After several months punctuated by impressive modular rig shots, enigmatic sound design videos, ritualistic filmic objects, and a few singles released on Bandcamp, we finally get a clearer picture from the black and white world of LA producer Snakes of Russia, in the form of a first self released EP named “At Home Alone With Lions”.

Right at the crossroads of all distorted cinegenic downtempo music we love, (let’s say if you’re already into Lorn or Eprom, you should feel cosy here), “At Home Alone With Lions” is a remarkable display of sound design. Grounded by heavy and tightly clocked drum impacts, themselves tempered by calmly roaring basslines and textured synth leads floating on top, SoR delivers a methodic sequence of sonic shapshots, leaving no superfluous excess get in the way. Definitely the kind of project we want to hear more often.

Those interested in his background and production process should check his interview for Noise Engineering, in which a wide array of topics are discussed, from his modular setup to questions of music synchronization. By the way, he’s also released some Ableton Wavetable presets, called ‘Isolation Presets’, available here : https://gumroad.com/l/hXfkb

If you’re only here for the pics, we got you : here’s his Insta : https://www.instagram.com/snakesofrussia/

Quiet force behind Polaar Sounds, a label that delivered some of the most mature and forward thinking bass-music mutations we’ve heard in the past couple years, french artist Flore‘s artistic path has ben a fascinating one to follow. Seeking balance between the soundsystem infused fabric of her DJ persona, deeply rooted in UK and afrobass as you can often hear on Rinse France and her inclination towards more visual and conceptual soundscapes, her vision has spawned an A/V performance project with WSK VJ collective and three EPs, before maturing into the present album, Rituals. What we have here perfectly illustrates that balance between two extremes, where an absolute 160BPM banger such as Coded Language (aaa, too short) lies just a few tracks away from the eponymous Rituals, a 3:34 drony build-up that, again, I could take a few more minutes of. A rich 10 track trip, illustrated by a gorgeous artwork by Dorian Rigal (from NEON MINUIT, of which we recommend the short film La Matière des Souvenirs), available both on digital and vinyl formats at the link below.

https://floremusic.bandcamp.com/album/rituals

Rituals, Flore’s second album is the map of a new continent and worrisome dark lands inhabited by primal energy. 10 musical pieces, 10 clues shaping a musical territory where nothing is given, where everything has to be conquered. From ‘Aether’ to ‘You Were Here’, Rituals explores multiple facets of electronic music crafted with meticulosity. It seems here that every step of Flore’s journey to this second album, every influence, every idea, every reference is digested, understood, reinterpreted and feeds into new shapes, layers of textures, indented rhythmics, and menacing bass lines.

Rituals is a very sharp piece of work by Flore, who delivers the result of 20 years of work, experiment, encounters, and curiosity, all knitted together in these 10 pieces of music. This album is the outcome of 5 years of work launched with the eponym audio/visual live performance and prolongated by 3 EP’s released on POLAAR. Rituals, even if dark in its essence, transpires with savage energy, and opens doors to new musical landscapes, constantly oscillating between interrupted daydreaming and furious dances. Altogether, Rituals draws the portrait of a threatened universe healing in collective

https://himuro-yoshiteru.bandcamp.com/album/view-from-bottom

While incredibly active as a sound designer and composer for movies, art projects, ads, this is the first release from japanese artist Himuro Yoshiteru, since OUR TURN, ANYTIME released in 2012 on OILWORKS Rec. Back in 2013, we were very honored to have one of his track open our second compilation, the excellent “Almost Robot” open for our second compilation, a precisely crafted banger that not only hit like a ton of bricks, but also paved the way for some of our more experimental and IDM releases, such as Fausto Mercier, and Romanowitch‘s “I’m done“

Needless to say, a new album from Himuro Yoshiteru was something we’ve been longing to hear for a while now, and needless to say, ‘View from the bottom‘ delivers. From the dark and ominous ambience haunting The Gate, an opening track that’s highly reminiscent of what we’ve known in past works, we then move towards compositions that incorporate more melodic and cinematic elements that state the obvious : each track of this project is a demo of worldbuilding each evolving according to its own rules. Not only it is a great display of production and composition skills, this album reveals a large palette of influences, used in all its diversity to create an uncanny mix of novelty and familiarity.

In a hurry? Check the track Venn Diagram, and come back later

About Himuro Yoshiteru :

https://himuro-yoshiteru.bandcamp.com/album/view-from-bottom

https://himuro-yoshiteru.com

Trailer for Netflix’s Devilman Crybaby

Here’s our first PLUG’N’PRAY playlist, for August 2019

Hear some tonight for a special Domesicle edition.

https://www.residentadvisor.net/events/1303156

http://sat.qc.ca/fr/evenements/-domesicle-party-5-special-unlog-0

Toronto-based electronic producer thook has signed with Dome of Doom for the release of his latest full-length, the NOISE LP. Landing on cassette and digital formats May 17, the album continues thook’s journey into the outer edges of bass-driven electronic music. Exploratory in nature, subharmonic frequencies, angular melodies, and experimental overtones run wild, anchored by an excursion into dense drum patterns and cyclonic bass lines. The high levels of juxtaposition are bridged with dance culture and formal song structure, diverging two worlds with powerful results.
The NOISE LP feels like an arboretum from its complex shapes and color schemes, indescribable in many instances. The music is rooted to a consistent canvas with lush rhythm sections and a penchant for dynamic fluctuations that retain the same level of energy. Regardless of the sonic palette presented, the music moves with a striking force, calculated in some forms and free in others. A track like “SPEED” exemplifies this to the highest level, with a razor-like synth trailing across the mix as powerful drum patterns and darkened bass lines charge under. The morphing that happens after the main section is drastic yet normal to the album’s flow, grinding out some of the oddest tones you’ll hear in an electronic record this year. “DIGITAL WORLD,” a catalyst to how thook shaped the rest of the NOISE LP, is another menacing and exploratory track, filled to the brim with monstrous drums and catastrophic sounding overtones. As the song winds up and the momentum catapults forward, the transition that follows takes the music into another realm of unorthodox sound design, towering in its unique identity and consuming in its reception.

In the context of thook’s path signing with Dome of Doom, label owner Wylie Cable expands on the connection he made with the Toronto artist in 2018. “I was initially introduced to thook’s music by Huxley Anne, another artist on the label, and after spending some time with thook’s catalog I reached out to him to perform with Daedelus, Holly and myself at the Toronto stop on our North America tour in 2018. thook delivered an incredible set of all original music and we got to spend some time hanging and talking about music at the show. Since then we have stayed in touch and have had an ongoing conversation about releasing thook’s debut full-length album on Dome of Doom, which has culminated into the NOISE LP project you’re about to hear.”
Dome of Doom has pressed thook’s NOISE LP on a limited edition run of 100 solid orange cassettes, with the album available to stream and download across a variety of platforms worldwide on May 17. thook will also tour the album through the United States this year, with an appearance at Emissions Festival 2019 scheduled for late May.

https://domeofdoom.lnk.to/NoiseLP

New addition to Great Dane‘s disco, co-founder of Team Supreme and founder of ADBC Records.

Nasty cuts with an inspiring message.

https://greatdanemusic.bandcamp.com/

More ADBC Records here

“When, by an extended application of ordinary thought, a certain number of the higher mysteries have been assimilated and found intelligible by any one, then the right moment has come for the methods of Slugabed’s research to be applied to his individual personality: these will give him access to the unseen world. 

Nor will any genuine scientist be able to find contradiction, in spirit and in truth, between his science, which is built upon the facts of the sense-world, and the way in which Slugabed’s science carries on its researches. The scientist uses certain instruments and methods. He constructs his instruments by working upon what nature gives him. Slugabed’s practice also uses an instrument, but in this case the instrument is man himself. And that instrument too must first be prepared for that higher research. 

The faculties and powers given to man by nature at the outset without his cooperation, must be transformed into higher ones. In this way man is able to make himself into an instrument for the investigation of the unseen world. “

https://2020ldnrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/binomium-heloph-os-hunt

20/20 LDN are set to release ‘Binomium’, a collaborative EP between Up High Collective and Vorace. The raw sound of minimalist hip-hop beats with a dark techno undertone is a strange crossover of the individual styles of Up High and Vorace. Synths slowly evolve into new sounds, accompanied by a steady 808 drum machine, glued together by routing signal paths through tape delays, preamps in overdrive and voltage controlled MS20 filters.

“It’s the first time we did a collaboration like this. Most beat makers that visited our studio don’t fit our style or just don’t know how to get around with the gear. We’re very stubborn when it comes to crafting our music, we have a certain sound in our head and we stick to it. So when Vorace came to Belgium, completely unexpected and unannounced, we jammed for a couple of hours and were surprised how easily it all came together. This never happened before, so we said, “Ok, let us set a date and do this properly”. So we did. Vorace came back a few months later and stayed for three days. We set up some rules like; no overdubs, no sampling, no pre-programmed sequencing, everything played live, only cutting out the best parts and pasting them together. At the end of the three days we had 92GB of recordings of bleeps, trash, noise and beats: the result is what you hear.”
– Up High Collective

Also, shout out to our friend LLL, talented VJ and visual creator, who is responsible for the animation below.

Latest signature on Sound Museum is this 2 track EP by
Austin-based producer Alexandre.

This is his second release on the iconic black and white imprint, sister label of Saturate Records, which explores music that all kinds of refined experiments that derive from dubstep, drum and bass, hip-hop, trap, techno, UK and footwork.

37 minutes of original abstract beats, bass music and dnb by our friend Sicaa.

Stay tuned, Full beat tape will be available on June 3rd

https://sicaa.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/sicaabeats/

More from Sicaa :