Taken from NAJIB (@najibmusic) debut The Voluntary Prisoners, out October 29, 2021, via HUMAN (@human_le)

Read: https://bit.ly/3DnVORL
Pre-order: https://bit.ly/3uTbVDJ

Multidisciplinary Moroccan artist NAJIB ب ي ج ن , currently based in Brussels is interested in genres that bring "chaos" - by using a variety of rhythms permeating different cultures and confronting them with each other. In his music, he aims to formate a stability in chaos and creates a dystopic vision of his world, allowing a continuous questioning of himself. Glitchy, multi-textured sounds and deconstructed music elements are always present in NAJIB's compositions.

Cover Art by Yung Poltergeist 2

Mastered by Tinkah

Released by HUMAN

Premiere: NAJIB - Dictionary Of Imaginary Places [HUMAN]

Taken from SBKT049: Osheyack - Intimate Publics
Release date: 8th June 2022

Intimate Publics, Osheyack’s second album, is an homage to Shanghai, the city he has called home since 2012. Over the past ten years the producer has evolved from an avid club-goer to a key member of the vital soundscape that emerged from ALL Club and its predecessor, the now defunct club The Shelter. As hinted by the title, which draws on American social theorist Michael Warner’s work on publics and counterpublics, the album expresses a commitment to mining the utopian potential of club music, forging new worlds and generating future social relations, just as the artist bids farewell to the city at a moment of uncertain transition. While tracks like 'Edging' and 'Thrall' continue to present his signature collage of harder club music, the rest of the record reveals a shift to synthetic approximations of acoustic instruments. 'Still', the central track of the album, is a piece composed almost entirely of samples found on Vocaloid (a vocal synthesizer developed by Yamaha, commonly used to give voice to Japanese virtual idols). While echoing themes explored in previous projects, like the nature of realism and authenticity in a techno-mediated landscape, Intimate Publics is charged with an unexpected emotional candor and vulnerability, unveiling a personal side Osheyack is only beginning to explore.

Words by Alvin Li
Artwork by Xiaofei Qiu
Design by Luke Griffiths
Mastered by Raphael Valensi

Intimate Publics

Osheyack - Thrall

Design Default - Quartz Silica EP
Format: Digital
Release: December 2nd, 2022
Artwork by Benfika

Marking the 100th record of the imprint’s prolific history, Infinite Machine are proud to present the release of Quartz Silica EP by new-comer Design Default. A self-described ‘tone scientist’, the Parisian delivers a 5-track of uniquely textural compositions which map out a sonic world influenced by dystopian anime titles like Trigun & Neon Genesis Evangelion. Like many on the IM discography, Quartz Silica acts almost like a simulation or audio-film representation of an abstract space you’re invited to traverse.

The EP opens with ‘Between Wasteland and Sky’; percussive assault on your senses which clearly exemplifies Design Default’s meticulous approach to sound design. Every detail, every sample and every automation is carefully considered to add to the heightened affective theatrics heard here.

‘A.S.K’ follows things up on this release, a highly inventive composition with a loose structure that evolves from phrase-to-phrase, refusing to sit still. Design Default’s interest in jazz and free-form arrangements is married up with an angular sonic palette of industrial groans and splutters; generating the impression of hearing a glitch (or hiccup, even) in the machine. There’s something refreshingly playful about the maximalistic breakdown of ‘A.S.K’ akin to the wry smile found in some of AYA and her YCO label’s output.

After two highly frenetic tracks, Design Default turns the tempo down slightly with the groove-laden ‘S.E.E.D.S’. Layers of rich, fuzzy synapses phase in and out of prominence over a bed of complex drum programming. The producer deploys negative space here to great effect, with the absence of a drum hit or sample where you might expect one adding to the hypnotic rhythmic swing of ‘S.E.E.D.S’.

Rounding out the originals of Quartz Silica EP, ‘SILEX’ is a club-ready construction with a paint-shaking bassline which seems to slip downwards in pitch as if it can’t get steady footing. Again, Design Default’s tone science/alchemy shines through clearly here, with stutters of melodies, bursts of white noise and stacked drum patterns managing to sit cohesively in this dynamic expanse.

Fellow Parisian De Grandi jumps on remix duties for ‘S.E.E.D.S’ to finish off the EP. The Paradoxe Club signee adds further syncopation and strips the original’s elements down to its fundamental core. The results are a spectral creeper of a tune - built almost intentionally with dark, low ceiling environments in mind.

PREORDER

Design Default - A.S.K (IM100)

Toxic Optimizm

Tzusing and Taipei’s FINAL club curate a five-track compilation of local experimental electronic talent on @seacucumberlabel. Hear @sandystrace's ‘Beholden’ now

More info: https://djmag.com/listen/premiere-sandys-trace-beholden

Premiere: Sandy’s Trace ‘Beholden’

Ice_eyes and Sueuga have linked Athens and Mexico for a percussive and industrial EP labeled post-pandemic club music.

Read more on CxC 🔗 couvrexchefs.com/en/ice_eyes-sueuga-arboretum-records-superficie-ziur-remix

Article

PREMIERE: Ice_eyes x Sueuga - Superficie (Ziúr Remix) (Arboretum Records)

Taken from SBKT057: mmph - Harvest

Release date: 26th April 2023

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It's been five years since Korean-born, Los Angeles-based sound designer and composer Sae Heum Han, aka mmph, released his last EP Serenade on the Tri Angle label in flurry of activity. "Harvest" arrives after an unintentional pause; three years ago, Han was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that immediately changed his priorities. Bedridden and exhausted from medication, he was only able to work on music for around an hour each day - the rest of his time was swallowed by rest and precarious trips to hospital in the midst of a global pandemic. Now in remission, Han looks back on this period as a time of emotional evolution where the ideas behind "Harvest" could be unravelled. The album emerges from his desire to reconnect with the Korean music he heard when he was growing up in Seoul, using these discernible timbres as building blocks to decorate with his advanced palette of electronic sounds and processes.

Han's music has always balanced precariously between the rigor of classical training and the relative open-endedness of electronic experimentation. This duality is still present on "Harvest", but Han's canvas has widened slightly. He continues to blur the line between the traditional and the modern, emulating and mirroring Korean instruments with synthesizers and sound design elements, and blending them with acoustic sounds and live percussion samples. But where his previous records and scoring work highlighted his ability to weave baroque forms into tight, contemporary sonic tapestries, this album adds the drama, yearning and spirituality of folk. On 'Dialogue' for example, pitch-warped traditional vocals twist through an ensemble of bizarre future-ancient sounds; fluttering strings dissolve into spiked percussive barbs and synthesized wails cut through walls of industrial noise.

'Spirit' follows quickly, coaxing listeners into a trance state with its flurry of microtonal string plucks and irregular percussion. Han is a master of breath control, letting his brief moments of negative space interrupt any expected regularity and guide the track away from electronic music's expected grid. This just about prepares the ground for the title track, a labyrinthine maze of dramatic compositional motifs and dizzying sonics that mutates from gugak forms into a cacophony of pneumatic blast beats before snapping back. From here the album lurches towards the dancefloor for a moment, absorbing and contorting cantankerous club rhythms on 'Avnue' and 'Moon Jar', slowing to a crawl on 'Harvest II'. Despite hijacking its theme from the title track's blast beat section, it transforms into a ballad, acting as a fittingly tearjerking finale.

The record is rounded off by a trio of remixes that draw Han further into the SVBKVLT family. Egyptian producer ABADIR chops up 'Harvest' and reassembles it into a jerky banger, extracting its dancefloor potential and evolving hardstyle thuds into spectral concertina flexes. 'Moon Jar' meanwhile is turned into twitchy trance by Shade Seoul's NET GALA, and Yen Tech stitches together 'Avnue' and 'Dialogue', creating an anxious backdrop that shuttles mmph's android folk to the modern metropolis.

Artwork by Sae Heum Han
Mastered by Raphael Valensi

Harvest

mmph - Harvest (ABADIR Remix)

Async Figure - Rover

BLUE LIGHT

TOPOLOGICAL SPACE - Extended MidiPad Mix

Catrialis Remixes

Loyalty XIX - Alta (Ingrate Remix)

Lighyer - Awakpo

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Requests: contact@couvrexchefs.com


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PREMIERE: Ice_eyes x Sueuga - Superficie (Ziúr Remix) (Arboretum Records)

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