10 divr – “As of Now”
“As of Now” is a keen, austere adventure in minimalist jazz from Swiss unit divr. As is fitting with the trend these days, the instrumentation isn’t as “jazzy” as are the intervals, phrasings and general oblong approaches to song construction, many of which may be governed by rudiments as simple, all the way through, as piano and percussion.
..
9 Dead Years – “Into the Dark”
Dead Years just may be the punk band a lot of people have been waiting for for a while — they hail from Germany, erstwhile the land o’ industrial, and apparently have been listening to a lot of Ramones and X, infusing these songs with hefty snares, backing vocals and a whole lot of good ol’ German manufacturing discipline, weaving out glove-tight grooves and a by-the-book punk ethos to scratch all your itches.
..
8 Elephant Stone – “Going Underground”
I think these guys just have glazed donuts coursing through their veins — everything the Montreal indie unit issues seems just sugary-sweet, and effortlessly rendered, as on “Going Underground,” whereon the structural transitions seem not so much plotted as they are governed by one blissed-out, drunk friend falling into another one. True to form, the Stone Roses influence is fairly prominent.
..
7 Kim Krans – “Sister”
LA seems like quite the hotbed these days of minimalist girlpop and now, in the vein of Julia Holter, Glasser and countless others, Kim Krans ushers in an eclectic, gentle and textural cluster of undulating glory, as on opener “Sister”; which kicks things off with the Apollonian glory of “I see you in the snow / And I hear you sing”.
..
6 Discovery Zone – “Ur Eyes”
Discovery Zone (which we ’90s kids know to be the old indoor playground chain with tubes and slides, or the “center of the universe,” if you prefer), is the electro-pop brainchild of New York’s JJ Weihl, a woman who looks like she got a trust fund and ran with it in the direction of egalitarian, culturally progressive euphoria, doled to any and all. Her Bandcamp profile reads “Send me your dream… I’ll dream it too”; and this music tends to soundtrack such an uneasy realm aptly, with falsetto vocals falling gently onto a multifarious, orchard-ripe mix.
..
5 Cut the Sky – “Clattering (Krakow)”
Cut the Sky deserves credence alone for their instrumentation: electric guitar, field recordings, processing, clarinets, electronics, drums. You could bill them, in this way, as a “rock band,” which is quite refreshing, yet when you get this music on, it sounds more like a radio channel that’s been reduced to static than any kind of organized music. But at his best, Waclaw Zimpel sounds like Miles Davis on that clarinet, and you’re not likely to hear music that sounds like this any time soon, stretching time out to act as an instrument in and of itself, over an instrumentation set that seems as organic as they come.
..
4 Meth Math – “Trenzas” feat. Daniela Lalita
Mexican electro-pop trio Meth Math belt-out the sort of club-ready pop that might call to mind Chumbawamba, Robbie Williams or one of those late-’90s firebrands we sort of got to know and love by necessity. The lyrics remain esoteric under the warbled delivery of Angelica Ballesteros, with “Trenzas” positioned as the expressionist centerpiece not galaxies removed from the early Grimes work and its jungle-y, horror-laden approach to techno.
..
3 Mary Halvorson – “Desiderata”
Mary Halvorson’s rock-leaning jazz sextet takes a decidedly modern approach to the craft, even letting grunge rock guitar reign supreme at some moments with “Desiderata,” others of which are mostly saturated with the typical trumpet/trombone jazz aesthetic which seems like it’s paying its own rent, rather than a washed-up curmudgeon just sitting on the couch with a cultural sense of entitlement.
..
2 Kopy – “Night Sarkas”
Kopy is the IDM moniker of Japan’s Yuko Kureyama, beholden to a baffling brand of jungle that will call to mind Jlin with its busy, perplexing array of textures and signals prevalent within one swatch. Actually, it reminds me of video game music, but actually replete with the sounds of guns and rockets firing off, rather than just the background noise. She and Ikonika should totally get together and do a collabo.
..
1 Kopy – “TIR TONE”
“TIR TONE” is more video game madness from Kopy, advantageous for me since I can’t currently set up my PS2, and electronically virtuosic in the way that the best Flying Lotus material — treating the computer like a landing pad for jumping on and playing around as a little kid. The operative emotion is just the state of being overwhelmed, then, a la, yes, a capitalistic society with which some of us might be familiar.
..
<script async src=“https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5127494401132808”
crossorigin=“anonymous”></script>
..
<!– Google Tag Manager –>
<script>(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({‘gtm.start’:
new Date().getTime(),event:’gtm.js’});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],
j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!=‘dataLayer’?’&l=‘+l:’’;j.async=true;j.src=
‘https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=‘+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);
})(window,document,’script’,’dataLayer’,’GTM-5KV22KW’);</script>
<!– End Google Tag Manager –>
<!– Google Tag Manager (noscript) –>
<noscript><iframe src=“https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5KV22KW”
height=“0” width=“0” style=“display:none;visibility:hidden”></iframe></noscript>
<!– End Google Tag Manager (noscript) –>