It’s technocally (you’ll soon see what I did there) tomorrow, the albums are here, let’s get going, with something new from legends of the sort of techno adjacent land, Plaid - Form Falorx
Or for a more modern twist on things, Gold Panda - The Work
I think there might just be other, less beaty stuff out, but without your help, how am I to know for sure?
Very stoked for Plaid! Alas I will have to wait another 15 hours before I hear it (available 9pm here but I’ll be watching tv by then). I haven’t kept up with Gold Panda since Lucky Shiner, as its as just ok to me.
Actress - Dummy Corporation EP
More IDM, microhouse, outsider house, ambient house, minimal techno type stuff I presume.
The Cool Greenhouse - Sod’s Toastie
Second album from the sarcastic talk-singing post-punks.
Patrick Cowley - Malebox
It says November 12 but we’ll see if it pops up on Spotify sooner. Either way, same release week. Another archival release, this time a 6 track mini LP, from the late gay icon & producer of hi-NRG, minimal synth, space disco, synth funk, porn groove, progressive electronic, etc.
My top two most anticipated releases of this week:
Jazzy electronica infused with sounds from Hindustani classical music.
The follow up to the politically charged, award-winning More Arriving is an Indo-futurist manifesto - in rhythmic step with the past and the present, it sets out to describe a route forward. KALAK celebrates a rich South Asian culture of music and literature, which resonates with spirituality and community, while envisaging a better future from those building blocks.
Wau Wau Collectif’s second album, Mariage, is instilled with a newfound sense of purpose. Expanding upon the inspirational themes of their acclaimed 2021 debut, Yaral Sa Doom (Educate The Young), this long-distance collaboration from musicians in Senegal, led by Aurora Kane, and Sweden’s Karl Jonas Winqvist is an even more stylistically expansive affair. Joyful children’s songs collide with fuzzy guitar solos and thumping hip-hop beats. Shimmering synths lift off from the plunky percussion of the balafon and versatile sounds of the 22-string kora. Familiar voices from the first album return with more explicitly political lyrics, while the music feels both rhythmically dense and sonically weightless, flowing from one spellbinding moment to the next.
Latest from South London pianist - recorded in London and Sierra Leone. LOVED his last one Help from a couple of years ago…
Christina Vantzou - No 5
Christina Vantzou is a composer and multi-media artist who creates long, slow-moving ambient soundscapes that blend electronics and sampled elements with orchestral arrangements.
First album for several years & it’s nothing like what’s come before, he’s picked up a guitar & put out a very 80’s inspired & sounding album. Features include Julianna Barwick, Paul Banks & Joe Goddard.
Now for a slew of Hip-Hop/ Rap releases…
Nas - Kings Disease III
Nas over Hit Boy beats for a fourth consecutive release.
Homeboy Sandman - Still Champion
An upbeat album, which Homeboy attributes to being in a better place mentally.
AJ Suede - Darth Sueder 7: Rogues Gallery
Fourth release of the year for AJ Suede, this one entirely produced by himself.
Akai Solo - Spirit Roaming
Some nice production on this underground hip-hop release from Backwoodz Studioz the home of Armand Hammer, who appear for a feature.
CHANCHA VIA CIRCUITO - La Estrella
Argentinian artist Chancha Via Circuito (aka Pedro Canale) fifth album of “cumbia-inspired electronic music that takes cues from environmental sounds and South American folkloric traditions”.
Some good guests on the album including the Meridian Brothers
Fenella - The Metallic Index
Experimental ambient. Second album from Jane Weaver’s experimental ensemble in collaboration with Peter Philipson and Raz Ullah. Loosely based on an account of the short-lived abilities of a young psychic nurse in 1920’s London, this is “a hallucinogenic excursion into ambient textures and hypnagogic drones”.
Ernest Hood - Back to the Woodlands
Previously unheard 70s album of zither, synths and field recordings by ambient pioneer. On the Freedom to Spend label which is on a superb run of reissues form this year with the Universal Liberation Orchestra one in January and Cheri Knight’s American Rituals in July.
“Written and recorded between 1972 and 1982 in Western Oregon, Back to the Woodlands is a previously unreleased, and nearly lost, album made by Ernest Hood during the same era as his near mythical album Neighborhoods (now considered a bit of an ambeint classic). A visionary combination of field recordings, zithers, and synthesizers, Back to the Woodlands offers an unprecedented depth of access to this singular artistic mind.”
Breanna Barbara - Nothin’ But Time
New York psychy bluesy pop. Of the pre-release songs, I really like the album closer, Weaning, which goes for it a bit more.
Helena Hauff - Living With Ladybirds EP
Techno. Latest on fabric Originals, this EP by German techno DJ Helena Hauff. “With ‘Living With Ladybirds’ Hauff lays down four EBM-infused tracks recorded in her method of using strictly analogue equipment. There’s the eccentric electro of ‘Jonas’, the travelling melody behind ‘Your Turn To Fly’, the stripped down pulsing techno of ‘Touching Plastic’ and the rich rolling acid techno of ‘Pinch’.”
Mister Strange - Nothing At All EP
Six tracks of fuzzy garage rock from Manchester.
Someone in the October album thread. It’ll live with me forever.
There was also slander about December being a poor month… It’ll be hard to forgive that one too.