First Floor #113 – Prepare Your Inboxes
a.k.a. Thoughts on Bandcamp Fridays, plus a complete round-up of electronic music news and a big batch of new track recommendations.
IS IT TIME TO RETIRE BANDCAMP FRIDAYS?
PLEASE NOTE: This essay was originally published on Tuesday and made available to paid newsletter 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.
Tomorrow is Bandcamp Friday. Are you happy about that? When Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond recently announced that the initiative—in which the company waives its usual 10-15% cut of sales on the first Friday of each month—would resume and continue through June 2022, the news was greeted with widespread praise from the music industry. And why not? During a time when Spotify is dealing with yet another round of terrible press, Bandcamp can be—and frequently has been—held up as the veritable “good guys,” an artist-friendly company that’s not only genuinely concerned with doing the right thing, but has also backed up that concern by putting millions of extra dollars directly into musicians’ pockets.
That certainly sounds great, but nearly two years after Bandcamp Fridays first started, is anyone looking at it closely? Is it something that artists—or even fans—are still excited about, or even enjoy? More importantly, is it actually benefitting the artists who need the most help, or is it simply bolstering more established acts (and labels) whose name recognition (and PR budgets) help them cut through the noise? How have Bandcamp Fridays affected release dates, promo campaigns and creative workflows, and has that influence been positive? Bandcamp itself has certainly benefitted from the initiative, as both its image and profits have soared during the past few years, but is that money actually being reinvested in the platform’s (frankly substandard) interface?
I worked through these questions (and more) in an essay I published earlier this week, and you can find it here.
p.s. The essay also has some thoughts on the current Spotify situation, and I promise they go beyond the usual “Spotify is bad” narrative.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of of the last few weeks’ most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, mixes, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
It feels like hundreds of Spotify-related articles, think pieces and diatribes—most of them condemning the streaming company for not taking a stronger stand against Joe Rogan’s podcast and COVID disinformation—surfaced this week. (Even the White House weighed in on the matter.) As I said above, I shared some of my own thoughts as part of my essay on Bandcamp Fridays, but this Pitchfork piece by Andy Cush, which highlights the “missed opportunity” of the current Spotify discourse, is one of the better articles that’s been published during the past few days.
Web3 enthusiasts are no strangers to opposition from the music world, and their efforts to build trust in crypto technology haven’t been made any easier by HitPiece, a start-up that seemingly obtained artists’ music from Spotify (without asking said artists’ permission) and began offering that music for sale as NFTs. (The company has since insisted that it was only offering single and album artwork, not music.) Pitchfork has published a pretty thorough rundown of what’s happened so far, and while there’s a lot to unpack, it’s telling that HitPiece has both scrubbed its site of all NFT content and publicly stated that it’s “not a scam.” As of now, most musicians remain unconvinced.
Like many publications, First Floor frequently mentions Web3 these days without explaining exactly what that term means. Hopefully that’s not leaving too many readers confused, but anyone seeking a basic (and not overly technical) run-through might want to check out this explanatory primer that Rhys Thomas has put together for The Face.
Japanese news and culture website Nippon.com has published a delightful profile of Okuda Hiroko, a longtime Casio employee who in 1980 literally programmed the preset rhythm track that would eventually become the Sleng Teng riddim—one of the most iconic riddims in the history of dancehall music.
Ben Cardew’s retrospectives for DJ Mag have become essential reading for anyone interested in deeper dives into iconic electronic music releases from the ’90s and early 2000s. His latest piece tackles Come with Us, an often-overlooked 2002 LP from the Chemical Brothers that (somewhat surprisingly) reinvigorated the UK duo’s career.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases that were announced during the past week.
UK producer Loraine James has a new alias, Whatever the Weather, a vehicle where she can embrace “keyboard improvisations and vocal experimentation, foregoing percussive structure in favor of shaping atmosphere and tone.” The project’s self-titled debut album is coming via Ghostly International on April 8, but the first single, “17°C,” is available now, as is the song’s strobe-filled video.
Plonk, the new album from Huerco S., is due to arrive on February 25, but ahead of that, the native Kansan—who I interviewed last week in the newsletter—has delivered a remix of Carmen Villain’s “Subtle Bodies.” The original version of the song will appear on her upcoming LP for Smalltown Supersound, Only Love from Now On, which is coincidentally also scheduled for a February 25 release.
Passarani (a.k.a. Marco Passarani, one half of Roman duo Tiger & Woods) will be releasing a new full-length, The Wildlife of the Quieter Ones, on March 4 through Aus Music. Ahead of that, one of the album’s 17(!) tracks, “Theme from FFOM,” has already been shared.
Heavy-hitting Manchester bass producer Walton has teamed up with Lith Dolina (an offshoot of the AD 93 label) for his next LP. Entitled Maisie by the Sea, it’s slated to drop on February 26, but two tracks from the record can already be heard here.
It’s a testament to my own post-hardcore past that I still think of Jacob Long as “that guy who used to be in Black Eyes and Mi Ami,” but he’s been making incredible (and mostly ambient) music as Earthen Sea for a long time now, and he’s got a new album lined up for the Kranky label. Ghost Poems won’t arrive until April 8, but one track from the LP, “Rough Air,” is available now.
DJ Stingray 313’s F.T.N.W.O. album received plenty of critical plaudits when it was first released in 2012, but the full-length, an effort “conceptually centered on conspiracy theory, science, prepper (doomsday preparation / survivalism) and social commentary,” is perhaps even better suited for 2022. As it happens, the Detroit electro veteran is prepping a full reissue of the LP on April 11 via his own Micron Audio label, and ahead of that, he’s already offered up one of its tracks, “Outsourced.”
Jay Glass Dubs has unveiled a new alias, Wild Terrier Orchestra, “a newer, freer incarnation” inspired by poetry, free jazz, free improvisation and traditional Greek and Byzantine music. The project’s debut album, Even the Chimera, will be released by the Haunter label on March 25, and excepts from the LP can be heard here.
Fresh off the release of last year’s Your Own Power album, Canadian artist Priori has assembled an all-star remix EP. Coming via the Naff label on April 18, Your Own Power Remixes will contain reworks from Donato Dozzy, Aurora Halal, Bambounou and Priori himself, along with a DJ Python remix of the song “Oyl,” which has already been shared.
Editions Mego founder Peter Rehberg unexpectedly passed away last year, but a new compilation has been released in his honor. Entitled Get This: 32 Tracks For Free - A Tribute to Peter Rehberg, it’s available now as a “name your price” release on Bandcamp, and includes music from KMRU, Russell Haswell, EVOL, Mark Fell, Electric Indigo and many others. All proceeds will go towards Editions Mego, which is still working to release the final records Rehberg had commissioned before his death.
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.
zdps “upstairs / downstairs” (Self-released)
Hello everyone. You might have noticed that I’ve been absent the past few weeks. I’ve been spending more time working on my own music rather than I have listening to other people’s stuff, so from now on I’ll be a little more sporadic with posts here in the newsletter.
As it happens though, this week I released a song that I wrote with some other Barcelona artists and friends (Phran, Ylia and a Moroccan multi-instumentalist named Zine Larhfiri), and it’s the first time my vocals have been recorded on a piece of music. What was meant to be a one-off song for a friend’s video slowly turned into a band, and it sounds very different than all of our individual projects. My vocals were the last element to be added; I just happened to be visiting the studio that day, and they asked me to record something. I didn’t have any lyrics prepared, but I was reading a book on Can at the time and remembered that when Malcolm Mooney had a nervous breakdown, he was repeatedly singing the words “upstairs, downstairs.” That phrase came to mind when I started recording—I was very nervous—and it ultimately became the title of the song.
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 last week or so. The ones in the ‘Big Three’ section are the songs I especially want to highlight (and therefore 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
Slikback “I Wish You Were Real” (Self-Released)
Slikback is easily one of the most talented (and prolific) bass music producers out there right now, and while there are probably plenty of labels who’d love to release his music, the Kenyan artist prefers to go it alone, offering up all of his music as “name your price” downloads on Bandcamp. The two-track My Imaginary Friends and You is his latest EP, and it opens with “I Wish You Were Real,” a high-energy trap hybrid powered by booming bass, rapid-fire hi-hats and glowing neon synths. There are shades of AraabMUZIK at work here—minus that artist’s predilection for trance samples—but this isn’t some half-assed knockoff. “I Wish You Were Real” is the type of tune that could rile up all sorts of crowds, and if Hollywood ever cooks up a Knight Rider reboot that’s set in Atlanta, this track could very well be the show’s theme song.
Jacques Greene “Leave Here” (LuckyMe)
I know that Kingdom already released an album called Tears in the Club a few years back, but if we’re being honest, does anyone in dance music do sad better than Jacques Greene? “Leave Here,” the closing number on his new Fantasy EP, showcases the Montreal artist at his emo best, diving deep into his feelings—and tugging at heartstrings with the song’s fuzzy bass swells and Burial-esque, tweaked R&B vocal refrains—but never wallowing in the muck. There’s trauma to process—and Greene is a master at capturing the way that our minds will often inflate even the smallest personal dramas and anxieties into what feel like Herculean struggles—but catharsis seems to be the end goal, which is perhaps what makes songs like “Leave Here” so rewarding. (The music’s smeared textures and melodic elegance certainly help too.)
The Ambush “Casablanca” (Love International)
Vibes of Rhythm “Thrill Me (Trance - Paradise Mix)” (Love International)
Although COVID has kept Croatia’s Love International festival on the shelf for the past two years, its organizers have managed to go ahead with a new installment of their excellent compilation series. Berlin-based Italian DJ and crate digger Budino is at the helm, and The Sound of Love International 004 just might be the series’ strongest edition yet, touring through the wierder corners of new age, ambient, proto-house, EBM and more. Each selection leaves behind a satisfyingly trippy set of footprints, and I honestly could have posted half the tracklist here—Budino’s curation is that strong—but have instead focused on just two songs.
“Casablanca” is a woozy 1994 tune from The Ambush (a.k.a. German trance and techno legend Oliver Lieb), and while it has a definite new age tilt, it’s also highly percussive and full of sparkly synths, making for something that’s probably best suited for twirling on the edge of the dancefloor. More upbeat—and even more sparkly—is “Thrill Me (Trance - Paradise Mix),” a surging 1992 cut by Dutch duo Vibes of Rhythm (who incidentally never released another record). Occasionally dipping into a Fourth World sound palette, the track has something of a forest-rave vibe, and sounds like an obvious (and notably carefree) predecessor to the torrent of progressive house that would follow throughout the rest of the ’90s.
BEST OF THE REST
The Range “Bicameral” (Domino)
This is just a great pop song. The first new material from Vermont-based producer The Range since 2016, “Bicameral” is still rooted in dance music, with bright colors and skittery breakbeats that land somewhere in between Bicep and (early) Disclosure. That said, it’s the track’s vocal—sampled from a song by Eritrean singer Bemnet Tekleyohannes—that does the heavy lifting here, exuding a glittery, almost gospel vibe while also teeming with a heart-tugging sense of longing and melancholy. Processing sadness rarely feels this good—or sounds this catchy.
Eve Defy “La Temple Du Soleil” (Illegal Afters)
Hailing from Seattle—a city whose electronic music scene is often overlooked—Eve Defy makes quite the impression with their first EP, Illegal Afters 03. Full of decidedly non-linear rhythms, the record is highlighted by “La Temple Du Soleil,” which pairs twitchy drum patterns with blurred synths and a stuttering array of disembodied vocal snippets. Part hyperactive electro and part moody vaporwave, it’s something of a rare bird, but it’s compelling all the same.
aircode “Spores” (Alien Jams)
One of many bright spots on Grounded, the ambient(ish) debut album from UK artist aircode, the meticulous “Spores” is streaked with tension, its spooky piano, groaning textures and scuttling percussion all adding to the unnerving sense that something terrible is lurking around the corner. Fleshed out with gut-rumbling bass blooms and swirling patches of static, the song borders on scary-movie territory, but like any good horror auteur, aircode makes it all but impossible to turn away.
Peter Kirn “Ceremony of Mal Intent” (Industrial Complexx)
Although he’s best known as the driving force behind the indispensable Create Digital Music site, Peter Kirn has also proven to be a skilled producer and sound designer over the years. His latest album, 4Q246, fully embraces the darkness, and “Ceremony of Mal Intent”—one of the LP’s more aggressive tunes—offers up a fervent maelstrom of jagged industrial noise and guttural rumblings. It’s impressive stuff, reminiscent of artists like Hiro Kone and even Emptyset, but Kirn has smartly put his own spin on things, mainly by cranking up the chaos.
Muckers “Highway (A303 Mix)” (Circle Dance)
Casual whimsy isn’t a popular trope in electronic music these days, but it’s at the heart of “Highway (A303 Mix),” a breezy, good-humored and subtly psychedelic standout from Muckers’ new Dingly Dell EP. Bursting with color and powered by a steady motorik pulse, it sounds like something a krautrock band like Neu! might have cooked up—if they were high on mushrooms and cruising through the English countryside.
Dylan Forbes “Ride Da Flange” (Haŵs)
Flying the flag for plush progressive house, Dylan Forbes seems to have the sounds of the late ’90s and early 2000s in his veins. “Ride Da Flange,” the shimmering opening cut of his new Mind Expander EP would have fit nicely on a label like Hooj Choons (or Lost Language, its trance-oriented offshoot) back in the day, but song’s pillow-soft pads are just as satisfying now, cooly gliding atop the proceedings as Forbes’ sturdy kicks and wiggly hints of acid chug across the dancefloor.
Roska “Count Me Out Fam” (Roska Kicks & Snares)
The rowdy rhythms of UK funky will (obviously) always be associated with places like London, but “Count Me Out Fam,” the serpentine lead track on Roska’s new Ice Cold—his first instrumental EP in five years—has a surprisingly Middle Eastern vibe, layering what sounds like a mizmar (a traditional woodwind instrument that’s also known as a zurna) over the song’s high-stepping percussion. Roska is often at his best when he strips his tunes down to the studs, and “Count Me Out Fam” is a testament to the power of two things: killer drum programming and keeping it simple.
Volruptus “Pyrolatry” (Tripalium)
Most First Floor readers are likely familiar with the term “nosebleed techno,” but what about “nosebleed electro?” That’s an accurate descriptor for “Pyrolatry,” the muscular title track of Icelandic artist Volruptus’ latest EP. Humming along like a lawnmower that’s been filled with rocket fuel, the rave-ready song has a furious, almost manic energy, its whirling, rotor-like rhythms evoking images of a roided-up teenager feverishly doing pushups as an old Joey Beltram mixtape blares out of a nearby boombox.
Salomo + Reece Walker “First Touch” (Long Vehicle)
“First Touch” isn’t a banger per se—it’s far too chill for that—but there is something anthemic about the tune, which can be found on the new Bumper 2 Bumper EP from Leipzig producers Salomo and Reece Walker. With its swinging, UK garage-indebted drums and intermittent nods to classic house, it’s something of a patchwork effort, at least stylistically, but what makes the song truly stand out is its sticky vocal hook, which sounds like something lifted from an R&B summer jam.
Bow Street Runner “The Fear” (Sub Code)
If “The Fear” was a more polished—or more “serious”—tune, it wouldn’t be nearly as good. Taken from the new Murderous Style EP, it’s equal parts David Rodigan and “James Brown Is Dead,” a ramshackle bit of ragga hardcore that cheekily taps into the rambunctious spirit of makeshift early-’90s raves and old-school pirate radio broadcasts. It’s also FUN, throwing all notions of caution, genre and even taste to the wind and instead embracing the pure joy that a proper dance can bring.
Romance “Crying Is the Only Thing That Gets Me Through” (Ecstatic)
Once Upon a Time, the latest release from the mysterious (and overtly sentimental) Romance project, is a tribute to Celine Dion. Yes, that Celine Dion, whose music has been transformed into what’s described as a collection of “post-vaporwave crybient zoners.” On paper, it’s a ridiculous prospect, and in lesser hands, such an undertaking would likely be disastrous, but Romance somehow strikes gold, particularly on EP closer “Crying Is the Only Thing That Gets Me Through.” A genuinely beautiful composition, its symphonic swells and radiant, long-form melodies coalesce into something that’s both cinematically grand and emotionally tender.
Sebastiano Carghini “Lingua” (Total Stasis)
Based on the response to last week’s Huerco S. interview, there are many fans of zoned-out, ambient weirdness amongst the First Floor audience, and all of those folks should absolutely dive into As Long As I Go, the new album from Sebastiano Carghini. Exploring dubby textures and smudgy underwater sonics, the Milan-based producer hits a high note on the warbling “Lingua,” a rippling number that twists and bends like silly putty, its ever-shifting dimensions narcotically luring unsuspecting listeners into a disorienting (albeit undeniably pleasant) vortex.
Maya Shenfeld “Mountain Larkspur” (Thrill Jockey)
There’s something ghostly about “Mountain Larkspur.” A song from Maya Shenfeld’s dazzling debut album In Free Fall, it’s actually a collaboration with James Ginzburg (a.k.a. one half of Emptyset), and its otherworldly vocal melodies come courtesy of the Bethanien Youth Choir, whose performance (it was actually a rehearsal) was recorded at an empty pool in Berlin. Still, it’s Shenfeld and Ginzburg who apply most of the magic here, stretching those vocals into a sort of sonic raincloud, blending in some delicate strings and bathing the whole thing in soft static. What results sounds downright devotional, even if it is a bit haunted.
Jonathan Fitoussi & Clemens Hourrière “Murmuration” (Transversales Disques)
Möbius, the third album from Jonathan Fitoussi and Clemens Hourrière, is based on the French duo’s exploration of the Buchla synthesizer, and while the LP is full of spellbinding, Suzanne Ciani-esque modular moments, “Murmuration” takes things up a notch by adding what sounds like “real” drums to the mix. The percussion lends the song a slightly jazzy feel, recalling the work of post-rock outfits like Tortoise, not to mention ’70s krautrock legends like Can. It’s still music for blissing out, but it’s also something that’ll inspire you to tap your toe while you’re doing it.
Aleksi Perälä “FI3AC2263020” (AP Musik)
Aleksi Perälä just won’t stop. The Finnish artist continues to be one of electronic music’s most prolific producers, and while that can be maddening, he has thankfully changed up his m.o. a bit with CYCLES, a series of releases that kicked off in December. Largely dropping techno from the equation, the music pushes his signature melodic sparkle to the forefront, resulting in something that sounds like a twinkling, arpeggio-rich variant of ’80s new age. “FI3AC2263020,” which appears on the new CYCLES 4 山, floats across more than 11 minutes of tweaky, chime-filled serenity, and no matter how burnt out you might be on Perälä—the man has literally issued dozens of releases over the past year or so—there’s no denying its allure.
That’s it for today’s edition of First Floor. Thank you so much for reading the newsletter, and 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.)
Have a good week,
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.