The best new singles this week
Superlative singles – as selected by our writers
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
Aphex Twin – Blackbox Life Recorder 21f (Warp)
Being the father of experimental electronic music as we know it, Aphex Twin gets to transcend the usual release machinations of us mere mortals. This has been evident at least ever since the release of 2014’s incredible Syro, after which the omniscient sibling has endlessly toyed with the “release” format, as though he were a giant cat and the market were a puny ball of string. Aphex has run most of the ubiquity-obscurity gamut since, from big-time EPs such as ‘Cheetah’ to prolific crypto-dumps on Soundcloud, and one-off rarities correlating only with specific tour dates in Manchester and London.
After 2018’s ‘Collapse’ EP, it began to feel as though Aphex was returning to source, getting back into the swing of peddling ‘come-on-you-c***s’-brand Aphex acid, but with a modern, schizophrenic twist whereby the rug of reality seemed to collapse under our feet as we listened. The new EP ‘Blackbox Life Recorder 21f’ feels like it occurs in a similar space, fusing Aphex Twin’s best sensibilities with the most exciting of our time.
A monkey-drummed beat opens the title track, soon to be sprinkled with Aphex’s usual all-swelling pads and unfurling breakbeat generations. Endlessly-varied harmonies for sine tone and vocaloid sound the alarm for a creepy playtime; for some reason, we’re reminded of the Donkey Rhubarb music video teddy bears here. A foray into Selected Ambient Works-style trance comes with ‘in a room7 F760’, while ‘zin2 test5’ is more of a classic throwback in acid breaks, worthy of comparison to the Analord series. The ‘Parallax Mix’, finally, is the most curious of the lot, being the most deeply textured and swung, indulging an endlessly-faceted halftime stepper verging on dark garage.
Like many of the ‘bigger’ EPs he’s released in recent years, Aphex Twin has achieved a smooth and ‘perfected’ sound, starkly contrasting to the rawness of his earlier music. The aux effects are controlling; reverbs and compressors tempering each break and acid line in such a way as to suggest they were playing in some theoretical, digital astral plane, not in real time on a piece of hardware circuit-bent by an alien. Clearly, this shift to ‘digital Aphex’ has been a knowing transition. As we approach the alleged tech singularity that futurists like Ray Kurzweil espoused – whether by way of AI, augmented reality, self-driving cars and/or radical life extensions – Aphex Twin, now 51, is wryly relishing, and taking full advantage of, our collective held breath.
JIJ
The Prodigy – The Fat Of The Land: The Remixes (XL)
Did you know you have to be at least 25-years-old to volunteer for the UN? We didn’t either, but the fact that ‘The Fat Of The Land’ is old enough to do that, as well as hire a car abroad, is making us feel rather old. But what better way to continue the birthdays celebrations than this? Following its vinyl reissue last year to mark turning a quarter of a century, The Prodigy commissioned a swathe of remixes from their legendary third album. And now for out listening pleasure, four of their favourites have been presented here on special edition silver vinyl.
Eyes and ears will immediately be drawn to Andy C’s stonking d’n’b rework of ‘Firestarter’, which was also included on ‘The Fat Of The Land’ reissue. It’s a masterful bit of reworking, retaining those guitar growls, mutated electronics and Keith Flint’s demonic vocals while wobbling the bassline to within an inch of it’s life and turning up the drums and the bass. ‘Breathe’, courtesy of Mefjus and Camo & Crooked, has been turned into a terrifying fever dream, manic in every aspect, the bass pulsing with wide-eyed fervour as the percussion thrashes like the tentacles of a kraken on the rampage.
Elsewhere Gydra transfigures ‘Diesel Power’ from industrial hip hop to gnarly d’n’b , percussion gnashing like teeth around Kool Keith’s slick verses. The whole EP is rounded off by Canadian producer René LaVice’s remix of ‘Mindfields’, which builds like the countdown to a bomb test. And when it eventually goes off? It’s enough to get you to jump up and cheer, it’s d’n’b sensibilities set alongside discordant electronics and shuddering basslines.
What a way to follow-up ‘The Fat Of The Land’ reissue. Don’t hang about now – that silver 12-inch won’t stick around for long.
FM
Imbue – Overlook (Re.Face Italy)
It’s always exciting when a troupe like Imbue release a new record. Since their inception in 2016, the Miami-based trio consisting of Maximiliano Cortes, Ignacio Vallejo and Eduardo Alvarez have never been ones to stick in one lane. Their specific brand of electronic music is fairly free-form, drawing on breakbeat, house, and even some psychedelia here and there for good measure. And “free-form” is how we’d describe their latest offering.
So like their 2017 self-titled debut, 12-inch ‘Overlook’ is only available on vinyl, but don’t let that put you off. Here, across four tracks, the trio inject you with the sound of a breezy summer; of blue skies and crystal waves, yellow sands and orange suns. Electro rhythms ebb and flow behind fluid guitar twangs on opening track ‘Boy With Apple’, and from the off you know you’re in for a good time. The title track follows, though this is, ahem, imbued with a more techno-funk edge; minimalist beats that are dancefloor ready and will get your head nodding.
And that B-side? On ‘Model 29’ the funk is turned right up, wobbly basslines that threaten to go off-kilter, with electronic textures that whir and whistle, and guitar chords that yawn off into the distance. Closing proceedings is the aptly named ‘Dawn’, hazy like the first light of the day, a winning combination of electric guitar noodling, hypnotic drum patterns and repeated synth patterns.
Whatever your want to call this – minimalist house, free-form electro, techno-funk – don’t let it pass your record collection by. Smooth sounds of the summer this certainly is, something we could all do with a bit more of at the moment.
FM
Anton Zap – Urban Underground Solutions (Introspection Audio Limited)
An unsung electronica mastermind, Anton Zap has been active since at least 2007, in the process helming many a music-releasing arm in their native Russia, including Ethereal Sound and Volking Music. Via them, they mostly released music that could strictly be described as ‘deep house’. Releases were remarkably consistent until the early 2010s, after which time they thinned out. As far as our research shows, this EP marks their first under the name in six years, a silence broken only by the Volking release ‘Pagan’ in 2020, under the name SH2000.
Described as a collection of “strictly personal” tracks, an EP title like ‘Underground Solutions’ might serve some indication for the thoughts going into its making. Bubbling underneath the structural tyranny of house music – a style which certainly forms the basis of Zap’s production skills, but whose dancey uniformity could be described as often oppressive – these four new ones are an ambient curveball, consisting rather of ever more playful modular-synthy explosions in creativity, away from the strict confines of genre music. Perhaps there is no track so obviously reflective of this as ‘Change URSLF’, which recalls the potent sonoparticular collisions of modern-day legend Barker, albeit drowned in a more ambiguous haze. The track pensively Wanders above the Sea of Fog, rather than being placed in a context of pure bliss and euphoria.
The influence of dub is made increasingly clear is as the EP progresses, with ‘Mesosphere’ being the experimental concluder, with its “odd-timed” swing and neo-rocksteady flams; sounding to occur, again, in a sea of noise, mud, potential. The earlier cuts, the A-siders ‘2 VCO’ and ‘Virus’, are more rhythmically conservative and jolly; indeed, there are two sides to every coin, or slab of vinyl, and flipping one side over to the other could indeed reflect ideas of revolution/transition.
Clearly, in Zap, an inspiration explosion has occurred. ‘Underground Solutions’ is their eureka moment, an electronic blueprint for resistance coming from an increasingly true, and not so co-opted, underground.
JIJ
Ike Zwanikken has been quietly entwining with the amorphous corner of electronic music where ambience and club rhythms slide past each other on their way to genre-agnostic destinations. As one half of Hysterical Love Project with Brooklyn Mellar, he’s served releases to stand-out label Motion Ward and dropped a pair of singles under his own steam, the last being 2021’s d&b-laced excursion Stone Diviner for Die Orakel. Now he’s returning to INDEX, another significant operator in the new electronica sphere, for a new release spring-loaded with crystalline productions that pop out of the speaker with startling clarity.
There are delicate ambient melodics hanging over Zwanniken’s productions, but these are tracks shaped for soundsystem impact. That said, compared to his previous outing on INDEX, the New Zealand-based producer’s approach has softened somewhat. ‘Rose Quartz’ has a tenderness to the drums, favouring lighter percussive embellishments and slow-release bass for a sound tipped more heavily towards the back room or the warm-up. ‘Vernis VIP’ similarly exercises restraint – the kick may be boomy, but it’s also rounded, and there’s an overall aquatic, dubby veneer to the track which tempers its spicier elements.
‘Gage’ similarly maintains a sense of meditative poise as it traverses mysterious landscapes, but the drum programming itself takes on a greater level of complexity. At times the shape-shifting rhythms hint at D&B without going all the way, feeding into the teasing, teetering energy the track gives off. Mathis Ruffing senses this on his remix of the track, gleefully whipping up a fast-paced, frenetic inversion with peaks and troughs and a madcap approach which upholds the leftfield spirit of the release in its own unique way.
OW
The Roswell Universe – Come Up (CQQL)
Those of us who have been following the UFO hearings in the US have had Roswell on the brain as of late. But we can confirm that no little grey beings are involved in this latest seven-inch from Los Angeles-based collective The Roswell Universe. The group, which features a rotating cast of musicians, have been operating since 2016 and create bright uptempo beats that fuse funk, soul, pop, electronica and jazz. Oh, and they have a full horn section.
‘Come Up’ is a complete delight, buoyant and exciting from start to finish. A slow strum of funky bass and sharp key stabs draw us in, before exploding into dazzling synthlines and smooth, rich vocoders. Oh, and don’t forget that horn section. Jazzy riffs front and centre as synthesisers, guitars and vocals take a back seat, before the entire thing fades out into the nothing of the universe. This is music that’s impossible not to dance to, and we’re also treated to the instrumental take of the second side of this seven-inch. If this is indicative of the direction The Roswell Universe is heading then, alien or not, we’ll be following their career to the stars and beyond.
FM
Hoodie & James K – 065 Scorpio (AD93)
Out of the tangled web of projects, aliases and experimental sonics orbiting the 3XL label, Hoodie features Special Guest DJ and Exael breaking away from slippery beats and unfathomable ambience and indulging in a slightly more direct strain of music-making. On their previous digi-only drops for Experiences Ltd, they pointedly drew on the sound of Deftones and a tangible turn of the millennium mood to create a shimmering update on atmospheric nu-metal.
Now Hoodie reconvenes for a collaboration with James K, whose striking solo productions are often embellished with her heavenly vocals. On ‘Scorpio’, Hoodie temper down the metal power chords and opt for shoegaze washes of guitar shrouded in reverb, a steady-rolling breakbeat and a punchy soundsystem b-line which comes on like Smith & Mighty jamming with Lush. It’s the perfect vehicle for K’s voice, creating a frankly heartbreaking eight-minute opus which doesn’t feel a second too long. It’s a track you could bathe in for days.
‘Ether’ drops the solid structure and casts off into oceanic ambience, K becoming a wraithlike figure gliding between the chasmic drones. It’s very much in line with the wider 3XL sound, where beatless music tends to be injected with a fierce energy so matter how huge the reverb tails are.
OW
Shadow Pattern/Anna Peaker – Split (Infant Tree)
Here’s one for those who love it field-recorded and sepia-toned. Owing to the often furtive nature of the ultra-cool tape / field recordings scene, information about this release was quite hard to track down. So much so, that we did at first wonder whether we could meaningfully comment on it without tarnishing it; ‘Split’ seems to draw on personal inspirations and tight-knit circles, more than the outward-facing or commercial. Shadow Pattern is a known unknown on the circuit, one of the more elusive aliases of Nathan Ivanco, an artist who keeps true to a certain non-performativity. Anna Peaker is more forthcoming: we learn what we know from her Instagram, where we’re told that this was a cassette cobbled together from field recordings made by esoteric means: some improv turntablism here; a detuned piano there: a broken radio and a cat’s purr worked in too.
Seemingly made from a place of curiosity, and a desire to interface with and squeeze sounds out of obsolete objects – “things which no longer exist” – this release seems to place us in common kind with the dead. The latter’s ‘Dust Duets’ is a spine-tingling looper evoking broken records; pianos in ashen mansion ruins; twinkly shiny-thing discoveries in burial mounds. Shadow Pattern’s ‘Drunk Drawer’, meanwhile – with its massive subby drones, gong hits and crackling beachfires – is a soily abyss-plunger, traversible only by knowledge of some deep prophetic rite, in turn activatable only by lifelong straight-and-narrow adherence to one’s local ley lines. Hugely immersive!
JIJ
Juterus – Reality (Moving Pictures)
Japanese electronic artist and producer Juterus has found a comfortable home on Prague-based imprint Moving Picture. The musician who day-to-day is Junko Yoshida and not her eyebrow-raising moniker, has crafted a tasty slice of Japanese house with her latest record ‘Reality’. Four tracks, one on each side and both with an accompanying remix by Moving Pictures founders Täino and Roman Rai.
So starting with the title track, Yoshida dazzles with experimental grooves and abstract minimalism, her warped and layered vocals cascading over a delicious foot-tapping techno beat. The remix is a treat as well, Täino stripping ‘Reality’ back to its minimal beats but retaining an ambience to it through glittering electronics; this is ‘Reality’ as atmospheric techno, ready for the cosmic dancefloor.
Flipping to Side Two, ‘Plastic Popcorn’ has a hypnotic quality to it. Bright synth stabs bleep and bounce around Yoshida’s manipulated Japanese vocals – save for the repetition of “popcorn”, said so many times it starts to not feel like a real word. And that’s before Roman Rai propels ‘Popcorn’ into another dimension, turning it from experimental electro into smooth techno, layers of vocals and textures building into a swirl of club-ready ambience. Experimentalism with a Japanese flavour? Moving Pictures have found a gem with Juterus.
FM
Yu Su – I Wan’t An Earth (Pinchy & Friends)
After devoting some of her energy to her China-based label bié, Yu Su makes a fresh appearance with a new EP which continues her canny, elegant balance of club dynamics and pointed exoticism. Su has spoken in the past about her interest in toying with Western ideas around ‘Oriental’ music and Haruomi Hosono’s playful pastiche of attempts to synthesise a Far Eastern musical flavour. On ‘I Want An Earth,’ Su confidently reaches for certain synth voices which have a strong Oriental implication and drops them at key points in the track’s winding narrative. Her tracks have always unfolded with a detectable ebb and flow, but on this song in particular the shift in parts and gently dramatic pauses showcase an artist growing ever more confident as a composer.
‘Counterclockwise’ is a more hushed, meditative piece which shows Su can also exercise restraint if it suits the mood of the track, albeit with more than enough subtle detailing popping out of the mix as it progresses. ‘Pardon’ goes further down the mellow path, creating a beautifully patient duet of synth and piano which capitalises on space and uses understated shifts in rhythm to create movement.
It’s ‘Menta Y Menta’ where Su edges closest to a full-spectrum production with insistent percussion, sub lines and looping melodic patterns, but even here her approach is refined and agile. The bass has more than enough presence to move a mass of bodies, but it’s for dances where open-minded attitudes prevail and the focus is on restorative dance rather than the rushing, peaking annihilation of other club music.
OW
This week’s reviewers: Finlay Milligan, Oli Warwick, Jude Iago James.