Published on
June 7, 2024
Category
Features
Essential weekend listening.
This week’s rundown is by VF’s Kelly Doherty and contributors Annabelle Van Dort, Emily Hill and James Hammond.
Charli XCX
Brat
(Atlantic)
One of the most hyped pop outings of the year finally arrives with Charli XCX’s Brat. Moving away from the overt chart botherers of 2022’s Crash, Brat sees Charli balance high-octane, party-girl anthems with tender reflection on her relationship with the late SOPHIE and introspection on motherhood. It’s vulnerable and exhilarating, an ode to all layers of the IT girl–before, during and after the party.–KD
Tashi Wada
What Is Not Strange?
(RVNG INTL)
Alternative tunings are a fundament of Tashi Wada’s work and with What is Not Strange? the creative impetus comes from an 18th-century meantone tuning system. Tuning his Prophet and Oberheim synths to the system, Wada then let “the music emerge by ear and by feel” before inviting in a close-knit group of friends to further flesh out the intuitive nature of the work. The results forge new zones for Wada’s work, a “dream music” that works in a cyclic structure intertwining drone into song form and bringing out all manner of alluring harmonies in the group’s interplay.–JH
Actress
Statik
(Smalltown Supersound)
Actress continues to be a shining force in the experimental electronic musical landscape. The south London-based producer explores new celestial sonic plains traversing the twinkling lights of the city’s illuminated night sky through to the universe’s outer reaches. Statik, the tenth album in Cunningham’s repertoire, is a collaboration with the Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound. The project is a cohesive testament to artistic liberation that promises to take you on a journey.–EH
Gastr del Sol
We Have Dozens of Titles
(Drag City)
Released almost 25 years after Gastr Del Sol disbanded, We Have Dozens of Titles intersperses the group’s final live show with a host of aural oddities from varying 7”s, EPs and compilations. Remarkable and genre-defying live or in the studio, this irregular retrospective approach feels like a natural way to deal with the breadth of David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke’s experimentation and compositional left-turns. Moving between acoustic guitars, musique concrete-inspired electronics and the occasional field recording, there’s a wealth of sound to explore here.–JH
Falty DL
In The Wake Of Wolves
(Central Processing Unit)
Falty DL teams up with Central Processing Unit to release his first record in two years. In The Wake of Wolves is a cross-genre blast of dancefloor heaters. Chaotically moving at breakneck speed, Falty DL yields breaks, clangs and atmospherics to create a well-rounded experimental body. One for the leftfield lovers.–KD
Miaux
Never Coming Back
(VIERNULVIER)
Antwerp-based, Sarajevo-born composer Miaux presents her mesmerising reimagination of the score to the B-movie cult classic Carnival of Souls (1962). Crafted with a single casio synthesiser, Miaux’s reverb-heavy production and minimalist synth work conjures spectral textures that hang wistfully in the air, a haunting reminder of what has come before.–AVD
Goat Girl
Below The Waste
(Rough Trade)
The third album from South London band Goat Girl (and their first as a trio) sees the group dance between musical extremes, crafting an expansive 16-track album that journeys poignantly toward catharsis. From the frenetic guitars and fever-pitched shouts of “tcnc (‘take care, not crack’)” to the soft, stripped-back whisperings of “Take it Away” and the anthemic, choral inflections on ‘jump sludge’, Below the Waste sees the group wrestle with issues of addiction and depression with unrelenting vulnerability and rawness.–AVD
Mosca
Do Me Wrong / Bax
(Numbers)
Glasgow’s Numbers label changed a lot of people’s perceptions of what dance music could be, giving the world sounds by SOPHIE, Perko, Akiko Haruna and Mosca. Mosca is London based DJ and producer whose musical background spans a vast number of genres. Mosca’s 2011 UKG classics “Done Me Wrong” and “Bax” get a much-deserved repress this year. These cuts were huge when they initially hit the dancefloor and their sonic momentum has not been lost.–EH
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