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KLAHRK & Zoë Mc Pherson, 'E-merge Stgy' (2021). Courtesy SFX, Berlin.

Racine - Amitiés
Cat. Nr: DN022
Format: CD / DL
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/Racine

There’s a lived-in quality to the sound of Racine’s Amitiés. Named after the French word for friendship, the Montréal-based Quebecois artist follows an extended time spent indoors to contemplate what it means to be isolated and in one’s own body, while also staying connected. The album is a follow-up of sorts to Quelque chose tombe (“Something Falls”), released in February 2020 and a kind of accidental prophecy for the crisis that was to come.
Amitiés disintegrates before your very eyes. Opening with a roughshod iPhone recording of Racine playing his parent’s harmonium, the creaky acoustics of "Mon amour je ne guéris jamais" slowly degrade into digital simulations of dreadful organic beauty. That track and the rest of the LP gives the feeling of an abandoned building; a sense of frayed, earthiness dusted with the wisdom of time. And yet, it’s almost entirely made from simulations. Clipped Native Instruments violin patches punctuate the churning atmospherics of “Arête coincée dans une amygdale”. The lonely gongs and bells of “Grosso” resonate in a gust of synthesised ambient. Vocal plugins and the very occasional YouTube samples of a recorded voice are sped-up, glitched, pitched and scrambled into indecipherability. These vocal apparitions rise and fall into the sonic ether like individual ghosts of human contact. They’re bold and expressive, deeply melancholy and yet full of the potential for joy and an awareness of life’s beauty.

It’s in this dearth of social interaction—the heady psychosis of too much solitude—that Amitiés’s tone and mood lies. A score for the numb dissociation from internal chaos and alienation, the album’s sense of acute distress is assuaged only by the small network of collaborators and influences it draws from. Long-time friend and peer Justin Leduc-Frenette (aka Keru Not Ever) contributes drum programming to “Mon amour je ne guéris jamais”. A last-minute reworking of the untitled “Sans titre” by German duo Arigto matches the weight and timbre of Racine’s sooty post-classical soundscapes.

Ultimately, Amitiés is a very human response to an inhuman environment. It’s an intimate homage to friends and the mysterious effects of distance, while somehow finding healing in hardship.

Mastered by Rashad Becker, artwork by Niels Wehrspann

@julienracine

Amitiés

Racine - Arête coincée dans une amygdale

Commonly found exploring fractured club sonics with a fierce bite on her POLAAR label, Flore links up with Peder Mannerfelt Produktions for a two-shot exercise in grubby, dance-wreckin’ rhythm. 

The lioness from Lyon wields noise and distortion with a razor-sharp intent on ‘Get Digit’, threading a tapestry of interference around a monolithic bass thump with a groove that takes its cue from the gnarliest end of the dancehall spectrum. 

‘Base IQ’ pivots towards 8-bit bleep and square wave grime with a stern, modernist tract. The sound design spits and snarls around these luminescent hooks while the low end takes on a thunderous energy, positively demanding a monstrous soundsystem over which to preach its message. 

True to Flore’s mission thus far, PM+6 comes loaded with a swagger fit for darkened parties where familiar structures get laid to waste in flamboyant fashion.
credits
releases March 2, 2023 

Written & Produced by Flore 
Mastering by Isle Audio 
Artwork by Håkan Ullberg

Flore - Base IQ [PM+ 6]

aircode - Surface Tension

Scorpio Red is pleased to announce the release of Zeynep Ağcabay’s second EP, out on the 7th June 2024.

The Turkish born, London based artist’s 4-track release ‘Memories from the Future’ re-frames memory as a non-linear plane of time: visions and sounds collected from “memories” that are yet to occur but feel already lived. An effort to merge her self-titled spiritual folk project with her former ambient pop moniker mea0u, ‘Memories From The Future’ evokes a cyclical, nostalgic and trippy dream sequence. Distorted vocals, a nod to heavy exposure to Western pop influences, meet with samples of Turkish Ney flute and percussion reminiscent of "home".

Zeynep Ağcabay - On My Mind

steppe

First show of TTristana's residency on Rinse. She explore in this one as usual global club sounds.

Rinse France Podcast

TTristana - 21 Novembre 2024

The Untouchables – The Hidden Files [SMDE53]

Released on Limited Edition Marbled 12" and Digital 
https://theuntouchables.bandcamp.com/album/the-hidden-files

A vault of deep pressure unlocked – The Hidden Files collects a set of heavyweight VIPs from The Untouchables, each a reimagined version of past dread-infused cuts. Typically crafted for — and reserved within — their own DJ sets, these alternate versions are now unearthed for wider transmission. 

Stripped back, rebuilt, and submerged in new layers of sub-weight, they explore a more introspective energy. Tension, restraint, and meditative pressure — the Brussels duo reveals hidden forms with signature finesse.

https://soundcloud.com/the-untouchables
https://www.instagram.com/untouchablekay/
https://www.instagram.com/untouchablenitrox/

The Untouchables - Twelve Cycles VIP [SMDE53]

Freedomflotilla.org

Don't become a soldier

B3 . JEAN REDONDO - Gen

@jellvako - FaMe' x @ama-54 - ARABXO DESERTTON

FREE DL:
theartistunion.com/xiaoquanxiaoquanxiaoquan or click the ''buy'' link

J E L L V A K O x Abu Ama (XIAO QUAN BLEND)

—Published across visual art, music & critical thought from 2012-2022
—Other discrete projects, as and when