Futureproofing #17: May Recommendations

New (and old) music from Wisdom Teeth, kranky, Hausu Mountain, and more.

Loscil’s Lake Fire album, out on kranky

Hello friends,

A quick and straightforward one while I’m in the midst of trips to Houston and Vancouver (lots of food writing from me, from there, soon—if you’re interested in that, follow me on Instagram). This is a slightly random but also slightly comprehensive of the new releases and reissues I’ve been enjoying over the last 6 weeks.

Ryce Recommends

Edited by Tom Gledhill

Loscil - Lake Fire [Kranky, 2025]

There are few electronic artists whose discographies I love as completely as Loscil's. Part of it is consistency, and part is personal connection. The ambient-dub-techno producer is from Vancouver, like me, and his work is largely inspired by the region's natural beauty, as well as the industrial encroachment that has been pockmarking its landscape since the beginning of British settlement. (One could argue that that's another, more tragic kind of beauty, but that's a topic for another time.) Lake Fire was originally meant as a collaborative record, but inspired by the increasingly frequent "wildfires" marring the West Coast, it became an insular shell of what it started out as.

In Loscil terms, Lake Fire is harrowing, or at least more aggressive—the fuzzy melodies and downcast chords are more direct than his usual drony gestures, and the album has an almost pumice-like texture that hints at destruction and decay. But it's also gorgeous, as usual, and is his easiest full-length to really sink into since Equivalents. Like everything else in Loscil's catalogue, it's a blend of landscape painting and personal expression smeared into beautiful storm clouds of sound.

Kara-Lis Coverdale - From Where You Came [Smalltown Supersound, 2025]

Kara-Lis Coverdale is one of the most exciting electronic musicians who you could also call a "composer"—someone who works in the traditions of modern classical, experimental electronic, and ambient music all at once. 2017's Grafts is still, to me, a 22-minute landmark in this vein, and this album for Smalltown Supersound, landing eight years later, this album for Smalltown Supersound, landing eight years later, is markedly more fragmented. New age, techno, trip-hop, choral music (even the ultra-trendy pipe organ)—it's all here, presented in sketches that slip between your fingers instead of forming a cohesive whole. And honestly, I can't decide if that's a good or a bad thing. I've listened to this record so many times and haven't come any closer to fully wrapping my head around it, but it's always a gorgeous, surprising listen every time it's on. In other words, it's the opposite of Grafts, though no less stunning.

Ehua - Panta Rei [3024, 2025]

Italian producer Ehua has been a darling of the leftfield techno-not-techno scene for a few years, with nimble, acrobatic rhythms that don't so much touch on genres as live in the spaces between them. Her debut album for Martyn's 3024 is a tightrope act, balancing functional techno and drum & bass with arty sequencing and vocal hooks. It darts between clipped avant-pop interludes (imagine if Tirzah wandered into a FABRICLIVE night) and tracks like "Aria," where the drums are sharpened to thumbtack-level fineness and the groove is elastic and lightweight. Like so many other records on this list, it's minimalistic, though never meek, taking up the room but leaving pockets for dancers and wallflowers to find their own grooves.

Dustin Wong - Gloria [Hausu Mountain, 2025]

This is a beautiful LP from the Ponytail and Ecstatic Sunshine member Dustin Wong. It comes via Hausu Mountain, which is a resolutely independent, nerdy and expansive label that I always want to write more about than I'm actually able to. So here I am, writing about it—and Dustin Wong's new album is one of my favorites they've put out in a while. Inspired by a road trip with his grandma the year before she died, Gloria is a story told through vignettes that sound like a singer-songwriter take on James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual—digital, squeaky-clean, and retrofuturistic, but written with deeply felt and sincere melodies. 

Gloria is a curious mix of leisure, nostalgia and aspiration. Some tracks sound faintly like exotica ("Seeing Aline For The Last Time"), while others focus on ultra-processed percussion and sound effects that have the air of gleeful discovery–the feeling of seeing something new and beautiful with a cherished loved one. On first listen, I did a double-take when Wong ends with two versions of the hymn "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." It's actually a beautiful, personal ending, an esoteric musician breaking out something familiar for his family. It feels private, but universal.

Christian Kleine -  Electronic Music From The Lost World: 1998​-​2001 (Vol.2) [A Strangely Isolated Place, 2025]

This record was given to me as a birthday gift by a new, dear friend of mine, and I have to admit I wasn't familiar with the artist at all. But he released on labels like Morr Music and City Centre Offices in his early '00s heyday, which is a strong resume in my books. Electronic Music From The Lost World is part of an ongoing reissue campaign by A Strangely Isolated Place; this compilation collects music from around the turn of the century, and it's an intoxicating blend of downtempo, house and chilled-out IDM. "Wedding" sounds like Tri Repetae-era Autechre if they were on Mo' Wax, while the stunning "Floating Friends" feels like it's treading water, with stuttering drums that can't quite keep up with the wistful melody. These tracks sound of their time—and by someone who makes Max/MSP plugins—with plenty of digital reverb, time-stretching, and trebly percussion. But that also means they sound original in 2025, and for all the '00s nostalgia of the ongoing minimal revival, no one's touched on this vibe yet. A great compilation for anyone new to the artist (like me), or anyone who wants to check out what forward-thinking electronic music sounded like in the peak of the first laptop era.

Various - Pattern Gardening [Wisdom Teeth, 2025]

This two-hour compilation marks the moment that Wisdom Teeth officially turns from home-listening dance music label to full-on minimal revival label. Although it's a style of minimal that's chill, melodic and detail-oriented enough to work in the same context. It's hard to pick out highlights here—OK, fine: Polygonia's jittery "(O_o=)," Sub Basics's dub-techno-on-a-boat jam "Oasis," and Jichael Mackson's fuzzy-headed techno stomper "A Nice One" do stand out—but it's the kind of compilation solid enough that you can dip in and dip out anywhere and be pleased. It's not the kind of thing you're likely to listen to all the way through, but if you do, you'll be treated to a survey of some of the world's most exciting dance music producers trying their hand at an increasingly dominant sound. And in that way, it reminds me of compilations like Exit's Mosaic series, where artists from across the electronic spectrum tried their hand at Autonomic. Pattern Gardening is the sound of now, but in a humble, almost introverted way.

PLO Man - RA.988

For someone so allergic to press or even being perceived at all—a friend said his RA Podcast picture made it look like he was in the witness protection program—PLO Man is pretty damn popular. Part of that comes down to his talent, especially behind the decks. He's a wizard of a DJ, able to connect the dots between techno, house, jungle, and drum & bass with a subtle flair. His DJing isn't flashy, but there's a hint of flash to it, as you can hear on excellent tapes like  PLO Man + The Moons Of Saturn. His RA Podcast is a relatively rare online mix, but it also feels more lived-in, more concerned with fundamentals than creating a narrative or taking us to far-flung reaches of his sound. ("The mix is all records that I have in my record bag anyways," he says in the interview.)

The other thing about this mix is that it's quite minimal (I'm getting sick of typing that word), starting with older tracks from Margaret Dygas, Ricardo Villalobos and Baby Ford & Zip, before a fork in the path takes it down a classic house route, and eventually dub. Here, PLO Man underlines the simplicity of classic house music with the bone-dry soundscapes of early minimal—the two aren't that different after all. See also: the inspired blends between his SnPLO project, Burger / Ink, and Paul Johnson, a time-traveling zig-zag through house music eras. Maybe it is kind of flashy after all.

 SnPLO - The Cocaines [Pin, 2025]

SnPLO is a new collaborative project for vinyl DJs to drool over. The records come out on a label called Pin, which is like a smaller, more compact Acting Press (right down to how the records sell out almost instantly). But The Cocaines, the third SnPLO EP, is near-impossible to find—even by Acting Press standards—unless you make a habit of stalking record shops like an OpenTable reservation for Le Veau D'Or. These four tracks are so simplistic it seems anti-climactic, but that's how they get you. Like the best early Dygas records, or even Richie Hawtin's Minus label, it's the little springy dub effects, or the way a snare rolls along the rhythm like an errant marble, that stick in the mind and make even these skeletal tracks feel rich and detailed.

Peverelist - Pulse Decay [Livity Sound, 2025]

If Peverelist, who helped me launch this newsletter, is releasing something, it's probably gonna end up here. Pulse Decay is the fifth and allegedly final EP in the Pulse series, and completes the journey into house music that each EP has progressively hinted at. "Pulse XVII" reminds me of a peak-era Ramp record if it were produced by someone like Hanna, pairing exaggerated chords and dub effects with a disco-y bassline and sustained strings. The rounded but still edgy dub techno stabs of "Pulse XIX" are pure Detroit, though in this case John FM's Detroit, while "Pulse XVIII" looks back a couple decades earlier with a wobbly take on Juan Atkins-style brittle synth paranoia. It's pure class, and remarkable how Peverelist can still sound like himself even doing genre exercises impersonating scenes decades and continents away from where he started.

Tornado Wallace - Bitter Suite [Test Pressing, 2025]

I've been obsessed with the A1 on this EP for the last month. With its fluttering classical guitar, is it kind of a rip off of—or at least obvious homage to—E2-E4? Yes, it is, but it's bold, and he totally pulls it off. That plaintive guitar launches an eight-minute odyssey that captures the proggy energy of his Australia home but in a less tweaky way than some of the country's most popular dance music artists. And by the time the kick drum, and the sticky, one-note chord, hits, forget about it. This is the kind of track you could play in full on the dance floor and no one would get bored.

Lone Capture Library - All Natures Most Mundane Materials [A Colourful Storm, 2025]

A 2021 CD-R by the British artist otherwise known as Malvern Brume, now reissued by the always-fascinating A Colourful Storm label, All Natures Most Mundane Materials is a twist on the usual field recording method. Inspired by a walk between Swindon and Avebury, this is improvised experimental electronic music that sketches out its industrial environs. The walk was done on a highway—cold hard concrete instead of lush fields—with "a lot of jumping into hedges to avoid lorries," as the artist says in the accompanying text. The music is appropriately obtuse, the far-off drones evoking the din of a busy road, and the textured surfaces mirror earth and gravel underfoot. There's a sense of daydreaming that curdles into something slightly sour—like when you realize you've bit off more than you can chew and still have to walk all the way back—but it ends with a wonderfully squiggly synth sketch that sounds a little like coming home. 

Anthony Naples - Scanners [ANS, 2025]

The '00s revival, kinda minimal, but also kinda huge and chunky. Beautiful stuff. I reviewed it in full for Pitchfork here.

Nazar - Demilitarize [Hyperdub, 2025]

"Instead of the rugged landscape of Angola, Demilitarize surveys Nazar’s mind. It’s brighter and more spacious than Guerilla, an inversion of that album’s olive camo-toned world. Here, the kuduro is a little less rough, almost woozy, more like Nazar’s version of a bedroom pop record: close, whispery, introspective." Reviewed in full over at Pitchfork here.