First Floor #205 – Locust Behavior
a.k.a. How the European and North American electronic sphere interacts with regional sounds, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh batch of new track recommendations.
Even after nearly four and a half years of doing this newsletter, I still get surprised by where it takes me. Sometimes those destinations are physical—for instance, I’m going to be interviewed at a music conference in Slovenia next week, which was not an invitation I expected—but even my own writing occasionally winds up in places I didn’t anticipate. Last weekend, I was thinking to myself, “It’s weird that this DJ Yirvin record got so little press attention. Pretty much every major electronic music publication has been scrambling to cover Venezuelan raptor house during the past year or so—how could they miss this? Maybe I should write about that.” So I started sketching out some ideas, and then I began writing, figuring it would be a compact piece on a relatively niche topic.
That’s… not how it turned out. By the time I was finished, I’d put together a nearly 4000-word article that touched on not just raptor house, but baile funk, cumbia, gqom and a slew of other regional electronic sounds, mostly from the Global South, and also examined the (frankly not cool) way they’ve been consumed and covered—by both listeners and industry types, including the press—in Europe and North America. It’s a long read, much longer than I planned, and it’s now available for everyone, so scroll down and give it a look if you’re interested.
Otherwise, the rest of today’s digest covers familiar ground, rounding up news items and release announcements, recommending articles that surfaced in recent days and highlighting my favorite tracks from releases that dropped during the past week. I’ve also convinced Belgian techno artist Peter Van Hoesen to make a little guest appearance, and he pops in with a killer recommendation of his own.
Let’s get started.
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, which is now (temporarily) open to everyone, looks at many of the regional electronic sounds (e.g. raptor house, baile funk, cumbia, gqom, etc.) that have gained traction in Europe and North America during the past 20 years, and considers how and why they’ve often been treated as disposable trends.
ANOTHER THING I DID
Last week I was interviewed by Dan Moore for his weekly How High the Moon program at RRR, a community radio station in Melbourne, Australia. We mostly talked about First Floor, and revisited many of the topics I’ve addressed here in the newsletter (e.g. generational shifts in dance music, the perilous state of contemporary music journalism, the impact of social media and streaming on the culture, etc.). Our conversation has been posted as a standalone segment here, and anyone interested in checking out the complete, two-hour episode can find that here.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the last week’s most interesting electronic music news, plus links to interviews, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
Speaking of pieces that start off somewhere small and wind up tackling big-picture issues and seismic shifts in the culture, I very much enjoyed this essay that Kaitlyn Davies penned for Nina. What begins as a remembrance of a dubplate she heard on NTS during the pandemic slowly blossoms into a thoughtful consideration of how technology and our increasingly online existence has given rise to what she calls “community fetishism,” birthing countless Discord servers, Telegram groups, newsletters and other interest-specific walled gardens across the internet.
Damo Suzuki, the absolutely one-of-a-kind Japanese artist best known for his time fronting Can during the early 1970s, passed away at the age of 74. Countless tributes have surfaced in recent days, but this obituary that Derek Walmsley wrote for the Guardian nicely captures Suzuki’s freewheeling spirit.
LA native Bianca Oblivion has become one of the city’s most enjoyable exports over the past few years, especially for those with a love of both fun and heavy bass. This Resident Advisor feature by Michael McKinney captures her backstory—apparently she went to Yale!—and maps out her musically omnivorous approach.
Orbital have been around for more than three decades, and while I thought that meant they wouldn’t have much new to say in an interview, this surprising conversation with Harriet Gibsone for the Guardian finds the two brothers digging deep into their childhoods and looking back at the good, bad and ugly bits of their ever-evolving working relationship.
If you’ve never listened to Mouse on Mars, their sizable discography might seem too imposing to explore. Where does one start? This piece by Andrew Parks for Bandcamp Daily should provide some assistance, as he got the German duo to run through their catalog and share some key insights about their most important releases.
The best records ever to wreck a genre is a fantastic idea for a feature series, and I’m jealous that Ben Cardew thought of it before I did. The first installment surfaced yesterday in his Line Noise newsletter, and focuses on Bad Company’s 1998 debut single, “The Nine,” a tech-step classic that he argues sent drum & bass down a dark path from which it has yet to fully recover.
Kali Malone’s new album, All Life Long, dropped last Friday (and is already being greeted with rave reviews), and the New York Times marked the occasion by enlisting Philip Sherburne to profile her for the paper. Not surprisingly, the new record is a major focus of the article, but it also touches on her Colorado upbringing, her unrealized plan of a career in agriculture and her enduring love of the pipe organ.
Maria W Horn’s PANOPTIKON, which was born out of an installation she set up in a decommissioned Swedish prison, was featured here in the newsletter last week. It’s a heavy (and beautiful) record, but anyone wanting more details about what inspired the work or how the music came together should check out Horn’s contribution to Ransom Note’s Track by Track feature series, in which she discusses each song on the release.
OBLIGATORY BOOK MENTION
My first book is out now. It’s called First Floor Vol. 1: Reflections on Electronic Music Culture, and you 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.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Four Tet shared more details about his forthcoming album yesterday. It’s called Three, and will be released on March 15 through his own Text label. In the meantime, he’s shared another track from the record, “Daydream Repeat,” which is available as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the mysterious Romance dropped a new release, a 35-minute “pocket symphony” called Endless Love. Out now on Ecstatic, it’s said to involve a “Greek chorus of Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross,” though if that’s true, their voices have all been rendered unrecognizable.
Jump Source is the collaborative project of Patrick Holland and Priori, and the Montreal duo will soon be self-releasing a new EP called JS04. Before it arrives on February 28, they’ve shared lead track “Scrap.”
Ploy is perhaps best known for his unorthodox drum patterns, but the UK bass producer is trying his hand at four-on-the-floor rhythms on the upcoming They Don't Love It Like We Do EP. Touted as “tech house through Ploy’s weirdo lens,” it will be issued on February 23 through his Deaf Test imprint, though opening number “Vortex (Stripped Mix)” has already been made available.
SHERELLE had her laptop stolen on a train last summer, an incident made all the more devastating by the fact that her still-in-progress debut album was on the computer. In the aftermath of that, the UK artist has taken her time getting back into a production groove, but last Friday she shared a surprise new single on Hooversound, the label she runs alongside Naina. It’s called “HENRY’S REVENGE,” and it’s out now.
Al Wootton is poised to continue his journey down the dub techno rabbit hole on a polyrhythm-heavy new EP called River Songs. It’s slated to surface on February 23 via his own TRULE imprint, but he’s already shared lead cut “Xana.”
PETER VAN HOESEN HAS BETTER TASTE THAN I DO
First Floor is effectively a one-person operation, but every edition of the Thursday digest 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 Peter Van Hoesen, the Belgian techno veteran and Time to Express label founder who will soon be releasing Towards the center of time and surrounded by spirits, his first full-length in more than a decade. It’s slated to arrive next month via the Vlek imprint, but in the meantime, he’s carved out a few moments to share something that might surprise people: a drum & bass tune.
Aloka “Vector Space” (Typeless)
Drum & bass has always been a style that’s close to my heart. I have been following various labels and artists over the years, focusing on a specific approach to sound and arrangement. I’m not into the drop and larger-than-life hoover sounds; for me, it’s all about the intricate, edgy sound designer stuff. This Aloka track is a nice example of how the genre can be moody, funky and truly modern all at the same time.
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.
Iasos “Sighs from Heaven” (Longform Editions)
Following his death last month at the age of 76, it’s somehow fitting that the first posthumous Iasos release would surface on Longform Editions, a label that shares his passion for pushing boundaries via avant-garde sounds. (True to the imprint’s usual bimonthly routine, the piece was issued this week as part of a pack of four compositions, which also included efforts from Loris S. Sarid, Li Yilei and Liis Ring.) Although the new age pioneer never shied away from extended runtimes, “Sighs from Heaven” takes things even further, stretching his combination of gleaming tones and weightless drones past the 20-minute mark. It’s an immersive listen, to be sure, yet it never feels oppressive, as the track settles into a sort of ever-shifting, bucolic drift, doling out high-grade bliss as it floats toward the “celestial dimensions” its creator imagined while putting the music together.
Karen Vogt “Weighted” (Nite Hive)
As someone who’s decidedly not a cat person, I must admit that I was a little skeptical when I saw that Karen Vogt’s new Waterlog album was inspired by the grief she felt following the loss of her cat last year. Once I sat down and actually listened to the record though, it quickly became clear that my cynicism was unwarranted. Putting her voice front and center, the Paris-based taps into something both immediate and undeniably human, her sorrow intertwined with the sheets of reverb she’s draped atop her heart-wrenching compositions. “Weighted” might be the most sparse track of the bunch, but it feels like a gripping funeral lament—that is, until she begins looping her voice about halfway through and gradually warps it to oblivion. It’s potent stuff, and even those who’ve never had a pet in their lives might be left a bit misty-eyed by the time the song is through.
HMOT “Hin Kilgäs Bıl Yaqtarğa” (Kota-Tones / Beacon Sound)
Beauty collides with chaos on “Hin Kilgäs Bıl Yaqtarğa,” a highlight of HMOT’s new The Moon Turned into the Sun tape. Though he hails from central Siberia, his roots are Bashqort (a Turkic ethnic minority native to Russia), and that comes through in his choice of scales. But what’s most arresting is the way that his jagged melodies—which almost sound like the work of an out-of-tune violin, but are in reality the processed output of a quray, a Bashqort flute—pierce the relative tranquility of the song’s looming synth drones. What results is a rather harsh contrast, though it’s not unpleasant and is ultimately oddly compelling, even if the music does seem like something that might accompany the opening of a portal to the underworld.
Jonny from Space “Slip” (Incienso)
Though he’s something of an elder in Miami’s burgeoning club scene, Jonny from Space decided to veer away from the dancefloor on his debut album, back then I didn't but now I do, which he says is “built to chill.” LP standout “Slip” taps into the spirt of ’90s trip-hop, its muscular bassline flexing behind the song’s steady boom bap. It’s chill, yes, but it’s also kind of hard, conjuring images of two-bit hoods quietly cruising down the highway in the middle of the night, steeling their nerves in the waning moments before their next score. Let’s just say this: If James Lavelle ever decides to make another collaborative UNKLE album, he’d be well advised to enlist Jonny from Space for the team.
Fields of Mist “Isolated Incubation Chamber” (Ilian Tape)
There’s not much in the way of biographical information about Fields of Mist online, but it doesn’t appear that he’s from Detroit. (A few spots on the internet indicate that he’s from somewhere in California.) Nevertheless, his tunes do appear to contain some level of Motor City soul, and “Isolated Incubation Chamber,” a digital-only bonus cut from his new Biospore Farmers album, offers a blunted, heads-down take on the same sort of electro whimsy that the late James Stinson once made his calling card. It’s not a Drexciya soundalike—and isn’t meant to be—but its low-key strut has an obvious appeal, cruising down the boulevard with a sense of confident cool.
Bodhi “Orison” (Hotflush)
It sometimes seems like a different style of ’90s electronic music is undergoing a “revival” every few weeks, but even with all that nostalgia flowing through the scene, there’s strangely been no concerted effort to jump start a new wave of big beat. Maybe Bodhi’s new Popit record will change that. Though its booming breakbeats owe an obvious debt to various strains of electro, the ravey spirit and stadium-ready sonics of EP highlight “Orison” make it sound like something from an old Chemical Brothers album. Big, bright and bassy, with warbling low-end wobbles that are just shy of dubstep territory, it takes clear aim at the big room—and feels absolutely no embarrassment about it.
Noah + Elias “NYC” (Work Them)
Born in Germany and largely raised in the US, brothers Noah and Elias—who happen to be the sons of retired tennis great Boris Becker—sport varied resumes. The former is a visual artist, while the latter works as a model, and together, it seems they also make killer house tunes in their spare time. (I’m as surprised as anyone about that.) “NYC” is the A-side of the duo’s bubbly new record, and while it’s constructed atop a scratchy gallop, what truly makes the track pop is its creative use of vocal clips, which have been stretched and manipulated into an assortment of grunts, growls and ghostly apparitions. Intelligible words are hard to come by, but Noah + Elias clearly don’t need them; the song’s intensely catchy little earworms will be bopping around listeners’ heads for days on end.
Ignez “Veiled Dreams” (Token)
Ryan James Ford “Bellmarsh” (Clone Basement Series)
Between the TikTokers busily transforming their elementary school faves into nosebleed-inducing gabber and the middle-aged gym rats hoping their funkless greyscale marches will break them into the Ibiza circuit, it’s fair to say that, musically speaking, techno isn’t the greatest place at the moment. Yet all that dreck only makes the quality offerings stand out even more, and both Ignez and Ryan James Ford have reliably continued to do compelling work in recent years.
The former just released his debut album, Tides, and though it’s billed as an “ode to his personal connection with nature,” it shouldn’t be mistaken as some tranquil walk through the forest. With its taut rhythms and insistent pulse, it’s more in line with the merciless grandeur of the untamed ocean, and LP standout “Veiled Dreams” cuts through the water like a shark, its bubbling synths and string flourishes exuding the quiet confidence of an apex predator. “Bellmarsh,” which leads off Ryan James Ford’s new Tower Hamlets EP, is similarly driving, but it follows a creepier path, draping what sound like far-off (and slowed-down) air raid sirens and disembodied vocal tones over the song’s percussive churn. It’s the sort of track that makes you want to look up at the night sky, not with a sense of wonder, but because you’re worried about what the hell might actually be lurking up there.
Capiuz “Walking in Snow” (Self-released)
The feels are almost as big as the melodies on “Walking in Snow,” a gleaming highlight of Capiuz’s Newfound Intimacy album. Though the track technically qualifies as techno, it doesn’t really sound like Detroit or Berlin, its luminous sound palette and widescreen lens instead landing the Italian artist in a zone that’s closer to Bicep (without the underlying tinge of rave nostalgia) or maybe even Caribou. Wide-eyed and earnest, but never saccharine or camp, its only real darkness resides in the song’s bassy warble, yet “Walking in Snow” is primarily a vehicle for joy. It’s also just a solid little tune.
Gremlinz & Jesta “For to Say” (Metalheadz)
Whenever someone uses the word “jazzy” in relation to drum & bass, it immediately sparks thoughts of a very particular strain of the genre, one whose heady, atmospheric excursions are often better suited to daydreaming and chin stroking than bruking out on the dancefloor. That’s fair enough, but the jazz-referencing “For to Say”—an undeniable high point of Gremlinz & Jesta’s new The Lee Garden Historical Preservation Society LP—sounds like the Grim Reaper furiously strumming a stand-up bass, and doing so while mean mugging everyone in the room. A throwback to what artists like Roni Size and Krust were doing in the mid-to-late ’90s, the track is both soulful and muscular, and provides a forceful reminder that jazzy tunes can still have plenty of menace.
WOST “Azaroso” (TraTraTrax)
Siete Catorce “Freno” (TraTraTrax)
For years, European and North American perceptions of Latin electronic music have been wrapped up in a sort of north-meets-south model, in which traditional rhythms (many of them indigenous or Afro-Caribbean in origin) get a “modern” update via the application of synths, drum machines and other Western-coded production tools. That approach is not without its merits—it’s produced a ton of amazing music over the years—but it’s also a limiting way of looking at Latin musicality, implying that its most notable contributions can only be sounds and patterns that were first mapped out decades, or even centuries, ago.
Perhaps what’s most exciting about the TraTraTrax label is its willingness to toss out that north-meets-south paradigm entirely. Just a few years into its run, the Colombian outpost has advanced a much different narrative, making the case that Latin electronic music is modern, futuristic and, most importantly, can sound like anything. On the new no pare, sigue sigue 2 compilation, the selections aren’t even limited to Latin artists, as the label seems intent on proving that there’s no reason a globally minded, boundary-pushing hub can’t flourish in South America. With 18 tracks, including contributions from Doctor Jeep, Henzo, 3Phaz, Surusinghe and other bass manipulators from around the world, the highlights are too numerous to list in full, but there’s no missing “Azaroso,” on which WOST weaves wobbly, dubstep-indebted bass tones through a lively field of tumbling, rave-ready breakbeats. Another standout is Siete Catorce’s wonderfully creative “Freno,” a playful, tempo-shifting cut that sits somewhere between Darude’s “Sandstorm” and the loping rhythms of tribal guarachero.
That brings us 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.)
Have a good 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.