The best new singles this week
Unmissable 45s ahoy
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Bomb 20 – Gods EP (Deathbomb Arc)
If it weren’t for digital hardcore – that blistering 90s cross-section of hip-hop, breakbeat and breakcore – many of the reference points we cherish today would simply not exist. The contemporary label Seagrave, for example, has a lot to owe to this mechanistic-stylistic explosion, having again whetted popular appetites for the same imagery: graf lettering, street references, cruddy sonics, dystopian mechs.
There’s few artists more ‘legit’ in digital hardcore than Bomb 20 (David Skiba). Further owing to the never-quite-left interest in the style, it might come as a surprise that Bomb20’s still going strong. ‘Gods’ EP might look like a reissue, but it’s actually a fresh one, consisting of music made between 2020-2021 in Berlin. This is a far cry from the heavy, hateful breakcore that defined Bomb20’s early releases, which were inspired by personal, morbid interest in everything remotely future-anarchic, from William Gibson to the Unabomber. Instead, this one’s much more Alan Watts-adjacent, smuggling deeper philosophical concepts between the breaks.
Seven tracks move across its two sides; ‘MAGIC’ is the most representative of the whole EP, laden with vocal samples from various esoteric sources. Dramatic choirs and mechy impacts clatter around, as a central voice ruminates on “the fundamental problem of humanity: we have paleolithic emotions… medieval institutions… and godlike technology”. Then come rapid-cut breakbeat alloys and atmospheric contrasts.
There’s also the ironic cop-bashing ‘PREVENTION’, whose star Anime sample hears an automated robot voice yammer on about “crime prevention” while a looming, long-release metallic snare clanks away like a hammer to an anvil. The EP feels like it’s continually losing its head, as the careful selection of samples on ‘RUN’ and ‘MAD’ seem to narrate a human mass psychosis in the face of technology’s tide, with one vocal sample calling on us to embrace said innovation as a new prophet, or God.
It’s clear what’s on Skiba’s mind: breakcore as the best representation of a dark, future-technological explosion in human ability, and its impact on our minds and spirits. Though it isn’t quite clear whether this is a warm welcome for it, or a warning against it (perhaps both?).
JIJ
Si Begg – Energie Electrique (CPU)
What does Si Begg make of the electro renaissance? A machine funk lifer since the early 90s, you wonder whether he sees it as a positive validation for a sound he’s been messing with for decades or a wave of opportunists riding roughshod over the groundwork he and his peers laid down. Maybe he doesn’t give two shits, but either way his skin in the game is immediately apparent when he lands on the scene’s primary stock exchange CPU for the first time.
His sound is still absolutely true to the tenets of electro and techno, and ‘Energy’ moves with a functional pulse that will easily entice any flavour of DJ, but there’s flair within the bones of the track which quite simply offers more than the cookie cutter electro found elsewhere. Perhaps it’s in the lysergic acid throb which rises and falls throughout the track, which isn’t always something you hear in an electro context.
‘Buckfunk Beatz’ heads further into the freaky territory Begg navigates so well. The title makes a callback to his Buckfunk 3000 project, so conceived as “the sort of music Buck Rogers might listen to in a 25th Century bar scene.” In the warping, modulating synth trickery at work throughout the track, Begg displays mischievous personality that pushes his music well past the competition.
There is an aspect of ear candy to this sort of music, as lower tempo monosynth squeaker ‘MS10 Machine Funk’ beautifully demonstrates in a celebration of self-oscillating filter abuse. But it’s not vapid tweaking, or else it wouldn’t be such a satisfying listen over a six-minute stretch. Even on the comparatively more linear EP closer ‘Electro P1 B’ there’s all-important fills, flips and swerves which add a necessary spark to the approach. If you’re going to place emphasis on the sonic science like so much electro does, then you’d better take Si Begg’s approach and make it gnarly as hell.
OW
NIMU – Picture In Picture (Ilian Tape ITX Series)
Assuming it’s not an alias of some already well-known figurehead, the furtive Nimu is for all intents a newcomer on the circuit. Whatever the case, releasing with Ilian Tape for a first-time alias is a more-than-happy career boost. It comes in good time after the German label recently branched into increasingly better-humoured, all-encompassing directions, away from their initially ultra-streamlined, darkside-IDM-techno vision in Skee Mask and Stenny.
‘Picture in Picture’ flaunts Ilian Tape’s taste for the backlit, ambient side of their usually tape-warbled techno sound. The album kicks off with a starlit nightwalk, ‘At Dawn’, and seems to reflect some of the more ‘textural ambient’ corners of the German techno scene, ever-popular on soundcloud of late (for the children of the Internet still willing to listen to something more dub-dued, that is).
But then things taper off into more cerebral directions, seguing into beatless ambient jazz on ‘Room Of Mirrors’, which sounds like we’re carefully traversing a sorcerers’ black market for fear of being gripped by some stray incantation. Then there’s ‘Little Break’, which has the feeling of escaping into some grim, glassy bathroom out of anxiety while on the job; staring at the swirling plughole, we find some respite from the outside world.
It’s clear Nimu’s specialism is moodwork. It’s very easy to get lost in the images that ensue from every aspect here, especially from the motifs of refraction and echo. There’s enough to hear a loose narrative in it: that of someone looking inwards, constantly confronting themselves and their own reflection (or lack thereof) in the mirror. Subtle signals of dissociative headspaces and lapses in memory – ‘Headache Pill’, ‘Deja Vu’ – seem to numb the pain of a deeper trauma, though Nimu provides a great sense of this bottomless well merely being skirted-over, never quite fully reckoned with.
JIJ
While drum & bass continues to innovate within the parameters of established genre traits, there are also artists stepping further out into experimental realms. You could argue Ena’s music is too abstract to even loosely attach to club music of any stripe, but when ‘Pulse2’ murmurs into earshot, opening up this record on emergent Australian label Rosa, the tempo and bassweight make it land like a 170 roller boiled down to an atomic level.
Yu Asaeda, to give the Japanese producer his full name, was already an outlier when offering tracks to labels like 7even and Samurai Horo, but his 2016 appearance with Felix Kubin on Hidden Hawaii is the most instructive example of where his sonic explorations are taking him. Kubin has long been a standard bearer for avant-garde ideas within a D&B approach. Minimal seems a crude term for the results Asaeda offers up – it’s more like a microscopic examination of texture, rhythm and space, with the framework of d&b a useful jump-off point.
If ‘Pulse2’ was a bold demonstration of reduction, ‘5.5’ functions more like an exercise in psychoacoustic looping with the kind of grimy, overtone-caked phrasing you might expect from an indie horror film. There’s a soundtrack quality which lingers over every inch of the record, from the creepy scuffs and breaths of ‘The Worm Turns’ to the submerged industrial clank of ‘Alter’. Foley room sound design is par for the course in Ena’s world, where every audible crumb is loaded with intention and sculpted to unnerve.
Stratum is not easy listening, but neither is it trying to be. How Ena makes such obtuse experiments work is in that faint echo of club structure, ratcheting these awkward sounds onto insistent, addictive rhythms. In the right setting, it would be fascinating to hear these tracks on a proper system, and there’s certainly the weight in the mix down to fill a space – all it takes is a DJ with the bravery to pare their set right back in order to make room.
OW
Gigi Testa – Jinja (Rush Hour)
Neapolitan hero Gigi Testa makes a triumphant return to Rush Hour Records with arguably his most complete work to date, serving three fusion-flavoured jams on the wild enjoyable ‘Jinja’ EP. The World Peace label boss made his debut on the venerated Amsterdam-based imprint with last year’s excellent ‘Esoteric Paradise’, and the globally-themed sonics continue into his latest RH signing.
Outside of his studio exploits, he regularly DJs at the ultra-hip Neuhm events, is resident DJ and sound designer at the audiophile Basic Club, and has recently open ed the Napoli-based record store, Organica Records.
The earthy sentiments hinted at in the shop name very much extend into ‘Jinja’, too. Overflowing with energy and endowed with a gorgeously loose feel, Testa funnels all-manner of far-flung influences into the varied but coherent collection. The life-affirming energy of the title track gets us off to the liveliest of starts, with calypso guitar and dreamy synth melodies pitched against cosmic motifs and wildlife samples infectious Afro drums magnetise the groove.
Next, the emotion-rich swells of ’Malinke’ blend Italo dream house with an Afro-house flex, with floating flute melodics gliding through thick pads as hypnotic rhythms power the groove. Finally, the tempo drops just a touch as we journey into the evocative realms of ‘Echoes In The Sky’, where pulsing deep house drums drive Balearic harmonics far out across balmy ocean vistas. Once again endowed with boundless emotion, the track completes an entirely enjoyable set while offering an alternative to the dancefloor fervour of the rest of the EP. This is yet more exceptional work from Testa and a sparkling addition to his steadily growing production repertoire.
PC
Matthewdavid – On Mushrooms (Leaving Records)
LA psych-beat luminary Matthewdavid probably didn’t need to spell out an affinity between his music and consciousness-expanding fungi. His compelling and curious path has always been charged with a certain cosmic wonder, and as his label Leaving Records continues to spread its network of musical mycelium beneath the radar of generic conventions, the other artists he surrounds himself with seem to vibe from the same blotter sheet. This isn’t to say everyone’s high as balls making tweaked out music in the Californian wilderness, but rather a unified sense of new age spirituality helps drive the consistently compelling music orbiting Matthewdavid and his many projects.
Even if it feels like stating the obvious, the choice to call this EP On Mushrooms ahead of the imminent Mycelium Music album is a pointed one to whole-heartedly celebrate the powerful properties of the fungus among us. Where the psychedelic experience and the creative process cross over is for us to guess, but regardless this is a collection of mesmerising pieces playing with organic delicacy and lopsided electricity.
Each track whirrs to life as though someone is jockeying the dial on your astral receiver of choice, tuning into clandestine broadcasts of daydream chords floating in blissful negative space marked out by harmonic noise. At times the signal processing is so dense and playful it acquires a natural chaos, as on the fluid tweaking of ‘Under A Tree’, while ‘A New Ambient’ posits a decidedly un-still, pitch-sliding surrealism that certainly doesn’t feel like old ambient.
Bending and warping outside the usual confines of musical form, seemingly in response to inbound stimulus from the world around him (or perhaps even the psychedelics inside him), he still finds beauty in detectable melodic phrases or rhythms. Matthewdavid’s penchant for musical play remains a constant source of fascination, and his approach can rightly be considered an authentic analogue of the patterns and processes inherent in all nature.
OW
Harmonious Thelonious – Metro Tribe EP (Disk)
Stefan Schwander’s Harmonious Thelonious project has been a steady source of outernational rhythm tracks for more than 10 years now, minting at least eight albums and scores more EPs in a thrust of high pressure drums and harmonic distortion. It was only earlier this year he released his third LP for Bureau B, Cheapo Sounds, but now this standout EP from his own Disk label is being reissued. It originally came out in 2020, flanked by multiple other Thelonious drops, so it’s no bad thing to grab an opportunity for a reappraisal.
The sound of the project occupies a curious space which is absolutely indebted to music from Africa and the Middle East – a tricky space to navigate for a white Western man, but Schwander has over the years demonstrated a respectful affinity for the source of his inspirations. Rather than wholesale appropriation, he zeroes in on particular qualities in the music and fuses different aspects from different places together into striking, potent dance tracks. ‘Metro Tribe’ comes on like hypnotic, low tempo techno infused with Gnawa and desert blues overtones, but the elements are subtle rather than crass or opportunistic.
Like more typically styled Fourth World music, the sensation is one of music from a distant place, but in reality it’s from no place at all (other than Schwander’s studio).
OW
Elia Y Elizabeth – Alegria (Vampi Soul)
It’s been pleasing to see the work of Colombian sisters Elia and Elisabeth Fleta Malloi — better known as Elia Y Elizabeth — on the receiving end of some renewed interest in the last few years. Their diggers’ favourite album ‘Alegria’ was recently reissued, while Brooklyn’s Razor N Tape saw fit to commission a selection of remixes lifted from its grooves, and earlier this year Phenomenal Handclap Band and Buscabulla took it in turns to reinterpret the pair’s work on an EP for Spanish label, Mushroom Pillow.
This time out, a duo of tracks lifted from the sibling’s 1973 ‘Alegria’ and ‘Elia Y Elizabeth’ LPs are pressed onto a single 7” thanks to another Spanish imprint, Vampi Soul. Feel good, singalong vibrations abound on the title track, with lush orchestration beautifully complimenting the sisters’ honeyed vocals. On the reverse, the carefree soul of Ponte Bajo El Sol provides a seductive counterpoint to the a-side, with gently psychedelic instrumentation and splashy drums serving as the backdrop for the sun-kissed vocals to meander across.
Echoing of simpler times, these innocent numbers have summertime vibes written all over them, making this re-issue especially timely now that the sun is threatening to burn through the gloom.
PC
Worli – Dynamo EP (Baroque Sunburst)
Baroque Sunburst have achieved that buy-on-sight quality that only the best labels reach. It’s a two-fold challenge which requires immaculate programming and an aesthetic consistency, and they’ve excelled on both counts. The artwork, which matches bold yellows with black and white imagery (bar one exception for Haramia Tapes), tells you instantly it’s a new Baroque release, and the music from the likes of Big Hands, Soreab and Flørist has constantly offered something fresh and thought-out around the murky, well-trodden fields of UK hardcore-derived club music.
As such, even debutant artists such as Worli can muster enough interest to scramble onto your radar thanks to appearing on a trustworthy label, and sure enough the Milan-based producer doesn’t disappoint. ‘Dynamo’ is a brooding, taut workout which keeps a certain linear focus wholly pitched at the club, but atmosphere and inventive drum slicing takes precedence over obvious dance-baiting tactics. Just cop the swell of growling bass, untethered to the grid and yet utterly physical in its weight, to get an idea of the approach and intention with the track.
Sealing the deal with another name you never pass over, the label invite Etch to remix ‘Dynamo’ and to no one’s surprise it’s a masterpiece of drum science. He doesn’t dissect or wholly flip the original track, but rather reads the same story in his own dialect. The atmosphere carries over naturally from the original even as the breaks and edits become markedly more intricate.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Oli Warwick, Jude Iago James, Patrizio Cavaliere