Eight years in the making, the found sound purveyor Janek Schaefer and frayed loop master William Basinski reshape a piano passage from their collective archive in a meditation on the mirrored facades and iridescent flickers of memory. Inspired by the memoir The Torch in My Ear by Elias Canetti, the percussionist Vasco Trilla explores improvisation as a form of acoustic mask, whose inscrutable face blurs and bends to become not only lucid but familiar. The trombonist Kalia Vandever lands on New Amsterdam for an album of patient discovery, while Mitch Stahlmann navigates the chaotic possibilities of the flute for the Warsaw label Mondoj.
Spurred by their standing among Culturedarm’s records of the year, Laura Cannell figures the antiphonal call and response of birdsong, Aya turns the latest collaboration between Space Afrika and Blackhaine into a warped club smash, Arooj Aftab expands the languorous poetry of Vulture Prince, and Moor Mother reunites with DJ Haram as 700 Bliss for more scabrous noise rap. Ecko Bazz melds gqom and grime with politicised lyrics in Luganda, Keiji Haino harangues and beseeches the art form with densely layered drones on the hurdy gurdy, and the Chicago drummer Daniel Villarreal steps out solo with a verdant suite of jazz-laced folk-funk.
Azu Tiwaline and the Kenyan singer-songwriter and orutu player Labdi turn in a soulful trance for the compilation album New Tangents In Kampala, London and Nairobi by the community music platform Extra Soul Perception. Astrid Øster Mortensen issues windswept missives from the archipelago for the Gothenburg label and record store Discreet Music. Isik Kural and the vocalist Spefy channel Clarice and pick peaches and berries over chance loops and scattered melodies, Syd and Lucky Daye dabble in heartbreak and synth stabs, and Georgia Harmer, Hinako Omori, and Rosalía complete the weekly roundup of best new tracks.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Laura Cannell – ‘For the Sacred Birds’
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William Basinski & Janek Schaefer – ‘. . . on reflection (one)’
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Vasco Trilla – ‘Acoustic Mask #2 (for overtone triangles)’
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700 BLISS – ‘Totally Spies’ (feat. Lafawndah)
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Space Afrika – ‘B£E’ (feat. Blackhaine) (aya wavefold)
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Astrid Øster Mortensen – ‘Hvem Er Det Som Stjæler Min Ungdom’
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Kalia Vandever – ‘Pick It Up (and Drop It Again)’
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Syd & Lucky Daye – ‘CYBAH’
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Mitch Stahlmann – ‘Flat Earth’
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Arooj Aftab – ‘Udhero Na’ (feat. Anoushka Shankar)
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Isik Kural – ‘coral gables’ (feat. spefy)
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ROSALÍA – ‘HENTAI’
