To be a follower of the KLF is to be a scholar, an acolyte, a digital monk treating zip files like illuminated manuscripts. Trawling forums and message boards for shards of the apocryphal mythos, sifting through various international versions of… Read More
The idea of a home-listening record from Bicep feels suspiciously oxymoronic. Like Orbital and Avicii before them, the Belfast-born duo of Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson are one of those electronic acts designed for the sweeping euphoria of big summer… Read More
For the past few years, if you wanted to discuss one of the most mysterious projects in electronic music, your best bet was to copy/paste. Beginning in 2017, someone started uploading music under the alias ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ—a bewildering… Read More
As the pandemic creeps into its second year, the minutiae of social interactions begin to feel less familiar. Dinners, hookups, and long drives with unmasked passengers are distant memories. Channel Tres’ i can’t go outside is a hazy recollection of… Read More
A hush overtook the room just before claire rousay performed at the small nonprofit arts space Rhizome in Washington, DC last summer. The percussionist sat quietly behind a snare and tom with two microphones placed directly above the drumheads. The… Read More
They might pal around with Huey Lewis now, but the Postal Service were once considered ahead of their time. Their collaboration, in which they sent each other digital files, is routine today but felt futuristic then, even though they relied… Read More
Elevator music gets a bad rap—unfairly so. Like wallpaper, it asks nothing of you, not even that you pay attention; it’s just there to help you pass the time. It’s easy to connect that particular strain of soft, inoffensive jazz… Read More
Life, death, and the cosmos set the boundaries of the Avalanches’ ambitious third album, We Will Always Love You. The record begins with a farewell voicemail—a final communication, we are led to believe, from a young woman who has passed… Read More
Nils Frahm’s dominant mode is the eyes-closed fantasia: immersive, rapturous, sentimental. That goes for his post-classical solo-piano work, which is indebted to both Keith Jarrett and George Winston, as well as his surging electronic pieces, which translate the grammar of… Read More
If the Ramones had grown up on Tangerine Dream and modular synthesis rather than classic rock and bubblegum, they might have produced something like Translate, the first solo album in six years from Norfolk, England producer Luke Abbott. That’s not… Read More