In 2013, Cold Cave’s Wes Eisold had just released a single called “People Are Poison.” He was detoxing from the bad vibes that surrounded 2011’s Cherish the Light Years, the band’s final release for Matador, and recovering from professional backlash… Read More
If EDM had been created in the 1970s, it might have sounded like Escapades, the debut album from Gaspard Augé, better known as one half of French electronic duo Justice. Like EDM, Escapades is utterly in thrall to scale, an… Read More
In just 10 releases over the past four years, Manchester’s Sferic label has established a remarkably consistent identity—one defined, ironically, by the near absence of identifying features. On records from Space Afrika, Jake Muir, and Perila, among others, Sferic has… Read More
On his latest album as Suzanne Kraft, Los Angeles native Diego Herrera, now based in Amsterdam, takes the pulse of a heart in flux. Written during a period when a flourishing romance was abruptly transformed by enforced distance, About You… Read More
The debut EP from Speed Dealer Moms came out 11 years ago. The unlikely trio of John Frusciante, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist and late-blooming rave maven; Aaron Funk, who makes furiously virtuosic breakcore as Venetian Snares; and Chris McDonald,… Read More
Brian Eno was wrong when he declared that ambient music “must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” In reality, there’s little in music that’s as powerful as ambient; its effects on the mood of any given space take hold… Read More
This time last year, Skee Mask put out a pair of EPs that felt like dueling reactions to lockdown blues, then stretching into month five in much of Europe and North America. In the sudden and prolonged absence of nightlife,… Read More
The last decade has seen the rise of a loose clique of ambient musicians enamored by barely there beats, vaporous pads, and big, dubby bass subductions. Many of them are Midwestern, including Huerco S. and Mister Water Wet, whose short-lived… Read More
For what is ostensibly club music, Loraine James’ productions can feel fiercely guarded. Many dancers and DJs favor smoothly paved superhighways to bliss; James’ zig-zagging tracks are filled with potholes, speed bumps, and the occasional vertiginous bridge to nowhere. The… Read More
Feed Me Weird Things, originally released in 1996 on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, is the Squarepusher LP you could take home to meet your mom—the well-dressed eccentric to “Come on My Selector”’s slobbering psychopath. That’s not to say it is… Read More