This is some of the brightest, most colorful music I’ve been into in a long time. It’s a psychedelic magic trick, striking the pulse of zeitgeist labels like 1080p and Orange Milk from far out of left field, a completely unexpected place and time.
I was tricked in the best way when I first heard Soichi Terada Presents Sounds From The Far East.
Subways is the jam of the summer, if not all of 2016. It’s one of those eternal grooves that will echo in your mind forever, whether you like it or not. It’s a key piece of The Avalanches‘ 15-years-in-the-making masterpiece Wildflower, and I’ve mentioned it before.
But this video is a whole new adventure. Holy shit, it sure is.
This week brought some genuine surprise to the music world. Frank Ocean finally crashed the hype train into public view, dropping his long-awaited sophomore album on a weekend night. After four years, nobody expected it to appear so randomly, but here we are.
This is the state of music in 2016. The pendulum of control is truly swinging back in favor of the artists. Everything else I discovered this week was courtesy of the artists themselves, broadcasting personally on Twitter, Bandcamp, and other open platforms.
Randomer’s Running Dry is a brand new EP from a label I’ve come to love over the past couple months, Dekmantel. Not only have they released a pair of the best progressive techno 12″s from Danish producer Central; they’re sending out some of the most innovative short-form music I’ve heard all year in the form of their new UFO series. This little release is the best so far.
Central brings a pair of brief but incredible 12″ vinyls that explore the deep, weird ends of techno and house in a way that few artists in 2016 are even attempting. The density of quality here is breathtaking, and sets a high bar for any eventual full-length. Together, this hour of music is some of the freshest sounds I’ve heard all year.
The past two weeks rolled with dark gravity, anchored by the massacre in Orlando that saw 49 people killed in an LGBT dance club. It may be only the latest in a nearly constant string of mass shootings in the US, but it’s the most devastating in my lifetime. I’ll never forget the gut punch of hearing the news.
It’s important to seize on the image of us at our worst, not just to examine how and why, but so we can truly appreciate us at our best. Still, it’s just as important to grasp the good news when we have it. With that in mind, I want to share the great musical discoveries I made in the past couple weeks.
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:
Optimistic Underground 