First Floor #138 – Brands Are Paying for Music Journalism, but What Exactly Are They Buying?
a.k.a. Resident Advisor has a new creative agency, plus a round-up of the week's electronic music news and a new slate of track recommendations.
A QUICK SCHEDULING NOTE
I’ll be taking one last quick summer break from the newsletter next week, after which the normal First Floor publishing schedule will resume.
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THE WELCOMING OF BRANDS INTO MUSIC JOURNALISM
Last week, Resident Advisor officially added a new branch to the company’s scope of operations: its own in-house creative agency. As reported in Adweek, the new venture is called 23:59, and will be led by RA’s “recently appointed chief brand and creative officer Kazim Rashid, with Italian fashion house Bottega Veneta as one of its founding clients.”
Launched as “an incubator for ideas, creativity and culture” and touted as “the leading solution for brands wanting to connect with the huge global electronic music and nightlife community,” 23:59 might seem like a significant (and potentially eyebrow-raising) addition to RA’s mission. In reality though, the change may ultimately be more cosmetic than concrete. The company has been partnering with brands for years, and while the establishment of its own “creative studio” may not seem particularly journalistic—let alone something in line with electronic music’s foundational DIY spirit—it’s something that prominent media outlets (including Vice, Dazed, Crack, The New York Times and other publications too numerous to list) have been doing for years.
What’s driving this? And as other revenue sources continue to decline, what does it mean for media outlets—and the journalism they produce—when their owners and parent companies are increasingly looking toward brand partnerships as way to keep the lights on? The answers are complex, but I put together some thoughts on the matter in an article that went live earlier this week. That piece is now available (temporarily) for everyone to read in full here.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the last week’s most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, mixes, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
In the aftermath of this year’s Dekmantel, which took place in Amsterdam this month following a COVID-induced two-year layoff, its organizers have been filling up the festival’s ALL ACCESS page with additional content. (In truth, several features and interviews were actually published before the event, all of which are still available at the same online hub.) Much of the new stuff consists of festival photos, artist portraits and brief video clips of various performances, but there are also some full recorded sets from acts like DJ Lag, Sherelle, Carlos Souffront, Yu Su and others, plus some interviews with the likes of Helena Hauff (by Rachel Grace Almeida), Sherelle (by Gabriela Helfet), Eris Drew (by Leendert Sonnevelt) and more.
Hudson Mohawke released a new album last week—more on that later—and he’s also granted an interview to Dazed, speaking to Günseli Yalcinkaya about the record, life in Los Angeles and his newly sober lifestyle.
As the growth of AI technology continues at a seemingly exponential rate, discussions about its potential applications—both good and bad—in art and music have started to become more intense. Seeing that, Holly Herndon—an artist who’s been actively exploring the possibilities of AI for years—announced earlier this week that she’s launching a new organization “to help artists navigate this new AI era.” The organization is called Spawning, and while the full details will apparently be shared soon, it does already have its own Twitter account, along with a newsletter signup for those interested in receiving updates.
Shelter Press co-founder Felicia Atkinson, whose beautiful Image Language LP dropped back in June, is the latest artist to take part in The Quietus’ Baker’s Dozen feature series, sharing 13 of her favorite albums with writer Alex Rigotti.
First Floor has sung the praises of Pitchfork writer Cat Zhang many times, which is why it was exciting to see one of her pieces explored in great detail in the latest edition of Notes on Process, a series from the Music Journalism Insider newsletter in which Todd Burns teams up with a music journalist, opens up a Google doc and dissects one of their articles. In this case, the article in question is Zhang’s illuminating recent look at the rise and role of Discord in music and fan culture, which was originally published in May as part of Pitchfork’s Music and Technology feature series.
In the wake of SoundCloud’s recent layoffs, Attack magazine has put together an (oddly unbylined) overview of the company’s various economic ups and downs. The piece also speculates about where things are headed and how layoffs fit into its leadership’s vision for SoundCloud’s future.
Earlier this year, Maelstrom put together what he described as the first “on chain” electro / techno DJ mix—he was also interviewed about the project here in First Floor—and now the French artist is working on a new Web3 endeavor. He’s calling it the Stems & Twigs Mix, and though it won’t premiere until next week, it’s another DJ mix which he’s assembled using 46 different stems (e.g. drum loops, basslines, vocals, guitars, synthesizers, sfx, etc.) that he was sent by artists who wished to participate in the project. Using blockchain technology, every single stem creator will receive a percentage of the revenue when the mix goes on sale next week as a limited-edition NFT series. (Just FYI, the NFT price is listed as .07 ETH, which is currently worth about $129.)
Elijah—another artist who’s been interviewed here in the newsletter—has gained quite a following with his efforts to share music industry knowledge via his “yellow squares project” on social media, but now the Butterz co-founder has been tapped to bring his wisdom to a more formal setting: the classroom. As reported by Resident Advisor, he’ll soon be joining London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for a three-year term, during which time he’ll give guest lectures as a community fellow.
Iconic Berlin nightclub Tresor will soon be releasing a new book, Tresor: True Stories, which it describes as “the first printed excavation of [the club’s] legendary history.” Filled with various remembrances and more than 400 “never before seen photographs, flyers, faxes and other artefacts,” it will be available on September 9 in both English and German.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Kicking off a new series of seasonal releases on her Magic City label, Jubilee dropped a summer-themed two-tracker called sunscreen last week. The brightly colored title track can be heard here, and though the release is not yet available on Bandcamp, it can be purchased at Beatport and streamed via all the usual platforms.
Although most of the tracks on Doss’ celebrated 2021 EP 4 New Hit Songs were geared toward the dancefloor, the much-loved “Strawberry” was more like a slice of electronic dream pop—until now. Yesterday, the NYC artist released a new “Singin’ Club Mix” of the song via LuckyMe, a version which keeps the original’s fuzzy textures intact while upping the tempo and adding a more bumping beat.
Slackk has publicly quit music multiple times, but it never quite seems to stick, and now the UK producer (and former Boxed co-founder) has a new album on the way. Nice One will be released on September 2, and he’s already shared a bit of the lead track, “Swimmer,” as part of a mesmerizing video clip of a sea turtle.
Manchester producer Finn—who was interviewed here in the newsletter last year about his Mixtape Club project—has teamed up with fellow UK party-starter DJ Q on a new single for Local Action. “Speedy Gs,” which the label describes as a “UKG masterclass,” is out now.
Following stints in London and Berlin, Australian artist Carla dal Forno has returned to her homeland and completed her third album, Come Around, which is slated to arrive on November 4 via her own Kallista imprint. Ahead of that, the post-punk-indebted singer-songwriter has shared the LP’s title track, along with an accompanying—and very red—music video.
Detroit dub-techno veteran Deepchord has linked up with the Soma label to release two new EPs and his forthcoming new album. The latter is entitled Functional Designs and is due to surface on September 30, but one track from the LP, “Strangers,” is already available. The EPs, Functional Extraits 1 and Functional Extraits 2, will drop on September 16 and October 14, respectively, although “Shale,” the opening cut from Functional Extraits 1, can be heard now.
German dub / ambient / glitch mainstay Pole has readied a new full-length, one that’s being described as “one of the most overtly jazz-leaning records” he’s ever done. The new album is called Tempus and will be issued by Mute on November 18, but one track, “Grauer Sand,” has already been shared along with its accompanying music video.
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
Hudson Mohawke “Behold” (Warp)
Hudson Mohawke “Come a Little Closer” (Warp)
Hudson Mohawke “Intentions” (Warp)
After two years of lockdowns and club closures, 2022 is essentially the first year that dance music is truly “back,” but that return hasn’t yet included many surefire, “everyone agrees this is fantastic” albums. Over the past few days, however, the initial response to Cry Sugar, the latest full-length from Hudson Mohawke, seems to indicate that the wait for “the next great dance music LP” may be over. Billed as the Scottish producer’s “own demented OST to score the twilight of our cultural meltdown”—given that he’s been living in LA for the past several years, he’s had something of a front-row seat—the record falls into a long tradition of documenting American collapse, but Mohawke is one of the few artists capable of telling that tale with this kind of frantic energy and candy-coated sound palette.
If he were 10 or 15 years younger, HudMo would likely be branded as a hyperpop producer, and while his back catalog undoubtedly played a role in forming that genre’s uniquely spazzy DNA, Cry Sugar by and large finds him running circles around his musical progeny. With 19 tracks and a runtime of more than an hour, Cry Sugar is very much a “bigger is better” effort, but that largesse is key to the album’s appeal. Intensely bright and anything but subtle, it careens between hip-hop, happy hardcore and various points in between, as indebted to old-school rave as it is that odd period during the late 2000s when Kanye West and Ed Banger briefly occupied the same creative space.
The LP’s high points are too numerous to list in full, but “Behold” joyously layers sped-up gospel verses atop thundering rap beats, while the dazzling “Come a Little Closer” sounds like a turbo-charged trap cut, albeit one made by someone whose primarily melodic sensibility comes from Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.” The fluttering synths of “Intentions” recall Classical Curves-era Jam City—along with that artist’s clear affinity for the electro-infused funk and R&B of the 1980s—but Mohawke filters those influences through the hyperactive prism of ’90s glitch and IDM, all the while leaving the song’s soulful “call out your name” vocal refrain to grow increasingly triumphant. There’s a lot to take in, but HudMo’s music has always had a certain regal grandiosity, and after delivering Cry Sugar, he’s once again earned the right to take a bow in front of his adoring subjects.
Sunfear “Fuck You” (Dark Entries)
Sunfear “Lily and I” (Dark Entries)
Grouper. Hope Sandoval. PJ Harvey. The most recent HTRK album. Those are big acts to follow, but Octopus, the stellar debut full-length from Sunfear, fits snugly into the lineage of these iconic artists. Electronic only in the loosest sense of the world, the LP primarily deals in hazy atmospheres and jagged guitar chords, its smeared textures and ragged emotions making it seem as though every track was recorded in a smoke-filled drinking hole at 3 a.m. There’s an obvious bleakness to the music—the relatively minimal instrumentation helps with that—but it’s undeniably arresting and also rather beautiful, even on a track like “Fuck You,” where Sunfear’s warbling voice longingly emotes in the distance as the song’s bruising, alt-country-adjacent guitar riffs take center stage. “Lily and I,” another LP highlight, retreats further into dreamland, its patient, slightly more polished approach allowing the radiance—and the sadness—of the song’s vocals to really shine through.
Thugwidow “Conduct Yourself with Some Fucking Dignity” (Western Lore)
Thugwidow “Light on Earth” (Western Lore)
Western Lore is touting the new Seventh Circle of Litness LP as “a dizzying collection of rave-inspired dance tracks that have no earthly business sitting together on a record,” and while that may or may not be a sound promotional strategy, it goes a long way toward explaining the stylistic gap between these two songs, which are amongst the album’s best. “Conduct Yourself with Some Fucking Dignity” is more of an upfront brawler, its rattling drums and oozy bassline forming a rather imposing underbelly for the track’s ever-phasing vocal loop, which Thugwidow clearly pilfered from a braggadocious hip-hop track. “Light on Earth,” on the other hand, seemingly showcases the UK artist’s more emotive side, dialing down the drums as a pitch-shifted diva—the kind that often appeared in old Burial productions—mournfully croons atop the song’s percussive rattle and vibrating sheets of ultra-deep bass.
BEST OF THE REST
Coco Bryce “Kissed It Up” (Myor)
One of the most prolific producers in the game, Coco Bryce dropped a trio of releases on Bandcamp this week, and the best of the bunch, KISS 01, is headlined by “Kissed It Up.” A riotous, joy-filled slice of drum & bass—the Dutch artist’s preferred genre, although he dabbles in a variety of different sounds, all of them bursting with technicolor rave energy—it’s also blessed with vamping pianos and a welcome bit of R&B sensuality. Granted, that sensuality has been stretched and warped into gleefully cartoonish proportions—the song’s pitched-up vocals are borderline chipmunkish—but it nonetheless keeps the proceedings feeling bubbly and effervescent.
Slikback “ERIT” (Self-released)
Taken from the new TYPE_ EP—the latest offering from Slikback, which, like all of his releases, is available as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp—“ERIT” is a blistering bit of bass-heavy, largely unclassifiable club music. The Kenyan beatmaker is one of those artists for whom traditional genre descriptors rarely seem adequate, so while the track arguably contains elements of footwork, dancehall, hip-hop and dub, it doesn’t really sound like any of those things. More than anything, it’s a thrillingly furious blast of energy, a veritable whirlwind of ninja-quick percussion that’s sure to leave a trail of destruction in its wake.
Doctor Jeep “No Water (feat. Cirrus)” (Hardcore Energy)
NYC’s Doctor Jeep has spent the past few years impressively hopping up and down the hardcore continuum, and while his hybrid creations—not to mention his general versatility—are key to his appeal, “No Water” makes clear that he’s also capable of delivering a good old-fashioned drum & bass ripper. A collaboration with fellow East Coast producer Cirrus—and a standout cut from the new VIP EP—the track echoes Y2K-era tech-step with its sci-fi sonics and snarling bassline, but it never gets bogged down in the muck, as its rapid-fire percussion is far too lively to be restrained.
Sobolik “Deadly” (Woozy)
Do you like drums? Sobolik certainly does, and “Deadly,” the NYC producer’s contribution to the new WZY2.5 compilation, contains what seems like 13 different drum patterns. In less skilled hands, all those thumps, rattles and smacks would be a recipe for chaos, but the rave-ready “Deadly”—despite its ominous title—is a delight, and feels more like five minutes of being bounced around inside a popcorn machine.
Tomu DJ “Lost Feeling” (Franchise)
Half Moon Bay, the sophomore album from Tomu DJ, has been attracting some effusive praise—Gabriel Szatan’s glowing Pitchfork review calls it “one of 2022’s most affecting electronic records” and says it “hits like being flash-banged by an emotion grenade”—but while a lot of attention has been given to the California producer’s playful relationship with footwork, “Lost Feeling” feels a lot closer to an artist like DJ Python and his “deep reggaeton” stylings. Full of airy textures and ethereal, almost childlike melodies, the song borders on ambient, but there’s a dembow drum pattern beneath all that bliss, and its confident (albeit not overpowering) strut prevents the track from drifting off into the heavens.
Mnemonic Pulse “Truth Sayer” (SFI)
Amongst other things, the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind produced one of the most iconic synth melodies of all time, and what sounds like a tweaked version of that melody is at the heart of “Truth Sayer,” a woozy highlight of Mnemonic Pulse’s new Warning Sense release. The similarity may be coincidental—the Portland artist doesn’t seem to have said anything about it—but irrespective of her intentions, the slow-brewing song has a definite cinematic bent, its billowing tones stretching out across the horizon and luxuriating in the grandeur of open space.
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.)
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.