Coming in hot from Sydney, Australia, Half Cut‘s first EP for the HOMAGE label, Here in Full, is a great spin – seven tracks of house and electro dialed in and ready to make you cut a rug.
“Player” kicks it off with, appropriately, an electric kick drum, hi-hat, and snare and a heavy dose of 1980s early house music. That thick synth-bass is killer, and then comes in the sample of “This ain’t no game!” to remind you that creating funky house music can be serious business. “Floor Five,” the first single off the EP, moves us from the late 1980s into mid-1990s house music with its joyful synth-piano chords and gospel sound vocals.
Remember that thick synth-bass in “Player?” Well, it’s even thicker in “Free,” which practically jiggles your hips for you. “Noise” thumps and bumps with a slightly dangerous edge that I’m sure gets asses out of seats. The Crosby remix of “Noise” almost completely changes the tune, making it a sexy banger great for dance floors and bedrooms.
“Energy” is the workout song you didn’t know you needed on your cardio playlist until you hear it, and the way Half Cut samples a cut from “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth will make your jaw drop.
saxophonist, composer and ethnomusicologist DA Mekonnen of the renowned Ethiopian funk/rock/jazz unit Debo Band is announcing the debut self-titled album from his monumental new project called dragonchild, out April 21st, 2023 on FPE Records.
Featuring collaborations with claire rousay, Sunken Cages (aka Ravish Momin), and Ethiopian Records, the dragonchild debut takes Mekonnen’s exploration of Ethiopian music they began with Debo Band and explodes it into vivid, three-dimensional space. Where Debo called back to the sounds of 1970s Addis and added original material along those same lines, dragonchild shatters traditions and boundaries, incorporating sampled material, field recordings, experiments in high and low fidelity, and the through line that unites the diverse sounds, layers of Mekonnen’s rich and ecstatic saxophone.
Out today and premiering in The Fader is lead single “The Source,” a collaboration with Philadelphia-based percussionist and producer Sunken Cages. Mekonnen tells us the song “is about our Power coming from the Ancestors––both living and transitioned. The track includes a sample of Hailu Mergia’s debut solo cassette played in reverse on a US Library of Congress Tape Deck. We were influenced by South African gqom music (at least in regards to the sonic reference) and went for a banger EDM dance floor vibe.”
The dragonchild debut comes in two forms: It will be released as a full digital album, and a vinyl 4-LP set, titled BLACK,containing one 20-minute piece of music revealed when the four albums are played simultaneously. The physical release imagines a vinyl record as an art piece, with photography by Ethiopian photographerMichael Tsegaye, depicting an active volcano in Eastern Ethiopia. Each vinyl record is translucent, with music on one side and an engraved topographic map of the lava fields on the reverse.
Canadian-based electronic musician Jacques Greene unveils “Believe,” his first new single/video of 2023, out todayviaLuckyMe. Wasting no time, “Believe” sets the pace immediately. With an urgent vocal refrain and a driving beat, “Believe” is one of Greene’s most direct tracks of his career thus far. The accompanying video, directed by Cameron Morse, harnesses the frenetic energy of a Jacques Greene set, with the underlying track displaying all the familiar JG hallmarks. “Believe” marks Greene’s first new solo music since the release of 2022’s Fantasy EP, and follows the success of Greene’s collaborative single with Bonobo, “Fold.” Of “Believe,” Greene adds: “Channeling the feeling of a year spent back in the real world. Fresh energy and bright colors. Fun for the sake of it.”
Greene has been making music “about the club” for over a decade. Over the course of multiple EPs, singles, and two full-length albums — 2017’s Feel Infinite and 2019’sDawn Chorus — his sound has developed into an emotional haze. In 2020, Greene made headlines for creating “Promise,” the first single released with associated NFT that staked the owner to music publishing, and the following year released ANTH01, a collection of unearthed tracks spanning the earliest years of his career alongside previously unreleased tracks. Outside of his own releases, Greene has explored his relationship with the club in a variety of contexts, from remixing Radiohead to producing for Katy B, Tinashe and touring with The xx.
Touted by Carlos Santana as “a work of supreme creativity”, Manhattan-based artist Nevaris has announced his forthcoming ‘Reverberations’ LP, to be released this spring via celebrated boutique label M.O.D. Reloaded.Ahead of that, they present the lead track‘Dub Sol’.
Created by Nevaris (percussion, keyboards) and bassist-producer Bill Laswell, the current artist lineup also includes DJ Logic, Will Bernard, Peter Apfelbaum, Lockatron and Matt Dickey.
A musician and visual artist, Nevaris is a percussionist, keyboardist, vocalist and composer, who is heavily influenced by Afro-Latin, dub, and funk music. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he is of European and Mexican descent with multi-generational roots in both NYC and LA’s Echo Park neighborhood.
Prior to recording ‘Reverberations’, Nevaris recorded and performed with an evolving lineup of musicians under the name Loud Apartment, most notably Bernie Worrell of P-Funk and Talking Heads fame.
‘Reverberations’ is the third collaboration between Nevaris, Bill Laswell and this lineup of musicians (with the addition of Matt Dickey), here focusing more on the dub aspects of their sound. This instrumental recording combines dub, funk, afro-latin rhythms, turntablism and extended improvisation.
“This record builds on the momentum from ‘System Breakdown’and‘New Future’, which we released in 2020 and 2022 under the name Loud Apartment. There were dub aspects of those recordings, so Bill Laswell and I decided to create a recording entirely focused on that sound. It was a logical next step and came together in an organic way. We let the music go where it needed to go,” says Nevaris.
“It’s a dub based project, with breakbeat, funk, ambient, and afro-latin elements. It’s rhythm based music where the pocket is essential. Lockatron is a huge part of that, as, of course, is Bill Laswell, DJ Logic and everyone else involved. Peter Apfelbaum’s horn arrangements are also a core aspect. In my mind, it’s a cohesive piece of music that is best listened to as a whole rather than as individual songs. And Bill takes it where it needs to go with the production like no one else really can.”
In addition to his work as a musician, Nevaris is a visual and multimedia artist, who has worked on a vast array of creative projects across mediums. He also co-founded Nolej Records, Nolej Studios and the Uncomun Festival.
‘Dub Sol’ is out now, available from fine digital music platforms, including SpotifyandBandcamp. The full ‘Reverberations’ album will be released on May 25.
HOMAGE has been at the forefront of electronic music in Brooklyn since its inception in 2017. Originally starting as an event series, the party was a nod to their predecessors in New York, those who pioneered a thriving nightlife scene in dynamic and intimate locations. Jump six years and HOMAGE is on its own path, having released a diverse selection of records from Kettama to Aldonna. Now the label readies its twenty-first release with a relatively new name, Sydney-based producer Half Cut, who over the course of seven tracks explores euphoric house, coiling electro, and jacking acid; tied together by a remix from Panorama Bar regular & Potency Records boss Cromby.
Speaking on the EP, the labels co-founder Ryan Clover says:
Kain sent us a pack of demos before the pandemic and they were all fantastic. He’s one of a few artists that have sent us a cold email and gotten signed immediately. Kain is half Japanese/half Australian and is based in Sydney, and he’s started to cut his teeth in the local circuit. While he’s a relative newcomer to the scene, his tunes have already seen support from Craig Richards, Gene on Earth, Cromby, Youandewan, Perdu, ANOTR, and Who is Arcadia, and in 2022 he had his first song signed to a VA for Limousine Dream (Nug-Net), Gene on Earth’s highly regarded label.
Half Cut has recently shared the first single from the EP titled Floor Five – a certified dance-floor filler, that brings smiles, energy and the type of sweaty hugs only those who have fallen in love on a dance floor will know.
Hailing from Bangkok, Sarayu has brought us a cool slice of the Thailand house music scene (Yes, of course there is such a thing.) with his new EP, Intelligent Jump Rope Music.
Opening up with subtle synths that grow and grow until they become floor-filling grooves with thick bass lines on “The Bag,” the EP never lets up with dance beats designed to get you shaking in a sweaty club or a street festival. The snappy percussion of “E30 Track” will inspire pop-locking and / or kickboxing. The repetitive beats mix perfectly with the almost subliminal bass.
The title track, and a remix of it by Locked Groove, take up the second half / side of the EP. It seems to emerge from you speakers like a serpent being summoned by Buddhist monks to hunt for mice who tend to eat ancient scrolls. The percussion in the remix thumps harder and ups the glam.
It’s a sharp EP, and it looks like the trend of great house music releases continues from last year if Intelligent Jump Rope Music is any indication.
What do you get when you mix lectures on Zen, the cosmos, the soul, the Tao, and the journey of the self with wicked bass and beats? If you’re lucky, you get something as cool as Cosmix by philosopher Ram Dass and Australian DJ Kriece.
The album has parts of Dass’ lectures under Kriece’s beats, and neither overwhelms the other. They perfectly blend to promote each other. “Mystic Poetry” has Dass talk about embracing cosmic love while Kriece puts down snappy, toe-tappy beats behind him. “Thousands of thoughts go by, like clouds in the sky,” Dass says on “Thoughts” – a great track about non-attachment to the things that keep us from experiencing the present.
“Mantra” is downright groovy, mixing Dass’ chants and Kriece’s dance beats in perfect unison. This will be stuck in your head for hours, and that’s a good thing. “Stuck” has Dass discussing how he moved away from psychotropic drugs and into deep meditation.
“Breath Inside the Breath” brings the beats to the forefront. “The soul is unique. It has its unique karma,” Dass tells us at the beginning of the beautiful “Dream Dance.” Kriece’s synths shimmer as Dass explains how the soul can liberate itself from attachments through various incarnations. It’s heavy stuff, but heavenly stuff.
“Do you hear that?” Dass asks as rain drops and thunder rolls ahead of Kriece’s synth beats. “That’s peace.” Dass asks us to find peace in the sounds (and silence) around us, and Kriece’s beats (and the spaces between them) nudge us toward it. On “Spacesuit for Earth,” Dass’ words of “When you take an incarnation, it’s like getting into a space suit…” begin the track and soon he’s talking about why we feel separate from each other, from the world around us, and the universe, and Kriece’s hypnotizing synths are soon taking us beyond that universe and Dass is telling us that we’ve been crammed into “a conceptual model since birth…From your point of view, it’s the only reality most of the time.”
“Desire” is both a lecture on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and an ambient house track. The closer, “Additya Hridayam,” mixes what sounds like ambient crowd noise from a bus station with Dass’ echoing chants and mantras. It reminds us to slow down in the chaos of our daily lives, to step back from the rush to chasing a buck or get to the magical “golden goodie” (as Dass’ contemporary Alan Watts described it) that we think will make us happy.
It’s a neat album that mixes drum and bass and Zen, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy. What’s not to like?
Keep your mind open. This album will help in that regard.
[Levitate over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
If you were a DJ on the street and handing out “free will donation” CDs of your latest EP, and you told me, “It’s a deep house rendition of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece.” I would tell you to stop right there, hand you some money, and take the CD.
Such is the case with Worg‘s excellent EP, Il Piano di Medea. Medea is one of the key figures in the Greek myth who helps Jason reclaim the throne taken from him by his half-brother, Pelias, while Jason and his companions quested for the Golden Fleece.
The opening track, “Oracolo,” gets things off to a brooding, dark house start with rumbling bass that serves as a portent of dangerous (and, let’s admit it, sweaty and sexy) things to come. The second track is the Neel Remix of “Oracolo,” which speeds up the mantra-like beats and puts a bit of a snake’s hiss distortion to the background.
“Il Vello del Oro” (“The Golden Fleece”) is as shimmering as its namesake and pulls you in with its promise of glory, light, and transcendence – transmitted through echoing beats and deep synth-bass. I love how it’s the longest track on the EP and has time to hypnotize you and shine.
The beats on “Eryx” hit harder and sharper, like dangerous reefs under the surface of the water as you sail back from a long journey with untold riches. The bass throbs like a pulsating jellyfish.
This is the fifth in a series of deep house EPs based on Greek mythology from Lykos Records. I need to seek out the others. I’m in for a treat if they’re all this good.
Today, Manchester, UK-based band Mandy, Indiana return with new single, “Injury Detail,” via Fire Talk Records, their first new music since the release of 2021’s acclaimed ‘…’ EP. Mandy, Indiana – Valentine Caulfield (vocals/lyrics), Scott Fair (guitar/production), Simon Catling (synth) and Alex Macdougall (drums) – meld experimental noise and dance music, from drum machine snaps and pulsing bass to white noise and lo-fi scuff. Produced by Fair and Robin Stewart of Giant Swan, “Injury Detail” is a dramatic reintroduction, opening with a grand organ before morphing into a thumping dance track fit for a warehouse rave. “‘Injury Detail’ was inspired by the idea of being trapped in a liminal space, with the guitars creating a seemingly limitless and undefined landscape. The vocals act as a guide to possible salvation, or perhaps something of a more sinister intent,” explains Caulfield. The accompanying video was directed by Thomas Harrington Rawle.
Formed out of the fertile Manchester independent scene, Mandy, Indiana generate a sound that is at once chaotic and precision engineered – abrasive beats and gnarled guitars sit in thickets of distortion around Caulfield’s commanding vocals sung in her native language, French. Their songs, which incorporate found samples and field recordings, are recorded in a variety of spaces, from rehearsal rooms and home studios to cavernous industrial mills and shopping malls. Mandy, Indiana’s first recordings emerged around 2019, culminating in their debut, 2021’s ‘…’ EP, which featured a heavy-hitting remix from Daniel Avery. Its single, “Bottle Episode,” was named a Best Song of 2021 by Pitchfork, who recognized the “perverse playfulness” of Caufield’s grim lyrics, and Paste, who hailed it “an exhilarating darkness for the bold to brave.” The EP also led to Stereogum naming Mandy, Indiana a Best New Band of 2021. Since then, they’ve become a live favorite in the UK, supporting the likes of Squid, IDLES, Gilla Band, Wet Leg, and SCALPING, along with festival appearances at Pitchfork Paris, End of the Road, and more. The band will be making their US debut at SXSW 2023 as part of the official lineup. “Injury Detail” is a taste of more music to come from Mandy, Indiana this year.
Here we are at the top five albums I reviewed in 2022. It was a great year for music, and these are what stood out for me among all the good stuff out there.
As I’ve mentioned before, 2022 was a great year for electronic music, and this EP from Jacques Greene topped my list of that kind of music. It mixes house, drum and bass, ambient, and a bit of synth wave into a luscious brew.
This reissue of classic gospel funk tracks by The Staples Jr. Singers is stunning. The amount of groove and friskiness in these songs is almost overwhelming. The instrumentation and harmonizing are outstanding, and there’s enough soul for two churches.
This is the best post-punk album I heard all year. Everything on it is razor sharp: the wit, the guitar angles, the grooves, the drum sounds, and the slightly snarled tongue-in-cheek vocals.
The Black Angels‘ new album was a great return for them. It explores the stress of modern times through walls of distorted guitars, reverb-laden vocals, powerful drums, and mind-warping sound. The Black Angels have yet to put out a bad record, but this one somehow set the bar even higher for psych-bands to follow.
#1: A Place to Bury Strangers – See Through You
A Place to Bury Strangers came back with a new lineup and some of Oliver Ackermann‘s most revealing lyrics about the end of friendships, loneliness, grief, over-reliance on technology, and the overall anxiety everyone’s been feeling since 2019. Ackermann put it all out there and walloped us with more honesty and distortion that you can almost stand.
