Way Back Wednesdays: The Future Sound Of London – ‘My Kingdom’

March 30, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Garry Cobain (Samples/Production) & Brian Dougans (Samples/Production) (Date n/a) (Photo via Clash)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to go ‘retro’ for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’ with yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If you are not sold on the strength of the premise of a diverse tapestry of dystopian, dark-leaning IDM and Electronica with a loose theme of urban dilapidation and urban decay, with a hint of paranoia and a Cyberpunk aesthetic alone, the UK Top 15-charting single of ‘My Kingdom’ may just convince you otherwise. This single was released in 1996 by The Future Sound Of London – an English electronic music duo formed in 1988 by Brian Dougans and Gary Cobain who met in Manchester, ironically – in the build-up to their third studio album ‘Dead Cities’ they released in the same year. The record is an expansion of the ideas they explored on 1994’s ‘Lifeforms’ EP, a more nature-oriented and pastoral record, albeit with a darker variation of sounds. ‘Dead Cities’ also included the duo’s highest-charting single ‘We Have Explosive’, which was licensed as the theme track for the ‘Wipeout’ video game on the original Playstation, and it reached #12 in the UK Singles Chart. ‘Dead Cities’ is personally one of my favourite electronic records of the 90’s because it serves as a road trip of post-apocalyptic Ambient textures, but what really makes ‘Dead Cities’ click together so neatly is the stylistic tweaks which the duo make throughout it. The ballad-style tone and floating Piano chords of tracks like ‘Max’ are very different to the ring tone-style synths of tracks like ‘Antique Toy’ or the insistent drilling of the title track that are more harsh and dissonant in mood, or really feel like they are attacking the listener. Throughout it’s 12 tracks (and a hidden segment that starts around one minute after the final track plays like an MCU-style Post-Credits scene) and a hefty duration of 70 minutes, The FSOL create a varied tapestry of electronic sounds spanning through Psychedelia, Trip Hop, Techno, Dark Ambient, IDM and Dub that are tethered to a connected, if non-singular, vision – and I also feel the record has a softer side to it that can be overlooked in favour of the more crowd-pleasing Claustrophobia of EDM cuts like the more well-known single. ‘My Kingdom’ was the preceding single to ‘We Have Explosive’ and it was given a fairly low-budget looking music video that was animated by Buggy C. Riphead – who designed the graphics of the LP’s physical copies. The CGI is dated by modern standards – but their imagination is still there. Check it out below.

‘Dead Cities’ is an underrated classic which was released on the major label Virgin Records in the UK along with Astralwerks in the US, and many music critics have attributed the album’s mastery to being the reclusive duo’s most accessible work commercially, although it still unmistakably sounds like them. In fact, ‘My Kingdom’ got to #13 in the UK Singles Chart, joining an elite club of bizzare top 40 radio hits like The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Setting Sun’ and The Orb’s ‘Toxygene’ from around it’s then-contemporary times too. The opening of ‘My Kingdom’ carries it’s weight with an Urban Trip-Hop feel as ethereal samples that give the drums an African percussion feel guides us through a gradual lift-off, before the sampled voices of an elusive choir and wistful Asian-style Horn samples that evoke a stop-and-start pace slowly join the fray of the scattered soundscape, with breakbeats and light downtempo ambience separating the structure of the elements to blend them into a more cohesive whole together. The choir section is a highlight, as the duo’s modulation makes their voices feel distant and hollow, conveying the mournful themes of a ‘Dead City’ with expert precision. I also love how the mixture of aggression and percussion on ‘My Kingdom’ has a dark edge to it and takes center stage as the drawing, expansive structure of the piece comes into view. The duo dip their toes into Blade Runner and Ennio Morricone samples specifically here, and they combine the downtempo elements of those original recordings with gloomy, foggy Ambient Electronica sounds neatly here, almost creating an abstract characteristic of a dense forest that could remind you of their prior ‘Lifeforms’ work quite noticeably. ‘My Kingdom’ has the power to give you goosebumps because of it’s darkness and vibrant atmosphere, with a certain doom-and-gloom or woe-is-me tone that is turned into something surprisingly beautiful and hypnotic as the samples stretch along it’s duration progressively and conjure up the power to create it’s own experience that feels a little seperate to ‘Dead Cities’, but is enhanced by the context of the sounds, tones, atmosphere and textures of the album it is from. It is a very well-crafted record which each lover of music should experience.

Pictured: Inserted Artwork for ‘Dead Cities’ (CD) (Released in 1996 via Astralwerks/Virgin EMI) (Photo via Eil.com)

That brings us to the bottom of the page for another roughly 24 hours period, and thank you for taking a short moment out of your day to support the site and the independent creatives that I, in turn, support here as well. It is back to new music recommendations tomorrow, as we turn our attention towards a new single by a now-duo of Indie Pop and Disco proportions from Brooklyn, New York who previously included Coco’s Dan Molad amongst their line-up. Their albums have also received acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Paste and The Village Voice too. Their new LP – ‘Second Nature’ – will release on April 8th via Mom + Pop Records.

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New Album Release Fridays: Max Cooper – ‘Exotic Contents’

March 25, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Unspoken Words’ (LP/Album) (Released on March 25th, 2022) (via Mesh Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for you to get invested in yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Facing stiff competition this week from the likes of Ibibio Sound Machine, Young Prisms and Aldous Harding is Max Cooper, who earns the ‘New Album Release Fridays’ spot on the blog for his sixth studio album – ‘Unspoken Words’ – that he’s released today via Mesh Records. One for fans of ambitious experimental electronic composers like Phillip Glass or Jon Hopkins, Max Cooper is a London-based IDM, Electronica and Techno producer who takes his recordings to an audio-visual level. He’s received positive write-up’s from publications like Clash, and he has released a multitude of highly produced, emotive records for labels like the London-based FIELDS label and German label Traum Schallplatten. He has also remixed an exhausting list of artists including Hot Chip, Hiatus, Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, Guy Andrews, FC Kahuna, Michael Nyman, Jim Wallis, Henry Green and Stephan Bodzin over the years too. I read an article all about ‘Unspoken Words’ on Creative Review recently, and it sounded very interesting. For his latest project, Max Cooper has been exploring the difficulties of communicating with words to articulate your emotions, and the music is being accompanied by the Blu-Ray release of 13 short films – to represent each track on the record and serve as a meta-narrative to inform his work. Cooper will also be performing at Cambridge’s The Junction on April 20th. Check out Xander Steenburge’s video for ‘Exotic Contents’.

Xander Steenburge is a digital specialist who specializes in machine learning, who draws on the writings of 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein for the short film of ‘Exotic Contents’. These texts were fed to an AI system, which churned out the hypnotic visuals for the video. Talking about his collaboration with Steenburge, Cooper says, “It’s interesting for me to see the incomprehensible philosophical language interpreted visually like this, full of symbolism and the boundaries between language, our selves, the world, broken down into flowing abstraction. I haven’t really taken it all in yet, I feel like there’s more to discover in it that I can appreciate”, in his own words. Going back to the music itself, ‘Exotic Contents’ may feel like a subtle departure from the more club-oriented roots of his Techno-oriented work because he dips his toes into a collage-style suite of ambient and industrial sounds, where he uses an interpretation of words for an abstract soundscape where a half-time drum and bass format collides with the sharpness of his sound design. The beats scatter and break to an assortment of high-pitched frequencies, to the point where the production feels polished but not massively excessive. It carries the mood of a relief of stress or tension as a whole, and it definitely feels cathartic in the way that squelching breakbeats and the harsher, more dissonant Drums mimic the alleviation of a surging intensity by getting the chaos out of its system, in an ironic figure of speech. My main concern is that the music may not really communicate its ideas and themes clearly without any of the visual elements to help, and it may come across as challenging or tricky to initially grasp if you’re going into the album as a purely audio experience blind. Aside from that little question, it combines the clever pacing of IDM’s traditional production with a more intimate and emotionally driven core in intriguing and expansive ways – and the distance may not feel quite so exotic after all.

Pictured: Max Cooper in a podcast recording session for Sound Motives (2019) (Photo via SoundMotives.net)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for continuing to support the site, and I will be back tomorrow to present my review for the newest comeback single by a Los Angeles-based rock band who are famous for albums like 2006’s ‘Stadium Arcadium’, 2002’s ‘By The Way’ and 1999’s ‘Californiacation’. They have won six Grammy’s and they just received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

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Today’s Track: Whatever The Weather – ’17ºC’

March 7, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Vinyl Copy of ‘Whatever The Weather’ (LP) (Available from April 8th, 2022) (via Ghostly International)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has arrived for me to get typing up for yet another daily track on the blog, whatever the weather, because it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! An experimental club music producer who majored in Commercial Music at The University Of Westminster, Loraine James took Piano lessons at a young age when she was introduced to the allure of 00’s Alternative Rock bands like Death Cab For Cutie, yet she also discovered a love for Acid Techno, Drill ‘N’ Bass and IDM, citing Squarepusher and Telefon Tel Aviv as some of her heroes within the experimental electronic landscape of the 1990’s. I was delighted to hear about Whatever The Weather, James’ newest solo side project, because I’m already an existing fan of her work, much like BBC radio presenter Tom Ravenscroft – who has the fanboy T-shirt to prove it. ‘Reflection’ was released last year, and it found a place in the top three of my year-end list of the Best Albums Of 2021 – with more publications including Mojo, Uncut, Pop Matters, Beats Per Minute, The Quietus and Pitchfork showering the record with praise too because it was a deep and diverse exploration of the brain of a modern queer black woman from Enfield, South London. James has a true affinity for creating strange and hypnotic grooves, which she builds with rapid percussion and hazy filters that really create an in-depth atmosphere with deliberately disorienting production to neatly complement her themes of mental health and peak-pandemic paranoia from ‘Reflection’ in 2021. She released that album on Hyperdub, and she fits right in with the experimental club heavyweights like Burial, Jessy Lanza and Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin that have established their own legacies through releasing their work on the forward-thinking London-based label. She’s already set to follow it up – in a way – with ‘Whatever The Weather’ in April, by setting up a new moniker and a new album, with the interesting concept of naming her track titles after different temperatures and making tunes that permeate the moods in which they evoke for her. I cannot wait for it! A strobe warning comes with the music video for ’17°c’ below.

‘Whatever The Weather’ will be released on April 8th via Ghostly International, and James has cited the likes of Deftones’ Chino Moreno and American Football’s Mike Kinsella as her inspirations while pitching her voice for the specialist project. She also collaborated with director Michael Reisinger for the video, and she states that she began working on the creative project while she was finishing up ‘Reflection’ last year. She also teases, “There’s a song in there with a melody I made when I was 13 and finally used it in a song”, for the self-titled LP release on Instagram. She also describes ‘Whatever The Weather’ as a more “ambient-minded project” on her Bandcamp page, and this is a direction that I can understand through listening to the lead single. Themes of Electronica and Industrial are noticeable from the glitchy outset, as we start with a simulating set of Synths that have an atmospheric gloom and an underlying warmth to the textures, but James mixes up the tone when the skittering Bass patterns and the cerebral, yet percussive and rapid-fire Drum rhythms, competes with a gently operatic female vocal sample to lead the track with a potent blend of aggressive Synths and textured percussion sounds. Much like the weather, and how the tone and interchangeability of the weather takes place unpredictably at times in a typical day, James’ sonic combination of crackling Bass and electronic Drums also has a feel of synesthesia, of-sorts, to it when she encapsulates the specific temperature of the track’s title. She makes sure that the structure of her track is full of meticulous micro-adjustments and that her Synths have a wide range of flexibility to them to mimic the weather and the effect on nature that it provokes within a landscape. That’s not to say that her patterns are random, but they are irregular and carefully mapped out as to convey the shifting patterns of rain and the subdued warmth of the hot weather that lies beneath the drizzle, and so the tune contains a lot of the technical production standards that I’ve praised James for producing in the past, in one respect. In another, however, the lack of traditionally recorded vocals from James allows for a larger emphasis on her ambient influences and allows the tone and textures of her electronic instrumentation to evoke a certain mood that she specifies instead of telling a more fixed narrative. The same, but also very different, to the work that I’ve loved hearing from James in recent history – Whatever The Weather is shaping up to be a very successful side project that, while falling into a bit of a niche regarding its reach to audiences, feels free-form and reflects the production strengths of James as an artist while tackling a conceptual risk that more mainstream IDM-based artists may never fully consider. The new album is going to be ‘radical’ – if that is a cool thing that the edgy youth would still say at the Littleport Skate Park near me.

Pictured: Loraine James in an official publicity photoshoot for Pitchfork.com (2020) (Photo Credit: Ekua King)

As I mentioned, James is a highly praised alumni on the blog, and you can check out some more posts that are related to her, if you enjoyed ’17°c’, below:

‘Running Like That’ (feat. Eden Samara) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/07/01/todays-track-loraine-james-feat-eden-samara-running-like-that/

‘Don’t You See It?’ (feat. Jonnine) – https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/07/todays-track-loraine-james-feat-jonnine-dont-you-see-it/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Reflection’ (LP/Album) (Released on June 4th, 2021) (via Hyperdub)

That brings us to the end of the post for today! Thank you very much for joining me, and I’ll be back to do it all over again tomorrow with an ‘International Women’s Day’ special just in celebration of the titular day. We’ll be listening to a track from one of my favourite female artists with a track title that is very fitting of the day’s theme. She won the BRIT Award for Best New Artist and she has acted in Netflix’s ‘Top Boy’ series.

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Today’s Track: Awkward Corners – ‘Somebody Somewhere Dancing In A Field’

January 27, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Chris Menist (Awkward Corners) in a PR shot for his Bandcamp profile (2021) (Photo via Shapes of Rhythm)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for you to get invested in yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If you love the textural warmth of ambient albums like Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ released in 1993, I think you’re going to find something to enjoy with the post-90’s rave feel of ‘Somebody Somewhere Is Dancing In A Field’, an instrumental track with a euphoric feeling of post-festival musings and realistic ‘Hangover Vibes’, so to speak. Awkward Corners is the musical project of the London-based DJ and writer Chris Menist, who formed the project in Islamabad in the late-2010’s, where he was living at the time. Initial recordings were made in conjunction with local music artists in Thailand and Pakistan, and his releases have spanned multiple labels including Boomkat and Real Torque. Menist has also hosted programming on NTS Radio and has played in The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band as their percussionist, and so he’s got a fascinating little backstory behind him if you search for him on the internet and find out some more details. Nevertheless, his range of music mostly fits in the Ambient, Downtempo, IDM, Devotional, Middle Eastern and Experimental Electronic genres and he’s known for LP’s like July 2021’s ‘Amateur Dramatics’ that you can purchase from his Bandcamp page. The follow-up EP – ‘Somebody Somewhere’ – is out now via the London-based indie label Shapes Of Rhythm. Let’s listen to the centerpiece cut below.

The ‘Somebody Somewhere’ EP marks the second guest appearance of the multi-faceted South London-based DJ and composer Hector Plimmer on the Shapes Of Rhythm label for the opening track ‘No Words’ and the EP is decidedly more upbeat and more focused on the 4/4 style of genres like Microhouse, and so it promises to be a new favourite for the dancefloor when the clubs are finally allowed to open up again, contrasting the more downbeat and introspective tones of Menist’s earlier releases as Awkward Corners. There’s a true, yet definitive sensibility of 90’s Acid Techno to ‘Somebody Somewhere Is Dancing In A Field’, meanwhile, an Ambient piece that echoes the Ambient Works of Aphex Twin during the early 90’s and the ethereal side to Orbital’s glitched trademarks in terms of the influences and the memories that it brings to my ears. It feels danceable and light-hearted, yet it also evokes a very calming mood with its ‘World Music’ percussion that evokes a smooth and silky set of soothing qualities in terms of the emotion being conveyed through the music. The 808 sound structure invokes feelings of early Techno and subtle Chicago House while the trickling Synth lines and the spacious Drum patterns, that feel a little African in their delivery, keep things moving at a mid-tempo pace. It’s mostly down to the Conga syncopations that are spread throughout in which we end up with repetive melodies that simply massage your eardrums at an easy-going feel, while the thumping bass kicks represent a more heavy drum machine workout in terms of the instrumentation. A polite reminder of the intimate side of 90’s heavy-hitters like Aphex Twin, while also building up some hypnotic and textually warm grooves, this is a comforting nudge from the past that somebody, somewhere will be dancing in a field to in the summer, if not now, and it feels like a simple joy to listen to.

Pictured: Vinyl bundle of ‘Amateur Dramatics’ (2021) & ‘Dislocation Songs’ (2020) (Photo via Bandcamp.com)

That brings us to the end of today’s discussion, and thank you for joining me on One Track At A Time for my latest music-related musing for a spare minute of your day. It’s ‘New Album Release Fridays’ tomorrow and we’re sampling the soon-to-be latest LP from a Salinas-born R&B, Soul and Blues singer-songwriter whose debut single – 1998’s ‘Make It Hot’ – was certified Gold. She was also once a protege of Missy Elliott.

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Today’s Track: Fasme – ‘ICI’

December 7, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Fasme (aka Tom Ferreira) playing a live DJ set at Gaîté Lyrique, Paris (2020) (Photo by Underscope TV)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for some big room melancholy that comes courtesy of yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Said ‘big room melancholy’ is one niche that the Belfast-formed dance duo of Bicep (Matthew McBriar & Andrew Ferguson) have become a pair of unofficial kings of, scoring Best British Group and Best New Artist nominations at last year’s BRIT Awards for their concoction of Italo-inspired Electronica and multi-layered Breakbeat production. However, the duo have set a few new parameters for curatorial duties with the launch of their appropriately titled imprint label, Feel My Bicep. Their first signee is the Paris-born and Nantes-based experimental electronic dance music producer Tom Ferreira, who releases his music under the moniker of Fasme. Having caught the attention of the big-league’s Bicep when he released the ‘Stretched World’ EP last April, Bicep found ‘ICI’ on YouTube and so began playing Ferreira’s music in projects like a Friday Guest Mix for Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio 6 Music and the duo’s own FMB radio podcast on Apple Music. Fasme has recently supported them on tour in October and he performed a live DJ set at Sarcus Festival in France in late September. Ferreira has said that “Fasme” is a nickname that his aunt gave him at her house during the summer one year. He takes his style from the Braindance, IDM and Techno Ambient scenes of the 00’s and he has named acts like RX 101, Binary Digit, James Shinra, David Harleydson and EOD as his influences. ‘ICI’ is taken from the new ‘Home’ EP which he released in late October via Feel My Bicep, of course. Check it out.

Bicep, as the co-managers of the Feel My Imprint indie EDM sub-label, writes that “his melodic sound is created on analog synths, evolving between Acid, Electro and Braindance” on the Bandcamp listing page for Ferreira’s recent ‘Home’ extended play, adding that Ferreira describes himself as “more of a live performer than a studio man” in the product’s description page. A track that reminds me of Aphex Twin’s ‘Druqks’ double album released in the early 00’s of misfit recordings with it’s set of minimalist Classical influences and Tin Man-esque Acid Jazz wiggling production that aims to conjure up some ‘Alien-like’ qualities overall, ‘ICI’ is a mid-tempo Trance serving that wants to provide a great example of why Fasme is a decent fit for Bicep’s Feel My Bicep label. Thankfully, this is a goal that Ferreira seems talented enough to succeed within, and ‘ICI’ has all the building blocks required to be in place to keep the festival crowds grinning, as well as feeling soft and melancholic enough to please those who would rather listen while tucked into their beds with their headphones at a good volume late at night because the chords never feel too overpowering and the distorted electronic Keys sounds never feel too harsh or aggressive for the scene either. It has it’s moments of melodicism with some moody chords that take a dark approach to the layered Lo-Fi production and some big emotive Synth hooks, as well as some mechanical electronic drum kit programming that gives the tone of the track a suitable uplift, but it never quite channels these sounds into an explosive track full of beat-driven sounds and plenty of ‘Bro-Step’ energy. Instead, it feels like a more pensive and contemplative wind-down for the end of a long night. A nebulous mix of acidic Synths, heartbroken Piano chords and neat, warm Bass stabs – ‘ICI’ is more concerned with multi-layered Synth loops and powerfully entrancing moments. Overall, ‘ICI’ is an impressive little recording that pulls off the fairly difficult task of making the Bicep-esque rave-ready despondency sound a tad more positively wistful.

Pictured: Fasme (aka Tom Ferreira) photographed for a wertn.com Q&A feature (2020) (Picture via Leviet.org)

That’s all for now! Thank you for checking out my latest post, and we’ll be counting down to Christmas with another festive-themed post featuring a track that left its mark on the niche in 2005. At the time, the track was written and performed by a Philadelphia-based indie rock band, but the project is now the solo work of multi-instrumentalist and producer Alec Ounsworth. The band appeared in the 2008 film ‘The Great Buck Howard’, and David Bowie was famously seen at some of their shows.

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Today’s Track: Jockstrap – ’50/50′

November 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Georgia Ellery (Vocals/Violin) and Taylor Skye (Vocals/Producer/Flute) (2019) (Photo via BBC News)

Good Morning to you! You’re tuned into the text of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to get a little wackier than usual for today’s entry on the blog, not forgetting that it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If you have been a regular follower of my blog for some time (Firstly, thank you for doing so), you may already know that I’m an enamored fan of Jockstrap, a wildly experimental electronic duo who have released some masterful singles like ‘Acid’ and ‘The City’, as well as the ‘Wicked City’ EP on Warp Records previously. The link-up is between violinist/vocalist Georgia Ellery (Who is also a member of another stunning band – Black Country, New Road) and the DJ/Producer Taylor Skye, who have been working together since they met while studying at the Guildhall School Of Music and Drama in 2016. They performed at the virtual Eurosonic Festival earlier this year but, other than that activity, Jockstrap have remained a little quiet in recent months outside of a few tour dates and amicably so. However, that all changed when they released ’50/50′, a new single, after some teasing around on social media, last week. It arrives with a new video that was filmed on a handheld camera at The Glove That Fits, a Hackney-based live venue in London, during an encore from one of their recent shows. It also, presumably, seems to feature some of Ellery’s bandmates from Black Country, New Road too. Let’s take a ’50/50′ chance on the new recording below.

Although Ellery and Skye’s genre-fluid material has always been a decent fit for the forward-thinking label of Warp Records, ’50/50′ marks their signing to Rough Trade Records for this time around. A brief press release accompanying ’50/50′ also states that, ironically, Skye constructed the crunching beats for the new single whilst recovering in bed from tonsillitis. It doesn’t seem like too far-fetched a story after hearing how ’50/50′ disregards conventional structure traits so delicately and how vibrant the production feels as the shape-shifting anthem rolls along to its nearly four minute duration. Jockstrap has always worked well by blending a mix of classical training with cutting-edge electronic production that warps the meaning of words around and makes the lyrics sound witty at times, with Ellery’s half-whispered and angelic vocals creating a stunning contrast to the unpredictable beats of Skye that branch out into weird yet wonderful territory that surround her minimalist presence with an often cascading soundscape. ’50/50′ builds on that dynamic, but it certainly feels more club-oriented and a little more melodic than usual. To me, it sounds as if it’s their take on the 2010’s Lo-Fi House movement that saw producers like Ross From Friends and DJ Seinfeld become prominent names in Electronica. This time, it feels even more intense. Ellery quickly calls us to holler in the outset, before the twisted and glitchy sounds unsettle the listener and flip the switch. It develops with elements of Techno and Acid as the track moves along, while Ellery’s vocals similarly come through in patchy emissions that flip between emotive and sardonic when audible, complemented by the mangled beats of Skye behind the decks that feel a little ethereal in the third quarter, becoming equally fragmented and infectious, as they thrash and thump along to their own pace. All inclusively, it has the same slap-bang impact that have made previous Jockstrap recordings a hit with critics and audiences alike. Different but not immediately accessible to mainstream pop charts, ’50/50′ is a treat for those who enjoy their music for the wonky side. A lab experiment gone right.

Pictured: Georgia Ellery & Taylor Skye in a promotional photoshoot for ‘Acid’ (2020) (Photo via DIY Mag.com)

If I have coloured you intrigued about Jockstrap, you can find out more if you revisit my take on ‘Acid’, which was originally one of their earliest singles, here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/21/todays-track-jockstrap-acid/. You can also experience more of their unique methods with my take on ‘The City’ from their ‘Wicked City’ EP here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/06/17/todays-track-jockstrap-the-city/.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Wicked City’ (EP) (Released on June 19th, 2020) (via Warp Records)

That’s all for now! Thank you for remembering to visit the site everyday, and I’ll be back tomorrow to do it all over again. Much like Jockstrap today, tomorrow’s post will feature a gang of youngsters who made their debut appearance on the blog with peaceful protest anthem ‘Nobody Scared’ during the summer, but I also really enjoyed their latest single and I wanted to write about them again. A Manchester-based Art Pop quartet who will likely appeal to fans of Alt-J or Everything Everything, they supported Cory Wong at Manchester’s 02 Ritz prior to UK Lockdown in 2020. Support has flooded in from Clash, DIY, BBC Radio 6 Music & Radio X’s John Kennedy.

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Today’s Track: Relaxer – ‘Narcissus By The Pool’

November 23, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Daniel Martin-McCormick in a Red Bull Studios Spotlight Session (2016) (Via RedBull.com)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for you to slip into something more comfortable for your daily track on the blog, since it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A New York-based experimental electronic music producer, Daniel Martin McCormick has enjoyed a career that reads like a long list of small achievements. He’s also known for releasing specialist music under the alias of Ital, and he is known for his frequent collaborations with the fellow DJ Aurora Halal. He has also been a member of groups like Black Eyes and Mi Ami, and he is the co-founder of Climate Of Fear, as well as being the founder of Lovers Rock Recordings. In 2019, he established a new alias of Relaxer and he released ‘Coconut Grove’, an album which delivered something that felt more close to a pure Techno album than his earlier releases. The follow-up, 2021’s ‘Concealer’, is his first album to be released on Planet Mu in ten years. It drifts towards hyper digital sounds and it marks his return to using PC hardware. The album’s cover art, created by the NY-based graphic designer Bjorn Copeland, is an indication of his new album’s sound, which explores the sub-genres of Dark Ambient and Microhouse. McCormick notes that it reflects “this open, airy material squeezed and wrestled into a contorted shape, suspended in air with an empty center. That’s exactly how the album felt. In this sense, I wanted to take myself out of it, to let the materials bloom into their own shape, guided by my hand but not defined by my intellect or any market concerns”, in a press statement. Let’s check out ‘Narcissus By The Pool’ below.

McCormick has revealed that his latest LP was “made in a very private way” and he describes this process as being akin to “peering into materials – the materials defined the record”, adding, “Rather than making a record that’s about an emotion, or a political scenario, or the dance floor, or the empty dance floor, or any narrative, this record was about communicating with the materials and letting them speak with me” in his own press notes. Taking a mellow approach to proceedings on mid-album cut ‘Narcissus By The Pool’, McCormick takes influence from old-school 90’s Glitch and more forward-looking minimalist Techno. By disregarding traditional Dance music traits and the normal contexts of finicky textures and spacial tricks that characterize popular Industrial music, he creates a more detailed recording that is defined by how the music flows and the intimate textures that it creates on its own. Using a slightly acidic Synth line and a chiming Chiptune melody, McCormick creates something simple and effective that would not have felt out of place if it was originally released during the mid-2000’s. It is far from just a nostalgic throwback anthem, however, with some downtempo oddities in sound and a peak-time euphoria feeling that creates something that feels more firmly post-modern. In conclusion, this is a beautiful record that isn’t focused on big hooks and catchy melodies, so it falls into a bit of a niche. However, there’s absolutely nothing that is inherently wrong with that, as it feels diverse enough to appeal to different sub-sections of audiences, like those who study at their computer to the beats of Lo-Fi radio channels on YouTube and those who are likely to take things down a notch right before bedtime with their ear plugs tuned into a podcast like ‘Ambient Focus’ on the BBC Sounds app. Whatever the case, this is meticulous, very thoughtfully crafted music that is approached like a sculpture.

Pictured: Relaxer (Daniel Martin-McCormick) performing with Halal at Rewire Festival (2020) (via PR)

That leaves me with little left to say! Thank you for reading the blog today, and I’ll be back tomorrow to resume the ‘Countdown To Christmas’ this year. Our next entry is a cover version of ‘Frosty The Snowman’ which was released in 1993 by a pioneering Scottish Shoegaze outfit whose lineup featured the head boss of Bella Union Records.

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Today’s Track: Wayward – “Camden Road”

October 14, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Lawrence Gayle Hayes (Drums/Synths) & Louis Greenwood (Sampling/DJ) (2021) (via PR)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for me to get typing up for yet another daily track on the blog, because it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Wayward is the fast-emerging Experimental Electronic music project of the London-based duo Lawrence Gayle Hayes and Louis Greenwood, who have gained acclaim from Pitchfork, Mixmag and Vice. They have worked as A&R’s for Silver Bear Recordings, and released material through the Australia-based Beasts Of No Nation label and Fort Romeau’s Cin Cin Records label, and they have been in the studio with the likes of Ninja Tune’s Park Hye Jin and Grammy-winning producer Skrillex. In March, the pair of producers released their debut LP, ‘Waiting For The World’, which was influenced by Burial’s ‘Untrue’ and they combined Drum & Bass, House, Breakbeat and Ambient elements into a concise record. Their latest release is ‘Sapphire Eyes’, a four track EP which was self-released on September 29th. It was inspired by the rave experiences they had while growing up in London – an ode to nightclubs and community. Let’s spin ‘Camden Road’ below.

Citing influences like Addison Grove, Machine Drum and Overmono for their latest short form release, the duo shared on their own Bandcamp page in a press statement, “If our debut album showcased the more reflective side of our yearning for clubs, and a softer side of the lockdown experience, this EP is the anger, frustration and urgency coming out”, concluding, “Stuck indoors again just wanting to band it out in a club with the intention of making something completely focused on the dance floor” in the notice. Their fourth track on the record, ‘Camden Road’ sticks out amongst the others for the emotive feelings which it shares, coming across to me as more nostalgic than euphoric. It boasts a similar sound to some early 00’s Hyperdub recordings and more recent Footwork releases, where the Synths and the propulsive basslines feel as vibrant as the mixed multi-cultural community that their hometown, which they are paying tribute to, has become known for in recent developments. Their vocals play with escapism, with Lawrence reciting the likes of “So much life, so much fun” and “Festivals in Hungary with black people” with a slightly muted Spoken Word delivery that doesn’t feel massively poetic, and feels grounded in approach instead, with a soft Hip-Hop rhythm and a mumbled tone of speech which fits the wonky production aspects and the very metropolitan aesthetics of London. The rest of the instrumentation goes down a treat too, with a looped Piano melody and light Synth pads creating a gentle opening, before Wayward flip the switch for the big chorus where they replace the light-hearted beats with a more rugged dance style, using some swooping drums and syncopated vocal chops to hit a BPM of around 130, which feels subversive and unpredictable when the earlier melodies are flipped on their head. Overall, I was very impressed with ‘Camden Road’, a modern dance track that has an ability of conjuring up some feelings and visuals for their listeners, a rare technique that greats like Aphex Twin and Burial have achieved in their career. It feels as fresh and lively as the street it is based on – A sprawling, multi-cultural metropolis.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Sapphire Eyes’ (EP) (Released on September 29th, 2021) (via Self-Released)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day! Thank you for joining me, and I’ll be back tomorrow for ‘New Album Release Fridays’ tomorrow as we take an in-depth look at the soon to be released new LP from a US female Funk, Soul and Alternative R&B singer-songwriter who performed a medley of her hits on an episode of major US talk show ‘The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon’ earlier this year. She completed her studies at USC Thornton School of Music in 2018, and she was also a contestant on ‘American Idol’ in 2014. Her latest album is named after her dog – Juno.

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Today’s Track: Caribou – “You Can Do It”

October 11, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Dan Snaith (aka Caribou) at a mural to accompany the ‘Suddenly’ press kit (2020) (via PR)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to fulfill my everyday challenge of delivering another daily track on the blog, because it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of new music every day! As a PhD degree holder in Mathematics from Imperial College London and as the son and brother of a pair of Mathematicians in his family, the 43-year-old Canadian-born Experimental Electronic Dance music producer Dan Snaith (Primarily known for his main alias of Caribou) has always been known for his very complex patterns and layered Synth work in his compositions across notable releases like 2010’s ‘Sun’ and 2001’s ‘Breaking My Heart’, which landed a spot on Pitchfork’s list of ‘The 50 Best IDM Albums Of All-Time’ in 2017. His latest LP – 2020’s ‘Suddenly’ – earned similar praise from different publications and my humble little blog that your eyes are focusing on right now, earning a spot on my list of the ‘Top 25 Best Albums Of 2020’ late last year. The associated tour for the record, however, was originally set to take place in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic reared it’s ugly head into our lives. Snaith’s world tour was postponed again for 2021, before it was later to be indefinitely shelved. Now, the meticulous craftsman has announced that he will indeed be hitting the road in the UK this month and the US in early 2022, and ‘You Can Do It’ is a new single that avid Caribou fans will be hearing across headline festival sets and solo arena shows from Snaith over the course of the next year, as a bonus treat to coincide with the cheerful announcement that was made by Snaith a handful of weeks ago. Snaith has also released music as Manitoba and Daphni, and he has been working with Shynola’s Richard Kenworthy for the official music video that sees adorable pooches catching some frisbees to the beat of Snaith’s mastery. Be reminded that ‘You Can Do It’ below.

Dan Snaith gave a shout out to Migle / Kennel UPE in the description for the music video for ‘You Can Do It’ on YouTube, and the beloved IDM producer made his return to touring with a performance at London’s All Points East festival in late August and he premiered the new track during his set at Green Man Festival over the weekend prior. You can catch Snaith playing some shows in Liverpool, Nottingham, Manchester and a few more locations in the UK later this month, and he’ll be hitting sites in Glasgow, Bristol and Brighton in January 2022, before touring in the US, Canada and Europe across the new year. ‘You Can Do It’ will likely not suprise you if you are familiar with Snaith’s work already, but this is still classic Caribou at his finest. The sparkling lyric of ‘You Can Do It’ is layered over and over again to a brain-dancing degree, before a slowed down ‘Do It’ sequence takes a decent precedence over the repetition, with the continuous vocals becoming more garbled and warped as the literal distillation of the hook continues along. The warm and 90’s-leaning instrumentation makes up for the lack of variety in the songwriting for the diverse array of moods that it creates alone, however, and the rippling sentiments of the echoed vocals are spread across the coherent duration of the tune with a signature heartfelt sensibility and gets packed into the euphoric sound of a festival-ready dance hit. The energetic delivery of the Synth arrangements whip up a tone that feels celebratory and jubilant, while the sound strikes a fairly similar style to 2020’s ‘Suddenly’ where the tempo changes feel drastic, but they feel light-hearted and boundless in flow. Overall, while the sugar-colored theme lacks a little inspiration, the production is faultless and the warmly lit mood sounds appealing to a diverse group of audiences. He is ace – is our Dan Snaith.

Pictured: Dan Snaith in a PR photoshoot for a ‘Stereogum’ Q&A interview (2014) (Photo via PR)

Dan Snaith is a familiar face to us on the blog, and so his music has been covered a few times on the site before. His ‘Suddenly’ single landed a place on Pitchfork’s list of ‘The 30 Best Electronic Music Releases Of 2020’, and made an appearance on the blog here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/02/28/todays-track-caribou-never-come-back/. You can also read my thoughts on ‘You & I’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/12/09/todays-track-caribou-you-i/, and check out his initial comeback track ‘Home’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2019/10/28/todays-track-caribou-home/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Suddenly’ (LP) (Released on February 28th, 2020) (via Merge Records)

That brings us to the bottom of the page for another day! Thank you for checking out my latest blog post, and I’ll be back tomorrow for an in-depth look at some brand new music from an Essex-born Neo-Soul singer-songwriter who grew up playing the Celtic Harp – and she attended the Purcell School For Young Musicians with Mica Levi.

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Today’s Track: Tycho & Benjamin Gibbard – “Only Love”

October 2, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Tycho (Scott Hansen) & Benjamin Gibbard in a PR shoot for ‘Only Love’ (2021) (Photo via PR)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time to liven up your day with a clash between two titans on the blog, whilst reminding you that it is always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Today’s new selection marks the joint venture point between Ben Gibbard – the frontman of the Platinum-selling Alternative Rock group Death Cab For Cutie – and the nature-centric IDM producer Tycho (aka Scott Hansen) who you might also know as the graphical designer ISO50. As well as being known for his visual art, Hansen is known for using environmental sounds as a resource for his material, such as the sounds of weather footage that he blends with Ambient Electronica sounds and his Folk-led, downtempo guitar work. We last heard Gibbard on the hard-hitting mid-pandemic charity single ‘Life In Quarantine’ on the blog last summer, while we covered Tycho’s single ‘Outer Sunset’ – taken from his ‘Simulcast’ album of reworked mixes from 2019’s ‘Weather’ LP – back in early January on the blog. ‘Only Love’ is a new single that brings the two notable names in music together. It is interesting to note that it is also the first time that Gibbard has participated in a major electronic collaboration since his Platinum-certified work with The Postal Service more than a decade ago. ‘Only Love’ originally began its life as an instrumental track with a crucially missing vocal element, before Hansen decided to reach out to Gibbard as a fan of his work with an offer to produce a remix for Death Cab For Cutie’s 2016 track ‘The Ghosts Of Beverley Drive’, a trail of correspondence which has led to the two musicians crafting something in the studio together. Gibbard has also recalled in interviews that the lyrics and concept of ‘Only Love’ were influenced by a section of Naomi Klein’s book ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate’ which Gibbard read in 2004. Let’s hear their results below.

A peaceful protest tune with a calm tone, Hansen said in a press release, “Ben’s voice was a very inspiring element to work with from a production standpoint; I felt it really meshed well with the kinds of sounds and instrumentation I gravitate toward”, while Gibbard has also shown a labor of love for the link up in his own press notes, telling Rolling Stone about the literature influence, “When Scott sent me the music for ‘Only Love, it seemed perfect for this statement. Since reading Alexis’ words, I’ve carried them as a universal truth; that the only way we preserve the people, places, or things we care for is with love, not hatred” in his own words. When I first heard ‘Only Love’, I honestly felt that it sounded a lot like Miami Horror. The vocal harmonies are very radiant and 80’s-leaning, while the Synth arrangements are soothing and bright. There are some bubbling guitar riffs that add some more colour and Pop-oriented melodies to the proceedings, while the Drums explode with a somewhat psychedelic and progressive Folk flair. The lyrics are kept concise and tight, with Gibbard just promising “No voices of anger/No threshing fists” and “No last chances missed/No Savior to arrive” above the sparkling Synthwave beats and the Lo-Fi production that pings around in your head. There’s a delicate sense of longing to the vocals, while the repeating line of “Only love can save this place” continues to repeat amongst the mixture of mid-tempo arrangements. A vibe of cathartic and deeply humanist lyricism is present as usual from Gibbard’s performance, while the 80’s-inflicted Synth Pop style of Tycho’s production adds a simple, but timeless feeling to the proceedings. There isn’t a ton of variety to the songwriting here, but the different arrangements and the nostalgic feel of the overall production seems like enough to maintain your interest. It is unclear whether this is a one-off release or whether Hansen and Gibbard will come together for a project like an EP (As we have seen with short-form releases from combinations like Khraungbin & Leon Bridges and MNDSGN & Lionmilk over the last few years), but I would certainly enjoy hearing more ideas being explored by this team-up. Quite uplifting and human in character, ‘Only Love’ sounds like a worthy addition to the discography of two great musicians who have probably earned a spot in your own record collection, in some form and at some point, already. A solid listen.

Pictured: Tycho (aka Scott Hansen) at Greek Theatre, Los Angeles (in 2019) (Photo Credit: Jon Bauer)

As mentioned earlier, we have previously taken a look at some solo work from Benjamin Gibbard and the San Francisco-based composer Tycho. If you haven’t shaken off those face mask and hand sanitizer blues yet, you can still take things down a notch with my assessment of Gibbard’s ‘Life In Quarantine’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/04/25/todays-track-benjamin-gibbard-life-in-quarantine/. Or, for more of Tycho, plug your earphones in and listen to ‘Outer Sunset’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/01/09/todays-track-tycho-outer-sunset/

Pictured: Benjamin Gibbard recording ‘Life In Quarantine’ at home (2020) (Photo Credit: KEXP.org)

That’s all for now! Thank you lots for joining me on the blog today, and I’ll be back tomorrow for something completely different in tone as we celebrate ‘Scuzz Sundays’ for yet another week. This week, we’re going back to the early-00’s discography of a very popular US heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa who had a number one album within the UK Albums Chart as recently as 2019. Their frontman, Corey Taylor, once appeared on an episode of BBC 2’s ‘QI’ as a panelist that was broadcast in 2016.

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