Bandcloud 238

Lots of stuff this week. Some newer than others. We've got banging house and techno, floating ambient, utterly confusing non-club music and inspiring vocal weirdness. 

Doc Sleep - Your Ruling Planet
New set of varied bangers from Doc Sleep. Plenty of gorgeous house numbers, from early set groovers to unhinged jungle-slash-braindance weirdo flexes. There's even a nine-minute ambient jam that unfurls with beautiful eddies and swirls. 

Nancy Drone - Displacement
I've had this on repeat and still don't have a full handle on it. Conditional often puts out supremely weird highly technical music that I sometimes find off-putting so I was late coming to this but it's a real breath of fresh air. It's like a techno album but it's not? Sounds like something you might hear from the likes of Kowton or Laurel Halo at some points, gayphextwin at others, then it gets Aphex Twinny, with impeccable sound design. The artist recently recorded a wonderful mix for Spool's Out, so check that out as well.

Chongqing Community Radio w/Luna Li (synthesis/синтез)
A gloriously chunky and soulful mix of house recorded for radio in China, "outside The Great Firewall". Luna Li has ties to the Synthesis crew that's spread across Germany, Ukraine and China. This mix bangs. 

Rumors Mix Series 005: Edgeslayer
A mix unlike anything you've heard, probably. Edgeslayer, from New Orleans, takes house and rnb tropes and just messes them up entirely, drifting into ethereal moments and heady beats at a moment's notice. Not your everyday club bangers, basically.

Coral Beech - The Rattle
Brand new deep house from Coral Beech, aka Vancouver DJ and producer Braue. Lush, warm, comforting, pulsing. 

Korea Town Acid Live @ Music Gallery 12.14.18
This falls under "free jazz techno" but it's darker and heavier than that would have you believe. Heavy. Dank and lumpen beats with syncopated squawking synth, creaking hi-hats swathed in chunks of swampy sound, I can't even imagine being present for this. 

FOQL - Take A Deep Breath & Dive Into The Bin
Title of the month right here. What I've heard of this release on CGI Records is twisted and gnarly, but this is deft and delicate, its haunting melodies creating digital yearning.

Audrey Chen - Runt Vigor
Very late to this one (it came out early in my sabbatical last autumn), it's a fascinating album of weird vocal tics, strange breathy exhalations, screams, wails, deeply spoken word, dank hiss, strange sound art... I could go on but it's best you listen.

Opheliaxz - Venus
HE VALENCIA tweeted about this artist so naturally I went to have a look. This slow-burning track is a wonder, broken beats floating under gorgeous overhead synth patterns. Check her out. 

Alis - Papercuts
The first new work from Alis in quite a bit is worth the wait. Out on Astral Plane, it features vocals beautifully layered and smooshed to oblivion. The title track is a marvel, this odd vocal sound looped and repeated while her own theme appears between the cracks before sounding forth majestically. 'BCC-me' sounds like a misty lake at dawn, if that's possible. Can I get away with comparing her vocals on 'Rely (Could I)' to Enya? 

Svetlana Maraš at Ars Electronica 2018
A full hour and a half of live performance, tape loops, computers and controllers. I can't begin to describe it but it's murky and unsettling, brilliant and bold. 

Odile Myrtil- Ezili II
Vocalist, DJ and performance artist Odile Myrtil recently dropped this excellent mix full of exciting and invigorating beats for winter. Rattling percussion, Roska Squarks, party beats from around the world. The second half takes things down a notch but what it lacks in tempo it makes up for with vocal intensity. Watch out for Slut Island next week.

MDC.212 Peach
Finally! An utter belter of a mix from Peach. It's 74 minutes (perfect CD length!) and yet it feels like a much longer set, and I definitely mean that in a good way. It's a proper journey of a mix. Lush and airy techno, acid globs, 80s-referencing house jams, percussive rollers, 90s tracks riven with lovely melodies. Peach said this is stuff she wouldn't play out — I don't know if that's a reflection of her style (sadly I was out of the country when she made her recent Dublin debut) but this is all lovely punchy stuff!!