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

2020 – Digital compilation

“FROM JAPAN TO THE WORLD WE ARE ∞”

Behind this enigmatic motto lies one rich and fascinating art project, an interconnection between Japan, Europe, fashion, visual arts underground electronic music. Their last project, CREVASSE OF MIND[S], has been in heavy rotation back in 2013 and ever since. After 6 years of patience, a third compilation came out this month, released precisely on Earth Day. 13 track strong, gathered around a brutalist keyword assemblage, both a mantra and a statement of sorts that resonate with the heartbeat sounds you’ll hear at several places in the project :

HUMAN BLOODS DNA EARTH HUMAN BLOODS DNA EARTH

https://utopiansocietys.bandcamp.com/album/a-connexion-of-blood-s

Expect rich aesthetic deconstructions and soundscapes in this project. Starting with a strong abstract hip hop segment with Wad Plasma Automator & T-DK’s ‘阿 ー 魂道’ (could be translated as Soul Road, check notes below*), chaos × ksk,s ‘o’clock’ and rich asymetrical beats by french producer Le Parasite’s Fractal Cosmology (present both their and our latest compilations), the projects mutates towards more minimalistic electronica / dub-techno with Anonumous Letter’s remix of AKI PALLADIUM, Taishin Inoue’s Distant City lights, before diving in complextro territory, incorporating various blends of IDM and breakbeat for a couple dense tracks. Then, after a swift transition to more ambient material, hydrant house purport rife on sleepy’s troumen (also on Thirty Three Records’ catalogue, gotta check this out) we unexpectedly switch back to lo-vibes hip hop with the laidback Gan-Kyu by mic.edu. Not the latest surprise you’ll get from that release, and we’ll leave the rest for you to discover.

Spot our program at https://unlog.info/radio in the next few days, you might see it appear as a featured release in our listening sessions time slots.

If you want to leave this to chance, just connect to our radio and see what happens. If you don’t just go and grab it on their bandcamp below.

*We’ve been lucky to have some more detailed explanations of the titles of intro and outro by one of the initiators of this project :

Track 1 : 阿 means ” birth “, ” beginning of universe ” in Buddhism. – 魂道 – is original subtitle for 阿 which means Soul Road.
And track 13 吽 is a set of words with 阿. 吽 means ” dead “, ” end of universe ” in Buddhism. We say 阿吽 A UN basically.

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

NYC based soundscaper Oddlogic (Outlier Records) just self-released this 3-track EP.

If you haven’t already, we highly recommend checking the rest of his discography on Bandcamp.

https://oddlogic.bandcamp.com/album/nova-scotia-76

EN :

_Vince Konigan: A label-favourite for some time now, Vince Konigan is a Canadian composer and performer who has been active on the Montreal scene for years. He was a long-time drummer in noise rock bands, and his talents in classical piano and interest in electroacoustic soon led him to nurture a passion for analog synthesizers and field recording. Always interested in intersections with visual art, he collaborated on the project ‘Plateaux’ – a real-time immersive A/V performance created with visual artist Vincent Brault as part of an artistic residency in the Dome at the Society of Technological Arts. His new solo project reflects the diversity of his artistic career, and crystallizes his influences into a pictorial, progressive and energetic album that revisits synth music with a freshness and accuracy becoming more and more rare in the genre.

_Border Ride: Vince Konigan’s first album Border Ride – with accents reminiscent of Clark, Suzanne Ciani, and John Carpenter – is inspired by the concept of borders: between real and unreal, one space and another or the natural and the artificial. This is an album that rides into that strange, fringe place.

FR :

_Vince Konigan : Compositeur et interprète canadien actif depuis plusieurs années sur la scène montréalaise, Vince Konigan est depuis quelques temps l’un des coups de coeur du label. Longtemps batteur dans des formations noise rock, ses talents en piano classique et son intérêt pour l’électro-acoustique l’ont très vite poussé à nourrir une passion pour les synthétiseurs analogiques et le field recording. Également très attaché aux arts visuels, il a notamment participé en 2017 au projet ‘Plateaux’, performance A/V immersive en temps réel créée avec l’artiste visuel Vincent Brault à l’issue d’une résidence de création dans le dôme de la Société des arts technologiques. A l’image de son riche parcours artistique, son projet solo Vince Konigan cristallise ses influences dans une musique progressive, énergique et chargée d’images, qui revisite la synth music avec une fraîcheur et une justesse qui se fait de plus en plus rare dans le genre.

_Border Ride : Entre accents qui rappellent Suzanne Ciani, Clark, ou encore John Carpenter, son premier album ’Border Ride’ est inspiré par le concept de frontières : Frontières entre réel et irréel, entre deux espaces ou entre le naturel et l’artificiel, ’Border Ride’ se veut une balade sur cette fine ligne qui parfois unit ou divise les choses.

soundcloud.com/vince-konigan
vincekonigan.com

Unlog and EMinQc are proud to present the second edition of the collection of electronic music entirely created in Quebec.
Created in 2012, the blog ‘Electro made in QC’ scans the rich landscape that is the electronic music scene in Quebec in search of rare gems, self-released projects, novelties, and experimental side-projects to share with its readers. In 2017, EMinQC goes further and partners with Unlog to create the EMINQC compilations series, of which this is the second volume.

Between ambient and electronica, textural worlds and synthetic layers, this second incursion into electronic music made icitte will make you discover previously unreleased works by Axel Helios, Vince Konigan, Camille Frey, BSLC, V.ictor, Wiklow, Dom Dumoulin, viñu-vinu and Claudette (TSF & Native Cell).

In 2018, the project will go further with the creation of the Silicon Beats series of events. Silicon Beats are monthly events during which the community meets around an electronic jam punctuated by performances of guest artists.

For more info: www.facebook.com/siliconbeats/

Contact:

A & R: eminqc@gmail.com
General info: hello@unlog.info

Credits

Released October 29, 2018

Mastering: Jean-Patrice Remillard (audioservices.studio)
Art: Jérôme Guilleaume
Cover: Mourad Bncr
Compilation montée sous la supervision de Jérôme Guilleaume