ASCEND

Auckland bedroom producer Lightening continues exploring the infinite youtube realms of forgotten club-classics with this edit of Sonic Food's "Ascend". Tempering its pitched-up late-hardcore maniacal strain, Eamonn Logan reimagines the track as a slicked-up slice of early-90s UK techno.

TIMELESS

Great little vid from LA's Pod Blotz, for a track that's out on their new Dungeon Taxis cassette, Timeless. The track is straight outta the dream-zone, with an undercurrent of crunchy, pulsating noise interfacing with otherworldly drone remnants. Listen to another bit from the tape below.

OOPS MAGAZINE

It's been a minute since I've checked in with our fried friends at Melbourne-based Vinyl Only Tapes / Sleepout Records - but this latest vis-aural treat had me properly captivated. Typically pared back, and taking cues from the stark, artificial functionality of iPhone/Nintendo DS composition apps, Abstract Mutation injects bouncy house stabs on top of its tinny digital beat. Whirs of echoing interference create a further sense of obliqueness - enhanced by the hypnotic mundanity of the dual visual portals (nice how the hedge trimmer screeches bleed into the audio towards the end!).

FOOLS

Serious love for AyGeeTee's sprawling new album Fools. The London producer is a bit of a stalwart of the AM Discs nexus, and each new drop from him has been better than the last for a while now - for instance, check out the Actress Pets album from last year. This album sees him further refining his lush, collage-like electronica to achieve delirious sensory-overload.

Fools is out now digitally, with an LP version to follow later.

CREEPER, PT. 2

Very sleek afterparty vibes on this new track from Olympia, WA based producer Braxton/Palmer. A classically-flipped r&b vocal sample meets some late night Detroit inflections. Part two of the Creeper single, which is out May 14 on Ceremony.

YOUR BODY, MY BODY

Can't stop listening to the nu age rave tracks of producer Yung Diamond. This one has some really nicely chopped up vocals and transcendent builds.

soundcloud

3X3

Excited to premiere a track from this striking collaborative EP by NY-based Spirit Guide and NC-based Every. "Motivation" traverses a similarly rendered hyperreal terrain to like-minded artists like Fatima al Qadiri and Nguzunguzu: glistening, technologically-informed beat music that filters skittering hi-hats and a futuristic hip-hop sensibility through its crunched digital arsenal. Interesting to read about the truly collaborative approach the artists took for an earlier track up on The Creators Project - trading Iranian popstar samples and flute plug-ins back and forth as "digital sketches" that became the final product.


3x3 will be available May 1st via Ounce

CASH HERO MONEY

Seriously blown-out, damaged sounding soul stuff here from Knoxville producer Dolphyn Rydyr. From his forthcoming album, out April 17 on Dracula Horse.

CYBERTERRORISM

Producers Shisa and Choongum have teamed up for a 90s-signifier drenched collaborative album, Seascape 64, and the results are a hazy, half-remembered rendering of some of the era's best tendencies. Standout track "Cyberterrorism" recalls the gutsy techno of early R&S recordings, with just enough of a hint of breakbeats to be relevant to the now.

Seascape 64 is available as a 'name your price' download and on cassette via Hoko Sounds.

BLOODSUCKER

The newest Golden Donna joint is lush and loose, with footwerk rhythms that remind me of Slava's Soft Control EP from last year. It will be on his next album, due later this year.

SWORDBEERFISH

A collaboration between Brazilian producer Babe, Terror and UK producer U (responsible for one of my favorite tracks & vids from the tail end of last year, "Eah"), "Swordbeerfish" soundtracks the desolate scree of the end of the night, where voices & memories run backwards and forwards into each other and the beat rolls on, muted but alive.

Without Armour is available now from Phantasy.

EDGE OF DARKNESS / CREEPER

From a forthcoming cassette + 7" bundle on subterranean New Zealand drone label Cooper Cult, this two-part track from Sleeper excels at the deep, cavernous drone the label is steadily making a name for itself on. It's the last minute or so that really makes the track though; the drone drops out while ominous horns slowly crescendo, and then totally unexpectedly we're in DJ Screw territory for about five seconds before the track comes to a halt with the click of a tape-deck.

HABITAT, AT THE TABLE

Ian Drennan (previously of New Jersey band Big Troubles) has his second album Prelude to Bleu Bird Cabaret out digitally on Pik Disc today, and we're stoked to have an exclusive stream of album track "Habitat, at the Table". As much of a revelation as the deconstructed jazz found in last year's debut The Wonderful World was, his new record pushes further into the realm of avant-garde composition and sets out, so says the press release, to "conflate caricatures of contemporary night club environments, or 'Habitats' with the monolithic stature and cultural currency of archetypal myth."

Prelude to Bleu Bird will be available on CD mid-April and can be preordered here.

DIVIDE AND

Super nice, sumptuous r&b on this new one from our North Carolina fave Top Girls. "Divide And" opens with noisy, cracked beats, which fade away in time for the track proper to start around the 1:00 mark, and which turns out to be one of Top Girls most fully realized tracks yet, with an ice-cold, desolate vocal performance and shimmering, arpeggiated production.

Pretty Tears is out digitally on April 9.

NO FUTURE

Digging on this new full-length from Brooklyn producer No Glow. No Future appears influenced by some of the broken, lo-fi house-vibes circulating of late (check out "Onlyway" for a particularly plaintive take on far-off, slow-tempo breakbeat balladry), but with hints also of a more warped, art-pop side, not unlike the precarious future-shock intersections of Arca.

WELFARE GRIND

On the heels of their mind-numbing high-concept rave set Blue Ocean Strategy (Eclectic OffShore), Berlin-based techno-dystopic art duo AIDS-3D's new track evokes hyper-capitalist drudgery of the best sort.

WERK

This new Slava vid is mandatory viewing, featuring an amazingly pristine office environment, Slava brand vodka, and a matrix-like digital vortex, it only has me anticipating his upcoming full-length Raw Solutions even more. Premiered today by, of course, Dis Magazine.

Raw Solutions is out April 22 on Software.

PSYCHIC ART

//Ama is a new and relatively unknown producer from Middlesbrough, UK who self-describes as "Foggy Garage/House". His sound takes some of the best elements of the sad, rain-slicked post-Burial UK garage sound, and marries them to the kind of far-off r&b house inflections Jacques Greene has become known for. Listen to "Psychic Art" above but there's plenty more on soundcloud.

ASK 1

Mystic Russian drone duo Love Cult are set to release a 7" of whispered drone through the esteemed NZ mystery-imprint Cooper Cult. We have an exclusive stream of the A-side, an impossibly soothing piece of underwater hymnals, whose wordless chants build-up and then ebb once again into blissful nothingness. And seriously, Cooper Cult look set to have a bumper year, so keep an eye on them!

FINER RED

Pittsburgh producer Shisa has always been difficult to pin down and his new album Finer Red is no exception. Made up of mostly new tracks and some older ones that have appeared on his soundcloud, the album explores the gauzier realms of trap and juke, although my favorite track is the liquid d'n'b of "Supergrass '13".

Shisa recently found himself in legal trouble and proceeds from the sale of Finer Red will be going to his court costs, so please consider buying this release.