Archive

Tag Archives: Los Angeles

md-james-5-year-lapse-final (1)-2

We’ve been teasing out M.D. James’ debut project for most of this year and Friday saw the release of his 5 Year Lapse mixtape, the first free form mixtape release on APR since Exit Sense’s Amor 107.5 in 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 Seraphim LP, 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

Cassette/Digi Availabe Here

IMG_6911.JPG

We decided to put a spotlight on our favorite artists from our home city of Los Angeles this Summer. Over the coming 10 weeks, we’ll feature a cross section of what the city has to offer. Far from a selection of the biggest touring entities, we hope to shine light on the individuals who brighten the airwaves and nights out on a regular basis.

To this point, AMAZONDOTCOM has existed in the interstices of a number of seemingly divergent spaces. Those spaces are geographic, sonic and conceptual and have allowed the producer and live performer to maintain an aesthetic that is distinctly her own. Geographically speaking, AMAZONDOTCOM has largely spent time between Los Angeles and Mexico City, performing at nights like Rail Up and NTS’ residency at the Ace Hotel in the former and taking her live set to a memorable Boiler Room set up in the latter that featured a slew of off-the-wall artists riffing on footwork. Those performances are hard to pin down, but display a confident grasp of club dynamics, allowing for a start-stop approach that defies traditional genre arrangements and easy emotional outputs without losing its clear dancefloor efficacy.

Releases to date have been sparse for AMAZONDOTCOM, but the material available is definitive. A joint release with Siete Catorce, the Teardropz EP for Nostro Hood System, sees the two artists complementing each other to the fullest, resulting in some of the most disarming club music to come out this year. The release is focused and arranged around a core idea, that being constantly mutating rhythms matched with minimal, spectral sound design, but it results in a complex of brilliant moments that are bound to wow and throw off listeners and dancers alike for years. Other standout moments have come in the form of single track contributions to labels like Juárez’s LOWERS and Mexico City’s Piratón“youknowhowwedu” also appeared on our own NEW YR NEW US 2 giveaway compilation at the end of 2017, a preview of a more longform release to come on Astral Plane Recordings.

The smattering of AMAZONDOTCOM releases mentioned above paint a picture of an artist who fluidly moves between a number of sounds, touching on dembow, footwork, hip hop and a more amorphous beat aesthetic without falling into the trap of emulating calcified forms. It’s a sound that is already distinctly hers and a sonic space that will rapidly expand as more material is released. Her Astral Plane Mix is a good measure of that, comprised of over an hour of unreleased AMAZONDOTCOM material that gracefully bounds across tempo and rhythmic structure without losing an ounce of focus. Distended low end, cleverly snatched vocal samples and metallic drums have all become AMAZONDOTCOM hallmarks, but this volume also introduces sections of distorted breaks and a range of pleasing textural elements, ensuring complete immersion. No track list for this one, although you can pick out DMVU’s “Flew” towards the beginning of the mix. The rest is all AMAZONDOTCOM. Download here and be on the look out for more in the near future.

IMG_1903 copy 2

Photo: Taylor Rainbolt / NTS Radio

We decided to put a spotlight on our favorite artists from our home city of Los Angeles this Summer. Over the coming 10 weeks, we’ll feature a cross section of what the city has to offer. Far from a selection of the biggest touring entities, we hope to shine light on the individuals who brighten the airwaves and nights out on a regular basis.

NTS Radio‘s programming is littered with huge names, but it’s the station’s odd ball thematic shows that make it such a joy to listen to on a day-to-day basis. When NTS opened up their Los Angeles station, they were especially astute in bringing on Sasha Ali’s Miss Modular Radio for a monthly show. Formerly airing on Boyle Heights’ Radio Sombra, an operation housed in Espacio 1839 that is currently in a transition into a “more concrete and revolutionary media entity,” Ali’s show is focused on “womxn-powered musical selections” and has been a staple since we first came across it sometime in 2016.

The format ranges from show to show, but each hour is generally composed of interviews, loose selections from the hip hop, experimental and electronic music worlds, as well as blistering guest sessions from a range of talented club DJs. Sessions are often freeform in terms of style, genre and composition, but womxn are always centered and the resulting milieu is vibrant and varied, linked more by an earnest affect and desire to push forward than any particular aesthetic.

Contemporary DJs like Bearcat, Erika Kayne and Helikonia have all  been featured on the show, but Ali has also found space for a wider purview, inviting accomplished solo artists like Low Leaf and Kilo Kish on, as well as archivist and punk provocateur Alice Bag. Ali’s own selection are similarly varied and polychromatic, running from blissfully emancipatory jazz and soul on to the best hip hop that LA has to offer and on to a range of Latin American club musics, both classic and contemporary.

Her Astral Plane Mix takes a similarly heterogeneous approach, drawing on experimental music from womxn of SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) heritage. The selection was born out of an opening set Ali delivered for a show called “A Night of Arabic Hip-Hop and Poetry” at the Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles. 8ULENTINA, Deena Abdelwahed, DJ Haram, Fatima Al Qadiri, Ikonika and Thoom all contribute key passages to Ali’s mix, as do multi-talented Egyptian vocalist Nadah El Shazly and French-Algerian R&B impresario Ta-Ra. True to its original intention, the mix has a distinctly live feel, frantically leaping along an electrical wire with a core energy that supersedes groove.  Dive into Miss Modular’s essential archive here, hit the jump for a track list, and download the mix here.

Read More

IMG_5389

We released M.D. James’ “Swan” as part of our 2017 year-end free download release. Its inclusion came after we saw a live M.D. performance at one of his CAMEO parties. It was raw and unadulterated and felt no need to trade intimacy for corporeal affect. It achieved both in droves and our mind immediately wandered to our it would translate to a recorded format. 5 Year Lapse is the result of that process, a mixtape exploring the unexpected paradoxes that arise during times of self-care and healing. It’s comprised of seven chapters and will be out on Friday, October 5. AQNB was kind enough to announce the release and premiere “Carceral Season”. 5 Year Lapse is available as a digital release, as well as a limited run cassette manufactured by Cryptic Carousel in Los Angeles.

Listen to “Carceral Season”
Pre-order Cassette/Digital

Screen Shot 2018-09-10 at 1.37.22 PM

Oakland’s DÆMON was kind enough to join us on our latest NTS show, turning in a blistering 30 minute guest mix. Building on the raw energy of their own club/vocal experiments, the mix runs through contemporary artists (DJ NJ Drone, N1L, False Witness), as well as some of the most distinct voices in dancefloor-minding rap (Rico Nasty, Thast, Lil Reek). The first hour and a half is handled by the AP DJ Team and includes new tracks from SHALT’s forthcoming Seraphim LP, a secret for now Chants number and special new ones from Sharp Veins, Cremation Lily, Hitmakerchinx, Calvo, Rizzla and more. Hit the jump for a full track list and download here.

Astral Plane DJ Team
SHALT – Conceived on Ash
Sharp Veins – forever night rip
R. Girardin – Splashed On
Why Be x oldest unknown – HURRIAN HA (Yantan Ministry Edit)
SHALT – Seraph
Cremation Lily – In England Now, Underwater
Yves De Mey – 17 Graves
M.D. James – ???
Muqata’a – Haswet Phalasipha حصوة الفلاسفة
Eartheater – MTTM (ft. Odwalla1221)
M.D. James – ???
Bliss Signal – Bliss Signal
Lilly Kane – Administer Truth
Aisha Devi – Intentional Dreams
SHALT – Preserved in Amber
Hitmakerchinx – Arabian King
Primitive Art – Security (M.E.S.H. Remix)
Sim Hutchins – Bath Salts In The Saccharin (LOFT’s Artifically Sweetened Luv Mix)
Chants – ???
Sharp Veins – return 2 tha club [demo]
dj lostboi – D MAJOR XO LIFE (blastah Edit)
Rizzla – Inquisition
Jonathan da Nova x Ansome – Nova Geração Hitch (Clemency Blend)
HahaDavis & CalvoMuxic – Blow Up Doll
DJ Flex & BillzTaDon – Bad Ting
Lechuga Zafiro – Ita
Nunu x Kyrstyn Pyxton – NEVER ALONE (Yantan Ministry Edit)
Djurum – Waters Rising
Sim Hutchins- Dumped by Pirate Radio (Object Blue Remix)
DJ Plead – DVE (DJ Dylan Edit)

DÆMON Guest Mix
H-Ricky – endlessHail
DJ NJ Drone – Go Flame
MindPersuasion – Accelerated Thinker
N1L – Crawlspaces
Presta – Perro Sucio
Crimson – Daemon
Rizoma – ≠
False Witness – In the Dark
Thast – Play My Shit
King DouDou – Espiritos
Rico Nasty – Countin Up
Dj Darshkeeper – Patient Returning (PIN# Edit)
Rizoma – Tool
XD – Sirenxe
El PlayBoy – Ritual
Lil Reek – Rock Out
Pineal Sounds – Curtain Call

maral-photo

We decided to put a spotlight on our favorite artists from our home city of Los Angeles this Summer. Over the coming 10 weeks, we’ll feature a cross section of what the city has to offer. Far from a selection of the biggest touring entities, we hope to shine light on the individuals who brighten the airwaves and nights out on a regular basis.

Collage has always been an integral totem of electronic music, forming both the conceptual and stylistic backbone of contemporary DJ culture. Unfortunately, as dance music has professionalized, licensing laws have strengthened and streaming platforms have gained supremacy, much of the transgressive, freewheeling sample culture has been relegated to the periphery. In the techno bro value hierarchy, mediocre original work is often valued more than genuinely innovative collage. That value system bends occasionally when startlingly new work like Lotic’s DAMSEL in DISTRESS mixtape or Maria Chavez’s mutant turntablism comes along, but is largely rigid. Fortunately, artists like Los Angeles’ Maral are embracing collage and elevating into an exciting new realm, matching folk musics with the latest in contemporary club music.

Maral has taken on many roles in Los Angeles’ musical orbit, managing bands, throwing parties, curating mix series, working at big deal independent labels and, of course, plying her trade as one of the city’s most invigorating DJs. Many will know her as one of the driving forces behind SISTER, a collective of women and gender non-comforming people “remedying inequality in our field since 2015.” Her parties, first N:}0 rules, and, most recently, Signal, have hosted both local and international talent, cosistently emphasizing artists who defy convention and breach traditional genre restrictions. Despite putting so  much time, effort and energy into both the local and virtual musical spheres, Maral also finds time to craft a near-constant stream of brilliant edits and collage work, sourcing both Iranian folk and contemporaries songs for some of the most sublimely fucked up sounding club tunes you’re likely to come across.

Past mixes for Miss Modular, SISTER and Truants offer insight into Maral’s field of reference, matching songs from Iranian legend Hayedeh with angular post-punk and banging Jersey Club. Experimenting with distortion and drastic tempo changes, Maral creates new sculptures out of the sonic mash, creating earnest new symbolisms out of dissimilar source material. Her Astral Plane Mix takes a similar tact, full of blown out  and dub-y edits like “lori lullaby” and “coy dub”. The word eccentric hardly means anything in music writing these days, but it’s hard to describe a slowed down, Jersey Club edit of Glen Campbell’s “Guess I’m Dumb” as anything else. Hit the jump for a full track list and download Maral’s Astral Plane Mix here.

Read More

IMG_4716

We hit the NTS studio for the second time in September last Friday and brought along Julien, a DJ and producer spending the summer in Los Angeles. With releases out/forthcoming on Tobago Tracks and Apothecary Compositions, the Denver resident brought a deluge of hardcore techno to the table for his 45 minute session, ratcheting up the tempo and bringing out a brutalist energy. His mix begins at the 45 minute mark and runs until 1:30. Our session features new Bell Curve, VIOLENCE, Torus, Dane Law, Fatima Al Qadiri, Alex Compton and more. Download available here and track list after the jump.

Read More

No guests and no worries on this month’s edition of our NTS Los Angeles show. This was recorded after driving out of (near) a forest fire so the mood is slightly uneasy/ominous for the first 45 minutes. Excuse the abruptness of the start. It was hot in the studio. We also played out the entirety of SHALT’s new ʃælt single, out now on Astral Plane Recordings. You can get that one here. We’ll be back on NTS on September 30. Full track list after the jump.

Read More

E.M.M.A. PROMO SHOT

LA Mermaid is E.M.M.A.’s second official release for Astral Plane Recordings and arrives on July 14. Comprised of five drama-filled, hallucinatory compositions, LA Mermaid is a microcosm of the glistening, magical aesthetic Emma has worked tirelessly to fine tune. The result is music that is larger-than-life, while simultaneously insular and immediately graspable. E.M.M.A.’s music has always existed in these brilliant margins between, and LA Mermaid is a definitive statement of ownership over that space.

Coming on the heels of March’s Glacé single, also released through APR, LA Mermaid is a triumphant statement of intent for E.M.M.A., a release that draws threads from 2013’s Blue Gardens LP and pitches them into ever more vivid shapes. Jump started by the dramatically arranged, long-awaited “Magna Kanye”, LA Mermaid’s bombast is tempered by sequences of quiet brilliance, juxtapositions that are tied together by E.M.M.A.’s signature arpeggiated synths.

“This EP covers a lot of different moods and atmospheres. Themes which have inspired me are dreamy things I can’t quite grasp like the allure of Hollywood, mermaids, the illuminati, the open sea, the composition of the earth, and diamonds” said E.M.M.A.

“Magna Kanye was made after I saw some inspirational footage of Kanye in the studio, like it was a life or death situation, which is how I want to be when I’m in the studio” she added.

With the continued excellence of her Angel Food show on NTS and the huge industry support for her Producer Girls workshops, Astral Plane is delighted to shed some light on the cosmic creations of an artist who has made a conscious decision to not to be prolific in the face of disposable internet culture. As well as previously unheard material, some of these tracks have been eagerly anticipated for some time. The body of work should remind many why this London dweller has long been lauded as one of the era’s most unique talents.

E.M.M.A. – LA Mermaid
APR110 | Out Now
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Bleep
Boomkat
iTunes
Juno
Soundcloud
Spotify

 

IMG_4517

If you’ve tuned into our previous NTS shows you’ve almost certainly got bits and pieces from Dane Law’s various projects, whether it be a hectic trance experiment or glitched out hardcore released through the Quantum Natives platform. We were lucky to grab a guest session from the British producer for our latest show and his ‘Digital Paganism’ mix has not disappointed, joining elegiac ambient forms with Wicker Man samples and a perfect blend of mania and serenity. The guest mix starts around 35 minutes in and runs for 35 minutes. As usual, the Astral Plane DJ Team handles the rest of the show, which features a few tracks from SHALT’s upcoming return to APR and LOFT’s debut 12″, also out via our in house label.

Read More