First Floor #219 – A Subculture Lacking in Shared Experiences
a.k.a. The fragmentation of independent music (and culture in general), plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh bundle of new track recommendations.
Summer is technically still a month away (in the Northern Hemisphere), but with Movement happening in Detroit this weekend and Primavera Sound hitting Barcelona the week after that, it’s fair to say that dance music’s annual summertime festival sprint is already underway. That’s all well and good, but with all of these massive events on the horizon, there’s one thing I’m curious about: is 2024 a year in which the summer will have no certifiable summer anthems? I’ve heard plenty of great new dance tracks during the past few months, but even the biggest bangers don’t seem to have had much staying power.
(If you think there’s some bona fide anthem out there that I’ve missed, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know. And, to be clear, I’m specifically talking about dance music. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” doesn’t count, and that Fred again.. remix of it definitely doesn’t count.)
Dedicated First Floor readers know that this is a topic I’ve tackled before, so I’m not going to revisit it again—at least not today. But given that the essay I published earlier this week considered the consequences of an increasingly fragmented culture, I have been wondering how that might play out in the DJ booth. It certainly doesn’t feel like any one tune, let alone a handful of tunes, has really taken dance music by storm this year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it results in a wider variety of music getting played. But there is something special that happens when a big tune—a current one, not an established classic—gets dropped at just the right time, unlocking a sort of invisible unifying force that’s so much bigger than any one person on the dancefloor. Those moments can be powerful, even when they make self-appointed cool kids—myself included—roll their eyes. But what happens when theose moments disappear? I think we may be starting to find out, and I’d argue that it’s a big part of the reason why more and more DJs, desperate to keep the dancefloor afloat, have been reaching for nostalgia-triggering karaoke fodder instead.
My aforementioned essay goes a lot deeper into this, and you can find that below. Otherwise, today’s First Floor digest is here to get you caught up on all the latest happenings in the world of electronic music. Read on for news items, new release announcements and other articles / bits of content that I think I worth your time. There’s also a sizable batch of new track recommendations, all of them from releases that dropped during the past week, and as an added bonus, I’ve enlisted another journalist, the incomparable Matthew Schnipper, to drop in with a guest recommendation.
As always, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so 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, considers how dance music—and independent music culture in general—have been impacted by the growing fragmentation of the human experience. What happens to a subculture when its participants not only aren’t seeing the same content, but aren’t experiencing things on a shared timeline?
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.
Kamaal Williams (a.k.a. Henry G Williams, who previously made music under the name Henry Wu) has been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault in a new investigative report by Resident Advisor. Written and researched by Anu Shukla and Annabel Ross, the article includes detailed accounts from three separate women, who describe incidents happening in two different locations over the course of more than a decade. The London-based artist, who’s long been part of the city’s experimental jazz scene, has not responded publicly to the story, although RA reports that an unnamed representative for Williams told them that the “very serious allegations are untrue and emphatically denied by him and that he will be able to demonstrate the same.”
Nikki Nair put together the latest edition of The Mix for Mixmag, and while the accompanying interview offers a few tidbits of new information—mostly about his new Snake EP for LuckyMe—what’s most interesting is that the actual DJ mix he provided consists entirely of his own productions, most of which are unreleased.
The explosion of pop edits in dance music has prompted a whole lot of discussion (and consternation) during the past few years, but the cross-pollination of these two worlds is far from a new phenomenon. A new article that Matt Anniss wrote for The Quietus makes that exceedingly clear, zeroing in on the Pet Shop Boys and highlighting how the iconic UK outfit have spent decades intermingling their pop impulses with the latest dancefloor trends.
The influence of Arthur Russell towers over multiple genres and eras, but in the wake of numerous reissues, documentaries and tributes, along with more articles than could possibly be counted, one could be forgiven for thinking that there’s not much new to be said about the late artist. Even so, English writer Richard King, who’s authored a new book called Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell – A Life, actually does seem to have something of value to add to the conversation. At the very least, he says plenty of interesting things in a new interview with the FADER’s Raphael Helfand, outlining his surreal, fresh-out-of-COVID research experience at the New York Public Library, and also countering some of the most common narratives about Russell and the life he lived.
The Sound of is DJ Mag’s label-focused mix and interview series, and the latest installment puts Rotterdam outpost Nous’klaer—home to records by upsammy, Konduku, Tammo Hesselink, Oceanic, John Talabot (under his Koraal moniker) and many others—under the spotlight. In an interview conducted by Ben Murphy, founder Sjoerd Oberman details the imprint’s history, and delivers a DJ session highlighting some of his favorite cuts from the Nous’klaer catalog.
“What is 3-step?” For anyone who’s not deeply plugged into South African dance music, that question would be the most likely response to hearing someone casually drop the term in conversation. Resident Advisor, however, has stepped in to provide a bit of clarity, publishing an explanatory new article that both outlines what the genre is—for the uninitiated, it’s related to amapiano, Afro tech and broken beat—and highlights what some of its defining songs are. Even better, the writer, Shiba Melissa Mazaza, is actually based in Cape Town—a refreshing change from how dance music publications usually cover regional music styles.
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 recommend that you either inquire at your favorite local bookshop or try one of the online sales links that have been compiled here.
JUST ANNOUNCED
A round-up of noteworthy new and upcoming releases announced during the past week.
Patrick Holland has been on a real prolific streak during the past year or so, and it continued this week when the Montreal artist released a new EP, Left at the Table. Available now on his Verdicchio Music Publishing imprint, it’s billed (possibly in jest) as “three tracks about being stuck in a casino.”
Matthewdavid has been running Leaving Records for 15 years, but the LA outpost just recently received its first uncleared sample notice from a “bigger label entity.” The experience left him thinking about the future of sample-based music, and also helped to shape the final steps of Uncleared, his new instrumental beat tape. Out now—but not available on streaming services—the release contains 29 relatively stripped-down tracks, all of which were the by product of a “back to basics” beatmaking regimen that Matthewdavid set up for himself late last year.
Penelope Trappes has a new tape on the way called Hommelen. Recorded as part of a residency at Stockholm’s famed EMS, the release showcases the UK-based Australian’s work with the halldorophone, a rare, cello-like drone instrument that’s most famously been used by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir on several film scores. Hommelen will be released on June 7 via Paralaxe Editions—which, in the interest of full disclosure, is my wife’s label—but its first track, “Harmonic No. 1,” has already been shared, and footage of Trappes using the halldorophone (in a rather unorthodox fashion) can be seen in the song’s music video.
During the past few years, there’s been a new surge of interest in electronic music hybrids coming out of Latin America. Some of that interest has focused on ZZK—a label that first started in Buenos Aires more than 15 years ago—but modern clubbers may ultimately be more drawn to its newly launched TORNA imprint, which is specifically focused on the dancefloor. TORNA #1 dropped last week, and it features two tracks from Hermetics, a Colombian producer currently living in the Argentinan capital. (Another disclosure: ZZK hired me to write the promotional copy that accompanied the release. My inclusion of the record here was not part of that agreement, and is solely based on my opinion that the establishment of this new imprint is something that would interest First Floor readers.)
Following up on her Homesick album from last year, Ciel has put the finishing touches on a new EP called Sada’s Dream. A departure from the conceptual confines of her full-length, the new record is based on material that the Toronto-based producer originally performed as part of a live set at MUTEK Montreal. It’s due to arrive on May 31 via the SUZI imprint, although one track, “Bubble Gum Pop,” has already been made available.
MATTHEW SCHNIPPER 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 Matthew Schnipper, a veteran NYC-based music writer and editor who’s logged time at places like the FADER, Pitchfork, VICE and GQ. These days, however, he most frequently pops up in his own Deep Voices newsletter, which is technically a vehicle for him to share thoughtfully curated weekly playlists, but is also an outlet for his latest thoughts on music and culture. Schnipper is one of the rare music writers who can weave tidbits of his personal life into his work without sounding self-aggrandizing or tedious, and he’s also someone who’s jettisoned all notions of presenting himself as cooler or smarter than his readers, which gives his words a refreshingly human touch. He’s currently at work on a book, a memoir based upon a beautiful piece on grief he wrote last year for The New Yorker, but here he shares something lighter, in the process copping to a bit of double-screen behavior that most of us have been guilty of at one time or another.
Martin Rev “Secret Teardrops” (ROIR)
I have this terrible affliction where if I hear a song and don’t know what it is, I feel like I’m going to explode. Doesn’t matter what it is, any mystery is too much to bear. I watch TV with Shazam at the ready. I look up, like, half the songs on The Bear and I always feel dumb because they’re usually either Pearl Jam side projects or Pearl Jam. But once, during a montage scene of Ayo Edebiri reading a self-help book by a college basketball coach, it was a song by Martin Rev, one half of the scarily legendary early electronic / goth duo Suicide. It was so good! It wasn’t scary at all. The song, “Secret Teadrops,” from his 1995 album, See Me Ridin’, is a weird little pop song, like minimalist ASMR karaoke Frankie Valli. I felt bad that I hadn’t followed his solo career, so I dove in and found the album to be an idiosyncratic delight. The best song is “I Heard Your Name,” which honestly sounds pretty similar to “Secret Teardrops,” but announces itself with three long poundings of a timpani. Look out, it says, royalty is coming. Bow down.
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.
Chrissy (feat. Carrie Wilds) “So I Go Dancing (Gerd Janson DJ Remix)” (Running Back)
First released back in 2019, the original “So I Go Dancing” is a bubbly jam that reanimates the ’80s-era ghosts of freestyle, Hi-NRG and synth-pop. Now the track has been given a fresh coat of paint—by Running Back boss Gerd Janson, no less—on Chrissy’s new Things Can't Go on Like This Forever EP. The rework maintains the song’s neon-streaked vitality and diva-fueled ferocity (which comes courtesy of Carrie Wilds and her powerful pipes), but it’s been subtly refashioned with a longer runtime and more linear structure, allowing the tune to slide more smoothly into the average DJ set. If you’ve ever wished that acts like Shannon, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Debbie Deb and Exposé had never stopped releasing music, then you’ll definitely want this tune in your record bag.
Deetron presents Soulmate “Filter Dub” (Ilian Tape)
When the new Drone EP dropped last week, Martyn Bootyspoon excitedly tweeted about it, highlighting the track “Bourg” while proclaiming Deetron to be the “Lordt of Melody.” He wasn’t wrong. The Swiss techno veteran has long been a reliable source of synth-driven dancefloor magic, but when I heard his latest record, I was actually drawn to “Filter Dub,” arguably the least melodic cut on the EP. While Deetron’s work is often compared to the classic sounds of Detroit, “Filter Dub” feels more like ’90s-era New York, its shuffling soul providing the foundation for the song’s emphatic piano stabs.
Sciahri “One Letter” (Sublunar)
Florence-based producer Sciahri has a decade of releases under his belt, but his new Pareidolia II EP immediately feels like the most overtly funky thing he’s ever done. Tapping into the hardgroove sound that’s been sweeping across the techno spectrum during the past year or so, the lively record has been populated with galloping drums, rubbery rhythms and an unmissable hint of swagger. Those elements come together most effectively on opening track “One Letter,” a song whose taut grooves scamper across the dancefloor with the energy of a marathon runner who’s accelerated into a full-blown sprint during the last mile of a race.
CJ Bolland “Tokyo” (STROOM)
“Camargue” is a Belgian classic, a trancey slice of techno (or is it a techno-infused bit of trance?) from 1993 that quickly became one of CJ Bolland’s signature tunes. Now that it’s been reissued by STROOM, most people who pick up the record will probably be doing so to finally have a copy of the song in their vinyl collection, but they’d be remiss to sleep on “Tokyo,” the previously unreleased B-side that Bolland cooked up around the same time as “Camargue.” Fast-paced and stuffed with shimmering melodies, the track definitely leans into the early trance canon, but it’s more of a smacking techno cut, one whose farty little synth riffs lend the proceedings a sense of uninhibited joy.
COIDO “Ritterstep” (YUKU)
It was less than two years ago that COIDO began sharing his bassy madness with the world, but the Berlin-based Italian has already become a staple of the steadily expanding YUKU universe. Traces is his latest offering, and the invigorating “Ritterstep” closes out the EP with potent bit of low-end bravado. Taking cues from labels like Livity Sound and producers like Anunaku, the track’s clattering percussion, stop-start drum patterns and hybrid sensibility will likely ring familiar to anyone who’s spent time hopping up and down the hardcore continuum in recent years. But COIDO still stands out, mostly by going extra heavy on the bass, ultimately landing in a zone that sounds like Ed Rush & Optical making something for Timedance.
DJ Manny & TCJ “Mystery Machine” (Teklife)
Chicago will always be the true home of footwork, but Teklife—easily the genre’s most celebrated crew—has members all over the place, and The Lost Highway, a new collaborative album from DJ Manny & TCJ, is a testament to the talents of its NYC chapter. In truth, it’s not “just” a footwork record, but the duo definitely do their best work at 160 bpm, most notably on “Mystery Machine,” a spooky, not-quite-jungle hybrid with a warbling (and surprisingly catchy) melody that sounds like something lifted from the score of an ’80s horror flick.
Onra “Close Your Eyes and Remember” (All City)
Nearly two decades into his career, French beatmaker Onra has lent his talents to a variety of sounds and projects over the years—most of them loosely connected to hip-hop, boogie and R&B—but his Chinoiseries continues to stand out. A three-part series in which he combined samples lifted from vintage Chinese records with his own laid-back boom-bap, the records earned him comparisons to famed diggers like Dilla and DJ Shadow. The final Chinoiseries volume dropped in 2017, but Onra has now come back with something similar: a new album called Nosthaigia. Produced entirely on an MPC1000, the record was primarily built using samples of old 7-inches he picked up while living in Thailand, and LP highlight “Close Your Eyes and Remember” feels like stepping into a time portal, its soulful sway conjuring visions of lounging in a smoky Bangkok nightclub in the 1960s.
Kito Jempere “Love Myself but I Can’t Make It Love (Album Version)” (Self-released)
Well, this was certainly unexpected. Kito Jempere is generally best described as a house producer, but on “Love Myself but I Can’t Make It Love” he’s literally gone back in time, revisiting a song he first wrote 20 years ago as a member of a school-age rock band called Naked Lunch. The 7-inch release, which is said to be the first taste of a forthcoming LP, actually includes a pretty great, screamo-ish version of the song that Naked Lunch recorded back in the day, but Jempere’s updated production is even better. Though he cites the influence of groups like Weezer, The Pixies and Modest Mouse, the fuzzed-filled song also bares traces of vintage pysch and garage rock, running its crooked guitar lines and anthemic vocal refrain through multiple layers of heavy reverb while adding in a little bit of Britpop bombast for good measure. Is Kito Jempere about to drop a rock album? If it all sounds like “Love Myself but I Can’t Make It Love,” I’m down.
Daphne X “Hands Are Flowers” (Paralaxe Editions)
It’s not often that something which sounds like a lullaby is punctuated with piercing bits of feedback. Daphne X, however, seems to have a real knack for coaxing beauty out of the unlikeliest of bedfellows, a skill she demonstrates not just on “Hands Are Flowers,” but across her entire new album, An Echo of Something I Don't Remember. Though the music is thematically rooted in the idea of the voice, it actually folds in a wide variety of sounds and field recordings; some are scratchy, some are squeaky, some are totally serene, but the Anatolian Greek artist and sound designer—who lives in Barcelona—has assembled them into dense ambient soundscapes, many of which are highlighted by ghostly tendrils of her own wordless vocalizations. The closing number, “Hands Are Flowers,” is where those vocalizations feature most prominently, and while its breathy murmurs and high-pitched tones give the song a surreal, almost alien feel, the song is deeply bewitching all the same. (Full disclosure: An Echo of Something I Don't Remember was released by my wife’s label, Paralaxe Editions.)
taupe set xl “let the floods come” (enmossed)
Florida is a deeply weird place, which is why it’s strange that The Sunshine State hasn’t become more of a full-blown hotbed for experimental and avant-garde sounds. Perhaps swamp prayer, the latest album from Miami-based artist taupe set xl, can help to turn the tide. Consisting of little more than phantom-like drones, a whole lot of reverb and the artist’s own voice, the spartan sound palette recalls classic 4AD outfits like This Mortal Coil, and taupe set xl ups the emotional ante by infusing the record’s oozy environs with a profound sense of grief and a distinctly foreboding vibe. Just the title of “let the floods come” nihilistically hints at oncoming doom, but what’s most impressive is the way in which ists creator makes something so ominous sound so beautiful.
Panoram “Pierre” (Balmat)
What kind of music does Panoram make? The enigmatic Italian doesn’t really make dance music (though his last two albums were released by Running Back), and his unusual creations are both far too lively to be called ambient and too immediately pleasant to be classified as experimental. “Odd” is a good word to describe his work, and his new album Great Times—his first for Balmat—is the kind of LP an exasperated record store clerk might wind up filing in the jazz fusion section, simply because they don’t know where else to put it. In reality, the music isn’t really jazzy at all, at least not in the traditional sense. There are hints of IDM and new age, and more than a few nods to the sort of big-budget pop-rock records that major labels churned out in the 1980s, but perhaps it’s best to simply defer to Balmat’s promo blurb, which says, “Panoram makes soundtracks for daydreams gone sideways.” That doesn’t say much about what the music sounds like, but it definitely captures the vibe of a song like “Pierre.” One of the album’s many highlights, the gleaming tune is part ELO and part Pure Moods, a would-be palette cleanser that’s somehow still a high-drama, borderline ostentatious affair. Whatever it is, it’s great.
That brings us to the end of today’s First Floor digest. 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 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.