First Floor #157 – Let's Stop Pretending
a.k.a. A hard look at the current state of the press, plus a round-up of the week's electronic music news and a fresh batch of new track recommendations.
Music journalists are never going to win any popularity contests, but even in the context of writers routinely being told that both they and their opinions suck, dissatisfaction with the electronic music press seems particularly high right now. In all seriousness, is there a single electronic music publication that’s both widely read and well respected right now?
It sure doesn’t seem like it, and that realization prompted this week’s First Floor essay, which is explained in more detail below. At the same time, while the media continues to limp along, lots of interesting things are still happening in the electronic music world, and I’ve done my best to include all the best new bits in today’s newsletter.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Every Tuesday, First Floor publishes a long-form piece that’s exclusively made available to paid newsletter subscribers only. The latest one takes a look at the current state of the electronic music press, which frankly appears to be in pretty bad shape. Even so, people throughout the industry seem oddly (and stubbornly) determined to prop up ailing publications, sticking to outdated methodologies while actively pretending that the genre’s best-known media outlets are still both influential and doing quality work.
ANOTHER THING I DID
Aside from the newsletter, First Floor also exists as a monthly radio show on dublab BCN. The most recent episode aired just yesterday, and included new tracks from Nathan Micay, Matrixxman, Skee Mask, James Bangura and Giant Swan, along with a slew of other artists. For those who didn’t get a chance to listen live, it’s been archived (with a full tracklist) here.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.
Ghostly International founder Sam Valenti IV recently penned a thought-provoking piece for Dirt, pondering the notion of “canon,” and more specifically considering both its present and potential future state during a time when the monoculture is increasingly in decline. The original article requires a subscription to read, but over the weekend Valenti also published an extended “director’s cut” via his Herb Sundays newsletter, which just kicked off its fifth “season” with a playlist from writer Michael Chabon.
Speaking of newsletters, Zen Sounds is very much worth a look. Focused on experimental music and written by music journalist Stephan Kunze, it was previously published entirely in his native German, but late last year he switched to English. Since then, he’s interviewed Patricia Wolf and Kabuki while also sharing extended thoughts on artists like Clarice Jensen and Evian Christ.
Honey Soundsystem co-founder Jacob Sperber has also joined the Substack ranks. His new Backup Account platform isn’t focused on electronic music, but it does provide an intriguing look at the more unusual corners of TikTok, engaging with its content and creators in a uniquely thoughtful way that even those of us who are skeptical about the app are sure to find interesting.
These days it sometimes feels like electronic music has reached “peak ambient.” There’s certainly no shortage of the genre, and yet, I still found myself drawn to this new Bandcamp Daily piece, in which writer Andy Beta spotlights a variety of obscure ’90s ambient gems.
After more than three decades in operation, Kool FM—one of London’s original pirate stations and a reliable source of drum & bass, jungle and other old-school sounds—has officially been acquired by Rinse FM. The station, which has been broadcasting online as Kool London since 2010, is currently offline, but Rinse is already planning a relaunch with a fresh slate of DJs for later in the year.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Slikback—the Kenyan bass polymath whose name has possibly appeared here in the newsletter more than that of any other artist—recently broadcast a marathon 12-hour production livestream on YouTube, and then immediately put together 10 tracks from the session as K E S S E K I, which is available now as a name-your-price download via his Bandcamp page.
Ambient demigod Tim Hecker has a new album on the way. Entitled No Highs, it’s billed as “a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue,” and will be released via kranky on April 7. Ahead of that, LP cut “Lotus Light” has already been shared.
Nick León and DJ Python will soon be sharing space on a new record. The cheekily titled esplit EP includes two tracks from each artist, and will be issued via DJ Python’s Worldwide Unlimited imprint. The full record drops on February 10, but one song, DJ Python’s “i’m tired,” is available now.
First released in 2005, The Upper Cuts is a compilation of French touch classics by Alan Braxe (who made the bulk of said classics in collaboration with Fred Falke, Thomas Bangalter and a handful of other artists). Eighteen years later, a newly remastered and expanded version of The Upper Cuts has been assembled, and it’s set to arrive on March 31 via the Smugglers Way label. A more detailed rundown of its contents can be found here, and Braxe has already shared remastered versions of the songs “Intro,” “Rubicon” and “In Love with You.”
A few years back, Spencer Doran, better known as one half of ambient / new age duo Visible Cloaks, was commissioned to put together the music for a video game called SEASON: A letter to the future, which dropped earlier this week. On May 5, the game’s soundtrack will be given a release of its own by the RVNG Intl. label, which has already made two tracks from the record available here.
In advance of a full-length called Mycelium Music that he’s planning to release later in the year, Los Angeles artist Matthewdavid this week offered up On Mushrooms, a new EP that’s said to be “expressed from the same ecosystem.” It’s available now through his own Leaving Records imprint.
Gavsborg, a founding member of boundary-bending dancehall outfit Equiknoxx, has started a new tape label, Cassette Blair, which will officially get going with his own debut album, 1 Hour Service. Recorded in Berlin but “driven by the soul of Kingston,” the tape is scheduled to surface on February 3 (i.e. tomorrow), although the track “A Dancing Crustacean at the Bus Station (feat. Tóke)” can be heard now.
Having appeared on records by Rhythm & Sound, Deadbeat, Larry Heard and numerous others, Paul St. Hilaire (a.k.a. Tikiman) has one of the most iconic voices in dance music (or at least within its more dub-oriented corners). On March 31, he’ll be releasing Tikiman Vol.1, his first solo album in more than a decade. Reflecting on life in Berlin (where he’s been based since 1994) and the Caribbean island of Dominica (where he was born and raised), the LP is being issued by the Kynant label, which has already shared the song “Little Way.”
DJ Sotofett has been in a giving mood lately, and last week he offered an elaborately titled track, “Frequenzy Range 30.3Hz - 8.08kHz / Beats Per Minute: 303 / Length: 8'08 minutes,” as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. The propulsive (albeit drumless) tune is out now, though it will apparently only be available for free through March 3.
Back in 2021, Legowelt released A Philosophy of Tracking, a vinyl LP of songs he made using a special Legowelt edition of the Polyend Tracker hardware sequencer / sampler. Now the Dutch gear hound has offered up a newly expanded digital version of the album via his own Nightwind label. Containing several tracks that weren’t on the original release, it was made available earlier today as a name-your-price download on his Bandcamp page.
Shanghai producer Tzusing has completed a new album. Aside from the LP’s title (绿帽 GREEN HAT), few details have been shared, but the record is due to arrive on March 31 via the PAN label. Ahead of that, first single “孝忍狠 (Filial Endure Ruthless)” has been shared.
GABRIEL SZATAN HAS BETTER TASTE THAN I DO
First Floor is effectively a one-person operation, but every edition of the newsletter cedes a small portion of the spotlight to an artist, writer or other figure from the music world, inviting them to recommend a piece of music. This week’s installment comes from Gabriel Szatan, a music journalist with whom dedicated First Floor readers are likely familiar already. Raised in the UK and currently based in New York, he’s the rare writer who can balance thoughtful, well-informed commentary with playfulness and a palpable sense of wonder, celebrating his subject matter without ever sounding like a full-blown stan. (His willingness to mix in the occasional silly joke—often made at his own expense—also adds to the joy of reading his work.) Last year he was interviewed here in the newsletter about his forthcoming book After Daft, and he’s since launched an accompanying newsletter of his own, The AD Files.
Wesley Joseph “HIATUS” (Secretly Canadian)
I should caveat this by saying that I don’t actually think I do have better taste. But after Ctrl-F’ing the archives, it looks like West Midlands artist Wesley Joseph hasn’t been covered in First Floor yet, so let’s correct that.
There’s a notion I’m running into repeatedly during interviews for the book, which is that knowing who to assemble around you is a talent in its own right. On the evidence of “HIATUS,” Wesley has that licked. The punch-drunk beat—a modern reskin of what grime historian Slackk used to fondly call “sad spaceship music”—comes from Leon Vynehall, The Invisible’s Dave Okumu is on guitar, and the mixdown by Lexxx is perfectly weighted, evoking small-town claustrophobia without crowding Wesley out. His elastic, ruminative flow about teenage years spent hopping buses between Walsall and Birmingham to escape the stultifying sense of “feeling navy” is captivating enough, yet it doesn’t remotely telegraph the track’s surprise denouement, where Wesley lets ring a falsetto so far up his register, you might be hoodwinked into thinking it’s a choir. I’m no closer to allocating a genre for this thing than I am to getting bored of it. Hooked.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes from releases that came out during the past week or so. ‘The Big Three’ 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. Click the track titles to hear each song individually, or you can also just head over to this convenient Buy Music Club list if you prefer to listen to them all in one place.
THE BIG THREE
Oceanic “Self-fulfilling” (Nous’klaer)
Oceanic “C-Loli” (Nous’klaer)
What a fantastic album Choral Feeling is. Although Oceanic has been something of a critical favorite for years now (i.e. the kind of artist who in-the-know cool kids would rave about after seeing him perform live at places like Amsterdam’s De School), his dreamy synth wanderings have largely flown under the radar. Some of that was because he never released much, but his music itself was often quite low-key, its string-like melodies and spacious, post-IDM grooves hanging around the edge of the dancefloor—and at times coalescing into a kind of skittery, beatless techno—but ultimately better suited for zoned-out listening sessions.
Choral Feeling, however, is no lean-back listening experience, as Oceanic’s synths sound not just newly fortified, but downright electric as they dart to and fro atop the album’s effervescent rhythms. More strikingly, the LP makes heavy use of the human voice, building tiny choirs that joyously bounce off the walls, hits of dopamine trailing behind them. Celebratory and unafraid to be a little kooky—“Self-fulfilling,” one of the record’s most upfront cuts, is part Aphex Twin and part Hot Butter’s “Popcorn”—the album feels refreshingly free, embracing fast tempos but never battering listeners about the head. “C-Lolli,” which sounds like Oceanic running wild with a pack of Enya samples, charts a somewhat more ethereal path, but it’s still bursting with color and energy, much like the rest of this brilliant LP.
Prof. Stranger “Back 2 Me” (YEAR0001)
ESP “North” (YEAR0001)
To outside observers (especially those observers over the age of 35 or so), YEAR0001 might initially seem like a style-over-substance operation, the kind of aesthetically hyperactive, post-genre label that openly flirts with pop tropes and spends as much time on its clothing drops as it does on its high-gloss releases. That characterization isn’t wholly wrong, but it does obscure the fact that YEAR001, precisely because it isn’t tethered to the dour norms of how independent music is “supposed” to work, has become a home for all kinds of vibrant young artists, most of whom owe a much greater debt to SOPHIE than Jeff Mills.
The new RIFT Two compilation showcases many of those acts, and while it does contain a number of sugary pop abstractions, it also features tunes from the likes of Malibu and Dark0. However, its strongest contributions actually come from two relative unknowns. Prof. Stranger’s “Back 2 Me” is a high-energy slot in the arm, its filtered R&B hooks and trancey chords mainlining euphoria—and sounding a bit like Overmono in the process. ESP’s “North,” on the other hand, dials back the sensory overload, offering a floaty journey that borrows from ’80s new age and cheesy Ibiza chillout compilations alike. In truth, it’s not terribly far off from the music one hears whenever they dial up a corporate customer service line and are placed on hold, but the digitized bliss that “North” offers is fully intoxicating, despite (or many because of) its blatantly artificial nature.
Kagami Smile “Obscured Face” (Decaying Spheres)
Kagami Smile “Hidden Mirror” (Decaying Spheres)
A wildly prolific artist, Kagami Smile has dropped literally dozens of releases during his career, the vast majority of which have arrived within the past three years. That rate of output is nothing if not impressive, but it also means that even the artist’s most dedicated fans likely haven’t heard everything, and might even have reached a saturation level where each new Kagami Smile offering prompts a sigh and thoughts of “not another one.” I must admit that was more or less my first thought when Obscured Face was first announced, but I’m so glad I set it aside, as the record offers an immersive trip into his sonically dense (and also quite beautiful) soundworld.
Shoegaze and post-rock are obvious touchstones, but Kagami Smile ups the ante, taking his textured distortion in a more overtly electronic direction and tapping into the same sort of crushing power that often defines work by artists like Tim Hecker and Emptyset. There’s a real weight to his compositions, and “Obscured Face” adds a subterranean, dub-techno-style kick to the mix, giving the track’s jagged haze a more tangible sense of forward momentum. “Hidden Mirror” lightens things up (slightly), but even as it flashes tiny rays of melody, its digital draft is still at times akin to nuzzling up to a jet engine.
BEST OF THE REST
Bobo “It Never Ends” (Erbium)
Does “big-room sad” officially qualify as a genre yet? Probably not, but the aesthetic certainly has potential, serving up memorable hooks and melancholy feels in equal measure. Bicep undoubtedly pull off this combination better than anyone, but “It Never Ends”—the closing track on Contact, the new album from Manchester-based Swedish producer Bobo—taps into a similar vibe, its bright synths and shuffling rhythms lively enough for peak time, even as its tripped-out vocals and swirly atmospherics feel more like something for a regret-filled comedown.
Space Dimension Controller “Sunset Operator” (Running Back)
After years of stuffing his tunes with electro-funk licks and an amusing sense of sci-fi bravado, Space Dimension Controller has tweaked his approach on Neuclidea EP, which he half-jokingly describes as a foray into “sad Balearic trance.” Standout cut “Sunset Operator” certainly brings back memories of old Border Community records (and maybe even a hint of classic Underworld), but the track offers more than proggy nostalgia, its woozy melodies occasionally veering into the psychedelic territory first charted by ’70s-era synth explorers.
Jo Johnson “The wave ahead of the wave ahead” (Mysteries of the Deep)
Delicately composed and elegantly detailed, “The wave ahead of the wave ahead” is the bewitching highlight of The Wave Ahead, a new EP from UK synthesist Jo Johnson. Inspired by waves (as the title suggests), the music does exude a certain liquidity, its melodies fluttering through the air like the ripples moving across the surface of a pond, and yet the song is also marked by a quiet confidence, patiently luring listeners into its crystalline lattice of gleaming synth tones.
Benjamin Damage “Skywave” (ARTS)
For years now, the techno genre has consistently moved towards harder and faster sounds, and while that’s resulted in a fair bit of bashy fun, Benjamin Damage has made a compelling case for taking things in a different (i.e. more melodic) direction on his new Spectrum EP. “Skywave” is the record’s wide-eyed opener, and while it’s still pretty speedy, its drums don’t pummel; they percolate, providing a bubbly bed for the track’s pastel pads and proggy flirtations.
Scratchclart “Dark Tyms (feat. Scotti Dee & European 305)” (DRMTRK)
A high-stepping gem from the DRMTRK XIX EP, “Dark Tyms” is the latest in a long line of wonderfully creative tunes from Scratcha DVA. With its seductively ambling groove and elastic basslines, the track is heavily indebted to gqom, but rather than just mimicking the South African genre, Scratcha & co. have tweaked the formula, folding in some high-flying (albeit still chill) atmospherics and the same sort of canned flute melodies that often populate the best UK funky records.
And with that, we’ve come to the end of 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.