Utility Fog

As we swiftly approach December, tonight is the second-last “new music” show of the year. There’s a lot of music coming out on December 5th! But then that’s it, the next 3 will be Best of 2025. Keen listeners will be surprised that I’m mixing up the structure tonight. Really, it usually goes the way it goes due to thematic and tonal segues, and this time round the jazz & ambient(ish) stuff just fitted best after our early songs, and the beats are the bulk of the second half. The Notwist – X-Ray The Notwist – Magnificent Fall Muyassar Kurdi – Child of the Sun (feat. Chris Williams) Peter Knight – The Coiling of the Tide Laura Jurd – Praying Mantis Má Estrela – Top Suki Girl BLACK HAUGE – Papiret (Radio Edit) Dina Maccabee – Outbreak Joni Void – Walker Joni Void – Lighters Samuele Strufaldi – Musica Invisibile Mac Seldom – ILUVU Om Unit – Lost Stories (Bok Bok Remix) Om Unit – The Chase (Alter Echo & E3 Remix) Ghost Dubs – Hope Fatwires x Atsushi Izumi – Ga UNTECHCIRCLE – Dying Light UNTECHCIRCLE – not just chaos Mattr – Tayl CHEAHDX – Earthbound dreadmaul – No Shade Low End Activist – Hope III (Demdike Stare Stressed Version)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Tonight, one of the underground hip-hop albums of the year, some very unusual collaborations, two releases in the Frisian language of north Holland, solo drum kit, post-jazz, bass & breaks, human/AI collaboration and electro-acoustic sound-art verging into folktronica. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Dogeared (feat. Kapwani) Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Crisis Phone (feat. Pink Siifu) Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Longjohns (feat. Quelle Chris & Cleo Reed) HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Asymmetric YHWH Nailgun – Weaving (original by LEYA) Zea & Drumband Hallelujah Makkum – in lichem fol beloften Zea & Drumband Hallelujah Makkum – de Dea Joana Guerra, Maria Do Mar, Romke Kleefstra, Jan Kleefstra – Al Dy Kleuren Joana Guerra, Maria Do Mar, Romke Kleefstra, Jan Kleefstra – Kâlde Mage Chloe Kim – Ratsnake SML – Old Mytth Snorkel – Flash Flood Snorkel – Sirene Endless Mow – wattle and daub An Avrin – 4LYFE noRecall – The Machine and its Master Lakker – Hood Kassian – Ghost Dub Bad Ambulance – Zero Olivier Alary – Imagined Presence (preview clip 4) Rutger Zuydervelt – House of Strength Rutger Zuydervelt and Lucija Gregov – (Not) Not Three High Rutger Zuydervelt and Lucija Gregov – Euphoria (outtake)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. What a relentless year of new music… It’s getting that way every year mind you. The releases will run right through December and into January, mark my words… Anyway, tonight we have the surprisingest song of the week (year?) from two very different pop icons, plus experimental song and electronics of all sorts, blending with classical, jazz, field recordings and more. Charli XCX – House (feat John Cale) California Girls – Sorrowful Meat Alto Aria – Porous Heart Alto Aria – Fall Blossom anrimeal – 11. Chapter III – Source and time anrimeal – 5. Chapter I – SOFAR channel Meredith Monk – Lullaby for Lise (performed by Katie Geissinger, Allison Sniffin) Joachim Badenhorst – How To Hold Maarja Nuut & Ruum – Kiik Tahab Kindaid Romain Azzaro – Always Late Mauri – Aquest Any Si F¥eld Effct – Tst_009 Nadrisk – Cadere Data General – End with Rests Fracture & Neptune – Good Stuff Los Pulpitos – Cubozoa r hunter – Intra r hunter – Perfect Mirror Galina Juritz – Axolotl STREIKTHROUGH – Bleed Tight Earl Grey – Doss House Jack Prest – Dawn Jack Prest – Movement III Stefan Schultze – Judson Techno Stefan Schultze, boxn – CV RMX Perila – Apocalypta’s Dream upsammy – Ripple Bernard Parmegiani – Sadiquement Votre II Bernard Parmegiani – La Ville en Haut de la Colline II Lia Kohl – Walking Home, Chicago Lia Kohl – My Kitchen, Chicago Lia Kohl – Train, Antwerp to Amsterdam Lia Kohl – Basketball Court, feat. Macie Stewart

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Music from North Africa, West Africa, South Asia, East Asia, South America, North America, Europe and Oceania tonight… which covers most continents. Antarctica needs to pick up their game. Noura Mint Seymali – Bidayett Lehjibb Noura Mint Seymali – Lehjibb Noura Mint Seymali – Moughadim Karr Perera Elsewhere – Time Will Tell (feat. Andy S) Perera Elsewhere – Just Wanna Live Some Low End Activist x Tia Talks – Fake Idols Mala x Magugu – MILITANT DON AICHER – Constriction (andereBaustelle Version) AICHER – Possessions Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – FACADE06032020 Low End Activist – U Kno Low End Activist – Colin’s Golf Clark – 18EDO Bailiff Clark – Globecore Flats ZOiD – Day Eight (μ-Ziq Remix) ZOiD – Day Eight Nikki Nair, Foodman – Sorry I Lost My Glasses In The Public Bathhouse 銭湯でメガネを無くしてごめん Tawdry Otter – Alma, The River Flows Crimewave – 145/155BPM Crimewave – Misdemeanour Crimewave – 155/160BPM Crimewave – Haemoglobin toso toso – cLAcLAcLA Juana Molina – la paradoja CxBxT – Hoshi o Atsumete Starlight Assembly – Friction Starlight Assembly – Wait for the Word The Church – Sacred Echoes (Part Two) recur – hieroglyph Mark Harwood – Ein Gehirn Musik Mark Harwood – Welt Ov Pain – Kikorangi

HI PODCAST LISTENER! You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Somehow it’s the second-last month of the year? And yet, this year has lasted about 3 years so far, so it’s not too surprising? We do have a surprise new album from Aesop Rock, new weirdpop of various sorts, trip-hop vibes, Halloween spookiness, sadcore/hardcore crossover, industrial sad-hop, experimental electronics both beat-wise and not, some jungle and some blissful ambient pop to take us out. It’s Sunday. Aesop Rock – Sherbert Aesop Rock – Crystals and Herbs Yunzero – B1 ŽIVA – Unrest celosiafields – Newletter ft. Raj Mahal Jerome Blazé – You Can Find Us Out Your Way Penelope Trappes – Bleed Bird Battles – Overgrown Hilary Woods – Taper Laura Moody – The Witch Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – The Magic of the World Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Fission/Fusion Richie Culver – Curse Richie Culver – I Loved You Ship Sket – Casting Call (ft. S280F) Ship Sket – Mimikyu December – Stonemilker Synkro – Excursion San – Core of the Earth Dak – Triagen Julien Mier & thedieyoungs – Dolphin Tears Mattr – Fade xin – opening xin – trash dub Ipek Gorgun – Edgelord Ipek Gorgun – Exocannibalism Bridget Ferrill – What was the World to me IKSRE – karijini (iron. spinifex)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. All over the place tonight, whether folktronica, percussive experimentalism, minimal dub techno, various drum’n’bass & jungle mutations, proto-postrock, or eerie sound-art… tunng – Anoraks Majken – Re-entering Lawrence English + Stephen Vitiello – with Brendan (Single Edit) Will Glaser – Theft JQ & Richard Pike – Free Paul St. Hilaire & Gavsborg – Confidential Paul St. Hilaire & Cousin – Back Inna Business Carrier – Carbon Works ealing – Down the Rabbithole Pushlock – Oblique Strategy The Untouchables – Rude Enforcer Disiniblud – Blue Rags, Raging Wind (Kerry McCoy Remix) PVAS – Terminal Igorrr – ADHD Obeka – A World No More Temp-Illusion – Hoax Haven Impérieux – Trampa seefeel – moodswing (demo) Nate Scheible – 02 John Wall – Construction I “Stat:Unt:Dist” Razen – hi-mawari Yara Asmar – to die on any hill (if it’s easy enough to climb) Nesa Azadikhah – The Wound Where The Light Enters

Experimental songforms, percussion, breakbeats, prepared piano, sound-art… LISTEN AGAIN to the art of sound… stream on demand at fbi.radio or podcast here. Not Drowning, Waving – Amaravot [Not Drowning, Waving Bandcamp] We’re starting with an Australian band who were really decades ahead of the ball with ambient pop, melding field recordings and live tapes with creative studio techniques, acoustic instrumentation, effects and electronics. Because of David Bridie‘s soft voice and slice-of-life lyrics, I feel Not Drowning, Waving were seen as less revolutionary than they really were – and yet when David released solo albums that emphasised songwriting over sonic creativity, the music media predictably celebrated his “maturity” and suchlike nonsense. I love David’s solo work, and the often-twee but always lovely work of the post-NDW acoustic ensemble My Friend The Chocolate Cake, but Not Drowning, Waving nevertheless hold a special significance. For many, their career higlight was the groundbreaking album Tabaran, much of which was recorded with musicians in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea including the remarkable vocalist Telek (now Sir George Telek MBE!). Their travels to PNG triggered the band’s strong sense of social justice, and they became tireless promoters of West Papuan independence. The song “Blackwater“, about the brutal suppression of independence for West Papua, is haunting and still as relevant today. Fast forward to now, and David Bridie & George Telek have been friends for more than half their lives. A concert performing Tabaran was put together early last year, celebrating 50 years of Papua New Guinean independence, and the band (including Telek) enjoyed being together so much that they created a whole album’s worth of new material. My dirty secret is that, despite the stunning highlights like “Blackwater”, I always preferred the albums before (Cold and the Crackle and Claim) and after it (Circus) in their catalogue because I wasn’t so into the Papuan stringband music. However, whether I’ve mellowed over the years (lol, lmao) or whatever it is, this new album feels wonderful from start to finish, and Telek is an integral member. What an achivement! I have no idea how it sounds to those who didn’t, to some extent, experience the band while they previously existed, but I hope they have an enduring legacy. On Diamond – It’s Me Calling [Eastmint Records/Bandcamp] Naarm/Melbourne’s On Diamond are the perfect example of indie pop done experimental. Frontwoman Lisa Salvo writes beautiful, touching songs that have slippery chord changes and deeply unusual arrangements created together by the band. Previous members, often involved in the more experimental end of Naarm’s music scene include the brilliant drummer/composer Maria Moles, drummer Joe Talia (who recorded & mixed the album), and guitarist/vocalist Hannah Cameron (who contributes backing vocals along with Aarti Jadu and others). Along with Salvo’s vocals, Jules Pascoe on bass, Myka Wallace on drums and Scott McConnachie on synths and those frequently demented guitar solos, the band itself now features the glittering harp of Genevieve Fry and the percussion of Australian legend Duré Dara, born in Malaysia to an Indian background, a celebrated restaurateur with Order of Austrlaia Medal as well as jazz musician and improvisor. That’s a loaded band, put in service of Salvo’s aforementioned songs, which take strange, sidelong looks at matters of grief, longing and the passing of time. In a better world we’d be hearing these songs on rotation all day, but you – yes you – have the power to fix that, in the palm of your hand. gushes – Game One [PTP/Switch Hit Records/Bandcamp] gushes – CUT [PTP/Switch Hit Records/Bandcamp] Trust PTP (aka Protect The Peace, fka Purple Tape Pedigree) to release one of the most bizarre & brilliant albums of the year (in conjunction with artist collective Switch Hit Records). Jennae Santos’ gushes presents an unrestrained amalgam of prog metal, psych rock, jazz & classical and electronic experimentation. But there’s more than just this: the album begins with voices talking in Tagalog, and influences from Indigenous Filipinx psychology and combat swirl around with land-sea ecologies, plant medicine and queer politics of decolonization… Delicious Collision is a fully-through-composed experimental rock opera, appropriately given Santos’ background (on top of everything else) in theatre, site-specific performance & dance. Agriculture – The Reply [The Flenser/Bandcamp] With The Flenser you know you’re going to expect dark, probably metal-adjacent music, and you know it’ll probably diverge from typical genre norms. Ecstatic black metal band Agriculture do indeed employ black metal’s tremolo guitars and blast beats to reach for altered states, but then the thunder gives way to a different kind of ecstasy at times – gorgeous harmonies and clean guitar? The last track on the album somehow combines it all together – blissful chugging blackgaze, and a fragile interlude of just voice and guitar. Channeling Zen Buddhism and social collapse alongside queer history & survival, The Spiritual Sound is easily among the albums of the year. sunn O))) – Raise the Chalice [Sub Pop/Bandcamp] So yeah, the southern lords of drone metal, sunn O))), have signed to Sub Pop, the little label that could. That’s the Sub Pop that was the centre of the Seattle sound, from Mudhoney & early Soundgarden to Nirvana – in fact Nevermind‘s profits, after their contract was bought out by Geffen, were what brought them back from early ’90s financial difficulties, and their (excellent) debut Bleach, which remained a Sub Pop release, was enough to keep the label chugging along for ages. The label pretty quickly expanded out of Seattle/grunge into all sorts of other areas, as diverse as Fleet Foxes, The Postal Service, and the greatest, Clipping. Still, the stentorian, rumbling noise of sunn O))) is an interesting step sideways, hopefully a great move for both parties. Their first EP for Sub Pop follows a 7″ (yes, two tracks under 6 minutes each!) back in 2023 for the Sub Pop Singles Club, but one side of this 12″ is the 14-minute “Eternity’s Pillars”, while the flip has 2 tracks each around 8 minutes – still pretty contained. The band for these tracks is the back-to-basics core duo of Greg “The Lord” Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, and the crushingly slow unison guitar/bass is by and large the totality of the sound, but I do love the disconcerting high-pitched flicker that rises through the last part of “Raise the Chalice”. Susannah Stark – Minor Gestures [Night School Records/Bandcamp/STROOM.tv/Bandcamp] When Utility Fog started back in 2003, folktronica was a genre of which I was very fond – but it was already pretty hazy as to what it was. Slightly glitchy hip-hop sampling acoustic instruments like Four Tet was what I thought, I guess, although when Tunng came on the scene literally later that year, it held a lot of similarity without quite being the same. And meanwhile The Books were doing studio-mediated music with acoustic instruments that somehow was something else entirely, despite arguably fitting the mould. So I love that in the years since, there have been untold different approaches to “folk” + “electronics”. On her new album Minor Gestures, Scottish musician Susannah Stark takes her Gaelic (Gàidhlig) folk music in experimental directions, which might involve drone passages on harmonium or modular synth, interpolated field recordings, or sample-based programming. The production touches only serve to heighten the sense of an arcane, otherworldly setting, as if being performed just out of sight or transmitted from a past-future. It’s quite a remarkable album. Haykal, Julmud, Acamol | هيكل، جلمود، أكامول – A’saab أعصاب [Bilna’es/Bandcamp] Cross-media artistic duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Ramme formed the record label & publishing platform Bilna’es along with producer Muqata’a as a space for artistic expression & criticism in Palestine & beyond. Along with the amazing productions of Muqata’a, a highlight was the 2022 solo album from Julmud, Tuqoos | طُقُوس. Now Julmud teams up with label founder Abbas, the latter under the name Acamol (Arabic for Panadol/paracetamol), along with Palestinian rapper Haykal on a new album Kam Min Janneh | كم من جنّة (How Many Heavens). The beats, produced by Julmud & Acamol separately & together, present a glitched version hip-hop drawn from the music & percussion of the MENA region, while Julmud & Haykal swap verses evoking the life of dispossession under occupation, colonization & genocide. It bears mentioning that while the killing continues in Gaza despite the so-called ceasefire, settlers continue to violently disrupt the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank with impunity – destroying property, beating and killing people and blocking access to their own land. In that context, this is a powerful work of resistance and solidarity (and some injections of humour). As I’m writing this late, you can read Emad Al Hatu’s excellent article on fbi.radio, as this was made album of the week at the beginning of November. Mohammad Reza Mortazavi – Zendegi [Latency/Bandcamp] Mohammad Reza Mortazavi – Silent [Latency/Bandcamp] French label Latency have no interest in following any kind of expectations – they’ll flip from chamber jazz to minimal techno to post-classical to percussive bass. In 2019 they released the album Ritme Jaavdanegi by Berlin-based, Iran-born percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, and now Mortazavi is back on Latency with his new album Nexus. The previous album showcased Mortazavi’s incredibly detailed and complex rhythms on traditional Persian instruments – the tombak and daf. On Nexus, Mortazavi’s playing is just as accomplished, but he extends the percussion with electronic effects and his own voice. The music is full of an otherworldly sensation, of suspension in time and place. There’s an incredible 25-minute remix by

Huge thanks to Holly Conner for her great curation last week while I was playing at Essence Festival in Canberra. Tonight we’ve got mutant pop and folk, mutant bass, mutant classical and ambient… and beautiful slippages between genres. LISTEN AGAIN & mutate with me. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here. Cerys Hafana – Angel [Glitterbeat/Bandcamp] There’s not much new music in the world being sung in Welsh. An exponent of the Welsh triple harp, Cerys Hafana has now released three albums of adventurous songs with their instrument, sung in Welsh. Not one seemingly to ever sit still, they also released a remarkable album of solo piano works, Difrisg, earlier this year, but now Angel has found its place on the reliably great Glitterbeat label, giving Hafana a much broader audience. If there’s a distinct folk backbone to their songs, and hints at classical composition, Hafana is no traditionalist, preparing the harp with blu-tak to dampen the sound, and creating compositions that draw on minimalism, jazz and avant-garde harmonies and structures (on the album Hafana is joined by double bass, alto sax and drums on some tracks), and other nearby folk traditions. These are evocative songs, sung beautifully in a language quite alien to most of us, with uncommon arrangements. Aphir – Messengers [Aphir Bandcamp] Well, it’s been a minute since Becki Whitton released an Aphir album of her experimental electronic pop songs. She’s been building a practice of semi-improvised “choral drone” works with live vocal looping and processing, and it’s great – there’s a choral drone remix of this new single in fact. But there’s a new Aphir pop album coming in the new year! The first single sounds like it might be one of those choral pieces, a simple prayer-like melody… until it gets wild, industrial beats and shrieking synths. Rad rad rad. Snakeskin – Ready [Ruptured/Beacon Sound/Bandcamp] Earlier this year, Beirut indie band Postcards released their fourth (or is it fifth?) album via key Lebanese label Ruptured. Postcards singer Julia Sabra and their longtime producer Fadi Tabbal have just come through with their third album We live in sand, co-released by Ruptured with Portland’s Beacon Sound. The album is unavoidably influenced by the troubles of Lebanon and the horrors of the genocide being conducted by Israel. It’s mournful and sometimes angry, the product of two exceptionally strong music-makers. When I saw them live in London in May, both musicians had tables entirely covered in electronic equipment, noisemakers and effects, Sabra singing while processing her voice (given the setup, it was nearly impossible to tell who was making any particular noises other than that). This album might not seem as experimental as that performance implied, but it’s hard-hitting and there’s nothing else quite like it. Sijya – Safe [One Little Independent Records/Bandcamp] New Delhi visual designer and audiovisual artist Sijya released her debut EP Young Hate on Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records in 2022. Beautifully minimalist electronic pop songs, with glitching textures and slow-moving beats that harkened back to trip-hop, it’s one of my favourite debuts of recent years. So it’s great seeing her signed to One Little Independent Records for her follow-up. It’s another collection of six songs, leaning ambient until they don’t – see the distortion that wells up with the vocals on “Rust”. “Safe” is a musical sequel to “Another Thing”, one of the highlights of her debut, processional beats and minimalist-yet-emotive vocals. A talent to watch. feeo – Win! [AD93/Bandcamp] So sometime last year The Wire published a lovely story about how experimental vocalist and producer Theodora Laird and bassist/improviser Caius Williams got together – as a couple, as well as a duo, putting together a wonderful exploratory album together. Now we get to hear Laird under her guise as feeo, with a solo album on AD93. Goodness is adorned with a beautiful overexposed black & white photo of a crowd, presumably an audience at a gig, with the stage off to the left shining a bright light on the people. Some are transfixed, some are looking the other way, and one woman stares right into the camera. This strange mix of solitude and connection, of light and dark, is what powers this album too. It’s mostly just Theodora Laird solo, but Caius Williams contributes different instruments on a few tracks, Theo Guttenplan plays drums on one track, and her Dad, actor Trevor Laird, reads his own poetry (I think) on Days pts 1 & 2. Those two tracks are a case in point: Trevor Laird’s voice is nearly buried under droning and then pulsing sub-bass, until he finally appears half-way through part 2. It’s a small vignette, odd in the British way, made sinister by its surrounds. But then the majority of songs are similarly subdued, nearly-there things, with minimal avant-garde electronics accompanying Laird’s beautifully subtle, exquisitely controlled voice. From their distinctly weird parts, Laird constructs post-r’n’b songs of quiet power. Even when accompanied by Williams’ guitars, Laird inserts nebulous synth drones. These songs constantly undermine themselves, but they’re too good to stay under. My goodness. IFS meets AGF – Limits [outlines] Well, so far it seems like Polish duo IFS will only “meet” all-caps artists (I know, this is soon to change). Following their second brilliant collab with Japanese rapper MA, here they are with the poemproducer herself, AGF, who’s right at home with the duo’s IDM-influenced bass-ambient. There’s very little in the way of experimental footwork, the outlines label’s bread-and-butter; rather these are spooky, playful, avant-garde soundscapes, using beats sparingly, a perfect foil to Antye Greie-Ripatti’s equally sparing, equally oblique storytelling. The album’s title, East-West Logistics, might sound like European transport solutions, but it actually has something to say about making this sort of music in Eastern Bloc countries, places where little of the so-called “Western world”‘s cultural production reached behind the Iron Curtain until the 1990s. This is deep stuff, sonic excavation through the rubble of time, so put on your headlamp and let’s go! Sluta Leta – First Order [Cheap Records/Bandcamp] The background of Sluta Leta has always had the feel of a tall story. It’s hard to believe that their earliest releases (here’s a 1998 EP) were by a group of unknown Swedes, shepherded into production by Ramon Bauer and Andi Pieper of early Mego label-affiliated glitch pioneers General Magic (whose 1997 album Frantz is one of my favourites of the early glitch shit). They were often joined by fellow Viennese electro-head Gerhard Potuznik, and as well as Mego were associated with another experimental Viennese label, Cheap Records. General Magic have re-formed recently, putting out some cheeky and odd records, so why not bring back Sluta Leta? In fact Sluta Leta released an album 5 years ago via farmersmanual (also fellow glitch etc etc), and now Cheap Records have revived themselves for Sluta Leta’s Drift Dekoder album. While General Magic’s music would be constructed around weird noises and broken samples, Sluta Leta has always been more about the funk – electro-funk – and cheesy hip-hop stylings; fun but still weird, right? Case in point, from way back in 1995. This album does nothing to change that image, to be honest, and it’s cool, sure. I did really enjoy the spoken word here, which is actually a reading of a forum comment by Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the ubiquitous Linux operating system, giving a comprehensive dressing-down to some right-wing, er, “moron of the first order”. Human Error Club & Kenny Segal – Night Time ft. E L U C I D [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp] Brooklyn hip-hop label Backwoodz Studioz, run by billy woods, has long supported producer-led albums as much as rappers. This is a bit different, though. Here LA legend Kenny Segal, who’s made two stunning albums with billy woods and recently a brilliant one with K-the-I???, has teamed up with the very unusual jazz trio Human Error Club, also from LA, for the strangest house party. A drummer & two keyboardists, Human Error Club already bring a kind of hip-hop sensibility to their music with electro keys, MPC beats as well as drumkit, floating Rhodes and funky electric piano… And here their studio jams are cut up in Segal’s inimitable style, preserving the live feel, un-quantized, full of very human errors (they’re not errors, don’t put in the post that I said errors). And yr Backwoodz crew are here in force, on a third of the tracks anyway – K-the-I???, Quelle Chris & Cavalier, Moor Mother & billy woods, and woods’ Armand Hammer partner E L U C I D, who rides the acid funk with lackadaisical ease. Ship Sket – Mimikyu [Planet µ/Bandcamp] Josh Griffiths aka Ship Sket is newly arrived to the Planet µ label with a banger of an album summarising the Planet µ sound with references to contemporary bass music & pop through distortion and glitch. InitiatriX is out on October 31st, with a number of singles preceding it. Comprehensively mutated bass music, electro-acoustic manipulation… feels like this will be a helluva thing. Blawan – WTF [XL Recordings/Bandcamp] Blawan – Style Teef [XL Recordings/Bandcamp] In the last few years, Jamie Roberts aka Blawan has released some of the most forward-thinking, fucked-up bass music around. From 2021’s Woke Up Right Handed, the bass rumbles and throbs, the beats syncopate and shuffle but hit haaaard. In 2023, Dismantled Into Juice went considerably left-field, with a couple of tracks featuring vocals from Monstera Black. And if last year’s BouQ veered back towards the dancefloor, it’s no less experimental for that. Notably in the meantime he also paired up with longtime collaborator Arthur Cayzer aka Pariah for two albums of industrial grindcore & noise rock (with hints of bass music) as Persher. This all now with the full-length album SickElixi

Arabic trip-hop? Nordic jazz-inflected indie pop? Minimal drum’n’bass? Bees? Whatever you’re looking for, we’ve got it. LISTEN AGAIN, with a vengeance! Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here! Yasmine Hamdan – Vows سبع صنايع [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp] Yasmine Hamdan – Daya3 ضياع [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp] While I’ve featured quite a bit of Lebanese music on this show, it’s leaned towards the experimental. Yasmine Hamdan‘s career goes back to the late ’90s with indie/trip-hop band Soapkills, all three of whose independent albums have been re-released by Belgian powerhouse Crammed Discs, whose catalogue covers postpunk and experimental music as well as “world music” from all over the planet. Hamdan released two previous solo albums with Crammed, and after a few singles (of which I’ve played a couple), her third album I remember, I forget is out now. It’s no surprise that this is album deeply affected by what’s happened to Beirut and Lebanon over the last few years, including the horrific port explosion in 2020, the intensifying of its economic collapse as well as continuing incursions by Israel. It’s actually a bittersweet album as Hamdan, who is based in Paris, has great affection for her birthplace of Beirut. It’s a beautiful, compulsively listenable collection of songs that easily fuses Arabic pop and trip-hop. Snakeskin – Blindsided [Ruptured/Beacon Sound/Bandcamp] Earlier this year, Beirut indie band Postcards released their fourth (or is it fifth?) album via key Lebanese label Ruptured. Postcards singer Julia Sabra and their longtime producer Fadi Tabbal have just come through with their third album We live in sand, co-released by Ruptured with Portland’s Beacon Sound. This album, too, is unavoidably influenced by the troubles of Lebanon and the horrors of the genocide being conducted by Israel. It’s mournful and sometimes angry, the product of two exceptionally strong music-makers. When I saw them live in London in May, both musicians had tables entirely covered in electronic equipment, noisemakers and effects, Sabra singing while processing her voice (given the setup, it was nearly impossible to tell who was making any particular noises other than that). This album might not seem as experimental as that performance implied, but it’s hard-hitting and there’s nothing else quite like it. Majken – Mister Kristus [sing a song fighter] Swedish singer-songwriter Majken grew up in a Pentecostal household where music was ever-present. And while she now believes that “politicized religion is the most dangerous thing in the world”, those musical roots are still heard in the blissful harmonies in her songs – her new album is called Korus after all. Religion is directly addressed in this song, of course. The record, released on October 24th, is mostly performed by herself, on guitar, piano, synths and samples, and a harp recorded in a Malmö concert hall. The contradictions between choral arrangements and Majken’s non-belief, between gentle indie-folk and electronics, bring a tension to the work which enhances the beauty of Majken’s voice and songwriting. Mikoo – Ties [Sofa Music/Bandcamp] Mikoo – Blues [Sofa Music/Bandcamp] Norway’s Sofa Music is a consistent home to music that’s off the beaten path – jazz, sure, but not only, or hybridised with contemporary classical, folk and electronics. Mikoo is a case in point, a band led by their drummer Michaela Antalova, a Slovakian musician based in Oslo. The music is mostly written by Antalova, in collaboration with the band, a highly talented collection of musicians on keyboards, guitars & zither, bass and vocals. Singer Ina Sagstuen does often write her own vocal melodies, and mostly the lyrics, which on their gorgeous new album It Floats mostly revolve around concepts of inheritance, including inherited trauma as well as traditions behaviours. These are dark songs in intimate chamber setting, with the percussion never far from prominence. It could easily pass you by – you may not hear about it anywhere else – and I really recommend giving it a listen when you have some quiet time. The Leaf Library – The Long Dead King (Mücha remix) [Objects Forever] When, as mentioned above, I saw Snakeskin playing in London, they were actually supporting spacerock/indietronic band The Leaf Library – two UFog faves on one night! When chatting with Matt from the band, he let me know they had a remix album on its way, and here it is: Flowers at the Border, released on their own label Objects Forever. The full album’s out on October 24th (and as I’m writing this late, it’s already happened!), with reworkings of past TLL songs by various fellow travellers, pretty much in keeping with the band’s gregarious approach which takes in spacerock/krautrock and electronic influences. Here’s some lovely looping electro from London’s Amanda Butterworth aka Mücha, whose interest in yoga and the philosophy of body-in-the-world influences her deep electronic productions. Crimewave – Semaphore [Fool’s Gold Records/Bandcamp (single)/Bandcamp (album)] Manchester’s Crimewave makes a pretty unique mixture of UK bass & experimental electronic styles with shoegazey indie guitar music. He now finds himself of New York label Fool’s Gold Records with new single “Semaphore“. His second new single, this was a pretty sure indicator of an album on its way, and now Scenes has been announced! This track leans more on the electronic side, with ethereal voices and a twitchy, loping beat. Bomb A Lil Joy – Unpaid Attorney [Translation Loss/Bandcam] OK so, right out of leftfield comes this… Just nonchalantly dropping a new band name, Bomb A Lil Joy is actually a kind of weird heavy music supergroup. Christian McKenna, on whose Translation Loss label this album will be released, released a few albums as End Christian/Xtian and with various psychedelic rock bands, and while Translation Loss Records are mostly a metal zone, his C Trip A is a weird hip-hop project with rapper Anthony Adams, and Pynuka is electronic pop/trip-hop with singer Anda Szilagyi and the great, versatile Justin K Broadrick. Here McKenna is working with the legendary vocalist Eugene S Robinson of terrifying experimental rock band Oxbow. Robinson’s presence brings a poetic, chaotic and sinister note to these pieces, aided by frellow travellers like JK Broadrick, Kevin Hufnagel and others. Very interested to hear the rest of this! BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Nerdie – Ridgy [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp] Korean Australian producer/sound-artist Angus Alec Minhyuk Jin does incredible sound design for TV commercials, films and more, but as Nerdie his roots are in hip-hop. BAYANG (tha Bushranger), mind you, has roots in death metal, but on their collaborative album WAR WITH CHINA the pair address Australia’s cultural alienation, as they put it, riffing into punk as much as hip-hop. Good stuff. Will Glaser – Bees [Not Applicable/Bandcamp] London-based drummer Will Glaser is very busy in the London jazz & experimental scene, appearing on records or live with the likes of Yazz Ahmed, Kit Downs, Sly and the Family Drone, Ruth Goller, James Allsopp, Alex Bonney and more. Prior to this release, the only solo works Glaser has released are the all-drums Some Drum Sounds and the mostly-drums Some Drum & Other Sounds (both of which are excellent mind you). However, on October 24th comes his first major solo work as auteur, the name of which is hard to even fit into a sentence: Music Of The Terrazoku: Ethnographic Recordings From An Imagined Future is about as sci-fi as you can get, imagining a musical artefact from sometime in the late 21st century, after the oncoming climate collapse. Glaser’s drums/percussion and electronics are accompanied here by brilliant musicians including Ruth Goller, Agathe Max, Tara Cunningham, James Allsopp and Alex Bonney (I’m mostly listing people whose work I know). The album claims influences as wide as Harry Partch, Tom Waits, the aforementioned Justin K Broadrick among others, and there’s no dearth of electronics there too (appropriately for the avant-garde Not Applicable label, co-run by both members of Icarus among others). It’s super weird and great – the titular Bees of this track most certainly make an appearance! Wottakku – Moonlanding [Ornament170] Russian drum’n’bass producer Hoji has made some substantial releases via Berlin-based Samurai Music, home of a tribal, minimalist form of drum’n’bass. He’s recently started his own label Ornament170, which seems to be on a similar tip, and very well-curated thus far. It’s not at all clear who Wottakku is – there’s some suggestion this isn’t their first release, but I can’t find any info… It is, in any case, four tracks of super dark, super stripped down d’n’b beats with outbursts of intensely-chopped jungle breaks. Pretty special. Rutger Zuydervelt – Fragment 16 [Machinefabriek Bandcamp] Rutger Zuydervelt – Fragment 40 [Machinefabriek Bandcamp] When I first started playing Machinefabriek on this show, I’d discovered his longform drone works and then his remarkable sound-art, pieces of electro-acoustic music put together in mysterious ways… It was music that immediately stood apart. Over many years Rutger Zuydervelt has honed his craft, working with talented musicians, improvisers, classical musicians and more – but recently he’s also become interested in working in the box, so to speak, on purely electronic music. He’s also over some years been involved with soundtrack writing for theatre and dance, as well as TV, and now has been creating musical cues for the VPRO (Dutch public broadcaster) show Frontlinie, 30-minute in-depth journalistic pieces by acclaimed journalist Bram Vermeulen. Zuydervelt goes into a bit more detail about his process in this Substack post, but it’s almost all created with MIDI instruments in Logic Pro. Clearly the alliterative possibilities were too much to resist, so he’s now dropped a selection of cues as Fifty Favorite Frontlinie Fragments – short pieces evocative e

Like what you hear me play every week? Support fbi.radio, without which not just you & I but Sydney’s music as a whole would be incalculably poorer. LISTEN AGAIN and feel the warm thrill of love… Stream on demand on the FBi website, podcast here! BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Nerdie – Bankistan [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp] Korean Australian producer/sound-artist Angus Alec Minhyuk Jin does incredible sound design for TV commercials, films and more, but as Nerdie his roots are in hip-hop. BAYANG (tha Bushranger), mind you, has roots in death metal, but on their collaborative album WAR WITH CHINA the pair address Australia’s cultural alienation, as they put it, riffing into punk as much as hip-hop. Good stuff. Ho99o9 – Godflesh [Last Gang Records/Bandcamp] Ho99o9 – Immortal feat. Chelsea Wolfe [Last Gang Records/Bandcamp] Few are doing hardcore punk/metal meets hip-hop quite like Newark’s Ho99o9 (it’s pronounced “Horror”). I’m not sure you’d call this horrorcore, but it’s ho99o9core at least. A perfect melding of punk riffage you could pogo to and the finest beats & raps. Not much more to say. They’ve been around a lot longer than you’d expect, and their style hasn’t changed dramatically since 2017’s United States of Horror, but damnit they do seem to have perfected it. And yes, there’s industrial metal trappings (there’s no way that the title “Godflesh” doesn’t refer to JK Broadrick & G.C. Green’s iconoclastic duo), but there’s an emotional undercurrent which surfaces particularly with the brilliant Chelsea Wolfe‘s guest spot. clipping. – Night of Heaven (feat. Counterfeit Madison & Kid Koala) [Sub Pop/Bandcamp] So yeah, back in March, clipping. released one of the albums of the year… or did they? If so, then what’s this? Why does my CD now seem to be missing tracks? It’s because Dead Channel Sky Plus is in town, baybee! I love clipping., but I hate these insta-deluxe reissues that the digital age has brought us. I mean fine, the additional tracks are rad, but you just released the album 6 months ago in various physical formats… Annnyway, an album more fitting for the digital age could not exist – this is clipping. doing cyberpunk, employing Daveed Diggs’ incredible wordsmithery and Jonathan Snipes & William Hutson’s backgrounds in noise, breakcore, soundtracking and more to bring to life the genre that’s both decades out of style and horrifically descriptive of our current-day dystopia. So, finally we have the “pt. 1” to the original release’s “Mirrorshades pt. 2” (the deadly Molly Millions in William Gibson’s cyberpunk ur-text Neuromancer “wears” mirrored sunglasses – except they’re permanently sealed into her skin; a couple of years later Bruce Sterling edited a definitive anthology of early cyberpunk titled Mirrorshades). Needless to say, following their previous concept albums on afrofuturist space opera and horror & blaxploitation, clipping. nail the cyberpunk genre here, both in terms of “style” and intertextuality. But anyway, not only is “Mirrorshades pt. 1” a certifiable banger, but on “Night of Heaven” clipping. collaborate again with the astonishingly-voiced Counterfeit Madison, with cuts provided by Kid Koala. My CD player aches with jealousy. toso toso – lluvia de meteoritos [Leaving Records/Bandcamp] Last year we were privileged to receive two albums from two quite different ensembles led by Brooklyn artist isabel crespo pardo, both trios: sinonó melds Latin American folk song with free improvisation, combining crespo pardo’s voice with cello (Lester St. Louis) and double bass (Henry Fraser); tilt finds crespo pardo joined by trombonist Kalia Vandever and double bassist Carmen Quill, with all three singing. These two ensembles conjured remarkable music from voice and low-register instruments. Now in November comes the debut album from crespo pardo’s quartet toso toso, following two singles from last year. Here the palette is expanded, in size and breadth and genre, much more electronic and paradoxically a little more conventional – at the core it’s piano/drums/guitar. Wait, guitar? Yes, in contrast to those other two groups, there’s no bass here at all. This is very different music from those other two ensembles, yet the voice of isabel crespo pardo instantly ties it to their other work. Here, the scope is as wide as musical palette – this single is a “meteor shower” after all, with a loping rhythm on the drumkit, sweeping synths and isa crespo pardo’s voice soaring over it all. SANAM – Hadikat Al Ams – حديقة الأمس [Constellation/Bandcamp] SANAM – Sayl Damei – سيل دمعي [Constellation/Bandcamp] I was instantly hooked when I first heard the music of Lebanese singer Sandy Chamoun on some compilations a few years back. Two years ago, her new band SANAM released their debut album on London’s Mais Um, featuring other Lebanese luminaries like guitarist/electronic musician Anthony Sahyoun and two members of legendary Beirut shoegazers Postcards – their drummer Pascal Semerdjian and guitarist Marwan Tohme. Rounding out the band are Farah Kaddour on buzuq and Antonio Hajj Moussa on bass. The band have now signed to legendary Montréal postrock/experimental label Constellation – an unusual endorsement as they’re not Canadian let alone from Montréal. But the album was recorded & mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the Lebanese-Canadian musician who’s made astonishing music as Jerusalem In My Heart and who co-founded the Constellation-affiliated Hotel2Tango studio in Montréal. OK, that’s a lot of background; this second album is a brilliant synthesis of Arabic music, folk, experimental rock, and dream-pop. There really are many different directions taken here, from trip-hop like pieces with auto-tuned vocals to punky numbers with jagged guitars – I note that the Bandcamp page has tags for both “post-folk” and “free rock”. Love it. JASSS – It’s A Hole feat. james K and Alias Error [AWOS/Bandcamp] Four years after her previous album A World Of Service, released on Berghain’s in-house label Ostgut Ton, Berlin-based Spanish producer JASSS has released her third album Eager Buyers, this time coming via AWOS, her new platform for releases, events and broadcasts. The album’s a meditation on the current age of late-stage capitalism, melding ’80s postpunk & goth aesthetics with ’90s trip-hop and jungle, noise and current-day production. JASSS’s own vocals are featured alongside some guests, including recent AD 93 artist james K and Berlin-based DJ/singer/producer Alias Error. Shugorei – Cat Dragon [4000 Records/Bandcamp] Shugorei – Water Music [4000 Records/Bandcamp] Meanjin/Brisbane duo Shugorei finally release their album Memories of Magic—魔法の記憶—Mahō no Kioku after a brilliant series of singles, starting last year with the ’80s-pop-meets-hyperpop of “Roboto”, moving through contemplative electro-acoustics with Mindy Meng Wang 王萌, and gorgeous post-classical pop with Shêm Allen‘s voice & renowned classical guitarist Karin Schaupp. With frequent guests on cello & violin as well, this album conmfortably straddles the worlds of classical, traditional Japanese and electronica, throwing in breakbeats and field recordings, live percussion and glitchy production. Seriously so great, don’t miss it! bonnie cooth – out of my mind [cooth interactive studios] bonnie cooth – roly poly [cooth interactive studios] With a spooneristic pseudonym only fans of Fawlty Towers will likely appreciate, the duo of electronic artists who make up bonnie cooth make music that’s part ’90s IDM throwback and part lo-fi hyperpop & ’20s breakcore revival. Their second album is, of course, titled bonnie twooth and like the first, it comes with the conceit that it’s actually a late ’90s (I’m guessing) or early ’00s video game. So yeah, nice melody electronica vibes, not quite chiptune, not quite breakcore, and occasional computer songs. Good stuff! Microcorps – Folded [ALTER/Bandcamp] Seeing the evolution of Alexander Tucker from psych-folk troubador into (still psychedelic) experimental rock and through to the experimental beats he’s making as Microcorps has been extremely gratifying. Tucker brings great musicality to whatever he’s doing, and still plays strings (sometimes homemade, sometimes cello) and includes his voice (often manipulated). New album CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER might just be the best electronic music he’s made, with help from the likes of industrial techno pioneer Regis, the great Justin K Broadrick, Japanese punk/experimental legend Phew, experimental songwriter Karl D’Silva and experimental singer/sound-artist Elvin Brandhi. This is heavy beats with granular processing on strings and voice, at once high-tech and primitivist. Ecko Bazz – VAWO MPITEWO [Hakuna Kulala/Bandcamp] Back on Hakuna Kulala 3 years after the incredible Mmaso, which was mostly produced by MC Yallah collaborator Debmaster, Ugandan MC Ecko Bazz here presents a 3-track EP, Nsiga Ensigo, with beats by Italians STILL and Talpah keeping it bass-heavy and pumping. Hard-hitting, even if you don’t understand the Lugandan lyrics. ltfll – Maelstrom [irsh/Bandcamp] I first heard the beats of Alexandria-based producer ltfll (aka George Farid) on the two compilations from Cairo’s irsh label, started by ZULI and Rama to support Cairo & Egypt’s underground electronic scene. After a couple of year’s break, irsh is back with ltfll’s new EP Nested Skins, in which Farid takes the rhythms and grooves of Egypt and its surrounds and embeds them in crunchy, idm-influenced techno. You won’t find anything else quite like it. Muskila – 68 [YUKU/Bandcamp] Bass music here, YUKU-style, from Muskila, who was born in Copenhagen with North-Kurdistani roots. The percussive backbone to all the rhythms here, and Muskila connects with Nigerian rapper Aunty Rayzor, and remixers from Cairo (Hassan Abou Alam) and Jordan (Toumba). Low-slung and minimalist, these tracks have a strong sense of style. enduser – Movement [enduser Bandcamp] In the early years of the show, Lynn Standafer’s enduser was a key artist, making m

It’s the time of experimental pop at the moment – for very stretched interpretations of pop, perhaps. So we have many weird-ass songs tonight. Also some storming beats and some messed-up beats, some gorgeous acoustic sounds and some pretty messed-up acoustic sounds. It’s Utility Fog. It’s another week. It’s Sunday. LISTEN AGAIN – stream on demand @ fbi.radio or podcast here. ROMÆO – Wariness [ROMÆO Bandcamp] After a couple of excellent singles, the new EP from Eora/Sydney singer/producer ROMÆO is finally out. Eternal Recurrence has a recurring theme of Stoicism – amor fait is loving, or accepting, one’s fate – seen through an ended relationship and more general ennui. “Wariness” comes directly before the closer, “Something New”, and describes the feeling of having to unearth long-unused abilities when there’s a need for change… Majken – High up on a Mountain [sing a song fighter] Swedish singer-songwriter Majken grew up in a Pentecostal household where music was ever-present. And while she now believes that “politicized religion is the most dangerous thing in the world”, those musical roots are still heard in the blissful harmonies in her songs – her new album is called Korus after all. The record, released on October 24th, is mostly performed by herself, on guitar, piano, synths and samples, and a harp recorded in a Malmö concert hall. The contradictions between choral arrangements and Majken’s non-belief, between gentle indie-folk and electronics, bring a tension to the work which enhances the beauty of Majken’s voice and songwriting. R/A/D – Red [Prohibited Records/Bandcamp] R/A/D – Mauve [Prohibited Records/Bandcamp] French-American vocalist Brisa Roché heard French guitarist and Prohibited Records founder Nicolas Laureau in one of his bands and was moved to get in touch – and everyone knows when two musicians meet, another band is formed. R/A/D pairs voice and guitar as spoken word and drone, until melodies are heard from the voice, and the guitar becomes more structured, or more electronic-sounding. Pretty rad indeed. Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie – Inuti-I [Planet µ/Bandcamp] When I went to the Planet µ 30th gig in London (and I apologise for constantly bringing it up), I got to see experimental electronic mastermind Rian Treanor performing some new material with experimental vocalist Cara Tolmie. It was really special, but it does help, I think, to be able to experience these works at home or on headphones. It’s a super varied album – from extended vocal techniques from Tolmie to spoken word and even singing(?), with Treanor slipping between post-rave deconstructions, glitched ambient and the more cerebral, academic or avant-garde, all of which connects and differentiates him from his father Mark Fell (Treanor absolutely has his own aesthetic and is extremely talented at whatever genres he sets his sights on). A few weeks ago I mentioned with regard to the wonderful album closer “Endless Not” that t’s hard not to be reminded of Big Hard Excellent Fish’s 1990 broadside “Imperfect List“. That’s true, and it’s high praise, but as I’ve said here, that’s only one aspect of the whole, so here’s a track with demented beats and Tolmie speaking, stuttering, singing in full flight. This is an amazing album – don’t be turned away by the experimentalism or spoken word! Ship Sket – Vendetta’s Theme (ft. Charlie Osborne) [Planet µ/Bandcamp] Josh Griffiths aka Ship Sket is newly arrived to the Planet µ label with a banger of an album summarising the Planet µ sound with references to contemporary bass music & pop through distortion and glitch. InitiatriX is out on October 31st, with three tracks already available including the single “Vendetta’s Theme” with vocals from UK multimedia artist Charlie Osborne just about audible through the chaotic mix. Feels like this will be a helluva thing. IFS meets MA – Kamen [guides (outlines)/Bandcamp] IFS meets MA – Kiloqh [guides (outlines)/Bandcamp] The combination of Polish experimental electronic duo IFS and Japanese experimental rapper MA on the album REIFSMA was a surprising highlight of 2023. MA is an experimental rapper whose delivery conveys a lot even for those of us who don’t speak Japanese – from last year, see his collaboration with DJ DIE SOON, DIEMAJIN. And the footwork tempo of most tracks seemed to suit his flow. Late last year, outlines released REIFSMA Remixed, with adventurous – mostly footwork – producers from round the world reworking that first collaboration, but now comes a slightly different collaborative project. Billed as IFS meets MA, this is planned to be followed by other “IFS meets…” works, which I’m absolutely here for. Meanwhile though, MA is an amazing rapper & vocalist, over some quite abstract electronics here and some varied beats. Kirin McElwain – Youth [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp] If you know me at all, you know I’m a cellist and I collect adventurous cellists (not physically, at least not often) of all stripes. Brooklyn-based cellist Kirin McElwain is releasing her debut solo album Youth on October 10th. First single “Closer” demonstrates not just her cello but the cello-like halldorophone, a hybrid acoustic/electronic instrument created by Halldor Úlfarsson that has also been used by Hildur Guðnadóttir and Turkish musician Başak Günak among others. The halldorophone produces feedback through sympathetic strings and resonances, and these otherworldly drones are augmented with further electronics by McElwain throughout the album. The title track here starts with a few notes on the cello, which are joined by some plucked cello-bass, but by halfway through there’s an insistent synth pulse pushing through McElwain’s repeated vocal refrains. Lovely stuff. Friend of a Friend – beautiful ppl (Armaan Sabharwal Remix) [Earth Libraries/Eventually on Bandcamp?] Here’s something really interesting. Chicago duo Friend of a Friend are an indie rock band with a strong electronic backbone, whose recent single “beautiful ppl” combines melodic keyboards with upbeat drums that hint at drum’n’bass, and a vocal melody from singer Claire Molek that hints at Jason Savsani’s Indian heritage. Now the band have handed the song over to rising Indian pop/fusion star Armaan Sabharwal, who interjects his own vocals on top of and in between Molek’s lines, and intensifies both the drum’n’bass and Indian elements. It’s brilliant – while it’s not yet up on Bandcamp (and I’m writing this a couple of weeks late), you can hear it here and elsewhere on streaming services. Fracture & Tim Reaper – Dancing Toms [Astrophonica/Bandcamp/Future Retro/Bandcamp] Two generations, two undisputed greats of the current jungle/drum’n’bass scene, 3 years to complete these 4 tracks. Co-released on Fracture’s Astrophonica and Tim Reaper’s Future Retro, this would have to be of the highest quality or something’s very wrong with the universe. I mean… something really is wrong with the world, but let’s be absolutely clear: this is fucking class, right through its four tracks. Crisp beats that skitter & flip & judder to a halt, basslines that go from one-note specials to bouncing melodies in their own right, and plenty going on in the mid-range too when it’s needed. A must for junglists everywhere. Sheba Q – Asterix (Dub One Remix) [Over/Shadow/Bandcamp] Jungle DJ & vocalist Sheba Q comes out with her own solo EP on 2 Bad Mice‘s Over/Shadow label. The original of “Asterix” was co-produced with Newcastle junglist Nectax, and it’s got a blissful, nostalgic feel. But on the flip, Dub One drops us into darkstyle rave hell, mid-’90s style. All three tracks are quality. Travis Cook – cradle [Travis Cook Bandcamp] So our Travis – or technically Adelaide’s Travis Cook – is planning to release a track a week on his Bandcamp for a year. Travis was one half of Collarbones with our (Sydney’s) Marcus Whale, so yeah, he has the production chops and ear for weird pop down pat. “Cradle” is kind of in that almost-drum’n’bass realm. If it didn’t cut off just after 2 minutes it’d be even better :) Katharina Ernst – x_10 [Extrametric Records/Bandcamp] It’s been 7 years since Berlin-based drummer & artist Katharina Ernst released her debut album Extrametric. Extrametric II takes off where the debut ended (literally, in the sense that the numbering continues after the debut’s closing track “x_07”). While Extrametric did have electronics and melodic elements, it felt like it could have been performed live (albeit in some mind-bending way). The intense works found on the second album feature Ernst’s voice, spoken and sung and warbled, with amplified percussion and synths making it more of studio-constructed, multi-tracked affair, but there are powerful percussive performances at heart of most of the compositions. Combining noise and industrial with a very German detached artiness, this is highly compelling work, and you shouldn’t let it pass you by. Ujif_notfound – Catch The Gifts [I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free/Bandcamp] Ujif_notfound – Coda Misto [I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free/Bandcamp] Georgiy Potopalskiy is well-known in his home country of Ukraine not just for his experimental electronic project Ujif_notfound but as a composer of electro-acoustic operas and as a multimedia artist. I discovered him in 2019 via a huge conceptual collection of music on USB Card on the now sadly-defunct Ukrainian label Kvitnu. Both artists behind that label now run Prostir and child label I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, whose name is self-explanatory for a Ukrainian label. The third album from Ujif_notfound on ISSUMLIF is Postulate, which detours into intensely distorted guitars and crunching beats, depicting the constant terror of wartime living. Among the heavy-duty noisetronics there are occasional bouts of uneasy calm. Powerful to listen to in context. Einmal Immer – Darkred [Playdate Records/Bandcamp] Bergen’s Playdate Records here release a project combining three great musicians from across Norway’s music worlds. Einmal Imme

Experimental song reaching out from all quarters tonight, in extremely different ways. A surprising South & Central American focus. We also have some experimental beats, some classical and jazz hybrids, and some sound-art. LISTEN AGAIN and sing yourself awake… Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here. SANAM – Habibon – حبيبٌ [Constellation/Bandcamp] I was instantly hooked when I first heard the music of Lebanese singer Sandy Chamoun on some compilations a few years back. Two years ago, her new band SANAM released their debut album on London’s Mais Um, featuring other Lebanese luminaries like guitarist/electronic musician Anthony Sahyoun and two members of legendary Beirut shoegazers Postcards – their drummer Pascal Semerdjian and guitarist Marwan Tohme. Rounding out the band are Farah Kaddour on buzuq and Antonio Hajj Moussa on bass. The band have now signed to legendary Montréal postrock/experimental label Constellation – an unusual endorsement as they’re not Canadian let alone from Montréal. But the album was recorded & mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the Lebanese-Canadian musician who’s made astonishing music as Jerusalem In My Heart and who co-founded the Constellation-affiliated Hotel2Tango studio in Montréal. OK, that’s a lot of background; this second album is a brilliant synthesis of Arabic music, folk, experimental rock, and dream-pop; Chamoun’s auto-tuned vocals, the cascading keyboards, soft-but-motorik percussion and floating guitars take this in a very different direction from the first single. I note that the Bandcamp page has tags for both “post-folk” and “free rock”. Love it. Crimewave – White Label [Fool’s Gold Records/Bandcamp] Manchester’s Crimewave makes a pretty unique mixture of UK bass & experimental electronic styles with shoegazey indie guitar music. He now finds himself of New York label Fool’s Gold Records with new single “White Label“. It’s short & sweet and definitely hits those old-new vibes, kinda ’90s rock-gone-electric with near-d’n’b rhythms and jittery synths. Don’t leave us waiting so long this time, Crimewave! plus44Kaligula – Home [plus44Kaligula Bandcamp] Cally Statham, who performs as plus44Kaligula, hails from England’s north and makes the kind of pop music that lives somewhere between performance art and pop, in the experimental traditions of English pop songwriters like Kate Bush, David Bowie, Annie Lennox et al. There’s a political consciousness to the three songs on this short EP, hidden behind a sardonic, satirical image. And there’s an electronic backbone that takes it out of vaudevillian cabaret into something un-pin-downably modern. Lucrecia Dalt – the common reader (feat. Juana Molina) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp] Lucrecia Dalt – stelliformia [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp] I’ve been following Lucrecia Dalt‘s music since she was The Sound of Lucrecia, making lovely indie music that only fainly hinted at the highly experimental electronics or Latin music that would come into her music in latter years. Her last album, 2022’s ¡Ay!, somehow combined her modular synth work with the music of her Colombian roots and incredible, counter-intuitive orchestrations – a masterpiece. On her new album A Danger To Ourselves, the connection to Latin America is still strong, but it feels like Dalt’s electronics take more of a leading role. There are violins and cello, saxophone and percussion throughout, with some bass and guitar on some tracks. And as well as Dalt’s now-partner David Sylvian, who co-produced the album, there are a few prominent South American guests including Mexican singer & sound-artist Camille Mandoki and the wonderful Juana Molina, whose loop-based, hypnotic songwriting was a favourite on Utility Fog since 2004, and it’s a treasure to hear her voice with Dalt’s here. The balance, if you could call it that, between the experimental and the “pop” elements on this album is thrilling. Titanic – La dueña [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp] Titanic – Gallina degollada [Unheard of Hope/Bandcamp] Guatemalan (Mexico-resident) cellist Mabe Fratti and longtime collaborator Héctor Tosta de la Rosa (who records as I. la Católica) released their first album as Titanic in 2023. The project is an outlet for I. La Católica’s compositions and arrangements with Fratti’s distinctive, creative cello playing and her emotive voice comfortably at home. Vidrio is now followed by Hagen. There’s some absolutely gorgeous songwriting on here, mostly by I. La Católica, with some co-writes by Fratti, whose singing on all tracks is possibly her best ever. Of course she plays cello too, all over these tracks alongside I. la Católica’s instruments and the pair’s electronics. Hagen has a guest spot from Daniel Oneohtrix Point Never Lopatin on one track, and Lopatin collaborator Nathan Salon adds instrumentation and production on about half the album; the brilliant drummer (and yes, OPN compadre) Eli Keszler also appears. As expected, this is evocative, glistening, and not quite like anything else. Shapednoise – Repeater (feat. Armand Hammer) [Weight Looming] When the last Shapednoise album came out, I pointed out that Nino Pedone has one foot in the noise realm, with releases on Prurient’s Hospital Productions among others, and one foot in the bass world, collaborating with Mumdance & Logos on the cyberpunk project The Sprawl. That was Absurd Matter, an ambitious set with many guest vocals, set to massively overdriven beats & bass, and electronic walls of noise (and sometimes melody). Out on September 17th, Absurd Matter 2 is the sequel you’d expect, with both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother returning as guests. And Armand Hammer are easily able to rap over the collapsing structures here – apocalyptic visions. Ziúr – Though The Trees feat. Iceboy Violet [Kuboraum Editions/Bandcamp] Based in Berlin, Ziúr has been taking her own path through club music and pop, punk and glitchy experimentation for about a decade, with releases on PAN and Planet µ among others. Her new album Home, released through Berlin’s Kuboraum Editions, reflects on what it means to be “home”, in both geographical and personal terms. This is Ziúr’s least dancefloor-oriented album, leaning more into a kind of cabaret-pop as explored by plus44Kaligula earlier tonight. But it’s also her most personal, featuring Ziúr singing in English and also for the first time in German. The guests helping her along here, who include Elvin Brandhi, Sara Persico, cellist/sound-artist Martina Bertoni, doom metal/electronic producer James Ó Ceallaigh and UK rapper/producer Iceboy Violet, make it clear that a found/chosen community is home too. Sacred Lodge – A Bo Biboa [Avon Terror Corps] Out through Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps is the second album from Paris-based Matthieu Ruben N’Dongo, under the alias Sacred Lodge. Ambam comes out of his ethno-musicological studies into the Fang people of Central Africa, from whom he’s descended via his father. On top of his dubstep-influenced beats, his own voice is central: he “uses the scream as a vocal act of liberation in the face of oppression”, joined on a few tracks by guests, including Sara Persico who we heard a few weeks ago, and Cairo-based producer El Kontessa. Elements from Equatorial Guinea, horrorcore rap and bass music come together powerfully on this album – just as exciting as the African metal/bass music fusion of Lord Spikeheart. electroneya, MARTINA, TNSXORDS – (NO WAY OUT!) !مفيش مفر [raghoul/Bandcamp] From Moroccan bass label raghoul here’s a three track EP, (SAFETY HAZARD) مخاطر السلامة, from Egyptian producers/DJs electroneya and MARTINA (Martina Ashraf), who each contribute one track and then collaborate together with London-based TNSXORDS. These tracks express claustrophobia and repression through deconstructed, percussive bass music. Lila Tirando a Violeta, sideproject – Ostrich/Ñandú [Unguarded/Bandcamp] An unexpected single-track collaboration, “Ostrich/Ñandú” is just what you’d expect to get when crossing Icelandic IDM duo(?) sideproject and Ireland-based Uruguayan producer Lila Tirando a Violeta – percussion-soaked frenetic beats, with even the backing tracks mostly jittering along in rhythm. Nobody here’s burying their head in the sand. Brandon Juhans – The Saw I Saw [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp] Brandon Juhans – Gardenia [Relaxin Records/Bandcamp] And scant relaxin’ here despite Relaxin Records‘ name. They’re the home for North Carolina producer Brandon Juhans‘ latest album, Recycler which, true to its name, repurposes sounds from Juhans’ past music under his own name and previously as Hanz, much in the way that his own music freely samples from any kind of music and dices it up into material for his sui generis productions. When he gets going, Juhans’ music sounds like hip-hop trying to be jungle, or jungle turned inside out. It’s a disorienting approach in the most pleasing way. Blawan – NOS [XL Recordings/Bandcamp] In the last few years, Jamie Roberts aka Blawan has released some of the most forward-thinking, fucked-up bass music around. From 2021’s Woke Up Right Handed, the bass rumbles and throbs, the beats syncopate and shuffle but hit haaaard. In 2023, Dismantled Into Juice went considerably left-field, with a couple of tracks featuring vocals from Monstera Black. And if last year’s BouQ veered back towards the dancefloor, it’s no less experimental for that. Notably in the meantime he also paired up with longtime collaborator Arthur Cayzer aka Pariah for two albums of industrial grindcore & noise rock (with hints of bass music) as Persher. This all culminates in October with the full-length album SickElixir, of which only one of its 14 tracks has a title announced. “NOS” has the high-tech sound design of those recent releases, along with a chugging rhythm that suggests this album will be essential from start to finish. POD & Edward Richards – Polar Phase [Kinetic Vision] As POD, the Naarm/Melbourne producer also known as JXTPS and Wu Kush has tended to focus more on bass music, from dubs

Tonight we’re showcasing quite a lot of genre-bending songcraft, with metal, hardcore punk, electro-pop, hyperpop, Afro-Caribbean, post-folk and other tendencies melting together. We’ve also got percussive workouts, minimal techno, maximal jungle, unclassifiable rhythmic noise and glitched ambient piano in there somewhere. LISTEN AGAIN a bend your own genres. Stream on demand over at fbi.radio, podcast here. Rún – Your Death My Body [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp] Rún – Terror Moon [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp] The Irish word that gives the uncategorizable trio Rún its name can mean “secret, mystery, or love, or perhaps some elusive combination of the three”. The sense here of multiple possibilities and elusive meanings is not a bad metaphor for the band and their debut, self-titled album. Each member comes from distinct backgrounds: singer Tara Baoth Mooney has worked as a voice actor and experimental filmmaker, and has experience with folk and choral music traditions; Diarmuid MacDiarmada has been collaborating with industrial/sound collage pioneers Nurse With Wind and has performed with/arranged/produced musicians across folk, ambient, metal and elsewhere – and his brother Cormac is a member of drone-folk pioneers Lankum; and Rian Trench is a sound engineer and member of psych/jazz-tinged electronica duo Solar Bears, whose earliest releases were on Planet µ. But this album is released on Rocket Recordings, known for prog, postrock & metal’s outer limits as much as anything else, and the folk & electronics here do feel mediated through a kind of psychedelic rock and doom miasma. Yet, the most melodic parts are very beautiful. There’s so much to this album that I don’t think I’ve had time yet to fully appreciate it, but I know it’s going to be up there with the best this year. Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Radioactive Dreams [Computer Students™/The Flenser/Bandcamp] Oklahoma is surprisingly rich with heavy and raucous bands, but the band that’s made it to the top of the pile, so to speak, are Chat Pile (named after the piles of chat, or toxic waste from lead-zinc mining), who combine sludge and hardcore with highly-strung noise rock and postpunk. They are apparently big fans of Hayden Pedigo, a man who embraces contradiction – or at least, is a lot of things all at once: a model, a politician (having run for mayor in his hometown of Amarillo, successfully exposing corporate corruption, if not actually winning) and a fingerpicking guitarist who embodies the avant-garde elements that were there since John Fahey at least. Chat Pile themselves always match their songs with experimental material and strange off-genre detours. So this is going to be an interesting & unpredictable album to say the least, and the first single is distinctive for Peligo’s much deeper-voiced delivery and its quiet/loud dynamics. Wreck and Reference – All That I Want [The Flenser/Bandcamp] Wreck and Reference – Dogtracking [The Flenser/Bandcamp] Also released via The Flenser are the emo/black/post-metal/electronic/noise originals Wreck and Reference, who we haven’t heard from since 2019’s occasionally-noisy, incredible Absolute Still Life – except for one spot-on Deftones cover. The duo are made up of drummer/noise musician Ignat Frege (aka Hand Model) and singer/multi-instrumentalist Felix Skinner. Here, again, their sound is predominately electronic, yet it can switch from minimal into screamo and back if it needs to. It’s all anxiety and only a little catharsis, and it doesn’t really manage to obey its own directive to Stay Calm. Darian Donovan Thomas – OhNo [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] Darian Donovan Thomas – Flourescents [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting & production. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus here’s A Room With Many Doors: Day. Inside you’ll find looped, glitching violin, experimental pop, gently-autotuned vocals, drum machines and splashes processed violin. As I’ve said regarding the earlier singles, it’s perfectly-executed neo-classical hyperpop, and highly recommended. ROMÆO – Something New [ROMÆO Bandcamp] Something (else) new from Eora/Sydney’s ROMÆO, second track from her forthcoming EP. Starting with her voice low, this song quickly jumps into Four Tet-like house with bouncy, clicky percussion, as the narrator tries to make the most of daily tedium. Del4raa – Tehran [Apranik Records/Bandcamp] The Apranik Records label was setup by Iranian DJs Nesa Azadikhah and AIDA to embody the #womenlifefreedom movement, promoting the work of Iranian women. Delara Toyuri aka Del4raa is one half of Iranian techno duo Antechamber with Doci, and now releases her debut solo EP Zhian on Apranik. The EP is a musical chronicle of her experiences leaving her home in Iran to live in exile in France – the trajectory of grief to strength & resilience, and how “remembrance becomes resistance”. It begins beatless, moving through dense electronic textures until the beats finally arrive. There continues to be an incredible wealth of electronic music coming out of Iran. Obeka – Pressure ft. Entrañas [YUKU/Bandcamp] Manchester-based producer Obeka draws substantially on his Afro-Caribbean roots, moving from Bermuda to the UK as the country’s history of colonialism and class divides has brought itself fully into the open. His heavy bass music is showcased on his forthcoming album A World No More, drawing from gqom, kuduro, batida, dancehall and Afrobeat, but the album also features his own voice for the first time, heard on the first single which also features Ecuadorian producer Entrañas. It’s powerful work, auguring a brilliant album in late October. Valentina Magaletti & YPY – One Hour Visa [AD 93/Bandcamp] Valentina Magaletti & YPY – Her Own Reflection [AD 93/Bandcamp] Koshiro Hino, aka YPY, is leader of the percussion-centric math rock band goat (jp) (so named to differentiate them from the Swedish prog/psych/whatever group Goat…) The Japanese goat wield percussion and electronics with mathematical precision, and that’s present here too in YPY’s collaboration with the ubiquitous, brilliant drummer/percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Obviously rhythm is at the centre of the duo’s work, and there’s a magical confusion of where the live drums end and the electronic interventions begin – sometimes you hear reversed percussion hits and splatters that make it obvious, but they’re beautifully integrated into the live playing. Honestly it’s kinda crazy genius, I don’t know how these two musicians play so tightly and yet loosely. L own – Reincarnation [Western Lore/Bandcamp] Out on Western Lore, the jungle label run by Alex Eveson/Dead Man’s Chest are the incredbily evocative sounds of Russian producer L own. Daybreak Survivors Pt.1 is the first half of an album from the producer, who builds his jungle and breakbeat techno beats into cinematic works that recontextualise the nostalgic feel of the rave beats into a different kind of nostalgia. DJ Breathing Exercise – Homicide [DJ Breathing Exercise Bandcamp] London’s DJ Breathing Exercise usually makes electro & breakbeat, UK garage and the like. His just-released Same Thing Remixes enlist hardcore techno specialist DJ Persuasion and Bristol’s elusive Ghost Phone on the remix, as well as Noah Tucker of Ulterior Motives Records. But the most break-fuelled jungle tune on here is a DJ Breathing Exercise original. Absolute classic. Mineral – Shaolin [Metalheadz/Bandcamp] Helsinki d’n’b producer Mineral is no stranger to Metalheadz, but his latest EP Kage No Michi is a cut above. Dark atmospherics, razor sharp beats melding jungle with drum’n’bass… Superb. Klahrk – Sent Spinning [Different Circles/Bandcamp] Back in 2014(!), UK bass producers Mumdance and Logos founded the Different Circles label, with their first 12″, Weightless Vol. 1 also coining a new genre. “Weightless” is a vibe, but it’s one you can clearly recognize, combining grime and sound-art, somehow inverting bass music… Now there’s a new label compilation, Ping Volume One, which brings with it a new genre again. What’s Ping? You’ll know it when you hear it, but it’s the focal point that can be found in Weightless music where a single percussion hit (or synth ping) – not a kick drum – embodies the music’s rhythmic centre. This seems to me to extend from the real innovation of dubstep and grime, which turned the assumptions of jungle-drum’n’bass-uk garage on their head: rather than the beats impelling the music forward, garlanded by the basslines, it was the bass itself that held the rhythmic impetus. The beats were often able to syncopate and rubato out of their expected subdivisions – so theoretically, here those errant beats take centre-stage. The tracks on this compilation are pretty varied around UK bass styles; here trickster Klahrk sits the ping on the upbeat (the fourth beat of a 4/4 bar), surrounding it in frenetic bass-heavy electronic percussion which is kind of like jungle turned on its head. Scott Gordon – SKIM 3 [Superpang/Bandcamp] In a scant 5 years, Rome-based label Superpang has made itself an essential portal into experimental music worldwide, whether digital sound-art, avant-garde classical, free noise or, I dunno, anything! For some reason I find myself out of sync with Scott Gordon, aka SDGORDON aka Hiax, who I used to follow when he was making something like uk garage as Loops Haunt. Earlier this year he released an incredible album called Metals on Diagonal Records – not heavy metal, but electro-acoustic music made from metal bars hit mechanically with beaters, creating sounds which were predominantly not rhythmical! On the other hand, SKIM, his new release on Superpang, takes as its source material various power tools and miscellaneous debris (full list is on the Bandcamp page) which are pr

Experimental pop hybrids, underground hip-hop, hip-hop-jazz hybrids, free jazz, free rock, dub, dub techno and industrial techno, experimental electronics of all sorts, North African electronic mutations, grinding drone, ambient-jazz Yolŋu, Norwegian folk-jazz… LISTEN AGAIN to some really good shit. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Water From Your Eyes – Spaceship [Matador Records/Bandcamp] The follow-up to Water From Your Eyes‘ breakthrough album Everyone’s Crushed is maybe their most “pop”, but still decidedly odd & experimental. It’s A Beautiful Place features three short interludes under 1 minute and one slightly longer at 1:29, and then a bunch of songs that are influenced by grunge and earlier indie rock (hello The Pixies), but with Nate Amos’s many quirks of electronic production, and Rachel Brown’s always-laconic delivery. It’s great. John Cale – 1000 Years [Domino] Having just released two new albums in 2 years – Mercy in 2023, POPtical Illusion in 2024 – the now-83 year old John Cale has now released the outtakes & remixes album MIXology (Volume 1), because one volume is never enough. If anything, it feels like an even stronger & more interesting collection than those albums, but maybe that’s just because it’s the one I’ve listened to most recently. There’s a brilliant song driven by a perfect drumbreak from the late Tony Allen, and there’s the murky, almost trip-hoppy feel of “1000 Years”. Don’t mistake this for an aside: it’s the real deal, just the latest album from a musical legend whose influence stretches from the pre-punk Velvet Underground through avant-garde minimalism to orchestral pop, adversarial but brilliant work with Brian Eno, production on The Stooges as well as Nico’s astonishing three albums The Marble Index, Desertshore and The End…, epochal cover versions (“Heartbreak Hotel“, “Hallelujah“) and honestly so much more. He played with his band at Unsound in Adelaide in July and there were some transcendent moments (much though I missed hearing, well, just about any of the songs I’d hoped for, except for “Heartbreak Hotel”). Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Nom De Guerre (feat. Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko) [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp] Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Shadowstep [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp/Bandcamp] In 2022 billy woods released the incredible Aethiopes album, fully produced by Preservation. One of the guests was Gabe ‘Nandez and it was there that the seeds of this full-album collaboration were sown. The darkness of Preservation’s productions suit ‘Nandez’ searching lyrics, but also notable was the fact that both are French speakers: it’s ‘Nandez’ first language, via his Haitian side, and Preservation is half French. So apart from the album title Sortilège being French, some of the movie samples that always litter Backwoodz Studioz releases are here heard in French, and ‘Nandez swaps lines with his frequent collaborator Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko, switching between English & French without breaking the flow. The range of sounds Preservation uses is wild, from weird proggy synth drones to piano jabs, beats that boom and bap and shuffle and slap. It’s a journey, it’s a trip. Makaya McCraven – Technology (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay) [International Anthem/Bandcamp] Chicago drummer Makaya McCraven has released a series of albums and mixtapes now on International Anthem, generally taking full performances with jazz musicians from around the world and ripping them apart and recontextualising them in a way that’s influenced by hip-hop but still mostly done with a jazz sensibility. He’s just announced a collection of four EPs, all to be released simultaneously, which will also be available as a 2CD and 2LP set titled Off The Record. The idea behind the four EPs is that each is built from a particular performance or session. There are four singles out now – one from each EP – and the comparatively electronic track I chose is from Techno Logic (featuring Theon Cross & Ben LaMar Gay), the only one directly listing the collaborators in the title. Theon Cross is credited to tuba and electronics, while we find Ben LaMar Gay on cornet, voice, percussion, synths, electronics and diddley bow! And in the post-production McCraven adds more keys & synths as well as vibraphone and other percussion – so the electronic sound (“Techno Logic” after all) is baked in, and perhaps no surprise this is the one I leant towards for tonight. You know all four of these EPs are going to be rad though. Endlings w/ VNM – if all silence orders me [Whited Sepulchre Records/Bandcamp] I’ve never been a big fan of Deerhoof somehow, but I admire what they do (e.g. recently pulling out of Spotify), and guitarist John Dieterich does lots of cool stuff, e.g. this duo with Mary Halvorson. Endlings is another duo, with the brilliant Raven Chacon, who works across noise music and composition – his astonishing Voiceless Mass won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022, and he’s released music on Faith Coloccia & Aaron Turner’s SIGE Records and remixed Turner’s band SUMAC last year alongside Moor Mother, among many other achievements. Their first two releases are fucking phenomenal noise/electro-acoustic/experimental whatnot – they’re on their Bandcamp. What’s this though? Parallels 03 is an album, made with longtime collaborators from the Vancouver New Music Circle. It’s also a website with a trippy matryoshka text which you should click around and you might learn something. I did. And yeah, it’s New Music, it’s free improv, it’s noise, it’s electro-acoustic weirdness. Anna Högberg Attack – Hematopoesi [Radio Edit] [fönstret/Bandcamp] There’s something in the water in Sweden that seems to help grow monstrous saxophonists. But comparisons are odious and the massive sound of Anna Högberg Attack is all its own – and all the vision of the brilliant Swedish saxophonist, bandleader and composer Anna Högberg, here leading a version of her “Attack” that’s a double sextet! Alongside her alto sax is tenor sax, trumpet, trombone & tuba, turntables from renowned Viennese experimental musician Dieb13, piano from Thanatosis label boss Alex Zethson, guitar from Finn Loxbo and double bass from Gus Loxbo (both of whom also play saw), and two drummers. The sound is immense, at times sounding like heavy rock riffage, at times the multi-soloing of free jazz, but utterly under control, beautifully structured (Högberg wrote it for her late father, so as heavy as it is, it’s full of love). This excerpt is awesome, but you need to hear it in context too – the first side spans nearly 18 minutes, the second over 15 minutes. fönstret is the label of edition festival, an experimental/free improv/jazz festival run in Stockholm by ex-pat Aussie John Chantler, who also released the massive 5CD set of free jazz quartet أحمد [Ahmed], recorded at the 2022 festival. Phenomenal World – bliberdublub [Rock Is Hell Records/Bandcamp] All three members of the experimental trio Phenomenal World have been active in the Viennese experimental music scene(s) for decades – they no doubt have connections with Dieb13, who played with Anna Högberg Attack above. Michael Fischer here plays “feedback saxophone”, an instrument he invented 2½ decades ago, which uses acoustic phenomena to generate feedback (not through amplification); he’s able to create percussive and otherworldly sounds which only sometimes sound like sax. Philipp Quehenberger and Didi Kern (aka Ddkern) have worked together for years, and both have had some involvement with the glitch/experimental electronic pioneers (Editions) Mego. Here Quehenberger plays synthesizer, DDkern plays drums, and they act as rhythm section and give the album foundation in electronic music, techno, krautrock etc. Whether you hear this as avant-garde or not, this fits well into the lineage of Austrian/German postrock/electronic, from Radian to Kammerflimmer Kollektief, To Rococo Rot to Trapist. Adrian Sherwood – The Well Is Poisoned (Dub) [On-U Sound/Bandcamp] Introducing Adrian Sherwood in the notes of this playlist would be a fool’s errand, and probably superfluous anyway, but suffice to say that Sherwood, sometimes credited as Crocodile, or Adrian Maxwell, pioneered dub production in the UK from the late 1970s, meaning he was able to work with the best first & second-wave Jamaican musicians, learning mixing and production from the ground up. And while he absolutely brings real authenticity and respect for the originators – having worked extensively with the likes of Lee Scratch Perry and The Roots Radics’ Style Scott – he also brought dub production into avant-garde territories (e.g. early African Dub Charge, Little Annie Anxiety), was involved in the cross-pollination of punk & reggae (with The Slits and with The Slits’ Ari Up in The New Age Steppers), melding dub with industrial and funk with TACK>>HEAD and more. I’m particularly partial to the blending of UK club & electro with dub & reggae on The Emotional Hooligan, credited to Gary Clail & On-U Sound System. OK, that’s our little history lesson. The Collapse of Everything is Sherwood’s first solo album (not a collaboration or compilation) since 2012’s Survival & Resistence and only his fourth ever, by my counting. And the thing is – the thing is, often great producers and mixers are really great at that stuff far more than songwriting and composition. Of course Sherwood draws on many friends, from Tackhead/Dub Syndicate colleagues Doug Wimbish & the late Keith LeBlanc to the likes of Brian Eno and Gaudi, and the musicianship is impeccable. But there’s something too polite about this – vaguely Eastern European/West Asian scales, reggae off-beats, nice melodies, and awfully tasteful dub production. I mean, it’s lovely and special in its way, but given the range of groundbreaking work Sherwood’s done, I wish it had more edge. Anyway, this one I played is a nice’un. Travis Cook – Australian brainrot [Travis Cook Bandcamp] I love how Travis Cook just casua

There’s a lot of really interesting & strange pop, r’n’b, grime or even folk music tonight, proving perhaps that this is an era where flouting norms is the standard, and the paradox within that is celebrated. LISTEN AGAIN and flout some norms. Stream on demand via fbi.radio’s state-of-the-art technology, podcast here. helen island – stalker guardian angel (2nd mix) [Knekelhuis/Bandcamp] This is the second single off the silence extended EP from Parisian enigma helen island. The original of “Stalker Guardian Angle” (a kind of paradox in itself) was on their album silence is priceless released earlier this year by eclectic Amsterdam label Knekelhuis. This is some kind of vapor-pop with trip-hop influences, although a slowed-down amen break isn’t your usual back-beat. I don’t think this is a person called helen, but I also don’t know if it’s a woman singing or much else! Cool doe. EYDN – Gold (feat. Rainy Miller) [Fixed Abode/SUPERNATURE/Bandcamp] The now-Belgium-based duo EYDN, made up of Emma van Os (Bobbie Orkid) and Thomas Parigi (Tumy), have their debut EP As Can Be coming out from Rainy Miller‘s Fixed Abode & SUPERNATURE in September. First single “Gold” has extra vocals from Miller, with a breakbeat and fizzly hi-hats dropping in and out around an acoustic guitar loop. It’s a swirly piece showing that contemporary trip-hop is finding its own sound. Tony Njoku – SPIRIT WAR DUB (feat. Gaika) [Studio Njoku Bandcamp] Tony Njoku – WEAPON [Studio Njoku Bandcamp] Tony Njoku – CATATONIA (feat. James Massiah) [Studio Njoku Bandcamp] British Nigerian musician Tony Njoku also draws from trip-hop in his post-everything r’n’b melange. Njokou’s productions favour crystalline piano and hazy synths, with unexpected explosions of bass heralded by creepily-distorted metal vox at the edge of hearing. The trip-hop cred is signalled by the presence of Tricky on one track, the nebulous dub atmospherics connected via Space Afrika, while experimental r’n’b & dancehall would be suggested by the presence of Warp & Big Dada’s Gaika. London poet, rapper & musician James Massiah (also known as noisenik and Dean Blunt collaborator DJ Escrow) lends his voice to one track too, as do Coby Sey and Ghostpoet, making this a substantial meeting of black British auteurs – albeit overwhelmingly male. In any case, this is a highly creative album and one that rewards multiple listens. anrimeal – 4. Chapter I – Small things [Lost Wisdom/demo records/anrimeal Bandcamp] London-based Portuguese musician Ana Rita de Melo Alves has appeared on this show under her anrimeal alias a lot since I discovered her music via The Leaf Library‘s Objects Forever label. On January 1st she released the intriguing 56-second track “1. Title – Half Fool Half Empty” as a teaser for an album / book / soundtrack which she is announcing today, on her 30th birthday! The album is also titled Half Fool Half Empty, and is arranged in two halves – one more playful, one more serious – although all of Alves’ work can be seen as a combination of those two creative impulses. Beautiful acoustic songwriting is digitally interrupted or corrupted, gorgeous layered vocals hang in frozen stasis, musical elements appear in the midst of a field recording. This album will accompany a book, and the track titles are a guide to the sections of the text they mirror. It’s a wondrous album and I’m glad to bring you one of the initial pair of singles tonight. Herbalistek – Ego [YUKU/Bandcamp] The first of two new releases on YUKU this week is from Japanese bass music duo Herbalistek. Experimental tracks rooted in sub-bass, with glitched beats and vocal samples, for deep home listening or adventurous sound systems. Distance – Shut Them Down [Chestplate] One of the original heavy-hitters of dubstep, (DJ) Distance is still slipping out new tunes influenced by metal riffage and cyberpunk atmospherics. Melodic basslines and rhythms you can’t deny. Rarelyalways – Paid (feat. Nia J) [Innovative Leasure/Bandcamp] London’s Rarelyalways aka Ricco Komolafe is a jazz musician as well as grime producer and rapper. His Paid Annual Leave EP focuses on work – the drudgery and effort behind wage-slavery. Jazz trumpet and flittery footwork percussion accompany his sing-song rapping and various guests, including Charlotte rapper Nia J. Labake Sabbath – Life And Struggle [The Gate/courtesy of The Wire] London’s Labake Sabbath is a member of The Gate, based in Shepherd’s Bush, providing arts and other resources for people with learning disabilities. This track, which appeared in this month’s Below The Radar Vol. 48 from The Wire, was originally released on her METAL MADNESS album, which uses various styles (mostly hip-hop built from funk loops and the like) to evoke the constant… well, struggle of living with a disability. A.Fruit – Hours in Between [A.Fruit Bandcamp] Anna A.Fruit reached 10,000 followers on SoundCloud, so she’s uploaded a free (or pay-what-you-want) track on her Bandcamp. It’s as usual a melding of bass genres, mostly I guess dubstep? She has lots of great tutorials on her YouTube and also an active Patreon, if you’re looking to learn or improve your skills in bass music. Jasper Byrne – UK Gqom [YUKU/Space Recordings Bandcamp] For more than 2 decades, Jasper Byrne has made drum’n’bass under the Sonic alias, much of which can be found on his Space Recordings Bandcamp. Now shifting to a broader genre remit under his own name, his full album Escape is the second release of the week on YUKU. There’s everything here from jungle techno to ambient, and “UK Gqom” really is a hybrid of South African gqom and UK bass. Nice. Neinzer – Parabol [Neinzer Bandcamp] After a pair of jazzy deep house EPs on Yumé in 2013–14, and more of a dub techno foray in 2016, Emil Lewandowski’s Neinzer released two remarkable EPs in 2020: Whities 025 on the label now known as AD 93 and the sublime Shifting Values on the sadly defunct Where To Now? Records. The dub and jazz influences are very much to the front, along with a psychedelic ambient tilt. Especially the second half of both releases use empty space to their advantage, and the final track on Shifting Values, “Cause Pan Tact Insoluble“, is a remarkable study in poise and slow evolution. Lewandowski’s upcoming Voil EP, self-released this time, is somewhere in between that earlier minimalism and 2023’s resolutely techno return to Yumé. “Parabol” has both poise and forward momentum, based around a shuffling, head-nodding house beat, with chiming vibraphone chords and subtle changes to the beat throughout. Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – Cracked [Bios Contrast Bandcamp] Only a month and a half after his SSAC42 album came out on Mexico’s Infinite Machine, Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das is back with the controlled chaos of “Cracked”, with jittery beats never wanting to rest. Pulse Emitter – Energy Flying [Hausu Mountain/Bandcamp] Portland, Oregon-based composer & synthesist Daryl Groetsch is a classically-trained composer, who uses an extensive number of analog and digital synths in his combination of new age, kosmische, progressive music. Hausu Mountain are releasing Tide Pools, his third album on the label, and honestly it’s got that Hausu aesthetic (as much as they have one), in keeping with the pixellated art of the label’s Max Allison aka Mukqs. Rhythmically driving despite being beatless. Monrroe – Understand [Gutterfunk/Bandcamp] DJ Die‘s Gutterfunk brings its first single from Elijah Symons aka junglist Monrroe. It’s two tracks of precision-tooled breaks and immense but tight bass. Corker. Conrad Subs – Texture [Metalheadz/Bandcamp] Man like Conrad Subs, back on Metalheadz with three tracks of smooth, expansive drum’n’bass, peppered with lovely vocal samples and synth pads. These are DJ tools but equally pleasurable on a late-night drive. Braille x Pleaxure – Mirror Boys [Hotflush Recordings/Bandcamp] Whirling breakbeat’n’bass from New York’s Praveen Sharma aka Braille and Baltimore’s Grant Wheeler aka Pleaxure, released on Paul Rose aka Scuba’s Hotflush Recordings. The pulsing synths and skittery beats here recall nothing less than the self-titled album from Sepalcure, Praveen’s collaboration with Machinedrum. Matthew Ryals – etude no. 10 (take 7) [Matthew Ryals Bandcamp] Matthew Ryals – etude no. 30 (take 2) [3OP/Bandcamp] Matthew Ryals – Knots [Infrequent Seams/Bandcamp] Out in early September is the challenging & rewarding album Exalge from UK modular synthesist Matthew Ryals, recorded live with Italian violist & electronic producer effe effe aka Federica Furlani. The latest single, “Knots”, is Ryals solo, although I’ll have the opportunity to play the duo soon. Meanwhile, I wanted to add in a couple of tracks from the third and last volume of Matthew’s Generative Etudes. Each “volume” is made up of three EPs, hence Generative Etudes Vol. 3.0, which came out on Feb 15th, Vol. 3.1 in March and Vol. 3.2 in April. Each trio of EPs features different version of each track – this is generative music, which proceeds from the same setup in similar-but-different ways, so I recommend setting the three EPs next to each other and feeling how their elements play out. For what it’s worth, I felt that take 7 of “etude no. 10”, found on Vol. 3.2, and take 2 of “etude no. 30”, from Vol. 3.0, were highlights, but hey – you might like a different take of each. However you cut it, this is strangely melodic and rhythmically complex IDM. On “Knots”, Ryals loosens things up further, and broadens the sound palette to make his machines sound weirdly naturalistic at times. Reuben Ingall – Haircut Neutrality [Gastric Acid] Canberra’s Reuben Ingall has released some of my favourite experimental indie music over the years, mournful lo-fi guitar songs played through glitching Max/MSP patches – see 2010’s don’t give up or 2011’s Dealt – but also riotous mashups as Dead DJ Joke and more recently Pav Dundee, and the notorious live-pie-reheating opus Microwave Drone Ritual… among other things. Since 2

Neo-classical electronic pop, contemporary jazz both electronic and acoustic, experimental metal, experimental beats. LISTEN AGAIN, experimentally. Stream on demand vai fbi.radio, podcast here. Darian Donovan Thomas – Microcosm Friend [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting & production. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus in late August we’ll have A Room With Many Doors: Day. Beginning with looped, glitching violin, this one turns quickly into an experimental pop song very quickly, with gently-autotuned vocals, drum machines and splashes processed violin, it’s perfectly-executed neo-classical hyperpop. alice does computer music – The candle of eternity burns for all [JOLT/alice does computer music Bandcamp/Nina] New Yorker Alice Gerlach is a cellist, but also a singer & electronic producer. Her solo work comes out under alice does computer music, with her excellent debut album Shoegaze 5G released in 2023. Her new album Bliss is made up of four tracks, each exactly 10 minutes long, each finding their own balance between multi-tracked cello orchestrations, experimental beats and voice. The album’s available on cassette & vinyl as well as digital, and you can find it on Nina as well as Bandcamp – but if you do want a download, there’s a free link up on her website! Recommended. HAAi – Hey! [Mute Records/Bandcamp] Originally from the coastal town of Karratha in WA (nearer to Broome than Perth), Teneil Throssell has been steadily on the rise over the last decade, since swapping rock bands for DJing after relocating to London. Humanise, out on October 10th, will be her second album for Mute Records, full of floor-filling techno tracks, but there’s always an exploratory aspect that pulls her music into this show’s orbit. There’s a lot more vocals on this album, both computer-generated and human, with a sardonic thread about “AI”, and guests like UK non-binary choir TRANS VOICES. I’m particularly keen for the James Massiah feature. Sebaas – No Plastic [forthcoming on Sebaas.Waveform Bandcamp] Amsterdam-based producer Sebaas has a couple of releases under his belt, which he describes as “multifaceted floor-groove”. Seems about right – percussive bass music, whether techno or on a more 140 tilt. “No Plastic” is based around a sample of Spanish singer Nathy Peluso rapping “I’m a nasty girl, fantastic / este culo es natural o no plastic” (found here), switching up the minimalist reggaeton for high-energy bass-heavy breaks. According to my promo it’s meant to be out now, but it ain’t, so keep an eye on his Bandcamp. Leese x Christian Coiffure – ○○ [YUKU/Bandcamp] Leese x Ancestral Vision – ΞΞ [YUKU/Bandcamp] Belgian producer Leese aka Leslie Deboeur has released some first-class experimental bass stuff on YUKU in the last couple of years, and also co-curated (alongside Swiss producer Julia Häller aka Chewlie) an all-women EP called Leese and Chewlie Invite 001 on the label earlier this year. But prior to the two curators’ collab there, Deboeur has habitually created music on her own, so new album Δ is a deliberate move outside her comfort zone, inviting others to collaborate. The result is a very YUKU album, and still very Leese, but you can hear how her co-creators pull her music into new directions. With Rennes, France-based producer Lucas Marciniak aka Christian Coiffure she brings syncopated & skittery percussion with a squiggly bassline pushing things along. But Prague’s Ancestral Vision draws things into even more frantic territory. It’s interesting how very dancefloor-oriented this collection is, but across a pretty broad range of tempos. I expect Leese’s own music will be richer for it. Sobolik – Sandbox [early reflex/Bandcamp] Brooklyn producer Sobolik lands on Turin’s early reflex with two contrasting tracks of bass music. “Sandbox” has a low-slung thump with a repetitive one-note bassline and lots going on in between the beats. On “Turning Back” the tempo rises for a ring-mod bassline and synth sweeps which gradually take over. Nice stuff. Carrier – The Fan Dance (feat Gavsborg) [Modern Love/Boomkat] Guy Brewer continues his Carrier project with a slab of half-time d’n’b, with skittery beats flickering over the bassline while contemporary Jamaican legend Gavsborg (of Equinoxxx et al) informs us not unconvincingly of his sexiness. Tutu Ta – Samurai Igloo [Long Gone/Bandcamp] If it seems like I was only playing London’s Tutu Ta last week, that’s because I was – and the week before! He’s just popped out the Pepper album, which leans in to his dancehall, dub, bass music side. But now the Violence or Violets EP has been announced on London’s Long Gone, his second on the label, with a handsome vinyl edition as well as digital, and the first track available is this slightly dubby postpunk dance number. Very nice. Melvin Gibbs – Felonious Monk [Hausu Mountain/Bandcamp] When his previous album The Anamibia Sessions Vol.1: The Wave was released on Editions Mego (post-Peter Rehberg’s tragic passing), the label copy said “Melvin Gibbs is the renowned bass player and producer from Brooklyn who’s vast resume includes playing with Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, The Rollins Band, Dead Prez, Caetano Veloso and Femi Kuti amongst others. A solid resume, no doubt, but what is Gibbs doing on Editions Mego?” Well, the answer was that he had been working on a whole lot of electronic, experimental tracks highlighting sound design, albeit still bass-led. Now Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2 has been announced, on the very experimental, generally electronic-focused Hausu Mountain. The punning “Felonious Monk” manages to transition from bass-led Dilla-esque beats into more contemporary bass music. There’s a big list of musicians on the Bandcamp page, including the likes of John Medeski, who plays organ on this track, French hip-hop/jazz beatboxer Napoleon Maddox on a few tracks, master drummer Greg Fox on one track and many more. Match Fixer – saving skin [Match Fixer Bandcamp] Andrew Cowie released lo-fi drone-pop or out-rock or *mumbled-genre-name* for years as Angel Eyes, but in 2017 debuted a new project, Match Fixer, for weird-beat experiments – and by 2018’s Rubble he was already creating genius breakdowns of electro/IDM, ascending to the psychedelic ambient/IDM of Done last year. Somewhere in there was another experiment, a collection of tunes that was almost released as an album but Cowie held back at the last minute, not convinced of the direction they’d taken. From 2019 until now is long enough that it’s hard to discern the particulars of what made him drop the release, and it’s nice having some new-old, definitely weird beat stuff. Cornel Wilczek, Alex Olijnyk – The Beginning of Something Wonderful! [Lakeshore Records (now available on Bandcamp)] Cornel Wilczek, Alex Olijnyk – MUSCLE RELAXANT! [Lakeshore Records (now available on Bandcamp)] Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s darkly comedic horror movie Together is getting quite a lot of press, for its premise, and the fact that Franco and Brie are real-life partners, and for some controversy around possibly-swiped concepts. In any case, it’s awesome that its awesome soundtrack is by a couple of Aussies. Cornel Wilczek was a bit of an old favourite even pre-Utility Fog – his first album as Qua, forgetabout, came out in 2002, the year before FBi & Utility Fog started. I wrote a rave review of that album in the very first proper print issue of Cyclic Defrost – on p16 of the PDF here (print page 30). “With forgetabout, Qua has brought a new level of craftmanship to Australian electronica”. Young Peter had some annoying writing mannerisms but surprisingly good taste. In the intervening years, Cornel has moved from beautifully-crafted folktronica to beautifully crafted film and TV scores, with a lot of amazing credits including recent Aussie horror sensations Talk To Me and Bring Her Back. Film scoring tends to be a collaborative venture, and for a number of recent commissions, Cornel has worked with young Melbourne film composer Alex Olijnyk – in fact, she’s credited on all the tracks that I shortlisted to play tonight! For a creepy film it’s pretty creepy music, suspenseful and dynamic, with full orchestrations melded with electronic processing, particularly effective when voices are mixed in. I’ve always enjoyed listening to film music even when I haven’t seen the film, and this score is both clearly a collection of film cues and also a dramatic and enjoyable listen on its own. I hope Wilczek and Olijnyk both find continued success in this area, as they’re skilled at writing for the medium while also willing to push the envelope. Submerged – Ojanurme Inferno [Ohm Resistance/Bandcamp] Kurt Glück, boss of the long-lived industrial techno/drum’n’bass/breakcore/dubstep label Ohm Resistance, has been making music as Submerged for even longer. It’s generally been about drum’n’bass and related genres, but his latest, Reparations Collected In Flesh, leans heavily on the industrial side, with beats slower than d’n’b, and even sinister vocals slid into the mix. He’s calling it “Outdustrial”. This is heavy shit, reminiscent of JK Broadrick’s Godflesh and JK Flesh work or perhaps early Scorn, perfect for cathartic banishing of evil spirits. Lord Spikeheart – ANNYNAKI feat. Brodinski, Vina Konda [Hækalu/Bandcamp] Martin Kanja was lead singer of the groundbreaking Kenyan extreme metal band Duma, released on Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes. His solo work as Lord Spikeheart began in earnest with last year’s album The Adept, involving an all star cast of producers in heavy, experimental electronic music supporting Kanja’s varied metal vocals. That album initated Lord Spikeheart’s Hækalu label, which is intended to highlight heavy music from the African continent. The second release is t

Another wet day in Sydney, a day on which an estimated 100,000+ of us walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest Israel’s starvation and genocide of Gaza, the occupation, the killing of children, and Australia’s complicity. It was clearly more than the police had expected, because as the front of the march was pouring into Milson’s Point and North Sydney, the tail end was still on the other side, and they freaked out about the number of people and made us all turn back around. Mass confusion and outrage, but we made it back in an orderly fashion it must be said. It was a truly heartening thing to be part of. LISTEN AGAIN to these sounds specially collected for your pleasure. Stream on demand on fbi.radio, podcast here. Editrix – The Big E [Joyful Noise Recordings/Bandcamp] Editrix – Another World [Joyful Noise Recordings/Bandcamp] Last year’s Viewfinder album by Wendy Eisenberg was one of my albums of the year, and their “In The Pines” will be up there in songs of the decade I daresay. A guitarist’s guitarist, Eisenberg is a master musician, also playing tenor banjo and working with electronics, and playing in ensembles ranging from jazz and free improv to, well, what we have here: just brilliant avant-garde punk. I’ve seen Editrix described as math rock, and OK maybe, but really it’s just great, knotty, melodic punk to me, with Eisenberg joined by a great rhythm section: Steve Cameron on bass and Josh Daniel on drums. Our opener, their third album’s title track, has one of those melodies where the intervals are all bent out at angles, making it catchy as hell. The whole album’s perfect riffs, noise sections and top-of-the-lungs vocals. They’ve just signed to Joyful Noise Recordings, and this is absolutely a joyful noise. Laurén Maria – Conversate [Warm Winters Ltd./Bandcamp] Laurén Maria – Filled Up Smile [Warm Winters Ltd./Bandcamp] I first heard Berlin-based Laurén Maria on a 12″ from Yu Miyashita‘s label The Collection Artaud, two tracks of deconstructed electronics with processed vocals hidden within. Her second album, You’re Beautiful, is a masterpiece of deconstruction, in which guitar-led songs jostle with glitch-noise and the subs and fractured beats of the club lurk around the edges. Whether it’s indie-emo songs, screamo tangents or abstracted electronics, Maria somehow makes it all hold together into a strangely affecting album. Also notable, her duo with Diamantista, LICITIR. Lovers – Could I Expect Love No Matter What [Thanatosis/Bandcamp] Forthcoming in mid-September from Alex Zethson‘s Thanatosis is the debut from Lovers, the duo of vocalist Linda Oláh and guitarist Giani Caserotto. But “voice and guitar” this ain’t, any more than Laurén Maria above is… The two singles both inhabit a glitched, transformed space of electro-acoustic experimentation – although the duo have modelled Lettres d’amour on the tradition of love serenades, performed by troubadors accompanying themselves on lutes. If so, this is the past seen through a crack’d mirror. Looking forward to the rest of the album. On Diamond – Downslide [Eastmint Records/Bandcamp] Here’s the second single from the long-awaited new album from Naarm/Melbourne’s On Diamond. On “Downslide” singer Lisa Salvo evokes a feeling of being lost and helpless. It’s a lovely song, lifted higher with the harp of Genevieve Fry, and ending with some deranged synth/guitar soloing (an On Diamond special). Bird Battles – Overgrown [Sleep In The Fire Records] Earlier this year I was pleased to play the incredible debut “Bird Battles” from the duo of the same name – in fact there I am quoted on the Bandcamp page! I expressed hope that more was to come, and here is the album announcement! Bird Battles features the voice and other sounds of London-based Scottish musician Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as glacis and also one half of Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and of Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall. Here he’s working with visual and sound-artist Jesse Narens, whose love of birds is all over his visual art and audio work. This promises to be emotive, raw songwriting, delicate and noisy, touching through abstraction. Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings – Red lights [Oigovisiones/Bandcamp] Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings – Beat street [Oigovisiones/Bandcamp] This is not a new Three Broken Tapes album declares the new album credited to Juanlu Barlow & his Love-Fi Recordings. Those of us not acquainted with the Spanish indie scene (specifically Málaga) may not understand the reference, but Three Broken Tapes was a project started by Juanlu Gutierrez in 2009, who was then joined by Fran Barrionuevo until the band’s last release in, as far as I can see, 2018. Gutierrez is usually known now as Juanlu Barlow, and has for some years been releasing masses of music via “my private underground“, mostly under the electronic alias Lüüü and the more indie rock Little Bradley. Both musicians from Three Broken Tapes are also visual/film artists, and while the Oigovisiones label is much more focused on experimental music, they’d long wanted to put out a Three Broken Tapes release of some sorts. This isn’t it, but it has the indie rock basis, with krautrock and lo-fi electronic seams running through it. It’s super-quirky, experimental by definition, and it’s always great to discover a weird music scene from somewhere new! Tutu Ta – Evil Cry (Ft. Lady I) [Tutu Ta Bandcamp] Tutu Ta is a UK producer otherwise known as “Nomad the Shadow Dancer”, and nothing more identifying as far as I know, although there’s a connection with the Accidental Meetings crew somehow. His music is often dub or dubstep/grime/jungle based, but just as much can float towards some kind of arcane folk or postpunk jazz thing. He’s now released an 8-track album, Pepper, and this dancehall-ish, grimey track is the opener. Not sure who Lady I is! Xzibit – Concentrate (Deepchild VIP) [Deepchild Bandcamp] Here’s one from the vaults – not mine, but Deepchild‘s. A bootleg remix of Xzibit‘s 2006 single “Concentrate“, this is Deepchild at his most glitchy, IDM, almost drum’n’bassy, with the song sped up and the voice re-pitched. A million miles from either the Berghain techno or the ambient stuff Rick’s doing these days, but rad all the same. Ceramic Model – Self Lick [General Merchant/Bandcamp] From Eora/Sydney label General Merchant comes a two-tracker from local producer Ceramic Model. Like the most adventurous music coming out at the moment, it’s not quite techno or drum’n’bass, it’s kind of modern IDM but more for the dancefloor. Excellent, detailed production. STEMcell feat. Propus – Ore [STEMcell/Propus Bandcamp] The second release from artist collective STEMcell is once again credited to “STEMcell feat” a specific artist. Propus is presumably the alias of someone more well-known, but keeping the real identity hidden to focus on the sounds. It’s great, IDM-meets-bass stuff. I note that Propus is given the locaion of Colombia, while the first release from “Sceptrum” (also recommended) is located in Berlin. Make of that what you will. Aitch – Metronotte [Hundebiss Records/Bandcamp] A couple of weeks ago I played an excellent trip-hoppy single from Milan group Cortex of Light. I thought they were a duo, but in fact they’re a trio, and Aitch is one of the three. On his new single for the excellent Hundebiss Records, he presents two tracks of mutant bass music, with that two-tiered thing that goes back to jungle or further, where the bass pumps at a comfortable tempo and the beats jitter around in double-time. With Chicago footwork in the mix now the world over, bass music is a broad church. Abstract Drumz – Rain Dub (2025 Remaster) [Abstract Drumz Bandcamp] Adrian Walmsley aka Abstract Drumz is perhaps Wales’ greatest purveyor of modern jungle, and he’s not un-prolific, but some tunes still end up on the cutting-room floor. That’s what Unreleased Drumz Pt 1 is for – the first EP of old tracks that have been sitting on his SoundCloud for some years. “Rain Dub” was one of the most requested ones, and you can see why – brilliantly varied drumz, reversed and pitch-bent as well as shuffled around, and lovely warm bass. He says this one required quite a lot of EQing and other tricks to bring out the subs and bring clarity – which I’d say he’s done brilliantly. Skee Mask – Untitled 1017 [Skee Mask Bandcamp] Skee Mask – Van99 [Skee Mask Bandcamp] Bryan Müller, the Munich DJ & producer known as Skee Mask (now based in Berlin), is usually released on the also-Munich-based Ilian Tape label, but for the last few years, in between those releases, he’s been popping big unmastered collections of old tunes up on his old Bandcamp. The latest of these is E, with tunes from 2016-2021, and as per the previous alphabetical comps, they are very much unmastered. The music runs the gamut from ambient to techno, downtempo to drum’n’bass, and even in these flat, squished forms there’s a lot to love. Povoa – OK [99CTS/Bandcamp] 99CTS Records is run half out of Paris and half out of NYC by globetrotting DJ Miley Serious. Her French connection brings us the latest release, the NPT EP from Paris producer Povoa. Every track has incredibly filthy snarling bass, but past that, each track is different, from the syncopated garagey bass of “OK” to percussive house and high-speed techno. Crazy shit. Kuntari – Kerak Terusi [99CHANTS/Bandcamp] Indonesian duo Kuntari refer to their genre as primal-core, and you can hear them tapping into deep seams on their new album Mutu Beton, released on David August‘s never-predictable 99CHANTS label. Originally Kuntari was the solo project of Tesla Manaf, whose musical career began in classical music, broadened into jazz and then electronic music, but he’s now swivelled back to acoustic instruments, from the length and breadth of Indonesia and further afield. In Kuntari he’s now joined by percussionist Rio Abror, and together they reference but dismantle Javanese gamelan, including saron and vario

Uncanny simulacra abound through the music tonight. What is real? LISTEN AGAIN and just add to the confusion. Stream on demand via fbi.radio, podcast here. Mal Devisa – Next stop [Top Shelf Records/Bandcamp] Show Me The Body – Halogen (feat. Mal Devisa) [self-released] Mal Devisa – Crowd Pleaser [Top Shelf Records/Bandcamp] This Wednesday, US label Top Shelf Records is re-introducing the incredible poet, musician, singer & rapper Mal Devisa with a big album called Palimpsesa. The woman born Deja Carr came up with the Mal Devisa project as a solo vehicle after a funk band she formed with friends at school. A poet and rapper who’s also an expressive singer with a huge range, she’s also a producer & musician, and can easily span acoustic folk, jazz & soul, bass-heavy hip-hop, funk and rock, all with a healthy experimental backbone. Across 90 minutes, Palimpsesa showcases a breathtaking depth of work, with a ridiculous number of strong, catchy songs that deserve wider recognition. She writes of blackness, queerness, gender and intersectional liberation with an artistic ear. Here, read some of her poetry. Perera Elsewhere, Andy S – Fuck Le System [Friends of Friends/Bandcamp] I loved Sasha Perera aka Perera Elsewhere‘s 2022 album Home, an album of “doom-folk”, but actually experimental electronic pop songs. The following year she put out an album of remixes with some excellent contributors, and in October there’s finally another album, Just Wanna Live Some. Her musical net is cast wide, mixing UK soundsystem culture in with music from different parts of Africa, Indonesia and Europe (she’s based in Berlin). The first double single features two tracks with Côte d’Ivoire MC Andy S, rapping (mostly) in French over infectious beats. Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith aka Disiniblud – It’s Change (feat. Willy Siegel, katie dey & Julianna Barwick) [Smugglers Way/Bandcamp/Bandcamp] The two women who make up Disiniblud come from different backgrounds, neither of which is immediately indicative of what their self-titled album has to offer. Rachika Nayar‘s music has generally been based around her guitar, albeit granulated and processed, and on her last album expanded with synths, subs and occasional beats. Nina Keith, on the other hand, writes delicate chamber music, played by herself on various acoustic instruments. When they first worked together (to my knowledge) on RVNG Intl.‘s 2021 Salutations compilation, the seeds of Disiniblud were already there – shining melodies and glitchy harmonic textures – more ambient perhaps, but no less ecstatic. On their album, these same textures and emotional gestures are more fully orchestrated, with various guests contributing often wordless vocals. The unspoken is as important: the guests are all female or trans; it’s particularly lovely (for this listener anyway) to hear Tujiko Noriko‘s unmistakable voice on the last track. It’s a celebratory album, of the artists’ friendship and of the queer/trans utopia that could be. Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe – Your Lips Covering Your Teeth [Warm Winters, Ltd./Bandcamp] Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe – Assembling Air [Warm Winters, Ltd./Bandcamp] Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe – The Air of An Error [Warm Winters, Ltd./Bandcamp] From Adam Badí Donoval‘s perfectly-curated Warm Winters, Ltd. comes an album of beautiful, uncanny vocal simulacra, working together in a strange kind of plainsong, hinting at Medieval music as recalled by malfunctioning robots. Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe both make exploratory sound-art: Wennborg is interested in the exchange involved with listening and “sounding”, and makes art from the digital transformation of the sound of people together; Duncombe’s work transforms her voice and others, glitching and reassembling the sound, pushing them into the surreal or irreal. Accordingly, this is a haunted album, in which the artificial voices never quite succeed in voicing complete melodies, instead looping and stuttering, pitched outside their intended registers, mournfully ironising the title, Joy, Oh I Missed You. The results are queasily beautiful. Giant Claw – No Life [Orange Milk Records/Bandcamp] Giant Claw – Decadent Stress Chamber [Orange Milk Records/Bandcamp] Under his own name, Keith Rankin is an incredible visual artist, whose retro-futuristic style is found much further afield than his own Orange Milk Records, but it certainly helps define the label’s aesthetic, as it does his own music as Giant Claw. This is a project that uses General MIDI instruments and either vocal samples or computer-generated vocals, artfully cut up in a way that makes it clear that everything’s sampled and reconstructed. On Decadent Stress Chamber the tracks are the closest he’s gotten to pop songs, but are peppered with chopped heavy metal guitars and weird fake-outs in the structures. You’d be hard-pressed to find a greater master at the uncanny. tedzi تدزي – Mn Dehab [mnjm/Bandcamp] Lebanese producer and multi-instrumentalist Teddy Tawil releases electronic music as tedzi تدزي. His debut album Mn Dehab is balanced about half-half with industrial-strength glitched bass and IDM on the one hand, and deep, granular (and no less “industrial”) beatless pieces. The full liner notes for this album show the state of mind projected into these sounds: it’s a kind of poetic manifesto for survival, pitting the west’s relentless thirst for brown people’s blood and the internet’s relentless thirst for our attention against the need to write music, to make rooms shake with sound.    Sha ke aaaal ll l l l l lll the rroo ms.    also with sound.    we’re made of gold    من ذهب Chewlie – Die Berge, Sie Schweigen (Alan Johnson Sunder Remix) [YUKU/Bandcamp] Chewlie – Slow Love (DJ Strawberry remix) [YUKU/Bandcamp] The latest album from Swiss producer Julia Chewlie Häller, Transforming Matter, came out in 2024. But 2022’s Creature already showed her sound design and experimental bass music talents, and it’s that album that’s now the subject of a 9-track remix album from artists chosen by YUKU and Chewlie. As she comments herself, the remixes are by-and-large more dancefloor-oriented than her originals, and span everything from dubstep/grime through techno to drum’n’bass. In fact UK duo Alan Johnson‘s remix traverses all those BPMs through its 8-minute runtime, switching up every time it drops back and restarts. Turkish producer DJ Strawberry is usually found doing experimental takes on Chicago footwork, but his remix here is full to the brim with jungle breaks. DJ DIE SOON – Intro ft. Kiki Hitomi [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp] DJ DIE SOON – Unfinished ft. Kiki Hitomi, Franco Franco [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp] DJ DIE SOON – Botu [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp] Daisuke Imamura uses the awesome alias DJ DIE SOON, which is both a reference to his own name and to the great jungle producer DJ Die. But DIE SOON’s beats rarely venture into jungle or drum’n’bass, partly because they rarely resemble traditional beats at all. He was the perfect collaborator for avant-garde Japanese rapper MA on their DIEMAJIN project last year, and now he returns to Jordanian label Drowned By Locals for a solo album, My Brother the… no wait, My Brothel The Wind. Yep, dude likes his wordplay. On this album he’s joined by various fellow travellers in experimental genres, including Rully Shabara of Senyawa and experimental vocalist/sound-artist Sara Persico. But oftentimes the vocals are somehow blended into the whole mash of sound, like Kiki Hitomi‘s voice in the Intro track or the mysterious MC Schlumbo who’s credited in a few spots. The second track is one of the more song-like, with rapping from Hitomi and Italy’s Franco Franco, but even so, the beats seem to be on their own timetable compared to the vocalists… Very excellent, very strange music. Tutu Ta – Papillon Riddim (Ft. Feral Is Kinky) [Tutu Ta Bandcamp] Tutu Ta is a UK producer otherwise known as “Nomad the Shadow Dancer”, and nothing more identifying as far as I know. His(?) music is often dub or dubstep/grime/jungle based, but just as much can float towards some kind of arcane folk or postpunk jazz thing. An 8-track album, Pepper, is out this coming Friday, and one of the singles is this quasi-grime post-dancehall track featuring English ragga toaster Feral Is Kinky aka Caron Liza Geary. Nick Sylvester – Clyde [smartdumb/Bandcamp] Nick Sylvester – Hisham [smartdumb/Bandcamp] It’s a little bit wrong for these next tracks to appear during the beat-driven section of the show, because you’d be hard-pressed to dance to this. And yet, all the tracks on Nick Sylvester‘s Stereo Music for Breakbeats and Samplers are made from glitched drum breaks and modular synths. The LA-based producer has worked with the likes of Yaeji and studied with the best – Drew Daniel & MC Schmidt of Matmos, Keith Fullerton Whitman (whose early work as Hrvatski pretty much defined breakcore while also connecting it with musique concrète and modular synthesis), then James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem… That’s quite the name-dropping, and oh hello! Each of the tracks here is also the name – the first name, anyway – of a famous drummer. Some are admittedly easier to scope out than others – Yoshimi of Boredoms, Jaki Leibezeit of Can, Moe Tucker of The Velvet Underground… Our first track here is Clyde Stubblefield, who played with James Brown and is immortalised in one of the most famous breaks of all time. One presumes the second is Hisham Bharoocha of Black Dice, Kill Alters etc. I have to say, the drum fuckery here sounds a lot like what you could get out of the legendary destroy fx Buffer Override DSP plugin (still available!). Super fun stuff anyway. Manslaughter 777 – Child Of (featuring MSC) [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp] Manslaughter 777 – Silk Barricade [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp] When I played Manslaughter 777‘s first album I couldn’t resist referring to it as “metal heads doing Metalheadz”, and that’s no less true of their second masterpiece, God’s World. The duo

As I was putting this show together, it felt like it was leaning heavily into bass & beats – and it is, to an extent, but it also has highly ethereal sounds, acoustic doom and acoustic prettiness, post-jazz forms and post-classical hyperpop(?) And lots of music from albums that are yet to be released. LISTEN AGAIN and identify the genres. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here. Darian Donovan Thomas – Ugly Betty [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist Darian Donovan Thomas released his debut album A Room With Many Doors: Night, which drew on equal parts melodic classical arrangements and hyperpop songwriting. The album title clearly heralded a series, and thus in late August we’ll have A Room With Many Doors: Day. With its autotuned vocals, tricksy 5/4 time violin loops and skittery live drums, the first single “Ugly Betty” is still very much rooted in hyperpop and classical. Johnny Richards & Dave King – Sleepless In Settle [False Door Records] The Bad Plus (especially when they were a piano trio) are one of the great crossover-jazz ensembles of the last few decades, known for their surprising covers (Aphex Twin, Pixies, Stravinsky etc) and their brilliant original material too. And if you know that Aphex Twin cover, you’ll know that Dave King is a machine of a drummer when he needs to be, as well as a sensitive ensemble member. Leeds, UK pianist Johnny Richards is a member of the Ethio-jazz-inspired Sorcerers and the virtuosic, surreal improv troupe Shatner’s Bassoon. Their forthcoming duo album The New Awkward was created remotely, started during COVID lockdown, but there’s no sign of that in the alchemical creations from the pair. Richards uses the piano like a percussion instrument, with layers of prepared piano and straight piano in conversation with King’s busy percussion. In keeping with Utility Fog’s longtime interest in music between the genres, Richards’ metal preparations recall Javanese gamelan, while the compositions draw from the counterpoint of J.S. Bach – elsewhere there are inspirations from Mr Bungle and Frank Zappa, 20th century composers like Hindemith and Schoenberg, early Robert Wyatt and more. I’ll play some more of this as the release date approaches. Blurt – Mecanno Giraffe [All City Records/Bandcamp] There’s no band quite like Blurt, the post-punk/free jazz group fronted since 1980 by Ted Milton, who alternates between largely spoken vocals and sputtering, yelping saxophone. And that’s usually it, but it doesn’t fully describe the jagged punk energy, nor Milton’s very working class British delivery, nor his surreal yet political poetry. The flipside of this 7″ is 18 minutes of Milton’s poetry, just spoken word with no music. As for the music, here are some other genres that have been used to describe it: psycho-funk, afro-punk, fake no-wave, pogo-jazz. Yeah. James Massiah meets Lord Tusk – Might Be The One [Accidental Meetings/Bandcamp] This one track and its dub are the sequel to last year’s “Open Up“, an equally-intoxicating dub mantra invoked by London poet & musician James Massiah over a killer minimal dub-house steppa from Lord Tusk. I was lucky enough to see them together at Cafe OTO in London at a night curated by Accidental Meetings back in May, and they have the wonderful chemistry of blokes who’ve worked & created together in various forms for many years. Richie Culver – Chase Money [SUPERNATURE/Bandcamp] Having already released one of the albums of the year with Rainy Miller‘s Joseph, What Have You Done?, SUPERNATURE now ready another bloinder from Miller & Blackhaine collaborator, poet and conceptual artist Richie Culver. In fact, somewhat confusingly, this album also follows Miller’s as the 12th release on his own Fixed Abode label although they don’t inhabit its Bandcamp as yet. I Trust Pain follows the path of the aforementioned Blackhaine and Miller into cold and harsh, dark UK drill – a genre that’s hard to pin down to a particular sound, except that it nods at UK bass music and is tightly restrained. Hearing Culver’s poetry spoken in more familiar rap phrasing is a revelation, even if half of it’s gutteral or shrieked. A bleak first single, and I trust the rest will be just the kind of northern desolation we’re looking for. Mumdance – Ping Devil Meme [Different Circles/Bandcamp] Back in 2014(!), UK bass producers Mumdance and Logos founded the Different Circles, with their first 12″, Weightless Vol. 1 also coining a new genre. “Weightless” is a vibe, but it’s one you can clearly recognize, combining grime and sound-art, somehow inverting bass music… Now they’re preparing the label compilation Ping Volume One, which brings with it a new genre again. What’s Ping? You’ll know it when you hear it, but it’s the focal point that can be found in Weightless music where a single percussion hit (or synth ping) – not a kick drum – embodies the music’s rhythmic centre. This seems to me to extend from the real innovation of dubstep and grime, which turned the assumptions of jungle-drum’n’bass-uk garage on their head: rather than the beats impelling the music forward, garlanded by the basslines, it was the bass itself that held the rhythmic impetus. The beats were often able to syncopate and rubato out of their expected subdivisions – so theoretically, here those errant beats take centre-stage. That said, the two preview tracks, by the label’s two founders, do not eschew rhythmic driving beats or basslines, so I’m keen to discover what it is that holds all these tracks together. Shapednoise – Oblivion Step [Weight Looming] When the last Shapednoise album came out, I pointed out that Nino Pedone has one foot in the noise realm, with releases on Prurient’s Hospital Productions among others, and one foot in the bass world, collaborating with Mumdance & Logos on the cyberpunk project The Sprawl. That was Absurd Matter, an ambitious set with many guest vocals, set to massively overdriven beats & bass, and electronic walls of noise (and sometimes melody). Out on September 17th, Absurd Matter 2 is the sequel you’d expect, with both Armand Hammer and Moor Mother returning as guests. But it’s not all guest spots: as you might expect from a track called “Oblivion Step”, this second single is a cool shuffling breakbeat piece – just sheathed in pummeling distortion. Muskila – YARAO [YUKU/Bandcamp] Here’s a new single announcing an album from young YUKU artist Muskila, a Copenhagen-based artist with roots in North Kurdistan. It’s percussive bass music with a beautifully open sound stage, bumping bassline and vocal snatches. Very YUKU, and you know that’s the shit. Sicaria – Rhassoul [Tectonic Recordings/Bandcamp] V.I.V.E.K – Gone W3st [Tectonic Recordings/Bandcamp] When Rob Ellis, aka (DJ) Pinch, founded Tectonic Recordings in 2005, he cemented Bristol as the second home of dubstep after South London. As well as release some of the most classic early dubstep tunes, Tectonic released a series of iconic compilations, beginning with Tectonic Plates Vol. 1 in 2006. More than anything, it’s the callback to these great compilations that made me excited to discover that Pinch is revitalising the label with the 2CD (and 6 vinyl boxset) Tectonic Sound. The label boss opens the proceedings with the album’s title track, which shudders between OG dubstep minimalism and vocal snaps & busy percussion. Across the compilation there’s a whole spectrum of 140bpm, from the rolling percussive house (yet still dubstep) on dubstep mainstay V.I.V.E.K‘s “Gone W3st” to the percussive dubstep from London-based Moroccan DJ Sicaria, a rising bass music star. Elsewhere there’s eerie electro-acoustic minimalism from Flora Yin Wong (which also manages to still be dubstep), the distorted crunch of dubstep legend Distance, and the methodical dubstep-dub from Bristol legend Rob Smith aka RSD. If you have any interest in 140bpm bass music, this is essential listening. Slikback – Knot [Planet µ/Bandcamp] Slikback – Spend [Planet µ/Bandcamp] Back in May, the day I arrived in London I was able to attend the Planet µ 30th celebration at Corsica Studios. The last act I saw before my body gave out (something like 5am) was the brilliant Slikback, playing his set with a lot of live input. I was super pleased to find out that Planet µ had signed Slikback, and in a recent Wire interview, Slikback talks about the creative guidance Mike Paradinas gave him (something I’ve heard from a number of Planet µ artists). It’s not that Attrition is wildly different from what we’ve been hearing from Slikback over the last 5+ years, but here his talent for sound design and intricate beats is fashioned into an album, with some callbacks between tracks and room for in-between spaces. Just what you’d want from Slikback on Planet µ. Alienationist – Ghosts in the Grid [Alienationist Bandcamp] Your Data Is Funnier Than You: Fragments is the new EP from Berlin-based producer Alienationist, following on from May’s Your Data Is Funnier Than You: Echoes. On both you’ll find agitated, mashed jungle breaks nestling with electro drum machines, and unsettled ambient sound design, evoking the contradictions of our hyper-connected present. DJ Haram – Stenography ft. Armand Hammer [Hyperdub/Bandcamp] DJ Haram – Distress Tolerance [Hyperdub/Bandcamp] It’s kind of weird to be told that Beside Myself is DJ Haram‘s debut album, given how important she’s been in the US experimental beats/hip-hop scene for the last 10 years. Notably, she released the incredible Nothing To Declare with Moor Mother as 700 Bliss in 2022, and it was much-awaited by the time it came out. As a producer, the artist born Zubeyda Muzeyyen has worked with billy woods, ELUCID and their duo Armand Hammer, as well as work with Debby Friday and even Kronos Quartet. Calling the album “Beside Myself” indicates that it’s Muzeyyen’s vision in totality (as well as denoting a righteous anger at the world), but it is nevertheless choc full of collaborat

We have lots of miscellaneous experimental beats tonight, and different experimental versions of song, plus sound-art and noise, and kinds of ambient. I’m catching up on some stuff from when I was overseas, but also looking ahead to things not released yet. I’m also exploring the eternal present – all of now. LISTEN AGAIN, now and now. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. ROMÆO – All Of Now [ROMÆO Bandcamp] Eora/Sydney singer/songwriter/producer ROMÆO has a new EP called Eternal Recurrence coming, and out now is the first single, “All of Now“. In the wake of a relationship ending, the song – in all its evolving 7 minutes – is an invocation of nowness. From a swung trip-hop feel, it slips into drum’n’bass-influenced beats and then just keeps going. Put it on repeat to stretch the moment even longer. Sharpie Smile – So Far (Feat. Leng Bian) [Drag City/Bandcamp] Previously art-rock-post-punks Kamikaze Palm Tree, Dylan Hadley & Cole Berliner have just released an album of sometimes-experimental electronic pop as Sharpie Smile. “So Far” is a super pretty, emotive song that skitters into light-weight jungle with added twinkliness from harpist Leng Bian. Eli Keszler – Ever Shrinking World [LUCKYME®/Bandcamp] The remarkable new album from Eli Keszler was released on the 2nd of May, the day I left for 6 weeks in UK & Europe, and got lost in the flood of… stuff… But I can’t let it go unplayed because it’s a wonder, even among Keszler’s many brilliant releases. Keszler’s earliest material used his skills at fast-paced, complex percussion to experimental ends, but he’s also a longtime collaborator with Oneohtrix Point Never and Laurel Halo, among others. His 2018 album Stadium, released by Shelter Press, heralded a change in focus along with a move to Manhattan. Here, the skittery beats resembled IDM and jungle, and came along with electronic textures and small melodies. This has continued to be Keszler’s modus operandi, but with LUCKYME® as his more recent home, more pop elements have crept in, evoking trip-hop and noir jazz, with various guest vocalists. “Ever Shrinking World” has no guests listed, so maybe it’s Keszler himself intoning the phrase. In any case, this is a richly-produced album of late-night moods, somewhere between elegance and paranoia. Mark Van Hoen – No-One Leave (feat. Clare Dove) [Dell’Orso/Bandcamp] Mark Van Hoen – Shine (feat. Rachel Goswell) [Dell’Orso/Bandcamp] Sometime around 1997 maybe, or 1998, I was introduced (by Seb Chan, no doubt) to the 1995 album Truth Is Born Of Arguments by Locust, the sometimes-used pseudonym of Mark Van Hoen. I guess I would’ve known some of Seefeel‘s work already, so I knew Van Hoen had been part of the lineup early on, and some of the vocal samples on that album were from their singer Sarah Peacock. But the massively overdriven beats, which stopped and started and shuddered with fragments of female voice and very sparse electronics, were enough to blow my tiny mind – not to mention the weird world-beat and disquieting ambient found elsewhere on the album. It’s still an album I happily go back to anytime I get an excuse. For some time (at least 6 years, maybe more) Van Hoen has had a subscription available on Bandcamp with heaps of exclusive music, some of which leaks out as Bandcamp-only releases (and then slips back behind the wall), including really early experiments, live performances, and essentially demos of tracks that later appear on “proper” releases, like the one that’s just come out: The Eternal Present. The second Mark Van Hoen album on the Dell’Orso label, it follows last year’s Plan For A Miracle, and for folks like me there’s now a double CD collecting both albums. The material on these releases spans three decades, meaning it reaches back as far as that seminal Locust album, but it’s totally cohesive, and in many ways as contemporary as anything – or as timeless. The Eternal Present indeed. Molly Joyce – August 9 1999 [130701/Bandcamp] Composer, instrumentalist and singer Molly Joyce was in a car crash at age 7 which almost amputated her left hand. Over the following 8 years she experienced multiple surgeries, and still has an impaired hand. This trauma is imbued in all of her work, and ableism / disability activism is a constant theme. Her latest album State Change is her most directly autobiographical piece yet, poetically presented though it is: words and phrases taken from the actual medical reports from each of her surgeries form the lyrics, which are accompanied by synths played on keyboard and also through various gestural controllers. The results can be harrowing, with clusters of noise and vocal processing knocking the songs out of balance. It’s a beautiful example of abstraction as storytelling. DJ DIE SOON – SAQ4IME ft. Sara Persico [Drowned By Locals/Bandcamp] Dadub – Hunger for Oblivion ft. Sara Persico [OPAL/Bandcamp] Sacred Lodge – Wa Wa Ke Wa Wa Yi (Feat. Sara Persico) [Avon Terror Corps] Somehow in the last couple of weeks, Berlin-based Italian musician & singer Sara Persico has turned up on three separate releases – two of them pre-release singles, one on a new release. Persico’s debut album Sphaîra came out earlier this year, following the excellent Boundary EP in 2023, both of which showcased her experimental vocals and an array or production techniques. First up, a new single from Berlin-based Daisuke Imamura aka DJ DIE SOON, who did an absolutely off-the-charts album last year with Japanese rapper MA, and now the same label – the Jordan-based Drowned By Locals – is set to release his new solo album My Brothel The Wind. Among the guests are Senyawa’s Rully Shabara and WaqWaq Kingdom/King Midas Sound/Dokkebi Q’s Kiki Hitomi, but from Sara Persico we have mangled vocalisations accompanied by mangled beats. Out this week was a full album from Berlin-based Italian duo Dadub, following EPs on the likes of Stroboscopic Artefacts and Ohm Resistance. Industrial bass is one way to describe them, but industrial techno and… industrial ambient too? Among the many guest vocals, Persico here is singing a little more tunefully, but this is still dark stuff, from a dark, evocative album. AND also this Friday, Bristol collective Avon Terror Corps announced a new album from Paris-based Matthieu Ruben N’Dongo, under the alias Sacred Lodge. Ambam comes out of his ethno-musicological studies into the Fang people of Central Africa, from whom he’s descended via his father. On top of his dubstep-influenced beats, his own voice is central: he “uses the scream as a vocal act of liberation in the face of oppression”; but Persico adds distorted yelps and auto-tuned interjections. Can’t wait to hear the rest. RSD – Push [RSD Bandcamp] Hailing, like Avon Terror Corps, from Bristol is Rob Smith, who with Smith & Mighty was instrumental in the birth of trip-hop, melding dub bass with hip-hop, house and r’n’b in the scene which birthed Massive Attack, Portishead et al. Smith was also one half of the jungle originals More Rockers, and I’ve mentioned the jungle archive collections Smith put up on his Bandcamp back in 2023 – essential listening IMHO – but Smith was also there as dubstep spread in the mid-2000s, and still enjoys the 140bpm realm. In May he released four 140bpm tracks on the Warm EP and another four have just followed on Warm Pt.2 – just lovely dubby, breaky stuff. Measure Divide – Stretchlike [Air Texture/Bandcamp] S.A.T.I.N. – Break [Air Texture/Bandcamp] Berghain-resident DJ & producer JakoJako is an afficionado of hardware production, so when NY label Air Texture asked her to curate a compilation, she pulled in artists who she’s felt connected to through hardware. The result is Hardwired, a 23-track compilation that’s mostly pounding 4/4 beats, but also takes in pulsating ambient and scurrying micro-beats at times. As JakoJako recently released a mostly ambient EP on Mute, it’s not surprising to hear an almost beatless track from sunroof, the label’s Daniel Miller & Gareth Jones; The Field also contributes 6 minutes of churning midrange. But tonight, Toronto’s Measure Divide brings a syncopated bassline to his fast-paced 4/4 beats, while UK duo S.A.T.I.N.‘s track begins with thumping kicks so syncopated that it takes the ear a few bars to catch up when the crunching snare & hit-hat drop in – industrial techno at its finest. Jay Glass Dubs – Mirror In Decay [Jay Glass Dubs Bandcamp] Dimitris Papadatos, the Greek producer known as Jay Glass Dubs, has forged a unique path through bass music for a decade now. It’s rare to find any clear genre designators, granting that dub is always a reference point, but the slippery nature of the music, hinting at postpunk, ambient, techno and who knows what else, is very much the point. So this Bandcamp-exclusive EP is doubly outsider stuff: music from an unpigeonholeable artist that didn’t quite fit in his other releases between 2020 and 2024. My favourite piece here, “Mirror In Decay”, is a little less slow-paced than his norm, and is pieced together from little more than a never-changing chord, fragments of percussion and almost-melodies sent through a dub delay, with a sinuous bassline dropping in & out of the mix. Facetoucher – The Great Mutator [Burnt Seed Records/Bandcamp] Dr Trousers – Wickerman [Burnt Seed Records/Bandcamp] Next to FBi Radio here in Eora/Sydney, Borloo/Perth’s RTR-FM is a station very dear to my heart, even though I’ve never lived there. Of course Melbourne, Brisbane etc have great community stations too. But RTR are absolutely nurturing and passionate, and look! Now there’s a second RTR. RTR2 is online-only and maybe more freeform, an outlet for artists, labels, fans etc can put music together and anyone can listen back on demand. As the station launched, one of the groups who contributed were Burnt Seed Records, and if you look at their first podcast, you’ll see there’s quiiiiite a bit of overlap with this here show’s interests. As part of their four-episode residency, they