MUSIC

An astonishing debut album of ambient rap that stretches saturated 808 kicks over dissociated AutoTuned vocals and glyding, amniotic bass. Every track is rolled out in regular, fast, and slurred versions, slanted and enchanted to enhance a sense of sensual, blunted delirium that comes highly recommended if yr into Future, Young Thug, Lee Gamble’s new one, Lil B, Iceboy Violet, DJ Screw. It was only a matter of time before rap and ambient merged into a full syrup, something that’s been on the cards since Lil B appeared in 2010 on DIY label Weird Forest (home to Emeralds, Hair Police and Yellow Swans) with a truly eccentric braindump of stream-of-consciousness raps laced over totally anomalous ambient pads. Iceboy Violet took it further with 'Drown To Float' in 2020, granulating the edges of tracks from Lil Durk, Thugger and Gunna, and now Yungwebster propels the sound further into the blissed abyss, and in the process provides the Sferic label with its most essential release since Space Afrika’s ‘Somewhere Decent To Live’ album in 2018. Yungwebster’s debut sweeps up tracks recorded over the last couple of years, taking the signature crawl of Southern rap that guided cloud rap's first steps (look up Viper and thank us later), and dissolving it with Ambient froth, lean-hued ATL melancholy and YouTube/TikTok micro-clique self-expression. Yungwebster is here joined by Cali producers astarii, Tavo and 6rantt, Rxmer from the Netherlands, Alabama's Sasmochi, Chicago's Dielauryn, Smooks, Cominalone, Star, local rappers Agxny and Tnotsobad, and NY producers Kacie Free and Sonofadm, all of whom contribute to the album's waved atmosphere. Each track is deployed at diff speeds, often melting into a slowed-down redux, giving a nod to DJ Screw and acknowledging the Houston original's overwhelming influence on contemporary ambient-experimental styles. He speeds things up on 'Stay FOCUSSSS', paying attention to Florida's quicker pulse, heard in music from artists like Ski Mask the Slump God and Smokepurpp, before he fades into a regular-speed coda. Through each track, Webster works like a musicologist, presenting a wide-angled view of rap that's both nostalgic and forward facing. When he references Future's most inward material (think the soul-piercing 'Monster' finale 'Codeine Crazy'), he inevitably juxtaposes those feels with euphoric risers and psychedelic pads. On 'pull it to the side' he raps over asymmetrically Eno-esque waves and delicate, skeletal 808 Mafia-inspired rhythms. Even the commanding power of Imogen Heap (not only was she sampled on Lil B and Clams Casino's 'I'm God', but Lil B's The Pack bandmate Young L made an entire album from her voice in 2011 with 'As I Float') is referenced on the record's closer 'Coraline'. Circled by ethereal chorals, Yungwebster sings to the heavens, leaving trilling hi-hats to whirr into the clouds. Real mesmerising gear, a proper AOTY contender.

Duval Timothy’s piano music grows in stature and sprawling ideas with this mix of odes to Mahler and electro-acoustic/concrète evocations of the landscapes to England, Italy, and West Africa, featuring guest input by Fauzia, Yu Su, Vegyn and Lamin Fofana ‘Meeting With a Judas Tree’ is Timothy’s first solo album since 2020 and a significant way marker on his path thus far, which has snaked from Freeport, Sierra Leone, to London, UK. Recorded 2019-22, it expands on ideas from his early pursuit of brooding avant-jazz on 2016’s introductory ‘Brown Loop’ LP, and the more angular experiments of his first sides on personal imprint Carrying Colour, to a vivid blend of inspirations and a broader emotive palette put to canvas with raw finesse. Capturing his feelings in his South London home studio, plus the Carrying Colour studio in Freetown, the Old Police Statin in Rotherhithe, and Casa Mahler in Spolete, Umbria, the recordings share a immediate vivacity and emphasis on texture that serve to heighten the emotive grip of his work. ‘Plunge’ is a case in point, makign use of an auld upright in Freetown whose palettes had lost their felt due to humidity, and lending the piece a quality of Lonnie Holley’s blues, while the smeared electronics and electric guitar licks amplify the aching cadence, and also in ‘Mutate’ whose cascading discord recalls the uneasy dreampop of A.R. Kane. But a big attraction in the record lies with Timothy’s feel for balancing raw and lofty ideas, as with the mix of warbling effects applied to stately Mahler-esque figures and field recording made with his mum in the hills outside Bath on ‘Up’, and his ability to to seamlessly bring others not the vibe, as on the utopian promise of ‘Wood’ featuring piano and synth by Yu Su, and Vegyn co-production, or the subtle disturbances of Fauzia in ‘Thunder’ that edge the piece close to Klein’s most enigmatic. The final sequence ‘Drift’ with Lamin Fofana is an ideal curtain closer, brimming with an brooding but unresolved quality that recalls his Mahler inspiration via The Caretaker and a sea of natural world inspiration that gives it a beautifully in-between worlds headiness.

We've been very lucky to release the debut releases of the fantastic duo Mundos Sutis. They became an instant favourite of many people with their unique music style, that immersive deep techno etiquette that they craft really well. "Quintessence" is the album that gathers our favourite works released on the label in the past months. The journey is about to start, just press play and fly away.

"I’ve started to work on this album before I knew it. During June 2018 I was in Japan for a month to release my previous album "Cairn" as well as my first solo exhibition of drawings in Tokyo. Everyday on my way to the gallery I passed in front of the same building, its name kept haunting me : Rogue Hill. Back then I was digging for cheap 80’s Japanese CD’s (Balearic, New Age, Ambient,...) in second hand stores. Most of them set the tone of this album and the direction I wanted to follow. I feel there’s a direct connection between these original sources and the sound I pursue by their meditative aspect. Most of the demo songs were done before my daughter’s birth on August 2019 and were finalized since then. Many of the titles refer to this main event and relate to how it changed my position in life : being a link through time by becoming a father."

"Is it too Sam Prekop?", Sam Prekop asked me in an email conversation in which he delivered his wonderful illustrations which would become the front cover artwork. No, it is not too Sam Prekop at all. His drawings as well as the freeform music on this album are subtly different from anything else he has produced in his solo career. Regardless of the style he is working in, Sam Prekop’s music is always imbued with a sense of wide-eyed discovery and unpredictable exploration. On »The Sparrow« Sam Prekop expands his electronic cosmos with a remarkable expression of timeless simplicity and coherent execution. It's deceptively simple music that feels accessible without abandoning the experimental legacy of the Modular hardware system which serves, besides a polyphonic Prophet 5 synthesizer, as the centre piece of this production. The side long title track opens this album with unpredictable synth dissonances and broken step sequenced patterns. »Palm« brings the set to a close with its irregular fragility while »Fall is Farewell« is build around a yearning brassy fanfare which resembles the noir romance theme of Michael Smalls soundtrack for the 1971 film »Klute«. The sparkling essence of »Step and Stair« seems a suitable space for unforgotten summer holidays of our childhood. On his first solo release for Düsseldorfs label TAL, electronic experimentalist Sam Prekop offers his most captivating yet stripped down modular music. All compositions on »The Sparrow« were gradually developed piece by piece. Best known for his jazz-leaning tropicalismo with The Sea And Cake, a key part of the Chicago scene with the likes of Tortoise or Chicago Underground Duo, he has in recent years established himself as a modular synthesist, building his instrument meticulously to create a unique system that allows him to create highly individual music through mechanical patterns, repetitions and chance. In this context his widely acclaimed community forming public tutorials on fb should be noted as well. »The Sparrow« is an exciting new chapter in his development as a constant creative influence. Stefan Schneider, Düsseldorf August 2022

Companion offering to the recent LP, Aquarealm: Sub-Aquatic Compilation interweaves an array of new album tracks with a selection of discography deep cuts for a one-hour saga of shape-shifting aquatic bliss. Drawing on the classic X.Y.R. palette of Formanta Mini, Korg M1, FX, a loop station, and field recordings, the mix’s 16 songs slipstream seamlessly despite being sourced from across a decade of work – testament to the constancy of its creator’s vision and the renewable vastness of his muse.

Yamaguchi electronic landscaper Tomokazu Fujimoto aka Multi-Surface returns from an eight-year hiatus with a slow-blooming suite of radiant terrains and looping lullabies, named for a geometric technique utilized in Japanese gardening: Aesthetics of Inequality Triangles. Prior tapes for Lillerne and Patient Sounds explored parallel spheres of smeared tranquility, but his recent work skews even more sun-flared and crystalline, percolating patterns of texture, melody, and circuitry into states of suspended transience. The album’s 10 tracks lull, unspool, and refract, lapping like waves against aerial shores, flickering rainbows glimpsed in raindrops. The titles offer further clues, mapping a morning walk beneath too blue skies along a path lined with ceramics and stones, pastel flowers gently billowing in a breeze blowing from tomorrow.

*Berlin-based ambient artist N Kramer is releasing his new album Altered Scenes and Slight Variations on May 17 via Leaving Records. *Created over 2020-2022 as a variation on themes Niklas revisited over time with playful adjustment, Altered Scenes is the result of curiosity for complex harmony and composition techniques pursued via searching Youtube for tutorials on music theory. *Inspirations were drawn from a variety of sources such as the mixing of Studio Ghibli chord progressions with Jon Hassell soundscapes. We can also hear the retain of acousmatic percussive/harmonic processes & performance established on 2021's Habitat w/Berlin percussionist J Foerster. *Compiling a series of scenes (or tracks) soundtracking an imaginary film in episodic fashion, these scenes feature various musical motives used in alternating contexts. *Presented with a scene sequence, the listener is invited to experience the album as an “Opening” scene, continuing through a “Soft Lit Room”, “Wading Through The Grass” in the next moment, and so on. *Altered Scenes reconciles opposites amidst ASMR backgrounds: serendipitous or random vs. designed or composed, static vs. the free-flowing, sparse & quiet vs. dense & pulsating.