Media Diary: Early 2024

January 　　 February 　　 March 　　 April
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January

	Lel Samar Project لل سمر _ Grain de ciel أثر من السماء Sad, mysterious and passionate singing in Arabic and French over subtle instrumentation, featuring riq, tetrachord and minimal electronic tones — a lone, fierce burning flame on a cold winter night. I almost didn’t notice that many of the texts were in French at first, as the prosody is very unusual, closer to Arabic? (I like this, bringing new sounds to a familiar language) The structure of the album is nice too, it’s more like a long five-movement piece than five tracks. ▷ Tonus-Music-Records ▷ RYM
	Earthen Sea _ An Act of Love Very comfy wintery ambient techno (and in some tracks pure isolationist ambient), with soft, deep, heavy bass. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	James Bernard _ Atmospherics Classic 90s mystical spacey ambient techno sounds; this could have been released on Pete Namlook’s FAX +49-69/450464 label, both quality- and stylewise. ▷ RYM
	POM POM _ POM POM 24 (4 ×) beep - beep - boop - boop - beebeeboop - beebeeboop (4 ×) beep - beep - boop - boop - beebeeboop - beebeeboop　+　BOOM TCHK BOOM TCHK (4 ×) beep - beep - boop - boop - beebeeboop - beebeeboop　+　BOOM TCHK BOOM TCHK　+　tictictictictictictictictictictictic etc. Can’t argue with that. Anonymous project, no titles, only black vinyl and plain black covers (the only differences on Discogs and RYM are because of human world contingencies) — how techno is this? I still haven’t listened to their five-hour long mix because of the duration but I should, given the artists cited in the RYM reviews it should totally be my thing. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Depeche Mode _ Ultra Catchy synthpop melodies dressed in sleek, smooth black suits as always, the slight industrial rock influences here give it a special edge too — I always loved “Barrel of a Gun”, “It’s No Good” and “Useless” but used to feel a bit lukewarm about the album as a whole, now I think it’s solid (and a good one to end/start the year when the future looks so bleak but you still want to enjoy yourself) I got into this album in the absolute nerdiest way — via Jason Lescalleet’s Songs About Nothing, which samples “It’s No Good” on its last track. I hadn’t heard that song before and pretty much forgot about Lescalleet for a while to fully get into Depeche Mode (the Lescalleet album is good but I almost never play it and could honestly live without it, Depeche Mode is better and way more important to me) I had also heard “Useless” on Kruder & Dorfmeister’s K&D Sessions™, which has long been a favourite of mine and got me into other artists like Lamb and Bomb the Bass (which in turn got me into Leslie Winer (how much namedropping can I squeeze in here)), but the remixed version there (although good) was a bit less of a standout there than the original is here. ▷ RYM
	Tarentel _ Ghetto Beats on the Surface of the Sun Drumming and droning and experimenting, away from post-rock towards weird rhythmic, dissonant and noisy places. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Seirom _ 1973 This too is an unusual take on post-rock: it’s also part space ambient and, mostly, rooted in black metal (it’s a Maurice de Jong = Gnaw Their Tongues project (I just noticed he has a lot of projects, yet all of them except this one seem to be black metal?)). I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first because there’s a lot of the lo-fi aggressive formlessness of black metal, but there is something special about it too. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Elysian Fields _ Queen of the Meadow Been a while since I played it; Jennifer Charles still has one of my favourite voices ever, deep, breathy, extremely sensual, and this album is as languid and sometimes sulfurous as the cover leads you to expect, with some creepy moments included (“Rope of Weeds” reads like a Poe story) Their previous album Bleed Your Cedar is about as good (more rock oriented), and my favourite track by the band is “Duel with Cudgels” (named after the Goya painting, it’s on Bum Raps and Love Taps and has an unusually long instrumental first part which makes the song even better), but Queen of the Meadow has the sound I associate most with the band and makes the best use of Charles’ voice. (The male singer on the title track is also good but he almost takes me out of the vibe you know?) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Artemiy Artemiev _ Mysticism of Sound Unlike the other works I’ve heard by Artemiev (which had an otherworldly 90s-retro charm), this is four long, dissonant, difficult yet interesting tracks; it’s close to space ambient in some aspects (not themewise but soundwise — drifting towards eerie places) but takes inspiration from electroacoustic compositions (Xenakis?). Don’t start here with Artemiev unless you’re sure that’s the one you want, but it’s good. ▷ RYM
	chainmailbalaclava _ CRISISMIX007 Political, spiritual, soothing, psychedelic, super eclectic mix. Thanks to semiophone for the recommendation! ▷ Soundcloud ▷ RYM
	Sarah Webb _ Kochab Starts as a beautiful exploration of snowy wilderness and mysterious ruins (particularly nice to read this in winter), ends as a heartwarming lesbian love story (still the only kind of love story I “get”) ♥ ▷ Read online
	Helge Reumann _ Sudation Lika Nüssli _ Little Terror Cool drawing books I found at the comic store, from art&fiction’s Cosmos collection! Helge Reumann’s is cold and satirical with a mixture of beauty (precise lines) and disgust (all the melting, sweating things); Lika Nüssli’s is super expressive, elastic, introspective and free, adding words in broken English. Both are standalone drawings that somehow seem to tell a story anyway
	Nanténé Traoré _ La nuit t’arrache à moi Long poème d’amour et autoportrait brutal et corrosif, un texte qui frappe droit au cœur avec plein d’images belles ou douloureuses. Découvert à la librairie Quai des brumes à Strasbourg ; l’artiste est poète et photographe (il est trans, ce livre n’en parle pas du tout mais d’autres de ses projets si), ou mentionnent son homosexualité (cf. la deuxième page de la section “mots” sur son site, qui est tout aussi bien que ce livre, allez y jeter un œil !) ▷ Nanténé Traoré
	Jeremiah Cymerman _ Citadels & Sanctuaries Love when experimental music also reflects emotions, images, colours — or rather, in this case, gestures/movements and perhaps characters; these tracks are based on clarinet solos and are equally beautiful and interesting, each one pays homage to a different experimental musician so it’s very varied. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM

February

	ZÖJ _ Fil o Fenjoon Got this because of the cute cover art and had no idea what to expect except strings and drums — turns out it’s really beautiful, long atmospheric tracks based on Persian music with a little experimental edge (like the abrasive metal sounds on the instrumental first track), played on kamancheh + qheychak (strings) + voice + drums, with a little post-rock influence in the drums too. Instant favourite. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Muslimgauze vs. Species of Fishes _ An Essential Extraction Bright, clean glitch reworkings of Muslimgauze tracks; I’m not familiar with Species of Fishes yet but something about the sounds here reminds me of a little bit of Ryoji Ikeda, only not as cold? Or maybe it is as cold, but the way it contrasts with the warm, organic sounds of Muslimgauze becomes something special. Also rare enough to be noted: this new edition is actually a reworking of a 1999 album that was twice as long, with Species of Fishes cutting all the redundant and less successful parts. (I haven’t heard the original to compare yet.) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Messa _ Close Doom metal, more often melancholic than heavy, with beautiful female vocals and oud. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Shackleton _ Music for the Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs Still the best thing I’ve heard by him by a long shot. Music for the Quiet Hour has ties to tribal ambient, UK bass, dubstep and minimalism, but is a sound + world of its own really. Or a passage between one and another, as is the case narratively (a large part of the spoken word is a letter from the narrator to his daughter who lives in a distant future) (hey, I just looked up the artwork again and we share the same name now!) — I have the CD box and I always forget in which direction the front artwork is supposed to go, which seems fitting: forget your landmarks, forget even gravity, we’re heading towards uncharted territories. The Drawbar Organ EPs feels almost like bonus material after that, though it’s a very welcome addition — basically UK bass tracks that share a similar sound, only more rhythmic. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Ptite Soeur + neophron _ NOUVELLE ⸎ ECONOMIE Probably my favourite French hip hop project so far: next-level experimental beats with the right amount of darkness, psychedelism and noise/glitch + fast, precise, punchline-packed bars + cool artwork. All three releases so far are solid, all combined make only 51 minutes too so really, my recommendation here is for all of them. RED႟UN might be the tightest but my most listened to is NOUVELLE ⸎ ECONOMIE, a bit longer than the others + displays more sensitivity too; it begins as an in-your-face style like the other two but gets more and more personal — and halfway through, among all the references to politics, weed, suicide, video games and Judaism/Kabbalah, the artist genders herself as female for the first time (!) This is never the main subject of the lyrics, never even stated outright, but there’s a lot that seeps through, especially in the last track, slower, more melodic, and extremely moving. ▷ Soundcloud (only the first two EPs are streamable there, you’ll need to go to one of the evil big platforms or ask the blue bird for the third) ▷ RYM
	Chelsea Wolfe _ She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She New favourite by her? Songwise the first three songs from Abyss are still unbeaten in their blackness and heaviness, but soundwise, I might like this one even more — mixing industrial and trip hop isn’t new (the two genres have always been related) but I’ve rarely heard them give off such witchlike energy, even the softest songs here feel full of life. Probably the most consistent I’ve heard from her too. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Leroy _ Grave Robbing Maximalist party music — mashcore packed with as many pop and r&b hooks as possible, and you will recognize a bunch of them —all incredible fun even though the effect also has a dark side, like you’re being bombarded with so much good times you can barely breathe, it’s all turning into hyperstimulation and noise and hyper accelerated everything everywhere until you can’t take any more — by the time the album is over I do feel a little exhausted and I’m not sure whether it’s me or the music. (Maybe it does take a dip.) (And yes this kind of extreme sample use is very contemporary and relevant to the chaos we live in, but this also reminds me of disco edits which go way back to the beginnings of house music) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Blanck Mass _ Animated Violence Mild World Eater has always been a favourite of mine with its furious cut-up industrial abstract vocal grooves (and what an intro + following track, my god), but this one is at least as good — an amazing follow-up that reminds me of synthwave/darksynth as cranks up the melody to become as colorful and LOUD as possible (A video for “Love Is a Parasite” featuring the apples on the cover was shot, comic-like body horror as you’d expect, but it was removed — apparently because one of the actors was later found out to have, uh, very toxic political views? This makes it even more cursed. If you want to watch it anyway, it’s been archived) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Blanck Mass _ In Ferneaux Had a feeling I’d enjoy this one more than its middling RYM rating would suggest, yup I was right This is so different it might as well be a different project, with phases of ambient, noise, various electronic genres. Is it cohesive? Yes and no, it’s like scenes in a dream that don’t quite make sense together but still feel like they make up a single weird, memorable story. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Mobius Digital _ Outer Wilds (Cheating a bit as I finished this in December and didn’t want to include it then, as everybody knows it already and I have real mixed feelings about it, but here goes) It’s a masterpiece even just conceptwise, if you haven’t heard it already it’s all about learning (really) (without getting keys or power-ups or whatever)   but it’s so fussy, punishing and discouraging throughout     the best moments (and there are many of them) are magical, unlike anything else I’ve played in a game (my favourite might have been drifting as silently as possible in Dark Bramble, at least when I wasn’t eaten by anglerfish; Giant’s Deep also had a really cool atmosphere)       but so much of the game involves facing the same kind of frustrating, unsatisfying issues I struggle with in real life (I’m really bad with practical intelligence and Outer Wilds relies on it a lot, it made me feel stupid, unattentive, impatient — I often had the right idea or almost but was unsuccessful in actually applying it (and sometimes it was really far-fetched, like the exact way you had to use the jellyfish for insulation or the Interloper inner maze), I got stuck so many times)         it’s so great at breaking game conventions in clever ways and making the player also think outside the box           but my brain is dumb and likes simple, clear video game logic with shiny things and satisfying bleeps, I don’t like how messy and uncertain everything is in the real world and in Outer Wilds             the feeling of learning and discovery is great, and it’s brilliant how there is a lot of exploration to make here given how tiny the map is (and has to be)               but that’s between phases of, like, getting killed over and over again in the same timed labyrinth and having to start again from scratch every time without getting any hints                 so yeah. I absolutely recommend it, even though I was more relieved than anything when I finished it and was happy to play a random metroidvania afterwards. I hope other games take inspiration from Outer Wilds, but I’m not sure I really want to play the extra downloadable content right now?
	Death Ambient _ Drunken Forest = Fred Frith + Kato Hideki + Ikue Mori I wasn’t entirely convinced by this project’s first album, which contained too many short aimless (almost fruitless) experiments — but this one is way better, more accomplished, actually works as ambient too (though I’m not sure I’d describe it as such). Rewards attentive, repeated listens. Dark but not necessarily something you need to play at night, it’s more about weird forms (and possible threats); my favourite track is probably “Qianwei Sky” and its intense closer with the electronic staccato. ▷ RYM
	Topdown Dialectic _ Vol. 2 I agree with the RYM comments about missing Tiny Mix Tapes, they were good (their review is better than anything I could write myself) Each volume from the project so far has been eight five-minute cuts of dub techno — volume 2 is the best one to my ears, it’s the most eclectic and colorful with its unexpected fast, syncopated rhythms or harmonies, hip hop or even modified pop (?) samples. (Volume 1 is also good and pretty close; volume 3 goes for a hazier ambient dub sound that’s been done better by other artists and doesn’t work as well in a strict five-minute format) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Crystallmess _ Fact Mix 830 Intense throughout but perfectly paced footwork × jungle mix, which also sounds like an original work rather than a mere mix and that’s one of the best things a mix can be. Not a single weak moment, nothing that sounds derivative either. :fire emoji: ▷ Fact / Soundcloud (free streaming + download) ▷ RYM
	Angela He _ missed messages. Extremely short but brought a tear to my eye I first got the “missed” ending, “survivor” on my second and “hope” on my third I’m not sure I want to see the fourth one Knowing that you only get one chance in reality is heartbreaking, I’m so afraid I would have failed, I’m terrible with people

March

	Species of Fishes _ Trip Trap Confirms my good impressions from last month: this is really cool 90s techno/IDM (somewhere between Detroit techno and early Autechre) with an additional cold, glitchy experimental edge, and a bit of industrial too! Has a lot to offer, it’s 73 minutes long but I don’t feel like any of it is unnecessary, there’s a lot to explore here. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Stefan Maier _ Nervous Systems A twenty-minute session of electronic drones, chirps and crackles that gently massage and tickle the ears and head. Sort of wild but soothing too. Thanks to velocifish for the recommendation! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Hüma Utku _ Gnosis Good blend of dark, tribal and industrial ambient with a lot of breathing room. Thanks to Atlas for the recommendation! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Foetus Inc. _ Sink Yeah early Foetus is messy and sketchy, but it’s fun! Funnier, more danceable and even more cartoony than his later works; this is a compilation of non-album tracks and while it does drag on at times, I like it better than some of his albums, there are plenty of great tracks and cool experiments (rock! synth weirdness! even some kind of proto-hip hop?!) if you’re into that kind of mad-circus-theatre-from-Hell thing. + This unofficial video for “Wash It All Off” is also something (100% injuries, accidents and blood from commercial videos — consider this a content warning, but Foetus always comes with lots of content warnings) ▷ RYM
	Zidrou & Frank Pé _ La bête (Only available in French, so) Une histoire du marsupilami en mode sérieux/réaliste (et même dur à certains moments ; CW morts (d’animaux notamment), brimades scolaires, nazisme) tout en gardant l’esprit franco-belge fantasque que j’aimais beaucoup dans les Spirou & Fantasio (qui a toujours été une de mes séries préférées, notamment pour ses évolutions justement). La trajectoire du plus sombre vers du plus tendre est particulièrement bienvenue je trouve ! (Frank Pé est aussi l’auteur des Broussaille, série que mon père avait achetée et que j’aimais beaucoup quand j’étais petite)
	Current Value _ Platinum Scatter Unusual and interesting: it’s technically drum and bass but very abstract and complex, more focussed on patterns and textures than on beats, melodies or anything resembling a climax — while remaining absolutely rhythmic. It’s a grower, I’ve been enjoying it more with each listen to far. + In a completely different style by the same artist, The Edge of the Cliff / Dark Rain is worth getting, “Dark Rain” in particular is a dubstep banger (the cover label looks dreadful though) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Femtanyl _ CHASER Messy, squeaky, cute ultraviolent breaks and poppy hooks ♥ ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Proc Fiskal _ Insula Near-ambient pads contrasting with sparse fast beat clusters + everyday-life Scottish samples contrasting with sounds and melodies that definitely sound like they come from somewhere else (couldn’t place where exactly). I recommend starting with this one before moving on to the dreamier, more abstract Siren Spine Sysex, which is also good but Insula is more unique and immediately memorable; thanks to rtdx for the tip! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	DJ Magic _ No Hats No Hoods Edition 1 And I should keep exploring grime, so far I’ve mostly kept to the calmer weightless / ecogrime side but this is the opposite — densely packed, banger after banger, all with vocals. Didn’t look far for it (it’s just the top-rated DJ mix on RYM) but I wasn’t disappointed. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Chris Meloche _ Wireless I had a dream once where I was in an airport at night and all the lights were turned off, the walls were glass and mirrors and I could see (+ hear?) distant shadows but never meet anyone, I was alone in all the rooms I went into. The only lights were the bright full moon, visible everywhere through the glass and reflected in the mirrors so I could still sort of see where I was (the night was as blue as night can get), and tiny LEDs from devices and boxes on the walls. At the end of the dream, I find the exit and leave but the entire city outside the airport is turned off and deserted in the same way. It’s just me, shadows and the moon. This could have been music for this airport. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Ralph Ellison _ Invisible Man Hits hard for a 1952 book. Of course they didn’t teach me about that in school.
	Percival Pembroke _ Arpeggiatorworld Meticulously crafted short, melodic ambient synth tracks — peaceful, very pleasant and strangely nostalgic. I’m more of a long-form gal and would have loved to have a very long track for contrast, but these short ones do a great job of evoking imaginary worlds. ▷ Bandcamp (original; name-your-price download) ▷ Bandcamp (++ reissue with bonus tracks; name-your-price download) ▷ RYM
	Gallowglas _ I Dream I See You Hit the Water, I Dream I See You Change Your Mind Was looking for more stuff by Johan G Winther (Eating or Vomiting Its Tail is glorious, colorful electric guitar noise, gushing out everywhere), unexpectedly found this completely different project by him — an album of very melancholic (even depressing) songs that reminds me more of David Sylvian. (I would check out Sylvian first because he’s better and has an amazing voice, but this one is worth a listen too!) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	ASC _ House of Leaves Yes, I was drawn to this EP because it’s all references to Danielewski’s novel, and no, I wouldn’t have guessed there was any link just by listening since it’s all instrumental, mysterious atmospheric drum and bass. Not quite the same pitch-black, dizzying feeling of explorating an Eldritch text and architecture I get from the book, but it’s good too and has its own atmosphere! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Tarsier Studios _ Little Nightmares At first I thought this might be a lesser version of PlayDead games, but despite the similarities this stands up on its own as an original, genuinely scary and disturbing little world. The lack of any words or obvious explanations makes it really work; the graphics and lighting are beautiful. My only complaint is the sluggish/unresponsive controls, which were okay most of the time but made some passages a lot more frustrating than they should have been. ▷ Steam
	Radical Dreamland _ ESC Excellent sci-fi story by Lena Raine, about networks and identities and old-school computer roleplaying (all text and audio plus a couple of visual embellishments — no choices, it’s a linear story, but with different storylines that are all exciting to follow). I probably should have played it before, at a time when “AI” still made me think of sci-fi, the singularity and all that, instead of the dehumanizing tools capitalism has thrown up at us — cf. Lily Alexandre’s latest video; this probably diminished the impact of the revelation a little bit, and for completely unfair reasons which I can’t blame the author for. But I loved everything else, including the epilogue. ▷ itch.io (name-your-price download)

April

	きくおはな [KikuoHana] _ 第一幕 + 第二幕 Hatsune Miku’s robotic voice was a perfect fit for Kikuo’s strangely beautiful, artificial-gem-like songs on his previous records. Here she’s replaced by a human singer, bringing not just a change in vocal richness/quality (and she’s good!) but perhaps in meaning too? A human being playing the main role — or the host — in a dazzling spectacle featuring a flurry of automata, telling cruel and tragic tales of bleeding hearts and lost souls in cursed monuments; emotionally this is very intense. The jazzy parts make this even better! I would say both albums are equally good, Act I being super intense and Act II a little bit more on the electronic + jazzy + crepuscular side. (Actually the mastering is also a bit different and better on Act II) ▷ Subcul-rise (一) (二) (in Japanese only) ▷ RYM (一) (二)
	Black Dresses _ Forever in Your Heart NO HOPE NO HOPE CAN WE MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL WITH NO HOPE When I first got into Black Dresses I found them a bit too intense / overwhelming for a whole album — I don’t just mean sonically but emotionally, they never let you get comfortable — but now that I have transitioned myself and we’re all living in a dumpster fire world that will only get worse in the foreseeable future, well, here we are (My favourite albums list still has 90s industrial rock I discovered when I was a teenager, here’s hoping something queerer will replace it) “PEACESIGN!!!!!!!!!” is possibly my favourite song by them yet, but I also love “Bulldozer”, weirdly restrained and perhaps even more impactful for it (apparently it is almost a Girls Rituals song, which I’ve been getting into as well) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	0N4B _ Somewhere, Left Behind Gently rhythmic, softly glitchy ambient, not too formulaic as it evolves in a rather free, organic way. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Lil Ugly Mane _ Third Side of Tape I like super long world-albums that go through 23 genres and sort of sound like the artist dumping everything they’ve recorded that didn’t fit elsewhere, sometimes those are hit-and-miss (I always wished I liked Beck’s Stereopathetic Soulmanure as much as the idea of it) but this one works throughout, dope beats + the quirkier / noisier / funnier it gets the more I like it Also nice that this edition has separate tracks, it’s a small pet peeve but I like knowing what each part is called when it’s playing (I don’t have a seagull plushie but we brought mum one back from Britanny last summer + I just bought an axolotl plushie for myself) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Ania Losinger & Matthias Eser _ Shanghai Patterns A series of gentle but lively rhythmic passages evoking city life, pleasant yet always a little tense, and here a little strange too; played on marimba, percussions and xala III (a cool invention that’s both instrument and dance platform, playing rhythms as you dance to them). These artists and label are very good at minimalism and this one is one of my favourite records by them yet! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Hammok _ Look How Long Lasting Everything Is Moving Forward for Once Sometimes I might just want rage and post-punk that screams in your face for half an hour, the energy here is incredible and it’s not even messy nor chaotic, their sound is just tight Thanks to berays for the recommendation! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	mu tate _ Let Me Put Myself Together I was already familiar with Perila and Exael but I only just learned about "mineral ambient", which is a great direction for ambient music: plenty of textures and beats and bass but only as subtle, intricate background elements. Also, interesting, sometimes paradoxical contrasts. I like all the records I’ve heard by mu tate so far but this one could be my favourite, it sounds like… drifting into a very dreamful sleep in a forest under a starry sky and a heavy blanket maybe. Thanks to nlm for telling me about this and for the 0N4B record above! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Yumi Iwaki _ Juniper Think of a progressive electronic album as a large, impressive psychedelic illustration; this, then, would be a series of sketchbook drawings partly inspired by it but smaller, slower, more personal. Reminds me in a good way of some old cassette ambient works too. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Kim Gordon _ The Collective Nice to hear a long-time favourite cover new ground! Kim Gordon doing industrial hip hop may sound surprising but it’s almost a natural fit for her arty, cold vocals that always have an unexpected edge, and the beats do have that noisy and dissonant quality no wave already had. “I’m a Man” feels like an ominous growl, “The Believers” is almost dizzyingly dark and brutal when the beats drop. I like this better than Sonic Youth’s last albums. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Trudge _ No More Motivation Halfway between blissful, colorful dream trance and slower, sparser ambient techno realms. Thanks to Ayaash for the discovery! ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Edgar the Beatmaker _ Darkest Shades of Blue Do comic art, jazz and hip hop beats make everything cooler? (Wish this were longer) ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Facta _ Montpelier EP (I’m dumbly annoyed at the fact that this isn’t a typo, there actually is a city named Montpelier with one L in the USA — to any French person that just looks wrong since our Montpellier has two Ls) ▷ RYM
	Throbbing Gristle _ Mutant TG Remix albums may be a flawed concept with inconsistent results, but I like this one — it’s cool to see how you can transition from TG’s bleakness to the dancefloor: Carl Craig stays pretty faithful to the originals and it works, Two Lone Swordsmen’s version of “United” is wild (I love this fast bleepbleepbloopbloop loop), and Ratcliffe (of Basement Jaxx)’s remix of “Hot on the Heels of Love” is so warm and dreamy that it was even featured in a Global Underground house mix if you can believe it. All in all, this only falls short towards the end (tracks 7 and 8 feel redundant and less successful). ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM
	Ashtray Navigations _ Before You Play This Kosmische / psychedelic drone rock, but make it fast, concise, restless and weird. ▷ Bandcamp ▷ RYM

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