Robin Wylie is set to release a bunch of hot tracks this summer.

As a producer and DJ, Robin Wylie brings something distinct in a sea of the same. Choosing to ignore the typical house and techno format of Belfast, Robin’s ear for breakbeats, 2-step, jungle and pretty much anything associated with the UK sound has earmarked him as one of the Ireland’s most dedicated and respected selectors; bringing a fresh take on local electronic music and inspiring others breaking through in the process.

After becoming infatuated with the burgeoning house and techno scene being spearheaded by David Holmes and Iain McCready to the backdrop of the Northern Irish violence in the 90s, Robin moved to Birmingham. Brum had a huge techno scene in the mid-90s, but it was the back and side rooms of the Que Club where Robin would settle quickest. “There was always drum & bass in the back rooms of nights like Atomic Jam and House of God and that immediately clicked.” With a chance meeting with promoters of a drum & bass night called Antidote,  Del & resident MC, Shyan took him under their wing, he was treated as part of the family. Antidote was definitely where the obsession for breaks started. 

Belfast has always had a small and dedicated jungle scene, despite it being most notable for its house and techno electronic exploits. Kato and Judge Dread flew the flag for Belfast’s junglists in the early 90s playing early hardcore and followed the progression into drum & bass. When Robin moved back to the Northern capital, techno was progressing to something very hard and minimal. It would be the dubstep sound that would spark the inspiration for him to dive into garage associated sounds.

“House and techno have always been king here”, he says. “Don’t get me wrong there were plenty of parties that weren’t house and techno, Shine used to have Drum and Bass in the second room in the Union and hip hop too, there were big beat nights in the Front Page which always had a great crowd.”

“I don’t think I was doing anything different, more trying to copy sounds and styles that I liked, there just wasn’t a huge amount of people I was aware of making those sounds here.”

A pacesetter in every regard, Robin’s work alongside fellow selectors Undadog and dubstep pioneer J.Kenzo as Polarity is to be particularly admired; bringing guests such as Sneaker Social Club for their debut in a city dominated by 4×4 kick drums. A heavy focus on pushing the boundaries of the Belfast soundscape – and pairing talented locals with forward-thinking bookings – has shone a spotlight on the night as a grassroots breeding ground for DJs with an attitude for something different.

“Polarity was Jamie’s [J:Kenzo] idea, he was doing some sessions in England under the Polarity name and wanted to try and get the same vibe here. Prior to that we did nights under the Pressure banner – myself,  Nez, John King, Jody Monkphat and later 2BiT from Dublin joined us. We had some great sessions and played from hip hop through to jungle on those nights too.” 

“We had a few decent guests: Oneman destroyed the Black Box one July for us. We thought no one would be around because it was July, near the 12th. I think we had a 20K rig in for that one. Mark Archer (Altern8) played for our first birthday in the Bunatee too, full on rave hysteria. El-B was in the Bunatee too, I had so many people thanking us for having a garage DJ over!”

His productions very much encapsulate the Polarity sound – a sonic understanding that can also heard on his Sub FM residency – brimming with skippy steps, lairy basslines and gun-finger energy, most recently lending his hand to a remix of rising star Becky McNiece’s “Next To You.” One of Belfast’s unsung heroes, Robin Wylie has been an essential part of the local scene with his uncompromising take on UK sound culture, not only through his own productions and events, but through what he does for others through his mastering and studio work.

“The mixing and mastering for other people has come about pretty naturally”, he says. “I think as the studio has grown over the years it made sense to try and help other local producers and artists. I’m a bit of a hardware nut, that’s just what I’m used to.”

“I started with an Atari ST, Akai S2000 and a bass station and it grew from there . My friend Cairan Bryne was my YouTube back then, any problems I would buzz him or have to read a manual. He’s also responsible for my GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) . He talked me into a lot of purchases like my 909 and the desk I currently use. The studio is a very hybrid setup these days, I have a Midas f24 handling most of the routing and hardware connections. I can capture jams really easily and it also gives me the ability to take mixes out of the box for people and run them through the outboard. 

After taking so much time to help progress others in their solo careers through his mixing and mastering work, Robin’s 2022 calendar is shaping up nicely with a flurry of releases scheduled for throughout the year. First up is a release on Nez’s Computer Controlled Records on April 1st (a collaboration with friend J:Kenzo under his Hezzaine alias), then a drum & bass cut for Devon’s Road two weeks later before a white label release with Prestige Cuts on May 6th and June sees a self-released 3 tracker of jungle influenced breaks on his Belfast Pressure label.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Harbour Music Society.]

Ruth Radelet confesses “Crimes” on her new single.

Photo by Alexandra Cabral

Today, Los Angeles-based artist Ruth Radelet releases her debut original single, “Crimes.” After fronting the beloved and influential band Chromatics for over a decade, “Crimes” launches Radelet’s next chapter as a singer, songwriter, and performer. Utilizing the talents of friend and producer Filip Nikolic (Poolside), Radelet’s first solo effort conveys her unmistakable style and distinct voice. “Is it easy to start over?” echoes throughout the dreamy chorus of “Crimes,” capturing a cinematic mood uniquely her own. “‘Crimes’ is about the pursuit of success at the expense of one’s integrity, and the exploitation of others in order to get ahead,” explains Radelet. “It’s about the price we pay for our choices, and whether or not it’s worth it. The question, ‘Is it easy to start over?’ can be interpreted in two ways – it’s meant to ask how it feels to continually reinvent yourself until you lose sight of who you are. It also asks how hard it would be to walk away from it all.” 

Listen to Ruth Radelet’s “Crimes”

Radelet is influenced by a diverse catalog of artists, ranging from Joni Mitchell to Frank Ocean. She has been performing and releasing music for over a decade since joining Chromatics in 2006 for their acclaimed album Night Drive released the following year. Chromatics’ music and aesthetic has notably been used in numerous films, television series, and fashion shows. The band appeared on screen in multiple episodes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return while Radelet was recently featured on a Chromatics’ 2020 remix of the Weeknd’s #1 hit single, “Blinding Lights.” Following the dissolution of Chromatics last August, Radelet released her incandescent cover of Elliott Smith’s “Twilight” in December for the Kill Rock Stars 30-year anniversary cover series. “Crimes” is the first taste of more original music to come from Radelet later this year.

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[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Cool Maritime reaches an “Apex” with his latest single.

Photo by Aubrey Trinnaman

Cool Maritime – the project of Sean Hellfritsch – releases a new single/visualizer, “Apex,” from his forthcoming album, Big Earth Energyout May 20th on Western Vinyl. Following the lead single, “Temporal Dryft,” the smiling album-ender “Apex” perfectly embodies the quiet triumph of conquering a long-played video game; a mix of satisfaction and accomplishment with a tinge of tragedy at the notion that this little world where so much time and effort has been spent is now fully excavated, offering no more novelties to unearth. “‘Apex’ is the final piece on the album. Because this music was composed for an imagined video game, I ask you, the listener, to imagine for yourself how the story ends,” says Hellfritsch. “When I wrote it, I was reflecting on the eternally iterative flow of nature – how it’s always changing and growing to adapt – reaching for a peak that is itself, constantly in motion. I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful and hopeful. I was also mourning the massive loss of biodiversity that increases every day. I found myself suspended between parallel feelings of deep joyful awe and profoundly overwhelming sadness.” This track evokes that moment the last programmer name scrolls past, the copyright line dissolves, the title card reemerges, and the air of curiosity is renewed, emboldened by a sense of achievement. In a similar way, Big Earth Energy begs to be heard again from the top, knowing that the details that were missed on the first pass will be gleefully revealed this time around. 

Watch Cool Maritime’s Visualizer for “Apex”

Big Earth Energy plumbs the depths of his multimedia mind and naturalist heart, spinning an impressionistic narrative world off of cultural touchstones like the PC game MYST and the work of Japanese composers like Hiroshi Yoshimura, Yoichiro Yoshikawa and Studio Ghibli’s Joe Hisaishi. Using those inspirations and guided by Hellfritsch’s experience as an animator and filmmaker, Big Earth Energy is the soundtrack to a hypothetical video game with a pointedly ecological premise and a twist of psychedelic charm. In Hellfritsch’s imagined virtual journey, the player assumes the perspective of a treefrog 65 million years ago, hopping epochs with each new level, forming a comprehensive picture of the massive changes the planet has gone through over eons. The ultimate goal of the game is not to amass resources, defeat enemies, or gain power, but to fully witness the unfolding of one of the biggest systems of energy imaginable. The album is steeped in exploratory RPG intrigue, possibility, and contemplation, lovingly overlaid with Miyazaki-an sentiments and aesthetics. Its meticulous polygonal arrangements recall the computerized sheen of late 80s Japanese environmental music, using true-to-period gear. Hellfritsch’s reconnaissance of virtual reality and actual reality feels skillfully balanced as if knowing how to navigate one dimension is merely training for traversing its opposite. On Big Earth Energy, he pinpoints the discovery, escape, introversion, and imagination that are mutual of the two worlds, which he scouts as if they are the same territory. 

Watch the “Temporal Dryft” Video

Pre-order Big Earth Energy

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Ultraflex are bringing up “Baby” with their new single (and for real, too!).

Flamboyant twosome Ultraflex, the project of Norway’s Farao & Iceland’s Special-K, are back with their suave yet punchy love song “Baby“, which follows on from their debut album release in 2020 and recent single “Relax“.

The lyrics in “Baby” liken dancefloor-flirtation to a duel; you have nothing to lose except perhaps your reputation (which is, admittedly, long lost). The narrator claims not to be afraid – which, honestly, sounds like a lie – however, bravery is not about fearlessness, but as John Wayne put it: “courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway”. Accompanying the song are never-before-seen wedding photos of the band (including a future baby) and a steaming hot music video, straight out of Cairo’s nightlife.

Speaking about the track, the band said:

“Although the song is about romantic endeavours, we realised afterwards that it is also about our artistic collaboration. It emphasises the importance of taking risks (otherwise “you’ve already lost”) and indicates that whatever happens tomorrow, we’ve got each other right now, and that’s what counts – the energy of the moment is worth whatever the future brings, whether it’s happy-ever-after or heartbreak.”

Watch & listen to “Baby” here: https://youtu.be/6Czkqmzp8a4

Ultraflex released their debut album ‘Visions of Ultraflex’ to popular and critical acclaim in 2020, winning the Icelandic Music Awards for ‘electronic album of the year’ and The Kraumur Award, along with numerous international nominations and selling out their first edition of vinyls and cassettes. 

The band also recently re-emerged with their single “Relax“, accompanied by an ASMR inspired music video that was said to have been “a little disturbing“.

With concert options being limited in the time around Visions of Ultraflex, the band instead prepared a highly visual promo package and sculpted a well curated yet wild internet presence. Music videos were made to every song on the album, either by the band themselves or in collaboration with other video artists (including a video trilogy in collaboration with OKAY KAYA). This quickly became an important part of Ultraflex’s identity, along with heavily choreographed, stylized and visually interactive concerts. 

During the pandemic, Ultraflex performed on Icelandic live Television, as well as playing ​a sold out show in Reykjavík, doing a live stream for Berlin’s CTM Festival, a commissioned piece for Oslo Classics, screened a short film at Eurosonic and last but not least  – played a packed concert in Cairo. That is where the music video to “Baby” was born. 

Ultraflex was elected to be a part of Keychange 2022. Through the organisation they will play at MaMa Festival in Paris and take part in conferences in London and Hamburg this year. They are also booked for Iceland Airwaves and Vienna Waves and are playing in Berlin on April 23rd. Later this year, Ultraflex will also tour in Norway, Germany, England and Iceland. 

Links:
Facebook
Instagram

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Frankie at Stereo Sanctity.]

Review: Primer – Incubator

Alyssa Midcalf, otherwise known as Primer, to you and I disguises songs about heartbreak and depression inside lovely new wave and pop hooks on her new album, Incubator – so named because many of these songs began their life before she was even twenty-years-old.

“Welcome to your life,” Midcalf sings on the opening track, “Impossible Thoughts,” which hooks you right away with its synth bass and beats. She’s welcoming us to our lives and the brief, yet intimate look at hers. “The world is ending, by the way. I accept it, but I don’t want to live that way,” she sings. She wrote that lyric, I’m fairly certain, about a break-up she experienced not long before finalizing the album, but one can’t help but put that lyric onto everything happening around us right now.

“Just a Clown” is a fun tongue-in-cheek poke at herself, as Midcalf discusses the hustle of being an artist and how you’re always setting yourself up for potential failure. “I can’t believe it has come to this. I am just a clown, and I’ll never win,” she says. Haven’t we all be there? Yes, but we haven’t all been there with the lovely dream pop beats Midcalf puts down on the track.

A groovy bass line uplifts the blue lyrics of her break-up on “If You Need Me,” taking the track to disco floor bliss. “Giving Up” builds with bright synth chords to become something that sounds like a happy kid skipping down the sidewalk, even as Midcalf sings heavy lyrics about waking from “a nightmare I constructed inside.”

“Things Fall Apart” has a swagger to it that seems to indicate that Midcalf was getting her feet back under her after the break-up dropped her to the mat. “Every day, I ask myself how do I live with the pain…”, she says, but she also knows she’s doing it. She’s able to move forward, even if only a little bit at a time. “Hypercube” is a flat-out industrial banger that will flood dance floors in clubs found behind metal doors in obscure alleys.

“I will never feel the same way that I did at that time in my life,” Midcalf sings on the heartbreaking “Anything,” a song about being desperate for love and willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for it. “Feel the Way I Do” is a love song for robots (judging from it’s cyber-beats and electro-bass) that practice magic. Midcalf sings about a strange thing inside of her that she wishes her lover could feel so they’d understand her love / anguish.

“You” starts off with android bees happily moving around in a bio-dome on a spaceship drifting past a gas giant planet. Midcalf sings about lying awake at nights missing her lover, but soon realizing “It never had a thing to do with you.” She’s the one who can control her response to the situation, and she does it with skillful synthwave. She’s reclaimed her life and heart on “Warning,” in which she sings, “I’m never gonna feel that way for you again.” while she dances around to her peppy beats.

It’s clear by the end of Incubator that Midcalf has grown from her experience, and perhaps we can grow with her if we’re willing.

Keep your mind open.

[I’m primed for you to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Kelly Lee Owens announces new album, “LP.8,” due April 29th.

Photo by Josie Hall

Producer/musician Kelly Lee Owens announces a new album, LP.8, out April 29th (digital) and June 10th (physical) on Smalltown Supersound, and today presents two of its tracks, “Sonic 8” and “Olga.” Born out of a series of studio sessions, LP.8 was created with no preconceptions or expectations: an unbridled exploration into the creative subconscious.

After releasing her acclaimed sophomore album Inner Song in the early days of the pandemic, Owens was faced with the sudden realization that her world tour could no longer go ahead. Keen to make use of this untapped creative energy, she made the spontaneous decision to go to Oslo for a change of scenery and some undisturbed studio time. Arriving to snowglobe conditions and sub-zero temperatures with the borders closed once again, she began spending time in the studio with esteemed avant-noise Lasse Marhaug (known for his work with Merzbow, Sunn O))) and Jenny Hval).

Together, Owens and Marhaug envisioned making music somewhere in between Throbbing Gristle and Enya, artists who have had an enduring impact on Owens’ creative being. In doing so, they paired tough, industrial sounds with ethereal Celtic mysticism, creating music that ebbs and flows between tension and release. One month later, Owens called her label to tell them she had created something of an outlier, her “eighth album.”  In Owens’ words, “For me, 8 meant completion – an album that will ripple infinitely with me personally.” 

Watch “Sonic 8” Visualizer
Watch “Olga” Visualizer
Pre-Order LP.8

LP.8 Tracklist
1. Release
2. Voice
3. Anadlu
4. S.O (2)
5. Olga
6. Nana Piano
7. Quickening
8. One
9. Sonic 8

Kelly Lee Owens Tour Dates
Fri. June 3 – Melbourne, AU @ Rising Festival Hub
Sat. June 4 – Sydney, AU @ Motorik [DJ Set]
Wed. June 15 – Milan, IT @ Magnolia Fest
Sun. June 19 – Dublin, IE @ Body & Soul Festival
Sat. June 25 – Bristol, UK @ Bristol Sounds
Sat. July 2 – Roskilde, DK @ Roskilde Festival
Fri. July 8 – Bilbao, ES @ Bilbao BBK Live Fest
Sun. July 10 – Modena, IT @ Artivive Festival
Fri. July 22 – Macclesfield, UK @ Bluedot
Sat. July 23 – Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling Festival
Sat. July 30 – London, UK @ South Facing
Sun. July 31 – Sicily, IT @ Ortigia Sound System Festival [DJ Set]
Sat. Aug. 20 – Hasselt, BE @ Pukkelpop
Sun. Aug. 21 – Biddinghuizen, NE @ Lowlands Festival

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Jessica and Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Chelsea Jade’s new single is in “Good Taste.”

Photo by Pictvre

Chelsea Jade unveils the new single/video, “Good Taste,” from her new album, Soft Spot, out April 29th on Carpark Records. Premiering via FLOOD, “Good Taste” follows lead single “Optimist,” a calibration of Jade’s skills in passing pop through an R’n’B tinged lens, and is presented alongside a video illustrated by Frances Haszard. “It’s like a miracle // Feeling your charisma getting physical,” Jade begins atop svelte production courtesy of herself and Bradley Hale (Now, Now). “And yeah, I’m miserable // But oh it’s such a mood getting sad,  getting sexual.” “Good Taste” features additional vocal engineering and production by Luna Shadows, and sees MUNA’s Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin lending their guitar prowess.

Of the track, Jade says: “I met someone at a party while I was living in a hotel for a briefly opulent moment in time. The next night they met me in the lobby and eventually we made our way up to my room. It’s an implicitly sexy situation but we parted without touch. As soon as they left I asked if they wanted to come back and when the elevator opened on the ground floor, they got in and ignited the most cinematic make out plus I’ve ever had. This song is about that encounter. I imagine the first half to be an internal fantasy until the real first touch when the production explodes into maximalism.”

On the video, Haszard remarks, “The world already existed- black and white, linear and basey with augmented senses and ripples of distortion. These things translated easily into my frame by frame animation with my awkward impressions of 3D and motion. I’m self taught and a bad teacher so my style suits working with artists who enjoy imperfections and have a sense of humour about what unfolds.”

Watch Chelsea Jade’s “Good Taste” Video

Jade brings her “good taste” to Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater where she’ll perform with Jai Wolfon June 8th. Tickets are available here. A New York City headline show to celebrate the release of Soft Spot will also be announced soon!

Quietly, Chelsea Jade spent 2020 and 2021 skulking around other people’s projects. In tandem with these collaborations, Jade has been funneling her skills into Soft Spot–adding animator, video editor, producer and engineer to her prolific creative résumé.

You can catch her as a dancer in Lorde’s “Mood Ring” music video, or in the credits as Deafheaven’s graphic designer for their 2020 vinyl release 10 Years Gone. She’s choreographed Aotearoa Music Awardwinning videos for Georgia Lines (“No One Knows,” “I Got You”) as well as Los Angeles based Trace Le. Over the years, she’s written songs for artists like The ChainsmokersCxloe and more. While it’s not unusual to collaborate in music, it might be considered rare to work with a diverse roster of artists in so many different ways.

Moreover, Soft Spot ventures beyond the exploration of delusions of grandeur that formed the focus of the critically acclaimed Personal Best (2018), a record that enjoyed two years on the shortlist for the APRA Silver Scroll Award in the company of Lorde, Unknown Mortal OrchestraAldous Harding, and Marlon Williams, for excellence in songwriting for “Laugh it Off” and “Life of the Party”, respectively. A dynamic pre-Personal Best single, “Afterglow,” has made several TV appearances, most recently on the hit Netflix series “Emily in Paris.”

On the strength of this work and more, Jade was presented with an APRA Professional Development Award; signed a publishing deal, and co-founded a fxmale songwriting/producer camp in New Zealand with tutors like Susan Rogers (Prince) and Wendy Wang (Greg Kurstin). Now, Soft Spot aims from rougher terrain. A sonic sketchbook, Chelsea’s production falls on the textural side, a panorama littered with field recordings and conversations with friends as you travel through the record. 

Watch “Good Taste” Video

Watch “Optimist” Video

Pre-order Soft Spot

Keep your mind open.

[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

[Subscribers have good taste in music.]

Review: Psymon Spine – Charismatic Mutations

Coming hot on the heels of their 2021 album, Charismatic Megafauna, Psymon Spine‘s Charismatic Mutations is a remix of the aforementioned album that features guest remixes from collaborators such as Joe Goddard from Hot Chip, Each Other, and Bucky Boudreau.

Goddard’s remix of “Milk” is first, and it’s lovely and peppy – a fine way to kick off a record of highly danceable and spring break road trip tracks. The “Love Injection Euphoric remix” of “Jumprope” is perfectly named because it’s made to boost your vibrational patterns, give you energy, and probably connect you to various luminous beings.

Brother Michael‘s “Downstairs at Eric’s remix” of “Jacket” gets extra points for referencing Yaz and for being so damn funky. “Modmed” turns into space station lounge grooves with Dar Disku‘s “Balearic Touch” mix of it. Each Other’s remix of “Solution” is almost an industrial dance track. Their synth and drum machine work on it is stunning. The “Safer” remix of “Jumprope” has bass so thick you can almost slice it, and Bucky Boudreaux’s remix of “Different Patterns” almost makes it into a torch song for androids.

There isn’t a weak remix on here, which is not always the case for remix albums. Psymon Spine chose their collaborators and ideas well.

Keep your mind open.

[Jump over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Cody at Northern Spy.]

Marco Benevento’s new single, “Marco & Mimo,” is a bouncy delight.

Photo by Seth Olenick

This summer, hallucinatory keyboard wizard Marco Benevento pulls back the curtain on his latest studio effort, simply titled, Benevento. Due June 10 on Royal Potato Family, the 11-track collection presents 40-minutes of small-batch psychedelia, bubbled up from his home studio (Fred Short Studios) at the base of the Catskill Mountains in Woodstock, NY. Its title nods to Paul McCartney‘s first solo album and like Macca’s eponymous release, Benevento is a similarly loose, low-key affair where song sketches and sunrise jams share space with more constructed tracks. Benevento plays all of the instruments with exception of percussion from Mamadouba ‘Mimo’ Camara and backing vocals by his wife and kids on a handful of songs. He also produced and engineered the recording. The album’s latest single “Marco & Mimo,” which sets Afro-Caribbean melodic lines and sing-song, earworm vocals against the bump ‘n’ grind of Camara’s percussion, is out today (listen/share), while pre-order is available here.

“This record really acts as a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain,” Benevento explains. “The studio was a good place to be trapped for the last few years. I was surrounded by tape machines and gear. The album started to become this document of a crazy dude losing his mind in the woods—and maybe regaining it.”

Recording was conducted amidst stacks of gear in varying states of repair, all fodder for inspiration during long quarantine-dictated solo jam sessions. In this environment, Benevento unlocked his archives, mining for unfinished song ideas, and surrendered to the machines, coaxing beats and melodies from both go-to favorites and gear that had long been collecting dust. Benevento has since decamped to a new, significantly larger, home studio. As such, the album also acts as a swan song for his former workspace.

“Wall-to-wall keyboards, mics, amps, drums, the place was about to explode,” Benevento laughs.

In contrast to Let It Slide, his minimalistic 2019 full-length collaboration with producer Leon Michels, Benevento is heavily saturated and experimental, built from countless layers of keyboards, bounced to 4-track tape. Deeply indebted to the West African psychedelia of artists such as Francis Bebey, Kiki Gyan and William Onyeabor, the songs are rhythmic and repetitive, built into thick mosaics of sound. Each track features at least one keyboard solo, allowing Benevento ample time to explore sounds from the deepest recesses of his gear collection.

For the five songs with vocals, Benevento collaborated on lyrics with Al Howard, a San Diego-based poet. Howard handed over a 10 pages of lyrical sketches which Benevento worked into his tracks, occasionally chopping and mixing the lines or adding in words of his own.

“It was a new thing for me to dive in to—using someone’s lyrics,” Benevento says. “Or, I should say, finding a way to fit someone else’s lyrics into my tunes. I was a bit fed up with my own lyrical ideas, and was immediately drawn to Al’s writing.”

Despite stresses of the global pandemic, the vibe at Fred Short Studios was deeply peaceful and creative as Benevento patiently worked through years of accumulated ideas, lost, as he says, in the wonder of Woodstock. The experience ended up being so inspiring that—in another nod to McCartneyBenevento II is already in the works.

“I guess all my records are kind of experimental and weird, but this one is really unique,” Benevento says. “Records are snapshots of time, and this is from a time when it was just me, dialing knobs and making mixes and inventing how things could sound.”

As such, Benevento is sonic time capsule, a wormhole beckoning listeners to enter and explore. Throw away your preconceptions of time and space and dive in.

Benevento is out June 10 on Limited Edition Bubblegum Pink 180-Gram Vinyl,
Classic Black 180-Gram Vinyl and Digital formats from Royal Potato Family.
Pre-order available HERE

Marco Benevento
Tour Dates:

4/7 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
4/8 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
4/9 – Fairfield, CT – Stage One
6/22 – Rochester, NY – Abilene
6/23 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird
6/24 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
6/25 – Rothbury, MI – Electric Forest Festival
7/1 – Scranton, PA – Peach Music Festival
7/3 – Quincy, CA – High Sierra Music Festival
9/3 – Portland, ME – Ghostland Festival

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Kevin at Royal Potato Family.]

Local Suicide create another remix of Alberto Melloni’s “Red Siren.”

Local Suicide make a second pass of the Alberto Melloni’s Red Siren which gained support and praise from the likes of Sean Johnston, Justin Wilson (No Strings Attached), Erol Alkan (Phantasy Sound), and Curses.

Berliners, Local Suicide return to the helm, offering up their hypnotic superpowers to concoct an alternative to their cobra wave anthem. This one’s entitled “Blood Red Siren” and will be released digitally through EPM on the 8th of April.

Keep your mind open.

[Zip over to the subscription box while you’re here.]

[Thanks to Paradise Palms Records.]