Experimental Electronic Music
Apple Tree Brightness burns like sunrise personified as the latest release fromdatewithdeath (aka Travis D. Johnson), landing fresh on the ever-refined Poverty Electronics, a label that has quietly shaped its own groundbreaking corner of experimental electronics for well over a decade.
What makes MSdrift++ resonate is its command of opposites: discipline and chaos, function and experimentation, familiarity and risk. After decades immersed in electronic music, one truth remains constant: the highest level of craft is not choosing between leading and following. It is possessing the rare ability to do both.
Beyond the Clones then does a fantastic job of morphing proto-EBM rhythms, contemporary glitch textures, and those delightful toybox electronics into this next release. And in so doing, moving between space-like abstraction and grounded abrasions with a physical intensity throughout.
Across eleven diverse movements, SICK STREET displays rhythmic elasticity, aural sculpting assembled from found sound, cellular technology, environmental residue, postcode mosaics, and a restless multiplicity of influence.
This is not merely an album about pessimism, collapse, paranoia, or sepia memories. It is an expertly crafted and beautifully sustained paean to the enduring presence of the motion of Goodness—often obscured, often wounded, not-for-profit, but somehow still capable of outliving every system designed to extinguish it. A balm for balmy days and long dark nights of the soul.
Broken rhythmic structures, exquisite sub-bass stutters, and destabilized funk mechanics colliding into something gloriously unhinged. It’s machine music with bloodstream heat—tactile, sensual, and absolutely devastating at volume.
Analogical Force remains a powerhouse label capable of balancing both forward-facing experimentation and deep respect for established electro and breaks traditions. Both approaches carry immense value, and perhaps the real excitement comes from hearing artists navigate the space between the two.
Necessary Unfold draws together the collective consciousness of contemporary Greek electronic music in their Various Artist label launch collection Part Time Archivists / Part Time Forgers. Coalescing electro, breaks, acid sensibilities, and IDM intent, we get 12 sublime Saturday-night anthems primed for a proper underground, word-of-mouth gathering. Summer radiates through the set.
Latest Onset Audio release, BMA & Robbyt deliver Arbitrary Arbitrage / Lockbox, a taut two-tracker driven by dark breaks, dense pressure, and full-spectrum low-end hostility.
DaFou’s new release on Buenos Aeros’ Cyclical Dreams arrives under the title Berlin Transit, and the Berlin nod is more than cosmetic—it signals a clear pull toward a Schulzian mode of expression. What unfolds across more than 100 minutes is a sustained act of musical articulation, rooted in a tightly wound compression of intention from the outset.
Lost Hope Society doesn’t deal in easy optimism. Instead, it locates hope as a kind of underlying signal—constant, even when masked by noise. Like Midsommar, it uses brightness to reveal shadow, and in doing so, turns discomfort into clarity.
