XLR8R's Best Releases of 2017

Ben Frost has announced details of his fifth studio album, The Centre Cannot Hold, out on 29 September 2017. The Centre Cannot Hold was recorded over ten days by Steve Albini in Chicago. The music exists not in space, but in a space; it is a document of an event, of a room, and of the composer within it. It is music that is not fully controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing against its creator. An exercise in limitation and chromatic saturation, The Centre Cannot Hold is an attempt at transcribing a spectrum of glowing ultramarine into sound. Watch the video for Threshold Of Faith, the opening cut from the new album, a new collaboration shot in the winter of 2016 in Reykjavík, Iceland with conceptual documentary photographer Richard Mosse and Cinematographer Trevor Tweeten: po.st/BFThresholdVideo Ben Frost released Threshold Of Faith, a seven-track 12” and digital EP, last month. Pitchfork describe the track title track as “moving from heroic vistas into a garbled, snow-blinded melee. Distant choral pads, a glistening upper-register sheen, submerged piano, and groaning harmonies all stack up into a geologic crescendo that extends into infinity.” while The 405 describe the EP as “scorching and beautiful”.

Following his acclaimed debut album Suzi Ecto, Call Super returns with LP number two, the equally arresting Arpo. Another mesmerising environment of restless beauty that refuses to conform to much else beyond his own work, it affirms Call Super's place as one of the most remarkable electronic musicians working today. Arpo refines and then traipses further afield than anything else in his discography - Pitchfork (8/10) Arpo feels like a real album, with a distinct narrative and recurring themes. Most of all, it’s a captivating and original listen, from an artist who sounds like no one else - XLR8R (8.5/10) Album of the Year - DJ Mag 8/10 Pitchfork 9/10 DJ Mag 4/05 The Guardian 8/10 Crack 8/10 Mixmag 8.5/10 XLR8R Bleep - Album of the week Norman Records - Album of the week Guardian Newspaper - 'Outstanding after-hours techno'

13 nuggets from Gavsborg & Time Cow recorded December 2016 to June 2017. Number 7 in Rolling Stone's Electronic Albums of 2017 Top 20 FACT mag albums of 2017 Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Vinyl Factory & XLR8R best of the year albums of 2017

Kieran Hebden’s restlessly inventive, genre-splicing music is often as unpredictable as it is hypnotic. That holds firmly on his ninth album as Four Tet, where harp-mottled openers “Alap” and “Two Thousand and Seventeen” suggest the supple, folk-inflected electronic of 2003’s *Rounds* but soon give way to singular experiments in ambient techno (“LA Trance”), head-nodding deep house (“SW9 9SL”), and abstract neoclassical (“10 Midi”). As ever, Hebden builds his music with precision, warmth, and a rare gift for consuming melodies.

Spazio Disponibile welcomes yet another new artist to their realm. This time the label welcomes producer Grand River for its 11th release, and one that marks something of a new direction where ambient and experimental music will sit next to more dance floor fare. It's a direction already hinted at with Marco Shuttles full album earlier this year, and is now realised once more by Aimée Portioli. She is a multi instrumentalist, soundtrack composer and known for her deep and atmospheric sound and debuts on Donato Dozzy and Neel’s label with four lush ambient explorations.

Banoffee Pies Records step into the realms of Contemporary Music with Ishmael Ensemble opening their release schedule for 2017 as the label drops their second LP and continues to investigate more musical landscapes. This time saxophonist and producer Ishmael leads the six piece electronic jazz ensemble on their debut release and thought provoking journey. A tribute piece - Let the music talk. With love from Banoffee Pies x

Planet Mu are very excited to announce Jlin's long awaited second album “Black Origami”. A percussion-led tour de force, it's a creation that seals her reputation as a unique producer with an exceptional ability to make riveting rhythmic music. “Black Origami” is driven by a deep creative thirst which she describes as “this driving feeling that I wanted to do something different, something that challenged me to my core. Black Origami for me, comes from letting go creatively, creating with no boundaries. The simple definition of origami is the art of folding and constructing paper into a beautiful, yet complex design. Composing music for me is like origami, only I'm replacing paper with sound. I chose to title the album "Black Origami" because like "Dark Energy" I still create from the beauty of darkness and blackness. The willingness to go into the hardest places within myself to create for me means that I can touch the Infinity.”  Spirituality and movement are both at the core of “Black Origami”, inspired largely by her ongoing collaborations with Indian dancer/movement artist Avril Stormy Unger whom she met and collaborated with at her debut performance for the Unsound festival – ”There is a fine line between me entertaining a person and my spirituality. Avril, who collaborates with me by means of dance, feels the exact same way. Movement played a great role in Black Origami. The track "Carbon 7" is very inspired by the way Avril moves and dances. Our rhythms are so in sync at times it kind of scares us. When there is something I can't quite figure out when it comes to my production, it’s like she senses it. Her response to me is always "You'll figure it out". Once I figure it out it's like time and space no longer exist.”  Similar time shifting/folding/disrupting effects can be heard throughout the record – especially on “Holy Child” an unlikely collaboration with minimalist legend William Basinski. She also collaborates again with Holly Herndon on “1%”, while Halcyon Veil producer Fawkes' voice is on “Calcination“ and Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude provides vocals for “Never Created, Never Destroyed“. Jlin will be touring extensively this year and is currently lining up appearances including Sonar festival. She also has plans to collaborate with acclaimed UK choreographer Wayne McGregor who played her music recently on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and described her music as “quite rare and so exciting".

Even in the increasingly crowded field of electronic music, Kelly Lee Owens’ debut album arrives as a wonderful surprise. An album that bridges the gaps between cavernous techno, spectral pop, and krautrock’s mechanical pulse, 'Kelly Lee Owens' brims with exploratory wonder, establishing a personal aesthetic that is as beguiling as it is thrillingly familiar.

Mount Kimbie’s music isn’t easily classified. Think of it like electronic music made with the casual precision of a bedroom indie band—hooky but abstract. Dialing back some of the dollhouse dubstep of their first two albums, *Love What Survives* continues the duo’s subtle, exploratory streak, from the buzzy fever dreams of “Blue Train Lines” (featuring King Krule) to a pair of gorgeous collaborations with James Blake (“We Go Home Together” and “How We Got By”), which fuse the spaciousness of ambient music with the steady heart of soul.

Ever since their initial singles were released in the mid-1990s and became international calling cards for the Chain Reaction label, the Porter Ricks duo of Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig have represented that crucible point in which techno music leaked into new social environments and became the background music for cutting-edge cultural critique. Their submerged “scuba” sound, presented in dark tone colors and reverberating to infinity, is now instantly identifiable as one of the ‘soundmarks’ of Berlin club culture. Just as importantly, it is still a palpable aftershock of a pre-millenial genre explosion that saw deep dub, shimmering post-rock, abstract hip-hop and art-damaged noise all drinking from the same well of inspiration. For proof of Porter Ricks’ enduring legacy, look no further than the fact that “dub techno” is now a stylistic movement that has expanded far beyond the confines of Berlin and the Basic Channel / Chain Reaction label alliance (where Mellwig’s mastering skills also played a starring role). Lurid traces of PR’s aesthetic can now be found in the work of producers like Andy Stott and Miles Whittaker, showing the potential for the duo’s unique ‘aquatic’ techniques to be applied to a variety of different musical contexts. Their 2017 album on Tresor, Anguilla Electrica, may be their first full-length release in seventeen full years, but it radiates with confidence and with a clarity and intensity rarely seen in a world so oversaturated with communications noise. It’s made clear at once that it’s a continuation of a sonic ideal rather than a tribute to what has already been achieved: the duo is not idly sitting back while their newer acolytes do their talking for them. This LP is well worth the wait and is a life-affirming one in an uncertain and perilous time, drowning out daily anxieties like a rush of incoming surf - yet it is far more invigorating than relaxing. True to the Porter Ricks tradition, it will be just as exciting hearing this music as it will be to experience what new cultural mutations it leaves in its wake.

On *1992 Deluxe*, Princess Nokia bloodies eardrums with steady word combinations, illuminating the Big Apple\'s African and Nuyorican diasporas. Self-identity and self-preservation are major themes. She manages stress levels (“Kitana”), gives a shout-out to rebel girls (“Tomboy”), and recalls her come-up (“Goth Kid,” “G.O.A.T.”). There are nods to current trends with a skittering hi-hat or two, but *1992 Deluxe* is a rugged, underground affair—all baggy pants and Timbs—capable of making a mid-\'90s backpacker weep with reverence.

Apollo proudly presents a full release of the stunning debut album released by SW.  SW's lush sound design and hypnotic arrangements nestles snugly alongside the classic 90’s Apollo releases of Biosphere and Robert Leiner in all their balmy glory. Originally issued on vinyl only via SW’s own SUED imprint, this Apollo re-release represents something of a coup in that it’s the first of the label’s music to ever be presented digitally.  As a label, SUED has formed a reputation for releasing some of the most vital and sought after contemporary dance-floor vinyl, from both SW and SVN, as well as collaborations and comradeship with other analogue obsessed auteurs such as Dynamo Dreesen (who teams up with SVN as Dresvn), DJ Sotofett, DJ Fett Burger, PG Sounds and Club No-No, AKA Snorre Magnar Solberg. Ensconced in his studio in South West Germany, SW creates in isolation, exploring textures, dreamy melodies and mesmeric grooves within laid back 4/4 structures. ‘The Album’ was the first time anyone had experienced his music over a long player format and allowed SW to delve deeper into his influences. In addition to the aforementioned sublime electronica 'The Album’ also takes its cues from the iconic house and techno of the mid / late 90s - SW manages to fuse these influences together to create a beguiling, modern take on classic sounds and rhythms that remains thrillingly unique and elusive. Resident Advisor bestowed a rare 4.5 out of 5 on the record, describing it as ‘a lesson in how to put together a dance music album' Despite his comfort residing in the shadows, SW’s stunning debut album richly deserves the exposure that this broader release on Apollo should rightfully bestow.

“I feel weird,” repeats Stephen Bruner on “Captain Stupido”. That’s encouraging because the leftfield moments have always lent his jazz/funk/soft-rock fusions singular charm—even here when he meows through “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)”. By those standards, the melancholy “Walk On By”, with its pensive verse from Kendrick Lamar, and “Show You the Way”—co-starring soft-rock icons Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins—feel irresistibly straightforward, but their velvet melodies are as beguiling as Bruner’s falsetto harmonies.

Under his guises Blessed Initiative and Ketev, as well as his own name, composer and sound artist Yair Elazar Glotman has explored extended techniques and processes to forge new Tracklist: sonic textures and musical forms. Compound picks up where the previous solo work under Glotman’s own name - 2015’s Études - left off. The acoustic sound palette has now expanded from solo contrabass into a trio including pianist Rieko Okuda and percussionist Marcello Silvio Busato. Glotman guides the trio into utilising sounds from the edges of their instruments’ abilities - arguably mere byproducts of harmony - and through improvisation, repetition, and post- production, conjures new sonic bodies over two sidelong pieces. His guidelines for each improvisation gave the players autonomy to emphasise the microscopic details of certain sounds: the shudder of a piano key, the hum of a cymbal, the incidental click of a plucked contrabass string. The recordings were then layered and reformulated by Glotman into two separate structures to complete the composition process. Both ‘Veil’ and ‘Revelate’ utilize the full spectral potential of each instrument, revealing new rhythmic patterns and harmonic content in the process. Taking Glotman’s microscopic focus on instrument noises he put began on Études as a starting point, the trio on Compound ultimately bring into question both density and contrast, rhythm itself losing its stricter structures and becoming a purely pattern-based driving force in the music. The resultant unit contradicts and opposes itself, all sorts of clashing rhythms and melodies coexisting within the body of the two compositions of evolving sonic architecture. Based in Berlin, Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically-trained musician and sound artist. Besides previous works on Subtext including Études, a collaborative score with James Ginzburg experimental film Nimbes, and the eponymous debut of his Blessed Initiative project, Glotman has released music via Opal Tapes and others under the nom de plume Ketev.

Following his debut full length in 2016, Youandewan returns in 2017 with four pacey club tracks on his own label, The Brane.