London producer TÃLÃ and director Katia Ganfield filmed the video for "Serbia" on handheld cameras over the course of a three-day visitto Marrakesh*. Ganfield's music video gives jarring, almost rhythmic testimony to budget hostels and tight-wallet tourism, as well as providing flickering glimpses of the beautiful Moroccan countryside. The video has a tense, found-footage feel to it that is nicely offset by TÃLÃ's slick blend of vocal hooks and dance-driven beats.
TÃLÃ's The Duchess EP is out June 2 on Aesop; preorder here.
*I do not know why the music video for a song called "Serbia" is comprised entirely of footage of Marrakesh.
For years and years, EMINOR Records and its subdivision Der Hut have been mainstays not only of Hamburg's minimal scene, but played an indispensable part in the city's pressured club landscape as a whole. Although usually focused on vinyl-only editions, for the first time in their history the two recently switched format to release the double CD Wahrlich & The Minor Hats, featuring two hour-long mixes by founder Jonas Wahrlich that serve as a perfect primer on the labels' varied musical universes. While the first CD, EMINOR Kadenzen, showcases classic minimal dancefloor material, DER HUT Krempen adopts a slightly gloomier and more unrelenting tone, delving into the heliophobic realms of contemporary techno. A highly recommended bundle that delivers both an introduction to two labels known for supreme style and quality, and a welcome snapshot of today's scene in Germany's second city.
Order Wahrlich & The Minor Hats now over at Juno, and stream snippets below. In order to celebrate the release, the EMINOR crew honour the capital this Saturday, May 17, with a night at Wedding's Humboldthain. Find out more details about the event here. Additionally, we're giving away one copy of Wahrlich & The Minor Hats. Just write an email to submissions@nofearofpop.net with the subject "EMINOR" before 3pm on Friday, May 16, and tell us something nice.
Two of Brooklyn record label Cascine's bright young artists, Brett and Yumi Zouma, have joined together for "Lovers", off Brett's debut album coming out next Tuesday, May 20th. In the same vein as Blood Orange's "You're Not Good Enough", "Lovers" features crisp, clipped drums and a rovingly funky fresh, whirling bassline. Yumi Zouma's Kim Pflaum's voice comes through clearer than ever before, different than on their February EP. Be sure to also check out Lemonade'sremix (who just joined the Cascine family--quite a perfect marriage) of another Brett track, "Chalon." Order a copy of Brett's album digitally or on vinyl. The album artwork reminds me of my high school art teacher, Kristin (KB) Breiseth's work with an Impressionist/Abstract Impressionist streak as well as the work of threesome Leo Gabin.
Hooker Vision is a rather ideal place for Motion Sickness Of Time Travel to unleash delicate, soon-to-be-taking-shape callings-out to the universe. "The Blossoms" is a strong example of this formative process. The beginning is domniated by a mildly sinister synth loop which, naturally yet with some disinclination, disperses into a meagre amount of distortion under the influence of a tickling, flirtatious middle of the song, before being netted into a beautiful melodic cache, the blossoming taste of the next chapter. The ending melody has a confident and imploring brightness to it, and that is indeed very enticing, whether you live in a place that has already had a hefty share of sun and seasonal newness, or not (like the case for me). This song, then, happy to transform whenever it finally does, overall auditorially stimulates the brain the way short teasers about cycles about plant life do. I'll probably buy this tape, too.
Alpha Piscium will be MSOTT's tenth cassette on Hooker Vision. In preparation for its June release, check out these releases.
Bob Dylan, Tim Buckley, and, especially in the case of the new album, Love, Nick Drake, are all influences considerably easy to decipher out of the Amen Dunes sound. Yet when I talked with the man behind the dunes, Damon McMahon, I wanted to try to learn about other areas of influence, perhaps more ethereal, groundless ones, as the other striking quality of the new album is its rapture. In that process, I gained some extra and candid insight on McMahon's thoughts on women and music, growing out of old habits, and contemporary artist-friends. This is how it went.
Ed Dowie's music is from a different world, but it is not one that has invented so much as discovered. The former Brothers in Sound member reveals the demonic forces that hold up comfortable North London homes and proves elevator music to be the products of blood soaked velveteen funhouses. His music digs the impenetrable depths of the banal and shallow, of the everyday, and rather than coming up empty handed he shows that even the most ordinary of things can become something lush, magnificent, and terrifying.
There’s a strange nostalgia present on Dowie’s The Adjustable Arm EP, almost as if he’s reminiscing about a version of pre-contemporary Europe that he a) could never have experienced and b) only exists in supernatural horror novels. Still, Dowie’s music is firmly contemporary; “Bosnia & Herzegovina” is in direct dialogue with the likes of Julianna Barwick, and “Meadow Song” sounds almost like a London post-dub take on the “Jenova” theme from Final Fantasy VII. Angelo Badalamenti and Arthur Russell are obvious influences, though Dowie skews towards a delightful snap of circus music combined with a dollop of Cthulu mythos that is uniquely his.
The Adjustable Arm is out tomorrow, May 13. Order it over here.
This is a bit confusing: Brooklyn’s Conveyor are releasing a double-LP, Prime, of their score for the 1971 George Lucas film THX 1138. Prime was composed and performed last December alongside two midnight screenings of THX 1138 at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema. The first track, "Theme I", has been remixed by LA's Monster Rally.
“Theme I” introduces listeners (and watchers) to the operatic scope typically associated with Lucas, as well as hinting at the film’s surprisingly intimacy. Indeed, THX 1138 steps, sometimes in an off-putting way, back and forth between being a grand, dispassionate epic and a more nuanced study of individuality and personhood. Monster Rally condenses Conveyor’s locomotive wash of guitar and synthesizer into something even more immediate and palpable. Snapped to a danceable drum loop, “Theme I” goes from anguished and distal to sharp, focused, even (delightfully) insensitive.
But both Conveyor’s original (which might be seen as a spiritual remix of sorts) and Monster Rally’s remix are steeped in the moody atmospherics of a mid-century version of the future. The faded horn sounds and marching drumbeat lock Conveyor’s piece decidedly to 1971, and Monster Rally’s version seeks to tear this apart in an almost classically dystopian fashion, seeming to disintegrate and recombine with every percussive flourish.
Have you ever wondered what was on Frank Poole’s iPod as he ran laps around the Discovery One? This'd be my best guess.
Conveyor’s Prime is out July 15 on Gold Robot Records.
Alisa Rodriguez, crouched and cradling a guitar over a pedalboard, is purging some demons in a Wisconsin basement. They’re the ugly inner kind of demons that can only be quelled by intense vulnerability. A young crowd surrounds Rodriguez, eyes shut, swaying to the noise. What the demons don’t know is that the bravery of expelling them is met with moments that make us more human. Misery loves company and, for Apollo Vermouth, the expulsion of grief simultaneously destroys and heals, binding us together.
Apollo Vermouth is the ambient project of Alisa Rodriguez, who has been quietly releasing an incredible body of work since 2010. You can download the entire discography, except for AV’s most recent, from a giant MediaFire folder linked from Rodriguez’s blog. Her process is worth noting, drafting artwork first “just to get an idea of what I want the album to sound like” and recording “whenever I feel like I have to express my emotions.” With a guitar, two delay pedals, reverb and distortion, Rodriguez records straight to a 4-track Tascam Portastudio and transfers the files to Garageband for editing.
