Music of great beauty and mystery, rhythms of great propulsion.

LISTEN AGAIN to the sign o’ the times. Stream on demand at FBi, podcast here.

Armand Hammer – Doves feat. Benjamin Booker [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Following a flurry of collaborations, many of which I’ve played here, Armand Hammer have released a new song – except it’s been plonked at the end of last year’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips as a bonus track. Which is weird because it’s absolutely incredible, right up with their best. Guitar & very fragile vocals from elusive soul/blues/rock musician Benjamin Booker plus piano lines are gorgeously smeared throughout by the dubby production of Kenny Segal, with a slice-of-life rap from billy woods only appearing halfway through, while ELUCID’s lines are buried in distorted noise and echoes… “Is it me?”

Cengiz Arslanpay & Michel Banabila – Stop The Genocide! End The Occupation Now [Tapu Records]
The title says it all: Stop The Genocide! End The Occupation Now. Dutch musician Michel Banabila and Netherlands-based Turkish musician Cengiz Arslanpay have created a beautiful work of electro-acoustic drone; both musicians work with all manner of instruments, and Arslanpay’s ney flute and rebab can be heard here among the electronics. All proceeds go to Gaza / Lebanon relief funds, listed on the Bandcamp page.

Persher – Hymn To The Tupperbird [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
The debut album from Persher follows their mini-album from 2022, Man With the Magic Soap. It’s unlikely that anyone will sleep well to Sleep Well. Although both musicians come from the dubstep/techno world (Arthur Cayzer is Pariah and Jamie Roberts is Blawan), Persher is their tribute to grindcore, hardcore punk and extreme metal, with the bass elements only leaking in at times. I definitely hear them in “Hymn To The Tupperbird”: weird sound manipulation, delay effects and occasional edited grooves lurk behind the guitar & bass riffs and the gruff metal vocals. Sleep Well is not for the faint-hearted, but fans of the heavy will find plenty to enjoy.

Squarepusher – Domelash [Warp/Bandcamp]
So. A new Squarepusher eh? *raises eyebrow* I dunno, but with all the new jungle out, and brilliant “deconstructed club” stuff melding jungle and techno and who knows what else, the drill’n’bass and electric bass on Tom Jenkinson feels a bit outdated. And yet… it’s fun, he does love mashing the beats in ridiculous fashion, and he still has a handy way with synth melodies. I guess it’s just that, as was mentioned way back when he & Aphex Twin and the rest started making this music, there’s not much in the way of (sub) bass here (it was snarkily suggested at the time that they hadn’t heard jungle played out in clubs, only in their bedrooms). It’s all very much in the mid-range. Still, as I said, enjoyable stuff!

Arcane – Minotaur [Over/Shadow/Bandcamp]
Well here’s one of those contemporary purveyors of jungle & drum’n’bass. Bristol’s Arcane has a handful of releases under his belt on the likes of Irish label Rua Sound, but debuts now on Over/Shadow, founded to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Moving Shadow label. The Minotaur EP is four tracks of jungle re-tooled for the post-footwork age, with a nod to the hardcore techno that presaged jungle, but eyes forward to the future.

Andy Odysee – Waterblade Warrior [Odysee Recordings/Bandcamp]
Andy Baddaley, on the other hand, goes way back. An old schoolmate of Jim Baker of Source Direct, he joined Tilla Kemal’s Odysee Recordings a few years in, lending his jazz & classical chops to the dark & deep sound. He’s now co-manager of the label as it revives old releases by Source Direct, Photek and others, while also releasing new music – in particular from Badalley under Andy Odysee (fka Angel Dust, Cloaking Device and other aliases). Odysee Black Volume IV is the latest in a series of releases aimed at expanding the label’s outlook, but Badalley’s broad musical background always shines through anyway. “Waterblade Warrior” is an incredible exercise in programming skill, an updated take on Photek circa “Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu (Two Swords Technique)” which in all honesty should be on all the dancefloors.

Atrice – Multiplex [Ilian Tape/Bandcamp]
The latest release on Munich’s singular Ilian Tape label brings Swiss duo Atrice back into the fold, with an EP that rivals their brilliant Ilian Tape debut Q from 2021. The five tracks on Multiplex span bass forms from breakbeat techno to jungle, always syncopating, always changing. Premium dancefloor stuff.

Morwell – Into the Light [Spiritual TransmissionsBandcamp]
Max Morwell takes a left turn from his usual post-rave/bass/breaks obsessions here – or does he? This is still music with beats, but it’s super trippy, with somewhat psychedelic spoken word samples throughout, drawing from free jazz as much as jungle or trap. Morwell’s first release on his new label Spiritual Transmissions, it comes in a limited CD form (tasty!) as well as digital, and the first two tracks are streaming now. Recommended.

gorse panshawe – tie me to the maypole [Activia Benz/Bandcamp]
The artist formerly(?) known as Slugabed has been bending his weirdness in other directions as gorse panshawe for a while now, via the Activia Benz label. So where Slugabed laid down wonky blurty bass music, gorse panshawe on earth, air, fire & water seems to go a’wandrin’ into the English countryside, where he finds miniature raves happening in forests & streams, and jungle bidness around the maypole. “Pagan jungle”? Sure, why not!

Wrecked Lightship – Hex [Peak Oil/Bandcamp]
The second album from Wrecked Lightship, the duo of Laurie Appleblim Osborne and Adam Winchester, comes from Brian Foote & Brion Brionson’s great, unpredictable Peak Oil label. As with 2022’s Drowned Aquarium, these are submerged, dub-soaked jams, sometimes with jungle breaks half-audible through the murk. Fascinating, hard to grasp.

Bushranger – Ghost Gum Transmitter [Bush Meditation]
Eli Murray, best known as Gentleforce, has revived his Bushranger alias for an album of twisted field recordings and degraded techno. With Gully Music, Murray melds these two sources together so that you can’t tell where the crickets end and the glitched hi-hats begin – although to be fair, there’s a lot of imposing electronics here. But the project’s aim to make music about – and for – specific places is artfully achieved. Perhaps Murray’s greatest achievement is that he’s made industrial music about nature. Hypnotic.

Scattered Order – It was a Saturday [Rather By Vinyl]
Scattered Order – The silent dark [Rather By Vinyl]
40+ years into their career (with some minor breaks), Sydney icons Scattered Order have released what to me sounds like easily one of their best albums. All Things Must Persist has a lot of their recent hallmarks: sampled TV or movie voices, razor-sharp guitars, intricate beats, but then also pretty contemplative piano… Mitch Jones’ voice rasps over & under these arrangements. All three current members – Jones, Michael Tee and Shane Fahey – likely contribute electronic and instrumental sounds. You might think that they’re at an age where no fucks need be given, but Scattered Order has never felt the need to nod to audience comfort or genre norms, slipping & sliding between (post-)industrial, postpunk, sound collage and studio experimentation, and various forms of electronica. It’s all here, adorned with stunning artwork from Stella Severain. Get it on vinyl from Bandcamp or at one of their up-coming shows (see their website).

Sote – Reign of Insanity [SVBKVLT/Bandcamp]
Sote – Death-dealing [SVBKVLT/Bandcamp]
By this time, Ata Ebtekar’s musical outlet as Sote should be familiar to fans of electronic/experimental music worldwide. It’s over 2 decades since his Electric Deaf EP on Warp left listeners gasping for air, and for well over a decade he’s been exploring Iranian musical traditions – including adptations of pioneering electronic music from the country, and ways of combining his electronics with Persian instruments like santour, tar and tombak – as well as promoting the work of new generations of Iranian experimental musicians through his Zabte Sote imprint. His latest album Ministry of Tall Tales comes via Shanghai’s very internationalist, forward-thinking label SVBKVLT, and as the title implies, deals with misinformation/disinformation, corruption, oppression and so on, all familiar conditions in geopolitics at the moment. The music is not as abrasive as one might expect, however. While drama and anger creep in at times, the emotions expressed here tend more towards confusion and near-resignation, given a kind of resolution with “1401 Beautiful Souls”, although even there it’s hard to pinpoint whether it’s sarcastic or not. Another powerful work from an electronic master.

Ludwig Wittbrodt – Tulpen [Ana Ott/Bandcamp]
The duo of Edis Ludwig and Emily Wittbrodt pairs two musicians from different musical worlds, intersecting in experimentation. Ludwig is a drummer in rock bands and an electronic producer, here on laptop and occasional drums. Wittbrodt is a cellist with a classical background who also works in free improv – last year we heard her unconventional suite Make You Stay, also released by Ana Ott, with a mixture of songs, classical compositions and free jazz – and electronics. For Schleifen (“Grind”) the cello and laptop become a mini-ensemble, capable of producing contemporary classical music, drones, and kosmische musik, within a consistent framework. Lovely stuff.

sinonó – qué estará pensando [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
Latinx vocalist Isabel Crespo Pardo lives in New York, where they work with various ensembles in new music and free improv. Their main outlet for their own compositions is sinonó, which pairs their voice with powerhouse cellist Lester St. Louis and double bassist Henry Fraser. This combination of low string instruments makes for powerful and moving music, with haunting melodic lines sometimes played in high harmonics on the contrabass, storms of plucking or tremolo bowing, basslines from either instrumentalist. Crespo’s songs patiently unfold, with plenty of room for the musicians to improvise, but with the scaffolding of a bassline here, a strummed chord there, to hold Crespo’s beautiful vocal melodies. There are moments of intense discordance, which only emphasise the warmth of the simple-yet-complex arrangements. This may be the first fully acoustic album released on Subtext Recordings, although the recording is sensitively mixed by electronic musician and Subtext boss James Ginzburg (of emptyset). A deeply touching suite of what the composer calls poem-songs.

Oliver Coates – Timp X [Invada/Bandcamp]
TV audiences have just been introduced to the period comedy/dramedy(?) Mary & George, starring Julieanne Moore. Sounds like fun, but what it sounds like is also heavily influenced by British cellist/composer/producer Oliver Coates, who was – fortunately – commissioned to write the score. Coates is comfortable in contemporary classical circles, but has also worked with bands such as Radiohead, Mira Calix, Mica Levi, Leo Abrahams, Clark, MF DOOM and more. He also recently soundtracked the much-celebrated Aftersun. Just before this UFog episode went to air, Invada snuck out a couple of tracks from the Mary & George soundtrack on Bandcamp – but now the entire 2hrs of cues is available, and the previews suggest it’ll be sumptuous, smart and a little avant-garde. Can’t wait to dive in to the rest!

We Will Intersect – Fragment III [Ugoki!/Bandcamp]
Sydney pianist, keyboard player, composer & improviser Adrian Lim-Klumpes is best known for Triosk and the band we share, Tangents, but he recently convened a new quartet with another unusual line-up, with Microfiche‘s Nick Calligeros on trumpet & live electronics, Nick Meredith aka Kcin on percussion & live electronics, and Miles Thomas on drums. Their debut self-titled album was released on Belgian label Off, an offshoot of the experimental Stilll label, and new EP Fragments comes via Ugoki!, now the main home for Off’s jazz releases. The music is all derived from live improvisations, edited by Lim-Klumpes & Calligeros into four song-length Fragments, which progress from soft drones and tentative piano to, ultimately, the very processed & percussive fourth fragment. Those who’ve enjoyed these musicians in other contexts, or are interested in Australian improv and electronics, will no doubt enjoy.

Mattia Onori – Spazio Profondo [Southern Lights/Bandcamp]
Out on Friday March 15th from Naarm/Melbourn label Southern Lights is the debut solo album from Berlin-based Italian musician Mattia Onori, who co-runs the Melantónia Collective in Berlin. Tra Vento E Oscurità is an album of sound-art at its most pristine and austere – speech processed into unintelligibility, breath and wind, resonant drones, and perhaps the occasional synth pad floating through these soundscapes. Onori’s got a deft touch with organised sound, and takes us deep into the space “Between Wind and Darkness”.

Tom Allum – Ø [Tom Allum Bandcamp]
A couple of years ago, I was very impressed by the watery electronics of Western Australian sound-artist Tom Allum on the CANAL ROCKS album released by Boorloo/Perth label Tone List. On his own Bandcamp, Allum has just released Out of Hand, featuring four tracks created for an exhibition by Allum and visual artist & architect Beth George. Drawing machines interact with the sound, and vice versa. Even on its own, the music is immersive, with sounds generated by wavetable synthesis coexisting with recordings of the objects in the space, placed and moving about the stereo soundstage. It makes for gorgeous listening, with the intimacy both of synthesised sounds and of objects in a room, slowly teasing out microscopic melodies and drawn-out rhythms. Listen anywhere, anytime, but consider putting headphones on and turning out the lights.

Ben Frost – Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead [Mute/Bandcamp]
Utility Fog’s connection with Iceland-based Aussie composer Ben Frost goes back to the very early days, before Ben left Adelaide and then left Melbourne & Australia altogether (well, he’s visited since then). His album By The Throat was UFog’s album of the year in 2009. Following his debut on Iceland’s Bedroom Community, Theory of Machines, it established Frost as a composer, as well as a master of snarling electronic bass sonics. His latest album Scope Neglect traces a line back to Theory of Machines‘ sampling of Swans, if not earlier to his Melbourne postrock band School of Emotional Engineering. Guitar riffs and ambient electronics are the scope of Scope Neglect, but here it’s metal riffs pared down to their essence and turned machine-like. It can be almost too austere, with none of metal’s barely controlled ferocity – not that this isn’t deliberate. But I found myself most drawn to the album’s final track, in which the riffs have been banished underground, or in the next valley over, leaving the listener with echoes and desolation. There’s beauty in that.

Listen again — ~200MB

Oddly tonight we have a bit more weird-ass rock stuff than usual, and garage jazz, and… post-jazz? But also breakcore and lots of jungle/drum’n’bass influences in some more experimental settings, as well as some mesmerising pump organ and voice.

LISTEN AGAIN, don’t be scared! Stream on demand on FBi’s website, podcast here.

Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra – V [Sofa Music/Bandcamp]
Kim Myhr & Kitchen Orchestra – VI [Sofa Music/Bandcamp]
I’ve been a fan of Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr for many years. He’s a distinctive guitarist but also an excellent composer & orchestrator – he’s recorded with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and the Australian Art Orchestra, neither of which are typical orchestras, made up as they are of talented improvising musicians (and both with flexible lineups). The “Kitchen Orchestra” credited on his new album Hereafter is based in Stavanger, a city in the south of Norway, again a versatile group of musicians from jazz, classical and other contexts: there’s a horn section and strings, two of whom play electric bass and electric guitar as well as double bass, a drummer, and then there are musicians credited to synthesizers & organ, voice and cassette player, and laptop. And Myhr plays drum machine, various keyboards and contributes voice as well as his guitar. As usual these are beautiful, rich arrangements, with jazz at their heart but drawing on Indian ragas, postrock and electronica, krautrock and glitch. The roman-numbered sections flow one to another, taking the listener through a meditation on mortality and transience.

fire! – the dark inside of cabbage [Rune Grammofon]
Testament, the latest album from Swedish free jazz powerhouse Fire!, is their first to only feature the core trio, playing their core instruments. Over the years the band has made albums with various experimental music legends – Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi and more – as well as convening the incredible Fire! Orchestra with Scandinavian jazz musicians aplenty and a group of brilliant vocalists. Here, recorded by the one & only Steve Albini, they’ve taken the Albini approach of stripping down to basics, recording material live to tape. And these three are masters for sure: Mats Gustafsson making his saxophone squeal and squall and sob in the way of Peter Brötzmann but very much his own; Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin being rhythm section to die for, holding down krautrockish grooves and riffs in tight lockstep. Hypnotic and exhilarating.

The Body & Dis Fig – Eternal Hours [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
The Body & Dis Fig – Dissent, Shame [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
A considerable part of The Body‘s career has been collaborations – so much so that 2021’s I’ve Seen All I Need To See, with not a single guest and just guitar/drums/vox, was a sharp surprise. I first heard Felicia Chen’s astonishing work as Dis Fig on her solo album Purge, linking her operatically-trained voice with industrial and noise music, but her collaboration with The Bug, In Blue, rightly brought her further notoriety. Orchards of a Futile Heaven is a suitably horrifying and moving piece of work, not a departure for either artist but a perfect synthesis. Rhythmic noise sputters into noisescapes of guitar or electronics; Chip King’s high-pitched squeals lurk within, but Chen’s voice can scream as much as sing melodies or provide a multitracked choir; Lee Buford’s programmed and live drums thunder; but you really can’t tell at any point who’s responsible for instruments or production, and that’s great. It’s some of the best material from either act.

Hatis Noit – Jomon (Preservation Rework) feat. Armand Hammer [Erased Tapes/Bandcamp]
London-based Japanese singer Hatis Noit released a remarkable vocal-only album on Erased Tapes in 2022. But prior to that, she’d released music in Japan that married her self-schooled but powerful vocal techniques with electronics. So it’s not too surprising to see Erased Tapes trickling out some remixes of Aura. Best so far is from seasoned underground hip-hop producer Preservation, who preserves much of the original “Jomon” but along with the controlled beats & bass invites billy woods & ELUCID aka Armand Hammer to add their own voices. They’re masters of fitting in with strange music of course.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – Silverfish [Avant Night/Bandcamp]
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – S.P.Q.R. [Avant Night/Bandcamp]
I would never have expected that in 2024 I would be playing the new Sleepytime Gorilla Museum on this show. After all, their third (and previously last) album In Glorious Times came out in 2007. But last year the band setup a Bandcamp and hinted at the long-rumoured album of the Last Human Being was on its way. During the long gap, I followed the work of violinist/singer Carla Kihlstedt (of whom I’ve been a longtime fan) and percussionist/drummer/etc Matthias Bossi in their Rabbit Rabbit Radio project, and that’s where I first heard “Silverfish”, under the name “Paper Prison“. Kihlstedt’s double-stopped violin refrain is insanely brilliant, as is her songwriting, and it’s great hearing it with SGM, as it was always intended. The band’s strength is that the jazz/classical aspects fit seamlessly with the theatrical metal & prog, but even with all of that, it’s a surprise to find a cover of This Heat here – but maybe it shouldn’t be, as a band that bridges late-period political art rock and punk/post-punk. “S.P.Q.R” is one of my favourite of Charles Hayward‘s songs (admittedly there are a lot), and the breakneck, heavy rendition here pretty much does it justice.

Sergeant Bestfriend – molehills out of mountains [200+]
Df0bad – Vichysois [200+]
Breakcore was always central to Utility Fog’s mission from the start in 2003. At the time breakcore and ragga jungle were keeping the faith for rapid drumbreak destruction, and I always enjoyed the fuck-you illegal sampling and marrying of ugliness with – well, often – prettiness. Breakcore never died, but I feel that with the all-powerful jungle resurgence, it’s getting a bit more prominence too. Eora/Sydney’s own 200+ are dedicated to all things ultra-fast rave, and also carry on the anarchist political ideals that often came with this kind of hardcore music. So from the river to the sea and the sea of blood between is an impassioned protest against Israel’s increasingly undisguised fascism (while emphasising that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism). It’s also a great compilation of breakcore, gabber and hardcore techno from Sydney and across the country. Naarm’s Sergeant Bestfriend gives us fun, melodic drill’n’bass, while Sydney’s Df0bad brings us a journey through IDM.

ophélie – Pipa Pipa [hundert/Bandcamp]
French DJ based in Berlin ophélie drops their debut EP on the Hamburg label hundert here. Two tracks influenced by drum’n’bass & dubstep as much as IDM – the halftime/jungle feel here is reminiscent of the mid-’90s like Subtropic’s Homebrew. Lushly melodic with intricate programming and bassweight, a sign of great stuff to come.

POD – Trip2Fantasia [Kinetic Vision]
POD & Tamen – Subvert [Straight Up Breakbeat/Bandcamp]
Last week I played a track from Naarm/Melbourne’s POD, an alias of JXTPS for bass genres. Spacer is out on Kinetic Vision now, and “Trip2Fantasia” is even more jungle-influenced, albeit in a bass-techno context. But POD has also been collaborating with Naarm-based jungle mastermind Tamen, and one track from their forthcoming EP is available Finnish label Straight Up Breakbeat‘s Zero Four compilation – absolutely wikkid.

Source Direct – A Different Groove (T-Mirage V.I.P.) [Odysee Recordings/Bandcamp]
Odysee Recordings go way back to the early jungle days, but relaunched a while back to bring back material from the label’s artists as well as excellent new recordings from label-head Andy Odysee and others. One of the strengths of their catalogue is a long relationship with jungle/d’n’b legend Source Direct (an old school friend of Andy Odysee’s), so the label has been gradually drip-feeding remastered Source Direct tracks with some new remixes. The brilliant ’95 tune Stars is remastered here along with a stompin’ remix from Finnish master Fanu, but the also excellent b-side “A Different Groove” appears as a V.I.P. from T-Mirage aka Tilla Kemal, the label’s founder and collaborator for Source Direct’s Jim Baker. Continues the classy, dark & sharp quality from Odysee.

Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot – Mule Subjective [Shall Not Fade]
Techno bigwig Alan Fitzpatrick here appears on Shall Not Fade with the Headphone Lullaby EP, exchanging high energy 4/4 kicks for breakbeats and bass syncopation. It’s lovely and more than a little epic, but I was drawn to the collab with Reset Robot on a jungle/halftime tip.

re:ni – Blame is the Name of the Game [Timedance/Bandcamp]
Following an excellent debut on Ilian Tape, UK DJ Lauren Bush aka re:ni drops four tracks of techno/bass/breaks on Batu‘s Timedance. Suffused with dub bass and atmospherics, it’s music for discerning dancefloors everywhere.

Lord Spikeheart – REM FODDER ft. James Ginzburg, Koenraad Ecker [HAEKALU]
Back in 2020 Nyege Nyege Tapes unleashed the intensity that was the self-titled album by Kenyan noise metal/grindcoreinfused duo Duma. Now Duma’s incendiary singer Lord Spikeheart is launching his HAEKALU label with The Adept on April 19th, with a full house of experimental producers and collaborators throughout. “REM FODDER” brings both James Ginzburg of Subtext Recordings & emptyset and Koenraad Ecker of Lumisokea & Stray Dogs, with jackhammering beats, heavy bass and Spikeheart’s voice fed through reverberating delays. Clearly the whole album is going to be intense as fuck.

aya – Dexxy Is A Midnight Runner [YCO]
Lip Flip is 4-track EP from aya to raise money for her Facial Feminisation Surgery. But basically it’s four tracks of her typically savvy, well-produced deconstructed bass music – recommended!

Alan Johnson – Portal [YUKU]
We had Alan Fitzpatrick earlier, but Alan Johnson isn’t a person at all – they’re a duo. Between 2013 and 2020 they released just three EPs, but both 2022 and 2023 gave us excellent four-track EPs on Sneaker Social Club. They now find themselves on YUKU, a label whose aesthetic is not that dissimilar to SSC, but tends to take the bass & breaks into more experimental territory – which is reflected in the 6 tracks on Glory Days, their longest release yet. Like the Stillness EP‘s sampling of Bro. Samuel Clayton with Count Ossie’s orchestra, Glory Days uses Jamaican voices through various tracks, and the dub side of bass music is strong, as is the sense of space.

Terminal 11 – Racing To Nowhere [Opal Tapes]
Since the early 2000s, Michael Castaneda has been making idiosyncratic breakcore as Terminal 11. It might initially seem odd finding his latest album Suffocating Repetition on Opal Tapes, a label better known for techno, industrial and noise, but they’re not so far away from breakcore anyway, and as usual it’s arguable whether that genre fits here. But yes, it’s full of dense electronic textures and crowded, restless rhythms. As the album title may imply, it was written during and about the Covid lockdown times, and it really does evoke some of that anxiety-inducing homogeneity…

Lachlan R. Dale – Revealing a silver stream feat. Bonniesongs, Joseph Rabjohns [Art As Catharsis/Bandcamp]
It’s been a long time coming, but Art As Catharsis boss (and my colleague in Black Aleph) Lachlan R. Dale will release his ambitious collaborative album Shrines in April. Every track is structured around contributions from musical friends from around the country, each a very distinctive musician themself, reacting to some initial loops from Lachlan. I suspect most of the responses were fairly abstract too, and Lachlan then de- and re-constructed the material into these final pieces. Speaking for my own, it’s quite a lovely feeling hearing something that’s almost entirely unfamiliar but clearly has me in there – so hopefully that goes for everyone else. On the first single, multi-instrumentalist Bonniesongs‘ voice and guitar are stretched into ambient textures, as is the guitar of Queensland’s Joseph Rabjohns. Keep an eye/ear out for further extracts!

FUJI||||||||||TA – M-3 [Hallow Ground/Bandcamp]
One of the unquestionable highlights of last year’s Volume Festival at the Art Gallery of NSW was the performance in The Tank (a cavernous underground space) by Japanese minimalist FUJI||||||||||TA. Yosuke Fujita played various self-made instruments including bells and pump organ, as well as projecting his voice into the space. Whether with his carefully-made field recordings or gorgeously close-mic’d instrumental recordings, Fujita’s recordings are unfailingly absorbing. I was introduced to his work in 2020 when Swiss label Hallow Ground released the astonishing iki, fragile recordings of his pump organ, wheezing and clunking through unusual harmonies and discords. His second album for Hallow Ground, MMM, begins with a slow-evolving drone of that pump organ, with the air now pumped electrically, freeing Fujita to generate strange sonic shifts by moving his microphone around it. The second track is built from his remarkable extended vocal technique, breathing in and out in a way that creates a “third voice” from the interference patterns. It’s very eerie. But tonight we hear the third track, which combines these two elements into something different again – as if the warbling sounds of organ and voice again generate some spectral Other. It’s minimalism as always intended – seemingly static, but ever-changing. Masterful. Mmm.

Listen again — ~212MB

We have wonderful Indigeonous/classical/experimental crossover, weird electronic pop & hip-hop, noise, sound-art, Middle Eastern beats, jungle/bass/dubstep, hyper-shoegaze, contemporary cello, ambient and more. Listen and enjoy.

LISTEN AGAIN to the re-listenable. Podcast here, stream on demand there @ FBi.

Yirinda – Guyu (Fish) [Chapter Music/Bandcamp]
Yirinda – Yunma (Sleep) [Chapter Music/Bandcamp]
Well, the self-titled album from Yirinda is out, and it’s everything it promised to be. I got to see the duo of Butchulla songman Fred Leone and double-bassist/composer Samuel Pankhurst at the Woodford Folk Festival across the new year, performing with an ensemble of strings, horns and keyboards. It’s a magical combination of Leone’s songlines and Pankhurst’s arrangements, creating something that I’m pretty sure has never existed before. On the album, strings and horns augment Pankhurst’s double bass, and some contemporary electronics mix seamlessly in (I note Marly Lüske aka Tidy Kid co-engineered the album). But descriptions can’t really do it justice – Leone’s absorbing vocals fit perfectly with wonderful contemporary music. They are playing at a FREE Sunday show at White Bay Power Station for the Biennale of Sydney/Phoenix Central Park on March 10th – 2:30 to 6pm.

Marcus Whale – Borders [Blue Void]
Incoming on March 8th is the new album from Marcus Whale, storied Utility Fog associate since his mid-teens, multi-instrumentalist, multi-genreist, singer and queer icon. Ecstasy is the first album on his new Blue Void imprint/label/thing (his long-defunct 3″ CD-R label released my first solo EP back in the ancient of days). Here “ecstasy” refers to the pleasure of transcending the self, of being drawn, as he says, to the void. Once again Marcus is combining pop and club electronics with influences from classical and avant-garde/experimental music, and it is Very Good.

Teether – Elbow Grease [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp]
Teether – Chrysalis (ft. Stoneset) [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp]
Early last year Melbourne underground rapper Teether released an incredible album through Chapter Music with producer Kuya Neil. But with It Must Be Strange to Not Have Lived, released on Kuya Neil (Neil Cabatingan)’s CONTENT.NET.AU, Teether returns to self-production, comfortably sauntering through indie r’n’b, sample-based downtempo beats and nods to jungle (featuring Stoneset), postpunk (working with Nerdie) and more. It’s all gold, all adorned with Teether’s effortlessly laconic flow.

Shit and Shine – Livid After Midnight [Antibody label]
Shit and Shine – Jogging In Jeans [Antibody label]
Wait, didn’t we just hear from Craig Clouse’s Shit and Shine a couple of weeks ago? We did! Joy Of Joys was a collection of strange sound-experiments; now, Masters Of All This Hell comes via the Belgian Antibody Label with a collection of experimental electronic beats and noises that reminds me most of Clouse’s two great albums for Editions Mego in 2015 and 2017 – bare-bones weirdbeat shit made on drum machines and samplers, with a kind of perverse funk to them.

Philippe Petit – Within the Corridors of Hell… [Crónica/Bandcamp]
The “musical travel agent” Philippe Petit has performed various roles in the experimental music world for some decades. In the early 2000s he ran a label called BiP_HOp releasing a range of electronic albums as well as some fabulously-curated BiP_HOp Generation compilations featuring the likes of pimmon, Arovane, B.Fleischmann, Scanner, Pan Sonic’s Ilpo Väisänen, Murcof and Adrian Lim-Klumpes. He’s also presented various radio shows since the 1980s. And full disclosure: a decade ago(!) Philippe & I collaborated on a track – as collaborative musicians and radio presenters in this space, it was inevitable. For at least that decade’s time, Philippe has been working with non-musical sound generators feeding into modular synths, creating weirdly organic squalls and slides and throbs out of physical gestures, but also making use of digital editing. These techniques are all there in his latest epic, a 2CD journey into Dante & Doré’s vision of hell called A Divine Comedy. I particularly love the disturbed vocal samples in “Within the Corridors of Hell…”, interacting with these audio gestures.

Andrea Belfi plays Robert Wyatt – Dondestan [Stray Signals]
Noumeno – In Spirit [Stray Signals]
As the situation in Gaza only gets worse, a problematic situation in Germany – particularly Berlin – is also getting worse, whereby any voices in support of Palestine are being branded as antisemitic, and are systematically silenced – even when they are Jewish. There couldn’t be a more irony-laden illustration of the weaponising of “antisemitism” to shield Israel from scrutiny than German authorities feeling empowered to shut down Jewish self-expression. This is the background for the compilation Dedicated To Palestine from Berlin-based Stray Signals, which will donate all revenue to two German-based NGOs, Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East) and Palästina Kampagne. Among the artists featured as Emanuele Porcinai’s WSR, who we featured a few times here last year, Planet µ artist Herva, Berlin-based Lebanese musician & DJ Jessika Khazrik and many others. It’s a varied collection of electronic and electroacoustic work from across the Berlin scene. A revelation is Andrea Belfi‘s cover of “Dondestan”, a beautiful fable of Palestine from 1991 by the committed leftist and (like Belfi) drummer Robert Wyatt, rich with instrumentation in support of Belfi’s fragile, rarely-heard vocals. To contrast, I played some frosty ambient techno from Italian producer Noumeno.

Use Knife – Coupe d’état (Muqata’a مقاطعة remix) [Morphine Records/Bandcamp]
Belgian/Iraqi trio Use Knife combine Arabic percussion and vocals with psychedelic electronics of all sorts. They released their debut album The Shedding of Skin in 2022, and now Berlin label Morphine Records (run by Lebanese musician Rabih Beaini) is releasing a 3-track remix EP, Peace Carnival with reworkings by Zoë Mc Pherson, Beaini and brilliant Palestinian producer Muqata’a مقاطعة. “Coupe d’état” is a pun on “coup d’état”, but “coupe” means “cut” (which you Use a Knife for). On Muqata’a’s remix, percussion and a driving synth line are punctuated by shouted vocals, bass hits and glitches.

Chewlie – Run [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Swiss producer Julia Häller is Chewlie, whose last release was the Diagon EP for BRUK, one of the labels run by Low End Activist (also of Sneaker Social Club). Now she’s back on YUKU with eight more tracks of IDMish bass music and sound design. Chewlie fits with current trends in deconstructed club and experimental bass music, but she has her own approach – there’s a lightness to the sounds, not leaning so much on LOUD bass distortion and sudden shifts, but rather on glitchy, skittery beats and syncopations, body-moving, other than a couple of beatless tracks. Top tier sounds.

POD – Anteloper [Kinetic Vision]
A new project for Melbourne techno producer JXTPS aka Wu Kush, POD finds him in bass mode, with dubstep and jungle influences aplenty. Notably, POD has a proper d’n’b EP coming from SUBB later this year – a collaboration with Tamen, one track available here. “Anteloper” seems like dub techno, but as the beats get caught up in syncopating delays, hints of jungle can be heard.

Earl Grey – Prussia Dub [Rua Sound]
Jim Ehlinger aka Earl Grey has been making drum’n’bass & jungle for over a decade now, appearing on labels like Limerick’s Subtle Audio, who were advancing jungle/drumfunk ages back. Another Irish label, Rua Sound has just put out the excellent Death Rattle EP from Earl Grey, with nimble break work, equally nimble basslines and dark pads. It’s cinematic and unpredictable, first class.

Liquid DnB-Like Ambient Grime 2 – ’06 Dubstep Mix [Sneaker Social Club]
Luke J Murray has spread his idiosyncratic take on UK bass music across pseudonyms and collabs like Iceman Junglist Kru, 1-800-ICEMAN, Roadman DSP, and notably the ambient isolationism of Stonecirclesampler. So it’s not surprising that the four tracks on the eponymous Liquid DnB-Like Ambient Grime 2 are rather unorthodox takes on the four genres name-checked (garage, dubstep, techno, grime). Each track is ostensible a remix of “Liquid DnB-like Ambient Grime 2”, which names the EP and the artist, with pitched-down vocal samples and, on two of the tracks, massively distorted amen breaks clattering in at entirely the wrong tempo. This wrong-footing is of course part of the aesthetic itself. You’d be unlikely to hear these tunes in a club, but as a kind of hauntological celebration of UK bass music they’re pretty brilliant. I’ll take this over Burial any day.

Kim Gordon – I’m A Man [Matador]
When Kim Gordon came out with her first solo album in 2019, 8 years after Sonic Youth broke up due to her husband Thurston Moore’s infidelity, and some 4 decades after the beginning of her musical career, it was a revelation. As bassist and one of the singers in SY, she has played a huge part in experimental, punk/postpunk and indie rock music for decades. And then No Home Record came along, showing an artist still unwilling to do the expected, working with pop producer Justin Raisen to create distorted beats and electronic noise merging with the guitars, a beautifully messed-up accompaniment to that familiar voice. It looks like The Collective is going to continue that aesthetic. It’s the punk of the 2020s, uncompromising as ever. For tonight, here’s “I’m A Man” eviscerating entitled nobody-men.

clust.r – brood [business casual]
clust.r – leather [business casual]
Who is clust.r? Nobody knows (this is absolutely a lie). They released their self-titled album clust.r on Retrac Recordings in 2022, and Business Casual have just released the follow-up ever chance. Like much of the output of these labels, there’s more than a nod to the indietronic breakcoreriffic days of Tigerbeat6, Planet µ circa mid-’00s – it’s lo-fi glitch-pop, shoegaze-breakcore, compressed to buggery, distorted electronics and enthusiastic, unschooled vocals from various of clust.r’s friends (“river” is rkgk of bagel fanclub, and that duo’s other half co-produces a track here as SLUTPUNK!). Anyway, it’s intense, joyful and all that other stuff – I think you’ll like it.

Other Joe – dreaming out loud [Other Joe Bandcamp]
Naarm/Melbourne’s Joseph Buchan runs the legendary .jpeg Artefacts label with impeccable taste, but he’s also known to make varied music as Other Joe – something I wish he’d do more of (at least in recorded form)! For Valentine’s Day he put out a two-track single called one billion kisses, which is a lot of kisses, but I mean go for it. This is the “b-side”: both are beautiful hypnotic pieces with whispering, whistling pads and clicky, head-nodding beats, finishing with jazzy, bell-like Rhodes chords.

Adriaan de Roover – Homebound [Dauw]
Adriaan de Roover – Yet [Dauw]
Belgian sound-artist Adriaan de Roover joins Ghent-based label Dauw for the second time with Other Rooms. I’m reluctant to call this ambient – there’s quasi-rhythmic movement going on throughout, and melodies that emerge out of exquisite sound-design. This is wholly absorbing music, sometimes unsettling, that I can’t recommend highly enough.

India Gailey – Nicole Lizée – Grotesquerie [people | places | records]
India Gailey – Thanya Iyer – Where I can be as big as the Sun [people | places | records]
Their second album Problematica finds Canadian cellist India Gailey performing seven compositions that I believe were specifically commissioned for them and for this album. Gailey is a composer herself – her own composition on her equally uncategorisable debut album was a highlight, but she is also a first-class interpreter of others’ compositions, using her cello to its full extent along with her voice on many of these tracks, and electronics on some as well. There’s a lot going on in the tracks here – don’t think of it as classical music! Andrew Noseworthy‘s composition “GomL_V7FinalMix_LessVox_MoreVerb_ Dec13_MASTERED_48k24b_FINAL.wav”, created in collaboration with Gailey, wraps cellistic extended techniques in granular processing and shoegazey noise, for instance. On the other hand, some composers invite Gailey to perform expressive songs on cello and voice: the closing piece “Where I can be as big as the Sun” by Thanya Iyer accompanies a deceptively straightforward vocal melody with plucked cello. It’s gorgeous. Meanwhile, renowned Canadian composer Nicole Lizée invites Gailey to send short cello phrases and whispered or shouted voice through delay effects, charmingly and a little disturbingly disorienting.

IKSRE – ripples [Constellation Tatsu/Bandcamp]
Naarm-based musician Phoebe Dubar has released five albums now as IKSRE, on various international and local labels. This month, Oakland’s Constellation Tatsu released Abundance, as usual featuring ambient electronics and vocals, with subtle beats at times, very much influenced by Dubar’s practice in sound healing. It’s music to dive into, as there’s a lot of detail. Dubar will be launching this album in Sydney on April 6th at Fatamorgana in Alexandria.

Aviva Endean – What Calls in the Quiet (Moths & Stars live set) EXCERPT I [FRIM Records]
Aviva Endean – What Calls in the Quiet (Moths & Stars live set) EXCERPT II [FRIM Records]
Naarm clarinettist and sound-artist Aviva Endean released her first solo album cinder : ember : ashes on Norwegian jazz/improv/experimental label SOFA in 2018, and the incredible Moths & Stars on Room40 in 2022. Now we’re back in Scandinavia, with a split release on Sweden’s FRIM Records documenting a performance at Rönnells Antikvariat in Stockholm, recorded by Aussie ex-pat John Chantler. I should note Henrik Olsson‘s beautiful abstract turntable manipulation as the other half of the record, but Endean’s set adapts Moths & Stars‘ close-mic’d exploration of sounds from clarinets and other objects to a live set. The sound quality is remarkable, as if carefully recorded in a studio, scrabbling and bubbling across the stereo soundstage, sounds mostly made with breath, layered into gorgeous harmonies or strange assemblages of flitters and sighs. The full performances are over 30 minutes each, and worth every minute.

Listen again — ~209MB

Sad news came today of the death of Damo Suzuki, the most recognizable vocalist of Can, and globetrotting vocal improvisor. Following some Can, we’ve got post- & contemporary jazz, gothic & industrial electronics, post-junglisms, idm, folktronica, drone and more.

LISTEN AGAIN to all the jewels within! Stream on demand on FBi’s website, podcast here.

Can – Vitamin C [Mute]
Can – Mushroom [Mute]
Damo Suzuki was only the vocalist in Can for 3 years, from 1971 to 1973. But in that time his distinctive improvised vocals, sung in no language or all languages, adorned many of Can’s best-loved songs, including the two groundbreaking albums Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi. Can was the kind of group where every member was an essential part of the idiosyncratic music created, and so Suzuki’s yelled, muttered, and sometimes sung vocals are integral to the sound of Can and the sound of their particular brand of krautrock. When Suzuki returned to performing after a period as a Jehovah’s Witness(!), he began touring the world, performing his freeform vocals with local musicians, reproducing some of the thrill of Can’s all-consuming semi- (or wholly-)improvised gigs for people everywhere – and forming the Damo Suzuki Network. Having been diagnosed with colon cancer first at only 33 years old, but survived it then, he was again diagnosed in 2014, given 10% chance of survival. So the world can count itself lucky to have gotten another 10 years from him.

Koma Saxo with Sofia Jernberg – Croydon Koma [We Jazz Records]
I’m not sure when I first came across the Finnish label We Jazz Records, but they made an impression in 2022 when they commissioned Carl Stone to remix their entire catalogue with We Jazz Reworks Vol. 2. The release I’m playing next was cause for my latest exploration of their releases, but Koma West from double bassist Petter Eldh‘s project Koma Saxo, this one featuring fellow Swede and brilliant vocalist Sofia Jernberg, was instantly striking. Eldh’s compositions are avant-garde but still catchy, with strong orchestrations for strings, horns, piano and drums (and Eldh’s mother Kiki on accordion!) and as well as Jernberg, who elevates everything she’s involved with, this album features versatile cellist Lucy Railton and composer/improviser/organist Kit Downes on piano. In the end, though, it was the clattering drums of Christian Lillinger that gave this 2022 album the prime slot after Can!

divr – As Of Now [We Jazz Records]
divr – Echo’s Answer [We Jazz Records]
From Sweden to Switzerland (again via the Finnish We Jazz), the new album from Swiss jazz piano trio divr, Is This Water, is a thing of beauty and wonder. They range from delicate beauty to post-bop intensity at times, incorporating snippets of field recordings and sound manipulation courtesy of Dan Nicholls which give the music an other-worldly uncanniness. There are three covers out of nine tracks: a jazz standard, Radiohead’s “All I Need”, and a gorgeous rendition of the lovely “Echo’s Answer” by Broadcast. This is complex and deep music that’s still rewarding for all.

Teiku – Psalm 113-114 [577 Records/Bandcamp]
Here’s the first single from a new jazz group with a unique take on what was called “Radical Jewish Culture” when John Zorn started highlighting the avant-garde music of the Downtown New York scene in the 1990s. Here, pianist Josh Harlow and drummer Jonathan Barahal Taylor explore and recontextualise their ancestral music as sung at Passover Seders, inherited from their families’ roots in Ukraine (my mother’s ancestry is also Jewish-Ukrainian as it happens, although we never learnt these songs). Recordings of these liturgical songs are directly incorporated into the recordings, juxtaposed with fiery playing from Harlow and Taylor along with Jaribu Shahid’s double bass, horns from Peter Formanek and Rafael Leafar, and electronics from various members. It’s quite striking and powerful. The two bandleaders write of the band’s music: “As its humble stewards we offer it as a call for justice for all oppressed peoples; as Jews, we decry the senseless violence, displacement, and killing perpetrated in our name.” Co-signed.

Ryan Teague – Unbound [Bigo & Twigetti/Bandcamp]
Since 2005, Bristol composer & multi-instrumentalist Ryan Teague has blurred the boundaries between electronic music and classical composition. For post/neo-classical label Bigo & Twigetti his upcoming album Pattern Recognition is in some ways his most electronic, with synth patterns and beats rubbing shoulders with sampled classical arrangements on acoustic instruments. I can tell you the rest of the album is well worth the wait, released on March 22nd.

Chelsea Wolfe – Tunnel Lights [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
Chelsea Wolfe – Whispers in the Echo Chamber [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
For 14+ years and over a dozen albums, Chelsea Wolfe has combined her love of heavy metal with gothic folk and, increasingly, electronics, and an undeniable ear for great songwriting. On She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, Wolfe and longtime musical partner Ben Chisholm conjure songs that can move between shoegaze, darkwave, folk and industrial metal. It’s really good.

Yuko Araki – ‡Otiron (Portal Remix) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Yuko Araki – ‡Magnetar (Jonathan Snipes Remix) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Last year, Yuko Araki released IV, an incredible album of industrial noise, beats and exotic samples, a highlight of the year for me. She invited a number of musicians to remix two of the tracks from the album, ‡Magnetar and ‡Otiron, starting with Jonathan Snipes of clipping., who takes the ritualistic vocal samples and crunchy beats and gives them more of a club-ready makeover. Perhaps the most audacious choice was Australian extreme metal band Portal, who drench those vocal samples in distortion and general ugliness. Great stuff!

Gantz – howidowhatyoudoisnotwhatiwoulddowhatyoudoyetido [Gantz Bandcamp]
For his first EP of 2024, Turkish post-dubstepper seems to have given up on titles. untitled EP features such tracks as “variations on a drum loop” and “livetakeone”. Mostly they are indeed variations on drum loops, mulched up in Gantz’s machinery but retaining just enough funk.

Ivy Lab – Look Away [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
Having started out making drum’n’bass as Sabre and Stray, Gove Kidao and Jonathan Fogel teamed up almost 10 years ago as Ivy Lab, mostly putting out half-time and hip-hop-paced music. Last year they started veering back towards drum’n’bass and jungle, and they arrive on Sneaker Social Club with a mélange of UK bass styles, break-juggling at various tempos. It’s bass music, not quite jungle, not quite what’s going on in drum’n’bass at the moment, but 100% quality.

Gremlinz & Jesta – Big White [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Gremlinz & Jesta – All 7 [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Following numerous 12″s on Metalheadz as well Gremlinz’ UVB-76 and DROOGS labels, the power duo of Gremlinz & Jesta have just released a full album through the ‘headz, The Lee Garden Historical Preservation Society (it’s named for a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, where the pair originally met). As we heard in the first cut tonight, there’s some quality breakbeat stuff at lower tempos, but mostly it’s drum’n’bass with plenty of jungle love. There’s a lovely vocal tune featuring enthusiastic Ukrainian-born d’n’b singer flowanastasia, and among the dark’n’heavy electronics there are also hints at jazz and organic sounds. A great entry into the annals of Metalheadz albums.

Kloke – Digital Tribes [Future Retro]
A Brit based for many years in Melbourne, Kloke (aka Andy Donnelly) has been at the top of the jungle game for some years now. When Tim Reaper toured Oz & NZ last year, the pair spent some good time together – there are a number of collaborative releases from them out there already – and Reaper took home a huge cache of unreleased productions from Donnelly. There was clearly a lot of quality stuff in there, from which 12 tracks have been selected for Kloke’s first album, and the first album on Future Retro. To his credit, On Rhythm doesn’t get tiring, shifting around from typical amens to percussive breaks and severely chopped and manipulated beats, with basslines to order. Thanks to Tim Reaper’s neverending enthusiasm for bringing this collection to the world.

Lakker – Dredger [YUKU/Bandcamp]
Czech label YUKU continues its dedication to dominating the bass & experimental electronic music scene with a new EP from Dublin’s finest (via Berlin) Lakker. Gateway goes everywhere, from the techno of their R&S breakthroughs like Mountain Divide through to mad gabber shit, and some equally mad jungle deconstruction.

Tidy Kid – Social Butter (Yürke Deconstructed Dub Remix) [Hauch Records/Bandcamp]
Tidy Kid – Fragment 2 [Tidy Kid Bandcamp]
Tidy Kid – Toy Plane In Ice [Tidy Kid Bandcamp]
Tidy Kid – Flower (Copper Beach Remix) [Hauch Records/Bandcamp]
Way back in 2010 a Brisbane artist called Marly Lüske sent me a demo CD-R of tracks under his moniker Tidy Kid, which combined IDM, folktronica and indietronica influences. Some of those tunes appear on a collection he released in 2019 called selected works 06-10, of which a few copies of the vinyl are still available! It was released with Düsseldorf electronic label Hauch Records, who have now – apropos of what I’m not sure – released 10 Mixes For No Cash (lol), in which 10 of the label’s artists remix tracks from that old Tidy Kid collection. It’s all excellent, highlighting the melodic and textural quality of the source material, some keeping the glitchy, crunchy style of beats, and some heading in other directions. Yürke take “Social Butter” into almost dubstep territories, nice and dark, while Copper Beach pulls apart the vocal-led “Flower” and turns it into a miny-epic of harmonised vocals, stuttery beats and soundscapes. Lüske has both a new album of lo-fi stuff under his own name, and a new Tidy Kid collection coming.

Shugorei – Ghanima [4000 Records]
Timothy Fairless – Inevitable Drone [4000 Records]
This week, Brisbane label 4000 Records will release a huge compilation of 37 tracks and over 3 hours of music called Solidarity Soundwaves, an anti-war, non-violence-promoting collection to raise funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). As Israel’s relentless destruction of life and livability in Gaza rolls on, the humanitarian crisis gets worse every day. So put $10 or more aside for this compilation, and I guarantee you’ll find some musical revelations in there from up north, like the “inevitable” drone from talented composer & electronic musician Timothy Fairless, or the incredible mix of live drums and electronics from Shugorei, the duo of Japanese percussionist Nozomi Omote and producer Thomas Green.

Mark Van Hoen – Electric Lights [Dell’Orso/Bandcamp]
Although he’s put out plenty of music on Bandcamp over the past few years, it’s been a while since there was a new Mark Van Hoen album – although The First Cause came out last year under his Locust moniker. In the past he’s released ambient, techno, distorted hip-hop beats and IDM with female vocals, jungle and more. Plan For a Miracle is a melancholy, soul-stirring album touched by the tragic death of Van Hoen’s wife Osho, who fell ill during the latter parts of the album’s recording. Grab this on vinyl before it sells out.

Munma – Midday Shoulder Surfing [Ruptured Records/Bandcamp]
Between 2006 & 2009 Beirut musician Jawad Nawfal released his first three albums as Munma – it’s mostly instrumental electronic music, dark, with dynamic beats and only a few news samples, but was recorded as a response to the deadly attacks by Israel that reached far into Lebanon during the 2006 war. These albums were released on Ruptured Records, the label run by Nawfal’s brother Ziad, and while Nawfal has been busy with collaborative releases of all sorts , including on his VV-VA imprint. Now Munma returns to his brother’s label for Transient Organ, a mostly-instrumental album other than artist/photographer Caroline Tabet‘s murmered French poetry on two tracks (Tabet also provides the evocative cover art). The music is minimal electronica made mostly on modular synths, with a general air of mystery, of a slightly disturbed quiet – only emphasised by the smudged, half-heard spoken words. Recommended.

Senking – i might be wrong (feat. Bonnie B) [Senking Bandcamp]
I know Jens Massel’s music as Senking via his album Capsize Recovery, his fifth on the legendary German minimal electronic label Raster-Noton. So it’s interesting to discover that the music on his Bandcamp – one 7″ from 2016 and a series of single tracks since 2022 – is a series of very organic-sounding analogue synth jams, very live-sounding even when there are drum machines involved. The latest, “i might be wrong” is a gorgeous further departure, starting with two looped chords perhaps played on a cello or double bass, spacey electric guitar strums and sparse vocals from his mate Bonnie B. It’s like a lost Flying Saucer Attack track or something, and I would 100% enjoy an album of this stuff and mysterious analogue bass throbs…

MJ Guider – Primavera (Ritmo Joven) [MJ Guider Bandcamp]
A departure for MJ Guider here too, who eschews her post-industrial shoegaze for freeform sonic constructions that all centre around flute, played and processed in various ways, along with guitarscapes and electronics. It’s very unusual and enveloping stuff, recorded in – and steeped in – humid heat.

Listen again — ~208MB