The best new singles this week

Our writers recommend their ‘don’t miss’ singles

Various Artists – IDLE 065 (Idle Hands)

65 records is a lot when you consider how far most labels make it before running out of steam. For 13 years as a label and a record shop, Idle Hands has provided a unique service to the Bristol scene by embracing wider motions in modern club music as much as representing the best new sounds from within the city limits. When the likes of Tectonic, Livity Sound and Young Echo were busy incubating a very local flavour, Chris Farrell could just as easily steer his label to some Euro-informed minimal tech house, simply because he rated it as quality dance music. There’s always been at least a whiff of that Bristolian dubwise, spacious undercurrent holding everything together, whether it’s Portland’s Strategy veering into ambient territory or Johanna Knutsson and Hans Berg holding down their Swedish machine-techno, but Idle Hands never felt limited by its locale, and in turn helped feed other ideas into the city’s sonic vocabulary. Like all the best Bristol labels, since 2009 it’s done things its own way, with a shrug and a surefootedness.

The label now bows out with a record that continues that insouciant veneer – a no-nonsense four-track split disc that shouts out some family ties but also maintains one of Idle’s key tenets – to platform quality new artists. No grandstanding label retrospective, no tedious five-instalment swansong – just one succinct parting shot that sums up the quality that’s driven the label all this time. Glances is the new name in question, a Bristol-via-London duo who have been darting around labels like Scuffed but thus far only have a light smattering of releases to their name. ‘Swagger In Bricks’ is the consummate upfront UK-rooted club cut, full of twisting sound design and crooked rhythms, underpinned by a dual-layered bass attack aching for a system to prove itself on. It’s head-turning, without making a big deal out of it, but hold tight for that cutely melodic drop as it summons the spirit of early LFO.

Next up comes an artist woven into the Idle Hands tale, Rhythmic Theory. This is the first we’ve heard from him for a few years, and he’s ably conjured up a lean, low-end busting house cut which sounds oddly European for a track coming from the West Country. Meanwhile Bruce, who opens up the B-side, has never really sounded of any place, even if he shines as one of Bristol’s cherished mavericks. There’s a sentimental heft to ‘Gary Deep’s Snyder Dreams’ – an atmospheric tribute to the late Alex T who flew the flag for sympathetic club styles from his home base in Leeds.

K-LONE closes the record out with what feels like the perfect finishing note for Idle Hands – a crisp, dubby micro house joint which nods with affection to the clicks and cuts era while keeping a fullness in the production to make sure it’s not a throwback affair. Besides, a lot of those early 00s minimal records sound thin as hell these days. It’s melancholic, but not maudlin, cooling off with understated poise and a resounding sense of pure quality. It’s a clichéd word to use, but also an underrated one that applies so aptly to Idle Hands – quality.    

OW

Ultramarine ft. Anna Domino – $10 Rework (Real Soon)

Anna Domino’s expression has always felt punkish – her vocals and production are always tempered by an anti-authoritarian, leisurely vibe. Likewise, her choice of collaborators tends to be just as apt. 

The bare-bones dub-garage-whatever tune ‘$10 Heel’ might as well exemplify this ideal the world over. In this case it makes up a collaboration with Ultramarine, the electronic duo who evolved out of the early rave scene – with a big dollop of influence from the 1970s Canterbury Scene.

First released on their 2019 album ‘Signals Into Space’, the track is essentially what both Domino and Ultramarine have always set out to do as collaborators – make electronic music with acoustic instruments.  A saxophone dances across the original track’s upper register, essentially making the whole thing sound like a sort of post-punky abstraction of the straighter broken beat style pushed by Moloko in the mainstream.

On it, Domino sings of domestic accouterments and American inner-city comedowns, which she then weaponises: “this coffee’s gone cold… climb into my bed… it’s cold and it’s wet, and sharp as blade.” It all sounds very up-close and personal, the very sonics of middle-class American leisure, sheltered from the city rain outside – except, judging by Domino’s lyrics, the danger now has crept into the shabby-chic yuppie flat, too. No-one is safe. 

While the original track is well worthy of proper lyrical analysis, the ‘dub’ and ‘rework’ here are more functional dance number-crunchers. An FM synth appears in the dub version’s latter half, propelling the tune to vaguely more accelerationist proportions. But we’re overall more impressed by all the versions’ slapdash natures. Dance music always needs a little more organicness, and perhaps Anna Domino – Domino being the key word – is among the best artists to set said cascading effect in motion…

JIJ

Farsight – Triangulation EP (Breaks N Pieces)

Breakstep, with an extra dimension, comes thick and fast from the musical horizon-gazing mind of Farsight – who’s been active, we gather, on the UK dance scene since 2016. 

Dance music, especially techno, expresses a complete surrender to machines. Within that, bass music is as an expression of the bleakness of industrial society, largely in the UK. To home in further, when 2-step came along, it represented a nearly futile reclamation of British humanity in the music, despite the encroachment of machines in the late ‘90s. While 2-step largely conformed to the machine or ‘the grid’ – it’s mixable in as much as its elements are quantized to a figurative grid – its one saving grace was its swing, which clawed back just an ounce of syncopated humanity. Cheeky ‘eh-eh’s and off-kilter drums represented the kind of irrationality that can only come easily to the human condition. 

Breakstep represented a return in garage to unswung robotization – ironic or not. It was a subconscious reminder that any hint of swing, of the human, would be clamped down upon, especially when it came from the working class psyche. Now more than ever, despite today’s ever-growing technological monstrosity, breakstep’s ironic presence is apt. The burner phone on the front cover of Farsight’s new EP ‘Triangulation’ expresses this very well – it’s a throwback to a time around 25-odd years ago, when we could’ve been saved, when we weren’t reliant on iStuff.

The tunes are thick and frenetic, describing a rabid urban world in which no-one can escape the noise. Sports whistles, vocal shouts and cheeky voices all pepper across ‘Triangulation’, in a sort of bleep-techno washout that really fucks with our sense of where the pulse of life lands. On ‘Mr. Right’, sampled rave voices urge us that something is happening “tonight”, but there’s so much industry between the beats – layered metal scrapes, turntables scratched by robots – that we’re again left head-scrambled. Moments of simpler beauty peek through, too; ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ is a good name for an garage-electro tune that leaves behind at least some of the urban hellscape for melodic, emotive salvation. 

We’ll leave the rest to you; ‘Triangulation’, as with most good breakstep EPs, is a fantastic description of the dialogue between ‘90s and ‘20s London.

JIJ

Daniele Baldelli & DJ Rocca – Cielarko EP (Gottwax)

It would be easy to deplete one’s supply of superlatives when discussing the combined back catalogues of the protagonists responsible for the latest Gottwax release. ‘Godfather of Cosmic’ Daniele Baldelli is arguably responsible for creating a genre of his own (at the very least, one of the form’s chief proponents), while Luca ‘DJ Rocca’ Roccatagliatti has himself released a staggering assortment of polychromatic disco-ish releases across his formidable career. Here, the wildly talented Italian duo join forces on the exceptional ‘Cielarko EP’, arriving on the Gotwood festival team’s offshoot label in suitably stunning style.

The EP sees Baldelli and Rocca resume a bountiful studio partnership, with the pair having previously combined for delightful outings on the likes of Nang, Nein, and Is It Balearic? Starting on the strongest of footings, the record launches via the mutant synth stylings of opener ‘Blanka’, where deviant toplines intertwine over growling bass and conga-embossed disco drums for a gorgeously divergent astral ride. ‘Flava’ continues the free-flowing melodics, with spirited synth solos meandering over jagged drums and throbbing bass to ignite an exotically-charged heads-down strut.

Next, the off-kilter lead notes of ‘Verdeta’ drive us deeper into the night, with abstract melodies soaring over gritty bass and crisply broken rhythms, echoing through nocturnal mist and outwards into alien skies. Finally, ‘Helbuja’ bursts into life thanks to a succession of powerful synth solos, with each lead riding high as the sturdy rhythm track anchors the aberrant melodies. There’s a palpable sense that Baldelli and Rocca fully enjoyed their latest round of studio time, with each track embodied with a loose and limber abandon that only a genuine musical simpatico can inspire. Undeniably propulsive and irresistibly idiosyncratic throughout, the ‘Cielarko EP’ is every bit as cosmically charmed as one would expect from these esteemed players.

PC

Laurie Miller – Love Is A Natural Magical Thing (Presagi)

Paesaggi Records launch their new Presagi offshoot with an enchanting re-issue, offering Balearic disco lovers a much-needed opportunity to own Laurie Miller’s exquisite ‘Love Is A Natural Magical Thing.’ The Record was originally released back in 1986, shortly after Miller parted ways with the influential Latin freestyle group, Exposé – a then-burgeoning band with whom she’d scored a pair of club hits as well as an album deal with Arista. Keen to pursue her music career as a solo artist, Laurie and her close friend, Debbie Ohanian, self-released the EP on the short-lived Meet Me In Miami label.

Various contributing factors meant the release didn’t initially garner the attention it deserved, but the enigmatic charm of ‘Love Is…’ ensured that, over time, the music found the collective ears of its rightful audience. Thanks to its seductive yet gorgeously innocent lead vocal, infectious bass, and shimmering synth stabs, the record became a cult classic among in-the-know collectors, with original copies changing hands for hefty sums on the resale market. Here, the original version is rescued from the master tapes, allowing Miller’s dreamy chorus line to echo once more across twilit skies and balmy ocean horizons.

The inclusion of Bob Rosenberg’s hand-spliced dub mix further sweetens the deal, with its stripped-to-the-bone aesthetic and boundless delay tails, as does the contemporary retake from edit specialist, Skyrager. Ultimately though, the boundless allure of the original is more than enough reason to own the record, so probably best not to drag your feet on this one. Highly recommended and a certified Balearic classic.

PC

Voytek / Djinn / Type – Jupiter (Rupture London)

It’s been a minute, but finally Rupture London return to their Planets series with another triple-header of frankly alarming quality. Thanks to their fabled club sessions, Rupture are now synonymous with a level of sophistication and advancement in drum & bass that places high expectations on any music Mantra and co. deem fit for their label. The previous Planets entries have carried artists like Thugwidow, Dead Man’s Chest, Double O and Sully, but now we get onto the gas giant Jupiter things are getting appropriately large. Voytek leads the charge with the tightly wound, understated but absolutely engrossing ‘Reach’. The atmospherics are key here, shaping out a vivid soundworld steeped in sci-fi aesthetic, but the needlepoint beat is no joke either. There’s no need for a thunderous peak or bombastic drop – the devil is absolutely in the details.

We’ll skip ahead now to the B2 ‘Hummer’ by Type, which also does an astounding job of holding a vibe and gripping your attention through sheer invention. The drum sounds are distinctive, the groove slanted to get your brain searching for the one, offering a genuinely futuristic twist on minimal D&B with all the bite you could require. However, these two pieces end up forming the perfect bookend to the record’s centrepiece from Djinn, the Manc force of nature making a welcome return to production. ‘The Tempest’ is a true epic of a track which plays with intricacy in the lead-in, all the while pointing to dramatic moments to come through a salvo of ominous stabs. When the amen is unleashed, it sounds revelatory – it’s no mean feat to manage that after decades of that drum break. From there, Djinn ducks and dives between bursts of searing light and moments of furtive intricacy, teasing the tension and release with an assured stance that matches her formidable reputation as a DJ.

OW

Drush – Archipelago (Fast Castle)

When the first Fast Castle release snuck out last year, it introduced a slew of unfamiliar names bound together by a strong curatorial aesthetic within that grey area of modern club music. It was a striking opening statement – strong enough to bring us back in to check what comes next. Gent1e $oul dropped a cassette release entitled Steam Sessions earlier this year, and now the label returns to wax courtesy of Drush, another of the artists featured on that first Unique Technologies 12”. Drush gets to stretch out and play around with the sound slowly forming around Fast Castle, keeping things comfortably open while teaching us a little more about where this Berlin-based crew’s heads are at.

‘Birds and Bass’ opens the EP with a sound which draws on the mutant dancehall freakery of Equiknoxx. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to call the sound a direct reference – the rhythm section alone could easily be lifted from the Jamaican crew’s Bird Sound Power LP, and the title seems to confirm this idea. It’s an homage which stands up to the might of the inspiration, revelling in squelchy analogue bass, droning sub and the titular birds twirling freakily over the top of the mix. Staying in the low slung dancehall tempo range, ‘Archipelago’ heads into a different headspace thanks to a more intricate, interwoven set of synth lines modulating with a distinct wonkiness. It’s raw, pleasingly weird and a lot of fun.

Ensuring we don’t assume too much about Drush’s sound, ‘Flat Earth Dub’ offers up a sparkling kind of broken electro drawing on the same punchy mix of drums and a few synth lines with personality etched into their make-up, but there’s a harmonic lilt which lifts the track a little further from the stripped machine freakery of the prior tracks. There’s a sense of ideas and approaches still being formed in these pieces, but immediacy and flair are equally exciting facets of an artist in their early stages, and Drush communicates that vibe perfectly across Archipelago.

OW

Alan Johnson – Stillness (Sneaker Social Club)

Apparently named after everyone’s favourite Lighthouse Family-toting middle management guru, Alan Johnson have dropped a mere smattering of records over the past 10 years, but each one has been a standout moment. The most recent came in 2020 on Art-E-Fax, and it drew feverish response from those who clapped ears on it. Of course it lurks between definable scenes like all good contemporary club stuff, but it’s not unreasonable to consider the work of Tom Neilan and Garth Kirby (who also record as Stickman and Elsewhere respectively) as a natural extension of dubstep. That’s certainly the vibe that comes through on their fourth single, carried by the ever-astute Sneaker Social Club.

The primary instructive quality placing Alan Johnson on the dubstep spectrum is the moodiness in their sound. There isn’t much space for bright, melodic leads here. Instead, the emphasis is on a twitchy tapestry of scuffed up sound design that fits and starts across the mix, leaving ample room down below for warping bass and some kind of thuggish kick.

Moodiness doesn’t forego fun though, and the brain-twisting antics springing out of each track are enough to make you laugh at the audacity even as you’re vigorously shocking out. It’s music for those most profound of bassfaces, but crucially it’s smart and restrained to match its flamboyance. This isn’t about tekkers for the sake of tekkers, but rather a committed weirdness to bring something fresh to 140 while keeping those murky fundamentals in place. After all, that’s what made us fall in love with dubstep in the first place.

OW

Dam Swindle – Keep On Swindling Part 2 (Heist Recordings)

Effervescent Dutch duo Dam Swindle return to their very own Heist Recordings with the second ‘Keep On Swindling’ instalment, marking an impressive ten years in the game with a suitably dynamic set of club cuts. Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets have been responsible for more than their fair share of memorable dancefloor moments since they burst onto the underground a decade or so ago, so it feels entirely fitting that they should honour their landmark achievement by neatly expanding their floor-filling repertoire.

The EP opens with the driving Afro rhythms and hypnotic vocal chants of ‘Good Woman’, with sprightly organ solos measured by sub-rooted bass and the sturdiest of kick drums. Next, the Swindle’s remix of ‘A Ka Titine’ from Guadeloupean band ‘Gaoulé Mizik’ comes close to stealing the show, with rolling poly-rhythms and powerful bass notes powering the irresistible call-and-response vocal. Detroit jewel Ash Lauryn journeys deep with her exquisite remix of ‘High Life’, with its soul-drenched synths and sumptuous chord progressions, while luminous Dutch maverick Arp Frique offers a typically equatorial rework of ‘Yes, No, Maybe’ (featuring Tom Misch. Finally, the stirring Afro rhythms resume on ‘Call Of The Wild’, where an evocative trumpet solo glides over shimmering chords and thick synth bass over an energetic club arrangement.

PC

Mark E – Leaning Into The Light (Delusions Of Grandeur)

It’s always a delight to hear new music from Mark E, and, predictably, his debut on Delusions Of Grandeur offers plenty to savour. With a studio career that’s birthed so many highlights – from the mutant deep house of ‘Oranges’ to the mischievous electro-boogie strut of ‘RnB Drunkie’ and so much more on either side – it’s of little wonder the Birmingham-based maestro is such a treasured underground purveyor. His sound feels like a natural fit for DOG, so his arrival on the long-running UK imprint is certainly something to celebrate.

Spread across five mesmerising deep house-related jams, ‘Leaning Into The Light’ lands like a mini album, full of nuance and immersive sonic textures. The haunting synth lead of ‘Swimming Through A Diamond’ makes an instant impression as it glides atop misty chords and growling bass as stripped drums maintain the groove. ‘Compact Object’ continues the nocturnal strut, with shimmering pads and brooding synth layers elegantly woven over low-slung house drums. On the reverse, ‘Leaning Into The Light’ sees delicate keys dancing over live bass licks and hypnotic drums, embued, as with so much of his work, with a discreet Motor City feel. The enigmatic swells of ‘Heartaches’ drift over expressive Rhodes bass notes before off-kilter lead melodies lift the mysterious mood, while closing track Mirrored Cube’ rolls deep into the night via freeform e-piano motifs and heads-down drums.

PC

Astronaut Pushers – EP (Lost In Ohio)

Astronaut Pushers’ debut EP is beautiful, and not just because it’s a sonic trip through emotion and heartache. It also reflects the sound of the 1990s Nashville music scene, a landscape described as “fertile” ground for sounds yet to come, and faces yet to be enmeshed into local public memory.

Three misfits from Tennessee; Lindsay Jamieson, Sam Ashworth and Matt Slocum. A band of beer-drinking, carefree suburban boys (maybe think of the male characters in Virgin Suicides) deep in the glare of the flash in the pan that was 1990s consumer frivolity. “Let’s start a band!” came their inevitable rallying cry. Soon forming closer attachments to each other, they rubbed shoulders with famous names in a distinctly indie-rock-only landscape, with the likes of Jacquire King, The Sundays and Ben Folds among their peers. 

As with much indie emo (and despite the carefree attitude of the band at the time of its making) ‘EP’ deals heavily in themes of social rejection. If the titles ‘Cut Me Off’, ‘Come On Make It Harder’ and ‘Nobody Wants’ aren’t indicative enough, the content oozes, bleeds red with psychic wounds. Listen between the lines of its confidently strutting drums, and one can clearly make out Ashworth musing, “ooh, I don’t know if I could ever be someone who gets it right every time…” We never thought we’d say this, but we’re really rather enjoying this sonic amalgamation of American Football, Carissa’s Wierd and Coldplay.

JIJ

Jaz – Jaz Edits 2 (Pinchy & Friends)

Esoteric edit specialist Jaz returns to Pinchy & Friends with his latest round of musical curios, serving four diversified cuts on the descriptively titled ‘Jaz Edits. As well as digging for ’80s-charged musical oddities and crafting imaginative reworks for the likes of Passport To Paradise, John ‘Jaz’ Zahl works as an Episcopal Minister, apparently delighting in “exploring the places where cosmic disco and English Reformation overlap.” His latest work on the ever-reliable Pinchy & Friends sees him carry on from 2019’s ‘Jaz Edits’ in fine style, with the source material both carefully chosen and intelligently interpreted.

Opening track ‘Cloud Worship’ makes an immaculate start, with unabated synth solos powering over swirling pads and a profoundly hypnotic machine rhythm. The Latin-tinged proto-house flex of ‘Pick A Toy’ comes next, with ragga verses, choral chants and rousing horns pitched over throbbing bass and crisp drums. On the flip, ‘Puzzle’ arrives as a respectful Franco-cosmic re-imagining of a synth-pop pearl, before the Italo thrust of ‘Friday Night’ sees whimsical vocals skip across rolling marimbas and exotic synth melodies. There’s much to enjoy as Jaz continues his sonic odyssey. With each enjoyable track primed for various backroom junctures, the record’s versatility also renders it an eminently efficient use of record box real estate.

PC

This week’s reviewers: Patrizio Cavaliere, Jude Iago James, Oliver Warwick