First Floor #199 – Another Year in the Books
a.k.a. Wrapping up 2023, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh batch of new track recommendations.
This is my final newsletter of the year, and having just completed lists of both my favorite tracks and favorite releases of 2023, I’ve been doing a fair bit of reflecting on the year gone by. And you know what? Despite all the critiquing and criticizing that goes on around here, I have to admit: it’s been a pretty good year for First Floor. During the past 12 months, I’ve obviously done a ton of writing here in the newsletter, but I’ve also released my first book, toured both Europe and North America, spoken at a variety of different festivals / conferences and launched a new monthly column for Nina.
For an independent project literally run out of my apartment in Barcelona, that’s not too bad.
I’ve said this before, but when First Floor started more than four years ago, I had no real expectations. My first newsletter went out to less than 100 people, and now I have more than 12,000 subscribers, a number that’s nearly doubled in the past year alone. None of the things I’ve mentioned would have been possible without readers like you, so thank you so much for letting me pop into your inbox each week.
That being said, as much as I appreciate all of my readers, there’s just one little problem: only a small fraction of you have opted for a paid subscription. I get it. Life is really expensive, we’re all used to free content, and in a time when seemingly every “content creator” on the planet is rattling their cup and asking for support, it’s impossible to help everyone. If you can’t pay, or simply don’t want to, that’s okay. But if you’re a regular reader and you appreciate what I’m doing here—and remember, unlike most major music publications, First Floor has no ads, no sponsored content and no brand partnerships—then please consider signing up. The newsletter, believe it or not, is my primary source of income, and paid subscriptions are what makes that sustainable. (Also, if you work in the music industry, you can probably write it off as a business expense! Just saying.)
As an added incentive, I’m offering a 20% discount on all paid subscriptions though the end of the year. For just €4 per month or €40 per year, you will not only get access to the entire First Floor archive, but you’ll also never see another paywall again. (That alone is worth the cost of a subscription—those things are annoying!)
Anyways, I promise today’s mailout contains more than a sales pitch. As usual, I’ve compiled electronic music news items and new release announcements from the past week, along with links to some articles that caught my eye. And even though we’re halfway through December, there’s still a ton of new music being released, so I’ve gone through it as best I can and have assembled a list of track recommendations. Even better, I’ve also convinced Mixpak founder Dre Skull to pop in with a guest recommendation of his own.
All of that is below, but once again, I just want to thank everyone for all the support I’ve received this year. Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or this is the very first time that the newsletter has landed in your inbox, I’m appreciate that you’re interested in what I have to say (about electronic music, obviously).
Enjoy the rest of your year. First Floor will be taking the next few weeks off, but newsletter mailouts will resume during the second week of January.
OBLIGATORY BOOK MENTION
My first book is out now. It’s called First Floor Vol. 1: Reflections on Electronic Music Culture, and folks can order it from my publisher Velocity Press. However, if you’re outside of the UK, I’d actually recommend either inquiring at your favorite local bookshop or trying one of the online sales links I’ve compiled here.
ANOTHER THING I DID
Second Floor is my aforementioned monthly column for Nina, and the latest one went live earlier this week, focusing on something I like to call “big-room sad.”
What is that exactly? “An elegiac, sentimental sound that revels in the aesthetic hallmarks of rave music while brushing aside the traditional needs of the dancefloor.”
Regular First Floor readers might recall seeing the term “big-room sad” here in the newsletter on occasion—“sentimental rave” is another descriptor I’ve sometimes used to describe the phenomenon—but this Nina piece dives deeper into what it entails and where it came from, and posits that Bicep’s “Glue” is arguably the blueprint for the whole thing.
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.
Earlier this week, veteran electronic artist Leyland Kirby (a.k.a. The Caretaker) announced that his music was finally being uploaded to major streaming services, but as his lengthy Facebook post made clear, he wasn’t happy about it. In fact, he doesn’t want to have his music on streaming platforms at all, but after years of fruitlessly battling scammers and opportunists who’d repeatedly put his work online without his permission, it seems that he finally relented and decided to upload the music himself. It’s a disheartening story—one Kirby has confirmed he’ll be telling in greater detail in an upcoming interview—and it demonstrates how even artists who don’t want to participate in the streaming economy are still being adversely affected by the way it’s come to dominate the wider music world.
Back in October, some public comments from DJ Voices were one of the main inspirations behind an essay I wrote, which examined the conflict between careerism and artistry in a dance music circuit that’s become increasingly commercialized. Two months later, that same topic has resurfaced as part of a DJ Voices profile, which writer Eoin Murray put together for DJ Mag’s Recognise series. The piece of course touches on other matters as well, including her Florida upbringing, her work as a booker at Nowadays and the importance of community, and it also includes an exclusive new DJ mix.
In the latest edition of his Zen Sounds newsletter, Stephan Kunze dove into the history of iconic ambient outpost 12k, detailing a bit of its backstory and also highlighting five of his favorite releases from the label’s massive catalog.
Russell E.L. Butler’s recent Call Me G album is arguably the best thing the NYC-based artist has never done, which makes this new feature in DJ Mag a rather timely read. Written by Bruce Tantum, it traces Butler’s journey from his native Bermuda to his current home in Brooklyn, and also breaks down how the new LP came together.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Leon Vynehall dropped a new standalone single via his Studio Ooze imprint. It’s called “Duofade,” and it’s available now.
Marking 31 years of existence, iconic Dutch label Clone Records has just released a limited-edition box set called Sonic Transmutations, which includes tracks from Anthony Rother, Legowelt, Dopplereffekt, Steffi, DJ Sotofett and many, many others. It’s available now, both digitally and as an eight-vinyl set.
Soft Crash, the collaborative project of Phase Fatale and Pablo Bozzi, has a new EP on the way. Entitled NRG, it’s slated to arrive on February 2 via BITE, and includes guest appearances by Marie Davidson and Ready in LED. The latter features on lead single “Free Yourself,” which has already been shared, along with its accompanying video.
Following up on his impressive Operator EP from earlier this year, North Carolina producer GRRL has returned to Jubilee’s Magic City label with a new two-tracker called Side by Side. It’s out now.
Lone offered up a surprise new single yesterday. Available now on the Greco-Roman imprint, it’s called “Triton,” and is said to be a companion to “Waterfall Reverse,” the surprise single the UK producer dropped back in October.
Throughout 2022, techno / bass outfit Lakker oversaw a series of monthly releases called LKRTRX, and while the complete set of 12 EPs is not currently online, the duo has shared nine of its tracks in a new Bandcamp package titled LKRTRXSERIES. That package is currently available as a name-your-price download, but only until Sunday, December 17, so move quickly if you’re interested in grabbing a copy.
Lost Souls of Saturn is a collaboration between Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa, who this week unveiled their upcoming sophomore album. Reality—which is technically not credited to Troxler and Moffa, but their new personas John and Frank, a couple of “sci-fi AR comic characters” that have “explored the galaxy and returned with this perception-melting new LP”—will be released jointly by Holoverse Research Labs and Slacker 85 on February 2. Ahead of that, synth-pop-flavored album cut “Mirage,” which features the vocals of Adam Ohr, has already been shared.
DRE SKULL 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. Today’s recommendation comes from Dre Skull, the Mixpak label founder and superproducer whose resume includes tracks with Popcaan, Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Wizkid, Santigold, Jorja Smith and many, many others. That said, it’s Jamaican dancehall legend Vybz Kartel who he’s worked with the most over the years, and the two recently teamed up with Nigerian talent Tekno on a new single, “Telephone.” Given his busy schedule, Dre Skull is the kind of guy who practically lives in the studio, but he carved out a few minutes to share a recommendation—one that just might surprise fans of his work.
Samuel Reinhard “Interior IV” (Präsens Editionen)
A tricky riddle of working as a music maker is that you don’t get to listen to other people’s music while you work. Working day in and day out in the studio, sometimes when I’m done I just don’t have the capacity to listen to that much music. Perhaps my system needs spaciousness to reset my attention to the larger world, but no matter the reason, it leads me to listen to a lot less music than I might otherwise want to. That said, I have found that ambient music is an exception, and I really love the often minimal electroacoustic work of Samuel Reinhard. I recommend diving into his whole catalogue, but “Interior IV” from his Interior release is a good place to start. On this piece, Reinhard seems to be playing with digitally chopped, rendered, looped and collaged layers of live piano with ample room tone to build a very spacious but striking composition. Like a certain strain of good ambient, there’s enough space here to forget the concepts of structure, and yet, it still finds a way to captivate and reveal its gifts.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes from releases that came out during the past week or so. 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.
Lionmilk and Club Diego “22 22” (Leaving")
Born out of a series of live sessions, Lionmilk and Club Diego’s In Float is full of loose, free-floating grooves. Heavy on the reverb and light on overdubs, it often feels (in a good way) like a laid-back jam, the pair’s psychedelic wanderings pulling in bits of jazz, funk, hip-hop, techno, ambient and more. (In truth, the whole thing is very LA, tapping into the same lane of freaky West Coast existence that birthed André 3000’s recent New Blue Sun album—which, as it happens, actually featured Club Diego on several tracks.) In Float isn’t a party record, but even its trippiest moments have soul, and “22 22” is when its creators most directly cut a rug, layering shimmering synths atop a warmly chugging, post-boogie / proto-techno groove that wouldn’t be out of place on an old episode of The New Dance Show.
Livio Improta “Posidone” (Tiella Sound)
At its core, Livio Improta’s Fondamentalismi is an album of broken techno rhythms. But while the word “broken” often connotes either A) meandering (and usually jazzy) explorations or B) frenetic, off-kilter drum attacks, this Italian artist charts a steadier course, steering his busted beat patterns and wonky basslines into the warm waters of the Mediterranean. Deeply chill but never sedate, the LP bathes its rhythmic percolations in plush pads and gauzy melodies—most effectively on the standout “Posidone,” a song whose undulating synths evoke images of waves lapping against the shore—yet throughout the record, the music’s underlying sense of funk remains intact, even as Improta prioritizes introspection over the needs of the dancefloor.
Cousin & Priori “1” (NAFF / Animalia)
When it comes to dance music, the term “prog” is essentially a stand-in for “deep trance,” especially amongst those reluctant to describe their music using the T-word. But in the case of Cousin & Priori’s new Numina EP, the word prog somehow feels insufficient, failing to capture just how deep the two Canadian producers have gone. Sure, there are a few trance-isms at work here, but the record has more in common with Northern Exposure-era Sasha & Digweed than “Sandstorm.” Yes, these tunes have a steady pulse and impart a (subtle) sense of wide-eyed wonder, but anyone waiting for an epic drop or a giddy blast of euphoria will need to look elsewhere. The real beauty of a track like “1” is in its details, and the way the song’s dubby expanse gradually morphs and changes over the course of seven-plus minutes. Is “deep prog” a thing? Hearing this record, maybe it ought to be.
Steffi “Irresistible Cessation (Convextion Remix)” (Candy Mountain)
Reworking material from Steffi’s 2022 full-length, The Red Hunter (Remixes) includes diverse contributions from an enviable collection of artists, including Barker, Doc Sleep, JakoJako, 214, Violet and others. As such, there’s probably something for everyone here, but Convextion’s take on “Irresistible Cessation” feels like an obvious highlight, transforming the spacious IDM of the original track into a polished electro-techno cruiser. Not many electro cuts need to be 10 minutes long—in all honesty, not many need to be more than four minutes long—but patience has long been one of Convextion’s strengths, and even with its extended runtime, the buttery, space-age funk on this remix is sure to leave listeners clamoring for more.
Teresa Winter “Juniper” (Do You Have Peace?)
Fresh off the release of her Proserpine album last month, Teresa Winter has popped up on Always + Forever, a new compilation from Jabu’s Do You Have Peace? label. She’s in good company, as the record also features tracks from Jonnine, Vessel, Time Cow, Zaumne, YL Hooi and others. Originally conceived as a collection of dream pop-oriented tunes, the record ultimately veered from that script, but Winter’s “Juniper” is nothing if not ethereal, offering up a kind of lo-fi shoegaze in which her various vocal tendrils drift amongst a cloud of handsome distortion.
Jackson Ryland “Storm 2050” (Self-released)
Although the versatility of Jackson Ryland has never been in doubt, a survey of both his solo material and his work with projects like Rush Plus and Superabundance might lead one to think that the Washington DC producer is primarily interested in the upper register of the tempo range. The man does great work at 140+ bpm, and his new Rapid Xpansion mixtape does include a few fleet-footed bangers, but in a refreshing change of pace, it actually shines brightest when Ryland slows things down. “Storm 2050” is the best tune on there, and it’s essentially a moody trip-hop cut, one that combines big, UNKLE-style beats with moodily whirring chords and an assortment of ravey flourishes. 1998 called, and it’s stoked on this one.
Muslimgauze vs. Species of Fishes “sh-sh-sh v1.0” (Galaxiid)
Muslimgauze vs. Species of Fishes “init v1.0” (Galaxiid)
It was just last week that Galaxiid issued Some Songs of a Dumb World, a reconstituted version of the 1994 debut album from oft-overlooked Moscow duo Species of Fishes. (I wrote more about it in First Floor #198.) Now the label has quickly come back with Muslimgauze vs. Species of Fishes, a collection of reworks that the late Mancunian artist apparently put together in 1998, just months before his death. Compared to Species of Fishes’ relatively chaotic, genre-blurring originals, these Muslimgauze versions do have a more cohesive feel, not to mention a palatable sense of emotional immediacy. The hypnotic “sh-sh-sh v1.0,” which combines blippy synth loops with filtered religious chants, is a clear highlight, as is the more claustrophobic “init v1.0,” which employs both an aggressive background hum and a twitchy array of clipped synth tones. There’s no shortage of Muslimgauze material in the world, but it’s impressive how good it all sounds, decades after his passing.
Thomas Ragsdale & Richard Arnold “Introspector” (Frosti)
The latest installment of what’s proven to be a very fruitful collaboration between ambient / experimental composer Thomas Ragsdale and guitarist Richard Arnold (who also happens to be the former’s stepfather), Perspectives mostly follows in the footsteps of the UK duo’s prior outings, offering up cinematic expanses and gorgeous, reverb-soaked vistas. Where it’s most intriguing, however, is on the two tracks where Ragsdale and Arnold unexpectedly creep toward techno; “Introspector” is one of those tracks, and while it’s not strictly a dancefloor cut—its beats rarely rise above a whisper—there’s something undeniably mesmerizing about the song’s slow-motion churn, which is made all the more spooky by the presence of some Enya-like vocal clips. Tense, but in a way that’s also invigorating, this one is akin to driving slowly on a windy, pitch-black forest road in middle of the night, your field of vision limited to whatever the car’s headlights can manage to illuminate.
Cat Tyson Hughes “Silk Ruffles” (quiet details)
Wrapping up what’s been an impressive first year for the quiet details imprint, Cat Tyson Hughes’ Roses in the Casement Window is a collection of hushed meditations, and a canvas in which the Australian artist blends her hazy textures and celestial voice into blissed-out passages of sound. Standout track “Silk Ruffles” is essentially a gravity-free zone, a cozy cloud of soft static in which Hughes’ disembodied vocals and gentle guitar strums run together in the most beautiful of ways, leaving a trail of what feels like hope in its wake.
Infant “Pebble” (Warm Winters Ltd.)
Playful, weird and at times downright childlike, sigla, sone is the whimsical new album from Infant, an artist out of Michigan whose particular brand of ambient relies heavily on field recordings and processed clips of the human voice. “Pebble” is one of the record’s many highlights, and though it contains nothing resembling a verse, chorus or even a recurring hook, there’s something subtly pop about the song. Maybe that feeling simply stems from Infant’s willingness to have a bit of fun, but there’s a lot of light radiating from the track’s warbling melody, abstract vocalizations and assorted bits of digital crunch.
And that’s a wrap, both for today and for 2023. Thank you so much for reading the newsletter, 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 rest of the year.
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.