For Seven Plays, each week one of our contributors will keep a personal music diary for seven days, then hand the feature over to another Truant. The idea is to keep sharing great music with our readers, but with a more individual touch than our more objective posts and reviews. Interrupting the feature’s extended hiatus […]
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Carmen Villain has carved a particular niche for herself over the past few years. Having released music for a decade now, mostly on Oslo mainstay Smalltown Supersound, she’s shifted her sound from dreamy, guitar-led (but nonetheless atmospheric) indie-pop into her own realm of refreshingly distinctive ambient sound art. This shift kick-started with 2019’s Both Lines […]
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With a vision for powerful, narrative-driven DJ sets as well as a production catalogue spanning original hardstyle compositions, rhythmic drum track collaborations, dancefloor-storming superhit blends and wondrously uncanny metal mashups, Estoc sets any and all music libraries alight. The Philadelphia-based artist has been consistently delivering the fiercest of mixes and edits under the name for […]
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In a year of near-continuous crisis, works of support and solidarity have proved crucial. One such release is Nisf Madeena, a compilation from renowned mastering engineer Heba Kadry, created in partnership with Arabic music and culture magazine Ma3azef. A fundraiser for music communities affected by the explosion in Beirut this summer, it is a thrilling […]
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Shades is the fourth album in some 11 years from Good Sad Happy Bad, the London-based band formerly known as Micachu and the Shapes (now rechristened after their 2015 LP). It arrives after the longest gap between between the group’s albums yet, and just as there’s something idiosyncratic and unshakeable about their lo-fi avant-pop and […]
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Maarja Nuut & Ruum (Hendrik Kaljujärv) are a duo from Estonia who have been collaborating for a number of years. They put out their debut Muunduja in 2018 and recently followed up that release with World Inverted. This album features delicate electronic strands that underpin Nuut’s folk-inspired vocals and violin-playing to eerie and unsettling effect; […]
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Okkyung Lee has spent over two decades playing experimental music around the world. Though known for her dissonant, wiry cello-playing and her invigorating use of extended techniques, she has never settled. On her 2005 LP Nihm, harsh noise exercises share space with rhythmic jazz workouts and melodic laments. More recently, her explorations have led to […]
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Astral Black returned earlier this year with the fifth instalment of their Frass FM compilation series. Curated by Jon Phonics, the label has built up a good reputation for quality releases over the years. With tracks from Impey, Lil Jabba and Polonis in previous Frass FM records, this fifth edition seeks to provide a snapshot […]
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The debut album from FUJI||||||||||TA (AKA Fujita Yosuke) has its own history, spanning some 11 years. iki comprises four pieces, each improvised on a pipe organ the sound artist finished building for himself back in 2009. The instrument has been a mainstay of his performances ever since, appearing at small improv shows and in immersive […]
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With a background originating among Sheffield’s DIY/independent punk scene and now existing as an explosive part of Manchester’s DJing circuit, Clemency was always destined to thrive in liminal spaces. The producer and DJ has spent the past few years gaining a reputation for dropping the dark and dubby right in with frazzled techno, tense-yet-cathartic hardcore […]
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Minor Science is an alias of Angus Finlayson, initially known as a music writer for sites such as Resident Advisor before surprising many with the release of his debut 12″ as Minor Science on Will Bankhead’s The Trilogy Tapes in 2014. An impressive, intriguing five-tracker, it showed a willingness to explore unexpected terrain in the […]
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Videogames have been a continued influence on the work of Cologne-based, DC-originated big picture maximalist Swan Meat. As a composer, producer and DJ with a background in poetry and audio engineering, Swan Meat AKA Reba Fay has incorporated an ‘everything, all at once’ approach to her music – much in the same way games apply […]
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