⌾ LISTEN TO MY ELECTRONIC IDOL BY PRECOCIOUS NEOPHYTE ⌾
A shining candy floss sky, the sun merely a white blinding circle behind hefty clouds. It's the scene conjured by the warped scuzzy chill of 'My Electronic Idol' by South Korean, Chicago-based aritst Precocious Neophyte, aka Jeehye Ham. Imbued with shoegaze aesthetic, all fuzz and delay pedal, waves of guitar provide a soothing wash of noise while the chorus jostles with riffy muscle for an exercise in deftly dynamic balance.
In the tossed salad of it all there is a mingling of genres, the shoegaze sensibilities centre stage, while Ham's vocals summon the ethereality of dreampop, floating cirrus-like and carefree amid the din of distortion. The bass hums with laid-back psychedelic flair, wandering with the drums to create an effortless groove, a stoned-by-the-lake kind of feel that feels at once feels as awesomely aimless as it does pointed and present.
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'My Electronic Idol' is fresh, new music. It's the first track taken from Precocious Neophyte's upcoming album Home in the Desert, scheduled for release on 1st September on Graveface Records. You may pre-order it on Bandcamp, if you like.
⌾ LISTEN TO BUTTERFLY EFFECT REMIXES BY FOREST SWORDS ⌾
Last month Forest Swords (real name: Matthew Barnes) gave us a taste of a longform project to come. Arriving in the form of a double single, 'Tar' and 'Butterfly Effect', these showcase the eminence of a composer-producer in sculpting new worlds using the same electronic materials, quarried deep from the earth in muddy handfuls, precious clumps.
'Tar' sees Barnes conjure a distorted sonata, skittering noises creeping in the background, like a lament for preserved Neolithic body encased in the track's titular substance. And featuring a previously unheard Neneh Chery sample, 'Butterfly Effect' cracks with living-and-breathing percussion, shards of ancient noises, mosaicked into a beat fit for a bog bonfire.
Most recently come the remix treatments for the latter in a love-letter to UK dance music. A fragmented, shuffling garage beat plays out in 'Drizzlah's Club Remix', the Neneh Cherry vocal weaving among scrambled popping melodies, while the 'Basement Dub Remix' slows things down, imbuing a dub groove with the soul of the original, synth skirling like a haunted melodica.
More dance-inflected fun arrives in the clean-cut collage of percussion in the 'DJ Ron Dixon Clubstep Mix', which is beset with a mash and melding of dissonant synths. Perhaps most fitting partner for the original 'Butterfly Effect', however, is the 'FS Ambient Air Mix' - like a phantom stretched thin, it falls as a giant sheet enveloping moorland, all fizzing greys and gleaming calls to the other side. Throughout these nocturnal, evnveloped remixes, there's a satisfying contrast at work, bringing the twigs and tarot of Forest Swords into distinctly synthetic, contemporary spaces.
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This collection of new music from Forest Swords is available to purchase and stream at your leisure over on his Bandcamp. They've been released ahead of some tour dates (below)
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Forest Swords tour dates:
Saturday 2nd September - Varpalota, Hungary: INOTA Festival
Sunday 17th September - Sofia, Bulgaria: Wrong Fest
Thursday 2nd November - Manchester, UK: White Hotel
Friday 3rd November - Newcastle, UK: Cluny 2
Saturday 4th November - Glasgow, UK: Mackintosh Church for Great Western Festival
Friday 10th November - London, UK - ICA
Saturday 18th November - Paris, FR - Badaboum
Monday 20th November - Brussels, BE - AB Club
Tuesday 21st November - Amsterdam, NL - Bitterroot
Wednesday 22nd November - Arnhem, NL - Willemeen
Thursday 23rd November - Leipzig, DE - UT Connewitz
Tuesday 28th November - Athens, GR - Municipal Theatre Of Piraeus
Tuesday 5th December - Copenhagen, DK - Hotel Cecil
Wednesday 6th December - Stockholm, SE - Slaktkyrkan
Images of summer float by to the drifts of piano in 'A Fragment of Summer'. A cicada screams in the humid green park. Bright blurs of dappled sun wave on tree-shaded grass like living islands. A collection of clouds cruise in a pale blue sky. Cricket and frisbee, sunset drives, salt-washed skin and sandy feet, mopping sweat off your brow on a melting pavement beneath tall gleaming buildings. While the song is a fragment of summer, it evokes many fragments of summer, like a beam of light shot through a prism, dazzling with an iridesence of vignettes and beaming photos.
This is the quiet power of Rayons, aka Masako Nakai, whose playing feels like waves, rhythmic and organic. Nakai weaves in a melody like a tapestry pattern, a motif following a swing beat like the rhythm of a train, a cantering horse, an active hearbeat. Washes of emotion range throughout, encapsulating the contentment, sadness and promise of summer. In Japan, this season comes and goes in a whirl of mind-altering heat, merging the human world and something altogether more earthly, deeply entrenched in the buzz of insects, the burning green of leaves, the hot grey heavy skies.
