Now Listening: Charles A.D., False Aralia, 29 Speedway, Daisy Moon, Fergus Jones
Home-listening techno-house; micro-dub minimalism & phantom acoustics; body music as tesseract; techno-pop obsessions; bass music as galaxy.
Charles A.D. – West Pontoon Bridge (100% Silk 2024)
It's no secret that great techno-house LPs aren't easy to come by: productions designed for the dancefloor and for at-home listening usually chart different paths. Japanese producer Charles A.D., aka Hiroyuki Tanaki, splits the difference with this collection of elementally pure rhythmic elegance. Tanaki crafts pristine, unambiguous drum loops and adorns them with gentle melodies, and though these tracks were assembled over the past five years, the overall effect is timeless, calling back to the halcyon days of Detroit, Manchester, or Berlin. Some tracks waft like a cool breeze, pensive in mood, while others propel forward, primed for the club. Crucially, not one overstays its welcome, and Tanaki's sound design, tender and sincere like a warm embrace, ties it all together. Sometimes, simple is all you need.
David James
False Aralia – Zero Key/Selfsame (False Aralia 2024)
What is subtracted from a musical composition matters as much as what is present—a lesson that strikes me as revelatory every time I realize it. Listening to these paired EPs of crystalline micro-dub minimalism by False Aralia, aka Bay Area artist Izaak Schlossman and L.A. producer Brian Foote with submerged vocals by Anya Prisk (Schlossman's partner in the synth-funk project Loveshadow), I'm experiencing that revelation all over again. Both records are skeletal, in the sense that everything non-essential has been stripped away. But that's not quite right, because what's stripped away leaves indelible marks of its own—phantom acoustics. Zero Key is especially limpid, as Prisk's vocals drift through the ether almost imperceptibly. Selfsame, indexed around dubby basslines, feels profuse in comparison. When "04b," a digital-only bonus track, re-inserts a redacted kick drum, the project unfurls in full tech-house glory, a glimpse at what could have been.
Tensen Park
magnoliaaa
Various Artists – 29 Speedway: UltraBody (29 Speedway 2024)
Lately, I've felt that "ambient music," a particular phrasing I have known and loved, is close to outliving its usefulness. This new compilation from 29 Speedway, a Brooklyn-based label and event series, lends credence to my theory. These thirteen tracks, by artists who have performed at 29 Speedway's shows and parties, are mostly beatless and drifting, but are fundamentally somatic affairs in spite of that. Some, like Pent and Dylan Kerr's or James Hoff's offerings, are built around twisted vocal samples, the sound of a body contorting itself. Others, like Jake Muir's or Nexcyia and mu tate's, are meandering and itinerant, kinetic like a ketamine wobble. Still others, like Flora Yin-Wong's or Kamran Sadeghi's, are percussive and dynamic, motion without the dance. After several listens, I realized the significance of the compilation's title: this is "ultra-body music"—body music as tesseract. Beatless, maybe, but far from bodiless.
everett
Daisy Moon — Shadow of Silhouettes (Timedance 2024)
This new four-track EP by Bristol-based artist Daisy Moon dissolves the boundary between techno and pop so expertly that I wonder if it ever even existed to begin with. To be clear, these aren't pop songs—they're expertly produced electro-techno cuts, ready for club use. Three of the four tracks, though, are laced with pop hooks so immaculate that I am, in the simplest terms, obsessed. On "Eclipse," Moon's vocals carom around a set of repeating phrases, haunted and wistful, evoking Tracey Thorn. On "Shadow of Silhouettes," Moon filters and encodes her voice, playing call-and-response with a shimmering synth riff. And on "Meadow Rap," the final track, Moon harmonizes in elegiac mode over half-time rhythms. Each track is just under five minutes long—long enough for DJs, but perfect for "OK, just once more" repeat listening sessions.
Warrior of the Wasteland
Fergus Jones — Ephemera (Numbers 2024)
If bass music is a galaxy, each track on this second LP by Edinburgh-born, Copenhagen-based producer Fergus Jones, formerly known as Perko, is its own planet. Jones, with a bevy of collaborators, runs through a gamut of sounds connected within the dubwise universe: trip-hop, rap, half-time, dub music itself, and finally, tonal ambience. The first half gleams with mellow energy: "Heima," the lead single with Huerco S. and James K; "Tight Knit," with Bristol crew Birthmark, Eldon, Withdrawn; "Stack," an instrumental; and "Can't Touch" with Leila Sakini each feel like four movements within a single larger passage, a whirlpool of percussive tranquility. The final three tracks—with Huerco S., Lia T, and Koreless respectively—eschew drums altogether, rippling with tonality. This dichotomy confused me at first. Then, numerous playthroughs later, I zoomed out, and I realized I had been listening to the sound of a star system all along.
everett
