Last week, we released “Msll777”, the debut single from Khadije and Lil Asaf. The track is a preview of a longer project from the duo out later this Spring. Khadije is a Beirut-born, Berlin-based multi-disciplinary artist. You probably know her work under a different name, but Khadije is an entity autonomous from previous and future work. Lil Asaf, also known as Bashar Suleiman, is a Palestinian rapper and producer based in Amman. A previous solo effort was released by Hizz in 2018 and his work as INSIN with Welsh producer Elvin Brandhi was released by AMEN in late 2019.
The video for “Msll777” was directed by Yusra Nazek and shot in Beirut. The whole project came together in a matter of weeks and we’re extremely grateful to be working with this talented group of friends. You can grab “Msll777” here and be on high alert for more Khadije and Lil Asaf soon.
Ochre Flood is SHALT’s seventh release on APR and first since 2018’s Seraphim LP. The tight three tracker follows a series of editpacks that saw the London-based artist take on Far East Movement, The Pussycat Dolls and a range of recent French rap hits. Expanding on the ideas introduced in the ʃælt single series, Ochre Flood sees SHALT at his most focused, matching a billowing spatial dimension with a fine comb approach to texture and sub bass construction.
Each percussive hit crackles and burns on opener “Shudder”, which progresses methodically before letting loose with a reckless clarity. “Ochre”, already a radio staple, forms the carnivalesque backbone of the EP, throbbing with low end energy and a top line melody that insinuates itself deep in memory. Any perceived restraint in SHALT’s work is thrown to the wind on “Unlast”, the EP’s stormy closer that retains a sense of calm in its center even as the elements violently swirl. Ochre Flood is out on February 14 and can pre-ordered here.
Los Angeles’s Maral has spent the past half-decade quietly honing an approach that meshes the latest in club music contortions, a range of pulverized dub effects, and samples from her library of Iranian folk, pop and classical musics. More likely to be found working behind the scenes for local labels and club nights, Maral steps into the spotlight on Mahur Club, highlighting a trans-historical collage technique that emphasizes formal experimentation as much as it does personal history.
Exploring (rhythmic) psychedelia in both concrete and abstract forms, Mahur Club dials in on mashed out versions of Jersey club, reggaeton and dub, nodding to psych rock and trip hop via whirlwind takes on contemporary battle dance genres. Repetition and rapid sample chop are utilized on tracks like “don’t trip on your way down” and “lori lullaby”, pairing familiar dance-floor rhythms with waterlogged Farsi vocals in a sublime vortex of tradition, pop and functionality.
Mahur Club features material from ABE, DJ Abosohar and Loris. The release consists of two separate components; a cassette featuring two mixed portions and a free mixtape of individual tracks. Mastering provided by Will Mitchell, artwork by Maral Mahmoudi and design by Caleb Ali Miller.
Alis has spent over a decade exploring the intricacies of performance-oriented club music, releasing on labels like Don’t Be Afraid and Planet Mu, and becoming a staple in the Berlin and London scenes. Out now, Papercuts is her Astral Plane Recordings debut, comprised of five lush, intimate tracks that are both entirely removed from a dancefloor-context, yet deeply preoccupied with groove and movement.
Honed at her Sunday System nights at London’s Rye Wax, Alis’ interdisciplinary practice comes to the fore on Papercuts with vocals extending far beyond their linguistical potential into a broader, more textural realm. Songs like “Status” and “BCC: me” walk the line of sonority and dissonance, nearing the precipice of abstraction without falling into the abyss. “Papercuts” and “Water” on the other hand offer a more concise narrative vision, proffering a version of hookwriting that fluctuates between meditative and commanding.
Recorded across several continents, it’s no surprise that Papercuts tends to enliven interstitial spaces and Alis’ unique disposition makes the cerebral accessible. Papercuts is out now on APR and will be available as digital EP and full color cover 12”.
We celebrated the release of CÉCI’s VortexEP last week with a very special, contextualizing guest session on our monthly NTS slot last week. Slow jams, fine textures and a range of circuitous melodic structures abound in her 30 minute mix which runs from the hour mark. AP DJ Team handled the first hour and last thirty minutes and slotted in plenty of slow-fast and fast-slow tunes including new Slikback, blastah, Lee Gamble, Simo Cell, HNRO and more. The last thirty also includes forthcoming Chants, that stunning LOFT Charli edit and a few new ones from DJ Plead’s upcoming Nervous Horizon tape. Download it here and hit the jump for a full track list.
With CÉCI‘s Vortex EP out this Friday, we figured it’s a good opportunity to drop the second single and release opener from the project. “Force” epitomizes the prickly energy that the Danish artist brings throughout Vortex and will be followed by an equally special music video. If you haven’t caught the Emilie Alstrup-directed video for “Heartbeat”, then head here to have your senses torn apart and reconstructed.
We’ve maintained a fairly insular approach to label curation over the past few years, releasing music from a core group of artists and slowly bringing new individuals and approaches into the fold. It’s a deliberate way of working in an extremely cluttered/top down music media environment and it clearly hasn’t limited the scope of the sonic ecology we push.
That said, going into our fourth year in existence, we’ve decided to open up the gates a bit and let some new voices ring out. Over the coming months, we’ll be introducing four new artists into the APR family, bringing everything from algorithmically designed string music to fuzzed out Iranian pop.
The first of those artists is CÉCI, a Danish, London-based vocalist and sound artist who we’ve partnered with across a number of projects already. If you’re in London, you may have caught one of her Celestite nights at Rye Wax, featuring a combination of performance and DJ sets from some of our favorite artists in the city.
Vortex is CÉCI’s debut on APR and a jarring introduction to an artist we’ve tipped for some time. The sound is as enticing as the production is angular and across six short songs, CÉCI snakes her way through major hooks, resolute sound design and a range of inward facing affectations.
Today, we’re unveiling “Heartbeat”, the first single from Vortex and our initial introduction to CÉCI’s work. The single is accompanied by a striking music video directed by Emilie Alstrup and is a fitting introduction to CÉCI’s artistic voice and tactile approach to production. Relevant links below and much more to come.
“The Danish-born, London-based artist swathes her voice in intricate, prickly electronics on her new EP for Astral Plane, which sounds both massive and intimate.” – Resident Advisor
“Her music—a stripped-back, skeletal type of pop—is built from mind-bending sound design, haunting vocals, and ethereal energy that draws you in on first listen.” – XLR8R
“The London-based artist, who has a background in sound design and dance, employs motifs from a variety of contemporary club styles and a broad vocal approach.” – FACT
Pittsburgh’s Boo Lean has been a fixture in the Midwest club music fabric for years and recently, her expertise and passion for putting on aspiration, experimental-minded music festivals has expanded to Vancouver’s New Forms. Born Lauren Goshinski, she’s also a force behind the decks, claiming a residency at Pittsburgh’s legendary Hot Mass and showing off a talent for a tightly wound, percussive mixing style. It was serendipitous that Lauren reached out to us with a guest mix the week of our most recent NTS show and we can’t think of a better way to jump off 2019 than with her “Winter Eclipse” selections. The first hour of the show is handled by the AP DJ Team and features forthcoming material and holiday smashers from CÉCI, LOFT, Chants and SHALT, as well as recent faves from BFTT, bod [包家巷], crystallmess, Don Sinini, Emily Glass, jjjacob, Nkisi, SCAM and Ytem. Boo Lean will also be playing at CTM Festival next month, as well as in Galway, Ireland with Gash Collective. Find details on both dates below. Download the show here and hit the jump for a full track list.
It’s easy to get bogged down in the constant balkanization of contemporary dance music. Keeping up with the lexicon alone is a formidable task and while classification is important, jargon is almost always utilized as a means of keeping the uninitiated out. Understanding dance music as a continuum of mechanized global rhythms, grafted, hybridized and superimposed into new forms, offers a key to the madness though, offering a path that sees not homogeneity, but the similarities in the constituent elements of seemingly disparate material. It’s a skill that Sydney’s SCAM has brought to his work as a writer, DJ and producer, building out from the clunky “global ghettotech” terminology of the late 2000s to make innate connections between seemingly dissimilar rhythmic logics.
2018 saw the release of his debut VibrioEP on DECISIONS, a body of work matching “OTT emotionality and TMI sentimentality” with a focus on slime and the chemical interactions that lead to effects like bioluminescence and petrichor. Seayams provides vocals for two tracks, grounding the work’s frisky bio-chemical motions with a distinct humanity and allowing its two instrumental tracks the space necessary to flourish. American R&B and rap are obvious reference points, but EP closer “QQ” is also based on a Coil sample and the skittish drum programming throughout recalls the angular constructions of a range of regional club music.
The bonds created throughout Vibrio continue to be explored in SCAM’s edits, works that offer subtle mutations on post-punk, rap, dancehall and techno. It’s these edits that allow ESG to sit comfortably with Stefflon Don in a SCAM mix, making rhythmic links between ostensibly dissimilar tracks and offering a correction to the temporal and spacial record in the meantime. His Astral Plane Mix does exactly that, making simple connections across recent time (Araabmuzik into Dinamarca couldn’t be wrong) and drawing in contemporaries like Air Max ’97, Emily Glass and Fridge into an assemblage of familiar vocals twisted into new shapes. The mix offers a curatorial approach devoid of the pretenses of the critic, allowing new forms to develop at an instinctual pace and hybridities to develop naturally. Grab a copy of Vibrio here and download AP Mix 182 here. Track list after the jump.
We’ve been teasing out M.D. James’ debut project for most of this year and Friday saw the release of his 5 Year Lapsemixtape, the first free form mixtape release on APR since Exit Sense’s Amor 107.5in 2016. The mixtape is out now on cassette and digital and is comprised of seven movements comprised of organic and electronic composition. Nick Zhu, who has released on Knives and Quantum Natives this year as bod [包家巷], as well as contributing a series of visuals to SHALT’s SeraphimLP, features on “Summer’s End”, and Kevin Silva, Nick Flessa and Zack Crumrine appear throughout the rest of the release. Cassette design is by Caleb Ali Miller, photography by Isabelle Harada and mastering by Will Mitchell. M.D.’s Astral Plane Mix from a few weeks back is also an excellent extension/analog to this release.
M.D. James – 5 Year Lapse
APR116 | Out Now
1) Pariah
2) Dogblood
3) Summer’s End
4) Remembrance
5) Broadside
6) Carceral Season
7.) Untitled I
The Astral Plane 