Karen Gwyer leads the fray on new Don’t Be Afraid split release

Lily, Dukwa and Raven Cru also feature on the new 12″ due in May. 

With the dust still settling on the excellent MGUN album, Gentium, Semtek’s Don’t Be Afraid label have announced their next order of business is a return to the split-release format with another intriguing cast of contributors. Within the space of two split releases, Don’t Be Afraid have perfected a blend of placing artists closely associated with the label alongside lesser-known but wholly complementary names; MGUN and Halvtrak being the former and Deep 88 and Radio Brovold among the latter. Next month sees a third split release, DBA 024.5, arrive and there is a degree more familiarity to those artists involved this time around.

As strong advocates of Karen Gwyer’s music (and track titles) we are excited to see her on DBA, opening the release with “Mom Did It On The Plane” whilst Bosconi associate Dukwa follows his Life’s Track partner Herva in contributing to Semtek’s label with “65”. After sharing sides with Madteo on a DBA Dubs release last year, cyberpunk techno act Lily also features with a Phillip K. Dick-referencing track. This leaves us pondering who exactly Raven Cru are, with the stuttering R2D2 bleepdown of “Peeches” already finding favour with Ben UFO. All four tracks can be streamed in full below ahead of release.

Don’t Be Afraid will release DBA 024.5 by Various Artists on May 13.

Tracklisting:

A1. Karen Gwyer – Mom Did It On The Plane
A2. Raven Cru – Peeches
B1. Dukwa – 65
B2. Lily – Empire Never Ended (DBA Version)

Don’t Be Afraid on Juno

Header photo courtesy of Camille Blake