“Falnukmel,” the first single from Palestinian producer and rapper Julmud’s forthcoming album Tuqoos, is an industrial trap barrage. The density is startling, the bass brushing up against wet scrapes and lazery fields, propellant and unabating—a counter to the impassive sterility of the apartheid state’s machinery and the empty-hall trance music that…
A pair of Speke’s weaver birds are the unwitting guests of Nyokabi Kariũki’s “Equator Song,” the second single from her upcoming EP peace places: kenyan memories. The young Nairobi-reared artist recorded a pair as she traveled through Kenya’s Laikipia county, captivated by the chatter of the bright yellow architects who…
The UK grime group Da Black Op’s has one mission: To destroy your eardrums with pummeling sub-bass. Their Bandcamp is full of heavy productions primed to rattle speakers and scare off birds. Dropped without warning a few days ago, “GRAVE YARD,” a demented rattler from the group’s leader (and label…
London duo Two Shell emerged in 2019 with a lean, austere take on contemporary UK bass music that sounded right at home on Livity Sound, the Bristol label that has spent the past decade forging a singular style out of sharp angles, metallic textures, and dusky shadows. Since their debut,…
Few rappers balance nonchalance and mortality like Babyface Ray. Listening to the Detroit rapper’s stories feels like overhearing a private conversation between friends–they sound confident and guarded all at once. “I can sit and tell you about the diamonds on my chest like everything’s easy,” he says at the opening…
Sofia Kourtesis constructed a set of intensely personal house music for Fresia Magdalena, her 2021 breakout EP. The Berlin-based Peruvian producer’s latest single, “Estación Esperanza” continues in the same vein, intimately connecting the personal with the political. Sampling sounds from French-Spanish singer Manu Chao’s “Me Gustas Tu,” “Estación Esperanza” has…
Since last August, Big Thief have been letting songs from their forthcoming album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You trickle out in ones and twos. The sound of the record, so far, feels as mutable as the sky in springtime. They’ve given us chiming indie rock from deep…
Nilüfer Yanya’s most potent work holds something in reserve. Whether it’s a judgment, a closely guarded secret, or a concealed wound is unclear, but a sense of unknowable hurt lurks in her voice, and as a songwriter she smartly builds her arrangements around this unfilled blank. Her new single, “Midnight…
caroline is one of those young British bands with so many members (eight) that they might as well hire a secretary just to schedule meetings. The London-based octet first started as the post-punk duo of Casper Hughes and Jasper Llewellyn, then expanded over the years to include old friends and…
Raveena’s music unfurls slowly, dwelling in wistfully recounted dreams and a rich vein of feminine energy that winds through her relationships with family and the natural world. Her songs have always been intimate and personal, but the lead single from her forthcoming album, Asha’s Awakening, channels these interests through a…