First Floor #108 – The (Lost) Art of Conversation
a.k.a. The disintegration of music discourse, plus a round-up of the week's news and a fresh batch of new track recommendations.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of of the last week’s most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, mixes, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
It’s not often that a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist gets accused of scamming hundreds of independent musicians, but that’s what happened last week when Benn Jordan (a.k.a. The Flashblub) posted a detailed video alleging that Ian Urbina (a former New York Times writer and author of The Outlaw Ocean) had grossly misrepresented himself in a scheme to collect artist royalties. The whole thing is too complicated to fully dissect here—Rolling Stone’s Elias Leight did a substantial breakdown that’s worth reading—but while Urbina has denied many of the accusations—and initially referred to the criticism as “mass trolling”—he’s also apologized for his missteps and promised to give artists back their music if they no longer want to continue with the project.
As more information is revealed, it does seem unlikely that Urbina purposely engaged in some evil scheme—Jeremy Arnold did some telling reporting on the matter for The Save Journalism Committee newsletter—but his hands aren’t clean here; he definitely made a lot of (serious) mistakes and was utterly unprepared to delve into the music world. More than anything, the whole incident demonstrates how easy it is for things to go wrong when copyright and royalties are involved, and how artists are the ones who generally get the short end of the stick in these matters, even when other parties are the ones acting incompetently.
Resident Advisor has published an editorial by Joe Siltanen—who doesn’t seem to have contributed to the site previously—decrying the upcoming MDL Beast festival in Saudi Arabia as “culture-washing” of the country’s authoritarian regime. The credibility of the piece is undoubtedly dampened by the fact that Resident Advisor took money from the very same festival—which is literally organized by the Saudi government—back in 2019, but the article does claim that the money was subsequently donated to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
With the new omicron variant spreading and COVID case numbers rising, clubs across Europe are starting to close again. Germany is taking a state-by-state approach, but as of today, dancing is banned in Berlin (the government claims that it doesn’t have the authority to actually close clubs right now), and Bavaria already closed its nightclubs late last month. Clubs have also been shut in Belgium and The Netherlands since November (although they’re now allowed to be open until 5pm in the latter country, which admittedly doesn’t help much), and Ireland followed suit yesterday, with clubs there scheduled to remain closed until at least January 9. France has announced new restrictions as well, closing its clubs for four weeks beginning this Friday, December 10. Other countries have added restrictions of their own, and Resident Advisor has a useful summary page that they’ve kept updated as the situation continues to change and develop.
Alvin Lucier, a longtime giant of experimental music, passed away last week at the age of 90. Countless tributes have been written in recent days, but here is the New York Times obituary.
The tech industry is often credited with “saving” music over the past two decades, but veteran music writer Ted Gioia recently advanced an alternate narrative in his Honest Broker newsletter, arguing that music actually fueled the explosion of Silicon Valley, which is now repaying the favor by destroying the music industry’s cultural ecosystem.
Thoughtful critique is something that’s often missing in the crypto world, which is why this article on ConstitutionDAO—literally a group of 17,000 people on the internet who tried (and ultimately) failed to buy a physical copy of the US Constitution—was such a refreshing read. Written by Drew Millard and Kevin Munger and published on Friends with Benefits’ Works in Progress (the online community’s editorial arm), it offers a considered look at how this incident highlights both the potential and the limitations of Web3.
Tim Sweeney recently announced the move of his long-running Beats in Space radio show to Apple Music, and now he’s spoken at length to Megan Townsend about the transition—and his bittersweet departure from WNYU—in a new interview for Mixmag.
THE YEAR OF “YOU’RE AN IDIOT”
PLEASE NOTE: This piece was originally published yesterday and made available to paid subscribers, but the paywall has now been temporarily removed for the next 24 hours. If you’d like exclusive first access to long-form First Floor pieces—and unlimited views of all newsletter content—then please sign up for a paid subscription.
The end of 2021 is right around the corner, and while the pandemic has made it another undeniably strange year, the past 12 months have been filled with intriguing conversations, particularly in the music realm. Following the upheaval of 2020, there remains an appetite for systemic change—or at least the discussion of it—and new conversations about power, privilege, representation, streaming, crypto, blockchain, Web3, the environment and more regularly filled our timelines. Unfortunately though, those exchanges often wound up feeling a lot more like arguments, and not particularly constructive ones, especially as the reductive power of social media incentivized the hurling of insults and the demonization of anyone with a differing opinion.
If 2020 was the year of “tear it all down,” then 2021 often felt like the year of “you’re an idiot,” and that’s not a great place to be for anyone, music fans included. As we get ready to head into 2022, I made an effort to ponder where the proverbial “discourse” is at, how it got there and whether there’s anything that can be done to make it a little less maddening.
To read the complete essay, please click here.
ANOTHER THING I WROTE
I know we’re all drowning in “best of” lists already, but Pitchfork asked me to contribute to their rundown of the the 100 Best Songs of 2021. More specifically, I wrote about Joy Orbison’s “better,” which will almost certainly secure a higher slot on my own personal list (which I plan to publish next week).
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases that were announced during the past week.
After nearly three decades in electronic music, Wolfgang Voigt doesn’t seem like an obvious candidate to drop a surprise album, but that’s exactly what he did last Friday, dusting off his famed GAS moniker and offering up a new full-length called Der Lange Marsch on Kompakt. It’s a beautiful record, and preview clips of its 11 tracks can be heard here.
Like many artists, Matías Aguayo has been relatively quiet over the past couple of years, but the Cómeme founder is set to return in early 2022 with a new EP. Que Si El Mundo, a collaboration with Medellín-based artist DJ Julianna, is slated for a January 21 release, and if they track they’ve already shared (“Micelio”) is any indication, it appears to be a dreamy, almost psychedelic effort.
Following previous outings for NAAFI and Quiet Time, Mexican-American producer Debit has now linked up with UK outpost Modern Love for a new album. The Long Count is rooted in research she made into Mayan wind instruments, the sounds of which she’s reshaped after building her own digital instruments. Before the LP arrives on February 18, a stream of one of its tracks, “2nd Day,” has already been shared.
DJ Lag and Sinjin Hawke have unveiled “Raptor,” a furious club track that’s slated to appear on the former’s forthcoming Meeting with the King album. The LP won’t drop until next year, but the song is available now, as is its accompanying video, and to mark their release, Hawke, Lag and video director Travys Owen all spoke to Crack magazine.
Finn and India Jordan are longtime friends and frequent collaborators, and the two UK talents have joined forces yet again on All About Love / Big B, a two-track EP that’ll be released by Local Action on December 10. The joyous A-side has already been shared here.
Earlier this year, Warp released 94 - 96, a reissue retrospective from famed UK outfit Seefeel, and now the label has commissioned Kenyan ambient artist KMRU to use that music as source material for a new hour-long mix. Entitled Rapture to Rupt, it was released last week as a limited-edition cassette (it’s already sold out), but the digital version is still available here.
Lifted, the experimental, genre-swerving collaboration between Max D, Matt Papich and a rotating cast of friends, will release a new full-length next year. The simply titled 3 includes contributions from Motion Graphics, Jordan GCZ, Jonny Nash, Dawit Eklund and several others, and before it officially drops on February 18, several tracks have already been made available here.
Young Marco has been out of the spotlight for a little while, but the Dutch selector has completed a new EP, I’m Still Mellow, that he’s planning to release via his own Safe Trip label on February 21. Previews of its two tracks can be heard here.
Whoever has been curating Adult Swim’s Singles 2021 has been doing an incredible job all year long, and last week a delightfully wonky new song from Tristan Arp was added to the collection. It’s called “Migration,” and can be heard here, along with the rest of this year’s singles.
MY WIFE HAS BETTER TASTE THAN I DO
My wife Dania is a wonderful person, but she has little regard for my taste in electronic music. Head of the Paralaxe Editions label, she often describes the music I like with words like “cheesy,” “simple,” “predictable,” “boring” and, worst of all (in her mind), “happy.” In contrast, I think she has a fantastic ear, and I’m constantly amazed by the obscure gems she unearths, both from record bins and the dark corners of the internet. Given that, I’ve asked Dania to share some of her finds with the First Floor audience. Each week, she highlights something that she’s currently digging, and adds some of her thoughts as to why it’s worth our attention.
Bridget Ferrill “Harp” (Enmossed x Psychic Liberation)
Hello. Let this one gently carry you away. It’s unpretentious music, 11 minutes of harp from Bridget Ferrill, who encourages people to “listen a little longer, a little slower.” Her new Only cassette was created in 2019 in between her work as a touring and sound engineer, and she’s also a designer of handmade electronics, such as the Anglerfish drone synthesizer (which may or may not still be available). Music aside, the tapes from Enmossed and Psychic Liberation are always beautiful, and are usually hand-constructed out of recycled materials. I have a few sitting on my bookshelf at home.
Follow Dania on Twitter, or check out her monthly radio show on dublab.es.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes that came out during the past week or so. The ones in the ‘Big Three’ section are the songs I especially want to highlight (and therefore they have longer write-ups), but the tracks in the ‘Best of the Rest’ section are also very much worth your time. In both sections, you can click the track titles to hear each song individually, or you can also just head over to this convenient Buy Music Club list to find them all in one place.
THE BIG THREE
SKY H1 “Elysian Heights” (AD 93)
SKY H1 “Labyrinth” (AD 93)
SKY H1 “Arctis” (AD 93)
It’s a real shame that Azure, SKY H1’s long-awaited debut LP, only dropped last week, because the Belgian artist deserves to be all over 2021’s year-end lists. (December releases almost always get snubbed.) That said, irrespective of what accolades Azure ultimately does or doesn’t receive, it’s a fantastic record—I could have easily highlighted more than just the three tracks featured here—and one that also feels impressively cohesive, even as it pulls from various strains of techno, drum & bass, grime, ambient and more.
Much of the album has a sense of cinematic flair, and the dramatic arc of “Elysian Heights” is in no hurry, its bassy swells and ricocheting drums gradually building for two full minutes before SKY H1 segues into a sort of dreamy pop-jungle, her ethereal vocals drifting atop the track’s airy rumble. Gorgeous LP opener “Labyrinth” dispatches the drums entirely, its shimmering synths channeling Aphex Twin at his ambient best, and “Arctis” is another beatless number, its 8-bit melodies taking cues from early grime as SKY H1 fills out the composition with a series of crackly field recordings. Simply put, this is brilliant stuff, and it’s bound to linger in listeners’ memories much longer than any of this year’s “best of” lists ever will.
Ekin Fil “Never Seen” (A Sunken Mall)
Sad piano, sad guitar and even sadder vocals are at the heart of “Never Seen,” a haunting standout from Ekin Fil’s new Feelings LP. Although the song has been slathered in reverb, it still sounds intimate, even as its echoing tones sound like something captured by a handheld recorder placed 30 feet away from wherever the Turkish artist was actually performing. There are hints of folk and shoegaze here, and it’s no stretch to make comparisons to artists like Grouper and Cocteau Twins, but Fil has her own desolate charm, and though her new album was inspired by what the label describes as the “shattering mire of 2020,” few other artists could make hopelessness and uncertainty sound so enticing.
Sully “Verité” (Circadian Rhythms x Future Retro London)
Tim Reaper “Lights Off, Heads Down (Sully Remix)” (Circadian Rhythms x Future Retro London)
Does Sully have an official fan club? If so, I’d like to formally submit my name as a candidate for president. The UK producer (and jungle specialist) has been featured here in the newsletter more times than I can count, and now he’s dropped another pair of absolute slappers. “Verité”—a soulful rumbler that cheekily samples Serani’s classic “No Games”—first appeared on Circadian Rhythms’ 2019 Partisan compilation alongside Tim Reaper’s original “Lights Off Heads Down,” and now both tracks have been reissued by Future Retro London on a new EP where the two artists also remix each other. Sully’s rework nicely captures the manic energy of Reaper’s production, but also boosts its low end, landing on something that sounds like an overcaffeinated trip through the museum of hardcore history.
BEST OF THE REST
Jasper Jarvis “Huff (Tape Sketch)” (Accidental Meetings)
A giddy gem from the massive new Friends & Family Vol. 2 compilation, “Huff (Tape Sketch” sounds like an old Grimes track that’s been reworked for the club by the Fractal Fantasy crew. London artist Jasper Jarvis has an ear for melody—and the song’s sticky vocal loop will likely embed itself in listeners’ heads for at least a few days—and his snapping, trap-indebted rhythm agreeably provides plenty of bounce.
Tom Carruthers “Cyclone” (L.I.E.S.)
L.I.E.S. isn’t really known for bleep techno, but label boss Ron Morelli clearly wasn’t concerned about genre definitions when he came across the retro-flavored, MPC-crafted music of Tom Carruthers. The new Non Stop Rhythms LP compiles tracks from several different Carruthers releases—the English producer is almost absurdly prolific, and dropped something like a dozen EPs over the past year—and reaches a high point on “Cyclone,” a stuttering cut that applies a ’90s UK sound palette to a slithering Chicago house groove.
Israel Vines “Keeping (Extended feat. Camille Altay)” (Tresor)
Raised in the American Midwest, Israel Vines has a genuine techno pedigree, and while he rarely adheres to the genre’s traditional boundaries, the deliciously hazy “Keeping” is one of the more straightforward cuts on his new Voices EP (which also happens to be the LA-based artist’s debut for the iconic Tresor label). The artwork depicts an abandoned road late at night, and this “Extended” version of “Keeping” perfectly captures that subtly spooky vibe, its steady, static-kissed chug taking on an almost psychedelic quality thanks to the ghostly tendrils of Camille Altay’s voice.
Griffit Vigo “Ipani” (Maloca)
Gqom has been bubbling for a few years now, but with DJ Lag’s high-profile Meeting with the King album slated to arrive next year, it feels like the South African genre is poised for a major breakthrough. That’s good news for Griffit Vigo, another one of the style’s originators, who’s just flexed his muscles on the new Art Is Talking EP. The shuffling “Ipani” is one of the record’s triumphant standouts, its brawny bass tones pumping as the track’s seasick rhythm fully wiles out.
DJ Polo x NKC “Yeyeyeye” (Even the Strong)
Do you like drums? Bristol artists DJ Polo and NKC sure do, and “Yeyeyeye,” the title track of their new EP, is a top-shelf percussive showcase. Joyously rattling along (and accentuated with some subtly slinky melodies), the song’s spirited thwacks confidently connect the dots between UK funky, hard drum, gqom, amapiano and a litany of other drum-heavy club sounds, driving home the point that bangers don’t always need a thundering kick to lead the way.
Sansibar “NRJ” (Kalahari Oyster Cult)
’90s raving meets tweaky electro on “NRJ,” a high-flying romp from Sans Musique, the sophomore LP from Finnish producer Sansibar. With its spacey, trance-like synths and deadpan vocal (which literally consists a woman semi-seductively saying “NRJ” over and over again), the song has some major “tripping out while staring at a blacklight poster” vibes, but its wooshy melodies and spirited breakbeats are also perfect for dancing the night away at a moonlit forest rave.
Farren Laen “Reality” (Laen Disc)
The opening number on NYC artist Farren Laen’s new To Will One Thing EP might be called “Reality,” but the song’s aesthetic ultimately feels a lot more like fantasy, its disembodied vocal refrains cooly gliding alongside a procession of ethereal synths and gurgling acid lines. That said, this isn’t something for the chillout room, and thanks to the track’s sturdy house foundation, “Reality” comes a lot closer to a pleasantly bumping waking dream than a snoozy afternoon nap.
HOLOVR “Transcension” (Indole)
When a song is called “Transcension,” it’s not really a surprise when it clocks in at more than 11 minutes. All four tracks on HOLOVR’s new Ethereal Forces EP are brightly colored, long-form synth epics, and the London producer has compellingly channeled the spirit of ’90s ambient house here, his astral pads, trippy vocal snippets and gloopy melodies all reminiscent of acts like The Orb—back when they were at their kaleidoscopic best.
Perila “Memo” (Self-released)
It’s not easy to stretch a pair of quiet vocal loops into a compelling, five-minute-long track, but that’s exactly what Perila has done with “Memo,” an enchantingly vulnerable selection from her new Survivors Kit EP. Making the most out of her sparse source material, the Berlin-based Russian dunks her voice in reverb and sets it adrift, its lazy swirl resembling the graceful revolutions of an autumn leaf floating atop a whirlpool. (And for those seeking something more properly “produced,” Perila puts the same primary vocal loop to use on creaky EP opener “Barefeeter,” which is rather beautiful in its own right.)
Mosca “Thin That Blood Down” (Rent)
Is there a tempo that Mosca can’t master? The versatile English producer has slowed things down to 100 bpm on “Thin That Blood Down,” and while he’s intriguingly touted its potential as a halftime tool—at least for those DJs brave enough to take things all the way to 200 bpm—the song itself is a patiently swaggering beast, its heavy, bass-fortified stomp taking cues from the darker edges of cumbia, dancehall and other Caribbean rhythms.
Exael “Infinite Shore” (Self-released)
The name Exael is often associated with a specific strain of richly textured (and occasionally unnerving) ambient, but on “Infinite Shore,” the Berlin-based artist has created something more upfront, aggressive and, perhaps most importantly, percussive. It’s not all gloom and doom—the track’s plush layers of melodic distortion are warm and inviting, but Exael proves rather adept with skittering rhythms and taut basslines, her rhythmic convulsions recalling both vintage dubstep and the more abstract end of UK bass music.
Davis Galvin “Pulling With” (Self-released)
Open, the new LP from Davis Galvin, is essentially an ambient record, but it’s not meant to be background music. The Pennsylvania producer insists that the album ought to be played “loudly and fully, with as little visual stimulation as possible.” Immersion is his goal, and even though hypnotic album opener “Pulling With”—which sounds like a gamelan track that’s been slowed down and soaked in reverb—might initially seem like a low-key affair, once you’re caught in its snare, you’ll likely have a hard time finding your way back out again.
Ian Wellman “It Crept into Our Deepest Thoughts” (Room40)
On the Darkest Day, You Took My Hand and Swore It Will Be Okay might be one of 2021’s most dramatic album titles, so it’s no surprise that Ian Wellman has cooked up a batch of appropriately heavy tunes. The first three minutes of “It Crept into Our Deepest Thoughts” is stark and somber, its lurching bellows sounding like ancient creatures that have been awakened—against their will—after centuries of slumber, yet the track becomes even more intense during its closing passage, when the drones give way to a cacophonous array of noise, static and chaos.
Rival Consoles “Pulses of Information” (Erased Tapes)
Rival Consoles’ new Overflow LP was originally composed to accompany a contemporary dance production, and while the soaring strings of album highlight “Pulses of Information” do have a certain “classical” character, the track itself never feels stuffy or overly conventional. Driven by bold, almost cinematic synths, it’s uncluttered, but still has a distinctly “big room” sensibility, its fluttering melodies bringing to mind the work of artists like Four Tet, Clark and Nathan Fake.
DD 2 “Infinite” (The Final Experiment)
Most artists struggle to come up with one creatively successful alias, but René Pawlowitz (best known as Shed) has more than a dozen to his name. DD 2 is the German veteran’s latest moniker, and if “Infinite”—the A-side of his new 12”—is any indication, it seems to be focused on a notably melodic strain of techno. Although it never quite dips into full-blown trance, the track isn’t shy about big melodies and even bigger emotions, its steady pulse taking a clear backseat to the song’s rousing synth acrobatics.
That brings us to end of this edition of First Floor. As always, thank you so much for reading the newsletter, and I do hope 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.)
More next week,
Shawn
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn or drop him an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.