Now Listening: Innode, Swiftumz, Ali Berger, Cola Ren, Bézier

Innode — grain (Editions Mego 2024)
Where rivers meet oceans, estuaries form, micro-biomes in which freshwater and seawater commingle. So it is with grain, the new LP from Innode, a Vienna- and Chicago-based trio who forge a sound I might describe in simple terms as "jazz meets industrial," Art Blakey meets Einstürzende Neubauten, but that really doesn't do it justice. The album is a masterclass in dynamic tension—not intentionally a Surgeon reference but it fits so why not—where drums, organic and electronic alike, clamber, skitter, and pile atop one another, jockeying for position but never colliding. Rhythms build, shift, disappear, and renew; synthesizers oscillate between glimmering alien beauty and ominous buzzsaw portent. Even at its most abstract, this record is never challenging or antagonistic—on the contrary, it invites you eagerly into its fascinating, surreal realm. Each time I listen, I cannot resist exploring.

Swiftumz — Simply The Best (Empty Cellar Records 2024)
Every time I watch the video for Girls' "Lust For Life," I want to cry. Has the city changed this much—or am I really just getting that much older? I mean, I already know the answer, but that song, and its video, so perfectly capture a particular kind of San Francisco experience: bottles of wine in Dolores, backyard parties in the Mission, cigarettes on your friends' stoop. Listening to the new LP by Swiftumz, the solo (plus friends) alias of the Bay Area's own Christopher McVicker, I'm transported to the same place. Here are ten fuzzed-up garage-flavored T. Rex-inspired pop songs, short and sweet, deceptively simple and ruthlessly catchy—riffs from the lead single, "Second Take," haven't left my head for weeks. As soon as the record's done, I want to listen all over again. That I discovered this LP through Myles Cooper, the San Francisco DJ and drag emcee, closes the loop, since Cooper features in the "Lust For Life" video.

Ali Berger — Infinite Chime (Trackland 2024)
This 3-tracker from Ali Berger, a Pittsburgh producer-DJ with a prodigious digital catalog on his own Trackland imprint—over 60 releases on Bandcamp!—is the first time Berger has committed his own work to vinyl. Because that's a meaningful landmark, Berger chose tracks for this EP carefully, and the proof is in the listening. Both tracks on the A-side are lovely: "2021.05.21 FM Arps" is propulsive and single-minded, led by a chirping call-and-response synthesizer, while "Cooling" sounds like its name, with reverbed dub chords wafting outward. But the B-side, the EP's title track, steals the show. It's a moody long-form electronic jazz excursion that unfurls like a flower, and though it's over ten minutes long, it passes by in the blink of an eye. It's simply a beautiful track, and I cannot get enough—nor can anyone else, it seems: every single time I've played it in recent DJ sets, someone asks me what it is. Tune. 

Cola Ren — Hailu (AMWAV 2023)
Last year, before my friend Anthony made his way back to Shanghai from San Francisco, we met for lunch and he handed me a record. It was by Cola Ren, a young producer from Guangzhou, he said, and he had a feeling it might be up my alley. He couldn't have been more on the mark: Hailu is one of the most impressive debut records I've heard in ages. Though each track varies in tempo and mood, all feature hypnotic phase-shifting drums and crystalline sound design as playful as it is pristine. But what makes this such an extraordinary listen is its uncanny familiarity: it feels like something I've heard before—Steve Reich plays Palms Trax? (Huh??)—but it is, in fact, totally distinct and impeccably fresh. Western electronic music tropes percolated through Eastern sensibility, maybe? Doesn't matter: this record is simply a joy for the ears, whether at home or in the club.

Bézier — Negative Velocity (Körperspannung 2024)
Few artists working in club music sound quite like Robert Yang, aka Bézier. Since his first 12" on San Francisco stalwart label Dark Entries 11 years ago, Yang has pursued idiosyncratic, irrepressibly analog body music: retro-inspired but definitely not retro-sounding. His latest work, the debut release on his new Berlin-based record label Körperspannung (K-SPAN for short), is a collaboration with Dave Easlick, a Bay Area drummer and musician whom savvy weird-music likers might recognize from his work with Jackie-O Motherfucker, or SPF, with Adam Keith, aka Cube. Here, Yang chops up, warps, and reimagines Easlick's drumming: "Negative Velocity," just over eight minutes long, goes by in a flash as hollow-core, phased-out drums careen and carom over nervous synths and heavy kicks. "Diabolical Embroidery" shifts gears and lets the bassline drive. "Deep Sea State" harnesses chaotic jazz energy and builds on a looping drum-solo snippet. The live (ish) drums on these tracks introduce kinetic, humanistic dynamism to the Bézier sound, and they're some of Yang's finest work yet.