Aphex Twin has released the first single off his upcoming Cheetah EP and it’s… well it’s fantastic. This is par for the course, considering the high quality of work he’s been dropping since returning to the world in 2014 with the monumental Syro.
The video is a whole new experience for fans, though. Watch the weirdly psychedelic clip here:
This is the first time I felt compelled to make a mixtape for people I’ll never know.
Ballroom is dedicated to everyone who lost the fight of their lives when someone tried to silence an entire culture. It’s also a dive through my own personal history with dance music, exploring the deep end of the electronic ocean, the sounds that come out as everyone’s going home.
Studio !K7’s long-running DJ-Kicks series has always been a great opportunity for artists to show off their tastes, often far broader than their own music implied. It was a chance for your favorite indie rock band to say hey, we listen to hip-hop and early drone music too! But the most interesting sets always did something more powerful.
For his entry, Dam-Funk offers a free fall down the rabbit hole of his own work by exploring artists that sharply reflect the edges of his own productions. It feels like an archeological dig into the distant past and unknown present, unearthing insight into a man whose work seemed to have sprung out fully formed so many years ago.
This week has been as busy as ever so I didn’t have a ton of time for new music, but I made up for that with deep enthusiasm for what I did discover.
Thanks to Dam-Funk’s excellent new entry in the DJ-Kicks series, I’ve been looping a certain new-to-me album half a dozen times over the past day alone. I’ve also spent time in one of the most sublime virtual worlds ever created, in The Witcher 3.
While we’re all salivating at the thought of an honest-to-goodness new Avalanches album, I thought I’d share this live gem, a recording of their latest single from last week’s Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain.
Here’s Subways:
I shared the first single from this magnificent breakthrough LP a couple months back, but my anticipation never waned. Luckily, it seems well placed: Union and Return soars like the disembodied wings on its fantastical cover art, all weird texture and glistening uplift.
A million people write on Drake’s every move so I’m not going to try to compete with all the lengthy reviews of Views. This is a new Drake album and you’ve probably already got an opinion. I’m just writing to say that despite the meandering bloat, this album is full of serious fun and hits some of the highest peaks of his career.
Optimistic Underground 