Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Interestingly, over the course of his 15-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 last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media that 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 Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws on music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and 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.”
Now Is‘ second and latest single, album title track “Now Is” is centered around a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios. Sonically while bringing Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk to mind, “Now Is” manages to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before your eyes.
Steve Terry Project is a Denver-based jazz/jazz-fusion/funk outfit. The band’s latest single “Hot Mess Express” is a a loose and laid back track seemingly drawing from 70s funk and jazz fusion centered around a bluesy and soulful horn line, twinkling organ, sinuous bass lines, bursts of retro-futuristic synths, rolling percussion placed within an expansive and improv-driven composition featuring a explosive peaks and meditative valleys. The composition also manages to be spacious enough for each musician to take the metaphorical wheel, catch the song’s funky groove and jam out.
Written during a caffeinated drive across Georgia and South Carolina, Terry found himself humming the bass line, connecting its repetitious nature to the seemingly endless sameness of trees, road, highway sign, trees, road, highway sign, sky. The composition’s horn line is meant to represent the stop and start nature of breaks in the trees — or a new landmark approaching. The track is also heavily influenced by the Grant Green standard “Jan Jan,” as Terry recalls having just performed it at an open jam prior to recording “Hot Mess Express.”
Makaya McCraven is an acclaimed Paris-born Chicago-based jazz percussionist, beatmaker and producer, who has released a remarkable run of critically applauded, genre-defying and re-defining albums that includes 2015’s The Moment, 2017’s Highly Rare, 2018’s Universal Beings, 2020’s We’re New Again and Universal Beings E&F Sides, and last year’s Deciphering the Message.
McCraven’s newest album, In These Times is slated for a September 23, 2022 release through International Anthem/Nonesuch/XL Recordings. The album is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as it is by McCraven’s personal experience as the producer of a multinational, working class musician community. In These Times‘ material was seven years in the making, and was consistently in process in the background while McCraven was in the middle of his critically applauded run of albums.
Featuring contributions from a talented cast of collaborators including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart, Zara Zaharieva, Marta Sofia Honer, Greg Ward, Irvin Pierce, Matt Gold, Greg Spero, De’Sean Jones, and Rob Clearfield, the new album was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Sonically, the album sees McCraven and his collaborators weaving orchestral, large ensemble arrangements with the “organic beat music” sound that’s become his signature sound. The end result is an album that’s reportedly a bold and decided evolution for McCraven as a composer and as a producer.
Last month, I wrote about In These Times single “Seventh String,” a dazzling and dizzying composition featuring rolling bursts of polyrhythmic drumming and beats, glistening, finger plucked guitar, gorgeous orchestral strings, twinkling bursts of harp and soulful flute lines.
In These Times‘ first single “Seventh String” was a dazzling and dizzying composition centered around rolling bursts of polyrhythmic drumming, glistening, finger plucked guitar, gorgeous orchestral strings, twinkling bursts of harp, soulful flute lines. While the composition smudges then blurs the lines between J. Dilla-like beatmaking and jazz, it sees the musicians carefully walking a tightrope between chaos and order, free-flowing improvisation and structured composition in a way that’s thoughtful, mischievous, and forceful yet breathtakingly gorgeous.
Written and recorded in McCraven’s Chicago-based home studio, In These Times‘ second and latest single “Dream Another” features Brandee Younger (harp), Junius Paul (bass), Matt Gold (guitar, sitar) and De’Sean Jones (flute) on a gorgeous and expansion composition that simultaneously nods at 70s soul jazz and jazz fusion and psychedelia in a way that reminds me a bit of synthesis of Return to Forever,Mahavisnu Orchestra and the aforementioned — and beloved — J. Dilla.
Directed by Nik Arthur, the accompanying visualizer features hand-drawn, digital and photographic animations composed and then laser-etched into stone in the style of a “zoopraxiscope,” a 19th century animation device that predates the motion picture, and allowed images to move on screen for the first time.
FOLLO (born Lucas Dubiez) is a 25-year-old video director and self-taught, emerging, electronic music producer, who can trace the origins of his music career to meeting fellow French electronic music producer Zerolex (born Jeremey Vieille). As the story goes, Vieille encouraged Dubiez to write and record his debut EP, last year’s Lumen.
Dubiez’s sophomore EP, the recently released Écume features five instrumental tracks inspired by French 79, Rone, The Blaze, and the films of Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Hayao Miyazaki. “Divine,” Écume EP‘s first single is centered around glistening synth oscillations, skittering beats, a relentless motorik groove and an enormous hook. And while sonically drawing from French touch and house music, “Divine” manages to be simultaneously dance floor friendly and cinematic — as though nodding at post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie soundtracks.
Directed by Dubiez, the accompanying video follows a young man as he’s being walked to a weird, virtual reality-like experiment that puts the man in touch with a supernatural — and perhaps divine — force that transforms him.
Tomorrow’s Child is a High Wycombe, UK-born, Cornwall, UK-based multi-instrumentalist and electronic music producer, whose work draws from a broad spectrum of music, surroundings and experiences — in particular, the ugly concrete buildings and garages of his hometown, the sense of failed potential and lost futures it all evoked, and the dystopian themes of a number of 1980s films and TV shows.
His full-length debut, Beach Ghosts thematically touches upon the death of his father in 2015 and his relocation to Cornwall. Going on to study popular music, Tomorrow’s Child evolved from a singer/songwriter and guitarist to electronic music, which provided a much-needed outlet for him to express his grief and to process the major life changes he just went through.
Last month, I wrote about the album’s first single, the cinematic and brooding “Great Western Railway.” Informed by his father, who was a stream-train enthusiast, who grew up with the Great Western Railway trains passing his classroom windows, “Great Western Railway” simultaneously brought John Carpenter soundtracks and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk to mind: Thumping, industrial clang and clatter paired with train whistle-like synth lines help to evoke a train roaring down the tracks to an unknown destination.
Beach Ghosts‘ latest single “Ruination” is an haunting and ambient composition that brings Brian Eno and Autobahn-era Kraftwerk to mind as its centered around atmospheric synths and skittering beats before closing out in a slow fadeout. According to the British multi-instrumentalist and producer the composition reflects “the journey of Cornish mines from once thriving places of industry to ghostly monuments to the past haunting the landscape.”
Pierre Grech is a Toulon, France-based singer/songwriter, composer, producer and guitarist, who has long been influenced by folk, indie rock, hip hop, jazz, contemporary classical and electronica. Grech began writing songs as a child but he can trace the origins of his music career to the early 2000s: He was the frontman of experimental electronica act SLiDD — and around the same time, he co-wrote and arranged material on three Jen H. Ka albums.
As a solo artist and bandleader, Grech has played shows across Paris and Southern France with re-arranged and re-imagined renditions of his material in several different iterations including electro rock, acoustic, cello-guitar duo, rock trio and more. But over the past few years, the French singer/songwriter, guitarist, composer, arranger and producer has been refining and honing his songwriting and compositional approach, as well as his guitar playing. The end result is Grech’s latest project _telemaque_,which finds the Toulon-based artist drawing from his long-held influences while crafting pop that’s energetic yet sensitive.
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past year or so, you may recall that Grech’s _telemaque_ debut June EP, which featured the gorgeous, OK Computer-era Radiohead-like June last year.
His full-length debut _telemaque_ album is forthcoming — and the album features “December Sun,” which Greech says is the most rock-leaning song on the album. Interestingly, “December Sun” saw the French artist refining his overall sound and approach: While still drawing from Radiohead, the song subtly nods at krautrock and folk
Gre h’s latest _telemaque_ single, is the breezy samba meets OK Computer/Kid A-era Radiohead-like “Your liquid smile.” Featuring guest spots from Kentaro Suzuki (bass) and Joakim Toftgaard (trombone), “Your liquid smile” is centered around a loose yet hypnotic groove featuring a supple bass line and skittering beats, a looping guitar-driven melody and a mournful, modal trumpet line, which gives the song a wistful, nostalgic air.
“It’s a song on the theme of simple joys, as its title does not quite indicate,” Greech explains. “This piece has the sole ambition to please. Like a good dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce. You will see it with your ears.”
The accompanying video is shot on grainy, security camera-like VHS tape and follows someone making a simple dish of spaghetti and tomato sauce, complete with ingredients and instructions. It’ll make you hungry — while reminding you of life’s simple pleasures: a good meal, a good pint or a glass of wine, dear friends, a lovely song and so on.
Makaya McCraven is an acclaimed Paris-born Chicago-based jazz percussionist, beatmaker and producer, who has released a remarkable run of critically applauded, genre-defying and re-defining albums that includes 2015’s The Moment, 2017’s Highly Rare, 2018’s Universal Beings, 2020’s We’re New Again and Universal Beings E&F Sides and last year’s Deciphering the Message.
McCraven’s newest album, In These Times is slated for a September 23, 2022 release through International Anthem/Nonesuch/XL Recordings. The album is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as it is by McCraven’s personal experience as the producer of a multinational, working class musician community. In These Times‘ material was seven years in the making, and was consistently in process in the background while McCraven was in the middle of his critically applauded run of albums.
Featuring contributions from a talented cast of collaborators including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart, Zara Zaharieva, Marta Sofia Honer, Greg Ward, Irvin Pierce, Matt Gold, Greg Spero, De’Sean Jones, and Rob Clearfield, the new album was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Sonically, the album sees McCraven and his collaborators weaving orchestral, large ensemble arrangements with the “organic beat music” sound that’s become his signature sound. The end result is an album that’s reportedly a bold and decidedly evolution for McCraven as a composer and as a producer.
In These Times‘ first single “Seventh String” is a dazzling and dizzying composition centered around rolling bursts of polyrhythmic drumming, glistening, finger plucked guitar, gorgeous orchestral strings, twinkling bursts of harp, soulful flute lines. While the composition smudges then blurs the lines between J. Dilla-like beatmaking and jazz, it sees the musicians carefully walking a tightrope between chaos and order, free-flowing improvisation and structured composition in a way that’s thoughtful, mischievous, and forceful yet breathtakingly gorgeous.
Tomorrow’s Child is an emerging, High Wycombe, UK-born, Cornwall, UK-based multi-instrumentalist and electronic music producer, whose work draws from a broad spectrum of music, surroundings and experiences — in particular, the ugly concrete buildings and garages of his hometown and the ones of failed potential and lost futures it all evoked, as well as the dystopian themes of a number of 1980s films and TV shows.
His full-length debut, Beach Ghosts thematically touches upon the death of his father in 2015 and his relocation to Cornwall. Going on to study popular music, Tomorrow’s Child evolved from a singer/songwriter and guitarist to electronic music, which provided a much-needed outlet for him to express his grief and to process the major life changes he just went through.
“Great Western Railway” is a cinematic and brooding track that simultaneously recalls John Carpenter soundtracks and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk: Thumping industrial clang and clatter are paired with train whistle-like synth lines manage to evoke a train roaring down the tracks to some unknown destination.
The composition is influenced and informed by his father: His father was a steam-train enthusiast, who grew up waking the Great Western Railway rains pass by his classroom windows. The decline of steam powered trains is metaphorical framework to explore loss (of a person, and a way of life) and familiar connections and traditions.
