Disheveled : Phantom Touch :

An introspective record that uses ambient and extreme flashcore beats — calmly exploring your inner self and finding a lot of intensity in it, beauty, trauma, complexity. If the cover inspires you, so should the music.

“Starting in 2020 and lasting through 2023, I began using Virtual Reality as a means to help overcome my personal struggles with Sexual Identity, Gender Dysphoria, CPTSD, Anxiety, and Depression. I spent countless hours in VRChat, establishing a safe space in which I could comfortably communicate with new people, alleviate my chronic loneliness, and navigate through my anxieties and emotions. This album is a curation of Modular Synth based performances, inspired by my life altering experiences during that period.” — Disheveled

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM
▷ Atomcyber on Cara (visual artist who made the cover)

Jonah Yano : & the Heavy Loop :

This sound makes me instantly feel good. Aquatic, warm, rather peaceful with piano, sometimes saxophone, and Yano’s beautiful androgynous voice. “Romance ESL” uses heavily satured electric guitar and saxophone, bringing dissonance and swing to the mix while keeping the piano and intimate production on top; the title track is very long but doesn’t even feel like it.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Steve Tibbetts : Northern Song :

Subtle and understated, beautiful and comforting — ECM jazz can sometimes feel a bit overpolished but not here. I’m not sure how to describe this album really, as instead of evoking anything exterior, it feels more like an inner state of being: serenity and curiosity mostly. Like the way a pleasant walk outside with a nice breeze feels when gathering your thoughts and managing to make everything fit just right somehow.

(I love the cover art with its missing, blanked out, damaged parts; you could read it as mysterious, strangely nostalgic, or something else yet.)

▷ Official website
▷ RYM

Thomas Köner : Nijiumu : Pauline Oliveros & Randy Raine-Reusch : Paul Schütze : Driftworks :

Four albums, each one with a different take on strange, minimal ambient. I thought they were exclusive but two of them (Köner’s and Schütze’s) were also released individually.

Thomas Köner’s Nuuk is the best thing here to my ears; dark and minimal, very elegant, yet expansive and immersive enough to be super pleasant to listen to. Some of Köner’s works are a bit too austere and disjointed for me, his best are great though.

Nijiumu’s disc is a long live session which sounds a bit like freeform ritual ambient featuring Keiji Haino’s characteristic vocals; it bites but is still atmospheric enough. My least favourite of the four, still good though.

Pauline Oliveros’s record, a collaboration with Randy Raine-Reusch (who I’m not at all familiar with), is beautiful and striking drone — could be among my favourites by Oliveros actually, and a good reason to get this box set. She always plays accordion while Raine-Reusch plays different instruments on each track (khene, sho, đàn bầu), the interplay is nice, feels like there is peace within the tension.

Paul Schütze’s Stateless is a strange one; it’s winding, taking oblique paths, perhaps sounding less focussed than some of his other albums which are more striking and immersive (The Surgery of Touch especially). David Toop is also present here, another tribal ambient artist I like very much.

▷ RYM
▷ Discogs

GusGus : 24/7 :

(Yeah, watch me attempt to review this 00s record no one cares about anymore a third time lol)

Perhaps the only GusGus albums you want are Polydistortion and This Is Normal. Cool quirky and dreamlike trip hop with deep bass on the former, acid and sexy/quirky songs on the latter — I love these. I stuck with the band for longer than that but I can’t deny they lost a lot of their charm when most of the original band left ship and the remaining members turned to electro house; what followed was hit-and-miss, often forgettable save for a couple of good cuts (“David”, “Hold You”, “Moss”).

But then came the financial crash of ’08, the mood changed and 24/7 came out — a misunderstood album that feels more relevant now than it ever did. It’s the only GusGus record that feels bitter, cynical, dark and voluntarily cold, while still being very much a dance album.

“Thin Ice” opens with frigid synths and a slow one-note repetition, Daníel Ágúst’s singing being the only thing that provides melody and humanity until the pressure builds up and the ice finally breaks towards the end of the track, releasing a blissful groove in the cold and ghostlike soundscape. Then comes “Hateful”, brooding and bitter — Ágúst’s voice sounds theatrical as ever (and is drowned in ridiculous reverb, yes) but this is the first time I’ve heard him pissed off and confrontational. The song was co-written with house artist Aaron-Carl, whose version came first on Detrevolution — arguably more powerful, because when a gay black man living in Detroit sings about “fighting fire with fire” against those who “rewrite our history” and “tear down our future”, it has a different meaning and impact as when white Icelandic clubbers sing it. But the two versions have completely different moods (Aaron-Carl’s sounds weirdly quirky and upbeat) and both are great. Tired and angry and set on revenge — could be a relevant song for any of the fascist dystopic shitshows happening everywhere right now. Follows “On the Job” — minimal and so cynical, all about work and alienation, Ágúst sounds like he’s on the verge of losing it as the synths sound more shrill and dissonant than ever. It’s a weird track that sounds like malicious compliance to someone asking for a dance beat; I like it, but it tastes sour and if there was anything you disliked or didn’t get in the previous tracks, this one is sure to turn you off. Moving on to “Take Me Baby”, hard to describe, almost surreal with its weird deep monotone vocals singing things like “love me on our way to a dark star”, seguing into pure wordless techno cruising on “Bremen Cowboy”. The tone changes dramatically on the album finale, “Add This Song” — like a warm light after spending hours in the cold rain. Gone for a moment are the brooding and cynicism, the dark, squelchy synths are left outside and it’s all about relief, empathy and pleasure… until the song seems to near its end and you realize the track is only halfway through. Then you realize the darkness is still waiting for you outside.

So, yeah. Perhaps it was a hard sell then because of its tone and meaning, and perhaps it is now because its sound — does anyone still like 00s electro house? Even if you do, I’m sure many listeners would be turned off by the vocals or long stretches of cold, plastic beats. Fair enough. Still sounds special to my ears though.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Two Shell : NEW TWO SHELL 24HRS :

Not sure what this was meant to be — a teaser for their album IIcons that’s longer than the actual release, with the inclusion of a 45-minute mix at the end? Anyway, poppy and catchy UK bass, it’s my thing. Better than both their self-titled and IIcons to my ears, which (ironically) lack album dynamics, with tracks sounding a bit shallow in context; the sequencing here is better. Icons (the 2022 EP) is still my favourite thing by them though!

▷ RYM

José Carlos Somoza : Clara y la penumbra :

I never really looked into detective novels but perhaps I should!
This was great. And horrible. A guilty pleasure I guess.

Heavy content warnings: graphic murder, torture, abuse, rape, imprisonment, predatory behaviour, including on minors. Also one short instance of animal cruelty, and arguably fatphobia.

Basically: the novel was written in 2001 and set in 2006, and the new big thing in the art world of these uchronic 00s is “hyperdramatic art” = models wearing body paint, holding poses for hours as living sculptures under the supervision of the artist. This is taken very far, way too far, including illegal variants such as models acting as furniture for rich people — and worse. One day, a model is killed in a gruesome — but artistic — way. Lothar Bosch, an aging ex-policeman who now works for an art company, is sent to investigate the murder, which his employers only present as the destruction of a valuable work of art by genius Bruno van Tysch. The novel also follows the story of Clara, a promising young model who dreams of being painted and exposed by the same artist.

The book gives food for thought — but it’s less about art itself than it is about dehumanization and normalization. How easy it is to turn a blind eye to the humanity of others. How people can sell their own dignity for money and fame, and how few people really act against something once it’s been normalized; gruesome as the murders in the story are, they’re only one horror in a sea of horrors. The novel left me with the notion that the word “art” can be a mere thought-stopper — an argument I’d already seen in Pourquoi la musique? by Francis Wolff (best book about music I’ve read so far).

If I had read this book in the 00s, I would have thought Somoza has gone too far just to shock the reader, but now, in 2025, I’m not even sure he exaggerated that much. Too many parallels with real life come to mind. I will, however, say that the accumulation of human furniture gets a bit too much over 500-600 pages, and no other forms of art being mentioned at all feels a bit unrealistic.

Other than that though, the book is great. It’s thrilling, Somoza takes his time setting up everything just right, playing with the readers’ expections, and adding some nice flourishes (basing each chapter in the first part on a specific colour was a really good idea, too bad the idea’s abandoned later on).

(I read the French translation, titled Clara et la pénombre; the English translation is… oh come on. They titled it The Art of Murder. I hope they were more faithful with the text itself.)

Guillaume la Tortue : Salinas :

Techno/trance. When that spacey trippy ambient loop comes in ♥ ♥ ♥
(Also that metallic percussion that sounds like things rattling in a steel can)

Thanks to Valentina for the recommendation!

▷ Discogs
▷ RYM

Colin Stetson : The Love It Took to Leave You :

Colin Stetson’s got a pretty unique sound (sax/reed + circular breathing) I really like, and the bass-heavy sound with distortion and evil/occult notes on this album are a very good fit for it! It does sound a bit like the cover art.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Polykroma : Radiaphane :

Airy and transient, some distant echoes of dream pop and of near-industrial rhythms. a ghost in the interstices. Reminiscent of Seefeel a bit, but lighter, lo-fi and more focussed on the sound than on individual tracks.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Aaron-Carl : Detrevolution :

As club-oriented as it is warm and personal, with Aaron-Carl singing on most tracks. “Hateful” is a strangely very effective hate song that belies its upbeat quirky beat; “My Stranger” is probably my favourite on the album, a wistful but very catchy track that sounds close to R&B.

Also, lots of gay sex.

Recommended if you’re into deep / garage house!

▷ Discogs
▷ RYM

james K : Friend :

Heartwarming beats and dreamy vocals, blissful nostalgic retrofuturism that combines elements of dream pop, trip hop and ambient in a way that never really happened in the 90s nor 00s as far as I remember but could have had in a better world. I love this trend of feel-good music (did it start with Doss?)

A huge step up from her previous albums (which were also a different style — weird ethereal pop with post-industrial elements, I always felt like she was up to something without being completely there yet, she definitely made it this time!)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Ashley Ninelives : Cheshire Days :

Quirky and rhythmic and colourful and queer and cool. Also a bit messy but it fits!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Kaizen Game Works : Paradise Killer :

Slightly flawed but very cool synthwave murder mystery game! There’s only one very complex case, but piecing it together is very satisfying (yes it does all make sense in the end). The mood reminded me of Suda51 a bit, only much more upbeat and shocking pink (still fucked up though).

Kinda bummed that I had to accuse Akiko, she was one of my favourite characters along with Shinji and I can sorta get why she acted the way she did. (Of course the whole Syndicate is evil though)

▷ Official website
▷ Glitchwave

Kop-Z : A Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamic System :

Near-hardcore fast beats, distant underneath bubbling dark ambient bass. Sounds about as close to industrial techno as it is to space ambient.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Sujo + Sun Hammer : Fistula :

Truly beautiful noise. Powerful, bright dynamics, strong build-ups, abrasive textures.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Alian Core / Volodymyr Gnatenko : ⌖ en9el se g4t :

Like getting high in a seedy underground room at 3 am with a techno/trance producer who believes in UFOs and aliens and a witch starting a ritual (and everybody’s really good at this, this is an instant favourite for me)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Lemongrass : Drumatic Universe :

Very 90s sounding, but not futuristic and based on intense contrasts like a lot of atmospheric drum and bass is, nor does it aim to sound cool like a lot of downtempo — this album just seems to say “Look at the beautiful world we live in!” Rich and inspired throughout, I keep coming back to it.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Placid Angles : First Blue Sky :

There’s also a bit of a retro feel here, but it goes further — mostly comforting but also futuristic and with some complexity and new ideas added to the core, ideas taken from several eras and electronic genres melded together nicely. Mechanical space structures unfolding. The use of samples on “Earth and Everything” is particularly good, some sounds subtly evoking breathing through a space mask + pure hope and euphoria coming from the vocal accents synchronizing with the breakbeats.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ Institute of Advanced Thinking! (whatever that is, cool-looking website)
▷ RYM

FTLFRAME : Fleeting Memories :

A nice breeze through blue summer skies.

(I would have liked it if this had been the soundtrack to Windy Tales)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Yoriko Mizushiri : Ordinary Life :

Soft, strange and surreal. Surprisingly focussed on tactile sensations, even though the drawings are minimal and there are no sound effects.

▷ Letterboxd
▷ Arte (available until December 26, 2025)
▷ Also featured with interviews and two other surreal animation films in the “Surrealism” episode of the Court-Circuit program, worth a watch if you can speak French (there’s probably a German version too)! (Also only available until December 26, 2025)

Neneh Cherry : Man :

I was going to say everybody knows at least “Woman” and “7 Seconds”, but on second thought that might have been an 90s thing? I don’t even know.

Trip hoppy with a bunch of varied influences. I love the guitar distortion electrifying everything on “Hornbeam”, and the amazing loop and warm, wistful duet with Youssou N’Dour on “7 Seconds” (a song that’s also featured on his own album The Guide (Wommat) and probably the best cut here). The reason why I finally listened to a whole Neneh Cherry album was because of Dilwah’s edit of that track. But the whole album is a keeper. Nostalgia is better when it’s experienced via discovering rather than just revisiting.

▷ RYM

Deconstructeam : The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood :

It’s the second time I felt like I was confiding important things to a video game. The choices here change so much of the entire world, history, tone, what happened, what will happen, that they feel different from any other choice-based game I’ve played (even visual novels). The beautiful pixel art graphics and ambient music give the game an introspective, mystical mood I also love.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is beautiful and special to me, but it has its flaws. Midway though comes a strategy part where you run a political campaign (!), which is pretty cool but drags on for a bit too long and feels less poetic than the rest of the story. Some choices are questionable, like the awkward gender essentialism of “only women can be witches”, and parts of the story end up being inconsistent. And to be honest… this isn’t really a flaw (for some people it might be a good thing!), but as comforting and empowering as the story feels it can also get tragic and harsh depending on your choices. None of my playthroughs have felt entirely satisfying because of that: On my first try, I played according to my mood, with an affinity for water, feeling vulnerable and admitting to having had very pessimistic, self-destructive thoughts and just wanting everyone to feel better… which led me down a bittersweet path that was expected but eventually pretty sad. I tried to be more assertive and a bit confrontational on my second playthrough, but I wanted to start a romance with Grethe and Théa killed her before I could make the first move and that pretty much stopped me in my tracks — I stopped the playthrough there and launched another game.

What would I have done in Fortuna’s place? I don’t know. I feel like the prices Ábramar asks for are all too much. But perhaps I would have found my way somehow.

(I’d definitely pick Dahlia over Jasmine to rule the coven; Dahlia is badass, Jasmine gets on my nerves a bit!)

▷ Official website
▷ Glitchwave

Mark Z. Danielewski : The Familiar :

As a fan of House of Leaves, I’d been meaning to check this series out for a long time, but it’s such a massive, absurdly self-indulgent project it intimidated me for years. The Familiar was published in heavy, full-colour, 880-page volumes, following nine main characters/stories (plus some extras) in an experimental format inspired by TV series; it was meant to be 27 (!) volumes long and was cancelled after a “first season” of 5. And if that wasn’t enough, there are untranslated parts requiring the reader to do research, take guesses or check the fan annotations!

It’s a much shorter read than it seems though, as everything is printed in large type in special layouts that only take up a part of each page (bit of a waste of space, to be honest); and it is fun, thrilling and original. Most storylines have a completely different genre, style and tone, going from the main protagonist’s teenage story (Xanther rescues a tiny kitten! Things slowly get weird because it’s not actually a kitten!) to a detective story to the life of a drug addict in Singapore and his mysterious aunt, and yes, these stories do connect after a while. While it’s not horror as in House of Leaves, there is quite a bit of violence and supernatural involved — but again, that completely depends on the chapter. One of the risks of having such completely different genres mixed is that it’s entirely possible to love some stories and hate others; I personally liked all of them except Luther’s, the misogynistic ultraviolent gangster. (Also the “Caged Hunt” mini-series at the beginning, because yeah, there are extra intros and outros too.) I particularly liked how inscrutable and coldly poetic Isandorno’s chapters were, and how idiosyncratic and lively Jingjing’s are, though Xanther’s and her parents’ stories are the main attraction here.

Now for the biggest flaw though — while a lot happens over the course of the 5 volumes, it starts to drag on after a while and doesn’t offer a satisfying conclusion. Volume 5 even felt less accomplished than the previous ones to me. It’s obvious 27 would have been too much; though I do like the self-indulgence and feel of the series, I can’t help but think that Danielewski could have made a fantastic work if he’d just stuck to fewer volumes and made a couple of concessions.

So… yeah, it’s a bit of a hard sell. But if you happen to have a public library that carries them (or have the money and shelf space), if you liked House of Leaves and don’t mind reading all kinds of fiction (including teenage stories), I would definitely recommend checking The Familiar out; it’s unlike anything else I’ve read and I loved most of the time I spent with it.

Guillaume la Tortue, Chris Carrier & Martial : City of 3000 Years :

Rock solid techno, hard and psychedelic and pretty out there (especially for 2000!).

▷ Discogs
▷ RYM

Mark Fell : Nite Closures EP :

One of the very best I’ve heard by him, if not my favourite yet! Experimental, focussed and with strong complex beats that sound almost erratic but make perfect sense; the different versions of each mix actually flow well too — the second version of “Nite Closures” here just gets wild after the first one. “Large Modulos #3” with its strange ambient background and brutal is what I wish some Aphex Twin track sounded like (while definitely sounding more like Fell than Aphex).

▷ Boomkat
▷ RYM

Hana Chatani : Love Condemns Her :

Believe it or not, I’ve never read The Little Mermaid. Never watched the Disney adaptation either. I just sort of know the story through cultural osmosis — and I know I would not have fallen in love with a prince. I would never have given up my fins and tail nor my voice.

This is a beautifully drawn, very short spin-off queer mermaid story which still bites but is less fatalistic and which I can relate to more.

▷ Itch.io
▷ Tumblr

Nobuhiko Obayashi : House :

Going in blind was a great idea! (If you don’t know what this film is, stop reading and do it!)

This is the wackiest, most colorful horror film I’ve ever seen, with completely bonkers unrealistic special effects (I’ve read somewhere that the director wanted them to look as if his eight-year-old daughter had done them) and deaths that may or may not make sense at all. Works both as horror and as retro 70s fun!

That damned cat

Also, props to the funny skeleton who just thrashes around in the background and never does anything lol

▷ Letterboxd

Octavia Butler : Parable of the Sower / Parable of the Talents :

I had Octavia Butler on my reading list for a while, then I found a Tumblr post about how prescient these books were and how now was the best time to read them — and yeah, I totally agree. The story was written in the early 90s, starts in 2023 and it’s spot-on.

This is post-apocalyptic fiction in which the disaster wasn’t triggered by any major event — we just let things run and deteriorate into a dystopia where a few rich people go to Mars while most people are living in squalor and insecurity. Political and religious differences separate people more than ever before. Fascism and religious fundamentalism seduce people desperately looking to restore order and, of course, that makes everything much worse.

The Parables pull no punches and can be a tough read emotionally (content warnings: gruesome deaths, torture, rape, slavery and more), but what makes them really good isn’t just how accurate they are, it’s that they still contain hope. Lauren Oya Olamina, the main character, promotes mutual aid and spirituality based on the idea that “God is Change” and not a transcendental father figure (close to Spinoza’s idea of God as Nature, and very far from other religions). Although each volume really only tells part of a longer story, they both offer a lot; I found that Parable of the Talents was even better (though it gets even darker too, and you do need to read Sower first!)

The series is unfinished; later episodes might have veered into sci-fi territory?

The Tear Garden : The Last Man to Fly :

Otherworldly, psychedelic, melancholic, like you’d expect from a Legendary Pink Dots side-project (you’ll recognize Edward Ka-Spel’s vocals right away) — but this also features cEvin Key (of Skinny Puppy, Download etc) providing darker instrumentals: electronics but also guitar and other rock instruments. Interestingly, the sound varies from album to album; The Last Man to Fly is quite LPD-like but the darker touches are a definite plus; To Be an Angel Blind, the Crippled Soul Divide has a fuller sound with more bass; Astral Elevator is much harsher and closer to what I’d expected from Key. I like all three; no matter the proportions, this combination works great.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Barreca / Leimer : Drowning Guides :

Barreca and Leimer have both been working since the early 80s and I think it shows in their work here. Warm production with pads, strings and glitch touches; a really lush ambient album which warrants its long running time. The “Fata Morgana” suite is especially good.

▷ Midheaven
▷ RYM

OMOCAT : OMORI :

Quite heavy. I loved the friends, the mood whiplashes (even the jumpscares), the art, most of the music, the unpredictability, the foggy forest, Black Space, the idea of gathering the letter keys nobody else can see. I liked the Yume Nikki-inspired trauma nightmare bits more than the Earthbound-inspired sunny happy town bits though — just like I liked Yume Nikki better than Earthbound.

Though I could follow everything just fine when I played it, my impressions and memories now are fragmented, and that makes sense given the story and themes.

Should I play this again and try the hikikomori route and get all keys? (I rarely replay the games I finish)

Or perhaps I should play Yume 2kki again instead, see if anything has changed since last time I launched it.

▷ OMOCAT
▷ Glitchwave

GK Huni’G : Primitiveading :

8/10 from RuthlessVillain with comparisons to Endtroducing, need I say more?

This is nocturnal but very energetic and fresh, I can definitely hear the comparisons to DJ Shadow’s classic but GK Huni’G’s compositions are a bit more visceral, less melodic, while no less catchy. Some tracks also definitely do not sound like typical US instrumental hip hop — and not just because of the vocal bits in Korean, but tracks like “넋두리” (with its liminal, melancholic feel and strange horn) come from a completely different place.

▷ RYM

Eyvind Kang : Virginal Co Ordinates :

A beautiful long, melancholic but sunny journey; this has most of what I love in minimalism but much less repetitive, close to post-rock even. (It also surprisingly features Mike Patton on vocals, but these are sparse and toned way town compared to his usual performances!)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Coppé : Peppermint :

Dreamy, spacey and slightly quirky downtempo — featuring production by Plaid (IDM) and DJ Vadim (instrumental hip hop) among others. The different producers and focus on beats make it sound a bit like a remix album, but in a good way!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Salamispots : Flotsam :

Lovely little wordless comic in fluorescent green and blue colours about a sea creature! It made me smile.

▷ Tumblr (artist)
▷ Itch.io (comic, name-your-price download)

Max B : Wave Pack :

¯◟(-‿- )◞▫▫

Really just gave it a listen because of the cover, but the music is as cool as advertised
(It’s a collection of tracks more than a carefully sequenced album but the material on it is really good)

Thanks to Mathilde for the discovery!

▷ RYM

Mr. Bungle : Mr. Bungle :

I loved this for its fun hooks, genre-hopping, extreme and nihilistic sound when I was in college. I love it even more now — largely for the same reasons + because I can appreciate the music more too (not just the catchy bits), but also its dark humour rings a bit different now.

Like, “The Girls of Porn” is still the best and worst teenage masturbation song there is, no changes there; but “Stubb (A Dub)” struck me when I revisited it — it’s catchy as well (but what about the way the song abruptly breaks its own groove at the end of the chorus?), it’s dark (but I don’t think it’s as unsensitive as it appears (and it’s not fiction, Stubb really was a dog in Trey Spruance’s family)), it’s bitter (but you can listen to it just for fun too).

And if I never quite enjoyed the end of the album, I realize now that it’s the point. “Dead Goon” is supposed to be nothing but disturbing, a dark joke played on the listener.

I think it’s brilliant but yeah, this is Mr Bungle. This is like a clown dragging a real corpse onto the stage and proceeding to have a funny sketch with it, to the horror of the audience. Not for everyone.

▷ RYM

Oneohtrix Point Never : Tranquilizer :

My OPN favourites:
   Rifts, for diving into a sea of new exciting digital universes, psychedelic experiments;
   Garden of Delete, for being messed up but emotional and relating to some of my own experiences in a really cool way (early 00s, tinkering with my own website + listening to Nine Inch Nails + surfing the internet every night until late to block out the world, my teenage body mutating in the wrong ways, my insecurities);
   Tranquilizer, which is simultaneously more chilled out and more intense than anything else he’s done — and feels like a step up again.

In a sense, I feel like Tranquilizer is the opposite of Replica. Replica evoked vanity and melancholy by taking the media that saturates our world and stripping it of meaning via abstraction and repetition; Tranquilizer is like taking in the world in all its alarming complexity, the chaos, the joys, the hurdles, yet finding direction and a sense of flow in it. “Rodl Glide” is probably the best example of that — peace, melody, disruption and drive and peace again. Could be my favourite track of his! And Tranquilizer could be his best album too.

▷ Official website
▷ RYM

高野昌昭 [Masaaki Takano] : 爽 :

A day, illustrated in six simple audio scenes. These are candid but evocative, beautiful — and occasionally surprising! The long “before going to bed” track is particularly good.

Masaaki Takano’s previous (and only other) record is super minimal, only water drops; also worth listening to!

▷ RYM

Adam Cadre : Photopia :

Do you read/play interactive fiction? I want to get more into that, it’s a whole field I’m still unfamiliar with!

This one is probably the best-known, it’s won a bunch of awards — the concept and writing are great, it happens in different worlds and half the chapters are based on specific colours with fitting atmospheres. It’s non-linear and open-ended, keeps your imagination going while still giving you closure at the end. Can be finished in one or two sessions.

It’s the old-school type where you have to manually type the commands to proceed, which is more frustrating than the Twine-type where you just click on links (yes you will get stuck because you can’t find the exact words the program will recognize), but that mechanic is also interesting in its own right as it allows for hidden possibilities.

(I think the first interactive fiction I played were xrafstar/Porpentine’s a long time ago; Beautiful Frog is endearing and really cool, most of their others are way more disturbing and not for me)

▷ Adam Cadre

KUMO 99 : HeadPlate :

Cool, bratty, powerful. Pretty different from typical breakbeat too — the attitude here feels a bit punk, a bit hip hop, borrowing from other genres still. Barely half an hour long but delivers a lot!

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Maggie Nelson : The Argonauts :

A half-memoir, half-essay about queer identities, couples and motherhood — lively, concise and interesting, with no taboos and plenty of references and quotes that act as many nodes to expand from. The form is pretty much perfect.

(Of course there’s one issue with writing anything that’s largely about somebody else: you can only write from your own perspective. And this leads to a slight frustration when the subject is Maggie’s companion Harry Dodge — who is trans, an artist, starts taking testosterone midway through the book and does write a few paragraphs towards the end about an unrelated experience only he had. I wanted to read his thoughts too, perhaps as notes? That’s a minor and perhaps unfair complaint though, and perhaps I’m also thinking this because I’m more interested in other trans experiences than in motherhood.)

Eva-Maria Houben & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen : A Something in a Winter’s Night :

Beautiful, peaceful drone (organ and electronics). Not my first Houben recommendation but this one could be my favourite so far, if you don’t mind that it stays pretty much the same throughout. Also try their other collaborations, they have a bunch and the ones I’ve heard so far were worth getting.

Thanks to velocifish for the recommendation!

▷ Bandcamp (name-your-price download)
▷ RYM

Die Gute Fabrik : Mutazione :

A peaceful game about meeting people on an island, growing musical gardens and caring for your very old grandpa (who’s too sick to do his gardening shaman duties, so you have to take over for him). No challenge and not that much interactivity but it’s really good if you’re into short contemplative games!

▷ Steam
▷ Glitchwave

Trailcam : Drumlin Loop :

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Blawan : SickElixir :

Yeah this is sick alright! Grimy industrial techno/UK bass beats, but each track is built around a looped vocal sample — most often unintelligible but powerful and enticing, a bit like hellishly, psychedelically distorted pop/r&b hooks. Techno with looped vocal samples may not sound groundbreaking on paper, but I assure you that the sound here is something unusual.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Freund der Familie : Rising Sun Interpretations :

Really smooth, almost unperceptibly goes from “this is nice” (but kinda fading in the background) to “damn, this is really beautiful”. Shares some similarities to deep techno (Voices From the Lake, Luigi Tozzi etc) but lighter and dubbier.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

No Joy : Bugland :

Love how dreamy and heavy this is at the same time; it’s different from most shoegaze/dream pop I know because it’s neither slow nor hazy, but playing on a scale that goes from bright and melodic (most of the time) to noisy, loud and distorted.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Joel Tammik : Eluline :

Stays in that vaporous, barely there but effective in-between, with beats more suggested than played (and more irregular than you’d expect). Can’t get enough of it.

▷ RYM

EchoSpace Plays Michael Mantra : Sea Shell City :

And this one is… so pleasant but almost too ambient, to the point that you can forget it’s playing at all — especially when played on speakers (I would recommend headphones for this reason). But the changes from track to track (Morning / Afternoon / Night) are nice. And sometimes comfortable, organic and nearly transparent can be what you want.

▷ RYM

Sudan Archives : The BPM :

Another proof this year (after FKA twigs’s Eusexua) of how electronic dance beats make r&b even better; not that it wasn’t obvious already! Also this time the mixing and mastering are good (I know that sounds petty but the sound on Natural Brown Prom Queen was so bad it turned me off the album)

+ “Dead” and “Noire” are perfect examples of how solid pop songs become even better when they evolve and take unexpected turns

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Xiu Xiu : Plays the Music of Twin Peaks :

It’s funny how patchy Twin Peaks was, as a whole. The mood, genre, internal coherence, quality all drastically changing from episode to episode, scene to scene — and while some of this definitely played in favour of the show, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be nearly so enthusiastic to rewatch season 2 as I would season 3. I sometimes wonder how people’s perception of the show changed as the episodes went on. Did anyone see the finale of episode 2 coming?

What Xiu Xiu does here is impressive — it sounds like Twin Peaks as experienced by one of its characters: absolute unrest, anxiety, trauma. Not the mysterious, beautiful view we see when we discover the place with Dale Cooper at the beginning of the show, but the fire and dissonance inside.

It’s also the best kind of collaboration really: unexpected but making perfect sense when you listen to it, while also sounding different from everything else.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Darja Kazimira & Zura Makharadze : Minotaur – Ananke :

Hellish ritual music in which screaming or yelling makes more sense than singing or speaking, each sound growing to become louder than every other, wild drumming, wild screeching, red red red everywhere. And each part works in its own different way, so its constant full intensity doesn’t even wear out. It’s mesmerizing. Not something I’d listen to often, but if they perform this live it must be an unforgettable experience — listening to the album already is.

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Lausse The Cat : The Mocking Stars :

Extremely mellow but never boring, with a twilight introspective magic theatre atmosphere, super cool ( – ﻌ – *)

(Also love how casually Lausse slips in a couple of bars in perfect French and a Cowboy Bebop reference/cover; these are just details, but the whole album is a bit like that, nonchalantly seductive)

▷ Bandcamp
▷ RYM

Deftones : Koi no Yokan :

(Mmm, yokan)

　✿

And so this year has been… still hard, but much better than the last. Which isn’t saying much considering that I spent most of 2024 in depression wishing for the end of the world, but still, it’s a win!

I’ve recovered enough voice and motivation to actually get therapy, which has been good so far. I’ve found a new interest in perfumes (expensive but really rewarding). The trans association I’m in is falling apart and I’m sad about that, but I’ve found a couple of other cool discussion servers. I’m an aunt now and I’m not sure if I’m okay with that? I went to some new places, mostly for medical reasons again but also on a trip to Granada (I took some pictures)! I might finally get a repair surgery for my vocal cords next year; this will be stressful but let’s hope for the best, I want to finally turn that page. I’m currently working on like four different comics at the same time, maybe three or five, I’m losing count. I still feel broken but I’m alive again and that’s good.

Hope you’re going as well as possible,

Lamuya ♡ ☽