Now Listening: Deep Drone, New Industrial, Downtempo Freak Rippers
New records from Grand River, Civilistjävel!, Rivet, Torn Hawk, and Enxin/Onyx.
Grand River – Tuning the Wind (Umor Rex 2025)
Each time I listen to this record, I fall deeper into it. On its face, I might describe it simply as "beautiful, well-composed drone music"—which it is. But something elusive is at work here, a quintessence difficult for me to capture in words. Perhaps that's because Dutch-Italian composer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, crafted this record from recordings of wind, as its title suggests. For my whole life, I have been fascinated by the sound of wind: how it captures, in magnificence and sometimes in horror, the sound of the world itself. Listening to this record leads me down a similar path, toward awe and wonder. Portioli’s composition, divided roughly into two halves, crackles with energy. In the first, an undulating swell is riven by crystalline, tonal periodicity. In the second, an arpeggiated dazzle dances amongst a percussing whisper. Is it wind? Or is it synth? No matter—I'm falling in just the same.
Grand River
Civilistjävel! – Följd (FELT 2025)
For a certain kind of listener, Civilistjävel! sounds like the future. The Swedish artist, real name Tomas Bóden, has been on a tear since self-releasing his first album in 2018. Följd, his tenth LP in seven years, hones further in on his singular "post-Basic Channel" sound, like dub techno boiled into vapor and reconstituted as diaphanous cloud. But this is not, in any sense, paint-by-numbers genre fetishism. Instead, it's club music recast as drone music, where pulsing reverb and scattered melodies approach a new kind of minimalism—percussive sometimes, propulsive always. Följd drifts through four deep pieces on the A-side, culminating in "XVI," a ten-minute odyssey whose layered throbs and melancholy tonality make perfect fodder for non-normative techno DJs. Flip it over and the subdued acid squelch of "XVII" leads toward a sublime collaboration with U.K. freak-folk trickster Thomas Bush: "Time passes," he meanders in singsong. So it does, but this record makes it stand still.
everett
Rivet – Peck Glamour (Editions Mego 2025)
I've long followed the work of Swedish artist Mika Hallbäck, who first produced tough tribal techno as Grovskopa and then, as Rivet, eventually vacated the dancefloor for more esoteric concerns. (Hallbäck is also a core member of the nascent Sandwell District reboot.) Peck Glamour, Hallbäck's third LP, synthesizes the influences he's probed and played with over the past 15 years—arpeggiated body music with leather jacket glam; broken beats with post-punk sentiment; Coil writ large—into a proper New Industrial opus. It also happens to feature some of Hallbäck's most club-ready work in years, particularly the midtempo drum-circle magic of "Patitur Butcher" and the lurching half-time rhythms of "Sacrosanct." Other cuts showcase texture and tone, like the marimba workout "All That Heaven Allows," or the collaboration with upright bassist Gregory Vartian-Foss that closes the album. Ultimately, this record feels like a total realization of the Rivet project—the record I've been waiting for.
Ews Nsj
Torn Hawk – Flip To Raw (Fixed Rhythms 2025)
Respectfully, Torn Hawk is a weird artist. I discovered the American producer years ago, through several EPs of lo-fi cosmic sludge released on L.I.E.S. In the intervening decade, he (Luke Wyatt) has issued dozens of releases, including two LPs on Mexican Summer and a series of Longmont Potion-esque spoken word pieces, complete with meta-textual ironic hustlepreneur photoshoot. But this new record on Oklahoma City label Fixed Rhythms is just downtempo freak rippers, front to back—except "Make Things So Complicated," a synthy excursion that feels like the soundtrack to an '80s movie montage scene. In fact, there's a palpable VHS tape influence throughout, like the Reebok-hightop-core guitar solo on "Oh Yeah (Cop Collab)" or the samples on "Point Break Font." And though these idiosyncrasies separate this record from the pack, it's the chunky, heavy drums and chopped-up breakbeats that keep me returning. Weird bangers only!
equal speed
Enxin/Onyx – In Rupture (Other People 2025)
Here it is: your soundtrack to the ever-widening gyre. Enxin/Onyx are the duo of New York-based musician Nicky Mao, aka Hiro Kone, and Tot Onyx, a Japanese-German artist and vocalist, formerly of group A. In Rupture, their first full-length album, is a seething, writhing listen, a contemporary vision of industrial music that is truly its own beast. Mao's prismatic sound design takes on a particularly bruised aspect, the perfect foil for Onyx's lurid, hexed vocals—sometimes incanted, sometimes howled. Bitcrushed electronic drums gird bouts of acoustic percussion, pattering like footsteps around corners unseen. Certain tracks enmesh the listener in murk, while others, rhythm-driven, could do damage in the club. The overall mood is fierce, but bridled, measured. Thrillingly, its venom is the product not of bog-standard übermasc genre tropes but, instead, a mystic sense of unease. All around us, the centre is not holding, but this record keeps us company in the meantime.
BenPujara