First Floor #130 – Credit Where Credit Is Due
a.k.a. A rare interview with Nguzunguzu, plus a round-up of the week's electronic music news and a big batch of new track recommendations.
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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO NGUZUNGUZU?
Modern bass music is a genre-melding, continent-hopping, tempo-shifting whirlwind, and Nguzunguzu deserve a fair portion of the credit for making it that way.
In recent years, the duo has retreated from the spotlight (and their former home base of Los Angeles), yet their output—most of it from the early 2010s—remains hugely influential. Their early EPs helped reset the parameters of bass and club music, and their DJ mixes, including the beloved Perfect Lullaby series, took things ever further, weaving obscure club sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and beyond with bits of house and techno, the latest strains of UK bass futurism and a healthy dose of hip-hop and R&B. They also produced tracks for Kelela, DJed with M.I.A., helped launch the Fade to Mind label and made a supergroup called Future Brown with Fatima Al Qadiri and J-Cush.
As resumes go, Nguzunguzu’s body of work is pretty damn impressive, but where are they now? Releases slowed in the latter half of the 2010s, and their focus began to shift elsewhere. The duo doesn’t often speak to the press, but they agreed to an in-depth interview with First Floor, sharing updates about their current activities and also reflecting on their past, the various ups and downs of their career and the legacy they’ve left behind.
The conversation was first published earlier this week, and it’s now available for everyone to read here.
ANOTHER THING I’M DOING
Later today (literally one hour from now), I’ll be taking part in Primavera Pro, the conference arm of Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival. More specifically, I’ll be moderating a panel called Leading the New Avant-Garde in Record Labels, in which I’ll be speaking to representatives of the Nyege Nyege Tapes, YEAR0001 and SVBKVLT labels. The talk will be streamed live here (feel free to tune in), and will also later be available as part of Primavera Pro’s online archive.
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.
Thanks to Stranger Things, Kate Bush’s iconic “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” is suddenly everywhere, and has literally returned to the pop charts, 37 years after its initial release. In a new article for The Ringer, Nate Rogers examines how this phenomenon is indicative of wider music industry trends, and specifically how streaming and social media have perhaps permanently altered notions of what constitutes a contemporary “hit song.”
Speaking of streaming, David Turner’s latest deep dive in his Penny Fractions newsletter compares the ascent of streaming to the rise and fall of other music formats—and hypothesizes that its widespread use / popularity is unlikely to fade anytime soon.
Sam Valenti IV is taking a “summer break” in his Herb Sundays newsletter, temporarily pausing its weekly playlist offerings, but he’s filled the void with a couple of great columns on the topic of DJ mixes. The first focuses on what makes DJ mixes such a special format (primarily through the lens of Detroit techno), while the second—which, yes, includes some links to my own writing—asks people from across the electronic music spectrum (A-Trak, Jubilee, FaltyDL, Galcher Lustwerk and Trevor Jackson are just a few of the names) to share their own favorite mixes.
When it comes to crypto, there’s no shortage of critiques out there—many of them valid—but in a thought-provoking new essay, Mat Dryhurst counters the claim that the technology “arbitrarily introduces scarcity to digital media,” arguing that scarcity in digital media has always existed, and that Web3 is simply making visible all of the forces (e.g. financialization) that were previously shielded from public view.
On the other end of the spectrum, this Clive Martin piece for The Face is both a terribly entertaining and terribly depressing take on Web3, calling the metaverse “incredibly ugly, banal, lame” and lamenting how its rise is contributing to the dissolution of our real-world selves.
Writer Cat Zhang continues to be my unofficial Gen-Z music sherpa, and her latest article for Pitchfork dives into TikTok, and specifically how it’s reshaping modern-day artist behavior, label expectations and marketing tactics.
Octo Octa is on the cover of the latest North American edition of DJ Mag, and the accompanying feature, written by Bruce Tantum, digs deep into both her (at times exceptionally nerdy) past and her joy-filled present.
DJ Shadow’s Entroducing is widely hailed as an all-time classic, but in a new piece for The Quietus, Angus Batey argues that its less-heralded follow-up, The Private Press (which just turned 20 years old), deserves a similar level of acclaim.
DVS1 continues to actively spread the word about his Aslice platform—which enables DJs to easily share a portion of their fees with the artists whose music they play—and in a new interview with Thomas Frost for Crack magazine, he shares some of the history behind the project while laying out his philosophy and explaining how the service works.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases that were announced during the past week.
Peder Mannerfelt is launching a new release series called PM+, which officially kicks off today with All in Your Hands, a two-track offering from the shapeshifting Swedish producer himself. It arrives via his own Peder Mannerfelt Produktion imprint, and future installments of PM+ will include something from Carbon 96 (a collaboration between Zoe McPherson and Ciarra Black) and a Pelican Company remix package featuring ZULI and Logos.
When Carmen Villain approached Actress about remixing something from her recent Only Love From Now On full-length, she sent him stems for the entire LP, and what she got back was an idiosyncratic “impression of the album” (i.e. a single, eight-minute-long remix that incorporates elements of various tracks from the record). It’s available now via Smalltown Superound as part of CV x Actress, a two-song release that also includes a previously unreleased Carmen Villain original, “A Year Ago.”
Fresh off his self-released Select Works . vol III, Kansas native Pontiac Streator has a new LP on the way for Huerco S.’ West Mineral Ltd. label. Entitled Sone Glo, it’s due to arrive on June 16, although one of its tracks, “Picture of the Woods,” is already available.
In a move that recalls the seminal DFA Records Compilation #1, the FourFour label (which was launched last year by DFA Records co-founder Jonathan Galkin) has assembled FFR Compilation #1, a collection that showcases the new imprint’s wealth of talent. It drops on June 10 (i.e. tomorrow)—though several tracks have already been shared—and will include selections from Katie Alice Greer, Benoit & Sergio, Black Dice (remixed by DJ Lycox), Matías Aguayo, Cooper Saver, Larry Gus and more.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes from releases 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 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
Prayer “Reflection” (Hooversound)
Prayer “A Love So True” (Hooversound)
As someone who spent of good chunk of his younger years listening to Fugzai, Rites of Spring, Embrace and the wider Dischord Records universe, the words “emotional hardcore” will always remind me of music of that ilk, but I can’t help but think that the term would also be wholly appropriate for the work of artists like Prayer. On his new A Love So True EP, the UK producer once again mines ’90s hardcore (the rave kind, not the punk kind), but he’s clearly interested in more than a mindless night out. Opening cut “Reflection” is stuffed with capital-F feelings, its rumbling Amen breaks countered by sadness-streaked melodic swells and emotive diva fragments. “A Love So True” goes even bigger, both with its beats and its emotions, its tortured vocal refrain repeating “I can’t go on” amidst the song’s cracking rhythms and lush, swooning textures. Prayer seems to intrinsically understand the power of emotional release, and while neither of these songs could be described as mopey, they do feel more cathartic than celebratory, as though whatever joy they contain stems from not from nihilistic partying, but from working some shit out on the dancefloor.
Luca Lozano “Man of Science” (Klasse Wrecks)
In today’s deeply cynical world, making “techno with a message” is often a dicey proposition, but UK producer Luca Lozano impressively threads the needle on “Man of Science,” the title track of his latest album. Relying heavily on a sample of famed astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson—again, something that’s extremely difficult to pull off without sounding like a total cornball—he assembles a squirrely bit of trippy, ’90s-style breakbeat techno, intermingling the song’s sturdy bassline and pert claps with sci-fi synth wiggles and what sound like some sort of alien woodwinds. There’s a lot going on, yet Lozano—whose productions have long been underrated—makes it all work, both for those interested in pondering Tyson’s words on the shifting nature of truth and those who simply want to get freaky on the dancefloor.
Mondkopf “Elevation” (Miasmah)
French artist Mondkopf has been gravitating towards minimalism and drone for years now, but never before has his work been so filled with what sounds like apocalyptic doom. It’s not that his new Spring Stories album doesn’t contain moments of beauty; it’s just that those patches of quiet reflection will suddenly be dwarfed by towering spires of jagged distortion and heart-stopping squall. Guitar is actually the primary instrument on LP opener “Elevation,” and during the song’s opening minutes, Mondkopf patiently meanders, sounding more like a ’90s slowcore band—or even a stripped-down alt-country outfit—than an experimental electronic act. Still, the track does have an arc to it, and once the guitars begin to roar, the music feels powerful and all-consuming, the slow pace of its sludgy blasts only heightening the prevailing sense of menace.
BEST OF THE REST
MISFYA “SYSTEM BUG” (SZNS7N)
Like all the releases on LCY’s SZNS7N label, the new SYSTEM BUG EP—the debut offering from London producer MISFYA—traffics in hard-charging beats and heavyweight basslines, but the record’s title track intriguingly has a little shimmy in its step, offseting its machine-gun snares and low-end growl with hypnotically looping vocal clips and scuttling, almost insect-like percussive bits. The effect is unnerving, and makes an already hair-raising tune feel downright nightmarish.
Bitter Babe & Nick León “Delirio” (Club Romantico)
Hailing from Miami, Bitter Babe and Nick León are just two of the many young artists currently connecting the dots between techno, bass music and various Latin / Caribbean rhythms. “Delirio” is the booming title track of the duo’s new EP, and while it’s anchored by a heavy kick, the song actually features multiple layers of percolating percussion, many of them serpentine in nature. The next time someone says techno is too rigid, put this tune on; its slithering groove should shut them up in a hurry.
Roman Flügel “Jam” (Rekids)
First launched in the year 2000, Roman Flügel’s Tracks on Delivery project initially constituted a short-lived series of just four releases, all of them showcasing a distinct brand of quirky minimal techno. After reissuing that material in 2020, the German producer has now properly returned to the concept with his new Yes People EP, and bouncy standout “Jam” best personifies the project’s playful spirit, sounding like a cross between Robert Hood and whimsical vintage synth classics like Hot Butter’s iconic “Popcorn.”
Voiski “Blazing Star” (Delsin)
French techno producer Voiski has been flirting with trance since long before the genre’s current “revival” kicked in, and his new The End of Fiction EP offers another melodic trip down the rave rabbit hole. “Blazing Star” opens the record, its glittering synths hinting at Italo, but the track ultimately takes a more cosmic path, soaring through the clouds as its fluttering melodies and gurgling acid coalesce into something psychedelic—and truly transportive.
Kincaid “Sight” (Grid)
Parisian label Grid decided to celebrate its first anniversary in style, dropping a new compilation, Da Capo Al Coda, that features tracks from young bass music producers Tristan Arp, Nico, Henzo, Sputnik One, K Wata and several others. It’s an impressive collection of tunes (and talent), and Kincaid’s “Sight” might be the best of the bunch, its jittery rhythms and foggy textures flanked by disorienting vocal samples and flashes of murky, quasi-symphonic strings. It’s not heavy per se, but it is riddled with tension, adding to the sensation of being stuck in some kind of slow-burning fever dream.
Torrello “There” (House of Silk)
A highlight of the new Out of Office album, “There” is a deliciously groovy cut that sits somewhere between slo-mo house, hazy disco and exquisitely chill R&B. There are definite echoes of Mood Hut here, and Washington DC producer Torrello beautifully strikes a balance between the song’s hip-swaying rhythm and its sultry, late-night vocal refrains. What results is laid back, yes, but it’s also brimming with a quiet electricity, the music’s low-key bounce conjuring images of late-night hangs with a newfound love.
Tyresta “Turnsole (Christina Giannone Rework)” (Past Inside the Present)
A new EP of Tyresta originals would have been compelling enough on its own, but the Chicago artist has elected to supplement his new Infinite Branches release with a slew of remixes / reworks from the likes of Patricia Wolf, 36, Ai Yamamoto and others. While most of the selections veer toward the ambient end of the spectrum, Christina Giannone infuses her reverb-soaked take on “Turnsole” with a faint techno pulse; it’s not a club cut by any means, but the metronome-like beat does add to the song’s hypnotic allure, especially as its crystalline melodies slowly begin to dance and flitter, conjuring visions of morning sunlight reflecting off a tranquil country stream.
Two Way Mirrors “The Stopped Clock Tells the Right Time” (Light at the End)
At this point, Thomas Ragsdale practically has a permanent parking space here in the newsletter, but it’s hard not to feature his work again and again when A) he has several different monikers, B) he’s incredibly prolific and C) all of his releases are pretty damn good. Two Way Mirrors is the UK producer’s latest alias, and he describes the new Statues EP as a collection of “sparse drones and space-echo-laden synths.” “The Stopped Clock Tells the Right Time” opens the record on a rather pensive—not to mention undeniably beautiful—note, and the gentle rise and fall of its melodies evokes a sort of melancholy calm.
X.Y.R. “Species of Fishes” (Not Not Fun)
Aquarealm, the latest full-length from Russian synth explorer X.Y.R., is inspired by the world that exists under the sea, and languid LP closer “Species of Fishes” brilliantly taps into the sheer enormity of the ocean. Wonder is the song’s defining emotion, and listening to its soft pulses and spindly melodies, it’s easy to imagine being immersed in water, surrounded by teeming kelp beds and swirling schools of fish.
Madeleine Cocolas “A Memory, Blown Out” (Room40)
Many artists believe that the best songs come together quickly, but the angelic “A Memory, Blown Out” runs counter to that notion, as it’s based upon a vocal loop that Madeleine Cocolas first recorded more than a decade ago. Exuding a sense of serenity and grandeur (yet never sounding pretentious), the lush tune—which largely consists of sonorous layers of the Australian artist’s own voice—is the title track of Cocolas’ new EP, though it’s also slated to appear on her forthcoming Spectral LP.
Wanderwelle “Penance” (Important)
Amsterdam outfit Wanderwelle have billed their new Black Clouds Above the Bows LP as an effort inspired by the ongoing climate crisis, and cinematic album highlight “Penance” is absolutely drenched in a kind of existential dread, its droning trumpets—which have been stretched and manipulated to a point where they sound ominously enormous—blaring with sadness and exhaustion as humanity fails to act in the face of mortal danger.
Nate Archer “Transparent Objects” (100% Silk)
Cam Archer’s film Wild Tigers I Have Known was released all the way back in 2006, but once the rights to the original music elapsed, he enlisted his brother Nate to write a brand-new soundtrack. The timing may be curious, but the synth-heavy music Archer has composed is often delightful. With its bright colors and big feels, opening song “Transparent Objects” hints at vintage new age and Japanese pop, but it also recalls the wide-eyed spirit of ’80s cinema, sounding (in a great way) like the music you’d hear on a VHS copy of a B-grade teen horror flick from 1987.
Joey Anderson “Another Day” (Inimeg)
The music of Joey Anderson has always had a woozy, late-night vibe, but on his new SHEN RING release, the New Jersey veteran has gone fully ambient, leaving his usual house and techno rhythms on the shelf. “Another Day” still contains the lightest hint of percussion—other songs on the record are entirely beatless—but it’s merely a skeletal framework for Anderson’s cool keys and warbling melodies, which emit a soft neon glow as they waft their way through a chilly moonlit night.
BSS “Ed’s Night Shop” (Hivern Discs)
After debuting the BSS project earlier this year with a record on Dekmantel, the Amsterdam producer (who was formerly one half of Beesmunt Soundsystem) has shifted over to Hivern Discs with his new Bredius EP. Like its predecessor, the release incorporates elements of slow-motion chug, synthy sound design and psychedelic techno, and he finds particularly fertile ground on the enjoyably spooky “Ed’s Night Shop,” where the vibe is part haunted house, part X-Files.
That’s all for today’s newsletter. Thank you so much for reading First Floor, 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.)
All the best,
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.