GGP/RMX

Totem (James Holden Remix)

Cementing himself as an integral part of the French Indie music scene, French producer and multi-instrumentalist Crayon, real name Lauren Larue, signed to Erased Tapes in 2021 to herald in a new chapter in his life.

His two track EP, consisting of Misplaced and Ithinkso, sees him going back to his electronic, UK-infused roots. Whilst the opening song Misplaced — featuring vocals from Gracy Hopkins and Jo Lowenthal of Australian indie band Tora — maintains a clearer narrative; the second is a blend of traditional 00’s uk garage and jazz, almost fully instrumental. It’s this clear contrast the producer wanted to explore further, made possible by spending a month away in Morocco with choreographer Leo Walk and a bunch of other creatives and friends in early 2020. While Misplaced had already been recorded several months before, Ithinkso was sitting comfortably amongst a raft of other unfinished songs in Crayon’s hard drive. “It was only after seeing Leo’s excitement at first listen, and the incredible and abstract dance moves he would throw while discovering the song that I knew I had to do something with it,” the artist recalls.

As he and Leo went to spend a week at Plastician’s mystical domain Jean Francois Fourtou, in the outskirts of Marrakech, they found themselves submerged in a parallel world, surrounded by giant sculptures of insects, and a fully equipped, real sized reversed house. One quiet night they decided to experiment together with Leo repeating specific moves, almost turning himself into a human boomerang, while Crayon’s assignment was to write an assimile yet efficient electronic beat to it. After sampling a very short bit from French Soul singer Enchantée Julia (who Crayon was producing for at the time), Ithinkso was born, named after what they would both hear phonetically from the sample.

Both tracks wouldn’t have been completed without yet another collaborator, Crayon’s then roommate Bastien Brison, a Paris based jazz pianist. Together they held, when Lauren returned from the trip, what they simply called The Jazz Club in their apartment. It was a weekly jam/live painting/dancing event that they opened to a (not so) small lucky audience as a way to cope with the absence of live music, and events in general. Once again, the clear contrast between traditional jazz music and modern sounds and movements, that gave him the urge to make this project.

Misplaced / Ithinkso

Ithinkso

Crayon - Ithinkso (ft. Bastien Brison)

Stream/Buy: ffm.to/Norlto 

Calabrian Woods’ is the new single by Indian Wells, the project of producer Pietro Iannuzzi from southern Italy. Introspective and engaging, the track mixes influences of Radiohead and Aphex Twin within a capsule of emotive techno and humanised electronics. It’s the first track to be taken from his upcoming album ‘No One Really Listens To Oscillators’, set for release on 15th July 2022 on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint.

The album’s conceptual input comes from an article in The New York Times talking about a new conceptual architectonical style. The term “Incompiuto” (Unfinished) was theorized by Alterazioni Video & Fosbury Architecture and concerned unfinished works that reveal the inability of projects to make infrastructures useful and sustainable for the community. 

“The head of this article was a photo of an escalator in the middle of nowhere in Calabria, where I live,” explains Pietro. “Which is from where the track gets its title”. I knew this escalator very well and I immediately realized that my perception of this "reality" could be really different from people who have never lived in this area. It can be said that I grew up in the unfinished - between unfinished houses and other half-built works that are now an integral part of the landscape, without really noticing. In reality, our experience is influenced by everything that surrounds us and this context shapes us to make us live a distorted reality, which we very quickly get used to.”

Indian Wells’ last album, 2017’s warmly received ‘Where The World Ends’, was supported by an array of tastemaker press (“Soaring euphoria” Mixmag Top 50 Albums of 2017, “Tender, pulsing techno” Resident Advisor, “A standout cut in the realm of emotive techno” XLR8R, “Techno with an artful, emotive edge” Clash, “A refreshing vision of club music” Electronic Sound, "The album simply glows" A Closer Listen) and standout track ‘Cascades’ received plays across BBC Radio (Gideon Coe, Huw Stephens, Jamz Supernova, Pete Tong, Phil Taggart, Tom Ravenscroft). 

‘No One Really Listens To Oscillators’ is set for release on 15th July 2022 on LP and digital formats.

No One Really Listens To Oscillators

Calabrian Woods

https://soundcloud.com/vanessawagner revisits on the piano a piece of https://soundcloud.com/rone-music released in 2019. Bold in her changes of rhythm, but always precise and intense of her play, the French pianist, carries in her movement the synthesizers of Rone until a very cosmic final.

On the flip, *KAITO*, a Japanese ambient legend with releases on the prestigious Kompakt and Transmat labels, lifts "Motion" a little higher into the sky, doing justice to Vanessa's arrangements while swirling the composition in a resolutely immersive sound palette.

Stream/download : https://vanessa-wagner.bandcamp.com/album/motion

Bandcamp

Vanessa Wagner - Motion [Rone] (Kaito Reconstruct)

Expansive interstellar journey.
Orchestral, electronic and both types of instrument.
Inner space journeys to connect with higher and deeper dimensions.

Constellation 13

Download: https://www.xlr8r.com/mp3/2015/11/snasen-vaapen-vessels-remix/

@snasen
@vessels

Download

Download: Snasen - Vaapen (Vessels Remix)

Download: https://www.xlr8r.com/mp3/2016/05/kassiel-fluttering/

@kassielmusic
@bad-panda-records

Download: Kassiel - Fluttering

https://ianhandsley.bandcamp.com/album/detach

Shipping - Detached

Miwon - Charezza

Flicker

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

The lead single ‘Thunder', which blends mildly abrasive effects on the marimba with a warm feeling of benevolence, was inspired by the poem You Will Hear Thunder by Anna Akhmatova. It comes with an equally breathtaking video directed and shot by Ryo Noda in the mountainscapes that surround Fujita's new life in Hyogo, rural Japan.

Watch: https://youtu.be/IvqjqrDRALs

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings, the electronic dub made under his El Fog alias, and his experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek. The new album sees him unite all these different facets for the first time into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone – on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018) – to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effects and tape recorder.
 
“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”
 
The record also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls. 

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.
   
Bird Ambience will be released on Erased Tapes in 2LP, CD and digital formats on May 28.

Bird Ambience

Thunder

Stream & pre-order

Masayoshi Fujita - Thunder

InFiné is an international and eclectic music label based in Paris and Berlin, founded by Alexandre Cazac and Yannick Matray, to pulse projects from all over the world with love & passion.

InFiné is expanding in Paris, Berlin, and across borders to meet various projects, mixing influences ranging from contemporary classic to rock, from minimalist pop to techno, via electronica, r’n’b or more traditional music. For 15 years, the label has welcomed and supported artists from all over the world such as Rone, Bruce Brubaker, Cubenx… Adventurous, resolutely independent, InFiné is a unique and committed creation platform made up of “Music Activists” who can’t stop working for diversity and innovation.

Vanessa Wagner - Motion [Rone] (Kaito Reconstruct)

InFiné Music

Recent comments

Botazik

Related tracks