Review: 700 Bliss are DJ Haram and Moor Mother, and together they've come together to deliver a guttural take on noise rap. Packed to the brim with fuzz, like gravel clogging a phone line, Haram and Moor's vocal deliveries are clownish and playful, and hear back like mere fragments of thought, pushing against the notion of a sustained narrative. Lafawndah, Muqata'a, Alli Logout and M. Tellez all feature on various vocal and production appearances, while techno is even ticked off on a few Afro-diasporic dance music forays ('Anthology'). A postmodern revisionist history of dance music in LP form.
Review:
After his surprise drop with music writer and producer Blackdown on the Keysound label last month, the enigmatic Burial is now back with a fresh new EP all of his own. It comes on his longtime home of Hyperdub and features two more of his deft designed, ghostly deep dubstep post-nightbus joints. 'Chemz' is a strict raver filled with rushed up sounds, plenty of dance floor love and big hooks that is many different tracks, moods and vibes all rolled into one. As always, these Burial sounds look back to go forwards and do so in thrilling fashion.
Review: This first album on Kode9's deeply-respected Hyperdub label comes from the mysterious Burial, who carves out a sound which sends the dormant slinky syncopations of UK garage, via radio interference, into a padded cell of cushioned, muffled bass, passing through clouds of Pole's dense crackle dub en route. 'Burial' - the album - explores a tangential, parallel dimension of the growing dubstep ouevre, using sounds set in a near-future South London submerged underwater. You can never tell if the crackle is the burning static off pirate radio transmissions, or the tropical downpour of the city outside, taking its loud-quiet aesthetic neither from the latest digital glitch software nor a mere nostalgia for vinyl's intrinsic physicality. In their sometimes suffocating melancholy, most of these tracks seem to yearn for drowned lovers, as haunted echoed voices breeze in and out, on roads to and from other times. The smouldering desire of 'Distant Lights' is cooled only by the percussive ice-sharp slicing of blades and jets of hot air blowing from the bass. Listen also for a fleeting appearance from Hyperdub's resident vocalist, the Spaceape, unravelling his cryptobiography. 'Burial' is a renegade signal from other frequencies, a tidal wave of seductive low-impact noise submerging all but the crispest syncopations, and is well on course to be universally welcomed as the standard-bearer for creative vision built upon the grime and dubstep blueprint.
Review: Burial's first full-length EP since 2012's 'Rival Dealer' hears the South London enigma plunge the depths of his newest dark ambient sound, wrenching the emo essences of rave from their breakbeats to produce a purely ambient affair. Spanning every emotion from depression to triumph, 'Antidawn' opens with a cough, in a seeming nod to the COVID lockdowns of recent years. Meanwhile, disparate sections buzz and weave in and out of one another on 'Shadow Paradise' and 'Strange Neighbourhood', never quite landing on their feet before being whisked away again. One of Burial's most defining world-building works.
Review: Lee Gamble is an artist who excels in delivering post-modern music with a strong sense of sentiment and history. Just look at his breakthrough Diversions 1994-1996, in which the ambient threads in first wave jungle were blown out into grandiose chasms of sound. On this latest album, he's taking a similar approach to source material, but this time the focus is on pop earworms in which all kinds of emotive, catchy sonics get dissolved and reformed into vast, unpredictable shapes. Vitally, the emotional dimension is maintained no matter how unrecognisable the original samples are, as Gamble continues his fascinating path forwards and backwards through time.
Review: Given her stratospheric rise in recent years, it's something of a surprise to find Dust is Laurel Halo's first album since 2013. It's the Michigan native's third full-length excursion and was apparently recorded over a two-year period at the EMPAC performing arts centre in upstate New York. Interestingly, it's even more difficult to pigeonhole than her previous sets, with Halo and collaborators - including Lafawandah, Michael Salu, Maxmillion Dunbar and experimental percussionist Eli Keszler - gleefully fusing elements of wonky electronica, skewed R&B, drowsy synth-pop, neo-classical, humid Balearica, creepy jazz and off-kilter ambience. In other words, it's a hugely vibrant and entertaining set that's more than worthy of your hard-earned cash.
Review: Darryl Bunch Jnr has been operating in the Chicago footwork scene as Heavee for some time now, most notably collaborating with the legendary DJ Rashad as well as luminaries like Zora Jones and Sinjin Hawke. Following up on the promise of his Audio Assault EP for Hyperdub a couple of years ago, Bunch Jnr comes good with an album that broadens his palette without losing focus on the rhythmically intriguing, uptempo framework of footwork. Skittering beats and staggered vocal samples abound, but there's also some soulful synth work and artful sound design which nudge this work into its own sphere, upholding footwork's instinct for innovation and deepening the Heavee creative stamp in the process.
Heartbreak Of A Broken Stitch (feat Harriet Morley) (2:37)
SM_FID (2:26)
Everything Ends With An Inhale (1:29)
Cement Skin (2:42)
Pixel Petals (2:52)
Slammd (interlude) (1:42)
Closer (3:12)
Terrence's Time Bomb (2:05)
Fragmentary (Eraser) (3:03)
Inside My Head (interlude) (2:12)
Still (feat Dawuna) (2:06)
Fawning (interlude) (2:02)
Kiss Me Again (6am In Helsinki) (feat Bennettiscoming) (2:39)
Review: Spanish producer Nueen and Manchester vocalist and rapper Iceboy Violet, who you might well recognised from appearing on Hyperdub releases by the likes of aya and Loraine James, come together for a collaborative work that follows the story of a four-year-long relationship. As you can imagine, therefore, it takes in peaks and troughs, emotional highs, depressive lows, and plenty in between that will all feel all too familiar to anyone who has ever fallen in and out of love. Drill-laced beats are laced with intimate melodies, and excitable chords spiral out of control while a menacing ambience percolates up from below. It's a powerful listen with a relatable narrative.
Review: Loraine James is the latest going talent to make a bold statement on Hyperdub. Her new album reflects the sounds of the London she grew up in while also exploring issues around identity and queerness. Grime, UK drill, electronica and jazz all colour the album and can be as abrasive and confrontational as it can sweet and soothing. Our picks are "London Ting/Dark As Fuck": a caustic brew of distorted drums and frazzled synths with angst ridden vocals and "For You & I" which is a soothing beauty despite its hyperdriven loops. A personal and expressive album that also acts as a fine snapshot of London as it sounds right now.
One Way Ticket To The Midwest (Emo) (feat Corey Mastrangelo)
Cards With The Grandparents
While They Were Singing (feat Marina Herlop)
Try For Me (feat Eden Samara)
Tired Of Me
Speechless (feat George Riley)
Disjointed (Feeling Like A Kid Again)
I'm Trying To Love Myself
Saying Goodbye (feat Contour)
Scepticism With Joy (feat Mouse On The Keys - bonus track)
Review: Loraine James continues to trust her instincts and serve us some of the most honest and original music within the leftfield electronic sphere right now. Having recently paid tribute to the work of Julius Eastman on Build Something Beautiful For Me, now she retunes to Hyperdub with the record she claims the teenage version of her would have made. The label text makes explicit reference to the likes of DNTEL and Telefon Tel Aviv as well as math rock, but James is also way out in her own zone metabolising such influences into unique expression. There are some wonderful guest spots from the likes of RiTchie, Marina Herlop and Eden Samara, while James herself centres her voice for some of the album's most poignant moments. Gentle Confrontation is another outstanding chapter in James' ever-intriguing story.
Review: Frequent Jeremy Greenspan and Morgan Geist collaborator Jessy Lanza was hailed as a future star on the release of her 2013 debut album, Pull My Hair Back. That album projected her as some kind of New York freestyle chanteuse dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, backed by an all-electronic band fascinated with the potential of future R&B and left-of-centre synth-pop. This belated follow-up, which was once again produced in cahoots with Jeremy Greenspan, is even better. Colourful, vibrant and attractive, the ten songs are truthful to their '80s NYC inspirations, but smartly avoid the pitfalls of such blatant retro-futurism. In other words, it's a superb collection of future R&B and pop gems.
Review: Four years have passed since Jessy Lanza last offered-up an album, the Jeremy Greenspan co-produced leftfield space-pop masterpiece that was "Oh No". While plenty has changed in Lanza's working life since then - she now lives in New York and improvises more with "modular and semi-modular" synthesizers - her commitment to delivering a genuinely unique take on 21st century synth-pop remains. Those versed in the work of the Junior Boys will hear the hand of regular collaborator Jeremy Greenspan in the chords, melodies and synthesizer settings, but "All The Time" is undoubtedly Lanza's vision. Combining her usual glassy-eyed vocals and ear-pleasing, often melancholic synth-pop sounds with the colourful vibrancy of future R&B and grooves that subtly reference all manner of styles (dubstep included), it's most perfect underground pop album you'll hear all year.
Review: Hyperdub continues to stamp its authority down on a wide variety of electronic music, in this case throwing the light, bouncing club-ready sounds of Canada's Jessy Lanza into the mix of a back catalogue that touches on everything from ambient to dubstep and footwork. But, while we open on the snare-happy garage-house of 'Don't Leave Me Now', and tracks like 'Drive' also look to the dancefloor, things don't stay there long. 'Don't Cry On My Pillow', for example, is a low stepping piece of alternative electronic soul. 'Big Pink Rose' opts for synth refrains and staccato drums to create a steamy, heady neon r&b brew with added yacht. 'Double Time' deconstructs pop balladry and makes it sound lo-fi yet huge, 'I Hate Myself' seems to take a lead from tropicalia-hued, leftfield electronica.
Review: Jessy Lanza has always been quintessentially Hyperdub. A label helmed by garage, dubstep and bass DJ and producer, and academic music theorist Kode 9, the imprint has relentlessly pushed the kind of dance tracks that are unashamedly direct yet unarguably clever. Beats that acknowledge the delicate balance of fun and accessible with underground and intelligent. 2023's Love Hallucination, Lanza's fourth studio album, only adds to the evidence. It bubbles with pop sensibilities, sing-along worthiness and timeless infectiousness, but does so in an incredibly thoughtful, natural-yet-razor-accurate way. From two-step to slo-mo funk, r&b and steamy electro groove, it presents the kind of songwriter who makes sure chart and radio friendly doesn't always mean throwaway or one dimensional. Infinitely repayable stuff.
Review: Zomby returns to Hyperdub with his first album in three years, trailed in high profile fashion by that Burial collaboration "Sweetz." That particular tune is one of Ultra's headline attractions, alongside eyebrow-raising collaborations with Darkstar, Banshee and Rezzett. What really impresses, though, is the skewed, left-of-centre nature of the mask-wearing producer's heavy, post-grime rhythms, sparse but sparkling synth work, and the breathlessly cut-up R&B vocals dotted throughout the set. Interestingly, there are subtle nods towards new wave synth-pop, ghetto-tech, spacey ambient and alien IDM, making Ultra Zomby's most intriguing and consistently on-point album to date.
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