First Floor #265 – It Doesn't Have to Be This Way
Looking for alternatives to an increasingly corporatized music culture, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh batch of new track recommendations.
Here in Barcelona, the conversation around the upcoming Sónar festival has become blaringly loud in recent days, and while the fiery article I published earlier this week likely contributed to that, the story has now leapt into the local non-music media, drawing scrutiny—and a whole lot of commentary—from journalists, talking heads and even government officials who normally pay almost zero attention to the electronic music realm.
Given the global footprint of Superstruct and KKR—the ethically compromised corporate entities that Sónar and a litany of other events now belong to—I imagine that similar conversations are playing out elsewhere. That’s hopefully a good thing, as any effort to limit corporate influence in music and culture will first require the general public to be more actively aware of the problem at hand. But another necessary step will involve something that’s far less likely to grab headlines or allow people to build up their social clout by screeching online: Re-engaging with legitimately independent, smaller-scale cultural entities and events that aren’t motivated by a need to grow and maximize profits at all costs.
In that spirit, I’d like to point First Floor readers towards two things I’ll be participating in this weekend in Barcelona:
On Saturday evening, the always enjoyable Pizá i Fontanals podcast will be having its first-ever live event. Entry is free with RSVP, and hosts Frankie Pizá and Albert Fontanals will be talking about—what else?—festivals with the help of a panel that includes Salt Mortal’s Claudia Kidai, La Paloma’s Arnau Sabate, Ombra Festival’s Edu Partida and yours truly. And yes, I imagine some spicy Sónar-related chat will be part of the conversation.
That same night, dublab BCN—which is home to a monthly First Floor radio show—will be kicking off a two-day celebration of the online station’s 10th birthday. The first event is on Saturday at Meteoro, with a stacked line-up that includes a rare B2B DJ set from me and my wife Dania, while the second event kicks off on Sunday afternoon at Salvadiscos, where a raft of dublab DJs past and present will be playing tunes from 3 p.m. to midnight.
Events like these are the lifeblood of a local music scene, and even if you’re not in Barcelona, I’d urge First Floor readers to find and support similar happenings in your own cities.
In the meantime though, I hope you’ll keep your eyes here and take a look at today’s First Floor digest, as the world of electronic music—as it always seems to be—has been rather busy during the past week. Read on for news items, new release announcements and suggested reading links, and for those who’ve come here with a hunger for new music, I’ve lined up a slate of A-1 track recommendations, all of them from releases that surfaced during the last seven days. Topping things off, there’s also a bonus guest recommendation from artist and online pot-stirrer Peretsky.
Let’s get into it.
REAL QUICK
A round-up of the most interesting electronic music news from the past week, plus links to interviews, articles and other things I think are worth sharing.
At this point, following all of the developments around KKR-affiliated music festivals is practically a full-time job in and of itself, and while First Floor would generally prefer to focus on other things, it should be noted that London’s Field Day, which is scheduled to go ahead this Saturday, May 24, has been hit with a massive wave of artist cancellations during the past two weeks. As of this moment, a little more than half of the originally announced acts are still listed on the festival website, but even that doesn’t reflect yesterday’s cancellation announcements from VTSS and Yung Singh. (The latter’s came via an Instagram story, which has already disappeared.) Field Day has attempted to stop the bleeding, releasing a stridently worded statement earlier this week that expressed its “passionate” opposition to “KKR’s unethical investments in Israel,” but with tickets apparently close to being sold out and a line-up that’s now rapidly shrinking, it’s not yet clear what exactly is going to happen. (Also noteworthy: although the FAQ section of the Field Day website says that tickets are “non-refundable,” the demands for refunds being made online have been growing increasingly loud and angry throughout the week.)
In a time when so much of the music discourse is dominated by algorithm-friendly moral grandstanding and oversimplifications, writer Frankie Pizá reliably provides a nuanced voice of reason. Taking to his FRANKA newsletter last week, he penned an insightful piece (in Spanish) that zooms out from the latest debates about Sónar, Superstruct and KKR, and makes the case that while it’s easy to focus our ire on specific entities, the root problem is the capture of culture by corporate interests, a phenomenon which itself stems from a lack of alternative financial models.
One last thing about festivals: Last weekend The Guardian published a rather depressing article by Esther Addley that highlights how young music fans have adjusted to sky-high ticket costs, embracing installment plans and even taking second jobs to fund their summer festival excursions.
Nearly four years have passed since Editions Mego founder Peter Rehberg unexpectedly passed away, but his label’s legacy continues to not only grow, but tower over the realm of experimental and leftfield electronic music. Daryl Worthington digs into that legacy in a new feature for The Quietus, talking to Stephen O’Malley, Emeralds’ John Elliott, KMRU, Oren Ambarchi, Jim O’Rourke, Klara Lewis and other Editions Mego affiliates while highlighting 10 key releases from the label’s expansive catalog.
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.
Long one of electronic music’s most talented genre melters, French artist rRoxymore this week unveiled a forthcoming new full-length. Entitled Juggling Dualities, it was apparently first conceived as an exercise in new age sounds, but the final product is something that’ll be much tougher to neatly pin down. The !K7 label will be issuing the LP on July 17, but first single “Moodified” is available now.
Building on their longstanding friendship and history of intermittent collaborations, Nosaj Thing and Jacques Greene this week dropped a new collaborative single, “Unknown.” The full release, which also includes a remix from Matthew Dear’s Audion project, is out now on LuckyMe.
Sofia Kourtesis has completed a new EP, Volver, which the Berlin-based Peruvian describes as a “tribute to all the LGBT+ community.” Ninja Tune won’t be releasing the record until August 1, but first single “Unidos”—a collaboration with Daphni (a.k.a. Caribou)—is available now, as is the song’s accompanying video.
Drawing from sounds collected on a trip to her ancestral homeland in Greece, Australian ambient / experimental artist Madeleine Cocolas has finished a new album, Syndesis. Billed as an exploration of “the nexus between music, place and memory,” the record is due to arrive on August 1, but LP cut “Parthenon” has already been shared.
DJ Bone has planned himself a very busy June 1, as the Detroit veteran has scheduled a whopping six releases for that day. In fairness, he’s got a lot of milestones to celebrate: 30 years of his now-dormant Subject Detroit label, five years of his Further label, 35 total years in music and his own 55th birthday. To mark the occasion, he’s prepped a new solo album (DJ Bone XXXV: The End of Never), a Subject Detroit remix collection (Subject Detroit 30th Anniversary Remixes Vol.1), a new single from his Doc Ciroc alias (“Living Life”) and new EPs from artists Azucy, Yeti Mind Tricks and Serge Jansen. That’s a lot to take in, but to help whet listeners’ appetites, DJ Bone has already shared a stream of “The End of Never,” the title track of his upcoming LP.
PERETSKY 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 Peretsky, a New York-based artist, writer, educator, composer and cultural commentator whose real name is Max Alper, but who first built a sizable online following under the name La Meme Young. Renowned for his razor-sharp and often irreverent observations about the current state of music, technology and culture—and his unsparing words about the ways that corporate interests have mercilessly infiltrated and perverted all of those things—it’s no surprise that he recent teamed up with writer and celebrated Spotify critic Liz Pelly to launch a new podcast called Critical Listening. On the musical front, he’s also slated to release a new album of minimalist songs for piano, voice, and electronics, It Doesn't Get Cold in October Anymore, on the Whited Sepulchre label next month. Ahead of that, he’s taken a few moments here to share something from a much-missed act that profoundly shaped his musical worldview.
Stars of the Lid “Adamord” (Artificial Pinearch Manufacturing)
I have never mourned a celebrity death the way that I mourned the passing of Brian McBride, one half of the seminal drone duo Stars of the Lid. This was a band that I had seen three times in my teens and early twenties, a group that I still consider in my top three all-time favorites. I expected to continue to see them live throughout my life, that we’d eventually get a new record, and that this group’s ever-so-occasional American or European tour would continue to be an inspiring opportunity to pay tribute to a true institution of American music. And while I am glad to see them slowly release newly mastered versions of their discography—an updated version of “Adamord” will appear on the forthcoming 30th-anniversary edition of Music for Nitrous Oxide—the pain is still sharp knowing that there will never be another tour and that I’ll never again be brought back to being 17 and first learning that such patience and space could exist in musical form. Perhaps I cling to Stars of the Lid as a means of maintaining this youthful wonder that they continue to inspire in me, and so I'll take comfort in never letting go, despite how much it hurts.
LISTEN UP
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.
Braille “Goblin Booty” (Hypercolour)
While I can’t deny that the words “goblin booty” sound like the name of a long-lost Chappelle’s Show sketch, this song—which also happens to be the title track of Braille’s latest release—is a playful, garage-infused gem. The Brooklyn-based producer has always had a knack for flipping vocal samples, and here, his pitch-shifted snippets add a dash of soulful sunshine to the track’s breezy shuffle. Charmingly loose and bolstered with a few carefully placed wobbles, “Goblin Booty” definitely nods to the late-2000s / early-2010s post-dubstep era, but its bubbly demeanor ensures that its appeal goes well beyond mere nostalgia.
Voiski “Does Not Want Heaven” (Funnuvojere)
The intermingling of techno and trance is often seen as a zoomer-led phenomenon, but Voiski—a French artist with more than 15 years of releases under his belt—began connecting the dots between the two genres long before the pandemic ushered in a generational changing of the guard. That said, his music has never gone full Tiësto, or anywhere near it, and though melody plays a major role on his latest EP, Hanging in the Stars Pt. 2, the record’s general vibe is a lot closer to “cosmic techno cruise” than “glowstick-fueled mayhem.” The punchy standout “Does Not Want Heaven” is built atop an almost motorik groove, and while that provides most of the forward momentum, it’s the song’s blippy tones that lend the proceedings a proper futuristic sheen.
JR2k “Life Goes On” (Cape St. Francis)
The vibes in Washington DC may be particularly bad right now, but it seems that not even encroaching fascism can put a damper on the talents of local mainstay Jackson Ryland. The longtime Future Times affiliate will actually be returning to the label next month with his upcoming Hydraplaning EP, and he also continues to head up his own rather promising imprint, Floorspeed, but his latest offering, The Express Lane, comes via Dutch output Cape St. Francis. Donning his techno-oriented JR2k alias, Ryland puts the pedal to metal and keeps it there, and on EP highlight “Life Goes On,” his smacking snares and tumbling toms practically dash across the dancefloor, their energetic stomp enhanced by the track’s chirpy synths and satisfying squelches.
DJ Ali “Slow Burn” (Blue Hour)
Closing out the new Genetic Code EP on a high note, “Slow Burn” finds DJ Ali channeling the zoned-out aesthetic of Northern Exposure-era Sasha & Digweed—and infusing it with chunky, organic drum sounds that wouldn’t be out of place on an old tribal house record. Add in the song’s persistent haze and dubbed-out chords, and “Slow Burn” has just enough grit to stand out from the manicured offerings of what in recent years has become a rather crowded prog circuit.
Priori “Thick Air (Loidis Reconfiguration)” (naff)
Arriving nearly a year after the release of Priori’s original This but More album, the two-track supplement of “reconfigurations” from Loidis (a.k.a. the “dub mnml emo tech” alias of Huerco S.) that surfaced this week isn’t exactly necessary, but considering the caliber of the personnel involved, the record isn’t likely to spark many complaints. Both reworks have their charms, but the native Kansan’s take on “Thick Air” has a bit more vigor, its halfway-underwater kicks charging full steam ahead as the song’s loopy grooves and dubby textures work their magic. Apply the “minimal” tag if you must, but this tune is packed with delicious details, and the reverb trails they leave in their wake only make the track all the more engrossing.
DJ Trystero “Untitled 6” (FELT)
A Tokyo-based techno-not-techno artist who’s set up camp on the absolute outer edge of the dancefloor—or maybe even outside the club altogether—DJ Trystero has been responsible for a brilliant series of releases on labels like Incienso and The Trilogy Tapes during the past few years. His sophomore album, Cantor’s Paradise, comes via Fergus Jones’ borderline flawless FELT imprint, and many of its nine tracks are smudgy, barely-there affairs that exist in similar soundworld as someone like Carrier, but ultimately follow a more narcotic path. Overwhelming the listener does not appear to be on Trystero’s priority list, a quality made clear by the fact that the gentle clicks and clacks at the foundation of LP standout “Untitled 6” represent some of the most forecful beats on the record. Those hoping to get battered around will need to go elsewhere, but anyone looking for fuzzy bliss, trippy introspection and sounds that haven’t been overworked into oblivion will find solace in the song’s chilled tones and soft echoes.
Selezione Naturale “Ritmo Avanti” (Gang of Ducks)
Despite having a catalog that stretches back more than a decade, the Gang of Ducks label continues to shroud its artists and releases in mystery, often eschewing paint-by-numbers promo blurbs in favor of poetic fragments and abstract clues. Selezione Naturale’s new Essere Serpente Vol.1 arrives with little more than an opaque metaphorical text in which a “serpent sheds its skin and becomes something new,” and though the Italian label did helpfully refer to its five tracks as “industrial dembow technoid ballads” in an Instagram post last week, that doesn’t quite capture the slow-brewing tension at the heart of EP highlight “Ritmo Avanti.” Buoyed by big drums, popping static and an almost orchestral sense of grandeur, the song bears traces of trip-hop and even Middle Eastern music, but also sounds like something you might hear during a pivotal scene in an ’80s sci-fi flick. It’s not really clear what exactly all of that adds up to, but whatever it is, it’s great.
Kid Smpl “A Sail, a Wind” (Hush Hush)
When Kid Smpl wrote his 2012 debut album Skylight, he was finishing his final year of college. Thirteen years later, the Seattle producer is no longer the fresh-faced youngster whose low-key, melancholy-streaked beats made him an early hero of the nascent “night bus” sound; in fact, he at one point completely set aside the Kid Smpl moniker, dropping a series of releases under the name Held. That makes the new Finding the Sky LP something of a homecoming, as he’s not only returned to his old alias, but he’s also re-teamed with Hush Hush, a label that was quite literally launched to release some of his earliest work. For those who remember the chilly tones and sweet, post-Burial vocal manipulations that defined those releases, Finding the Sky will immediately hit the spot. Album standout “A Sail, a Wind,” however, pushes further, cribbing a few notes from the Malibu playbook with its cinematic scope, blanket of tape hiss and alluring, half-mumbled vocals. Wallowing rarely sounds this beautiful.
Concepción Huerta “El interior de la Tierra arde como el Sol” (Umor Rex)
There’s a current of anger running through El Sol de los Muertos, an album that Mexican artist Concepción Huerta describes as a “reflection on dispossession, resource extraction and colonization.” Yet it’s not a raging, over-the-top anger that defines her work. It’s a simmering rage, one that’s forever bubbling beneath the surface, its heat slowly infiltrating the cracks and crevices of our very existence. Huerta primarily expresses that rage via drone and musique concrète, and on the gripping LP closer “El interior de la Tierra arde como el Sol,” her ominous textures and glassy undulations quietly burn, leaving the listener to wonder if they’ll eventually explode like the volcano on the album’s cover. Although the explosion never comes, Huerta is a master of tension and release, and by presenting the mere possibility of catastrophic devastation, she ensures that whoever’s in earshot will be utterly transfixed.
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.