Hi. Took a week off work and actually felt really distanced from music! Commuting and sitting at a desk all day both have their perks, after all...

Those Damn Bloodsuckers - Those Damn Bloodsuckers
Scuzzy noise. Distorted Max Schreck as a background image. An Archer vocal sample? Gentle piano. Delicate synths. Bandcloud catnip. Some dank screams in there too.

Olga Wojciechowska - Maps And Mazes 
Really beautiful fusion of piano, voice and reverb. Originally written for various pieces of film, theatre and dance, here they stand together and really work alongside each other, showing the singularity of vision of this Polish composer and performer. 

Various - ROH!P01/ Dub Affairs Vo.
Cool collection of dubby techno. I can't really put it better than that I'm afraid.

Various Artists - when suddenly the ground shake ... the blackbird in me coming out by (comfortzone)
Huge collection, featuring artists already on my list of favourites (Chra, LCC, Shelley Parker) and a big load of names that are entirely new to me.  

Circular Ruins - North of The Sun
Discovered this from the Norman mailout, but I note that Tristan played a track from it on Spool's Out Radio this week (I've missed the last two, my bad). Norman called it "unearthly synth ambience" but I think it's v grounded — seems like monastic darkness, medieval melodies churning up against stargazing curiosity. 

Local Action - Radar Radio Takeover - Dec 6
Huge archive here, some eight hours from the extended Local Action family. Obviously I'll direct you first towards Talbot Fade, but there's a real wealth of great stuff in there. Take time.

EB Radio Presents - Lena Willikens
Lena Willikens excels in that strange sort of dark and cold field of robotic techno. This mix for Electronic Beats isn't much different than you'll expect but no less excellent for it. Until that final curveball of a final track, ooh wee.

Melbourne Deepcast - MDC.145 Sassy J
Gorgeously deep mix from the excellent Sassy J. Kind of discoey, kind of housey, but utterly infectious from start to finish. In the attendant interview she offers a loan of her TTT tape to anyone who wants to hear it: how kind!

Tara Transitory Aka One Man Nation - Live At Elevate 2015 (extract)
Great find via Feminatronic, wholly dark and ominous stuff. It feels like it's moving towards structured beats territory but shies away from that, leaving the listener slightly unnerved, but having one's expectations confounded like that is always welcome. Since it's an extract, one might hope there's more to come.

Good Genes Tapes 02 : Solaris to Panthalassa (C90)
This has been sitting in my SoundCloud likes for ages, and I've started into the first one a few times, but I only got through the whole thing at last this week. Good Genes are a London outfit who deal in "not for profit dancing", and for this tape they provided a mix themselves on one side, and drafted in Firecracker head House of Traps for the first. Each mix deals in dark and unsettling electronics, with GG going towards Eastern Punk and other such noisy avenues. 

Via App - Live at Trans Pecos 12-3-15
Via App, who provided a killer release for 1080p recently, shared this live set that I'm assuming is from last week, not last March. It's tagged as #slowburn, starting at a sinister 85bpm,  She moves through some different modes but it doesn't get much faster than that. Dank.

It's all dark and cold this week. By way of an apology, check out this glorious track that was played by Anthony Naples on Beats in Space.