Video: Pinty – Nightcrawler
City Limits – Pinty’s debut EP – Out Now – Listen To / Purchase Here: https://rhythmsection.lnk.to/Pinty
This was Filmed over 24 hours around South London on a cold January Night .
Video: Sarah P. – Maenads
Sarah P. releases the music video for Maenads, the title track of her latest EP, which is inspired by the ancient Greek female followers of god Dionysus, who were known for their superhuman strength, sticking together, and fighting for their beliefs.
Maenads EP garnered love from critics and fans and has been streamed more than 1 million times across platforms since its release in December.
Maenads is a disco-inspired song about those nights that are empty of feelings. The video’s visuals are a fast-forward to Sarah’s life in Berlin – rather secluded, away from distractions. “This isolation-by-choice gave me time to process life events that had shaped me.”
The song’s video features Sarah and Sabina Smith-Moreland cast as a bird that symbolizes mental illness. The video shows the importance of coming to terms with own struggles while not letting them overtake one’s life. “I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety for a long time, but I’m convinced that it’s possible to control one’s mental health, rather than living a life controlled by mental illness,” Sarah shares.
“Mental illness never truly goes away, but learning more about it can help understand what’s going on inside your body and mind and therefore, control it better.”
Kidswaste – Sleeping Pills (feat. KOLE)
French producer Kidswaste (aka Quentin Beauvois) is staking his claim as one of the most innovative and promising artists in electronic music. Barely in his 20s, the multi-instrumentalist and songwriter satisfies his creative needs through three separate projects —Kidswaste, Beauvois and Slow Hours (a collaborative effort with five other producers). Kidswaste’s music has seen him tour across North America over the past 18 months with appearances at historic venues and landmark festivals alike. Now, he is moving towards the next phase of his career with the release of his first single of 2019, “Sleeping Pills” featuring KOLE. “Sleeping Pills” is out now via Counter Records.
“Sleeping Pills” is probably one of the most personal songs I’ve ever written. It’s about finding yourself totally overwhelmed by lots of things changing and growing in your life, between being in a long distance relationship and trying to realise your dreams. The outcome (metaphorically speaking) of the story is to find a vice or getaway to escape the never-ending loop of being stuck in your own mind and anxieties. I’ve actually worked with KOLE on a few tracks now, and I really love what she brought to this one.” – Kidswaste
Since beginning to release music under the name Kidswaste in 2015, Quentin has been developing his signature sound that he describes as a fusion between indie, electronic, folk and pop. He released his first EP Spleen in 2017, garnering support from acclaimed dance music outlets Billboard, This Song is Sick, Dancing Astronaut, NESTHQ and many more. Additionally, his 2017 collaboration with Manila Killa “Tonight” has been streamed nearly 6 million times on Spotify alone and received three New Music Friday placements upon release.
With an extremely busy year of firsts behind him, Kidswaste is primed to carry that momentum with him throughout the year. Alongside the release, Kidswaste will join DROELOE on a leg of their upcoming tour, as well as a festival appearance at BUKU Music & Art Project in New Orleans.
Amy Douglas – Never Saw It Coming (Justin Strauss Remix)
Justin Strauss shares his take on NYC singer Amy Douglas’ track “Never Saw It Coming.” The original limited release 12” was co-written and produced by Tim Wagner of 33Hz, with two remixes by Sheffield artist Crooked Man. With a five-octave range and a diverse background in performance, ranging from rock to soul to jazz, Douglas’ voice is the heart of the song, lending heightened drama to the steady mechanical funk of Wagner’s production.
Though this is Douglas’ first release on the label, she is no stranger to the DFA roster. She is the voice behind “Happiness,” the epic closing track on Crooked Man’s self-titled 2016 LP, and also appears on Crooked Man’s 2018 album Crooked House. Amy also works with Juan Maclean as one half of Peach Melba, who have released singles on both DFA and Defected / Classic. Most recently, she co-wrote and sung the Horse Meat Disco single, “Let’s Go Dancing.”
Legendary NYC DJ Justin Strauss is a staple of the scene and one half of production duos Whatever/Whatever and a/jus/ted. A longtime friend of DFA, his career as a go-to remixer spans decades, and he has remixed artists as diverse as Blood Orange, Ryuichi Sakamoto, 808 State, Franz Ferdinand, and Depeche Mode. This is his fifth remix for the label.
Com Truise – Existence Schematic [Epilepsy Warning]
For nearly a decade the story of Com Truise has relied on science fiction and abstract fact. Seth Haley’s singular style of melodic beat music subsists as hazy machinist nostalgia, a mainframe downloaded cosmology. Yet with each release, alongside sonic refinement, comes an increasingly visible vapor trail to Haley’s own ontology. His long-awaited 2017 LP Iteration brought to completion a conceptual space saga while also reflecting seismic life changes for the producer and designer. With mini-LP Persuasion System, Haley leaves the past narrative behind, settling into a new period marked by change — on this planet, in the present — putting forth his most grounded and visceral work to date.
The project began as an experiment. Haley switched digital audio workstations, rebuilt his palette of sounds, and tasked himself with simply trying it out. The exercise freed him of expectations and permitted a process that echoed the tones of more immediate external environments. A gravity had seeped in; resulting material shifts between bleakness and sublime suspense, awe at the expanse of existing, in looking back and letting go. “It’s a sort of sad smile and a wave goodbye but at the same time hello, a ‘welcome to your life’ moment,” Haley says. Take the storm pattern sequence from “Gaussian” to “Ultrafiche of You”: a queasy, contemplative vignette rests on a single soft-synth cloud before the latter’s percussion ripples across the sky. With trademark stutters and swells, the composition conjures the sensation of searching in the afterglow. “It’s a love song, and I don’t write many of those.”
That duality — melancholy + optimism, then + now — permeates this widescreen collection. “Existence Schematic” takes flight at night, “looking down at the landscape,” explains Haley, “seeing the lights in a schematic sort of way, wondering who or what is looking back up at me wondering the same things I am, the impact of a single existence, the end, the beginning, where it’s gone and going.” These are observations from this existential Persuasion System, and Haley hopes the music yields more, for others, that listeners may search for their own tension and release.
Franz Matthews & Local Suicide – Meditation
Having previously featured on Eskimo Recordings’ 2018 compilation ‘The Purple Collection’ as one half of Languages, Franz Matthews returns to the label alongside fellow Berliners Local Suicide with the ‘Meditation’.
Despite living on the same street for 4 years Franz Matthews and Brax Moody and Vamparela from Local Suicide only met recently through their common friend Sam Berdah (Days of Being Wild, Club Bizarre). Making up for lost time, the trio soon found themselves bonding in the studio, digging into their love of both the esoteric and travelling, and together channelled those passions into 2 spiritually infused numbers.
‘Meditation’was the first result of this inspired partnership, appropriately recorded at the same time that Matthews was also recording music for a meditation app, and features a freeform stream of consciousness from Vamparela over a suitably hypnotic backing of wistful guitars and breezy rhythms.
Between his production studio MOWD, his duo Languages, and his solo electronic project, Franz Matthews keeps himself busy. Making Berlin his hometown for the past 5 years, the Franco-German producer and DJ has always kept one hand in the Indie Dance world, while the other wanders in more Psychedelic Pop realms, a winning combination that’s seen him release music on imprints such as Eskimo Recordings, Days of Being Wild, Rockets & Ponies.
Local Suicide, aka DJs and producers Brax Moody and Vamparela, meanwhile have made a name for themselves putting on some of the most infamous underground parties Berlin has to offer, running their acclaimed blog and still finding time to make waves with their productions, a wild fusion of new wave, acid, slow techno and post-disco that has seen them work with the likes of Rodion, Mijo and Curses in recent years.
Janus Rasmussen (Kiasmos)- Lilla
Janus Rasmussen, one half of the critically acclaimed minimal techno duo KIASMOS releases his second pre-album single ‘Lilla’ on the 8th of March, ‘Lilla’ is taken from his upcoming debut solo album Vín which is set for release on the 29th of March via Christian Löffler’s Ki Records.
Leading up to the release of Vìn, Janus Rasmussen released the pre-album single, ‘Green Wine’ along with its accompanying shadow puppet music video on the 8th of February via one of the biggest culture and music sites in Brazil, Omelete.
Janus Rasmussen is not only part of Kiasmos, but also forms part of the electro-pop quartet Bloodgroup who has since become one of Iceland’s hottest musical exports.
Jordan Rakei – Mind’s Eye
Back from an extended studio hibernation, Jordan Rakei releases new single ‘Mind’s Eye’ today. It’s his first solo material since 2018’s ‘Wildfire’ and the first new music in what promises to be a busy 2019. It follows a string of live and studio collaborations with his friends Tom Misch, Alfa Mist and Barney Artist(aka the Are We Live collective); Loyle Carner (Jordan wrote and produced recent single ‘Ottolenghi’);Richard Spaven (Flying Lotus, Jose James, Mala); and Rosie Lowe.
Switching up from the highly personal and intimate portrait he painted with “Wallflower”, Jordan has taken a step back to study humanity as a whole. Overtly inspired by dystopian visions of our future – notably Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, The Handmaid’s Tale and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return – combined with Jordan’s inner contemplation of humanity and our existence, ‘Mind’s Eye’ describes a future world in which wearable tech has been superseded by tech implanted in the human body. “The subject of the song is experiencing a technological malfunction which is flooding his mind’s eye with projections of chaos causing him to question his reality,” explains Jordan.
The 26 year old moved from Brisbane to London in 2015, signed to Ninja Tune and released his second longplayer “Wallflower” in 2017. The record – a mature and sophisticated modern soul opus documenting his life-changing move and adjustment to London-living – underlined his innate and expansive talents as a songwriter, producer and performer, opened up a new global audience and earned plaudits from the likes of Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin (Kendrick Lamar, Herbie Hancock, Flying Lotus) and Bonobo who invited him as main support at his landmark Alexandra Palace show and additionally as a special guest onstage during his set.
Having performed at iconic venues and festivals including Glastonbury, Field Day, Pitchfork Avant-Garde, SXSW, Shepherd’s Bush Empire and two sold-out nights at Ronnie Scott’s, Jordan will play a handful of intimate European and US headline shows in May and June including London’s EartH:
15 May – EartH, London, UK
20 May – Cinetol, Amsterdam, NL
22 May – Privatclub, Berlin, DE
25 June – Masonic Lodge, Los Angeles, US
27 June – Rough Trade, Brooklyn, US
Tickets on general sale on Friday 01 March: jordanrakei.com
Video: Ioanna Gika – Out of Focus
Ioanna Gika is set to release her debut solo album ‘Thalassa’ on April 5th via Sargent House. ‘Thalassa’ takes its name from the primeval spirit of the sea, a nod to the singer’s Greek heritage and a thematic touchstone for the self-produced 10 song set.
The album announcement is accompanied by a self-directed music video for new album track “Out Of Focus,” featuring world surf champion Jake Caster as the Greek god Pan, cutting waves in a surreal indoor wave barrel as Gika performs the song beside him.
Written in Greece during a period of familial grief and romantic dissolution, ‘Thalassa’ documents an unanchored soul facing nature at its most unforgiving. Gika’s unique voice is laid bare, a beacon above the black water of dense, looming production that lies beneath. Her lyrics (recently quoted by Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy in her best-selling book The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness) sung in Greek as well as English, chart a path through her own mourning while luring the ear like a siren’s call.
“A series of deaths drew me home to Greece. The city of childhood memories was in disrepair. I drove past painted swastikas towards burial sites. I said goodbyes and grieved for those I didn’t get to say goodbye to. ‘Thalassa’ is about going through change that is unwanted yet unstoppable. It is a document of the dread, the adrenaline, and the surrender in the moments when you realise the only way to survive the wave, is to brace yourself and go through.”
The theme of change is represented not only in the album’s lyrics, but also in Gika’s production: from expansive opener “Roseate,” shared online late last year, to the stark loneliness of album closer “Drifting,” she channels the helplessness of being plunged into the depths of ‘Thalassa’‘s great waves, along with the adrenaline of not knowing if she will come up for air.
Gika, who formerly toured the world as a member of IO Echo, recently completed a US run of live dates supportingDeafheaven and DIIV. She also wrote and performed the song “Estrange” with Tokimonsta on the latter’s Grammy nominated album Lune Rouge. She will support Garbage across the US in May as part of a Spring tour around the release of Thalassa. European dates to follow soon.
‘Thalassa’ is available to pre-order here: http://smarturl.it/IoannaGika
Morcheeba – Free of Debris (Kelpe Remix)
British trip-hop pioneers Morcheeba are sharing a new remix courtesy of London based electronic artist and producer Kelpe.
The Kelpe remix of ‘Free Of Debris’ – an interlude of sorts on Morcheeba’s 2018 album ‘Blaze Away’, is a sumptuous, slow-burning electronic beauty. Pairing soft synth pads and lilting keyboard runs, with deep rumbling electronic bass notes – Skye Edwards’ vocals compliment the instrumentation beautifully – to create something not wildly dissimilar from the original track, yet something wonderfully enjoyable and fresh.
Speaking on his work on the remix, Kelpe (real name: Kel McKeown) said: “Working from a stripped back original song of around one minute length, this was a really fun remix to work on as I felt I could add quite a bit of my own sound to it, expanding on it without making it sound too cluttered. I replaced the main guitar hook with my own synth sounds which replicated the original melody, then added in some programmed beats and the fender rhodes sound from the original, then further layers of my synths and vocals with a different effect treatment. My approach to this remix was quite simplistic but I was happy with how it turned out as I felt that even though a lot of the sounds on it were new ones that I had recorded in myself it didn’t deviate from the actual original tune too much.”
Morcheeba’s 2018 album ‘Blaze Away’ is out now.
