Playlist 21.06.20 (8:15 pm)
Tonight we've got a stack of music from Bandcamp's Juneteenth Friday special (raising money for NAACP), an array of beat-related experimental electronic music, and a feature on memotone's big stash of 2020 music...
Friday the 19th of June is Juneteenth, a most significant day for Black Americans as it commemorates the day on which slavery ended in Texas, the last US state to do so. Like many, this year was the first time I heard of Juneteenth - but worse, it was probably the first year than many non-Black Americans heard of it too. And this year Bandcamp donated all of their profits on Juneteenth to NAACP and promised to do so every Juneteenth moving forward. So quite a bit of tonight's selections come courtesy of this gesture by Bandcamp and music released in connection with the day.
LISTEN AGAIN for your mortal soul. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.
Speaker Music - Amerikkka's Bay (ft. Maia Sanaa) [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Speaker Music - Of Our Spiritual Strivings (ft. Syanide) [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
The album Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry by Speaker Music, the alias of theorist and journalist DeForrest Brown, Jr, was surprise-released on Friday in conjunction with Planet µ - his second release on the label. It combines the frenetic rhythms found on his recent Percussive Therapy EP with sampled spoken word about the recent protests, field recordings, jazz samples, noise, and some brilliant guest appearances, along with pointed titles. A particular highlight is the moving poem written & read by 18-year-old artist/actor/singer/dancer (and whatever else she chooses to be) Maia Sanaa on the first track "Amerikkka's Bay". I chose to juxtapose this with a track featuring limpid presumably by guest Syanide.
clipping. - Chapter 319 [clipping. Bandcamp]
Also released for Juneteenth is the new single from clipping., which highlights the connections between Trump, white supremacy & police violence against Blacks, while being designed as a catchy, danceable track that can be played through boomboxes at protests. And it sure is! It's backed with the incredible, devastating "Knees on the Ground", another track about police brutality which they created in 2014 during the protests in Ferguson, and which was only available on SoundCloud.
700 Bliss - Sixteen [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Loraine James - Microdancing Or Something [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Hyperdub recently put together their second compilation in collaboration with Adult Swim - which is always annoying because for some reason Adult Swim's musical ventures are geoblocked so Australia has no access. In any case, like last time Hyperdub have now made Stimulus Swim available from the label, and it's great. Moor Mother and DJ Haram as 700 Bliss contribute a beautiful piece about escaping into the dancefloor, and London's genius Loraine James creates a bubbly new genre of not-quite-footwork/drill'n'bass on "Microdancing Or Something".
Vessel - Red Sex (Re-Strung, feat. Rakhi Singh) [qu junctions Bandcamp]
Matana Roberts - Breathe [qu junctions Bandcamp]
English promoter/booking agency Qu Junktions have now put out two compilations on Bandcamp featuring exclusive work from their amazing roster of artists - designed as a way for those artists to make up a small part ofo their lost profits from COVID-19 lockdowns. There's really some high quality stuff on both comps. Vessel's "Red Sex" should be familiar to a lot of people from its original incarnation on his 2014 album Punish, Honey. Here it's reworked with Rakhi Singh's sliding violin alongside the freakish electronics. Seb Gainsborough aka Vessel and Rakhi Singh have teamed up to form new label Palpu, as Tri-Angle has now shut down. Following this we heard from sound-artist & free jazz musician Matana Roberts with a collage of febrile drones, buried hints of turmoil and massed voices.
Rider Shafique / The Bug - Burn [Pressure]
Frequent dubstep/drum'n'bass/grime collaborator Rider Shafique here works with deep bass don The Bug for a masterful new track referencing Black history and current events, with all profits going to Shafique's charity bringing books by Black authors to Black children.
Pinch - All Man Got (ft. Trim) [Tectonic/Bandcamp]
Pinch - Entangled Particles (ft. Emika) [Tectonic/Bandcamp]
Despite many high profile collaborations - albums with Adrian Sherwood and Shackleton, EPs with many different peeps - it's been a long time since a solo album from Bristol dubstep original Pinch, and he's come to the party with a true genre-spanning monster, with house & techno represented along with dubstep & grime (for the latter, see Trim on the poised, minimalist first track tonight) - but also some tantalising bits of almost breakcoreish drum'n'bass in there at times. It's weird hearing that appear halfway through the almost-trip-hoppy track featuring longtime collaborator Emika, but I'm not complaining! Excellent work.
Torana - Bladesmith [Weaponry]
I can't tell you much about drum'n'bass crew Torana, except that they seem to be plural, and they're connected with Seattle-based d'n'b master Homemade Weapons, and have appeared at times on Samurai Music comps. Their latest EP Rust combines contemporary jungle-infused drum'n'bass with halftime, dubstep influences, particularly creative on "Bladesmith", heard tonight.
E-Saggila - Blue Amps [Northern Electronics/Bandcamp]
BHMF - Mörkertal [Northern Electronics/Bandcamp]
Dream Eater - Flowers of Neptune [Northern Electronics/Bandcamp]
JS Aurelius - Crime is the Highest Form of Sensuality [Northern Electronics/Bandcamp]
Swedish label Northern Electronics released their latest Scandinavian Swords compilation last week, which is spread over a 3xLP and 3x cassette edition, making for a total of 40 tracks over 3 hrs and 22 minutes. Hard to take in, so a week and a bit later, here we are - mostly with selections leaning into the jungle breaks, of which there's a surprising amount alongside techno, ambient and other genres. So we start with Toronto's Rita Mikhael aka E-Saggila, with some distorted junglist techno that you love to hear... Then Swedish duo BHMF, previously named Bandhagens Musikförening, with a similar tonic of 4/4 techno with distorted drum'n'bass breaks and glorious rising synth pads. And Dream Eater is apparently Emil Hammarlund of Stockholm's Struktur Records, giving us ambient textures and anxious, stuttery beats - the only selection tonight from the triple cassette, most of which is on the more ambient side of the label (but clearly not all!). Finally, Ascetic House co-founder JS Aurelius gives us some glitchy bass techno.
Lakker - July [Lakker Bandcamp]
Berlin-resident Dublin duo Lakker - aka Ian McDonnell of Eomac and Dara Smith of Arad - have been UFog favourites for years, with their bassy techno sounds. I'd heard a few of their ravey idmish earlier work on some compilations, but it's cool to see them collecting some of that stuff as Rave System Demos [2005-2006] on their Bandcamp. The first is early '90s-style pre-jungle hardcore, while the second, from which this is lifted, is a bit more classic jungle (albeit a bit more breakcore style). Looking forward to the third to drop soon!
ScanOne - Breeze [SEAGRAVE]
Ice_Eyes - Silk01d [SEAGRAVE]
Always great to have a new compilation from SEAGRAVE - it's been a bit longer since the last one, but Fugitive Pieces is again "compiled by The Fissure Family" and collects some great idm-style breakbeat/bass from artists connected with the label. Present are Etch, Brain Rays + Quiet, SDEM , REQ and many others. Tonight we've got electronic breaks from ScanOne, and glitch breaks from Greek duo Ice_Eyes.
Marcus Whale - Lucifer [Marcus Whale Bandcamp]
The third single from Marcus Whale's solo album is the title track "Lucifer". The album, to be released on July 24th, casts Lucifer as queer icon, and promises to combine Marcus's many talents, as did his previous album - classical background, silky vocals, thought-provoking poetry, heaps of bass and glitched, ravey beats. Can't come soon enough.
O.G. Jigg & Friends - Harvest (Grime Man Next Door Mix by Iceman Junglist Kru) [Memotone Bandcamp]
memotone - Disembodied [Memotone Bandcamp]
memotone - Waining Bow (excerpt) [Memotone Bandcamp]
memotone - Peaches of Immortality [Diskotopia/Memotone Bandcamp]
HALFNELSON - MIND THE GAP [Memotone Bandcamp]
O.G. Jigg & Friends - May Queen [Memotone Bandcamp]
O.G. Jigg & Friends - May Queen (unperson version) [Memotone Bandcamp]
The multi-talented Will Yates is best known as memotone. A self-taught musician, he's got roots in post-dubstep bass music, techno & the like, but combines these electronic genre roots with idiomatic piano, cello, live drums and percussion, and a dab hand at the MPC sampler as well, resulting in electro-acoustic music that can float between musique concrète, folktronica, post-classical, jazz, noise and more. The second track tonight, "Disembodied", comes from his soundtrack to the horror/suspense movie Il Sonnambulo, and it's followed by the equally creepy and gorgeous scratchy strings & percussion of "Waining Bow" from a recent experimental/ambient album called SUPA LUNA. Then we heard one track from the most "official", most recent album Invisible Cities, which is somewhat more jazzy and evocative, but does have beats at times. And HALFNELSON is Yates' alter ego often for more minimal techno, but here he's sampled '80s & '90s skate tapes and created tracks from sequenced samples and live takes on the MPC 1000. Both of these releases only came out in the last month or even couple of weeks, with the others not much earlier even - but this Friday he managed to slip another one out. O.G. Jigg & Friends' Originals/Remixes is a limited cassette & even more limited t-shirt with a set of English folky jigs, reels and arcane stuff, then remixed by friends from the Bristol scene, including noise/experimental collective Avon Terror Corps of which he's a member. So at the top we had the rarely very junglist Iceman Junglist Kru with some pitched-down grimey stuff, and at the end we had some gorgeous glitchscapes from unperson. It's excellent, and all profits will go to the BAME-led Black South West Network, working for racial justice in the south west UK.
Listen again — ~201MB
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