SINGLES CRUISE 06.07.19
MENIK - "A RAINY DAY IN MURRAYS BAY"
This is one of those songs that seep into your bones. The sadness permeates everything like monsoon rains that seem to turn every air molecule to water. Plaintive guitar with plenty of hanging reverb is paired with a droning violin, making this reminiscent of another post-breakup heartbreaker, The Wind-Up Bird's 2003 classic "Whips". Story Time finds the NZ producer mining the depths of a bummer and arriving with some real diamonds.
MINISMUS - "CENTURY"
Minismus is part of a new crop of young neo-classical composers pulling inspiration from the pop overtures of Nils Frahm, Max Richter and Olafur Arnalds to compose beautiful set pieces that seem pre-suited for visual media of great depth and emotion. The NYC composer certainly represents this move creating a stirring and fragile composition around minimal piano lines, deftly swooping strings and swelling, distant synth lines.
OVER - "LATERAL MOVE"
Smitten by the Toronto-based "digital-shoegaze" group's ability to marry glitched and stuttering percussion, plunderphonic sampling and woozy, off-kilter beats, "Lateral Move" has prompted repeated listening in various places and locations. This is categorically walking-through-an-abandoned-office-building-at-3am-with-all-the-lights-on-core. Brilliant stuff on this one.
INVŌKER - "CHURCHES"
The French techno producer has created a stone-cold classic on this Laurent Garnier-approved track. Bell-sound synth hits bloom and erupt into a disco-influenced dancefloor burner married with thick synth-wave leads before diving and surfacing again with deeper, organic percussion matching and joining the original melodic movement. Brilliant work and perfect for any classic House or Techno DJ set.
PLS&TY - "RUN WILD & FEELING FOREVER"
With serious "Quitters Raga" vibes, this world-hopping interpolation of a blistering sitar raga and keyed up vocals push that uptempo future bass sound into pure serotonin washed paradise. The drop, when it comes, is matched with buzzing synths, organic percussion and a counterpart sitar line that plugs in just in time for the song's natural conclusion. "Run Wild & Feeling Forever" pushes every pleasure center in our over-stimulated brains.
TOURIST - "ELIXIR"
Full of towering peaks and cavernous valleys, this heavily midi-vocal driven track showcases the Grammy winning UK producer creating a distinct headspace that bridges the divide between introspective headphone music and pulsating and euphoric calls to the dancefloor. Buzzy synths, house beats snapped into place, floating high register vocals crowd the tiny spaces between synapses on this fully engaging track.
BARAKA - "AQUARIUM"
Baraka is the name of the project of jazz pianist Geoffrey Dean. By folding in Dean's inherent musicality into a totally engrossing downtempo electronic music a chilled out ascending melody, midi vocals haunting in and out of focus and a tropical house beat that keeps the bass line locked into place. With the level of skill and attention to detail in "Aquarium", Baraka hardly seems like a side project for a classically trained musician but rather a pursuit unto itself.
WHETTMAN CHELMETS - "RECALL (OUTRO) / SWIMMING HOLE"
I've covered Whttman Chelmet's previous tapes on the Tome. The experimental artist takes on decomposing tape loops through this gorgeous ambient track. Akin the physicality of artists like Forest Management or AMULETS, Chelmets work with the degradation and saturated tone of the cassette tape rather than against it, creating emotional bulwarks against time and loss.
MYOUÇEEJ - "MUSEUM OF MUDBEAMS"
Pronouced "Mew-See" the track "Musuem of Mudbeams" is full of musical voices that come into direct conflict with one another creating a pattern of controlled chaos. Tones slide under each other, scrape across the audio plan, glitch into existence or flame out into destruction. Corralling them all into a discernible direction is a low-end bass line that acts as an omnipresent string among a million fraying parts. Fractured and beautiful.
LOWERCASE NOISES & BLURSTEM - "OCHRE"
"Ochre" was collaboratively written between the two artists on a single Twitch stream, with viewers watching the creative process unfold. That openness and transparency translates across this track. Hearing piano and guitar react to one another, slide into tonal phrasings and contract and expand based on subtle communication is a thrilling thing to hear, as well as witness live.
