🐣 LEON LOUDER — INKJETS

⌾ LISTEN TO LEON LOUDER, INKJETS ⌾

The interior AI spirit of a vast nowhere machine ascending into the vaulted sky, an imperfect aurora twisting and writhing, flashing and fitting with error messages as circuitboards frazzle and crack back on the ground, 'Inkjets' is a masterpiece of malfunctions created by Canadian producer leon louder.

With modulated synth chords rising up and the gentle pulse of soft synth pingpong boops this dimension of glitch and detached sombre sadness spreads out like a blood stain, sounding very like the soundtrack Twilight Realm from Zelda: Twilight Princess in the process. Muffled crashes and electrical crackling, the far off explosions of processes and the evaporation of data: it is the death of a computer.

Despite the metallic tinkering and clicking, as if this machine is attempting to fix itself, the garbled synth doesn't form words; there's no reassurance. Instead the vox is virtuoso in rivers of hummingbird babbling. At 1:40 there's what sounds like the genuine voice of this digital organism itself, a plaintive imploring purr, before finally the chords thin out into nothingness.

---

• 🔔 The fittingly glitch laden video for leon louder's 'Inkjets' was created by artist Chris Dorland ("who makes paintings with malfunctioning printers," explained Leon).

---

---

📠
☟ leon louder Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ discogs ⚘ spotify

---

---

🐣 DRENS — BICYCLE RIDER

⌾ LISTEN TO DRENS, BICYCLE RIDER ⌾

A frantic wallsmash of an ode to riding bicycles, the theme of German band Drens' pogosticking 'Bicycle Rider' doesn't need to be guessed at. The drums are destroyed as the thud fuzz of the snare and splashing razor cymbals become a crashing cutlery drawer of mayhem, setting the rocky terrain where the rest of this track tumbles and divebombs.

We asked the band about the background to 'Bicycle Rider'.

"Our rehearsal room is in a rough area in Dortmund, so we park our bikes inside. [Drummer] Joël saw them and started to shout this "bicycle rider" thing," Drens co-founder Fabian Livrée (vocals, guitar) told us. "The special thing is that we didn't replace the lyrics, because we started to like it. It's our kind of humor and we really like riding bikes."

It's just over a minute of wiggling arpeggios, thrashing guitar and thick galloping bass – complete with stringbreaking guitar solo and vocals overflowing with breathless bite – for a punch-in-the-face parody of the surf sound: instead of hitting the waves, they're tearing up the streets by pedal power.

---

• 🔔 Get this brash and bouncy bike ballad via your fav streaming service.
• 🔔 'Bicycle Rider' is taken from Drens' recently released Nowhere Beach EP, which you can/should listen to on their SoundCloud.

---

---

📠
☟ Drens Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

---

🐣 ISAK THOMAS — SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW

⌾ LISTEN TO ISAK THOMAS, SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW ⌾

With a feeling like being invited into the worn pages of a diary tinged with VHS static, 'Somewhere, Somehow' beats with a soulful horizontal heart. Sweeps of warped guitar play somewhere between a dripping bleak-empty coastal town and late night psychedelic bedroom introspection as lyrics float by haunted by the shade of a person, all set to the buzz and thump of a disintegrated beat.

"Lo-fi sounds from old jazz standards to acoustic folk and blues has always been a huge inspiration," trackmaker Isak Thomas explains over email, "so I was aiming to bring that nostalgic, scratchy sound to a more accessible platform."

And after a crescendo of crushed guitar sounds and vocals interrupting themselves in mantra form – "I know you from somewhere somehow / I know you from somewhere somehow" – sun breaks through swirling clouds for the final third of the song, the groove changes tack and jagged chord progressions streak in.

Isak Thomas' well dusted time capsule of a track, an opened Pandora's box of desire and apprehension, presents a crowded mind carved into a love letter destined for another realm.

---

• 🔔 You may purchase 'Somewhere, Somehow' by Isak Thomas via iTunes should you wish to do so. Or if Bandcamp is more your thing then you can grab it from there, too.

---

---

📠
☟ Isak Thomas Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

---

🐣 LIPTICISM — WELLINGTON

⌾ LISTEN TO LIPTICISM, WELLINGTON ⌾ At first ‘Wellington’ is like a dream where you wake up floating in space: the cascading chimes, the reverberating plasma bass, modulated chords like the PS2 startup, the lances of synth soaring into an unseen distance. But there’s something super grounded about Lipticism’s track, owing to the earthbound first line and refrain: “That girl from Wellington, she says she never wants to see me again.”

The vocal, equally imploring and detached, spins a story with this stark statement: What girl? Why? What happened? Instant connection and intrigue.

And in its never-the-same-twice choruses, ‘Wellington’ is a swirl of glitter, sludgy sub kicks, hissing percussion, the voice of Lipticism herself rising in a nebulous stream; a shredded melodic line, lamenting coolly, overlaps into the next section - something this song does well, a constantly morphing dynamic.

More lyrics half heard in this jostling milky way of sound present the realness, the semisadness and frustration in simple terms: “That’s how it used to be…” and “I can’t read your mind” standing out beacon-like. And always it is cosmic, it is star-flung, sparklingly offbeat, visions of a void—the actual self, alone but catapulted above earthly troubles.

---

• 🔔 Listen to more Lipticism over on her SoundCloud.
• 🔔 'Wellington' is taken from Lipticism's album emergency released via CRY LIKE DONNA which is where you can also stream and purchase it should you wish to.

---

---

📠
☟ Lipticism Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ instagram

---

---

🍕 THINGS THAT ARE TASTY — BALORICCO, ENA VILLAGE

BALORICCO IS A SLICE OF COOL CALM AWAY FROM THE WILD WORLD OUTSIDE

When it comes to popular Japanese food, pizza doesn’t usually top the list. Japan is better known of course for, well, Japanese food. However there is something of a love affair in Japan with Italian food, often in the form of yoshoku: Japanese-style Western food, e.g. spaghetti with ketchup, chopped up hot dogs and onions (naporitan). Whilst yoshoku is a delight, it definitely isn’t actual Italian food, which is why it’s a treat to stumble across somewhere that serves up Italian food and wood-fired pizza.

Baloricco is more than out for the way. It's perched somewhat precariously at the bottom of the cliff inside a former marina warehouse in the small quiet fishing village of Ena, Wakayama Prefecture. It could strange that somewhere like this place exists in this sleepy town; most people in the village either make money from fishing or farming oranges, but the views out across the indigo blue of the Seto Inland Sea, punctuated with the curves of tree-coated islands, make this a scenic spot for a slice of pizza or ten. It’s surprising that more entrepreneurs haven’t set up shop here.

In its repurposed old building the restaurant feels likes a portal into a enclave of cool, a promise of what this town could be with a dose of fresh blood and creative ideas. The Japanese-run Baloricco is decked out with distressed sofas, incongruous armchairs, varnished plywood tables, industrial lighting, and driftwood, reflecting the industrious sea-worn surroundings.

We went for a margherita, for a taste of traditional Italian pizza toppings. There’s an open kitchen here so you can, like we did, eagerly ogle your food being created and then cooked in the huge pizza oven.

The pizza arrived: molten mozzarella with a golden crisp to it, a nicely charred crust and a scattering of fresh basil. Resisting the urge to eat the whole pizza in one mouthful, we sat and savoured the first delicious bite. The base was thin and the crust had a rich and chewy texture; everything came together, the savoury of the dough, the salty cheese, the tangy tomato. There was also homemade chili oil to drizzle and tabasco (a staple Japanese pizza accompaniment).

Chilled skater beats and up-tempo rock filled the space as we finished our beer. The understated Baloricco isn’t just a chance to eat out in Ena - it’s a haven, a hideaway for young couples and friends to enjoy food in a part of this countryside coastline that’s for them.

🏞 PLACE Seaside seclusion
🛋️ VIBE Slackers hangout
✨ TASTE Tantalisingly melty
👛 PRICE Almost expensive

---

🗺 Where is Baloricco? Here it is. 🗺

📠
☟ Baloricco [バロリッコ] Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ instagram ⚘ tabelog

---

---

🐣 TOMC — BAKE THE HOUSE

⌾ LISTEN TO TOMC, BAKE THE HOUSE ⌾ Like trying to tune into a feeling, the same way you'd find a station on an old radio, this track flits and skips between different textures from all directions; discovering and pinpointing disparate but harmonious sounds in a cocktail of audio collage. TOMC's collection of samples and noises spills out like a painter set free, all of it washed with thick, glittering warmth and backed by thumping house kicks.

Reassembling and restructuring audio samples taken from a Japanese bakery, amongst other things, the trackmaker spreads out a blanket of clinking metallics, mechanical squeaks, the sound of trays being set down, fractious bubbling, as well as stuttering synths, far-off soulful singing and slices of lounge guitar licks to quell the chaos; sharp hi-hats cut and shakers alternate to keep the beat shuffling.

Originally created for a company to the theme of "enjoy bread with the five senses", 'Bake The House' is TOMC's definitive intermingling of senses: the ripples of space and texture like the centre of a loaf, the clusters of clanking utensils the zing of flavours, the beat measuring out calorie intake.

And to take it, partly at least, from the inner workings of a bakery speaks of both its subtle delicacies and its machinelike industriousness—breathing like dough as much as it whirrs like a pocketsized factory.

---

• 🔔 TOMC's abstract festival for the senses 'Bake The House' was released via Tokyo label PURE GOOHN and can be purchased via this actual link. It comes packaged with a remix by "Tokyo house unit" Pee.J Anderson.

---

---

📠
☟ TOMC Internet Presence ☟
soundcloud ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

---

🐣 CAM OUTLAW — IT'S TRUE

⌾ LISTEN TO CAM OUTLAW, IT'S TRUE ⌾

The bass booms, the bang and bounce of nascent notions in mind, orbiting themselves in the swell and bulge of the sub rumble. But Cam Outlaw's track 'It's True' isn't just about looking inwards—it's all about these thoughts exactly projected onto external stimulus, namely the "you" sung in the slow sultry hook: "I've been thinking about what I'll do with you..."

Alongside the vocals, sumptuously drawn out and sometimes cut-up, skipping glitch-style like a nervous stutter, the beat zips and fidgets, rattling and cracking the air with razor hi-hats and slapping snares—the anxious, excited physiology that matches those cyclical thoughts.

The R&B feel of those vocals, spinning their lovesong amidst gossamer lo-fi melodies and in the depths of that blinkering bass, pays homage to Cassie's 'Me & U' halfway through, injecting the familiar, quoting lines like romantic poetry – "tell me if you like it" – to further position this as a pre-tryst croon, a kinetic vehicle of infatuation.

---

• 🔔 Stream Cam Outlaw's 'It's True' variously via your fav service.
• 🔔 We'd also like to take a moment to appreciate the Twin Peaks style artwork for this track; the otherworldly yet recognisable tone of the track very much suiting the half-soap opera, half-interdimensional timeless crypticism of the infamous series.

---

---

📠
☟ Cam Outlaw Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ official site ⚘ twitter ⚘ instagram

---

---

🐣 ZAP HOLMES — FLAKED OUT DREAMING

⌾ LISTEN TO ZAP HOLMES, FLAKED OUT DREAMING ⌾

---

This track floats along on two separate plain. One is this floating nebulous feeling, a flowing tide like the watercolours of a dreamscape, the melting mind of somewhere unknown, the swells of the tide of the unsconscious, sweeping along and founding this track on wholly ambient terrain. Like floating through space, it's the infinity of slumber.

On the other hand, it feels close and intimate, though detached and lonely, like the charting and observation of a biomechanical organism. The way samples chant in regularity, lo-fi and wheezing like some artificial life process, ticking percussion keeping time and clacking and sounding the cogs of static motion, trickling along like a living engine.

And that makes sense. Swedish musicmaker Zap Holmes tells us his inspiration for the track was his dreaming girlfriend.

"My girlfirend like to sleep and sometimes for many hours. And I made this track during one of those times," he said. "Got some recordings on my iphone when we messed around at home so I put some samples of her in the song also."

So 'Flaked Out Dreaming' has this sense of being alive in suspended animation, a grand dream arcing over whilst all the time no time is moving at all; those hazy, crackling samples counting the seconds till consciousness. It's an epic of sleep, where it culminates in these sometime crashing waves of charged white noise distortion, twinkling lights like neurons firing on the cusp of waking.

---

• 🔔 This is taken from Zap Holmes' Bluescreens EP - all of which he made on a "crappy little laptop when my main computer was broke. Was stuck with almost no samples and an old version of Reason."
• 🔔 You may stream or download 'Flaked Out Dreaming' via your fav service on this link right here.

---

---

📠
☟ Zap Holmes Internet Presence ☟
facebook ⚘ soundcloud ⚘ bandcamp ⚘ twitter ⚘ youtube ⚘ instagram ⚘ spotify

---

---