Futureproofing #5: "Some Personal News"

A rundown of what I've been listening for the past week—including new Shed records and some fabulous mixes—with meatier content to resume next week.

Greetings friends,

Some personal news you may have heard already if you follow me on Instagram: this month I started my new full-time job as a Senior Editor at The Infatuation, where I can finally write about my other big passion, food. There I'll be handling expanding the website's coverage in the Southwest US as well as reviewing restaurants in Southern California. To say it's a dream job would be an understatement, so I'm very stoked.

But that, coupled with a two-week trip across Italy—the last gasp of my summer interlude of unemployment—immediately before starting, means it's been a little harder to find to focus on this, writing about Mika Vainio on an Italian regional train be damned. And then it's Thanksgiving! But I wanted to offer something this week before the holiday kicks in. Next week, we'll resume with meatier content on a weekly basis. 

This is relevant. I swear! See below.

For now, I want to start with what will be a standard feature of the newsletter going forward: a weekly listening column that runs down some of my favourite things I've listened to that week, new and old. One thing I learned running a review section with a vastly diminished budget is that release dates aren't always all that important, and in some cases it's nice (for everyone involved) to extend a record's relevance beyond just the one-week period of its release. So, here's what I've been jamming since I got back from Italy. Back next week with a very intriguing interview about the recording process, self-expression and "right ways of being." 

For now:

Not Waving & Romance - Infinite Light / Wings Of Desire [Ecstatic Recordings]

Maybe it’s because I just saw Botticelli’s most famous paintings in person in Florence, but something about these two The Birth Of Venus-inspired Romance and Not Waving albums—one released in May, the other just this month—have really gotten under my skin. The semi-anonymous Romance project has been hit or miss for me. Sometimes it's gimmicky, sometimes it seems like was tailor made for exactly me. (Check out their Celine Dion concept album for an example that hits both ends of the spectrum.) 

The vibe is generally wispy ambient, so conspicuously pretty and lovesick it can sound like it's on the verge of throwing up from sentimentality—or maybe that's just me. But the project's collaborations with London renaissance man (pun unintended!!!) Not Waving have been among the strongest Romance records, and these two, featuring Botticelli paintings on the covers, feel almost ancient. It's a style of ambient far removed from ‘70s B movie nostalgia and adult contemporary radio and more towards classical ideas of musical beauty.

The tracks on these two albums use old-fashioned elements—strings and choir-like vocals—to  conjure up a sound that feels old, but not quite baroque. That would be too simple. Instead, it's a bit like watching an AI try to recreate a beautiful 500 year-old painting, occasionally stuttering and glitching on the way. You know that it's artificial, but it's hard not to be bowled over anyway. What could be more pretty than Gregorian chant smudged to a Cocteau-like shimmer, as on “Anima Mundana?” 

Some tracks, like “Infinite Light,” stretch out towards the ten-minute mark, luxuriating in their own mournful beauty. The melody on “From The Weary Earth To The Sapphire Walls” is what might happen if Stars Of The Lid ever had a part in a Wes Anderson movie. On “Fairest To Behold,” the duo employ looping and delay effects to wrinkle the otherwise pristine surfaces. The most stunning example is “When The Rose Every Petal Doth Unfold,” where an otherwise stuffy string arrangement is boxed in by synths and spurred on by a buried kick drum—you can tell that drum is nasty and distorted, but there’s enough distance that it’s only a distant menace. It's like looking at one of those old paintings and noticing the gritty, uneven surfaces of the paint, or the age on the frames.

I’ll be honest: I prefer Infinite Light, with its clear early music tendencies, to the Wim Wenders-referencing Wings Of Desire, which is more like a tone poem in its slowly unfurling melodies and breathy tones. But both are beautiful. At a time when ambient music is marketed for relaxation and productivity, these Romance and Not Waving albums offer something else—not the solipsistic thrill of isolationism, but instead, the spellbinding feeling of stop-what-you’re-doing-and-listen-to-this. Not too different to seeing a famous 500 year-old artwork in person in all its larger-than-life glory. 

Various Artists - It's Elastic [Fever AM]

Dance music is so sprawling and fragmented that even “techno” refers to what feels like four or five different genres now than anything reliably consistent or overlapping. There’s a certain corner of the genre that has drifted towards rollicking rhythms and bizarre sound design, touches that cushion the impact of hard, fast kick drums by offering something to hold onto—or at least catch your eyes and ears as they whizz by. This style of techno has found a home on Fever AM, whose founders Mor Elian and Rhyw are probably more influential on the current state of techno than many realize, which this compilation makes clear. It’s a mix of aging producers finding new inspiration and fresh blood bulldozing their way into techno, with a gleeful lack of consideration or sometimes even taste.

Listeners will probably gravitate towards tracks by Karenn (AKA Blawan and Pariah, whose “Calm Down Carl” sounds like a thin piece of sheet metal caught in an acid rainstorm), Lurka (delightfully deranged and relatively slow) and Peder Mannerfelt (stripped-down yet so cartoonish I was forced to turn it off at a dinner party), but there are pleasures from the younger names, too. Japanese producer Naco’s “Inu” has a driving, jagged bassline that almost can’t keep up with the garagey shuffle of the drums. “Unhinged” from Capiuz, an Italian producer, sounds like it’s designed to knock wobbly people off their axis at peak-time, with a topsy-turvy drum pattern that makes me think of waves crashing against the hull of a boat.

And then there’s Objekt, as DJ Doomscroll, adding to his recent hot streak with an almost belligerently swung kick drum that bounces its way through a gauntlet of effects and the usual Objekt-y details. It’s remarkably simple for him, and maybe that’s why it came under a new alias, but in its cock-eyed determination on its cartoonishly bouncing drum pattern, it fits right in on Fever AM.

Also: Rhyw's new EP coming out this week is even zaniere.

Kiernan Laveaux - RA.963

Full disclosure: I commissioned this mix before I left Resident Advisor. And I'm happy that I did. Kiernan Laveaux is one of the most original and often strange (musically, not personally) DJs in the US. Her sound has stayed resolutely eclectic even as it’s evolved from a more dubb(step)y place to something more steeped in the tradition of weirdo Midwest and East Coast music. After listening to the mix for the first time, I was surprised looking at the tracklist and seeing so many familiar names, since the music in the mix sounds so discombobulated and unfamiliar. The best way I can describe it is feeling organic, even though that’s a stupid word. But there’s a post-disco rubberiness, a dancepunk bristle, to the rhythms. This RA Podcast is meant as a sort of history of her ten years of DJing, and it’s expansive, sure, but it’s also focused, held together by loose, rippling grooves and oddball vocal hooks rather than anything resembling genre.

CCL - Plot Twist

After years of being one of the most face-melting DJs on the global circuit, CCL is finally emerging as a producer. They’ve made a handful of appearances on compilations for labels like 3024, Allergy Season and Fever AM over the last few years, and then dropped a collaborative EP with Ciel in the summer. Plot Twist, their first full solo release, feels like the producing-DJ equivalent of a debutante ball—but the effect is more like an E’d-up gatecrasher. These three tracks are restless and twitchy, like the burst of energy you get after a night of no sleep to make it through the rest of the day before collapsing. 

“Plot Twist” has the gurgly backbone of one of a Planet Euphorique or Step Ball Chain release, reinforced with occasionally jungly breakbeats and techstep-style zaps of electrified bass. “Strange Attractor” is billowy and light on its feet, with distant vocal samples giving it a mid-’00s flavour. The fast percussion hints at CCL’s love of drum & bass, while the pacey hi-hats reveal their just-as-passionate love for mixing it with techno and house.

But it’s all about “The Plot Thickens,” a collaboration with Ms. Euphorique herself, D. Tiffany. Unapologetically big room, the roving Reese bassline that turns it into a nightmare version of “Mine To Give,” and it’s loaded with details—voices echoing in the background, a cool-as-a-cucumber chord progression that comes and goes, flamboyant stabs, a goofy breakdown preceded by a rewind. The spoken-word section in the middle only notches up the euphoria until it all comes crashing back in replete with twinkling synths. This is the kind of track that would be monstrous if it weren’t so uplifting (Piezo’s remix takes it to a slower, more grumbly place), and all of these contrasting elements and tempos are a pretty good approximation of what goes on in a CCL DJ set.

Tom Morgan - item.cast 036

I listened to this mix—sent to me by my dear friend and music nerd genius Jack Murphy—on my very first commute home from my new job, which was actually longer than the nearly two-hour runtime on offer here. (Yikes!) But it was a wonderful companion, touching on the low-slung grooves of modern tech house and mnml with a sexier, slightly seedier underbelly. Tracks range from cerebral and dubby to wiggly and watery, with plenty of acid, funky bass and intricate broken drum patterns to keep things interesting.

Shed - Applications [Ilian Tape]

It’s surprising it’s taken this long for a Shed release on Ilian Tape, but here we are. And it's a doozy. Where I usually think of Shed tracks as clear-eyed wallops—the drums punching through with focus—here, there’s a layer of noisy industrial grit that feels almost caked onto the drums. On “EMCZ,” it sounds like the kick is struggling through that layer, with hissing hi-hats in the background only adding to the claustrophobia. “UFO2” kicks that dust up into the air, unusually thick and atmospheric, but it gallops forward with a pomp-and-circumstance—and brass-like synths—that wouldn’t be out of place on a Token release.

Somewhere in the middle, both literally and figuratively, is the dub techno-adjacent “TLSQ,” which hits the Shed pleasure center head-on: spiraling synths, filter sweeps and drums that alternately jackhammer and leap forward. It’s one of the most straightforward releases on the Munich label in quite a while, and also one of Shed’s more out-there releases, the kind of marriage of artist and label you can only get an imprint as seasoned as Ilian Tape.

Head High - 2nd-Hand Bassline [Power House]

Surprise! More Shed! This one is far more direct, and in my estimation features one of the best Head High tracks ever. “2nd-Hand Bassline” is irresistible. The typical hydraulic-powered house of Head High and a screaming vocal sample triggered with abandon are cooled off by a percolating dub techno lead that acts like a pressure release valve. The lead dances across the rhythm with the unstoppable force of a Chain Reaction record—think early CR records by Monolake or Fluxion. It’s a chocolate-and-peanut-butter combo that seems so obvious on paper that you wonder why you haven’t heard more of it sooner. And so good that it almost overshadows the surprisingly funky “Agatha” on the flipside, which is presented in an original mix (bump-and-grinding Chicago groove) and a hollowed-out “Dirt Mix” that foregrounds a grubby bassline. Take this with another Head High EP that compiles exclusive tracks from 2022’s mix CD, and it turns out that November was one hell of a good month for Shed.