Published on
October 2, 2020
Category
Features
Shimmering Chicago house, electric NYC rap, soothing Tokyo ambient and more.
This week’s rundown is by VF’s Gabriela Helfet, alongside Jesse Bernard, Lucie Stepankova, James Hammond and Emily Hill.
Singles
Parris
Terrapin
(Wisdom Teeth)
Following on from last month’s excellent Polychrome Swim 12” on TTT, Dwayne Parris-Robinson comes straight back to the fray with yet another refined slab of exploratory house music, this time courtesy of Brighton’s Wisdom Teeth records. Taking its name from a collaborative track with Minor Sciences, Terrapin deftly switches up BPMs, transfixing itself on laid-back grooves before it ups the momentum with closer ‘Sabor a Ceniza’. As with other works from Parris, make sure you’re registering those subs. – JH
DJ Plead
Going For It
(Livity Sound)
Nodding to UK funky and jungle, DJ Plead delivers four rhythm workouts for Livity Sound – appropriately titled Going For It – housed in the label’s now iconic artwork created Tess Redburn. An EP with intention, it’s a delightful percussive journey from the Melbourne producer, whose style can be attributed to some of the most exciting club music over the few years. Titular track ‘Going For It’ is a testament to the boundless energy that his productions hold – it is fizzing with excitement whilst weaving in its Dabke and Magraganat influences. He further keeps listeners on their toes throughout the rest of the tracks – offering twists and turns with the electric versatility of his drum patterns – to create an exciting debut outing on the seminal Bristol label. – EH
Sean Price & Small Professor
Latoya Jackson (Main & Remix)
(Coalmine Records)
New York rap hasn’t been the same since Sean Price passed, but fans have been fortunate that his music is still being released posthumously. Sean Price & Small Professor’s 86 Witness is arguably one of the finest rap records created during the past decade, and ‘Latoya Jackson’ is one of the head-bumping, grimy, gutter cuts produced by Small Professor on the album. The flip-side offers a cool, vibrant remix of ‘Latoya Jackson’ featuring an additional verse from Masta Ace – one of New York’s luminaries. – JB
Jing
Psychiatric Population
(6Dimensions)
Taiwanese producer Jing creates “sound illusions” on her third EP Psychiatric Population for Steve Bicknell’s 6Dimensions imprint. The A-side sees her splicing netherworld vocal samples into short and fast bmps alike, Jing gives an insight into her process, and deft touch, by presenting its titular track in two versions. (The slow chug of Astral Projection is particularly hypnotic.) On the reverse, she pares back productions into two distinct shapes: whirling a synth riff into mach-speed loops on ‘Double Standard’ before the straightforward acid of the appropriately titled ‘Mrs Acid’ culminates it all. – GH
TWO II
Nights In The Dungeon
(LBD Sounds)
Operating someplace between London and Prague, Little Beat Different’s focus is split between reissues and edits of Eastern European music, live and experimental electronica, and dance-floor-ready house and techno. Its latest release, Nights In The Dungeon is a collaborative 12″ between LBD’s boss Oli_N and London-based Dempa. The 12″ contains a pastiche of two original cuts bordering between breakbeat and dubby techno, and two remixes. On the A-side, the opening ‘Perlenbacher’ is a smoky, basement breakbeat voyage followed by the lethargic dub techno of ‘Horses’. The flip features a high-octane broken techno reshape of ’64 Pad Experiment’ followed by Nothus and Aubrey’s deep jackin’ retwist of ‘Perlenbacher’. – LS
LPs
Duval Timothy
Brown Loop
(Carrying Colour / The Vinyl Factory)
Duval Timothy follows the release of his stellar album Help with a reissue of Brown Loop. An emotive, piano-lead journey that wears its jazz and hip-hop influences on its sleeve, Brown Loop is a record to spend time consuming as a whole, allowing the power of what Timothy has created to come to the fore – all beautiful crescendos and tumbling cascades aplenty. – GH
Catherine Christer Hennix
Unbegrenzt
(Empty Editions)
A pivotal thinker in terms of composition, improvisation, and alternate tunings, Catherine Christer Hennix’s take on Stockhausen’s Unbegrenzt is, as you would expect, suitably distinct. Translating into English as “unlimited”, Stockhausen’s 1969 text composition for Unbegrenzt gives the simple instruction to “play a sound with the certainty that you have an infinite amount of time and space”. In Christer Hennix’s hands this willfully open invitation is turned to her concept of “Infinitary Composition”, and this 1974 recording bounds out to a temporal frontier with musical thresholds at tipping point. – JH
Larry Heard
Sceneries Not Songs Volume 1
(Alleviated Records)
Sceneries Not Songs Volume 1 gets the reissue treatment for the first time via Larry Heard’s very own Alleviated Records. The prolific double LP turned heads in 1994, marking a shift in Heard’s sound as he began to merge house, ambient and jazz influences into his distinctive sound. The end product is a hypnotically serene series of tracks, essentially the dreamy soundtrack we’ve all been searching for to fill our days with endless pleasure during these uncertain times. The reissue also includes a track that was previously exclusive to the CD version. Sceneries Not Songs Volume 1 truly instrumental release – whether you’re a Heard head or just beginning your initiation into his beguiling world. – EH
Beany Man
The Invincible Beany Man (The 10 Year Old D.J. Wonder)
(Radiation Roots)
Before Beenie Man, there was a young selector and toaster named Beany Man. Recorded when he was ten, Beany Man’s debut LP was as raw as it was promising, giving audiences a glimpse into a near-40 year career. There’s an ease and effortless approach to his flow which is backed up by his own confidence on the mic, particularly on tracks like ‘Bright and Bare Face’ and ‘ Sound Boy Kuffing.’ It’s clear that the potential was fulfilled, and then some. – JB
Chari Chari
We hear the last decades dreaming
(SeedsAndGround)
Dignified Japanese DJ, composer and producer Kaoru Inoue re-channels his mystical Chari Chari alias with We Hear The Last decades dreaming on Lisbon’s Groovement Organic Series. Summoning the more mystical, ambient-leaning grooves imbued with field recordings, intricate Balearic percussion and organic instrumentation, We Hear The Last Decades Dreaming emits lightness and complexity alike. It is not a genre but rather a mood that binds the album together, flowing from the shadowy glacial hiss of ‘Tokyo’ across the hypnagogic vocal-looped time-space of ‘Esfera De Aqua’ and the soothing, watery bells of ‘Suburban Archeology’ towards the unchained energy of the ritualistic groove heard on ‘Saravah’. – LS
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