First Floor #166 – This Should Keep You Busy

a.k.a. A round-up of the week's electronic music news and a fresh slate of new track recommendations.

Apr 06, 2023

Last Thursday I made the mistake of acknowledging a rare slow week in the world of electronic music, so of course I’ve spent the last seven days being absolutely bombarded with breaking news, release announcements and a legitimately gargantuan batch of new releases. As always, I’ve done my best to whittle that down to only the most interesting bits, but thankfully my voice isn’t the only one that appears in today’s newsletter—Japanese artist Wata Igarashi also makes a special guest appearance.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get started.

ANOTHER THING I’M DOING

Tomorrow I’ll be appearing on CONVO, a bimonthly podcast hosted by Songcamp’s Mark Redito. We’ll be discussing “The Evolving Landscape of Music Culture” (i.e. a lot of the topics I’ve written about here in the newsletter), and the episode will stream live on Twitch at 4 p.m. Pacific / 7 p.m. Eastern / 1 a.m. CET.

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.

Over the weekend, it was announced that Ryuichi Sakamoto had passed away on March 28 following a battle with cancer. The Japanese artist’s accomplishments are simply too numerous to list, but the man was a verifiable icon, someone whose work quite literally altered the trajectory of music over the course of several decades. Numerous articles, tributes and obituaries have surfaced in recent days, but two of my favorites are the extensive piece that Simon Reynolds wrote for Pitchfork and the more personal remembrance that Apiento penned for Test Pressing.
During his days in Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter famously hid his face and largely avoided the press, but with his orchestral composition Mythologies being released tomorrow, the French artist agreed to a couple of interviews that surfaced this week. The first was published by The New York Times, and was written by Zachary Woolfe (the paper’s classical music critic), while the second, which included a lot more talk about Daft Punk and the duo’s 2021 split, was done by Marc Savage for the BBC.
In news that will surely prompt at least a few DJ traditionalists to shake their heads in disapproval, Pioneer unveiled a new update of its Rekordbox software for Apple’s iOS system that will, amongst other things, enable users to DJ on “virtual decks” using only an iPhone or iPad.
This is a few weeks old, but Music Business Worldwide’s Tim Ingham recently published an article examining the fact that approximately 38 million tracks on streaming services received zero plays in 2022. That’s nearly a quarter of all music on these platforms, and it begs the question of how long streaming companies will continue to absorb the cost of hosting all this music. (Thanks to the invaluable Penny Fractions newsletter for alerting me to this piece.)
Avalon Emerson is the subject of Mixmag’s latest cover story, in which she speaks to writer Tara Joshi about her new Avalon Emerson & the Charm project, what inspired its pop / indie bent and what it’s been like to prepare for touring and performing as part of a proper band. (Disclaimer: Emerson is a friend, we work together on Buy Music Club and I was hired to help write the promotional text for her forthcoming album.)
Complex UK’s Joseph JP Patterson put together an oral history of grime’s blog era, enlisting folks like Elijah, Sian Anderson, Simon Reynolds, Martin Clark and Chantelle Fiddy to recount how the genre was documented online during the early-to-mid 2000s.
Fresh off the release of his recent Crash Recoil album, Surgeon has been asked to make a lot of musical recommendations. First the UK techno veteran talked to Luke Turner about records that shaped his formative years for the latest installment of The Quietus’ Baker’s Dozen series, and then he spoke to Eoin Murray, highlighting some more contemporary releases for an edition of DJ Mag’s Selections series.

JUST ANNOUNCED

A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.

Nathan Micay, who’s spent much of the past few years pivoting toward scoring work for film and television, will soon be releasing a new artist album. To the God Named Dream is said to be a reaction to the often overserious nature of electronic music, and is being billed as “a haunted library record for the large language age.” The LP is slated to arrive on May 31 via LuckyMe, but one track, “Fangs,” has already been shared.
Wata Igarashi—who will make a more substantial appearance later on in today’s newsletter—has completed his debut full-length, Agartha. Named after a mythical secret kingdom that’s said to consist of a complex maze of tunnels just below the Earth’s surface, the LP will also be the Japanese artist’s first appearance on the Kompakt label, which plans to issue the record on May 26. No tracks have been shared yet, but preview clips—and more details about the album—can be found here.
Holy Tongue, an experimental trio that includes UK artist Al Wootton and percussionist Valentina Magaletti, will be releasing their debut album later this month. The Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare LP is due to surface on April 28 via Amidah (a sister label to Wootton’s Trule imprint), but album cut “A New God Before Us” has already been made available. As it happens, it was also announced that Wootton has new, dancefloor-focused solo record on the way for Optimo Music. Not many details have been shared, but it’s due to arrive on April 21.
Bass music veterans Martyn and Om Unit have joined forces on a collaborative new EP for the former’s 3024 imprint. The cryptically titled AJ^6 will be released on April 22, although opening track “Basilisk” has already been shared.
Speaking of collaborative EPs, London producer Scratcha DVA has teamed up with South African artist Menzi on a forthcoming record for Hakuna Kulala, Beyond Grime & Gqom. The record will surface on April 28, but Menzi’s remix of Scratcha DVA’s “IC3” is available now.
Last year Matías Aguayo reissued his 2013 track “El Camarón” with a new remix from Ricardo Villalobos, and now the Chilean artist has assembled a more extensive package that includes reworks from Loris, Nick León, Paurro and DJ Babatr. That last one was shared yesterday, but the complete El Camarón Remix Pack will drop on April 20 via Aguayo’s Cómeme label.
The Range, whose Mercury album was one of 2022’s slept-on gems, yesterday released Mercury Remixes, an EP that includes reworks from Coby Sey, DJ Python, Tourist and The Range himself. It’s out now via the Domino label.
Techno lifer Function will soon be reviving his long-running (but recently dormant) Infrastructure New York label with a new EP of his own. Green is slated to appear on May 8, but EP cut “Aeternum (Meridian)” has already been shared.
The next offering from the Nervous Horizon label has been put together by Swedish polymath Peder Mannerfelt, whose Hyperchase EP is said to operate around 100 bpm. The record will be issued on April 21, but opening cut “Big Ball” is already available.
As a tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto, UK ambient artist Dylan Henner dropped a cover of the Japanese legend’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.

WATA IGARASHI 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 Wata Igarashi, a Japanese artist who initially made his name with a spellbinding series of deep techno releases, but in recent years has also turned heads with his immersive ambient explorations. (The latter have mostly surfaced via his own WIP label.) As stated earlier, Igarashi’s forthcoming debut album Agartha was announced earlier this week, but before it arrives on May 26 via Kompakt, he’s popped in here to share a different album that helped shape his musical vision many years ago.

Pat Martino Baiyina (The Clear Evidence) (Prestige)

This was my first Pat Martino record. It was released in 1968 and though he has released many great records, this is the one that I keep coming back to. I found a second-hand copy at Disk Union in Tokyo, back when I was in university. In those days I spent most of my time playing jazz, and I was thinking Baiyina (The Clear Evidence) would be much more of a straight-ahead jazz guitar album (even though the cover was a hint that the music wouldn't be 100% jazz). It was not what I expected. The LP is a deep, psychedelic-jam-session journey that has a clearly different sound from a typical jazz, and it took me a little time for me to appreciate it, but once I got the vibe, I was hooked! This record has opened my mind and ear to other side of music, and I have been exploring that space, irrespective of genre, ever since. I can listen to Baiyina (The Clear Evidence) the same way that I do a lot ambient and electronic music.

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

Pizza Hotline “EMOTION ENGINE” (WRWTFWW)

Pizza Hotline “POLYGON DREAMSCAPE” (WRWTFWW)

First released in January 2022 as a limited-edition cassette, Pizza Hotline’s Level Select album has now been given new life by the WRWTFWW, who rightly tout its “spellbinding, atmospheric and beautifully melodic” sounds. Although it’s ostensibly a liquid drum & bass LP, the UK producer has filled it with not-so-subtle references to Y2K-era gaming, at times employing sounds that anyone who spent hours playing Playstation or Nintendo 64 will immediately recognize from those systems’ loading screens. Embarking on something so openly nostalgic carries a high level of risk—an album like this could very easily sound very corny—but Level Select never crosses the line into schmaltz.

“EMOTION ENGINE” is a chilled roller, one whose pensive mood and plush pads could have been plucked from a new age record, but its soft-focus sound palette also fits comfortably into a lineage in which Sega literally hired Ryuichi Sakamoto to compose the start-up jingle for the Dreamcast. Slightly tougher is “POLYGON DREAMSCAPE”—a new song that wasn’t included on the initial Level Select release—but even with its sturdier beats, the song’s soft keys and billowing textures are better suited to a trip through the clouds than a night in a sweaty basement.

Tzusing “Residual Stress” (PAN)

Tzusing “偶像包袱 (Idol Baggage)” (PAN)

Nuanced evaluation of Chinese culture is something that Western audiences are only occasionally offered (or interested in), and while rectifying that isn’t Tzusing’s responsibility, the Malaysian-born, Shanghai- and Taipei-based artist—who first found a foothold with European and American audiences with his 2017 debut LP 東方不敗—has taken it upon himself to cast a critical eye towards masculinity and gender norms in China with his new album 绿帽 Green Hat. Sonically, the record is a continuation of his past work, pulling from techno, industrial and various strains of bass music, but its contents feel explicitly angry; it’s unclear whether Tzusing is exploring the pent-up rage that so often lies at the heart of traditional male identity, or if he’s simply expressing his own frustration with the destructive nature of the cultural status quo, but either way, the music he’s created is fierce and unrelenting.

Album closer “Residual Stress” is a particularly searing cut, an industrial techno thrill ride that’s been fortified with groans, grunts, howls, swaggering guitar riffs and a litany of percussive claps. “偶像包袱 (Idol Baggage)” brings down the tempo, but still hits like a sledgehammer, at times sounding like a nightmarish variant of South African gqom with its manic drums, serrated bass blooms and genuinely unnerving sound design. Neither track is necessarily designed to feel good, but they’ll undoubtedly make people feel something, and perhaps that’s the point.

Pépe “Goma (A-Mix)” (Lapsus)

Pépe “From Seed” (Lapsus)

Pépe “Act III. - “Compact City Dream”” (Lapsus)

Having built his reputation with a string of sun-dappled house and breakbeat records during the past several years, Pépe has taken a bold left turn on his debut album Reclaim, an effort that’s arguably more indebted to new age and artists like Steve Reich than any of the usual dance music tropes. To the Spanish producer’s credit, he sounds remarkably comfortable swimming in more abstract waters, and the LP contains what’s easily his finest work to date.

A concept album rooted in the idea of a post-human future in which nature retakes control of the planet, Reclaim has numerous high points, the first of which is elegant opener “Goma (A-Mix),” a song whose hypnotically looping chimes—flanked by lazy woodwinds and soft piano—exude both whimsy and serenity in equal measure. More openly playful is “From Seed,” an effervescent (and largely beatless) post-IDM number that somehow sounds like a long-lost collaboration between Aphex Twin and Sasha, while “Act III. - “Compact City Dream”” gets gleefully weird, draping crescendos of pitch-shifted vocal fragments atop disembodied trance riffs before taking a brief detour into navel-gazing piano. Throughout the album, straight lines and functional rhythms are often in short supply, but Reclaim is a wildly creative record, and makes clear that Pépe’s talents aren’t tethered to the dancefloor.

BEST OF THE REST

Doctor Jeep “Push the Body” (TraTraTrax)

With remixes from the likes of Hodge, Aquarian and Sam Binga, there’s a quite a bit of star power on Doctor Jeep’s new Push the Body EP, but it’s the NYC producer himself who shines brightest. The record’s title track repurposes a baile funk vocal (and essentially Vocoders it into robotic oblivion), but the song’s most impressive transformation happens around the two-minute mark, when its opening salvo of heavy-lidded, halftime dubstep suddenly gives way to a rave-ready techno rhythm. Considering that “Push the Body” comes from an artist who’s delivered a steady stream of industrial-strength bass bangers in recent years, it’s not exactly a surprise, but it’s easily among the best things Doctor Jeep has ever done.

Slava “Without You” (Unknown to the Unknown)

For nearly a decade now, Slava has effectively been MIA. Despite being a regular on Oneohtrix Point Never’s Software label during the early 2010s, he went quiet following 2014’s Comma Sutra EP—until last week, that is. As the title implies, his new 2015 EP is a throwback to that era’s “future bass” aesthetic, and with its skippy rhythm, shiny chords and sultry R&B samples, standout cut “Without You” specifically sounds like something that Kelela might have dropped back in those days.

Shubostar “Queen Millenia” (Live at Robert Johnson)

The ’80s sci-fi vibes are strong on “Queen Millenia,” the sparkly opening number on Shubostar’s new Dolphin Dream EP. The South Korean producer takes obvious cues from Giorgio Moroder here, but there’s an additional fantasy element at work, as the song’s gleaming synths at times sound like something lifted from the soundtrack of an old kids show or a vintage video game. Perhaps that’s why the track feels so light and joyful, although its glittering synth-disco groove also helps on that front.

Katie Gately “Brute” (Houndstooth)

Back in 2020, Katie Gately—who recently made a guest appearance here in the newsletter—released Loom, a swirling maelstrom of an album inspired by the death of her mother. Her new full-length, Fawn / Brute, is a generally brighter affair—the fact that the record was made following the birth of the Los Angeles artist’s first daughter likely has something to do with that—but it’s no less sonically complex. There’s an inherent theatricality to Gately’s music, and LP highlight “Brute” impressively weaves together growling synths, acrobatic vocals and hair metal-esque guitar squall into something that’s part PJ Harvey and part Sweeney Todd.

9th House “Espalmador” (Running Back)

Midas, the latest EP from UK artist 9th House (a.k.a. Firas Waez a.k.a. Waze of Waze & Odyssey), is unabashedly retro, but in a time when it seems like most acts are either aiming for skull-splitting sonics or ambient abstraction, the feel-good house groove of “Espalmador” feels downright refreshing. With its Italo bump, piano vamps, string flourishes and breathy vocal loops, the track is a carefree romp, and sounds like something Tiger & Woods would make if they’d grown up in NYC instead of Rome.

Superski “Espace Supertemporel” (Cracki)

Brought together by a shared love for analog synths, French producers Eliott Litrowski and Voiski have put together a veritable synthesis masterclass on Mondo Moderno, their debut LP as Superski. Brightly colored and deeply propulsive, album standout “Espace Supertemporel” borrows from Kraftwerk, Eurotrance and innumerable sci-fi film soundtracks, its neon chug exuberantly zooming toward the stratosphere.

Developer “Persuasion Group” (Modularz)

Every week, at least one straight-ahead techno thumper seems to find its way into the newsletter, and today that honor goes to “Persusasion Group,” a propulsive highlight of Developer’s new Hexmode full-length. With more than 15 years of releases under his belt, the Los Angeles producer knows plenty of techno tricks, but “Persuasion Group,” with its dramatic string melody and relentless churn, feels like a nod to Detroit, and in particular the groovier entries in Robert Hood’s catalog.

Waclaw Zimpel “Train Spotter” (The state51 Conspiracy)

Polish artist Waclaw Zimpel comes from a jazz background, but having collaborated with the likes of James Holden and Shackleton in recent years, it’s clear that he’s no slouch in the electronic realm. Train Spotter is his latest full-length, and the LP’s confidently cool title track has a distinctly cinematic bent, its warbling arpeggios and subtly psychedelic sound design coalescing into something that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Michael Mann flick during the 1980s.

Piotr Kurek “Martin Is Crying” (Mondoj)

With a runtime that’s just shy of 13 minutes, “Martin Is Crying” is by far the longest song on Piotr Kurek’s new Peach Blossom LP, but it’s also the album’s most delightful offering. A slow procession of softly sung (and gently processed) vocal tones and delicately struck chimes, it’s hypnotic from the jump, yet the real magic is unlocked when the Polish artist begins to pull and stretch the vocal elements in the track’s latter half, developing a kind of musical silly putty that alternates between childlike joy and theatrical laments.

Richard Skelton “lesser gravity” (Phantom Limb)

Inspired in part by bouts of insomnia-induced stargazing—an experience made all the more illuminating by the fact that Richard Skelton lives in the so-called “dark sky” region of the UK countryside—the fantastic new selenodesy album is characterized by a certain level of grandiosity, but its slow-brewing soundscapes are more than just big. They’ve been infused with an almost apocalyptic sense of drama, and things feel particularly tense on LP standout “lesser gravity,” on which Skelton’s towering baritone blasts and plumes of jagged distortion form a harsh (yet oddly beautiful) wall of sound, bringing to mind images of a circular saw slicing into concrete.

Escaflowne “In my Lyfe” (Self-released)

The new Slipstream EP is described by Escaflowne as “a proper dive into jungle, DnB and faster stuff,” and the Brooklyn artist hits an especially sweet spot with “In my Lyfe,” a deep and dreamy cut that’s essentially a souped-up slice of liquid drum & bass. Although the track still has plenty of low-end rumble, its twinkling melodies and weightless string samples glide atop the dancefloor, unencumbered by the usual limits of a night out at the club.

Porter Brook “Trakt II” (Trule)

Although label founder Al Wootton has only invited a handful of other artists to contribute to Trule since its founding in 2018, Porter Brook’s new Lipsius EP immediately feels like a worthy addition to the catalog. With its broken techno rhythms, opening cut “Trakt II” is perhaps livelier than Wootton’s own productions, but it shares his passion for dubby dynamics, the song’s bassy pulse emanating endless waves of chunky reverb and crackling static.

That’s it 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.)

Have a great 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.