First Floor #240 – Creeping Toward Uncertainty
First Floor #240 – Creeping Toward Uncertainty
a.k.a. Summer festival announcements are coming earlier and earlier, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh crop of new track recommendations.
Music festivals are in trouble. I’ve written about this before—and have opined that it’s not necessarily a bad thing—and with each passing month, it does seem that more and more promoters are starting to hit the panic button.
Just last week, the CEO of Burning Man published a post pleading for community support, as a massive dip in 2024 ticket sales has left the event facing an enormous financial shortfall. Black Rock City—which, confusingly, is the name of both the Burning Man site and the organization that runs the event—is currently looking to raise $20 million in “charitable donations,” and apparently needs the money by the end of the year, before ticket sales for its 2025 edition begin.
I’m no fan of Burning Man. Having spent much of my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, I witnessed the inanity, pseudo-radicalism and general techbrofication of Burner culture first hand. From where I’m sitting, the whole enterprise is a social, ethical and environmental nightmare, so if it were to suddenly go kaput, I wouldn’t shed a tear. That being said, the fact that a gargantuan, globally recognized event like Burning Man is not just in trouble, but what looks like financial dire straits, should be a warning sign for festivals everywhere. At the very least, it’s an indicator of how fragile the festival business has become.
An essay I published earlier this week looked closer at that fragility, specifically focusing on “festival creep,” a name I’ve coined to describe how summer festivals are seemingly announcing their line-ups earlier and earlier each year. At the time I published it, all of two days ago, I was honestly a bit worried that maybe I had jumped the gun, and made too big of a conclusive leap based upon the actions of just a few festivals. But since then, the announcements have just kept coming. Both Defected Croatia and Outlook Origins unveiled their summer 2025 line-ups, and Dimensions—another Croatia-based event run by UK promoters—chimed in as well, promising that their initial line-up reveal would happen next week. And while Sónar Lisboa may not technically count as a summer festival—it’s scheduled for April—organizers yesterday shared its first wave of confirmed artists, nearly six months before the event’s actual start date.
The race to sell summer festival tickets, it seems, it very much on, and given the way things have been going in the live music industry, not everyone is going to win.
What’s driving this shift in promoter tactics? And what will it mean for the actual in-person experience of those who actually choose to attend these festivals? I addressed those questions in greater detail in that essay I mentioned, which you’ll find below. Read further, and you’ll come across the rest of today’s First Floor digest, which includes a lengthy assortment of news items, new release announcements and suggested reading links. There’s also a big batch of new track recommendations, all of them taken from releases that dropped during the past week, and if that’s not enough, Los Angeles talent Danny Goliger has popped in with a special guest recommendation.
Things always seem to be busy in the world of electronic music, especially this time of year. (The October 2024 release calendar has been absolutely BONKERS.) This past week has been no different, so let’s jump in and take a look at what’s been happening.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Every Tuesday, First Floor publishes a long-form piece that’s initially made available to paid newsletter subscribers only. But if you’re not part of the paid tier, now’s your chance to see what you missed! The latest piece is now (temporarily) open to everyone, and it’s an essay examining how and why summer festivals have been announcing their line-ups earlier and earlier each year. Moreover, while this phenomenon may be a natural response to an industry-wide slowdown in the live music sector, the article questions how the strategic shift will impact the attendee experience—and whether it might ultimately leave consumers even less satisfied than they already are.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the last week’s most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
Is this the week that the culture—and the music press in particular—officially turned on Two Shell? The hijinks-obsessed UK duo’s antics are certainly wearing thin with the staff of the Guardian, as a new feature by Shaad D’Souza details how the group offered the paper their first-ever in-person interview and photoshoot—and then sent a pair of obvious decoys in their place. Furthermore, while the “anonymous” pair’s real identities have long been known to Redditors and other online obsessives, the Guardian made a point to publish their legal names in the piece, and also detailed D’Souza’s visit to Two Shell’s weekly ShellTek night, describing the event as “sparsely attended.”
The following day, Will Prtichard’s review of the Two Shell album popped up on Pitchfork, and while it provided a generally positive assessment of the record, it also acknowledged that the group is “annoying and self-congratulatory” and that their “jokes don’t always land.” How does Two Shell feel about any of this? Based on their behavior during the past few years, there’s a good chance that they’re laughing hysterically, but it’s nonetheless interesting that industry tastemakers—who played a huge role in hyping the group in the first place—now seem to be growing visibly tired of the duo’s seemingly endless appetite for schtick.
The lovely new Félicia Atkinson album—which will be mentioned again later in today’s newsletter—does seem to have gotten a bit lost in the absolute avalanche of releases that have dropped during the past month. But that thankfully didn’t stop Stephan Kunze from interviewing the French ambient / experimental artist in the latest edition of his Zen Sounds newsletter. Their conversation of course touches on the new LP, but it also digs into Atkinson’s musical backstory and her work as the co-founder of the Shelter Press imprint.
Speaking of ambient / experimental music mainstays, Sarah Davachi is the subject of a new profile that Daniel Dylan Wray put together for Crack magazine. It focuses on her latest album, The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir, her personal musical history and all the time she’s spent traveling around the world to play different organs.
The Loft is one of the most storied parties in the history of dance music, but as detailed in a new investigative feature by Nyshka Chandran for Resident Advisor, the question of who controls—and who should control—the long-running NYC event has become intensely fraught in the aftermath of founder David Mancuso’s death in 2016. At present, two factions are laying claim to the party, and Chandran does an impressive job unspooling the history of what’s gone down. If there’s one drawback, it’s that her piece focuses much more strongly on the perspective of just one faction, but that’s at least partly because the other faction largely declined to speak publicly about the situation.
Are rotary mixers actually better? Plenty of DJs (mostly nerdy ones) will swear that they are, but Declan McGlynn—who continues to be one of electronic music’s best tech-focused writers—takes a closer look at the question in an informative new article for DJ Mag.
OBLIGATORY BOOK MENTION
My first book is out now. It’s called First Floor Vol. 1: Reflections on Electronic Music Culture, and you can order it from my publisher Velocity Press. However, if you’re outside of the UK, I recommend that you either inquire at your favorite local bookshop or try one of the online sales links that have been compiled here.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Although Objekt launched his new Kapsela with a reissue of his eccentric 2014 banger “Ganzfeld,” the Berlin-based artist promised that he would quickly follow it up with some brand-new material. Last Friday, that new material suddenly appeared in the form of a two-song EP called Chicken Garaage. The record is available in full, and the same day it arrived, Pitchfork published a conversation between Objekt and Philip Sherburne, in which the former spoke at length about his detailed approach to production and how dance music has changed in the post-pandemic era.
Photek is widely hailed as a jungle and drum & bass legend, but it’s actually been quite a long time since the British producer was making tunes aimed at the dancefloor. That, however, will soon change, as Photek this week announced that he’s put together a new series of five 12-inches, all of which are dedicated to drum & bass. Exact details (e.g. titles, release dates, etc.) have not been shared, but he did say that two editions of every record will be issued, each with slightly different music, and also commented that if there’s demand, the singles will eventually “lead to Photek albums.”
Skee Mask has dropped his latest album-length collection of previously unreleased tunes. D is available now as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp, and its 11 songs, all of which are unmastered, were produced by the German artist between 2016 and 2020.
Experimental guitarist Jules Reidy, who recently popped on Longform Editions, has now signed to Thrill Jockey, and will be debuting on the label next year with a new album called called Ghost / Spirit. The LP, which “documents a major shift in Reidy’s understanding and experience of earthly and divine love,” won’t arrive until February 21, but opening track “Every Day There’s a Sunset” is already available.
Penelope Trappes has a new album on the way. The Brighton-based Australian—who, in the interest of full disclosure, released a tape on my wife’s Paralaxe Editions label earlier this year—has titled the new full-length A Requiem, and bills the LP as both “a musical service in honour of the dead” and a sanctuary in which she could “explore familial chaos and history.” First single “Sleep” has already been shared, but One Little Independent will issue the full album on April 4.
Fresh off their debut performance at this year’s Unsound festival, AKA HEX—a new collaboration between bass explorers Aïsha Devi and Slikback—will soon be releasing the project’s first EP. Do the Rite Thing / Hex on Fire is scheduled to surface on November 22 through Devi’s Danse Noire imprint, but the record’s fire-breathing A-side is available now.
Speaking of unexpected collaborations, Bambounou and Priori have joined forces on an upcoming EP called C.R.U.S.H. In lieu of the usual promo blurb, the announcement came in the form of a “secret love letter” describing how the record came together at Priori’s studio in Montreal. The EP’s title track has already been shared, and the remainder of the release will follow on November 22 via Bambounou’s own Bambe label.
Led by Laksa and re:ni, the re:lax label has quickly established itself as force to be reckoned with, at least within the confines of the ever-expanding bass continuum. Last Friday, the London imprint dropped re:ni’s Thousand Yard Stare EP, and it wasted no time before announcing its next offering, this week unveiling an upcoming EP from Laksa called WONDA. Its title track is available now, and the complete release will be issued on November 21.
Om Unit and James Bangura quietly dropped their collaborative Rushing 1621 EP back in June, and now the Local Action label has decided to build upon their transatlantic teamwork, commissioning a remix EP that includes reworks from Hodge and JIALING. It’s available now.
DANNY GOLIGER HAS BETTER TASTE THAN I DO
First Floor is effectively a one-person operation, but every edition of the Thursday digest cedes a small portion of the spotlight to an artist, writer or other figure from the music world, inviting them to recommend a piece of music. Today’s recommendation comes from Danny Goliger, an LA native who’s spent years bouncing around the city’s music scene as a DJ, producer, drummer, keyboard player and studio engineer. A lover of house, techno, electro, jungle and pretty much all variants of bass music, Goliger displays his versatility every month as the host of the Backwards Looking Forwards show on dublab, but it’s also evident in his fast-growing, banger-filled catalog. He’s already released music on labels like Scuffed, Dirtybird White Label and 3024, and will soon add UK outpost Faux Poly to that list when his Say I Do EP drops next month. Listening to his music, it seems clear that the dancefloor is Goliger’s primary passion, but here, he’s elected to share one of his more introspective favorites.
Lewi Boome “Softbody” (Twin System)
I’m drawn to musical contrasts—juxtapositions of bright and warm, dense and spacious, hazy and clear, and sustained versus percussive sounds. These contrasts create an auditory illusion of depth and suggest tension between opposing forces. “Soft Body” by Lewi Boome exemplifies this balance and has captivated me for six months. Delicate sounds contrast with exaggerated elements, such as a kick drum that causes the entire composition to duck and reassemble after each hit. Warm, hazy synthesizers feel distant, like a melody viewed through a filtered lens, while the close percussion feels intimate and personal, evoking ASMR. These contrasts impart a sense of depth and spaciousness despite minimal use of reverb or echo. The overall effect is a world imbued with subtle melancholy and gentle loneliness, reminiscent of a rainy cityscape.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes from releases that came out during the past week or so. Click the track titles to hear each song individually, or you can also just head over to this convenient Buy Music Club list if you prefer to listen to them all in one place.
Flying Lotus “Ajhussi” (Warp)
After teasing listeners with a couple of stray singles during the past few months, Flying Lotus this week unveiled a surprise new EP, Spirit Box, that Warp is saying might be “his most idiosyncratic project thus far.” While the vocal guest spots from Dawn Richard and Sid Sriram are likely to grab people’s attention, what’s most intriguing about the record is its inclusion of two songs—“Ajhussi” and the previously released “Ingo Swann”—that can legitimately be described as house music. The former is the superior effort, and though its pitched-up soul and swinging, ramshackle rhythm channel the heyday of the LA beat scene, its cool tones and electro-funk flirtations recall the early work of Steven Julien—and the countless ’80s greats that inspired him.
Stenny “Assegai” (Ilian Tape)
Ryan James Ford “Peaktime Regret” (PLUR)
As a general rule, the techno which garners the most acclaim is that which can hailed for its sci-fi sheen and attention to detail. But there’s another side to the genre, one that’s just as rewarding, a lot less polished and a whole lot rowdier. “Assegai,” the closing track on Stenny’s new Maha EP, is a marauding beast, and its swaggering rhythms top 150 bpm as the Italian producer’s twisted synths ominously sweep across a dimly lit horizon. “Peaktime Regret,” a highlight of Ryan James Ford’s new Fuzz Gathering EP, doesn’t move as quickly, but it might be the most uncouth thing the Berlin-based Canadian has ever released. (It also provides quite the contrast to his chime-filled “Earshot,” another standout that sounds like a more booming—and functional—take on what Alexi Perälä has been doing with his Conlundi material in recent years.) Built atop hard-knocking drums, “Peaktime Regret” proudly pushes its crunchy textures into the red, reveling in distortion—and impressively doing so without ever losing sight of the underlying groove.
Madam X & Cartridge “Hoodlum FC” (Kaizen)
Making the transition from DJing to production can be difficult, and considering that Madam X—who contributed a guest recommendation to First Floor back in August—has already spent more than a decade doing the former, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to feel a bit apprehensive about Homecoming, her long-awaited debut EP. Yet there are no signs of nerves on the new record, which contains collaborations with bass-wielding talents DJ JM, Andy Martin, Doctor Jeep and Cartridge. The last of those collaborations, the grime- and dubstep-indebted “Hoodlum FC,” is the most potent of the bunch—and the only one whose serrated bass tones strike with the brute force of a cinderblock to the face. In other words, it’s a bruiser, and before you even recover from its first hit, Madam X and Cartridge are balling up their fists and getting ready to knock you on your ass again.
PIGMNT “Calippo” (The Sweet Shop)
Whether you prefer to say that UK funky is “back” or never went away to begin with, there’s no question that its syncopated, Afro- and Caribbean-influenced rhythms are currently blossoming into new and exciting forms. A few months back, I dedicated an entire edition of my monthly Second Floor column to the phenomenon, but anyone looking for a simpler place to start would be well advised to check out The Sweet Shop, an annual series of compilation EPs that began in 2021. Started by Scratcha DVA, DJ Polo and the Tribal Brothers (a.k.a. LR Groove and Razzler Man), the project eventually welcomed UK upstart PIGMNT into the fold, and his “Calippo” appears on the newly released The Sweet Shop Vol. 4. Taking cues from funky icons Crazy Cousinz—the recurring “woo” sounds awfully familiar—and the slinky grooves of gqom and amapiano, the song is a twirly, laid-back stepper, and a clear sign that while London might be funky’s primary hub, the genre’s sound palette has become more international than ever before.
Moin “Anything but Sopo” (AD 93)
Fugazi is without question one of the most influential bands of the past 40 years—both musically and philosophically—and yet, there aren’t many contemporary acts of note that really sound like them. Moin, however, very much does, and while the UK trio have surely grown tired of the comparison—in a 2022 First Floor interview, they said that Fugazi wasn’t a “primary influence”—they’ve now filled three LPs with enough angular guitars and defiant attitude to satiate even the most ardent of Dischord diehards. Between that and the various Slint-isms evident in the group’s more ponderous moments, it’s clear that Moin belongs somewhere on the post-hardcore family tree; should we start describing them as post-post-hardcore? (Probably not.)
You Never End is the band’s latest full-length, and it’s also the first one to feature real vocalists, as opposed to repurposed (and largely unidentified) vocal snippets. With guest turns by Olan Monk, James K, Coby Sey and Qatari artist / filmmaker Sophia Al-Maria, the record easily could have wound up sounding disjointed, but like its predecessors, You Never End is still a producer-led effort, with core members Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews steering the material (including Valentina Magaletti’s impeccable drumming) in a unified direction. The album—which is excellent, and populated with numerous highlights—is a touch moodier and more introspective than past Moin outings, but its emotions are just as immediate; it’s as though they’ve realized that anger and disappointment can be effectively communicated without slipping into unbridled fury. That said, “Anything but Sopo” is probably the most overtly rocking track on the LP, and its bare-bones combination of crunchy guitars and largely unintelligible yelps are compelling enough to make even the dustiest post-hardcore heads want to find a local basement show and hop right into the pit.
Zero Key “Zero Key 02” (False Aralia)
Selfsame “Selfsame 02” (False Aralia)
With Resident Advisor declaring dub techno to be one of summer 2024’s hottest trends and seemingly every music journalist on the planet shoehorning Huerco S. mentions into their reviews any time a track includes even the smallest bit of vaporous fuzz, it’s only a matter of time before the most annoying people you know start waxing poetic about Basic Channel, GAS, Deepchord and a supposed dub techno “revival.” It’s going to be terrible, and also hilarious, particularly when industry vultures start swirling around Purelink or whoever else they think they might be the next big thing. In the meantime though, there is a lot of deliciously dubby music making its way into the world, much of it defiantly weird, and it seems that new LA outpost False Aralia is already tapped into the source.
Headed up by Brian Foote, a longtime kranky affiliate who also heads up Peak Oil—home to the similarly dub-centric oddities of Topdown Dialectic—the new imprint is meant to catalog “the work of a group of North American collaborators centered around the studio practices of Izaak Schlossman.” It officially kicked off last week with with two EPs, Zero Key’s False 01 and Selfsame’s False 02, and while the credits for both records list the exact same group of contributors, there’s no real explanation of what separates the two projects. That ambiguity will surely send some Redditors happily scurrying down their online rabbit holes, but what matters most is the music itself, which is essentially a sticky strain of gaseous dub. And in proper dub tradition, it’s also focused on the idea of versioning, as both False 01 and False 02 offer multiple takes on a single set of tripped-out sonic ideas, embracing the drift that comes with gently altering tempos, textures and beat patterns. “Zero Key 02” is smudgy and almost weightless, while “Selfsame 02” is a percussion-led chugger, but both tunes exude an almost hypnotic allure, contributing to what is already a rather auspicious start for False Aralia.
Man Rei “If It’s Fine” (Somewhere Press)
The opening track on the stellar new Thread album, “If It’s Fine” is dream pop done right. Consisting of little more than Man Rei’s voice and some shimmering layers of reverb, the song has an almost devotional quality, connecting the dots between Cocteau Twins and the church choir. (There’s some Enya in there too, and much of Thread would be right at home inside inside a stately Irish castle.) “If It’s Fine” is ethereal, yes, but it’s also emotionally present, and intensely so, the music’s beauty fueled by its creator’s open-hearted vulnerability.
Félicia Atkinson “The Healing” (Shelter Press)
Maybe I’ve been swayed by the painting of snow-capped mountains that adorns the cover of Félicia Atkinson’s new Space as an Instrument LP, but the record has a decidedly chilly feel. Opening track “The Healing,” like much of the album, is primarily rooted in the piano, but the French ambient / experimental veteran deftly (albeit metaphorically) takes the instrument out of the concert hall, surrounding her mournful notes with field recordings. Unpolished as they may be, these recordings—which capture whispers of birdsong, faint breezes, rustling leaves and what sounds like the crunching of footsteps—only add to the composition’s quiet elegance, a quality that’s further enhanced by the poetic cadence of Atkinson’s softly spoken voice.
Nour Sokhon “Here birds come close” (aural conduct)
Against the backdrop of the ongoing bombardment of Lebanon, it’s tempting to view an album called Beirut Birds (طيور بيروت) solely through the lens of the present moment, but that would be doing the work a disservice. Created over the course of six years, Nour Sokhon’s latest LP takes a longer view of her homeland and its history, reflecting on themes of migration, displacement and conflict. At the record’s core are a series of interviews with both repatriates and members of the Lebanese diaspora, which the Berlin-based artist then chopped up and combined with field recordings and her own sound design. Oscillating between calm and chaos, the standout “Here birds come close,” like much of the album, employs both collage and songcraft, the power of its percussive rattle and not-quite-ambient expanse bolstered by the presence of a voice that’s not only unmistakably human, but actively wrestling with the complexities of being Arab in the modern world.
Concepción Huerta / Hara Alonso “memoria” (Superpang)
First Floor readers may remember Concepción Huerta from the guest recommendation she shared here in the newsletter a few months back. The Mexico City-based composer / noisenik has long shown a fondness for collaborations, and her latest endeavor, towards the melancholy of a future, was created alongside Stockholm-based Spanish pianist Hara Alonso. “memoria” opens the release and quickly sets a cinematic tone, the track’s subdued opening moments gradually swelling into towering monoliths of ever-shifting textures. It’s imposing at times, especially during the song’s distortion-laced back half, but it’s also arresting, and kind of beautiful, even during those moments when the duo’s tonal swings inspire the same sense of vertigo one feels when peering off the edge of a skyscraper.
Tristan Arp “life after humans” (Wisdom Teeth)
Speaking of Mexico City, that’s where Tristan Arp—who’s now returned to New York—got started on his latest full-length, a pool, a portal. (In fact, the record’s first single, “ways of being,” is a collaboration with Mexico City-based cellist Mabe Fratti.) Created during a time when much of the day-to-day discourse is focused on how the world is headed toward destruction, the album takes a different, more optimistic path, imagining a future “in which nature and machines collaborate to rewild and search for new modes of being.” The title of LP standout “life after humans” seems to indicate that Tristan Arp doesn’t necessarily think that humans need to be part of that future—take that as you will—but the song itself is delightful. Like much of the album, it was born out of long-form improvisations and edited down from a single take, but even with a runtime that approaches 11 minutes, the music never drags or feels overly repetitive. On the contrary, it’s downright spritely, with twinkling, new age-infused melodies and disembodied vocal fragments jauntily bopping atop a foundation of perky post-IDM rhythms.
That brings us to the end of today’s First Floor digest. Thank you so much for reading the newsletter, and, as always, I do hope that you enjoyed the tunes. (Don’t forget, you can find them all on this handy Buy Music Club list, and if you like them, please buy them.)
Until next time,
Shawn
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Twitter, or you can just drop him an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.