Afro-Portuguese arena rave; British-South-African funky dystopianism; French kitsch-not-kitsch trip-hop; Bulgarian-Italian moody artpop; and Australian-Belgium bumpin’ Balearic—we’ve definitely got you covered this month when it comes to transglobal influence mash-ups. We’ve also got a bit of deep-rooted Bristolian electronic soul, some prog metal electro futurism, a map of rave and grime history, and some party-ready braindance to boot. Press play, and we guarantee there’ll be something to spark your synapses.
Call to Saya
Cycles
London based Call To Saya is a sometime instrumental bass music producer who has lately moved towards vocals and elegant song structures. Here, she’s making royally gothic-sounding drama that hints at Propaganda, Dead Can Dance, and other moody ‘80s sophisticates, but with dense electronic orchestration. A remix from CTS harnesses the mood to classic house with a rolling bassline, but doesn’t dilute it; instrumentals of both original and remix make for a great extended exploration of the mood.
Omagoqa
London Drop
Scratcha DVA’s series DRMTRK continues in its endless flow of fantastic UK-South African hybrid sounds with two releases this month. One is a London twist on amapiano, courtesy of Scotti Dee; the other is London Drop, where the trio Omagoqa from Durban—birthplace of gqom—follow up their heavyweight Back to Ebombeni with even tougher, London-inspired tunes. All three tracks here, including one collab with Hyperdub’s Okzharp, build on the raw dystopianism of the original gqom template, but render it in high definition—not in a gentrifying way, but in a manner that allows all the complexities of its dark emotions and adrenaline flow to be expressed all the more vividly. It’s a thrilling ride.
Boofy & VMO$
Boofy & VMO$
Vinyl LP
Bristolian Boofy has deep roots in the city’s soundsystem culture, and has been deftly navigating the spaces between dubstep and grime for over a decade now. But this collaboration with VMO$—aka Jabu of Young Echo crew—is something all together newer, deeper, and more prone to get under your skin. These are fragments of slow, murky soul that touch on the melancholy territory of Dean Blunt, Space Afrika, Actress at his most strung out and, of course, Young Echo themselves. But there’s a hugely distinctive voice to it, too. The album builds a unique world of 21st century urban blues that you’ll want to immerse yourself in over and over.
DJ Kolt
Verdadeiro
Vinyl LP
It’s easy to take Lisbon’s Príncipe Discos for granted. For almost 13 years now, they’ve just kept rolling out Afro-Portuguese dance fusions from the city’s “suburbs, projects & slums,” with a shockingly high degree of quality control. Here, DJ Kolt of the Blacksea Não Maya crew delivers fearsome bass drone pressure with electro-house synth swoops and traditional plucked instruments (on “Fiqexpert”); high-drama sweaty techno (“VUGUVUGUU”); what sounds like a rusty robot carnival (“BATESTE”); and the epic finale “Shaman,” which threatens to lift whole dancefloors into other realms. All of it combines instant impact with the kind of rhythmic sophistication that makes this stuff a delicious challenge for DJs.
Gratts
“Rhythm of Love” feat. Cata Mansikka-aho
Belgian-in-Australia Gratts calls his sound “Balearic, but bumpin’,” and it’s hard to argue with that. This is absolutely blissed-out, sophisticated, sun-kissed, beachside gear through and through. But it also absolutely bumps in all the right places. Rippling pianos, lyrical string parts, a hint of Latin syncopation, a bit of ‘80s sophisti-pop, disco throb—it’s all there, and it’s all perfectly deployed in pursuit of the pleasure principle. UK veterans Simon and Robin Lee, aka Faze Action, turn up the disco on the remix, and it’s all just joyous.
L’Ouef Raide
Au Saut du Nid
Compact Disc (CD)
This album is from Lyon, France but every one of its track titles is an egg pun in English (“Maybe Neggst Time,” “Groove Eggspert,” etc.). It’s kind of trip-hoppy, made up from samples of what sound like quite goofy old horror and spy movies or shows without feeling the least bit gauche. There are also hints of prime mid-‘90s Ninja Tune, of DJ Shadow, of the “hauntology” of Ghost Box, even of fellow Frenchpersons Alex Gopher and Air—and yet it still sounds fresh. It’s a right old puzzler of a record, but it’s a lot of fun.
Joker
“Juggernaut” b/w “S Wave”
Vinyl LP
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a release from Bristol’s Liam “Joker” McLean—he’s been busy mixing down other people’s albums and popping up on Skrillex records. But he hasn’t lost his dancefloor mojo. Quite the opposite, in fact: These two tunes are some of the leanest and most focused he’s ever made. “Juggernaut” is a reboot of his classic “purple” sound—half-step grime patterns with P-Funk wiggly-worm synths squirming through them—while “S-Wave” is even grime-ier, with its swooping, bleeping square-wave synths and orchestral stabs juddering and jabbing into you. His production values are, of course, off the charts. But they are always secondary to a sense of groove, fun, and smashing the living daylights out of the rave.
T.Williams
Raves of Future Past
Vinyl, Vinyl Box Set, Vinyl LP
Another UK producer with roots in grime who’s gone off on other paths—in this case, as a big-shot house DJ/producer. On his debut, Tesfa Williams is clearly on a mission to join the dots through his musical roots. On each track here, he homes in on very specific subsets of rave, jungle, garage, and grime—even on the work of individualist producers like DJ Narrows, Oris Jay, and Congo Natty—and reboots them in their rawest, most functional forms. But such is his skill that it never feels like a dry historical exercise. First, every track slams hard into your nervous system; second, over the course of the album, they all add up to something bigger than the sum of their parts: a map of underground connections that only makes real sense as a whole.
Sons of Ken
Party Angry
The lead track here from these veteran English musicians may lay the punk-y, disco-pop cheese on a bit thick for some, but its remixes by D’Fransisco and the Kens themselves strip it down and take it delightfully back to somewhere around 1989, when house, indie dance, and sampling were still super fresh—though this is a rebooted, high-definition re-rendering of the past, not just a retread of it. “Sweet Powder White” is better still, a shamelessly narcotic bit of loping dub funk with heavy hints of early Andrew Weatherall, but mainly a total delight in its own manipulations of sound.
nosync
Soundsystem Music
A truly fascinating one this: creepy, glitchy electronica that unites the unlikely bedfellows of post-Drexicyan electro and progressive metal. Nikolas “nosync” Babić achieves this not by trying to force the styles together but by going for mood first—because, of course, both musical styles share a deep love of dystopian science fiction, future-dread, and apprehension of the inhuman. By using the micro-tools of the different types of music, which he clearly loves and understands intimately, Babić has rendered those moods with vivid complexity. As you might guess, this EP is not exactly funtimes central—but it is unique, and extremely compelling.
Various Artists
MF33 Volume 1
Compact Disc (CD)
Thirty-three years ago this February, the label Mighty Force was born out of a record store in Exeter in England’s West Country. It most famously gave Aphex Twin his first release, but it also launched Tom Middleton and Matthew Herbert into the world, before taking a 20-year hiatus then coming back as a super prolific imprint in 2019. To celebrate its birthday, it’s releasing three 11-track compilations, starting with this one. Every track here exists in a classic “braindance” zone of electro/techno/acid: refined and technically sophisticated, but unmistakably party music for people who really like to go for it. The real joy is how different every track is—a testament to just how fertile this zone of music remains.
