Futureproofing #13: March Madness

My 2025 favorites so far, including Demdike Stare, Sepehr, Bianca Oblivion, bambinodj, Michael J. Blood & more.

Greetings, friends. I know it's been a minute since the Longform Editions interview went up. Thank you for bearing with me as I get used to a new(ish) dayjob whose demands are unpredictable. (A head cold followed by a nearly week-long work trip to Vegas isn't exactly conducive to good writing.) The title here has nothing to do with sports, bur rather my mental state. I don't want to rush out content every week just for the sake of it—and have the quality suffer—so I'll be tinkering with timing and formats as I go along. I've got more interviews lined up and plans for upcoming weeks, but since most people reading this are coming here voluntarily, I thought I'd ask: What do you want from Futureproofing? What are you interested in reading about, or hearing me talk about? Feel free to leave a comment or email me at andrewryce AT gmail.com if you have any ideas, feedback, suggestions, or requests.

I'm going to keep it simple for now. This week's mailout has no broader theme other than some of my favourites of early 2025, as past newsletters have been focused on interviews or other longer-form content. I tried to focus on things that haven't been covered in our world's vanishingly few music publications, so hopefully some of these releases will be new to you.

As always, feel free to send me music at the email address above. I'll be back soon with a new essay, as well as an interview with a personal hero of mine (and fellow Substacker) Philip Sherburne.

February favorites

bambinodj - Silent Dispatch [OST, 2025]

It's so rare in electronic music, perhaps the most cyclical of all music scenes, to hear something that feels genuinely new. This debut album from Berlin's bambinodj scratches that itch. Silent Dispatch hit me like a ton of bricks when I first heard it, which is funny considering how gentle and light the music is. It's "new" in a very electronic music way: built from blocks of familiar genres, styles, and trends, but finished off with a personality all its own.

To me, Silent Dispatch sounds like a complete retooling of the post-dubstep concept with more contemporary foundations. bambinodj melts dancehall into something as soft and sweet as ice cream, with the ubiquitous log drum of South African house music genres as a foundation. The opening track "Closure" is like little else I've heard in club music recently. The vocal curls and unfurls in a spray of syllables, almost like a taunt, floating over the hint of a rhythm meted out by clouds of synths and the occasional disembodied thwack—no kick drum. It’s a mirage of a club tune, cohering momentarily before dissipating back into the ether.

There are many other "wow" moments on Silent Dispatch. "Highest Praise" is another fascinating mix of ideas: '80s nostalgia by way of peak-period M83 and Far Side Virtual-era James Ferraro, with uplifting drums and a dancehall vocal shimmering over top. It's like the most inspiring hold music you've ever heard. "Auf Log," a collaboration with Philip Jondo, thaws the ice-cold textures of original grime with the warmth of a log drum, and "Jus' Pull Up" taps into the forbidden well of one of life's greatest pleasures—'80s power ballads—with huge gated drum hits and pockets of silence interrupted by chipmunk sirens.

Bambinodj's greatest trick is something like sculpting air, so that you feel the drums even when they aren't there. His tracks are more like contained atmospheres than solid structures. There are more rigid tunes, but Silent Dispatch's brilliance is how it constantly feels like it's slipping: hooks that murmur and float, beats that never quite touch the ground. 

Saffron Bloom - Saffron Bloom [Delicate Records, 2025]

Saffron Bloom is the trip-hop alter ego of Sepehr. Normally, he makes dance music touching on electro, EBM and dark disco, and this one—while theoretically a genre exercise—is some of the most personal, emotional music he's put out yet. It's a break-up album that hardens hip-hop into obsidian, pitch-black but still sleek and shiny. Portishead in an Acronym jacket. A friend of mine complained that Saffron Bloom sounded too modern, almost plasticky, but for me, that's the appeal. It's gloomy and gothy, like someone trying to work out their demons in the corner of a chic cocktail bar.

Sepehr gets a lot of mileage out of this trip-hop formula. There's dub in the DNA of the stunning "Jealous Desire," with basslines layered like compulsive thoughts, while "Curtain Call" fast forwards to the early '00s with a near-martial drum pattern and what sounds like guns cocking—it's menacing, but not cartoonishly so, like an unsettling face sleuthing in the dark corners. Saxophone makes a genuinely funny but also disarming appearance on "Time's Up," where the trip-hop formula starts to come unglued, culminating in "Flame Never Dies," which I can only describe as Silent Hill disco: foreboding, industrial, with a hollowness and emptiness more deafening than the sound itself.

Michael J. Blood - Spaces In Between [Blood, 2025]

I first heard about Michael J. Blood from the tape of wobbly house music he released on Finn's 2 B REAL label in 2019. Since then he seems to pop up about as often as my psychiatrist appointments. On his own and as part of the blunted two-man-band RATBLOOD with Tom Boogizm, Mr. Blood has put out record after record of post-Actress dance music that often feels like it's just at the cusp of completion. His tracks hover just out of focus, as if they were more like scribbles than fleshed-out drawings—a punk-ish style that defines his output so far. All of his releases have been worth listening to, but I'll admit that sometimes they could blur together. 

Last year, something shifted. Blood appeared on Demdike Stare's DDS label a 12-inch that brought his music to a faster, more vital place. Specifically "Raven," whose absurdly high tempo and soaring synth riff finally put things into focus—as if a switch flipped and the music was suddenly flushed with color. That's what we get on Spaces In Between, an album that builds on the woozy sketches of last year's JOY + PAIN with clear-minded takes on downtempo, techno and trance that reminds me a little of B12's Electro-Soma.

Spaces In Between, bravely, has a song called "XPNDR." And while it's not exactly Sasha-baiting, it lives up to that lineage, with a proggy drum pattern and synths that feel like gusts of wind pushing "XPNDR" towards its destination—which is actually just hurtling towards the heavens, forever, with no tension or resolution at all. "Real Refreshment" is the opposite, a lumbering house track with chords that make me picture one of those massive floor pianos whose keys light up when you step on them (which incidentally also captures the strange mix of nostalgia and hi-tech cool of the album). There are barebones techno tracks, eerie beatless passages and even funky nu-disco, all laid out with pristine textures and a very Michael J Blood approach: rarely any tension or build, just loops that go on until they run out of steam. So Spacs In Between is actually like any other Michael J. Blood album—it just happens to be the best one yet.

Demdike Stare & Kristen Pilon - To Cut and Shoot [DDS, 2025]

Speaking of DDS… This one's a little unusual: a collaboration with a director, somewhere between remixing a film itself or making a new soundtrack out of bits of the old one. To Cut and Shoot pairs Demdike with Kristen Pilon, a dance music industry veteran (and old friend and coworker) who has worn many hats over the years. She provides piano and vocals as a canvas—or maybe more like a Polaroid found at the bottom of a drawer—for Demdike Stare to futz with for what is easily the strangest album in their discography. 

The collaboration comes out in many forms, including the Throbbing Gristle-like industrial hum of "Galveston Beach Pink Dust (April)," where the plaintive piano fights for its life. On other tracks, like "Bingo Bingo Bingo," Pilon's vocals and piano make the journey to hell and back, assailed by a rush of noise before emerging on their own again. "Was He Good - The Bunny Business" ends with some creepy, ambiguous shrieking, to add to the album's confusing and unsettling emotional tenor—and underlining that Throbbing Gristle comparison, but maybe it's just because I'm reading Cosey Fanny Tutti’s autobiography.

Elsewhere, Demdike touch on the crunchy club days of the Testpressing series and Wonderland—take "Belly Up" and "Toast," where the drums are fastened to a hammer and then bludgeoned into a game of whack-a-mole with the vocals and piano. To Cut and Shoot has all the trappings of a werid side project, but in some ways, it's one of Demdike Stare's most fully-realized, out-there LPs.

Bianca Oblivion - NET WORK [LuckyMe, 2025]

Listening to Bianca Oblivion's Mixmag "The Mix" mix (yes, I know) in January, I was struck by how current it sounded, and how it's also exactly what Bianca Oblivion has sounded like for years. Things move in cycles, and eventually you’re ahead of the game, until it catches up with you, which is what’s finally happening with the Los Angeles producer right now. With plenty of baile funk and edits of tracks like "Sandstorm," Bianca's mix isn't that different from what you would find on a Fabriclive mix CD in the late '00s. It's a corner of club music that never gets old, supported by regional scenes around the world that persist even when the global spotlight on them doesn't exist. Enter NET WORK, Bianca Oblivion's most fully-realized release yet, tapping into a rolodex of fellow genre-agnostic club travelers.

The best is the Sam Binga collaboration "Hypno," which lunges forward with an early grime snare-splatter but has the kind of three-dimensional, stomach-turning bassline you only get in tech'd-out modern dubstep. "Til' Tomorrow" has an amphetamine disco thing going for it—with hints of Machinedrum's legendary footwork experiments—while Teazers, featuring King Doudou, pairs belligerent kick drums with even belligerent-er bass (and great vocal samples). Oh, and Lunice appears on the hypnotic "Scat Track," laying down some vocals that sound like a dancehall MC scatting. LuckyMe's still got it; Bianca Oblivion always has.

Pissgrave - Malignant Worthlessness [Profound Lore, 2025]

People who know me will know that extreme metal is one of my other, less public loves, and I don't often get a chance to write about it (or know how interested anyone who reads my work would be in extreme metal). Pissgrave is special, primarily because they're absolutely insane. This Philadelphia death metal band makes album artwork so disgusting that it gets censored even by places that don't usually do that, and the music itself is a fascinating mix of Neanderthal stupidity and technical prowess. A jet-engine sound mix and yowling vocals add a hint of black metal into the mix without doing the whole cringe "blackened death metal thing,” and anyone who appreciates noise or aggression can appreciate this.

Pissgrave are death metal through and through, but they have fun with it, which leads to arguments. I've seen people call Pissgrave too stupid, too dumb, too simple, unnecessarily complicated—but none of that is true. If they have one problem, it's that they're too extreme, too committed to the bit, which is lucky for the rest of us. Their third album doesn't add a whole lot to their formula, but this 31 minutes of flailing, screeching, and wicked guitar soloing is unusually entertaining, and it makes so much other "old-school death metal" sound plain and conservative. I won't go into too much detail here, but take it from me. If you have any interest in extreme or experimental music of any kind, take a listen to this one. At the least, you won't be bored.

Various - 10 Years Of Rhythms Of The Pacific Sampler [Pacific Rhythm, 2025]

Pacific Rhythm is a label very near-and-dear to my heart for several reasons—most of which revolve around being from Vancouver and being in Vancouver when it started. As it evolved from its Mood Hut-style origins, the label grew in many different directions, but usually always rooted in a style of house music that was both laid-back and emotional. This four-track sampler of an upcoming compilation lays out the label's roots and future, with a welcome return from Lnrdcroy with the EBM-flavored "Galaxio Salaxio," and ambient genius Khotin returning to his Waterpark alias (and house) with "Coastal Plus," which deserves some special attention. Spiffy and surprisingly tough, Khotin touches on steel plated techno but dresses it up with elegant keyboards and a warming bassline, like a grown-up version of that those Heart To Heart EPs that stole our, um, hearts, all those years ago.

Om Unit - Acid Dub Studies III [Self-released, 2025]

Om Unit is a musical polymath who can make almost any kind of dance music to a consummately professional degree, whether we're talking dubstep, drum & bass, or whatever the hell you want to call the footwork-jungle of Philip D Kick. (Essential, if you've never heard it before.) But my secret favorite Om Unit material is this low-key series, with its roots in the pandemic—solo city walks, one of life's greatest little pleasures—and a perfect formula: acid house + dub. Four years and three volumes in, the recipe still has plenty of room for modifications and tangents. The irresistible digidub of "Hungry World" is like a hilarious remix of the Cops theme, while "The Chase" gets surprisingly ravey with it, pulling Acid Dub Studies out of the somewhat melancholy realm it started in.

Quick ones:

Cousin - Wake The Town [Moonshoe, 2025]

An Australian producer I'm always interested in hearing from. His latest is svelte, dubby downtempo dance music made for low lights, maybe even candles. The polar opposite of the Saffron Bloom album.

Jordan GCZ - Hope isn't a Four Letter Word [quiet details, 2025]

The follow-up from ASC's excellent quiet details album—featured here last month—comes from another artist near and dear to my heart, Jordan formerly of Juju & Jordash. Lush, vaguely housey explorations with warm instrumentation and a searching soul.

Impérieux - Rezil [Macro, 2025]

This fascinating album on Stefan Goldmann's Macro imprint occasionally pushes the borderline of taste for me, but it's a very original blend of Balkan musical influences with a Chex mix of party genres that includes techno, broken beat and East Coast club.