This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
Kim Gordon: The Collective (Matador)
The guitar one from Sonic Youth? Oh yes indeed. The electronics on this album are dirrrty. That's dirty with several Rs. Way more industrial and grime than you might expect. The sweaty stomp of single Bye Bye will have you scrubbing yourself clean. I love how corporate and wrong the record cover feels in contrast to Kim's wonderful noise.
KMRU & Kevin Richard Martin: Disconnect (Phantom Limb)
Ambient musician KMRU becomes vocalist on this most unusual collaboration with the fella also known as The Bug. It has all the filthy underside we know from The Bug, but beats are cast aside in favour of droning ambience and hazy repetition. A slow, slow album full of dark, dark melody.
Egg: Egg (Egg)
This isn't actually an album. I was just checking if you had fallen asleep. If you thought "why is Fat Roland suddenly yabbering about eggs?", then at least you were giving me some modicum of attention. Thank you, I appreciate that. Carry on.
Kokoko!: BUTU (Transgressive)
Here comes the second studio album from a Congolese collective not known for being shy. I love the rave shapes of Donne Moi and the Detroit stylings of Elingi Biso Te, all fired up with their irresistible Central African sass. They make great promo videos too. I bet they absolutely tear the roof off performing live.
Lao: Chapultepec (Naafi)
An ear-popping tribute to the vegetation that gives oxygen to Mexico City – "Chapultepec" means “grasshopper hill”. Never mind grasshoppers. This music is great lumping hippos tearing through our ear canals with dizzying breakbeats and multicolour hardcore. As spawling and as high as the City itself.
Leonce: System of Objects (Morph Tracks)
Club Morph's Leonce rattles off house bangers as if we're listening to Kiss FM back in the olden days. This is yer beans-on-toast house music. None of that modern slop like, um, AI-generated aubergine or whatever the kids eat these days. Think Todd Terry or Van Helden, albeit with a slightly tougher techno exterior.
Lolina: Unrecognisable (Relaxin Records)
I'd just watched a clip of Children Of Men before listening to this narrative concept album. It seems apt. The principle of Unrecognisable is too involved to describe here, but imagine Maxinquaye-era Tricky producing a sci-fi war film while smoking twice as many blunts as usual. All made on late-1980s sampling gear.
Low End Activist: Airdrop (Peak Oil)
Hardcore? Bristol's Low End Activist knows the score. This is old-skool rave music torn apart by one of those Metalhead dogs in Black Mirror. Breakbeats rise to the surface, rave chops appear gasping for air, then it all disappear into an echoing void. And so it goes on like a fever dream. A most unusual but addictive drug.
Machinedrum: 3FOR82 (Ninja Tune)
Travis Stewart went to Joshua Tree National Park to find himself, then came up with this album. Unfortunately, there are no tracks about withered cactuses or moth-bitten coyotes. As you'd expect with an Md LP, there are smooth jams, banging beats, and tonnes of guest vocals. All very nice.
This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
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