Staying with techno for now, here’s a dark moody slab of techno from Chris Veron.
Chris is from Freiburg in Germany. He may be from the edge of the Black Forest but there’s nothing organic about this track.
Trigger Point is all sleek darkness and unashamedly man made. There’s a melodic electro edge to it all but utterly uncompromising. His work has parallels with people like Umek, Monika Krause or Adam Beyer. But on this track the strongest influence is Red2 era Dave Clarke. That ominous twangy bass line that pulses away as the kick drum does its thing. A sense of the oncoming storm. Chords ripple around in a swirl of inky blackness. It’s all deeply evocative but the breaks are kept quite restrained rather than beating you over the head with their power. Classy classic dark techno.
Overslept this morning. Need a bit of a boost to get this week underway. Fortunately, here’s Alexander Fuentes to give things a bit of techno turbo charge.
Alexander Fuentes is from Stockholm, Sweden. He says techno is what he likes to listen to but hasn’t released any previously. If that’s so then he’s off to a flyer and should do more. Dark is the track name and dark is the nature. This is a tune that rides its luck on the bass. It’s the heart and centre of the track. A moody sort of Doctor Who / Orbital kind of affair. The bass bruises a kick drum and not much else in the opening section. A little light is let in later on but never too much. This is all about the dark side of techno and don’t you forget it.
Anxiety comes in many forms. And music can help. It certainly does me. My music matches my moods. Here’s ROAMS with Breathe if you’re anxious about the week ahead. Some uplifting IDM to encourage you that things will be better.
ROAMS is London-based producer and photographer Jake Longley. ROAMS is the music side of a photography project called ‘Scenes From Films That Don’t Exist’. ROAMS is the soundtrack to these photos.
A track entitled Breathe rather made me assume something soothing and chilled. Not so. This is music on which to focus your attention. The beats are stabbed out like the heartbeats they represent. Around that is wonky and hazy IDM sounds. They have a bit of an edge from the treble and strings. Unsurprising that ROAMS says it, “was written during a period of high anxiety for me. One of the techniques I learnt to help control anxiety is to focus on the detail, see what you can see in a room or a space and let the feeling pass you by.” Once the track has your attention and focus it does shift down a gear to something a bit more soothing but never quite soporific. Music in which to concentrate your anxieties and attention. A late night IDM invitation to explore the darkness and not be scared.
ROAMS says that “The photograph that is used as the cover was taken during the first weekend of the pandemic in London shortly before a full lockdown was announced.” Looks like the South Bank near Waterloo/RFH to me.
A rather beautiful premiere from Rex Kalibur this morning that blurs the edges between ambient, glitch and downtempo. But sooo beautifully.
Rex Kalibur claims to hail from Joshua Tree, CA and makes, “desert-inspired downtempo tracks to get lost in.” And you definitely get that on Iridentalism from Rex’s new Vesna EP. I’m not sure I understand the track title, since it doesn’t seem to be a word I could find. That’s a mere trifle when set against the casual beauty of the track.
Iridentalism opens with chiming synths that give the track a hook and a focus around which the rest of the sounds revolve and interplay. There’s a restless glitchy set of sounds and beats that strain at wide open and windswept places. Tinkling sounds offer the beauty of small things as a contrast to the wide open beats. It’s all machine made and deeply complex yet celebrating the organic. Quite, quite delicious.
Something old and something new from the wonderful downtempo catalogue of Little People.
How times have changed. I first came across Little People back in the early noughties on the fabulous Instrumental Works EP. It was on one of those sites that would burn you a CD of selected tracks and send you it in the post. Usually from America which took ages and fretful waiting. But a name like Little People wasn’t Googleable so I never knew how to get anything further but the tracks stayed on my iPod and got regular play to this day. They had a lazy hip hop and funk swing. Like lost Kruder & Dorfmeister tracks. I rated them that highly.
It was only in lockdown that I tracked them down again and started to explore the relatively sparse output in the intervening fifteen years. And I found it wasn’t a group but Laurent Clerc, originally from France I assume but now living in London or perhaps Portland.
And he’s a new Threads EP out now, from which featured track Seamstress is taken. It’s been made according to a set of rules which Laurent has set for himself around the use of sampling (see bottom of this post). But he says the music should actually be good. And it is. There’s a lovely bassy swing to it all, with the shard of guitar giving it a funk edge. It’s all head noddingly sweet like you want it to be. It has a simplicity that allows the samples space to breathe and interact to give that more than the sum of the parts feeling. All that’s missing is a bit of sun to accompany it. Spring is feeling tardy here.
And I’ve also included an early track – Gravitas – because it’s a favourite.
Gravitas from at least 17 years ago
So here are THE RULES i set for the EP:
Each song can only have 1 melodic track, 1 drum track and 1 bass track.
For each track, only 1 sample can play at any time – no sample can overlap each other. So no layering – samples are played sequentially in monophonic fashion.
There are no limits to the number of samples used.
Samples used should be no more than 1 second in duration.
Thank goodness the weekend is nearly here. I’m done for. But let’s be uplifted by Sweden’s ishi vu and the inspirational break pop of This is Your Life. This post is dedicated to Cat (pictured above) who was all about the real life, scraps and snacks and snoozes all. Much missed.
ishu vu was around clubs from an early age since his father ran nightclubs in Sweden, allowing vu to “develop his own strange relationship with subculture, and how different fan groups interacted.” And that seems to have a profound effect on the magpie and eclectic sensibility at play here.
This Is Your Life is the track and it’s an unusual blend of sophisticated pop, butch tough breaks and Orbital-style spaced spiraling synths. The track uses the Right Here Right Now vocal sample and a whole load more. It wants to epically celebrate anything and everything whilst simultaneously wanting you to stop and have a moment of quiet introspection. The big brash vocal sample led breaks sections contrast with almost ambient pop synths and acid swirls. It’s a big luminous, glorious, messy beast and beats of a track. And that’s what life is all about. Isn’t it?
Nearly there. Not quite the weekend yet. Let’s have some soothing beats from Sharnjit, and Tune In With Chewie. It’s all about beats and guitar combos.
Sharnjit is from the UK. We’ve school daze from his pretty beats EP to enjoy. Typically for study beats this doesn’t attempt to outstay its welcome, coming in at a compact 2:36. It has the lazy lo-fi beats you want. The critical top layer is a mix of a slow, slightly jazzy, guitar for that summery hammock vibe and a clever bit of plucked strings that keep things interesting for the ear. Super chilled. Perfect easy listening.
Tune in with Chewie (Nestor Estrada) is a side project that was started mid-2017 for this LA based film composer. He says, “The idea is to do arrangements of video game and anime tunes as well as share original music.”
The track is Traveler, except it’s in no hurry to go anywhere. There’s some reassuring surface noise and the right weight of lo-fi beats. And then a dreamy lounge guitar sits fatly atop rolling around woozily. There’s some synth chords that give a bit of balance between the beats and the guitar. This is comfort food for the ears. And you ain’t going to want to go anywhere afterwards but the sofa for a little snooze.
Let’s get down with the surface noise for this cracking downtempo yet spritely track from Moqita.
Moqita are Billy Dufala and JG from the USA but they don’t offer anything more than that. The track is Dust Off. And it has that ancient yet modern vibe. It’s all old school with thumping but slow beats. There’s a bit of background wailing for added authenticity. Then they have the temerity to add a flute. A flute! But it works. Gives the track a more chilled psychedelic edge. Obviously there’s Rhodes. You gotta have Rhodes. And a wah wah funk vibe. Because, why not?
Music for the wildest porch rocking chair anywhere.
I don’t often go down an experimental path these days. Life’s hard enough to want melody and light. But Hypatia’s slow experimental techno on Hymn to Hypnos is definitely worth a post.
Hypatia offers no biog. Possibly American. But the name comes from, “Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD) was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy.”
As for Hymn to Hypnos this offers a track to the god of mattresses. Or more specifically the Ancient Greek personification of sleep. If there’s a thing called post-techno then this is probably it. That and post-ambient. It offers some ambient moments to lull you to sleep but then sharp techno sounds snatch that prospect away. It’s a track that conjures up an ancient ritualistic air with the keening of wordless vocals. This is set against temple chimes and the banging of metal as the rite progresses. It’s terribly serious and strange. And will end in death.
Dance music has always had a yearning for the future. It allows the music to explore dark and strange corners in sound. Here’s a bit of strange Afrofuturist exploration by South Africa’s Skai Lounge.
Skai Lounge is Lu Makoboka, who is also a writer for Stereofox and Savage Thrills. That means he probably ought to be writing this rather than me. But let’s give it a go. The track is Dark Exotica which is tbh a bit of an uninspiring title for a track that plays havoc with dance music’s desire to categorise (or at least mine).
The track is a swirl of ambient synths but it’s not ambient. It has gentle beats which are too strong for downtempo. It has crashing afro beats and chants. And yet it isn’t really Afrohouse. What you get is a wild and wonderful lounge cocktail that blends some of the best space synths with drums that go from soft to drumming. Chants to songalong with and wave your hands in the air moments of uplifting peaks. A shake your rump at the braai kinda tune.
