As both an amateurish blog launched as a teenager and a slightly more professional record label, The Astral Plane has been the vessel through which I have had the opportunity to engage with a rich musical culture. While only offering a minuscule contribution to the electronic, dance and experimental musics that I hold dear to my heart, I have been lucky to engage with a rich vein of vernacular sounds that deserve infinitely more care and attention than they often receive. When I established Astral Plane Recordings in 2016, I sensed that there was an absence, in both the sonic and institutional sense, that could be addressed through a record label built on the ingenuity and hard work of a set of artists, many of whom had yet to formally release music. Across 30 odd releases, released at a sometimes glacial pace since 2016, I feel confident that that absence has been addressed.

With that said, I have decided to bring The Astral Plane blog and label to a close. Close followers will have noticed that APR’s output has slowed down in recent years. It has become increasingly difficult to find the time, resources and energy to deliver music with the foundation, context and breadth that I initially set out to do. The blog, on the other hand, briefly became an outlet for critical musings, but has since come to feel like an archive from another period of my life. In the project’s 10 years of existence, I have been blessed with the opportunity to develop deep artistic relationships, and more importantly friendships, with a group of artists who will forever hold a place in my heart. The Astral Plane is nothing outside of the brilliance of Adam, Aya, Bashar, Ceci, Claudio, Emma, Jack, Jordan, Loris, Maral, Matt, Michael, Sabina, Zeynab and countless other who have played Astral Plane shows over the years and contributed remixes and compilation tracks. Behind the scenes, Sam Meier and Will Mitchell have held APR together through their mastering, design, artwork and general advice/input over the years.

Astraltopia represents a culmination of the label project, but The Astral Plane show on NTS will continue under a different name and my various writing and editorial projects will now be housed under Bellona Magazine. The APR catalog will remain in place with 100% of royalties going to artists, but sadly Contagion Discs will also be put on hiatus for the time being (although I aim to restart the label when I have more time and stability). In closing, I am endlessly grateful to the DJs who played out our music, the fans who have supported us over the years and the writers who have earnestly engaged with the sonic themes we’ve put in play. There’s a small chunk of the sonic and social world I feel deeply at home with now and that’s all I could have asked for when initially planning out the early stages of The Astral Plane.

With love,
Gabe

We’re a bit behind on blog/radio/social updates having just returned from our run of dates in the UK so this is a bit of a two-for-one. Above we have the self-directed music video for Alis’ “Papercuts” from the EP (out now) of the same name. The visual epitomizes the subtle in motion qualities of Papercuts and features a number of Alis’ supremely talented friends showing off their skills. Second is our most recent monthly NTS show, which also features Alis on the guest mix. We put together our first Buy Music Club list for this one and a full track list can be found after the jump.

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Artists making and playing out regional Club music constantly come up against a dance music hegemony that only rarely accepts it into the halls of booking agencies, festivals and legacy labels. Language of openness, experimentation and freedom is unavoidable in this sphere, but stray outside of the tasteful confines and you’re likely to be shunned and looked down upon. This has led to bizarre phenomenons like the EDM world’s fleeting embrace of Jersey Club or Footwork artists often getting more play at beat scene functions than actual clubs. Crews like Juke Bounce Werk, Principe and Nyege Nyege have worked tirelessly to create their own autonomous platforms, but most artists don’t have access to those resources. This is the context in which a techno artist playing jungle or a former indie darling playing kuduro is viewed as a radical act, while those cultures themselves, mostly occupied by working class participants, are almost exclusively ignored.

Los Angeles’ So Drove, formerly known as Schwarz (born Adam Schwarz), has spent their life pushing up against and outright rejecting the dance music world’s notion of taste. While living in Baltimore, the producer, vocalist and DJ championed the city’s more eccentric Club proclivities, working with artists like Abdu Ali, Blaqstarr and TT the Artist, while releasing a near-constant stream of genre fudging bootlegs, blends and covers. 2017’s Everyday Is A Winding Road, released through their own Nina Pop label, is a great place to dive into the Schwarz discography, but it’s hard to go wrong with a deep dive into the Soundcloud annals. A whirlwind of sounds including pop punk, industrial, bounce, ballroom, snap rap and more can be found in Schwarz’s work, all imbued with an emotional clarity and a deep felt devotion to the source material.

Since relocating to Los Angeles and starting the So Drove project, songwriting, rap production and a new series of collaborations have become Schwarz’s main focus. Effortlessly buoyant productions for the likes of Cupcakke, Kreayshawn and Nezzy have brought them to a wider audience, but the project also hit a recent high point with Solano Canyon OST , their longest and most personally expressive work to date. Named after the serpentine East LA neighborhood they lived in for a year, the album features as many big hooks, provided by Schwarz, Nezzy and Saturn Rising, as well as a standout performance from Memphis legend La Chat, as it does insular moments. Extrapolating on themes introduced on early Schwarz bootlegs, the album is 100% honest and 100% emotionally vulnerable, charting a personal, everyday path over a series of joyfully idiosyncratic productions.

So Drove’s Astral Plane Mix charts a similarly distinctive path, taking a more high strung path than Solano Canyon OST‘s low slung arrangements and maintaining a high wire act of cross-genre transitions and brash curatorial choices. Longtime fans of their mix work won’t be surprised by the fusion, but new listeners may be a bit startled by transitions from new era Club artists like DJ Diamond Kuts and Calvo to Butthole Surfers, the Grateful Dead and Sleigh Bells. Bootlegs of Lil Uzi Vert, Princess Nokia and Rico Nasty tie the affair together, while a Korn vs. Dem Franchise Boyz blend provides a high energy mark midway through the session. Throughout, Schwarz exploits, twists and builds out from familiar pop formats, making quick cuts into and out of raw dancefloor tracks while maintaining a focus on the odd ball vocalists strewn throughout the selection. Eclecticism is an overwrought trope in dance music and is more often manufactured than evolved naturally, but So Drove is a genuine one-of-a-kind and boldly stands out against gatekeeper-led monotony. Download Astral Plane Mix 185 here and hit the jump for a full track list.

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LOFT arrived in 2016 like a shot out of a cannon, presenting a clearly defined aesthetic on the Turbulent Dynamics EP (APR105) that combined a level of dancefloor-focused cohesion and rippling abstraction that artists twice his age rarely meet. Named by Resident Advisor as the number eight song of 2016, “Heffalump” led the release and introduced many to LOFT’s distinct push-pull approach, throwing listeners into a world of disarmingly charming melodic elements and a rhythmic quotient that brilliantly unfolds over the track’s seven minute run time.

Released on July 28, “Heffalump” is on vinyl for the first time, playing the a-side role on Astral Plane Recordings’ first ever white label 12”. The hand stamped, hand numbered 12” is backed by the equally jarring “I Am Bouyant”, a hairbrained proto-jungle track that will be familiar to fans of LOFT’s all-originals mix work and his lauded live sets around the Manchester area. Turbulent Dynamics is a forcefully original release that treads well across the dancefloor into more adventurous spheres, but grabbing “Heffalump” and the brand new “I Am Bouyant” for APRWH001 feels right for the Los Angeles label’s debut on wax.

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