This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
Maelstrom: The FM Tapes (Central Processing Unit)
Sheffield's Central Processing Unit is one of those record labels I'll always trust, like the NHS, teachers and Magic 8-Balls. The FM Tapes comprises ten very electronic electro tracks plus one squiggly interlude. As robotic as this gets, there'll always be tracks like Res 06 full of melodic humanity.
Martyn: Through Lines (3024)
The brilliant Martyn has found a load of tracks from 2005 to 2015 at the back of a drawer. This collection plays like a love-letter to the UK rave scene, with breezy beats and attitude aplenty. Listen to Yet as it oozes into ambience or the liquid breaks of Cloud Convention. These offcuts are very on indeed.
Meat Beat Manifesto & Merzbow: Extinct (Cold Spring Records)
Jack Dangers' porky production outfit teams up with Japanese noise merchant Masami Akita for this remarkable and rambunctious collaboration. Lead track ¡FLAKKA! is the sound of a breakbeat shoved face-first through a shredder and coming out the other end twenty minutes later almost intact. Brutal and brilliant.
Meemo Comma: Decimation Of I (Planet Mu Records)
A filmic ambient meditation based on a 1972 Soviet sci-fi novel? Oh go on then. Lara Rix-Martin has gone proper moody with her latest Meemo music. Close your eyes and be transported by the sweeping chords, the folky melancholy, the windswept decay of it all. I feel suitable decimated.
Midland: Fragments of Us (Graded)
Has it really taken Midland this long to come up with a debut album? Finally. Despite moments highlighting queer struggle over the years, and quite rightly so, his pixel-perfect production makes for a gloriously optimistic and warm electronic music experience. A great guest line-up too, including Arthur Russell.
Minotaur Shock: It All Levels Out (Bytes)
This Bristol producer's tenth album pulls on the heart strings. He calls it a "hopeful meditation" and he's not wrong. Something about the yearning chords, the analogue electronics, the spaces between. The title track's lilting guitar and piano play might just have you gasping for breath.
Monolake: Studio (imbalance computer music)
A producer naming their album Studio is a bit like an author calling their novel Desk. This is indeed a tribute to Monolake's dusty old studio kit. And what kit. In the brooding ambience, you can hear every patter of static, every growl of bass, every ominous wash. My next blog post will be called Blog.
Mr. Mitch: The Lost Boy (Gobstopper Records)
South London's finest continues to push grime into wild directions: soul, house, spoken word, techno, self-reflective meditations and beyond. There could be comparisons to Joy Orbison, Dam Funk, HudMo, plenty more. he says it was inspired by listening to Portishead while on a trip to Nigeria.
This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
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