First Floor #312 – The Seductive Embrace of Cultural Status and Institutional Power
What this year's Eurovision and Biennale say about the current state of avant-garde art and music, plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh crop of recommended new releases.
I know these newsletters often begin with a meaty preamble of some sort, but much of my morning involved packing a bag and getting myself to the airport, and if everything has gone according to plan, I will be sitting on a plane at the moment this lands in your inbox. Lyon is my destination, and I’ll tell you more about that in a bit, but given that most of you are probably nowhere near east-central France this week, let’s quickly talk about today’s First Floor digest.
As always, it’s been designed to provide an overview of the past week in electronic music, highlighting news stories, new release announcements and suggested reading links. And if getting caught up on the latest headlines isn’t your thing, I’ve also assembled a round-up of recommended new releases, complete with detailed write-ups and listening links for each record that’s been selected.
Lastly, I’ve also (temporarily) opened up the paywall on the essay I published earlier this week, which at first glance might seem like it’s not about electronic music at all. It’s true the both Eurovision and the Venice Biennale are named in the headline, and the piece does put those events under a bit of a microscope. However, what’s interesting to me is not so much the events themselves, but the way in which they illuminate the yawning chasm that’s opened up between the art world’s sociopolitical rhetoric and its willingness to back up that rhetoric with truly meaningful action.
What’s worse, as the experimental music realm has increasingly been welcomed into that institutional / fine arts sphere, it too has begun to assume a morally muddled posture. It’s not that artists (and the industry professionals that surround them) have stopped posting Palestinian flags and making vague allusions to challenging power structures—they have to keep up an appearance of progressivism, after all—but more and more, they’re making sure to do so in a way that won’t jeopardize potential brand deals or hamper their ability to continue cozying up to the monied cultural elite.
Eurovision might be an asinine and blatantly commercial singing competition, but considering that five whole countries are boycotting the event this year, the cultural mainstream is currently showing a lot more backbone than the avant-garde crowd.
I talked more about that in the aforementioned essay, and you’ll find a link to it below, along with the rest of today’s First Floor digest.
Let’s get started.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Every week, 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 open to everyone, and as explained above, it’s an essay which not only examines the differing responses to Eurovision and the Biennale this year, but also points out how those responses reflect the avant-garde crowd’s increasing drive to protect its access to institutional power.
FIRST FLOOR LIVE x NUITS SONORES
As I mentioned before, I’m currently on my way to Lyon, as I’ve been invited to take part in Nuits Sonores Lab, which is the discourse / conference portion of the annual Nuits Sonores festival. This year’s Lab has been titled In(ter)dependencies, and through a multi-day series of workshops, panel discussions, masterclasses and radio broadcasts, it will be exploring “the notion of independence in the face of the threats faced by cultural and media ecosystems across Europe.”
That topic is obviously a staple of what gets discussed here in the newsletter, which is likely why I’ve been asked to host a special First Floor Live event called “The Challenges of Maintaining an Independent Festival.” It’s happening on Friday, May 15 (i.e. tomorrow), and I’ll be joined by a roundtable of independent festival programmers, including Kateryna Rusetska (Construction, Ukraine), Dulce (Soundit, Spain) and Provhat Rahman (Dialled In, UK). With the live music sector increasingly being affected by corporate consolidation and spiraling global conflicts, we’ll be discussing how these programmers are building and sustaining their projects during a time when they’re competing for funding, talent and audience attention with profit-driven actors who are often better resourced, better connected and less inclined to depart from dominant cultural norms.
The talk, which is happening at Hôtel71, is free to the public and will get underway at 3:30 p.m. All of the relevant details can be found here, and those wishing to attend can register here.
WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING
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.
This article was already mentioned in this week’s First Floor essay, but for those who didn’t spot it, The New York Times has published a new investigative report laying out how the Israeli government made a concerted, years-long effort to leverage the Eurovision competition as a soft power tool. That effort includes spending more than $1 million on Eurovision marketing, along with a government-led campaign encouraging people to vote for Israeli contestants and a diplomatic push to prevent Israel from being banned altogether.
Back in March, Native Instruments CEO Nick Williams announced that the music tech company had gone into formal insolvency proceedings, and was in the midst of an “active process” to find new shareholders. That process, it seems, has now come to an end, as Williams this week shared the news that inMusic—which already oversees brands such as Moog Music, Rane, Denon DJ and Akai Professional—has signed an agreement to purchase Native Instruments, and will be finalizing the acquisition in the weeks to come.
goldenstar’s Chamber Music was recently highlighted as a Recommended Release by First Floor, but considering the relative dearth of information that’s out there about the Montreal band, it was a nice surprise to see them participating in a Q&A with Nina this week. It’s a relatively quick read, but it touches upon a variety of topics, including the origins of the group’s name, their working relationship with Patrick Holland and what they think about their music being described as slowcore.
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.
After years of keeping his identity a secret, dub / ambient / experimental alchemist Topdown Dialectic has now quietly revealed himself as Izaak Schlossman, the artist whose work has been at the center of the acclaimed False Aralia imprint. As it happens, he’ll soon be issuing a new Topdown Dialectic full-length via the label; the 16-track collection—and yes, all 16 tracks are exactly five minutes long—is said to contain a mix of both new material and recently unearthed recordings from more than a decade ago, and it’s titled False LP A. July 3 is the official release date, but four songs from the record have already been made available here.
Following a series of albums for the SVBKVLT label, ABADIR has made the jump to Planet Mu, which next month will be releasing the Berlin-based Egyptian’s latest EP, The Primitivist. Rooted in the idea that electronic music’s obsession with futurism is both Eurocentric and tied to dystopian fantasies, the record offers hard-hitting club tracks that draw on “a range of rhythmic patterns, techniques and instruments from across the Arab region, with particular influence from Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and Palestine.” Opening track “Habban” has already been shared, and the EP will be available in full on June 5.
Mexican experimental artist Concepción Huerta has just this morning announced the upcoming release of a new album, No Queda Nada Todo Resuena. Slated to surfaced on July 3 via the Signal Noise label, the record was born out of her experiments with a “Buchla 200 system, magnetic tape and 4-track cassette processes,” and though it consists of two-long form compositions, one of those compositions, “Todo Resuena,” has already been shared.
Overmono, the UK duo who in recent years have made the leap from the niche corners of bass music to the festival circuit, have a new full-length on the way. Entitled Pure Devotion, it’s said to harness “the sound of beautiful imperfections, machine malfunctions and happy accidents,” and includes guest vocals from Kindora, Ruthven and British poet John Joseph Holt. XL will be releasing the LP on August 7, but lead single “Lockup” is out now.
Following a few years of down time, Mano Le Tough recently revived his Maeve label with a retrospective compilation called Keep Your Dream Alive, and he’s now quickly followed that up with a new single, one he created in collaboration with DJ Koze. Available now, it’s called “Real, You Know?!”
Luke Slater is a techno icon, and he’s put the finishing touches on a new album from his long-running Planetary Assault Systems alias. Returning to Ostgut Ton exactly 10 years after the label released his Arc Angel LP, the veteran producer has titled the new record Planetary People. The full album is scheduled to drop on May 15 (i.e. tomorrow), but ahead of that, the track “Retina Burn” has already been shared.
Fresh off the release of Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems, an album she created in collaboration with Christina Vantzou, French artist Félicia Atkinson has unveiled plans to release a new score she was commissioned to create for the 1960 horror film Les yeux sans visage. In fairness, the recorded version, which is called SANS VISAGES, is actually a “a 34-minute synthesis of the full 90-minute score,” and though the VIERNULVIER label won’t be issuing it in full until June 26, one excerpt, “Les Yeux II,” is available now.
Australian ambient / experimental veteran Lawrence English has completed a new LP, and will be releasing it via his own Room40 label on August 7. Entitled The Rest Is My Ghost, it’s something he describes as an exploration of “acid nostalgia,” a term he’s come up with for what he sees as a growing tendency to weaponize nostalgia within the political realm and the broader culture. The album’s closing track, “Sodium Vapour Halo (alone),” has already been shared.
Objekt seems intent on having every single talented, out-of-the-box producer contribute to the catalog of his Kapsela label, and the latest addition to the team is Sepehr, whose Fool’s Ovation EP is due to surface on June 12. In lieu of the standard promo blurb, the label has instead shared a kind of poetic short story—you can find that here—but the record’s title track has also been made available.
Phase Fatale has mostly been releasing music through his own BITE label in recent years, but his next EP, Off Desire, will be arriving via the Dekmantel UFO imprint. Based in techno, but influenced by a variety of dark and dreamy sounds, the record is said to “[hotwire] his signature wall of sound with precise, hypnotic magnetism and dystopian textures.” July 3 is the scheduled landing date, but the song “Blue Rose” is available now.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that Jacques Greene dropped a new two-tracker from Verses GT, his collaborative project with Nosaj Thing, but the Montreal artist popped up with more new material this week. “What You Say” is technically a solo cut, in the sense that it’s credited to Greene, but it also features the talents of umru. The song is out now via LuckyMe.
No You is a new collaborative endeavor from Suzanne Kraft and Wah Wah Wino affiliate Davy Kehoe, and the duo will soon be releasing a self-titled debut album via the VP Texi label. Additional details are scarce at this point, but one track from the LP, “Put Up a Dream,” has already surfaced, some additional clips can be heard on this Instagram carousel and it seems that at least two different special editions of the vinyl are being issued.
RECOMMENDED RELEASES
The following is a summary of First Floor’s favorite new releases that came out during the past week. Each one has been published with a brief excerpt of the accompanying write-up; to view the full text (and hear the actual music) for an individual release, click the “Listen to the Music + Read the Full Write-Up” link, or you can also just head over to this convenient Buy Music Club list if you prefer to listen to all of the selections in one place.
Anastasia Kristensen – Bestiarium Sombre (Intercept)
… Kristensen is not especially attached to any particular scene, space or collective, but rather embodies the thoroughly modern artist-as-individual. Based on the strength of her debut album, Bestiarium Sombre, it’s clearly working for her. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
Olof Dreijer – Loud Bloom (dh2)
… The new tracks here are on par with anything he’s ever released. After the glossy sugar high of the hyperpop-leaning “Echoed Dafnino,” Dreijer leans into the same sort of ambient-ish textures we saw on Coral, but rather than padding out the album with the kind of drowsy castoffs artists often put together during post-gig airplane comedowns, he’s filled the back half of the LP with some of its best songs. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
Sergeant – Symbols (STROOM)
… The follow-up, Symbols, is also filled with bizarro references that span the past 40 years of alternative music, touching upon dub, trip-hop, progressive rock, kosmische and numerous points in between. But as the duo grew into a trio across the writing of the new LP, they’ve also become exceptional songwriters. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
Various Artists – Djax-Up-Beats 1990-2005: The Acid Trip EP 2 (Delsin)
… Does it need to run for nearly a quarter of an hour? Probably not, but all that breathing room makes “Realms of Human Consciousness” feel less like a functional dancefloor cut and more like an immersive psychedelic experience, one that’s most enjoyable when you surrender to the mind-bending nature of its various twists and turns. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
Detroit in Effect & Alden Tyrell – The Greys Part 2 (Clone West Coast)
… On opening cut “We Still Kill the Old Way (pt. II),” that pride manifests in a bit of boastful bravado, with robotic vocals not only brushing off the idea that the music on offer is outdated, but openly touting the potency of the producers’ tried-and-true methods. Is it an undeniably “old head” thing to do? Absolutely, but listening to the song’s neon synth runs and sharp drum programming, only a fool would challenge the claims being made. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
COIDO x TRAKA – Plazma Shake Pt. 1 & 2 (YUKU)
… Dealing in corroded sonics and gut-rattling low end, this motley crew comes out swinging, loading the title track with overdriven crunch and the same sort of “take no shit” swagger that powered a lot of mid-2000s dubstep. It’s menacing, to be sure, but the use of a steppy, garage-adjacent rhythm injects some much-needed bounce and, crucially, prevents the song from descending into a quagmire of empty machismo. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
Luscius – Eternal Call (KANN)
… On the whole, there’s something very “adult” in the way that Luscius approaches the dancefloor, in the sense that he’d rather cultivate a good loop (and then marinate in it) than chase an endless array of dramatic highs and lows. That lack of bravado may not help him stand out in a crowd, but those lucky enough to wander into his soundworld—and patient enough to hang out there for a while—are sure to find themselves feeling deeply satisfied. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
STS – Be the Mountain (Self-released)
… That certainly tracks with the new record’s weightless sensibilities; the lush textures of “Held in Space” conjure visions of being wrapped in a cozy blanket and floating through the cosmos, while the EP’s rippling title track recalls the kickless, trance-adjacent elegance of Barker’s Utility album. [LISTEN TO THE MUSIC + READ THE FULL WRITE-UP]
That brings us to the end of today’s First Floor digest. Thank you so much for reading the newsletter, and remember, you can find all of this week’s recommended releases on this handy Buy Music Club list. (If you like them, please buy them.)
Until next time,
Shawn
First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, 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 other potential opportunities.