First Floor #143 – Too Much Good Stuff (Part 1)
a.k.a. This is what happens when I take a week off.
BACK AT IT
As you may remember, I took a little break from First Floor last week, and then ran into a little mishap with an interview I’d lined up for this week. (To make up for it, I’ve temporarily unlocked several recent pieces from the newsletter archives, and I’m also currently offering a 20% discount on all paid subscriptions. The deal only lasts a few more days, so act fast and click the button below if you’d like to get full access to First Floor on the cheap.)
In an effort to get back on track, I’ve been playing catch-up over the past several days, but it hasn’t been easy, especially when the music industry’s annual post-summer, pre-Holidays marketing / promotion / release-as-much-music-as-possible blitz has already kicked into overdrive. An honestly absurd amount of new music came out during the past two weeks, and on top of that, dozens (hundreds?) of artists and labels have filled up the newswire with announcements about their upcoming releases. In short, things are really busy in electronic music at the moment, and there’s simply too much stuff going on for me to cram it all into a single newsletter.
That’s why today’s First Floor is a special double edition. This first part is solely focused on electronic music news and new release announcements, while part two contains an extra-large dose of new track recommendations.
There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started.
BUY MUSIC CLUB
Many First Floor readers already know that apart from my work as a music journalist, I’ve also been co-running Buy Music Club alongside Avalon Emerson and Jason Fellows for the past few years. (For anyone not familiar with BMC, it’s a site where people can easily create lists of their favorite tracks and releases from Bandcamp. Those lists can then be shared, hopefully encouraging others to check out the music and, yes, buy some of it.)
This week we’ve rolled out a significant update to the platform: a brand-new player that for the first time enables automatic, continuous playback for all lists on the site. Simply put, when one song ends, the next one on the list begins. The days of pressing play on each individual track are over!
Does this mean that Buy Music Club is now a streaming platform? DEFINITELY NOT. (It does, however, mean that the BMC lists I make for each edition of the newsletter—which compile all of the track recommendations from the “New This Week” section—have suddenly become much more user-friendly.) Listening to music on BMC is now easier than ever, but we’ve also put a fixed play limit on all lists. After all, the words “buy music” are literally in the name of the site, and that’s still what we want people to do.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the last two weeks’ most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, mixes, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
The New Yorker rarely pays much attention to dance music, but the storied magazine really dove in headfirst with its enthusiastic recent profile of tech house don Solomun. Penned by Ed Caesar—a writer who usually trades in much more serious fare (e.g. Ukraine, North Korea, money laundering, etc.)—it’s a highly entertaining read, and one that provides a unique, behind-the-scenes look at Ibiza club culture, even in the moments where its author comes across as an overly excited dance music noob. (That said, his description of Gerd Janson as a fish-loving DJ “dressed like one of the Royal Tenenbaums” in the article’s opening paragraph is beyond perfect.)
Hudson Mohawke is the subject of Mixmag’s latest cover feature, in which he spoke to Arielle Lana LeJarde about Vangelis, life in America and his post-dystopian new album Cry Sugar. The LA-based Scottish producer also put together a brand-new mix to mark the occasion.
Philip Sherburne traveled to Mallorca to talk with Lucrecia Dalt (and her creative collaborators Aina Climent and Alex Lázaro) and put together a fun new profile of the Colombian experimental and avant-pop artist, whose new bolero-inspired album ¡Ay! drops next week.
Alongside engineer Dave Griffiths, Aphex Twin has created a new, open-source “sample mashing” app called Samplebrain. Developed over 20 years, it’s designed to be a “giant brain” that creates new sounds after being “fed” different kinds of audio source material (i.e. samples).
Countless words have been dedicated to various clubs and festivals around the world over the years, but in a recent feature for DJ Mag, Vivian Host has taken a different path, spotlighting the magnificent, ’70s-era soundsystem inside Coney Island’s Eldorado Auto Skooter bumper cars (and unearthing quite a bit of NYC nightlife history in the process).
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the compact disc, prompting The Quietus’ Daryl Worthington to pen a feature reflecting on the format’s history, its unique qualities and the CD’s continuing place in the musical landscape.
In response to Louis Vuitton’s recent Fall in Love collection, which the fashion giant says was inspired by David Mancuso and his iconic NYC party The Loft, writer Tim Lawrence—who’s written extensively about both, most prominently in his book Love Saves the Day—has penned a lengthy new essay. In it, he roundly criticizes the company, arguing that both its general business practices and the collection itself stand in opposition to everything that David Mancuso stood for and the values that The Loft was founded upon.
Pretty much anything Liz Pelly writes about streaming is worth a read, and her new article for the Guardian talks to multiple people who’ve recently quit Spotify, their decisions inspired by everything from the company’s treatment of artists to realizations that they simply didn’t like how streaming was affecting their personal relationship with music.
Writer Ted Gioia has been one of the loudest voices about how the music industry is increasingly (and alarmingly) mired in nostalgia, and this recent edition of his Honest Broker newsletter highlights how music writing has also become complicit in the practice, with magazines and other prominent publications endlessly recycling and re-examining older and already established artists while coverage of new, emerging acts withers (and, in some cases, disappears altogether).
Last weekend, Scottish artist INEZ publicly accused (via social media) Lobster Theremin founder Jimmy Asquith of sexual assault and grooming. Several artists have since cut ties with the label, though Asquith released a statement in which he denied and refuted the allegations.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past two weeks.
UK producer Pearson Sound has a new EP on the way for Hessle Audio. Entitled Red Sky, it won’t be available until November 11, but the title track has already been shared.
Call Super dropped a surprise new EP yesterday on the Can You Feel the Sun imprint he runs alongside Parris. The record is called Swallow Me, and its title samples a live performance by Kamala Sankaram that took place at the final Resonant Bodies festival in New York in 2019.
Moin, the occasionally rowdy rock / post-punk outfit that consists of Raime and Valentina Magaletti, will soon be following up last year’s brilliant Moot! album with Paste, the group’s second full-length for AD 93. The LP is slated to arrive on October 28, but two tracks can already be heard here.
Theo Parrish will be at the helm of the next edition of the vaunted DJ-Kicks mix / compilation series, and he’s calling it Detroit Forward. The release, which will be issued on October 28 via !K7, pays tribute to the Motor City and consists almost entirely of new music from Detroit artists that is exclusive to the compilation. One of those tracks, Ian Fink’s “Moonlite (Duality / Detroit Version),” is available now.
Peach has started a label. Inspired by a tarot card reading she received while visiting NYC, the imprint is called Psychic Readings, and the London-based Canadian will be officially kicking it off with a new EP of her own, Fortune One, that’s slated to drop on October 26. The record’s A-side, “Eclipse,” can already be streamed here.
Following up on their 2019 collaborative 12” Bromley / Still Moving, Joy Orbison and Overmono have once again joined forces as Joy Overmono, offering up an intensely hooky new single, “Blind Date,” that’s out now via XL Recordings.
Teebs has maintained a relatively low profile during the past few years, but the LA beatmaker resurfaced last week with a new double single. Did It Again is out now on Brainfeeder, and the title track features a vocal turn from Panda Bear.
The next Mount Kimbie album will actually be a pair of solo full-lengths from individual members Dom Maker and Kai Campos, who have been living increasingly separate musical lives in recent years. (The former lives in LA, while the latter is based in London.) MK 3.5: Die Cuts | City Planning will surface on November 4 via Warp, but several cuts from the two LPs can already be heard here.
Record as a tribute to his late wife, Vahiné is the forthcoming new album from celebrated Italian ambient practitioner Gigi Masin. Language of Sound will be releasing the LP on November 11, but ahead of that, one track from the record, “Marilene (Somewhere in Texas),” is already available.
Given the prolific nature of his Planet Mu label, Mike Paradinas (a.k.a. µ-Ziq) has a busy year pretty much every year, but he’s taken that to another level in 2022, offering up several releases of his own music. He’ll soon cap that effort with another collection of new tunes, Hello, that’s scheduled to arrive on November 4. Before that, he’s already shared its title track.
Bicep dropped a surprise new single yesterday. “Water,” which features the vocals of Clara La San, is out now on Ninja Tune, and is backed by another track, “Waterfall,” which the UK duo says is actually an earlier, instrumental version of “Water.”
After teasing fans with a couple of singles in recent months, London-based Canadian artist Eden Samara has unveiled her debut album, Rough Night, which contains production from the likes of Call Super, Shanti Celeste, TSVI and Loraine James. The LP will be released on November 1 by Local Action, but several songs from the record are already available here.
Corona’s 1993 smash “The Rhythm of the Night” is one of the most iconic songs in dance music history, and Montreal’s Martyn Bootyspoon has given it a wholesale rework on a new limited-edition 12” for the 2 B Real label. “Corona Dub” is out now, and comes backed with another tune, “E-Track.” Previews of both tracks can be heard here.
One of experimental / electronic cumbia’s most celebrated figures, Argentinian producer Chancha Vía Circuito will soon release a new album, La Estrella, through the Wonderwheel imprint. The LP, which take cues from a number of different South American folkloric traditions, will arrive on November 11, but first single “El Pavo Real,” which features the Meridian Brothers, has already been shared.
more eaze already has a new album for Leaving Records on the way in November, but that didn’t stop the Texas experimental artist from dropping another new LP, the joker, last week. Said to be inspired by her “experiences travelling extensively during 2021-22,” it’s out now via the Ecstatic label.
Returning to the guitar—an instrument that colored her earliest releases—Turkish ambient / avant-garde artist Ekin Fil has put together a new album, Dora Agora, that will be released tomorrow (October 7) on the Helen Scarsdale label. Two tracks from the album can already be heard here.
Fort Romeau has launched a new imprint, Romantic Gestures, which the UK producer says will be “home to a new series of [his] own club cuts and electronic curiosities.” The young label’s first single, “Hold Up,” surfaced last week.
German techno / house veteran Roman Flügel has completed a new full-length, Balmy Evening, which is being billed as “a sundown record for sunups.” The album is scheduled for an October 14 release on Japanese outpost Mule Musiq, and while no music has been shared yet, more info about the LP can be found here.
Austin-based iconoclast Bill Converse will soon return to Dark Entries with a new release, Take Parts, that’s due to surface on October 14 and is being described as “his most muscular and floor-focused work to date.” One track from the record, “Take Apart,” has already been made available.
That’s it for part one of today’s newsletter. Thank you so much for reading First Floor, and make sure to check out part two—there are a ton of great new tracks in there.
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.