First Floor #247 – New Year, Same Old Streaming Problems
a.k.a. An interview with Liz Pelly, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh bundle of new track recommendations.
Happy new year everyone. First Floor is back after a little holiday hiatus, and while the bulk of today’s digest is focused on catching readers up with everything that happened during the past several weeks, let’s kick things off today with a proper big-ticket item:
I interviewed Liz Pelly.
The New York-based writer and editor has long been one of the music world’s most prominent streaming critics, and her work—which consistently highlights exploitative industry practices and the devastating effect they’ve had on the independent music landscape—has been absolutely instrumental in shaping the wider streaming conversation. With her first book, Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, officially out this week, I finally got the chance to have an extended conversation with her. That conversation was first published earlier this week, but it’s now available to everyone below—and yes, the paywall is temporarily down.
Otherwise, read on for an assortment of recent news items, new release announcements and suggested reading links, along with a fresh slate of new track recommendations. It’s almost alarming how many new releases popped up over the holidays—and it’s also sad how many of them are all but guaranteed to be widely ignored as a result—but I’ve done my best to pluck out the gems and share them here today. And if you’re looking for a music suggestion from someone who isn’t me, I’ve also enlisted ambient artist Hollie Kenniff to pop in with this week’s guest recommendation.
Let’s get started.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Every Tuesday, First Floor publishes a long-form piece that’s initially made available to paid subscribers only. But if you’re not part of the paid tier, now’s your chance to see what you missed! The latest piece is now (temporarily) open to everyone, and it’s an interview with Liz Pelly, a writer, editor and cultural critic whose thoughtfully constructed, extensively researched new book provides a comprehensive look at Spotify, shining a light on the company’s less than honorable (and at times flat-out unethical) tactics and the many ways they’ve upended the music landscape, often at the expense of artists.
ANOTHER THING I DID
If you’re not yet completely maxed out on year-end lists and round-ups, I made a small contribution to Herb Sundays’ survey of 2024, in which Sam Valenti IV recruited a wide variety of artists, writers, DJs and other creative types from around the globe to respond to a simple question: “What song hit you hard in 2024 (new or old)?”
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the most interesting electronic music news from the past few weeks, plus links to interviews, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
If Liz Pelly’s book hasn’t left you feeling concerned about corporate consolidation in the music industry, make sure to check out Water & Music’s freshly updated “Music Tech Ownership Ouroboros,” a detailed chart displaying who exactly owns what—and the alarming degree to which “private equity firms and major labels are locked in a battle for control over independent music infrastructure.”
Dax Pierson has passed away. The experimental and electronic musician, who I was lucky to meet back when we both worked at KALX Radio in Berkeley during the late ’90s and early 2000s, was a founding member of groups like Subtle and 13 & God, and was also just a generally beloved figure in the Bay Area’s independent music scene. (He was also a longtime employee at Amoeba Music, where he touched the lives of countless music enthusiasts.) While on tour with Subtle in 2005, Pierson was involved in a harrowing van accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down, yet he soldiered on and continued to make music, notably releasing the Nerve Bumps (A Queer Divine Dissatisfaction) album via the Ratskin and Dark Entries labels in 2021. Numerous tributes have surfaced during the past week, most notably from Pierson’s close friend and former bandmate Doseone, but Dax is someone who will be missed by many.
Just before Christmas, Ibiza’s Amnesia club broke the news that DJ Alfredo had died. The Argentinian selector, often hailed as the “father of the Balearic Beat,” was an Ibiza icon who first began playing on the island during the early 1980s, and wound up inspiring multiple generations of artists and party people in the decades that followed. After 40 years behind the decks, it’s no surprise that his passing was met with a multitude of tributes and fond remembrances, and one of the most comprehensive was the heartfelt retrospective that Carlos Hawthorn penned for Resident Advisor.
As 2024 came to a close, one electronic music narrative that popped up again and again was the supposed return of dub techno. This was part of a larger shift in the culture back towards sincerity, but for those wanting a proper dub techno primer, Henry Ivry put together a thoughtful piece for Hearing Things, detailing a bit of the genre’s history while also highlighting the newer variants that have suddenly become the toast of the electronic sphere.
Speaking of Henry Ivry, he also dove deep into the catalog of vaunted UK bass / dubstep label Tempa in a new feature for Bandcamp Daily, laying out the imprint’s history while highlighting some of its key releases.
There’s a long history of older generations blaming young people for “ruining” various things, and while many of those assertions are factually challenged, I did appreciate this article in the Financial Times, in which a team of four writers—Clara Murray, Joshua Gabert-Doyon, Zehra Munir and Nic Fildes—examine the decline of late-night clubbing in many of the world’s celebrated “party capitals.” Using data from Resident Advisor, they highlight how events in cities like Amsterdam, Barcelona, New York and Berlin appear to be ending earlier and earlier, and look at why all-night clubbing seems to be losing its appeal.
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 few weeks.
Aphex Twin fans likely gobbled up this announcement as soon as it dropped, but last month the Warp label released a 38-track compilation called Music From the Merch Desk (2016 - 2023). Out now, its contents were previously only available via a series of limited-edition vinyl releases that had been exclusively sold at six different Aphex Twin live shows.
more eaze and claire rousay have previously collaborated on a number of different releases, and they’ll be joining forces yet again on the upcoming no floor album. Slated to arrive on March 21 via Thrill Jockey, the record is said to deal in “minute gestures and textural swells, carried by maurice and rousay’s enmeshed sonics.” Ahead of its release, LP cut “limelight, illegally” has already been shared.
Speaking of claire rousay, last year the LA-based artist and composer put together 12 monthly “mixtapes” of new material that were exclusively given to her Bandcamp subscribers. On December 31, however, she compiled those mixtapes into a publicly available collection called 2024, which is out now and contains four and a half hours of original music.
Every five years or so, Loraine James rings in the new year by self-releasing an EP of new material that she put together in a week or less. The London producer’s latest installment, New Year's Substitution 3, surfaced last week and includes collaborations with Coby Sey, KAVARI, KMRU and ML Buch. It’s available as a name-your-price download through her Bandcamp.
Though he’s best known as Galcher Lustwerk, the NYC-based producer has used a number of aliases over the years, and a couple of weeks ago he added to that pool by fishing out an old moniker. WADE:ltd is apparently a name he used while living in Providence, Rhode Island, and the newly unveiled Summer Street Sampler—which is out now on Lustwerk Music—is composed entirely of tracks he made between 2008 and 2010.
Continuing his long-running BODY series, MoMA Ready capped off the year with BODY 24, a 20-track compilation of previously unreleased tunes. It’s available now as a name-your-price download via the NYC producer’s Bandcamp.
Experimental artists Piotr Kurek and Patrick Shiroishi have a collaborative album on the way. Entitled Greyhound Days, it was created remotely—Kurek lives in Poland, while Shiroishi is based in Los Angeles—and will be issued by the Mondoj imprint on Match 7. In the meantime though, the song “Shadows” has already been shared.
J. Albert has long been a First Floor favorite, and even though I’ve previously described the NYC-based artist as “one of electronic music’s true wild cards,” I was still legitimately surprised by his latest project, which comes from a cheekily titled new alias, Secret Third Thing. Rooted in his grade-school-era passion for “postrock, grunge, emo math slacker rock,” the low-key Bedrock (DEMO)—which is out now—sits miles away from the dancefloor, but should appeal to a cross-section of moody indie kids, both past and present.
Last November, Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri delivered a collaborative performance at the Jacobikerk church in Utrecht as part of the Le Guess Who? festival. Now the duo have released the full, unedited recording of the set as Live at Le Guess Who?, and it’s available now as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.
As he explained in a First Floor interview last year, Tim Reaper is an eager collaborator, and the London junglist has just popped up on a new EP alongside fellow UK producer Champa B. Out now on Reaper’s Future Retro London imprint, Pandemonium contains two collaborative tunes, plus one solo track from each artist.
After years of blending together techno, electro, EBM, acid and more under the name Sepehr, the New York-based Iranian-American artist has just unveiled a new alias, Saffron Bloom, which is being described as “an illbient force of nature drawing on industrial atmospherics, trip-hop flow and unbothered breakbeat influx.” The project’s self-titled debut album is scheduled to arrive on February 28 via D. Tiffany’s Delicate label, but LP cut “Dirge of the Lonely” is available now.
HOLLIE KENNIFF 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 Hollie Kenniff, a Canadian-American artist whose swirly, free-floating and emotionally resonant creations occupy a uniquely arresting corner of the ambient sphere. Apart from her solo work, Kenniff is also one half of the group Mint Julep alongside her husband Keith Kenniff (a.k.a. Helios a.k.a. Goldmund), and together they run a music composition and licensing business for film and television called Unseen. In December, she released her latest solo LP, For Forever, through the Nettwerk label, and here she’s taken a few moments to share one of her recent musical discoveries.
Ah! Kosmos & Hainbach “Gentle Hum” (FUU)
I have been following Hainbach’s YouTube channel and am a fan of what he’s been doing, and I came across this song that he did as a collaboration with Ah! Kosmos. It’s a really refreshing take on both experimental and ambient. “Gentle Hum” is very emotional and passionate-sounding, while being firmly planted in drone and this sort of hypnotic state. The song is relatively short, but it accomplishes a lot in that time. It reminds me a lot of what I really like about Polmo Polpo's music, how it builds, has lots of interesting textures and is emotional without being heavy-handed. The analogue treatment and mixing really brings out the human quality in this, making it feel tangible and alive.
NEW THIS WEEK
The following is a selection of my favorite tunes from releases that came out during the past few weeks. 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.
Anthony Rother “I Feel Love” (3MULATOR BOY)
The holidays are a time that’s full of traditions, and for electro freaks around the globe, one of the season’s most anticipated events is the annual appearance of a new full-length from Anthony Rother. FUTURE KIDS is the German veteran’s latest offering, and it’s something he describes as his own “variant of technobeat-electro.” What does that mean exactly? With its robotic crunch and blippy, 8-bit synths, the record leans heavily into the ’80s electro canon, employing plenty of Kraftwerk-isms and more than a few pop hooks along the way. The slinky “I Feel Love”—which, to be clear, is not a Donna Summer cover—is a real standout, and Rother infuses its neon strut with just a touch of late-night sleaze, tapping into the same debaucherous spirit that powered the International Deejay Gigolo label at the height of the electroclash era. (It also fondly recalls Rother’s own “Little Computer People,” which brilliantly connected the dots between electro, synth-pop and chiptune all the way back in 1998.)
Kit Grill “violet” (Primary Colours)
No disrespect to Cliff Martinez, but if a Drive sequel ever gets green-lit, Kit Grill would do an amazing job with the soundtrack. The UK artist has long had a penchant for bold colors and various strains of ’80s-style synths, but his latest EP, violet / heat, adds some welcome crunch and distortion to the mix. What results does have something of a “sullen teenager in the early ’90s” vibe, but Kit Grill’s sense of cinematic flair remains intact, most notably on “violet,” which bears traces of modern acts like M83, but also sounds something like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark doing a shoegaze record.
S.O.N.S “Drive” (Kalahari Oyster Cult)
Can techno also be wubby? “Drive” answers that question with an emphatic “Yes!” The title track of a new EP from S.O.N.S, it finds the French artist—who’s actually based in Seoul, South Korea, where he heads up the Junction Records shop—adding some unexpected swagger to his musical formula. “Drive” may not be an unhinged banger, but its muscular bassline is anything but timid, and the song’s subtle nods to darkwave bring a hair-raising hint of drama to the proceedings. Add in a bevy of what sound like air-raid sirens, and this tune is sure to capture the attention of everyone in earshot.
R-010 “Extremofil” (Obtuse Swamp)
Hailing from Spain, R-010 is arguably best described as a techno artist, but as his new Hypersonic Macrobiomas EP makes clear, the young producer is no genre purist. Anyone who’s witnessed one of his blistering live sets likely knew that already, but this new record welds together bits of dub, drone, drum & bass, IDM and more, its jagged structures often held together with murky bits of bassy sludge. That being said, R-010’s creations never feel like a slog; EP highlight “Extremofil” is downright lively, and its springy melodies and off-kilter rhythms compare favorably with those of artists like Aleksi Perälä and Konduku.
Photonz “Finding a Way” (GLXY)
It’s easy to take Photonz for granted. Maybe that’s because the Portuguese producer maintains a relatively low profile. Or maybe it’s because he’s released so many quality tunes over so many years that people have stopped making a point to check every single new record—after all, he’ll surely drop another one before too long. His new INCANTATION EP appears to have flown almost completely under the radar so far, but its closing number, “Finding a Way,” is not to be missed. Although the song’s bubbly undercarriage alone is worth the price of admission, Photonz isn’t content to merely slap listeners around with his drum programming. It’s his use of a recurring, just-shy-of-weepy string riff that provides an emotional punch, tickling listeners’ psyches as his bustling rhythms tickle their feet.
Kyle Hall “Nimbus” (Apnea)
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Kyle Hall was routinely held up as the face of Detroit techno’s new generation. That sort of pressure would have crushed most artists, yet Hall seemed to not only wear it with relative ease, but did so while also making sure to carve out his own lane, one where he could comfortably reside once the hype had faded. (Perhaps he knew, even then, that there’s always another new generation lurking right around the corner.) Hall may no longer be a techno wunderkind, but both his production talents and his occasionally unorthodox approach to the dancefloor remain intact, and his new Crimson Clouds EP displays the quiet confidence of an artist with nearly two decades of releases in his catalog. Particularly good is “Nimbus,” a floaty, laid-back techno cut that’s also unmistakably funky, even as it luxuriously cruises through its nearly nine-and-a-half-minute runtime.
30drop “Dreams of Myself Dying” (30D)
Julia Govor “Medusa” (30D)
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the 30D label capped off 2024 with a series of four EPs: Denise Rabe’s Mastermind, Paleman’s Pale Vater, founder 30drop’s Abstract Dynamics and Final Contact, a collaborative record with tracks from Julia Govor, Amotik, Yogg and Electric Indigo. With all those artists involved, the releases collectively covered quite a bit of stylistic ground, but in keeping with 30D’s track record over the years, much of the material does put a premium on low-end dynamics and the spatial possibilities of dub.
With “Medusa,” Govor pushes those possibilities straight onto the dancefloor, her hard-knocking, free-swinging rhythms bringing to mind some of Blawan’s early productions. Label founder 30drop, on the other hand, appears to be far less interested in battering listeners around; the beats on Abstract Dynamics do a lot more tapping than slapping. EP standout “Dreams of Myself Dyung,” despite its dramatic title, is a static-laced exercise in introspection, one whose pitchy synth melodies offer an oddly calming effect, even as they take flight toward some unseen horizon.
Brendon Moeller “Radiation” (Samurai)
There’s no shortage of dub techno available these days, and with the hype around the genre currently burning white hot, we’re sure to hear a whole lot more of it in the months ahead. That’s not Brendon Moeller’s fault; the veteran South African producer—who’s based in New York—has been swimming in subterranean waters for more than two decades now. And while dub techno usually unfolds at a rather meditative pace, Moeller last year intriguingly began ramping things up to 170 bpm on his Vacuum EP. That same approach is at the core of his fantastic new Further LP, which ultimately lands in a zone that sounds something a lush, reverb-soaked variant of the autonomic drum & bass sound that dBridge and Instra:mental first cooked up in the mid 2000s. There’s some early dubstep in there as well, most notably on “Radiation”; one of several high points on the album, it’s a spacious, hypnotic tune on which Moeller’s percussive patter is bolstered by a sturdy—and at times whirring—bassline.
Pavel Milyakov & Lucas Dupuy “deep gtr” (Psy X)
In news that will likely upset only music journalists and whoever’s responsible for genre tagging at various online sales and streaming outlets, the music of Pavel Milyakov (a.k.a. buttechno) has become all but impossible to neatly categorize. HEAL is the Berlin-based artist’s latest release, and while it’s far from being his first venture into the ambient realm, he’s never before gone quite this deep. The album—which he created in collaboration with UK-based visual artist Lucas Dupuy—is billed as “an hour-long electroacoustic ambient record influenced by ’90s-’00s era new age,” and LP highlight “deep gtr” has an almost Balearic feel. Deeply patient and quietly spellbinding, the song’s softly tumbling beats and mellow undulations conjure images of calmly floating alone in the sea, watching the coastline shrink as the current slowly pulls you farther and farther from shore.
Pepo Galán “She Lost You (feat. Sita Ostheimer)” (Fluid Audio)
Simple is the title of Pepo Galán’s latest full-length, and as the title implies, it was born out of the Spanish ambient artist’s genuine desire to streamline his songcraft. That said, intention and execution are two different things, and while Simple is perhaps less worked-over than some of Galán’s previous releases—loops are the record’s primary building blocks, and he notes that the album is “full of technical errors, layers [he] no longer recognize[s}, saturations and tracks that sound outdated”—it’s by no means a bare-bones effort. The standout “She Lost You” may be uncluttered, but it’s plush and sonically robust, sparking memories of artists like Enya and Malibu as its invitingly warm tones provide a gorgeous backdrop for the angelic pipes of Sita Ostheimer. (She’s just one guest on the collaboration-heavy LP, which also includes appearances from Karen Vogt, Bicyclops, Mark Crocker, Ohmu, Hannah Elizabeth Cox, Lee Yi, Daniel Rosenholm and Mi Cosa de Resistance.)
V/Z “Tobu” (Offen)
Drummer Valentina Magaletti played on a lot of different records in 2024, and though her contributions to Moin’s You Never End and her collaborative Estradas LP with Nídia racked up the most accolades, it would be foolish to overlook It’s Cold in Baltimore, the latest album from her V/Z project with Zongamin. A follow-up to the duo’s debut LP, Suono Assente, the new record plays out as a sort of mixtape, one that owes as much to the freakier end of post-punk as it does the salad days of Mo’ Wax. “Tobu” opens the proceedings with a swooning, static-kissed orchestral loop—fans of Romance will surely approve—but then takes a dramatic left turn, rolling out a booming trap beat and some severely garbled vocal fragments. When the strings return a couple of minutes later, “Tobu” plays out as a kind of bizarre stylistic mash-up, one that should capture the hearts of ambient dreamers and heads-down beat obsessives alike.
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.)
Until next time,
Shawn
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.