Montreal Chill Panic is the moniker of a mysterious Trois-Rivières, Québec-based instrumental electronic music producer and artist. Since the project started about 18 months ago, the mysterious Canadian artist and producer has managed to release three albums, last year’s Playing With Time, and this year’s Another Midnight and Journée de travail, all of which have amassed over 350,000 streams on Spotify to date.
Through their three albums, the prolific Canadian artist has established a difficult to pigeonhole sound, which comfortable straddles the boundaries of hip-hop, house, ambient and IDM — with a decidedly lo-fi sound. To celebrate the project’s first year, Montreal Chill Panic released a new composition every day for the 100 days leading up to the project’s anniversary on February 12.
Building upon a growing profile, 2023 looked to be very busy: They had shows planned throughout the year and are currently working on a new album.
But in the meantime, the Canadian artist shared “Day 75” with me. Built around a dusty, lo-fi production featuring wobbling and shimmering synths, plinking and skittering beats “Day 75” is a vibey and moody composition that evokes an autumnal chill.
Emerging Mission, British Columbia-based electronic music artist and producer Adam Gill writes and records under the alias GhostfaceK45, a name that pays homage to the Wu-Tang Clan and Michael Jordan. Gill says that his own production methods are inspired by RZA.
His latest single “Skyfall” derives its title from Adele‘s “Skyfall,” which was featured in title sequence of 2014’s installment in the James Bond series, Skyfall. Sonically though, Gill’s latest single is a woozy and brooding electronic soundscape built around glistening synth arpeggios, skittering boom-bap like beats that brings John Carpenter and Vangelis to mind.
Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his 15 plus-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while 2021’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media — and was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name.
West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album, last year’s Now Is featured some of the most playful and melodic material of West’s catalog in some time, with the album’s material drawing from music, art, film, colors, shapes and even human emotions.
“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”
I wrote about three singles off the album:
The Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk-like album title track “Now Is,” which features a a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios that manage to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before the listener’s eyes.
“World Turns,” which also features a relentless motorik pulse built from a propulsive bass lines, glistening synths and twitter and woofer rattling industrial thump paired with a gently morphing song structure that sees tempo and tone shifts throughout. The end result is soulful, thoughtful electronic music with a human soul and beating heart.
“Running,” a deceptively simple composition built around a single melodic idea — a glistening synth line that subtly morphs and bends throughout. The synth melody is paired with skittering thump and a motorik pulse that propels the song towards its conclusion — a gentle fade out. “I am very into classical music and the kind of structures and ideas they often use, and love the works which take a single melodic idea and create multiple variations from it,” West explains. “That is what I tried to do with this piece, where every single thing is a variation on the opening ten second theme. I spent over one year exploring a huge amount of variations from light to very heavy. Over much time I ended up being more inspired by the subtler, gentler variations, which allow the idea to breathe, which is a theme on this record.”
West’s latest Rival Consoles single “Coda” is the first bit of new material since the release of Now Is. The incredibly nocturnal “Coda” is built around an eerie chord progression that slowly twists, turns and morphs as it builds up tempo paired with skittering beats and a relentless motorik-like groove. The composition manages to evoke a somnambulant and woozy buzz of energy.
“’Coda’ started as a really late night experiment around a chord progression that seemed haunting but also had some strange beauty,” West says. “The whole piece is centered around this theme. I wanted to embrace the dark and quiet moments of the nighttime but also the energy of people who were maybe moving around London late at night with a nod to house music.”
Along with the release of the single, West announced his first North American tour dates in over five years. The tour includes a September 27, 2023 stop at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.
Francesco Virgilio is a French electronic music producer and artist, best known as the creative mastermind behind m o k r o ï e, an electronic music project that specializes in a sound that features elements of electro pop, electro soul and industrial that sees him pairing music with unique imagery and video through three releases, Global System Error, Machines & Soul and Works2k21.
Released earlier this year, Virgilio’s latest m o k r o ï e single “Natural” is cinematic bit of electronic music built around layers of glistening and glitchy synths and skittering beats that brings John Carpenter soundtracks to mind.
The accompanying video by Virgilio features two characters in a post-apocalyptic world trying to escape an ongoing natural disaster, which is heading towards them. Even then they think they’ve escaped into an idyllic paradise, nature’s brutal force is inescapable.
Patrice Woolley is a Monégasque-born multidisciplinary artist. After completing his studies, he spent a few years as a decorator in his native Monaco but then relocated to Nice, where he experimented with Art Deco. and then became a decorator/scenographer — and then a finally a theater manager for Galabru, Lagerfeld, Gilbert and others. He then steps out into the spotlight as an actor, with a a decade-long stint at Nice’s Théâtre du Fou.
Woolley eventually relocated to Paris, where he worked a decorator, stage manager, actor, draftsman actor and painter. He spent some time as a decorator at the Monte Carlo Opera when it was in Paris, and was a temp at the French School of Press officers (EPAP3), where he taught design and editing courses.
Back in 2019, the Monégasque-born multidisciplinary artist releases his full-length debut, SILLIS, a pop/rock effort under the moniker Woolley. His sophomore album PULSATIONS MIND’S features the swaggering”Funky Noises,” banger built around buzzing synth oscillations and tweeter and woofer rattling thump that sounds like a synthesis of Tweekend-era The Crystal Method, Out of the Black-era Boys Noize and Daft Punk.
Fittingly, the video by Woolley features a collection of dancing robots, explosive lights and more.
Sinan Özgur Koç is a Berlin-based, Turkish electronic music producer and artist, drummer and sound engineer, best known as Rozarc. Koç has grown up with a diverse array of music influencing his own work ranging from Bjork, Amon Tobin, and Nine Inch Nails to Siouxsie and The Banshees and Kyuss among others. But as an electronic music producer and artist, his work is influenced by techno, tech-house. industrial, synth wave, downtempo, glitch and IDM while paired with sound design ideas moulded with narrative and cinematic structures.
The Berlin-based producer and artist first emerged into the electronic music scene with his debut EP, 2019’s five-song Odds Are Tough, which saw him quickly establishing a forward-thinking, genre and style-defying sound and approach to his productions while being remarkably harmonious. Koç’s full-length debut, last year’s 12-song Flamacue was released to quite a bit of attention with the album being showcased in FAZEmag, The Groove Cartel, The Further, Zero Music Magazine, R+, Roadie Music, Zone Nights, Electronica.org.uk, and a list of others.
Last week, I wrote about “Sand Grains,” a track built around layers of fluttering and shimmering synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rattling thump and skittering beats that seemed like a slick synthesis of John Carpenter soundtracks, Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is A Dancer” — but with a club friendly accessibility.
Album track “S.S.7” begins with a brooding introduction featuring twinkling piano that’s gradually paired with propulsive thump. Eventually, the piano is replaced with gentle layers of glistening and bubbling synths. The end result is a trippy mix of downtempo, cinematic piano and minimalist techno that nods a bit at some of the atmospheric, classically-inspired moments of Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express and others.
