đ Music 2022 đ
A thread for music Iâve loved this year in no particular order. Iâm a music blogger at heart. But donât get time to do it like I used to because of beautiful things like family, teaching, love, life getting in the way. Music still makes my world go around and helps me feel connected when I need it most. Some things are so good they just need sharing. Iâll post one a day or so with links to listen. If anyone knows any good hashtags this would fit inâŠ
Rainy Miller - Desquamation (Frie, Burn. Nobody)
Rainy Miller has been my most played artist this year. I found him through connections to Iceboy Violet. Iâd been playing Blonde so much I had to find something that hit that vibe and it was nowhere to be seen until Rainy Miller. The use of auto-tune and reverb, Northern UK cadence and content resonate hard. Experimental electronic R&B with a dark melodramatic beauty to it.
https://rainymiller.bandcamp.com/album/desquamation-fire-burn-nobody
10 track album
Richie Culver - I was born by the sea
This one hits home hard as a lad who grew up in the middle of nowhere and now lives by the sea in a Northern town that feels forgotten. It sounds like a bleak January looking to sea, feeling trapped with little opportunity. Melodramatic, moody, dub techno without the boom, electronics paint a picture around spoken word slices of life. Itâs bleak.
8 track album
RS ProduçÔes - SaĂșde em 1° Lugar
PRĂNCIPE have always been an incredibly consistent label. I DJâd at a festival in 2011 and was so hyped by PRĂNCIPE that I arranged my whole set around a DJ Marfox 12â because it banged so hard with twisting rhythms and a bleep kind of vibe. The catalogue is really diverse and RS ProduçÔes make real nice deep rolling twisted dance music with a twisted percussive wind and a slight Drexciyan vibe.
13 track album
Gilla Band - Most Normal
Gilla Band are rock band that donât sound like a rock band anymore and that makes them rock even more. Experimental, noisy, post-punk with deadpan humour and it just rips. Iâve not heard anything like it before. Drums hold together swirling blasts of noise and feedback into twisted groves. The closest Iâve got is to Lowâs recent albums but theyâre using a different pallet all together.
12 track album
Iceboy Violet - The Vanity Project
Iceboy Violet was a secret weapon deployed by Lorain James, Space Afrika and aya last year. They killed every feature. Their debut project here is so good, intense and unique. Flows on point, beats experimental and impeccable. Itâs a disorientating world of swirling atmospheres and rhythms. Lyrics raw, honest, emotional. So unique.
7 track album
Persher - Man With The Magic Soap
Blawan & Pariah aka Karenn take a break from tough analogue techno to make those machines melt faces as a metal project. Another example of heavy electronic bands this year that have eased me back into music with guitars in the mix. Blawan taking it back to his roots as a drummer in bands with a knowledge of the heavy stuff. Sounds like playing DOOM through syrup.
https://persher.bandcamp.com/album/man-with-the-magic-soap
#Heavy #Electronic #Techno #Experimental #Hardcore #Music #Metal
7 track album
Gav & Jord - Writings Ov Tomato
Equiknoxx always make my ears happy. Last years Basic Tools & âŠMeets Feel Free HiFi are something else. Twisted experimental electronics that sound somewhere between Actress, Footwork and their own vision of Dancehall. Throwing the dance floor into a sidewinding spin. Itâs playful, it bangs. Theyâre a world of their own.
https://malrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/writings-ov-tomato-2
7 track album
Burial - Antidawn / Streetlands
Burial builds worlds like no one else. Deeply meditative soundscapes. Getting into no beat Burial took me some time. But now Iâm here itâs grounding rather than the cathartic without the skeletal bumps, which is no bad thing. Itâs like witnessing an artist at work, taking their pallet in new directions.
Heavee - Audio Assault
Sonic the Hedgehog getting chopped to bits in new and playful ways in a high speed machine for the fun of it has never sounded better. Footwork is always finding new shapes Heaveeâs vision has a hyper-coloured machine funk thatâs so tight and inventive. Then these melted computer game synths just finish it off.
6 track album
Batu - Opal
Seeing second wave post-dubstep heads nurture their skills over the years to become brilliant album artists has been great to hear. Parris last year, Facta, among a few and now Batu. This one is deep, inspired by nature, you feel like youâre within the very matter that builds it, with an alien soundscape, rolling rhythms and deep bass.Sounds like a classic UK underground album.
11 track album
Kuedo - Infinite Window
Kuedoâs album Scissors has been a classic for me for a long time. This cuts back on the high intensity drill and footwork drums but ups the sci-fi soundscapes to brilliant effect. Itâs icy, emotive with sound design to die for. Sino-grime ambience, Bladerunner cityscapes. âShadow Danceâ is the one. Really nice fit to Flying Lotusâ Brainfeeder label.
11 track album
Michael J. Blood - As Is
Raw bumpingâ house experiments that light things up. I used to love playing sets full of these kinds of tracks. Nostalgic bangers with a rough edge. Eking soul out of broken machines for the dance floor. Lots of sizzle in the hi-hats and grit in the low end. âGMTâ caught the ear first with its Eski synths and deep house shuffle.
13 track album
Authentically Plastic - Raw Space
Cathartic raw drum machine workouts that sound like youâre exorcising tension and anxiety through machines. It bumps in twisted industrial ways that are so satisfying. As intense as someone like Chicagoâs Jana Rush but working in a Ugandan set of rhythms and frazzled techno. For fans of Slikback. On Hakuna Kulala.
9 track album
Jabu - Boiling Wells (Demos 2019-22)
Offcuts and demos between records from Bristol Young Echo affiliates Jabu. Their last album âSweet Companyâ is a bit of a classic. Deep dub soul that sounds like itâs made in a basement. Like the inverse of The Bugâs huge bass hungry monsters, Jabu have a sweet hazy romantic soundsystem sound.
https://doyouhavepeace.bandcamp.com/album/boiling-wells-demos-19-22
2 track album
Chat Pile - Godâs Country
I donât listen to many bands that sound like bands. Chat Pile are a sludgy rock band that breaks that cycle. Theyâre a good companion to Gilla Band using humour and irony to expose the nihilism of the world we live in. Itâs miserable and angry at how capitalism eats us all. The drums are so heavy, the riffs low slung and they kill it.
9 track album
Coby Sey - Conduit
I fond Coby Say via collaborations with Tirzah, theyâre always straight up classics. After hearing those this isnât what I expected at all, it threw me at first. I had an experimental home made R&B thing in my head. So when I heard electronic collages with intense drama and spoken word it took a while to sink in. Massively inventive. Like a parallel universe version of Wu-Lu with electronics subbed for punk.
8 track album
Wisdom Teeth - To Illustrate
A compilation of various artists working at around 100 bpm for K-Lone & Factaâs Wisdom Teeth label. Those two have made album in the last few years that are so lush and warm that Iâm taking anything from the camp to keep me going. There are minimal bumpy dub experiments with plenty of bass, space and winding rhythms to make those hips move. Slinky.
10 track album
Brbko - 2PK @;ÚżÚ°ÛŁâ
Experimental gritty electronic UK rap / Grime3 / Post-Grime. Really inventive, twisted, vibey, bangs like a hallucination. Out there like Jawnino in their own lane figuring out a sound. Manipulated vocals deep in the mix make it sound like itâs from somewhere else. The beats keep me coming back. Cloud rap Spurt Diablo, UK PNL. No idea about anything else about them see NTS Radio for more.
Livity Sound
I couldnât choose one from Peverelistâs label so get your ears around loads of slabs of bright rhythmically interesting bass heavy dance tracks from across the spectrum. DJ Plead, Eusebeia, Tribal Brothers, Toma Kami, Azu Tiwaline & Al Wooten all being highlights. The lost line between UK soundsystem techno, UK Funky, Dubstep, D&B ad styles from all over the world.
Ariel Zetina - Cyclorama
Gleaming bumpy house and techno with a tough edge. Discwoman Chicago DJ and producer explores a theatrical take of being a trans woman of colour. It just bangs so hard, sounds like a complete world, all killer, no filler. Built for big rooms but not loosing any edge. The sounds are tightly coiled ready to move you. Being a resident at Smartbar they 100% know what theyâre doing.
9 track album
Dale Cornish - Traditional Music of South London
Raw minimal post-punk folk electronics that sounds like Mordant Music and Ekoplekz (eMMplekz) for the Fruity Loops early 2000s generation or DJ Sprinkles in London listening to Coil and Loefah. Some of it bumps and booms, some is menacing and deep. Itâs got a gnarly sense of humour. Killer listen.
https://boomkat.com/products/traditional-music-of-south-london
James
