Fresh Kicks 88: Lugh
On his debut EP, ‘Hélico’, Berlin-based, west of Ireland-born artist Lugh fused ambience with aggression, creating an experience that was at once absorbing and intense. Layers of wordless, altered vocals, spectral percussive thuds and broad brushstrokes of distorted melody combined to make a collection that was hauntingly dreamlike, but steadfastly robust.
As co-founder of art and music collective C.A.N.V.A.S and as an artist in his own right, Lugh has plenty coming up in the next few months for us to be getting excited about.
Premiere: Ai Messiah ‘Void Droid’
Belfast’s Ai Messiah will release their sprawling debut LP via Touch Sensitive Records on Friday 16th November.
A vast, versatile and experimental release crosses a wide array of genres over its 17 tracks, always maintaining a dystopian atmosphere, the album explores concepts of “near futures in the age of Artificial Intelligence”.
Premiere: Bianca Scout ‘Regalia’
Next up on emerging London label TT – FKA Tobago Tracks – is a split EP from Bianca Scout and AF85.
Fresh Kicks 83: Lucaufer
“Lucaufer is a shapeshifter I would say, a chameleon even. Lucaufer is a kind of character that I created for myself a few years ago, and that has changed a lot over those years.”
Her penchant for music that feels at once latent and innate starts to make sense when she explains her earliest musical experiences, defined by the sounds of her immediate surroundings, of technology and family.
The result was ‘EP1’, and the sensitive pace and process can be heard at every vast and vibrant turn.
“I realised the gift of making ‘EP1’ was the patience involved and that, I had learned, I gave myself a lot of time,” she says. “I see each piece now as a very important scrap of monument. With ‘White Spirit’, at the time - I really struck a chord within me. That whole piece was made with my violin.”
Premiere: Arvo Party ‘D a N S E’
Belfast’s Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party will release his second album ‘II’ in October.
With a prolific catalog of versatile electronics under his belt already, including a sprawling self-titled debut LP in 2017, the former punk bassist has been nothing if not prolific in recent years. ‘II’ finds the producer and multi-instrumentalist branching further into the varied electronic landscape, veering from ambient, vaporwave and komische to more heady, dancefloor ready forms.
Podcast 104: Kate NV
Kate NV has been having quite the year. In the spring, she spent a month in Cologne recording a new collaborative album with former Dirty Projector Angel Deradoorian. From there, she travelled to Japan, where she stayed the duration of Tokyo’s hottest July on record (“Everybody was literally melting”). Later in the year, she will return for the second time to Red Bull Music Academy Berlin, only, this time, she will not be an academy member but will be a studio team member.
Premiere: Yamaneko ‘Hydrokinesis’
Yamaneko has been one of the most prominent ambient and experimental producers in the UK in recent years. Since releasing his debut LP, ‘Pixel Wave Embrace’, on Local Action in 2014, the artist has developed somewhat of a cult fan base thanks to his enchanting approach to beatless soundscapes, new age forms and melodic subtlety.
Premiere: Yeongrak 'definitfinitfinitely xoxe’
We know next to nothing about Yeongrak. The Christchurch, New Zealand-based producer has quite a prolific and scattershot Soundcloud catalog of experimental, harrowing and hallucinogenic electronic music, and that's all we got. Having had an official release with emamouse earlier this year on Quantum Natives, Yeongrak is stepping up now on one of our favourite emerging London labels, Tobago Tracks.
Premiere: Jamaica Suk ‘Vision’
On her new EP for Establishment Records, ‘Clockwise’, DJ/producer/sound engineer Jamaica Suk evokes her backgrounds in jazz, metal, dark-ambient and drone to deliver a four-track serving of relentless techno for the depths of the dancefloor.
A regular at boundary-pushing Berlin party Pornceputal, Suk channels her early influences of artists like Sunn O))) and Godspeed! You Black Emperor to create harrowing, cavernous techno with lush soundscapes propped on top of bone-shattering beats. The EP also comes with a killer remix of 'Clockwise' by Pulse One.
Fresh Kicks 74: Ann Annie (Live modular set)
On his recent album ‘Atmospheres Vol. 2’ – released earlier this year via Cologne label Modularfield – Denver based musician and composer Ann Annie used modular synthesis to craft ambient music of a spellbinding quality, an almost disarming sense of calm and a dreamlike sense of space.
When Annie discovered the wide-open and liberated capacity of modular he was immediately captivated, he says, having previously played guitar and keyboards in bands as well as running a recording studio.
“I was immediately taken by its vast ability to make any kind of music or sound,” he says. “For me, the modular is such a personal instrument. It’s hard to find anything like it.”
