BLAMSTRAIN [FINLAND]
envelope driving
theme for a wordless moment
a top-shelf electronic album found its way into my hands recently, bound not in a cd sleeve, but rather a piece of A4 paper masquerading as a press release. from such inauspicious beginnings, comes an outstanding piece of work. finnish producer juho hietala’s debut ‘ensi’ dropped on merck records last year, and for the follow-up release, he’s drafted in some of the scene’s more considered artists for a remix album. ‘blamstrain remixed’ features fellow finn and merck compadre, lackluster, morr’s isan, funckarma (warp, skam, neo ouija), syndrone (aka machine drum), mesak (one half of mr. velcro fastener) and plenty more. you can hear streams of this essential release at m3rck.net and find out more about the artist at blamstrain.com. the above mp3s are taken from one of juho’s many mp3 releases, you can find another two on a monotonik mp3 release at mono211.com.
MALAVENTURA [SPAIN]
mussuka
sambaal
the opening page of malaventura’s web site spends a lot of time telling us what he is not. he is not a band, nor does he play electronic music, nor is his music available in any stores. naturally with so many disclaimers, there’s little room to describe just what it is. the first track above is a sunny acoustic track with bubbling electronics underneath, taken from his newly released second album ‘malaventurados’ which he cites as being “sometimes innocent, sometimes evil”. the second track – from his debut ‘malaventura01’ opts for a grander vision, a cinematic epic with dirty beats and lush string samplers. download more at malaventura.com
NNNJ [CANADA]
goop scoop
what’s the weather like today
demeter’s pupil
more from the agriculture label, from brooklyn-based, montreal-born martin baumgartner, nnnj (pronounced ‘inch’). there’s no defining the sound of nnnj, familiar yet collectively untraceable. listen to ‘goop scoop’ for example, dub-driven downtempo funk at its core, yet layered with a vocal (eastern or asian?) that sits outside of those genres. ‘demeter’s pupil’ opens with an eastern strings and devotional chants, anchored with a rolling hip hop beat. like much of agriculture’s output, this is world music for people who don’t like world music. the album is called ‘monkey straddle’ and you can buy online via the agriculture web site.