FR 117: Pulses, Palms, Portals

Bonus issue! Avant-techno, throwback trip-hop, minimalist post-rock and more essential new releases

With all the interviews of the past month—critic Ben Ratliff on his new book Run the Song, composer Rebekka Karijord on climate grief, Muscut’s Nikolaienko on boycotting U.S. platforms and closing down his label, Anthony Naples on the creative reset behind his new album Scanners, and Facta & K-LONE on the Widsom Teeth label’s pivot to minimal house—I’ve fallen behind in reviewing new releases, so today I’m playing catch-up.

This bonus issue is exclusively for paying subscribers, to thank them for making this newsletter possible. It’s a banner crop of reviews, too:

• a techno lifer delivers a manifesto on the contemporary state of the genre, looping back to his groundbreaking late-‘90s run in the process

• dance music’s canniest jack-of-all-trades—bass music, ambient, techno, electronica, you name it—unleashes a furious four-tracker of breakbeats and electro

• two Brazilian producers known for leftfield house and improbable yacht-rock collabs double down on their Larry Heard fixation

• a rising Italian musician makes a polyrhythmic expedition to Jon Hassell’s outernational zone

• a crack team of Japanese post-rockers beats the MIDI clock at a Turing test

• a singer-songwriter behind some of recent years’ sultriest, most low-key R&B shifts into trip-hop mode on her self-produced new LP—and I also highlight a few of her obscure early projects from the Scandinavian deep-house underground that will blow your mind

…and still more, spanning house, dub techno, yacht-pop, a classic electro reissue, and more.

Keep scrolling—and subscribe if you haven’t already—to read about all five LPs and 12 singles/EPs.

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Paid subscriptions are $5 a month or $50 a year; perks include exclusive posts like this one; regularly updated playlists for chilling and clubbing (now available on Deezer as well as Apple Music and Spotify); the ongoing Mixes Digest series; and full access to the archives, including interviews with Stephen Vitiello, Longform Editions head Andrew Khedoori, Bristol bass trickster Bruce, drone titans Belong, Seefeel’s Mark Clifford, and more.