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Friendships turns ‘I’m Scared You’ll Never Leave’ into a pumping juke track with a lot of motion, moving through the draggy pads and sluggish vocals into a high energy kick drum workout.
Source: SoundCloud / friendships
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Erothug - We Should Have Built From Metal
You can pile genre names on this all you want, but at it’s core it’s a very clever pop tune. Erothug’s style reminds me of Friendly Fires and Jimmy Edgar, and he sings and produces entirely non-ironic r’n’b styled electronic pop in an Australian way, like Oscar ‘n’ Martin and Collarbones.I think the real strength of this is that you can’t tell how commercial or how alternative it wants to be. It straddles the two pretty well.
Further Listening:
Fakesensations - Selfish Girls Stay Thin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmJ2nhhvovo
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Jamie XX - Far Nearer
This new tune from Jamie XX, king of the bass-hipsters and one half of ‘the xx’, fits a fine, languid summer headspace. After the first xx album came out with it’s indie-folk-with-an-MPC sound, Jamie XX pretty quickly made it clear that he was into electronica, with a few dynamite mixtapes and remixes, including his infamous full-album remix of Gil Scott Heron’s ‘I’m New Here’. This is his first entirely solo production effort, and it’s extremely pleasant. Using some screwed James Blake-esque vocals and a drum pattern that reminds me of the Burial/Four Tet collaborations, it is a very trendy, 2011y song. The understated steel drums and set it apart. While it is comfortingly familiar, I can’t think of anything else that sounds exactly like it. Fans of Mount Kimbie and Sepalcure absolutely need to get on this. Jamie xx - Far Nearer (limited vinyl & download out now - http://farnearer.com) by Numbers
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Hyetal - Black Black Black
Hyetal is one of the most interesting dubstep/postdubstep producers out there at the moment. The last track on the album, Black Black Black, is a shoegaze-y vocal tune with tight percussion, dubstep weight and a lot of space. It’s the vocal from Alison Garner (who I know nothing about) which sets it apart, and makes me think that this track, released on a dubstep/experimental CD on a dubstep/experimental label won’t naturally find the audience that will love it most. That audience is witchhouse, chillgaze, spacewave hipsters. It’s a bit like Mezzanine era Massive Attack, Telefon Tel Aviv, this Daterape guy, and Hybrid’s ‘Blackout In LA’, which is a dynamite dance-music-LP-closer from back in the day.
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Saint Surly - LeBunked
Australia is really winning at instrumental hip hop right now. Following in the footsteps of the OG Elefant Traks greats, like Hermitude, Unkle Ho and Pasobionic, we’ve now got a huge number of producers making sample based tracks in a sort of Nightmares on Wax vein with that same feeling of sun and sand that made 90s West Coast party hip hop so great.Saint Surly and his bro Monster Monster put out an album last year called Out Of The Woodwork, which was one of the most exciting Aussie albums I’ve heard in a while. This isn’t from that album, but a new joint (woodwork joke) that Saint Surly put together and slung over. It sounds like there’s a really cool treated harpsichord sample in there. It reminds me of those rickety old sunburned houses you find in Australian desert towns, with peeling paint, sunrooms and rocking chairs. It’s very friendly stuff.
LeBunked by Saint Surly
It’s a free download, and as usual, there’s more in the soundcloud.
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TrakShot - No You Sleep
Remember when chillout was a thing? Not the same thing as chillwave, downtempo, trip hop and ting; it was it’s own sound with it’s own beachside cafe scene before it became the soundtrack to department store bathrooms and trendy solariums. I remember back when I was about 14, I bought a Chillout Sessions cd that introduced me to Massive Attack, Radiohead, Lamb, Goldfrapp and Royksopp all at once. Heady times.This tune reminds me of those glory days. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got some punch, like chillout was allowed to. I mean, you found this stuff in the Dance section of your local Sanity. Queensland producer TrakShot is making some warm friendly sounds from dance-y synths, classic breakbeats and tidy vocal samples. I could imagine listening to this on some high-school summer road trip. Maybe there’ll be girls. Maybe not. I don’t know.
I’ve been playing some other TrakShot tunes on the radio show. Check his soundcloud out - his sound is diverse and there are a lot of freebies up there.
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Oliver Tank - Beautiful
While this is technically a Snoop Dogg cover, it reminds me of some kind of Brian Eno - era Roxy Music song reworked by Hot Chip. Also chillwave. And maybe Sigur Ros. Kind of. That’s probably not what Oliver Tank was going for at all, but it’s a savvy interpretation that brings the emotion out of what was originally a club r’n’b chart-topping hook. Beautiful (Snoop Dogg cover) by Oliver Tank Free download. Win.
Option Command - Horizon Glow
Beautiful ambient work from the Blue Mountain’s Option Command, also known as Broken Chip. It’s hard to write about his music without talking about the place it was made - beyond the outskirts of Sydney, in amongst the tall trees, where the fog rolls heavy on a crisp winter morning. It’s lovely stuff which side-steps it’s own swagger and sits in a place between Pantha Du Prince, Teebs and a Vespertine-era Bjork instrumental. Horizon Glow by Option Command This is a free download, like a lot of his other tunes, because Option Command is a really swell guy.
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Eloq - Why Don’t You?
We all pretty much know that ‘aquacrunk’ means essentially nothing, but now that I’ve said it you’ve got an idea of what this tune is going to sound like. The debut EP ‘Galactic Neckbreaks’ from Dutch (?) producer Eloq reminds me of producers like Rustie and Slugabed with his bright colours, his tough bass and sloppy drum rhythms. Eloq sets himself apart with European pop sensibilities and killer hooks that will leave you trying to sing the pitched-up vocals as you potter around the house.I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a blog for Liquid Electric for about a million years. This song pushed me over the edge. Bangerrrr.
There’s more dynamite up on the Soundcloud, including a few freebies, and a mixtape where he drops a Legend of Zelda track. Get amongst!
