Wolf Müller and Cass created a hybrid that I never knew I needed: the perfect meeting point between new age and balearic synth music. Sure, it takes off from sounds that I’m familiar with, but the result is an otherworldly journey that lasts far longer than its slim 39 minute run time suggests.
With his 2015 debut LP Elaenia, Floating Points made a startling leap from purely electronic composition to hybrid jazz mastery, using a full band to bring his creations to life for the first time. The album should have been on my best of 2015 list, but I’m doing my best to spread the word going forward.
In the grand scheme of things, Animal Collective’s fever-pitch impact on the internet music world of 2009 isn’t much of a blip, but to my friends and I, living and breathing and freaking out on last.fm, it was the event of an age.
Recent posts have made clear my newfound obsession with under the radar ambient artist Gigi Masin, especially his Gaussian Curve project. Masin’s incredibly delicate, emotionally heavy music sends me floating, flying, and fantasizing through daydreams with ease.
Nite Funk arrives after years of hot anticipation, fully living up to the cloistered hype that a handful of us have fostered ever since a seemingly one-off single was dropped in 2010. It was a beguiling, dusky pop tune from one of the most unlikely duos in modern music, this perfect forgotten gem, a single song that held the spark of so much untapped potential. This little EP proves that they knew it too.
In the lead-up to the big 4th of July holiday weekend, I’ve spent almost every night working on a new mixtape. I’ve finally got my passion for mixing back and it feels incredible. Instead of months or years between tapes, I hope to make them a regular feature here.
However, this latest mix isn’t quite ready yet. It needs a little more polish before I publish next week. In the meantime, I want to share the best new music I’ve been into all week. At least one of these three things will make your hair stand on end.
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.
Optimistic Underground 