Tracks of the month: August

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TEENGIRL FANTASY
‘CHEATERS’
(free download, MEROK / TRUE PANTHER)

A significant departure from the compressed R&B kosmische of their last single, ‘Portofino’, ‘Cheaters’ is a silken-synthed, lo-fi vocal house track that betrays Teengirl Fantasy’s love of classic Chicago jams by Virgo, Marshall Jefferson and the like. 808-style drums beat out a steady 4/4, but they’re choppy, unquantized and feel like they might fall off the grid at any point, while the raw, righteous soul vocal – borrowed from The Love Committee’s ’77 jam ‘Cheaters Never Win’ – is liable to make grown men cry. We’ve got the soggy tissues to prove it. – full review

COOLY G
‘PHAT SI’
(HYPERDUB 12”)

“DJ Nate, Terror Danjah, Wiley – God bless people who make club music that’s both really danceable and really fucking strange. But Cooly G has just gazumped everyone with this. ‘Phat Si’ is abrasive, inward-looking and, to plenty of people, probably annoying. The only constant for most of the track is the shuffling house drums – filters fly in all over the place, millisecond long woodblocks zone in and out, some bars have subtle, thumping basslines underneath them and then they’re gone. Then when the drums drop out, they’re replaced with Clangers talking. A bit like DVA’s ‘Ganja’, but well, sparser and weirder.” – full review

FOREST SWORDS
‘RATTLING CAGE’
(NO PAIN IN POP 7”)

“Forest Swords follows his incredible, Western-tinged Dagger Paths LP from earlier this year with a new 7” for No Pain in Pop. Comprising two news tracks from the Liverpool man, ‘Rattling Cage’ and ‘Hjurt’, it’s no less mournful than Dagger, with vocals crying out from under sheets of distorted guitar and marimba on the A-side, while the B pairs shattered drums with those familiar Morricone-esque riffs, and dare we say it, a touch of the xx.”

JAM CITY
‘ECSTASY REFIX’
(from REFIXES EP, NIGHT SLUGS WHITE LABEL 12″)

Chopping up a vintage boogie jam beloved of dads worldwide into bold, carnival-ready avant-Funky, Jam City confirms his status as one of the UK’s most exciting new producers. – full review

JIMMY EDGAR
‘PUSH’
(from XXX, !K7 LP)

The highlight of the Detroit musician and photographer’s excellent new LP, which features “Princean deviance” and “gossamer slow jams as good as anything Dam-Funk is rocking right now”. Scientists recently proved that so long as both your legs work, it’s impossible to stay still during its double-time climax. – XXX review

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LONE
‘PINEAPPLE CRUSH’
(MAGIC WIRE 10”)

“Lone’s album was called Ecstasy & Friends. His new tracks are called ‘Pineapple Crush’ and ‘Angel Brain’. It sounds like he had a lot of fun making them. The former comes across like peak-era Chicago house, viewed through Lone’s distinctive hypnagogic lens, while ‘Angel Brain’ is a full-on peak-time party work out, all rave whoops, handclaps and fizzingly synthetic hi-hats. Both tracks are great, although I hope Lone’s feeling alright now. He could maybe do with some magnesium.” – full review

NITE JEWEL
‘WE WANT OUR THINGS’
(from AM I REAL EP, GLORIETTE 12″)

Nite Jewel has developed an uncanny ability to render quite clunky lo-fi sounds as steamy and graceful, filling quirky old drum machines and keyboards with something approaching glamour. Dreamy pop number ‘We Want Our Things’ – oddly redolent of Seventeen Seconds-era Cure – is a case in point. – full review

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER / ANTONY
‘RETURNAL’
(EDITIONS MEGO 7″)

“This reworking of the title track from Oneohtrix’s most recent LP finds him effortlessly swapping synthesizer for piano to show that he’s far from a one trick pony, and enlisting the vocal talents of Antony Hegarty to boot. While I still might not understand Hegarty’s references to the “internet as a self-atomising machine”, his poignant declaration that “you’ve never left, you’ve been here the whole time” reverberates in the air long after ‘Returnal”s last chord has dissipated into the ether.” – full review

PARIAH
‘PRISM’
(from SAFEHOUSES EP, R&S 12″)

“Percolating acid basslines flow like lava over stepping beats, before a widescreen femme vocal takes it into the ‘Hyph Mngo’ territory. Strong words? Many have tried and failed to emulate Joy Orbison’s mega-hit, after all. But this is something else: an evolution, taking inspiration from ‘Mngo’, sure, but also pushing things forward.” – full review

SHED
‘HELLO BLEEP!’
(from THE TRAVELLER, OSTGUT TON LP)

Shed’s new album is a more subtle work than his 2008 debut, Shedding The Past, rewarding patient and close listening – at times it bears a closer resemblance to the immersive 90s IDM of The Black Dog, Reload and Aphex than the stripped 4/4 brutalism of the producer’s Ostgut peers Ben Klock, Marcel Dettmann et al. That said, The Traveller is not without vigour: the helicoptering ‘Hello Bleep!’, for example, is as bad-ass and bass-drunk as any techno cut you’ll hear this year. – The Traveller review

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