design and vertiginous sonics. ‘Escapology’ is just one entry point into of the Astro-Darien universe, which had begun to surface in 2021 as a two-week audiovisual installation on the main dance floor at club space Corsica Studios in South London, and as a multi-channel diffusion on the 50 speaker Acousmonium at the invitation of INA-GRM in Paris, the institution founded in 1951 by the musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, composer Pierre Henry and the engineer Jacques Poullin.

After a steady stream of singles and EPs since 2015, Australian-born, London-based producer Jordan Alexander flexes his ever-evolving sound on this debut album. Balancing melody-rich emotional depth with concussive club prompts, he has described *What I Breathe* as a lingering look back across his half-decade working under the Mall Grab moniker, as well as absorbing the myriad sounds of his adopted city. The former theme comes through in the nostalgia-warmed instrumental “I Can Remember It So Vividly,” while that vivid London influence can be heard on the breakbeat-riddled “Time Change”—featuring grime MCs Novelist and D Double E—and Nia Archives’ neo-soul vocal turn on “Patience.” Following Alexander’s 2020 remix EP for Turnstile, that band’s Brendan Yates contrasts alternately restrained and screamed vocals with mellow, almost ambient washes on “Understand.” Alexander himself even sings in a self-reflective murmur on “Without the Sun” and the closer, “Lost in Harajuku.”

Nearly 10 years on since his last solo LP, Berlin techno icon Marcel Dettmann arrives on Dekmantel with an expansive album captured in a flash of inspiration. In many ways Fear Of Programming is a reflection on the artistic process – the critical hurdles one has to overcome, the constant strive for originality, the ability to capture inspiration in its pure moment of inception. Bar the closing title track (and we all know Marcel loves a surprise closing), these 13 tracks came together during a period in which our hirsute host was able to immerse himself in studio practice and set the intention to record an album’s worth of material every single day. From the resulting mass of work there were many options to choose from, and Fear Of Programming stood out as one of the most complete statements on Dettmann’s approach in the here and now. Unconcerned with an overarching concept, it was the work in the studio which drove the musical direction. No labouring over knotty arrangements, no painstaking mix downs – just honest expression, a moment caught, a groove locked, a stroke of synth sent pirouetting over a cavernous bed of texture. The results are varied, and while you might well hear plenty of bruising machinations in line with the techno Dettmann has made his name on, there are plenty of other shades expressed across the album. Ambient sojourns, beatless epics and angular electronica have equal footing with strident, floor-friendly workouts. Standout piece ‘Water’ offers an icy ballet of swinging minimal and drip-drop melodics fronted by Ryan Elliott on lesser-spotted vocal duties, urging, ‘give me a sign, just a little something to let me know that you’re mine’. It’s playful, but still underpinned with the sincerity that comes with Dettmann’s work. Running on instinct, Dettmann presents an honest version of himself in the here and now, speaking through the sonics and not over-thinking the results. His decades of experience helming a thousand techno parties speak for themselves, while his evolution as a musical entity through collaboration and his own BAD MANNERS label demonstrate his appetite for change. Indeed, the working method which resulted in the album also spurred him on to create a live set beyond his well-established DJ practice. Without resorting to a conceited overhaul, Fear Of Programming opens up the idea of what Dettmann represents in the modern techno landscape.

In 1990 Ronald Lee Trent Jr. was the teenage creator of Altered States – a raw, futuristic techno-not-techno anthem, which in retrospect was something of a stylistic anomaly for the young artist. Across subsequent years, with time spent in Chicago, New York and Detroit, came the development of his signature sound, and renown as a world class purveyor of deep, soul infused house/garage. This story has already been told, and on casual inspection, the well-worn platitude ‘house music legend’ is an old shoe that still fits. However, in fact, he’s actually so much more, and has been for quite a while. A genuine musician, songwriter, and ‘producer’ in the proper, old-school sense, the artist today has more in common with Quincy Jones than he does your average journeyman DJ track-hack. To those in the know, these broader skills haven’t gone unnoticed, which is why on the highly collaborative, career-topping new LP ‘What Do The Stars Say To You’, it took little persuasion to recruit serious star power. Brazilian royalty Ivan Conti and Alex Malheriros from Azymuth, violin maestro Jean Luc Ponty, ambient hero Gigi Masin, hype band Khruangbin and more performed, whilst NY cornerstone François K provided mastering duties. At various points Ron himself played drums, percussion, keys, synths, piano, guitar and electronics. Harking back to the 70s and 80s boom in adventurous, luxurious albums, WDTSSTY is a love letter to the longplayer, where rich musicality and a liquid smooth, silky flow make seemingly odd genre bedfellows acquiesce harmoniously. Each song its own high-fidelity odyssey, Trent incorporated a broad range of live instruments and electronics into a sophisticated, euphonic whole. Described by him as being “designed for harmonising with spirit, urban life and nature”, this is aural soul food, gently easing you into balmy nights, where everything is alright. Originally wanting to be an architect, Trent’s views his approach to collaboration and music in general as having the same principles. A firm believer in the nourishing qualities of sound, he sees direct parallels between the two disciplines, being as the purpose of good architecture is to improve quality of life. “With WARM, through sound design, I built frameworks for the musicians, who furnished and occupied these structures beautifully, which was a big compliment for me”, he comments. The conditions required for a good collab are more than simply structural though, as Trent expounds, “I’m a huge fan of everyone on the record, especially Jean Luc and Azymuth, who’re part of my DNA. Each track was made with that guest in mind – for example, when I started writing ‘Sphere’, I immediately thought ‘this IS Ponty’. I played the keys in his style, and did a guide violin solo using a synth, which he then re-did, amazingly. ‘Cool Water’ is based around Azymuth themes, so when I sent it to Ivan, he could immediately see himself in the piece; He got what I was going for straight away. For ‘Melt Into You’ I hit up Alex on Instagram, sent him the track, he liked it, and within 24 hours he’d sent back six different bass passes!” “Conversely, Admira began with a sketch sent by Gigi and became something combining Jon Hassell-esque chords and the feel of ‘Aquamarine’ by Carlos Santana, which links back to Masin’s recurrent nautical theme”, he adds. With community, history and the need for racial equality never far from Ron’s mind, ‘Flos Potentia’ translates from Spanish as flower power, but rather than promoting some hippy idyll, instead it refers to plants which drove the slave trade: tobacco, sugar and cotton. Joined by Khruangbin, together they propel Dinosaur L, Hi-Tension and afrobeat into an ethereal, clear-skyed stratosphere. Aside from these esteemed guests, other key influences cited by Trent include ‘Gigolos Get Lonely Too’ by Prince, ‘Beyond’ by Herb Alpert, David Mancuso, Jan Hammer, Tangerine Dream, The Cars, Trevor Horn, Alan Parsons Project and pre-Kraftwerk incarnation Organization. A multitude of others are audible too, including George Bension, Vangelis, Loose Ends, Maze, Flora Purim, Weather Report, Atmosphere, Grace Jones, James Mason and Brass Construction Vinyl Tracklist Includes download codes for the François Kervorkian Continuous Mix and full unmixed tracks as MP3 / FLAC / WAV A1. Cool Water feat. Ivan Conti (Azymuth) and Lars Bartkuhn A2. Cycle of Many A3. Admira feat. Gigi Masin A4. Flowers feat. Venecia A5. Melt into you feat. Alex Malheiros (Azymuth) B1. Flos Potentia (Sugar, Cotton, Tabacco) feat. Khruangbin B2. Sphere feat. Jean-Luc Ponty B3. WARM B4. On my way home B5. What do the stars say to you CD Tracklist 01 Melt into you feat. Alex Malheiros (Azymuth) 02 Cool Water feat. Ivan Conti (Azymuth) and Lars Bartkuhn 03 Flos Potentia (Sugar, Cotton, Tabacco) feat. Khruangbin 04 The ride 05 Cycle of Many 06 In the summer when we were young 07 Flowers feat. Venecia 08 Sphere feat. Jean-Luc Ponty 09 Admira feat. Gigi Masin 10 Endless Love 11 Rocking You 12 WARM 13 On my way home 14 What do the stars say to you 15 Cool Water Interlude

The concept for Schacke’s, Apocalyptic Decadence was thought out during the dark days of the first lockdown in 2020, it is essentially about the desire for hedonism and excess being amplified when faced with apocalyptic omens and the annihilation of the familiar. When faced with destruction, the psyche approaches a duality, it can either swallow the pill of bitter realism or withdraw and escape into the imaginal, constructing a world of hedonism and pleasure, the paradox of the latter, which the album explores, is that this approach only accelerates the process of impending doom and the delusion that through the pursuit of eschatological pleasure, the world might be orgasmically reborn. Apocalyptic Decadence sees Schacke exploring the full spectrum of his musical discography, taking inspiration from the industrial, dark and rough sounds from his early days, combining it with the hyper-sensuality of his later works. The sound is twisted, psychological, sex-fixated and intoxicating. The album can be considered the 3rd part in his “Pleasuredome Series”, following his prior two releases on Instruments Of Discipline: ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ & ‘Artificial Intercourse’. Produced recorded and mixed by Martin Schacke Artwork by Freja sigsgaard-Hansen and Martin Schacke Mastering by Joel Krozer at Sixbitdeep

Shygirl toyed with simply self-titling her debut album, but *Nymph* felt far more evocative—and fitting. “A nymph is an alluring character but also an ambiguous one,” the artist and DJ, whose real name is Blane Muise, tells Apple Music. “You don’t quite know what they’re about, so you can project onto them a little bit of what you want.” Co-written with collaborators including Mura Masa, BloodPop®, and longtime producer Sega Bodega, it’s an album that defies categorization, its stunning, shape-shifting tracks blending everything from rap and UK garage to folktronica and Eurodance. Along the way, it reveals fascinating new layers to the South London singer, rapper, and songwriter. While *Nymph* contains moments that match the “bravado” (her word) of earlier EPs *Cruel Practice* and *ALIAS*, Shygirl says this album is “ultimately the story of my relationship with vulnerability.” As ever, sensuality is central, but she resists the “sex-positive” label. “With a track like ‘Shlut,’ I’m not saying my desire is good or bad,” she says. “I’m just saying it’s authentically who I am.” Read on as Shygirl guides us through her beguiling debut album, one song at a time. **“Woe”** “This song is me acclimatizing to the audience’s presence and how vocal they are. Sometimes it’s annoying to have all these other voices \[around you\] when you’re trying to figure out your own. But then, on the flip of that, isn’t it nice that people actually want something from you? I often do that: give myself space to express some frustration or an emotion, then look at it in different ways. Sometimes I do that with sensitivity, and sometimes I’m just taking the piss out of myself. Like, ‘OK now, just get over it.’” **“Come For Me”** “For me, this song is a conversation between myself and \[producer\] Arca because we hadn’t met in person when we made it. She would send me little sketches of beats, then I would respond with vocal melodies. Working on this track was one of the first times I was experimenting with vocal production on Logic, manipulating my voice and stuff. It was really daunting to send ideas over to Arca because she’s such an amazing producer. But she was so responsive, and that was really empowering for me.” **“Shlut”** “I said to Sega \[Bodega\], ‘I want to use more guitar.’ I love that style of music, more folky stuff, because I used to listen to Keane and Florence + the Machine in my younger days. So, that’s definitely an undercurrent influence here, but the beat is a horse galloping. The horse was a very prevalent idea when I was making this album because it’s this powerful animal that is oftentimes in a domestic setting being controlled by someone. At the same time, there’s an element of choice in that relationship because the horse could easily not be tamed. I love that and relate to it a lot.” **“Little Bit”** “I have to give Sega credit for the beat. The way I work, mostly, is in the same room \[as my collaborators\], and we start from scratch. When most producers send me beats, I’m not inspired by them. But when Sega plays me stuff, I’m like ‘Wait, no—can I have that?’ I think because we started working together in 2015, he can probably anticipate what I want now. I never imagined hearing myself on a beat like this. It reminds me of a 50 Cent beat, which takes me back to my childhood. So, even the way I’m rapping here is nostalgic. I’m being playful and inserting myself into a sonic narrative that I didn’t think I would occupy.” **“Firefly”** “I started this song with Sega and \[producer\] Kingdom at a studio in LA, but then Sega had to leave for some reason. I was feeling a bit childish because I was like, ‘What’s more important than being in this room right now?’ So, then, with just me and Kingdom, I was like, ‘If I was going to make an R&B-style song, this is what it would sound like.’ I’d been listening to a lot of Janet Jackson, and I’d just watched her documentary. But really, I was kind of just taking the piss as I started freestyling the melodies. I really like being a bit flippant with melodies and not being too formulaic.” **“Coochie (a bedtime story)”** “The title is a Madonna reference. When I was shooting a Burberry campaign last year, her song ‘Bedtime Story’ was playing on repeat. It became the soundtrack to this moment where I was acclimatizing to a space \[in my career\] that was bigger than I had anticipated. I started writing this song at an Airbnb in Brighton with Sega and \[co-writers\] Cosha, Mura Masa, and Karma Kid. We were up super late one evening, and I was just sitting there, humming to myself. And I was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to have a cute song about coochie?’ Growing up as a girl, there’s not even a cute word for \[your vagina\]. Everything is so sexualized or anatomical. I was like, ‘I need to make this cute song that I would have liked to hear when I was younger.’” **“Heaven”** “This track is quite experimental. The production started quite garage-y, but then it got weird fast. And then we reworked it again because I wanted it to sound sweet. I was thinking about when I broke up with my ex-boyfriend; there were moments where I was like, ‘Can we just forget everything and get back together?’ Obviously, you can’t just forget everything—it’s childish to want to erase those parts, but I can have that space in my music. In some moments, my ex was my peace and my place of absolute escape. And that’s what I equated to heaven at that point.” **“Nike”** “This is me revisiting my childhood, being that teenager at the back of the bus. It started when \[co-writer\] Oscar Scheller played me this recording he’d made of girls talking on the bus, and in the original production, we even had that \[chatter\] in there. You know when a girl is talking and saying nothing but also saying everything? I was that person! My friends used to ask me for advice about stuff I had no experience in, and I would dish it out with such vim. I thought it would be funny to dip back into that space on this track and be playful with it. Because no matter how sensitive I get, there is always this part of me with real bravado.” **“Poison”** “I love Eurodance music. When I DJ, it’s what I play the most. I just find it really fun and sexy and flirtatious, and I relate to the upfront lyrics. Some of my audience probably isn’t as familiar with my musical references here, such as Cascada and Inna, so it’s fun to introduce them to that sound a little bit. And I love that we found a real accordion player to play on the track. I really enjoy the tone and texture that you can get from using a real instrument.” **“Honey”** “I made this track predominantly with \[producer\] Vegyn. It came out of a real jam session where we had music playing in the room, and I was speaking on the mic over it. You get the texture of that as the song starts. There’s a lot of feedback that reminds me of The Cardigans and stuff with that ’90s electronica vibe. For me, this track is all about sensualness. I had this idea of being in an orgasmic experience that keeps on intensifying, so I wanted to replicate that sonically. That’s why I’m repeating myself a lot and why the melody tends to rearrange just a little bit as I rearrange the order of the words as well.” **“Missin u”** “This song is about me being annoyed at my ex-boyfriend. We’d broken up like six times, and we weren’t even together at this point, and I was just being really petulant about that. I write poems when I’m feeling any intensity of emotion, and so I wrote this poem where I was just really dismissive of the whole situation. Then, when I was in the studio with Sega, I put the poem to the beat he was working on. I wanted this track to feel a bit disruptive at the end of the album. Because no matter how sensitive I get, there is also this sharper energy to me and my approach to lyrics.” **“Wildfire”** “This track has a very Joshua Tree title because I wrote it with Noah Goldstein at his house there. I was imagining looking across a bonfire at someone I don’t even know but kind of fancy and seeing the fire reflecting in their eyes. I romanticize situations a lot in this way, so this song is really me riffing off that idea. It’s main-character syndrome, I guess! I don’t really like closed beginnings and endings. If I was to write a story, I would always give myself space for it to continue, and I think ‘Wildfire’ does that a little bit. That’s why it’s the final track.”

Brittney Parks’ *Athena* was one of the more interesting albums of 2019. *Natural Brown Prom Queen* is better. Not only does Parks—aka the LA-based singer, songwriter, and violinist Sudan Archives—sound more idiosyncratic, but she’s able to wield her idiosyncrasies with more power and purpose. It’s catchy but not exactly pop (“Home Maker”), embodied but not exactly R&B (“Ciara”), weird without ever being confrontational (“It’s Already Done”), and it rides the line between live sound and electronic manipulation like it didn’t exist. She wants to practice self-care (“Selfish Soul”), but she also just wants to “have my titties out” (“NBPQ \[Topless\]”), and over the course of 55 minutes, she makes you wonder if those aren’t at least sometimes the same thing. And the album’s sheer variety isn’t so much an expression of what Parks wants to try as the multitudes she already contains.

Over the course of her career, Tanya Tagaq has committed herself to the cathartic and, at times, deeply uncomfortable process of transforming horror into healing. On past records and in her harrowing live performances, the artist from Cambridge Bay (Iqaluktuuttiaq), Nunavut, has deployed the Inuk tradition of throat-singing to viscerally personify the trauma she’s experienced—sexual abuse, Canada’s genocidal residential school system, the environmental degradation of her homeland—and used her guttural growls to summon a sound not unlike free jazz or metal. But where 2016’s *Retribution* occasionally framed its impressionistic improvisations with spoken-word commentary, *Tongues*, Tagaq’s fifth studio album, fully embraces the narrative form, as she unleashes her signature screams more strategically in service of poems recited from her 2018 novel/magical-realist memoir *Split Tooth*. And while her longtime bandmates Jesse Zubot (violin) and Jean Martin (percussion) make return appearances, Tagaq’s musical DNA has been radically altered by producer Saul Williams and mixer Gonjasufi, who re-situate her graphic, bloodlusty treatises on colonialism, survival, and motherhood in a claustrophobic collage of icy electronics and queasy bass frequencies. “With improvisation, there isn\'t such a cerebral idea or solid concept in the interpretation,” Tagaq tells Apple Music, “but with \[spoken\] word, it\'s very concise and it guides you down a river as opposed to floating in an ocean. I didn\'t know \[my book and my music\] could live together, but when I was recording the audiobook for *Split Tooth*, I was thinking, \'Wow, this is nice and everything…but there\'s no music!\' So I thought, \'How about instead of just reading it, I express it.’” Here, Tagaq provides a track-by-track guide to speaking in *Tongues*. **“In Me”** “I wanted to start by showing my peacock feathers! I wrote this poem out of frustration with vegan activists trolling Indigenous people—there\'s this idea that because we hunt and live off the land, we\'re somehow cruel, or at a lower level of living, when in actuality, it’s a very higher power to be living in harmony with your habitat without polluting your land. The land is still the boss where I\'m from—we have to obey it. So we have a close kinship with animals, and the vegan activists don\'t understand how much we love and cherish other life forms. \'In Me\' became this narrative about skinning an animal—particularly a seal—and how, when you consume a fresh animal, you are eating the energy from the sun. It\'s this idea that you are eating more than your meat. If you eat very sick animals that were raised very unhappily in these giant slaughterhouses full of chemicals and antibiotics, you\'re eating that animal\'s pain and fear and suffering. But when you\'re a really good hunter, and you kill an animal with one shot, and they never knew you were there, their meat is calm, so when you eat them, you\'re eating that, too. ‘In Me’ is about the intimacy in processing an animal and what you glean from it. It\'s about liberating people from this idea that we are somehow doing wrong.” **“Tongues”** “This is a pretty simple, straightforward song: You had all these kids sent to residential schools who then had their language beaten out of them. I, myself, lost my language, and I\'m reclaiming it: I\'m taking Inuktitut lessons now and I\'ve been working on brushing up on my Inuktitut. And I just want to eradicate the shame around that. Canada\'s pushing for Inuktitut to become an official language. I think it\'s time that Canada starts recognizing more than just the colonial languages as official languages.” **“Colonizer”** “I used to do live concerts set to the \[1922\] film *Nanook of the North* by Robert Flaherty, and there are points in the movie where the camera and the actors set it up to show a naivete \[in the Inuit\] where there might not have been. So I loved to sing \'colonizer!\' over that part. But the reason I really wanted to put this out as a song is because Canadians have really got it in their heads that these atrocities \[against Indigenous people\] happened in the past and there\'s nothing to be done about it now. And really, it\'s happening right now, right this second—it never stopped. Every single person needs to wake up and realize their part in that. Often, complacency is what makes room for more violence. There\'s this really false narrative of Canada being this nice place with maple syrup. Yeah, that\'s great and everything, but really, whose land is your house on? So \'Colonizer\' is saying: \'No, you\'re guilty—yes, you! Do something about it!\'” **“Teeth Agape”** “In Canada, the foster \'care\' system—quote-unquote—is the modern version of the residential school program. So I just wanted to say: Enough with taking our children. This isn\'t allowed anymore.” **“Birth”** “I tend to start with a wide-scale general idea, and then a smaller idea, and then a very specific idea. So, \'Birth\' can refer to a birth of a new idea. It can be about the stopping of abuse, because then you are birthing non-abuse. It can be about the end of something, or the beginning of something. But if you want to talk just about childbirth, I really liked the dilation part; the pushing and ripping was not so great. I was very loud in both of my births. And I just remember my mom looking at me, judging me, like, ‘You made noise?\' Because that\'s how tough a lot of Inuit are—there are stories of Inuit women giving birth and being back up and running an hour later. But it\'s dangerous when you\'re giving birth—you are walking the line between life and death, and I really wanted to acknowledge it.” **“I Forgive Me”** “When you\'re abused as a child, you really carry a lot of shame, and anger and fear, and it\'s something that permeates your whole life. So being able to forgive yourself and move past that shame is really crucial. And I find a lot of people are just suffering in silence with these things. I\'m so tired of us not reaching out to each other and supporting each other and understanding that so many of us have gone through these types of things. So I just wanted to say it\'s important to work on forgiving yourself. And it\'s important to open up and talk about it. It\'s part of the healing process. It\'s part of prevention. It was hard for me to make the song and put it out, but I thought about all those other people out there feeling like I do, and how maybe it could help somebody to connect with themselves or forgive themselves—and also simultaneously shame people that are doing this shit. I actually now see the song as quite light, because it\'s shining light where it needs to be shone.” **“Nuclear”** “I was really missing the electricity of the concerts, so there are a few pieces on the album that I wanted to reflect that breakneck urgency that happens in the shows. It gets very, very intense and it grows and grows into a dome and then bursts. And I thought that it was important to have that experience without lyrics on some of the songs, just to make sure the record represents the full breadth of what we do.” **“Do Not Fear Love”** “There\'s an arc to the album, and \'Do Not Fear Love\' is about recognizing the struggle to remain vulnerable after you\'ve been hurt, and learning to trust people, and not going so far into your pain that you begin to close doors that can offer you love. You need to learn to remain open and continue to accept it, even though you\'re hurt. If you open up, it\'s there for you. It\'s an active process. I read somewhere that when you get scurvy, all your scars open up for lack of vitamin C. A scar is actually an active process—it\'s being made. So I think it\'s an active process to clear the path to allow love in, and that\'s something you have to keep an eagle eye on.” **“Earth Monster”** “I wrote this for my \[daughter\] Naia. She\'s 18 now; I think I wrote this on her sixth birthday. Within the intimacy of motherhood, you\'re so close with your children that you can\'t help but have them see your flaws. And as much as we love them, and as much as we want to be perfect for them, they will see our mistakes. This is life and I\'ll celebrate you and do my best to take care of you, but I\'m a seed in the wind when it comes to having control and making things perfect for my child. You cannot do that. The thing about parenthood I find interesting is that when you shield your child from too much, and they eventually go to face the world, the world is so harsh. So you don\'t want to shield your child from life itself—there has to be some sort of acceptance or a better balance between how we communicate with our children. I think it\'s very important that children are able to be children and not live under the oppression of gross adults—yes, they should remain innocent. But should a mother and father never quarrel in front of their child? I think that\'s strange—so your child will not know how to fight? Your child will not know how to say the things they need? Sometimes, I think that bad can be good.”

RELEASE DATE 25.11.2022 Inspired by revolutionary efforts against oppressive hegemonies in Detroit, and in Black locales around the world, Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz is a sound score evocative of that resistance. It is also a reminder that although violence and injustice looms, it is not the only story: we are much more than what oppresses us. The album celebrates Black leisure and play; the mundane joys that persist in spite of the depleting realities of the world. Movement, and the very mobility of the car specifically is integral to Memoirs of Hi Tech Jazz. Timed perfectly to match the duration of a round trip drive from Underground Music Academy in the North End, to Detroit’s island park, Belle Isle-- the album is undoubtedly best experienced in while driving. That journey signifies the transition from labor to pleasure: from the neighborhood of the Techno Museum in North End to an outdoor park that has long been a destination for Black Detroiters to cookout, park their boats, play spades, and listen to local music. Memoirs of Hi-Tech Jazz embodies the feeling this place engenders—a reprieve from the midwestern work ethic, and a reminder to ground in the pleasures of your body and the land.

On her previous releases for Hyperdub, Loraine James has developed a musical language of broken beats and granular textures, one where catharsis arrives in splintered glimpses through a smashed-up windshield. But on her eponymous debut under a new alias, Whatever The Weather, the UK experimental musician explores more subdued energy. It’s a concept album of sorts: The song titles are each keyed to a different temperature meant to evoke an emotional response. The ambient “25°C” summons a drowsy summer afternoon, while “0°C” is brittle as fresh ice, and “2°C (Intermittent Rain)” is as gloomy as ‘80s dream-pop goths This Mortal Coil. What it all shares (apart from the jittery “17°C,” a flashback to the artist’s roots) is an interest in slowing down and tuning into more meditative mind states, where immersion takes precedence over disruption.