ISSUE #34
Early Hours
by Bearcubs
The man who made steel drums somber, the James Blake soundalike who we guiltily prefer over the original (sorry James) is back. Jack Ritchie, aka Bearcubs, is a Brighton-based producer with a lethargic, hauntingly smooth voice and a penchant for lush, cocoon-like compositions that feature layers of droning synthesizers and melancholic marimba melodies. He snuck onto the scene in 2014 with a few singles and EPs, but only caught our attention with 2017’s Underwaterfall EP. While we absolutely thought this was Blake in disguise at first, this mysterious downtempo composer has elevated his game and differentiated his sound over the past 3 years, the product of which is the dreamy, slightly de-tuned Early Hours. This LP changes tempos from house to half-step to ambient, features etheric guest vocals from MUNYA, narou and la loye, and of course centers around lots of incredible steel drum melodies. Ritchie sings on most tracks, his disaffected vocals the perfect accompaniment to this sensual, polychromatic melange of divergent sound. This is an album for beaches at sunrise, long, hot showers and summer breezes on silk sheets on skin.
Follow Bearcubs here.
Favorite tracks: Overthinking (feat. narou), Même Language (feat. MUNYA), Rubicon Guava
Fight! Fight! Fight!
By Two Fingers
From Brazilian-American producer and DJ Amon Tobin comes the long-awaited 3rd episode of his hip-hop inspired side project. Where Tobin is abstract in the extreme, bending musical physics and creating some of the most experimental sounds and sights of the modern age, Two Fingers is pure, straightforward energy; aggression and innovation smelted into wildly mutating sound and injected straight into the heart. Fight! Fight! Fight! is all roiling muscle and buzzing intensity, home-synthesized textures stretched tight over a metric fuckload of horsepower and sub-bass. This is an album to trick out your Mad Max Murder Buggy to - an album that racks pull-ups in the wreckage of a demolition derby and molts it’s spiked skin before your very eyes. Whether it’s the overcranked joyride of You Aint Down or the haunting, detuned abduction sounds of Zero Face, the genius sound-design Tobin brings to every track keeps things moving in undeniably unique and unexpected ways, while guest features from Ivy Lab, G Jones and Little Snake put further dynamic spins on this already deliciously wild ride.
Follow Two Fingers here, and Amon’s eponymous work here.
Favorite tracks: You Aint Down, Rockyou Feelit, LED Moon Rhythm
WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD
By Nick Hakim
The last time I saw Nick Hakim live, he was dressed like a sailor and filled the silence between songs with strange and hilarious non-sequiturs. It’s been 3 years since the soulful, psychedelic Green Twins came out, and Nick is still owner of one of the softest, deepest voices in modern folk… or R&B, or neo-soul. Whatever genre WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD is, it’s a step into the unknown for this already enigmatic producer/singer/songwriter, both musically and thematically. Where Green Twins lived in dream-inspired summer haze, Hakim’s 2nd LP winds down a darker rabbit hole, bouncing from soundscape to soundscape while exploring themes of climate crisis, overprescribed medication, dead friends and self-worth. The tender, whispering vocal at the core of these stuttering, crackling compositions is still the Nick we grew to love over the last 6 years, but he’s grown somewhat fractured along with this world we share, and this album leans into that with a beautiful, tragic, slightly manic smile. We wouldn’t have our Hakim any other way.
Follow Nick here.
Favorite tracks: ALL THESE CHANGES, QADIR, ALL THESE INSTRUMENTS
