This week I read Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler, a dizzying tale of a young woman working in a fancy New York restaurant, and all the excitement that goes with that. I kind of hated it, but couldn't put it down.

Zoom Mix # 7 Naomi & Kins
Zoom is an online record store and mix series based in Seattle. The latest mix comes from LA DJs Naomi Menezes and Kins and features slamming house with a 90s flavour — most of it is unfamiliar to me but Basement Jaxx's 'Flylife' features towards the end. Think rugged ghetto acid, high-powered percussion, 'Vamp'-style organs. Perfect for warming you up and getting you going on a Friday night. 

Mary Yalex - River EP
This release on Kann "delivers a distinctive balancing act between bleepy ambient listening and free thinking dancefloor material". That's a fair summation. I'm completely won over by the clicks and claps of the opening track, the mournful melody that sings throughout. 'Night Bus' is a half-stepper that lurches like the titular transports as it stops and deposits and collects its passengers. 'River' heads towards emo-melodic-techno, perhaps it's a bit too nice, but overall the release is solid. 

Dream~cycles - Live Set for Cork City Gaol @ Cork Sound Fair
Dream~cycles performed at Cork Sound Fair recently, and she's shared a rehearsal recording with us. "The music has all been made site-specifically for Cork City Gaol, formerly a women's prison in the years 1878 to 1923. Inmates included members of cumann na mban, such as Countess Markievicz. Extracted pieces of her 1909 'Speech to Women' can be heard throughout this set and are still relevant today. Women's rights is still a work in progress in Ireland." Important words. The radio snippets that feature towards the end of this performance are particularly powerful and harrowing.

Hunter Lombard - Eris EP
New on Jack Dept, which always comes correct, we have a release from Hunter Lombard. It's thrilling breakbeat laced with gorgeous synths that sound as if rattling pipes of varying sizes are being played like a giant homemade marimba. 'Raeh' combines the thumping energy of techno with spacey melodies from electro and trance. Two remixes from Kim Ann Foxman transform this track, taking it into other worlds.  

Yearning Kru - teemer
I'm not even sure what to say about this one. The name Yearning Kru always immediately makes me think of MC Moose on that Stanton Warriors mix I shared a few weeks back — this goes out to my raving crew. It's one guy though, with ties to Quantum Natives and Planet Mu. This album is a hodge-podge of sounds, with plenty of field recordings coming up against blobs of charming synth work and raucous guitar and heavy door clanks. Reversed vocals, freaky tape stuff. Lumpen noise. As I said, I don't know. But it's cool.

Red Hook Grain Terminal - Inorganic
Also cool is this release on the relatively new Panatype label. The artwork is clean and futuristic, while the sound is muffled and confusing, like Boards of Canada or one of those albums that riff off Japanese TV ads or something. sOME OF IT bangs. soME OF ITE DOESN'T. It's sad and gloopy. Dude isn't from New York though. JSYK

rxdazn - rxp_004
rxdazn kindly sent me some tunes recently, I played one of them on DDR last weekend. Then he set up a SoundCloud and shared the tracks there. This is the one I played. It opens and flowers like a time-lapse of a beautiful sunrise, life and death in a few minutes. 

DEBBY FRIDAY - BITCHPUNK
"SEX! POWER! UNBRIDLED FEMININE AGGRESSION!" That's what you get here. Short sharp blasts of punk rap, electro-stomp noise somewhere between EDM, hard house, grime, artistic poetry, who knows what. It bangs hordt. 'Void' sounds like menacing techno peppered with vibraphonic scales, stunningly produced and perfect for any dance floor. 'Medusa' plays with similar sonics while plucking from blues rock tendencies. You haven't heard anything like this in a while, so enjoy it.