Trance

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: 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: 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: Pachyman – “Destroy The Empire”

August 10, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Return Of…’ (LP) (Available from August 16th, 2021) (via ATO Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has come for me to upload yet another daily post about a track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A university-trained Reggae musician, LA’s Pachy Garcia is perhaps best known as the drummer and vocalist of the LA-based Prog-Punk band Prettiest Eyes, although he was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During his upbringing, Garcia was obsessed with vintage instrumental Dub recordings from his greatest influencers, Scientist and King Tubby, and he now aims to recreate their vibes with his own unique take on the genre. His latest album, ‘The Return Of…’ is set for release on Friday, August 13th, through ATO Records – the same label where you would also find the likes of Nilüfer Yanya, Allen Stone and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. He’s been gaining traction lately, with airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music and KCRW, and he won the ‘2021 Discovery Award’ at this year’s Latin Alternative Music Conference. Check out ‘Destroy The Empire’ below.

With ‘The Return Of..’, Pachy Garcia wants to show how the ‘Caribbean flow’ of his heroes can be transnational, and he tells the press, “With this project, I was looking to make positive music and radiate good energy; something to kinda disconnect from the negative things that were happening at the moment”, Garcia – aka Pachyman – explains. He adds, “I am trying to make this product a service for humanity in the sense that I just wanted to shine a positive light” to his notes, and his sound is built from a rich tradition of musical forms that resounds from Jamaica and San Juan, to Mexico and Southern California. With a simple, reverberated shout of “Destroy The Empire”, we’re immediately off to the races with the beginning of his latest single. Garcia radiates some good energy with the opening drum riffs that begin to just effortlessly scatter themselves around some more traditional Dub instrumentation, creating an initial soundscape that subtly develops throughout the rest of the track’s duration. Garcia delicately introduces Twangy rhythm guitar riffs and sultry Drum beats to the mixture that add a soulful, honeyed skew to the bright, summertime sound. Another highlight is the wobbly Cuíca melody, which gives proceedings a more quirky and, perhaps, falsely exotic lift. There’s also some gently rattling Maraca melodies to add some more spacious percussion to the laidback mood of the sound, and more shimmering sounds that seem to be coming from the Guiro, although I’m not entirely sure whether this is the correct instrument he uses or not. Either way, when thrown together, these sounds create a globally influenced atmosphere that feels bright and inviting, but Garcia pays homage to these Dub and Latin American sounds of old with his tongue in his cheek a bit, although he is absolutely believing in the music that he is making. He just manages to provide a light-hearted take on these heroes of his, and so his hazy and breezy melodies radiate with a quirky personality throughout. It probably falls under a niche overall, but I find that approach rather charming and likeable, and it’s clear that he’s done his research to pull it off. It’s not entirely clear who the ‘Empire’ is, and my gut tells me that it’s a nod towards Brazil’s Tropicalia movement, but I certainly am quite excited to destroy it with him on Friday.

  • Pictured: Pachy Garcia (Pachyman) in a ‘At 333 House’ PR shoot (2021) (Photo by Total Control/AUS)

That brings us to the end of the page for another day, and thank you very much, as always, for reaching this point. I’ll be back tomorrow for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’, as we take an in-depth visit back to one of the sounds of the past that have been influential for the present! My next pick comes from a Jamaican vocalist, producer and songwriter who was known as ‘The Queen Of Dancehall’, and she was the first female DJ to become a Grammy-winning and Platinum-selling artist during her peak.

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New Album Release Friday: Darkside – “The Limit”

July 23, 2021 — Leave a comment

The experimental duo who don’t always look on the bright side of life. New post time!

  • Pictured: Vinyl Copy of “SPIRAL” (LP) (Released on July 23rd, 2021) (via Matador Records)

Good Morning to you! It’s Jacob Braybrooke here, and it’s time to take a moment out with your 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! Latitude Festival may be the biggest talking point of this mid-July weekend, but, for those of us who couldn’t get ourselves a ticket and need to rely on getting our music fix elsewhere, there is a handful of new records available to fresh ears. Anne-Marie, Joel Culpepper, The Jungle Giants, Emma Jean-Thackray, Leon Bridges and Mercury Prize winner Dave all have new full-length albums hitting store shelves today. My pick for this week has been eight years in the making. ‘Spiral’ arrives this morning through Matador Records from Darkside, the collaborative side-project of the insanely prolific Chilean-American composer Nicolás Jaar and the Brooklyn-based rock multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington, a previous member of indie bands ARMS and Translations. The follow-up to 2013’s ‘Psychic’, the new record was written and recorded in 2018 and six of the tracks were largely made through an extended week-long session during that summer in New Jersey. It has a 79 on Metacritic to show solid reviews, with Charlotte Krol of NME calling it “A gorgeous, filmic record that rewards with each spin”. Check out promo single ‘The Limit’ below.

“From the beginning, Darkside has been our Jam band, something we did on days off”, Jaar spoke of Darkside’s return from hiatus, adding, “When we reconvened, it was because we really couldn’t wait to jam together again”, to the press release. Dave Harrington added, “It felt like it was time again. We do things in this band that we would never do on our own. Darkside is the third being in the room that just kind of occurs when we make music together”, to the press notes for the hype machine. Down to a tee, ‘The Limit’ is a psychedelic adventure through experimental corridors of patterns and exciting, wildly free-spirited tones that make the steadfast jolt feel like a diverse, atmospheric journey. Beginning with some intriguing Woodwinds-like sounds, Jaar laments a loss of grip on reality of life with contemplative vocals like “Don’t sow what you reap/Submit to the pace” and “The waters erase/Nothing left to see” as we build up to a lengthy instrumental that combines Folk-led guitar riffs with stiff Keyboard frames, with a driving Drum melody that adds a lot of heft to the strength. We reach a breaking point when Jaar refrains “Current with no direction”, as the steely frames take an intrusive turn to something that feels much more harsh and abrasive in setting, as the transcendant Funk beats grind to a squelching, grounded halt with grating guitar sections and propulsive Synth cuts. The finale is also dynamic enough to stay interesting on your repeated listens, as Harrington’s production cascades through jangled rhythms with an Acid rain-like quality, while Jaar’s vocals feel unphased throughout the obscure experiment of the five minutes. It’s a strange but controlled mixture of ambient tapestry overall, with an opening that reminds me of Django Django in it’s 00’s dance flair and Folk-inflicted guitars, but the following sequences of ethereal audio really keeps you on your toes and feels incomparable to much else in terms of it’s dissonant explorations of creaking acoustics. On the whole, it expertly walks the line of bizzare and frantic like a tightrope circus act, yet it never loses it’s footing to fall off the said tightrope in the analogy. It never feels like pure chaos, since the eclectic instrumentals have a coherent narrative of-sorts and the key changes never stray from the path of consistency too aggressively. It’s certainly not mainstream, but it’s good to remember that Darkside’s records are being aimed more towards an avid fanbase, as opposed to those who will just take whatever formulaic dance track the pop charts throw at them. The tune is a very cool record, with an ever-changing dymamic in sound that mixes Jaar’s virtuosic skill as an experienced classical composer with Harrington’s ear for psychedelic influences that he honed on the US DIY indie electronica scene. You can revel in it’s Jaaring nature. See what I did?

  • Pictured: Nicolas Jaar & Dave Harrington (2013) (Photo Credit: Jim Carroll/The Irish Times)

We’ve reached your destination – which is the end of the page for today! I’ll be back to do it all over again tomorrow, however, with an in-depth look into some brand new music from a popular cult UK lo-fi independent Prog-Rock duo – a married couple – who are making their second appearance on the blog with a new single that features the British godfather of Punk himself, Iggy Pop, to confirm their new set of tour dates.

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Way Back Wednesdays: Moby – “Porcelain”

May 26, 2021 — Leave a comment

I’d be horrified to hear what took place in his 2020 Quaran-Dreams. Let’s go Way Back!

  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Play” (LP) (Released on May 17, 1999) (via Mute Records/V2 Records/Virgin)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to get typing up for today’s track on the blog, just like always, because it’s still my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! Moby’s ‘Reprise’ comes out on Friday, the 19th studio album release from the 90’s EDM cornerstone Richard Melville Hall, which features new reworkings of orchestral and acoustic variations of some of his favourite tracks with numerous guest artists joining him. The guest list includes Gregory Porter, Kris Kristofferson, Skylar Grey, Jim James and others. So, to coincide with the release of that project later this week, I thought it would be a great time to revisit the original version of Moby’s highest-charting single for ‘Way Back Wednesdays’, as it was certainly one of the sounds of the past that influenced the present. ‘Porcelain’ reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart following it’s release as a single in June 2000. One of the few tracks on his 1999 breakthrough ‘Play’ to feature his own vocals, Hall wrote ‘Porcelain’ as a rather melancholic electronic/classical blend of production with lyrics reflecting on the recent break-up of a relationship. The album would have been exposed absolutely everywhere back in the day, and I read an interesting statistic online that each track from the album has been used in a film, TV series or advert of some kind. Check out the Jonas Åkerlund-directed video below.

In addition to his career writing and producing music, Hall is also a notable Vegan who heavily supports humanitarian aid and animal rights programmes. He’s drawn a fair share of criticism over the decades for his political views and thee different stories in the press concerning him, but he was, before July 2020, the owner of Little Pine, a Vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, and the Circle V non-meat food festival. You can read more about his life and career in the two memoir books that he’s authored: 2016’s ‘Porcelain: A Memoir’ and 2019’s ‘Then It Fell Apart’. The title track of his first memoir was a very important release in bringing electronic music to the mainstream eye. From this, you can hear a chilling and emotional atmosphere of experiencing the vigorous emotions of an ideal romantic scenario never quite materializing, as lines like “I never meant to hurt you/I never meant to lie/So, this is goodbye?/This is goodbye” start by questioning the flaws of the situation, before a light call-and-response form of vocal affirms the decision and mutually agrees with it. Dreams is also a common theme of the lyrics, with the two verses starting with lyrics like “In my dreams I’m jealous all the time/When I wake, I’m going out of my mind” and “In my dreams, I’m dying all the time/Then I wake, it’s kaleidoscopic mind” as the fragile mood of the fluttering String sections, evoking a cinematic affair, gradually turn into a more soothing affair, with twinkling Piano melodies that are more melodic. There’s also a Trip-Hop influence that flows very nicely throughout the moods, with the distorted vocals of “To tell the truth, you’ve never wanted me” being dressed up in a very soft Hip-Hop breakbeat production that reminds me of Boards Of Canada or Joey Pecoraro, and a soulful backing vocal created through a sample that I believe goes “Hey, Woman, It’s alright, go on” that gets looped over the top of the techno evolutionary sounds, and this part just emphasizes the themes of the vocals and the simple points of the personal reflection being made. The track may have got a little over-exposed over the day, including it’s notable use in a scene of 2000’s ‘The Beach’, and so I can definitely see why you may have grown tired of it, and some of the more radio-friendly cuts on ‘Play’ may have perhaps been a little too close to comfort to his contemporaries of the time. However, I do certainly think that ‘Porcelain’ is a more interesting track than it possibly appears on the surface. A fragility can be felt in both the shaky vocal delivery and the wavering moods of the instrumentals within the piece, and it’s surprisingly varied in it’s sampling that evokes diverse genres. It’s also important to remind ourselves sometimes, as well, that it was a big hit and that it did cross over to the charts of the mainstream. I’m not particularly a huge fan of Moby emotionally, but I’ve always found him to be an interesting chap who has made some fascinating music, although the consistency of it’s quality hasn’t always landed with me every time. As for ‘Porcelain’, it was definitely an influential example of how to framework some fragility with sympathetic musicality, and it’s partially made by the rather understated, sublime vocal performance from Hall himself. It’s pretty beautiful.

  • Pictured: Moby (aka Richard Melville Hall) in a promotional shoot (2019) (Photo Credit: Mo Kaufer)

Eons ago on the blog, we also looked at ‘Power Is Taken’ from Moby, a much more rave-oriented single that would eventually appear on last year’s album, ‘All Visible Objects’. If that sounds cool to you, why not give me a few views here?: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/07/todays-track-moby-power-is-taken/

  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Power Is Taken” (Single) (Released on January 14, 2020) (via Mute Records)

That’s it for another throwback! As always, on Friday, we’re going to be sampling one of the weekend’s notable album releases. As for tomorrow, I’ve got some brand new music to share with you. It comes from an emerging Manchester-based indie rock singer-songwriter signed to Memphis Industries, where he will be releasing his forthcoming second LP, ‘Mircale’, next month. His 2019 debut album, ‘A Dream Is U’, garnered critical acclaim from global publications such as Uncut, Paste Magazine and The Line Of Best Fit. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Today’s Track: Hannah Peel – “Ecovocative”

April 22, 2021 — Leave a comment

You better not slip over a Banana ‘Peel’ on your way to work after this. New post time!

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Fir Wave” (LP) (Released on March 26th, 2021) (via My Own Pleasure)

Good Afternoon to you – I’m Jacob Braybrooke and since I’ve got my radio show for this week queued up (That’s 7pm on OMG Radio if you fancy tuning in), it’s time for me to quickly get typing up for your 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! ‘Ecovocative’ comes to you from the Northern Irish electronic composer Hannah Peel, who is known for blending Classical instrumentation with the latest high-tech Synth gear. She has also composed scores and soundtracks for numerous film and TV productions as well as some theater and dance stage shows, including work on a documentary about ‘Game Of Thrones’. Her sixth album is called ‘Fir Wave’ and it looks at the different cyles of life through a sound design lens. She was inspired to create the work by Delia Derbyshire, who lived on until 2001 as a bit of an unsung hero. She deserved more credit for carrying out the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960’s and creating the iconic theme tune for ‘Doctor Who’. The likes of Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers and Orbital have all cited her as a major influence during interviews in the past. For her latest record, which was released on March 26th via My Own Pleasure, Peel was allowed the permission to access the database of Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop by the specialist library organisation KPM, allowing Peel to re-interpret the ‘Electrosonic’ work of Derbyshire to create an Experimental Electronic Ambient album that is thematically based around climate change and sustainability. Let’s check out the puntastic track – ‘Ecovocative’ – below.

Hannah said: “I’m finding it harder to express all those huge feelings and lyrics in words like I used to” in an interview for the new album recording, elaborating, “Instrumental Music can conjure so much more with this new track, I wanted to evoke those patterns in nature, celebrate the detail, the changes in light, play with primal shimmering energy, using obscure bells and the bubbling beats of electronic music” when she mentioned her recent single, following up on a stint when she curated BBC Radio 3’s ‘Night Tracks’ programme. While the publicity chatter drums up music influences of 70’s early Ambient and the Hauntology sub-genre, ‘Ecovocative’ brings up imagery of East Asian biomes and outer Tokyo, feudal Japan aesthetics for me. With no lyrics to construct a meaning from, the context radiates from the clicky Bass sounds and the swelling Synth melodies instead for me. While the heavily electronic instrumentation has not been discarded entirely and dubbed over with natural instrumentation, there’s still something that feels almost ritualistic and pure about the sequences of sound. The opening sounds a little unsettling and evokes a theme of paranoia with slowly glimmering depth, but the tone feels like it’s becoming progressively more hopeful, with a rhythmic drum beat which twinkles and forms a chorus of-sorts in the early going. The chord progression continues to change keys slowly, as the low-lit, gurgling undercurrrent lingers in the background beneath the tolling, Bell-like synths. To me, it feels relaxing and it seems visually broad, but the direct meanings feel unexplored and vague. On the whole, it sounds infinitely tinkered with and merticulously layered, but the slow-burning movements pay off with the gradual introduction of new beats. It dances around your ears and radiates with a circling effect, and so it achieves the explorations of life cycles with a nice level of vibrancy. I feel like I might need to be in a certain frame of mind to enjoy the album as a whole, but the three minute duration of the track glides by very smoothly overall.

  • Pictured: Hannah Peel before a “First Cut Interview” feature (2017) (Photo via MusicTech.net)

The bell tolls for another day – and you can join me again tomorrow for a new entry in our “New Album Release Friday” series, as we shine the spotlight upon one of this week’s most promising new releases. We’re going to be looking at the much-anticipated new album from one of the leading figures behind the young scene of the UK’s Jazz circuit. Signed to Anti- Records, this male producer taught himself to produce beasts in East Ham, London – inspired by his hip-hop sampler heroes Madlib and J Dilla. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Way Back Wednesdays: Boards Of Canada – “Seeya Later”

March 17, 2021 — Leave a comment

Ripe for repeated listening, or is it easy to get Board of this instead? Let’s go Way Back!

  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Twoism” (EP) (Released in August, 1995) (via Music70)

Good Morning to you! I’m Jacob Braybrooke and, well – you know the drill by this point – it’s time for me to get typing up for your weekly revisit of the sounds from the past which have influenced those of the present, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If the name of Boards Of Canada seems familiar to you, you’re either already one of the beloved cult followers of the group who possibly paid $800 to obtain your own copy of their debut ‘Twoism’ EP following it’s release in 1995, since the original distribution was scarcely limited to 100 copies before Warp Records gave it a quiet re-issue in 2002, or you read my previous post about them back in October or November time. Whichever route applies to you – the fact remains that Boards Of Canada are, if not the most well-known in terms of mainstream recognition, still one of the most devotedly followed Electronic music acts of our time. Just for the record, the bandwagon for 1998’s ‘Music Has The Right To Children’ is one that I’ve definitely jumped onto, as I think that it is a truly exceptional record. Made up of the Scottish brother DJ duo of Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison, BOC represent an interesting flipside for electronic music production practice for me, where the tropes of club music being developed in London or Birmingham are turned on their heads by the brothers originally creating their music with vintage synthesizers and dated samples in a rural community in Scotland, where they have since kept very reclusive from the media, with very little interviews or performances existing. I’ve been delving deep into the back catalog of the brothers over the last two months or so, and so it’s been interesting to see where their formula of nature centric themes and nostalgic qualities started for them. In the typical BOC fanbase fashion, you can check out the fan-made video for ‘Seeya Later’ – taken from their debut EP ‘Twoism’ – created for YouTube by Saint Santiago – below.

Eoin and Sandison took their name from the children’s educational films distributed from The National Film Board Of Canada which they grew up watching at a toddler-level age, and they also pulled off the most, if not one of the most, elaborate ‘Easter Egg’ hunts in the marketing campaign building to the release of their most recent release, 2013’s ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’. There really is a lot of fascinating information about them out there, which is too lengthy for just a simple blog post, so I would look them up after you’ve read this if that sounds interesting to you, but, for now, it’s back to the matter at hand. ‘Seeya Later’ was originally released by the duo as part of the ‘Twoism’ EP on their own label, Music70, and it later appeared on their ‘Hi-Scores’ EP in 1996 as well, where you can also find earlier versions of a few tracks that later appeared on their aforementioned breakthrough release, MHTRC. Chris Horne, a since lost third BOC member, also contributed to this release. Although not as commonly talked about as ‘Sixtyniner’, I feel that ‘Seeya Later’ still makes for an effective insight into the core formula of BOC’s initial musical practice. The track has a slightly darker vibe to some of MHTRC’s most popular recordings for me. Although not as haunting as the anti-religion nods of ‘Geogaddi’, it sounds like something that you may expect to hear on Aphex Twin’s ‘I Care Because You Do’ all the same. The bassline lightly throbs among the high percussion sounds, with trickling synths that evoke a somewhat unsettling atmosphere. This instrumentation doesn’t fluctuate very much throughout the track, but it remains interesting enough due to the ghostly textures and the intriguing ambience that hold your interest. The melancholic drum beats and the more downtempo influences, like much of BOC’s work, is housed in a driving Hip-Hop breakbeat dressing, which gives it a sense of memorability and pushes the beats forward. I would say that it feels a little bit unfinished, but I think the BOC brothers primarily used the ‘Twoism’ EP as a demo tape to get interest from labels, and so I can forgive the very direct and singular beats being a little exhausting by the end here. Overall, though, it is still a fascinating companion piece to their later work, with less of a child-like feel, more of a dream-like trance. Although it may feel like a sonically incomplete Boards Of Canada, that can make this all the more appealing to seek out.

  • Pictured: Marcus Eoin and Marcus Sandison in a vintage press shot (unknown date) (via Warp Records)

If you think the BOC are brilliant, you can check out how I initially felt about their music through an early listen of ‘An Eagle Of Your Mind’ from 98’s ‘Music Has The Right To Children’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/11/03/todays-track-boards-of-canada-an-eagle-in-your-mind-1998/

  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Music Has The Right To Children” (LP) (Released in 1998) (via Warp Records)

Thank you for checking out my latest blog post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as per usual, with an in-depth look at a recent track from an emerging Folk/Blues singer-songwriter who, by day, teaches English in Boyle Heights but, after dark, gets busy writing tunes like ‘Swim Test’, which is based on her father who can’t swim, despite living next to the beach for decades. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/