May Roundup 2015

As ever, there's been more great music than we could possibly write about last month. The May roundup collects some of the best tunes that our radar has caught over the last few weeks. We start sketching some house and disco sketches figures, Nebraska's ace filter-disco, a lovely reissue of Vincent Floyd and some ace material on Text, Future Times and the intriguing new Uniile imprint. Darkness falls midway through the playlist, with Galcher Lustwerk's long-awaited Parlay, a lovely edit from Caribou as Daphni and two stellar cuts from J. Albert, who's got our trophy for the most exciting new artist this year. We end with some spaced-out trips courtesy of Nicolas Jaar, JMMF and Lifted, with Minor Science's dangerous bass flex accompanying the curtain fall.

Tracklist:

Paxton Fettel - Afloat on a Sea of Nothing feat. Takuya Matsumoto

Nebraska - Emotional Rescue

Unknown Artist - A Jazz Thing

Mosey - Tuff Times

Joe - Thinkin About

Vincent Floyd - Get Up

Creta Kano - Skyway Motel

Panama Brown - Theme From Panama Racing Club

Cherushii - Wild Abandon

Galcher Lustwerk - Parlay

Daphni - Usha

J. Albert - Kiss The Ground

J. Albert - Vertigo Contracto

Luca Lozano & Mr. Ho - Dripbox

JMMF - Paraesthesia

Nicolas Jaar - The three sides of Audrey and why she's all alone now

Lifted - Bell Slide

Farbror Resande Mac - Stockholmsnatt

Mark Barrott - Saviours Or Savages

Minor Science - Closing Acts

Joe - Punters Step Out / Club Scared

Label: Hemlock

He may not be the most prolific producer, but few survivors of the UK’s dubstep scene can rival the unerring hit-rate of Joe. Inventive and perplexing, Joe’s tracks often hit way-out leftfield, and with his follow-up to last month’s Slope on Hessle the man doesn’t disappoint, offering some of the most warped, addictive dance cuts this side of A Made Up Sound. Punters Step Out is unhinged: a carnival ride on DMT, a club night melting into an acid trip, it’s anything but expected. A detuned funfair melody takes centre stage, winding sinuously around a stripped field of clicks. It may be unsettling but it’s undeniably danceable – after a brilliant moment where Joe jarringly uses music technology against itself (sampling the sound of an audio cable becoming half-unplugged), the beats become more muscular, lending that disquieting melody a new raucous energy. It’s a strange track, and certainly an acquired taste, but you’ve got to give it to Joe for making this all somehow work – one can easily imagine a room of clubbers equal parts confused and ecstatic.

After such a madcap opener one might expect something a little straighter, but instead Club Scared jumps right off the deep end. Here a rolling drum pattern provides a stark skeleton, more club-tooled than its predecessor. But it’s not the music here that aims to mess with your mind, it’s the vocal. Once the groove gets going, a prim British woman starts intoning mindfuck one-liners over the top – highlights including ‘this is the hook…this is the part of the song you pay attention to… stop listening … you’ve heard this before … isn’t this the same as everything else?’ Alongside the increasingly frantic synth notes Club Scared builds up a real lunatic energy, its self-reflexive lyrics perfectly balanced by its manic 140bpm drumride. They’re bold, they’re weird, and more than a little frightening, but Joe’s new tracks sound blisteringly fresh – and doesn’t all the best art alienate as many people as it thrills?

8.5/10

October Roundup 2013

It always seems to be autumn when the best tunes all start to come out at once. October's yield has been bountiful, and here WN collects the best of the best new releases. Kicking off with our favourite jam of the month, Palms Trax's pitch-perfect Equation, this playlist will take you through blistering euphoria and deeper house meditations, analogue experiments and icy electro, locked-machinery techno and vocal-fed experimental abstraction. It's all here, so why wait? Enjoy!

Tracklist:

Palms Trax - Equation [EP Review]

R-Zone - Rebecca In The Hall [EP Review]

Crystal & S. Koshi - Break The Dawn

Greymatter & KRL - A World Without Love

Doc Daneeka - Walk On In feat. Ratcatcher

Borrowed Identity - Leave Your Life

Raw M.T. - Walkman Is Dead
Marquis Hawkes - Get Yo Ass Off My Grass

SE62 - True Force

Owiny Sigoma Band - Nyiduonge Drums

Lumigraph - Yacht Cruiser

Dopplereffekt - Gene Silencing [EP Review]

Randomer - Bring

Joe - Slope

Objekt - Agnes Demise

Special Request - Soundboy Killer [LP Review]

Tessela - Horizon [EP Review]

DJ Rashad - Every Day Of My Life feat. DJ Phil

Dense & Pika - Colt

Mala - Como Como (Theo Parrish Remix)

Roly Porter - Cloud

And here are a few of our other monthly picks that couldn't be found on Youtube:

Simoncino - Tape I (EP Review) [Second clip]

Alden Tyrell - Somehouse (Single Review) [First Clip]

Tuff Sherm - Followfarming

Til next month, enjoy the tunes!