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Towards bouyon funk?

After giving humanity the gift of funk and more recently taking on – and nailing – genres such as grime, Jersey club and gqom, Brazilians seem to be turning their attention to bouyon. The hyperactive Dominica-born sound has exploded internationally in the 2020s, with musicians from neighbouring Guadeloupe notably propelling it to mainstream popularity throughout the French-speaking world.

Recent link-ups between French producer Benjay and Brazilian funk artists Adrielzinho, É o Gomes and Yuri Redicopa gave us a glimpse of what bouyon funk sounds like. The formula was also picked up to devastating effect by São Paulo-born, Marseille-based funk artist MC ZKW.

Peep the POUNDSHOP-produced “Bem Vindo a 011” and “Pique Asap Rorcky” off his amazing debut album Só pra Pá, released in November, as well as his newly released banger “Sou Eu Mesmo”. That’s one exciting crossover if we ever saw one.

Mexican reggaetón’s new gen

It’s been a solid last months of 2025 for reggaetón, with La Obsesión’s excellent debut mixtape and Sinaka’s banger-packed El Nuevo Sonido. Now, 2026 also kicks off on a high note with the first-ever release of Mexican crew LANU9VAER4.

Made up of Morenica Donna, Gxry, Beefboy and DJ Sustos and producers off.blizze, slaay.w and Dharma SS, the group has quietly become one of the most exciting recent developments to follow in neoperreo.

Over the past year, its members have been cultivating a fiery, electric, rave-y sound that’s as sexy and sentimental as it’s banging; joining forces to deliver giddy reggaetón bullets on a constant basis (see more on Donna and off.blizze’s godly alliance here). And the relentless half-hour of Los Dueños del Sonido really marks the culmination of the spirit of collaboration that drives this young cohort of artists.

You’re in danger if you don’t feel this

After a landmark 2025, French rap phenomenon Jeune Morty is already back at it. The Choisy-le-Roi artist has announced Jeune Morty Vol. 1, a new, Crystallmess-hosted mixtape to be released on 27 March, with two amazing lead singles: “Deuniers”, whose brooding synths call to mind Therapy’s productions for Kaaris back in 2013, and “Shrooms”, which sees Morty wear his love for Thugger on his sleeve like never before.

18,000 is young

It was nice to hear the Hesaitix alarm go off again in December. After breaking a five-year hiatus with a captivating illbient album at the end of 2024 and debuting a new live show at Lost Music Festival 2025, James Whipple (who spent the better part of the 2010s making some of the most beautiful electronic music ever as M.E.S.H.) is keeping the goods coming – thank God.

On his latest EP, a two-tracker titled 18,000 / Dubdermal, the US producer remixes his own cuts “Wallet / Face” and “Subdermal” into hypnotic, dubbed-out club transmissions.

Music for an épisode cévenol

In the autumn, hot air from the Mediterranean often hits the cold peaks of the Cévennes mountains in the South of France, where it abruptly cools down and turns into violent storms that can last for days.

It’s precisely during one of these épisodes cévenols that French musician Pablo Altar recorded this beautiful one-hour organ piece in the protestant church of Le Vigan, with the sound of raindrops as his sole accompanist.

More great albums from the last few weeks

xavisphone – balança a paixão

Dizzying, clangy baile funk from the wizard xavisphone, with tracks handpicked from his gold mine of a SoundCloud page alongside some new belters. (Re)read our interview with him from last year.

Yorgos Stavridis – Solo Percussion

On a spooky debut for the ever-reliable Heat Crimes label, Greek experimental percussionist Yorgos Stavridis reveals screechy, mesmerising timbres from tapping metal surfaces and scratching various objects with a mic.

Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – Anata

A whirlwind of luminous, psychedelic noise from the Aymara musician (and one half of Los Thuthanaka), inspired by the anata, an Andean ceremony to thank Mother Earth (Pachamama) for the harvest before the start of the rainy season.

username & Marsh crane – OVERTIME

Nashville’s username and Portland’s Marsh crane tap into a flurry of US rap samples for this absolutely killer, hi-energy footwork album.

Otro – Peanut Ballads for a Lone Star

Haunted guitar vignettes from Valencia musician Otro, in the same vein as the excellent El Príncipe de la Zaidía: Soleades from 2023.

Roy Montgomery – Guitars Infernal

The New Zealand-Aotearoa artist delivers nine rock-hard slabs of whirring, distorted guitar. It’s all in the title, really.

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10. Kristen Noguès & John Surman - Diriaou

This gorgeous live duet between the celtic harp of late Breton composer Kristen Noguès and the saxophone of British jazz musician John Surman, recorded in 1998 at the Dre Ar Wenojenn festival in Ploërdut, France, somehow only reached us this year.

9. MfanaTouchLine - Ntjaka

Capturing the young South African rap scene’s recent interest in gqom, the Pretoria sensation’s energetic debut album already feels like the defining work of an exciting new development in the long history of Mzansi electronic music. It’s also the most fun listen of the year.

8. Jake Muir - Campana Sonans

Across two 20-minute tracks, Jake Muir fiddles with recordings of bells from Berlin and London churches, stretching, blurring and bouncing them off each other in a disorientating electroacoustic murk.

7. Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian - Noor-e Vojood

Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian reportedly had a tanbur in his hands before he could walk. This is not surprising, given how beautiful the three-stringed, lute-like instrument – sacred to the Yarsan Kurds of Iran’s Kermanshah region, where Mostafa hails from – sounds on his sophomore album.

6. Liam Grant - Prodigal Son

Liam Grant’s fingerstyle has never sounded more distorted. On his third solo album, the New England guitarist showcases his mastery of the lap steel and twelve-string, taking his American Primitive ethos into a thrillingly noisy direction.

5. DJ BeBeDeRa - Clássico

For Clássico, the “father of tarraxo” (Angolan kuduro and kizomba’s hypersensual offspring) went through the vault, dusting up eight gritty bars of gold produced between 2014 and 2018. Like the painting on its cover, the album works as a tantalising demon, enticing you into a seductive dance you know you can’t resist.

4. Debit - Desaceleradas

On her latest opus, Delia Beatriz pays homage to Sonido Dueñez, reconstructing fragments of accordion, trumpet, drums and voices from the cumbia rebajada originator’s first two mixtapes into a disorienting maze of echoes. Desaceleradas is not a rebajada album, but rather an album about rebajada, that boils down the source material to its purest emotional significance, as though heard through a dream or a bittersweet memory.

3. Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force - Khadim

Returning to the studio nearly a decade on from their debut album, German dub techno pioneer Mark Ernestus and the Ndagga Rhythm Force ensemble deliver four sparse, mbalax-inflected longform pieces, where sabar drums and reverberating synths patter like raindrops, as Mbene Diatta Seck’s graceful Wolof singing celebrates iconic Senegalese cheikhs. Mind-blowing stuff.

2. Los Thuthanaka - Los Thuthanaka

From 2013’s The Light That Gave Me To See You to 2023’s Profundo Amor and DJ E, the Aymara roots of siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton have always transpired through their respective works. But they have never been so upfront as on their first joint effort. Released by surprise in March, Los Thuthanaka puts traditional Andean styles such as huayño and salay at the centre of a storm of cosmic proportions; a queer, anti-colonial trance where ancestral rhythms and melodies thunder relentlessly, ripping the space-time fabric to absolute shreds.

1. Chuck Roth - watergh0st songs

Chuck Roth sure loves to find new crazy ways to play the guitar. On watergh0st songs, his experimental leanings translate into an irresistible post-hardcore-y strain of folk music, with tangled, start-and-stoppy arrangements providing an unpredictable backdrop to his wistful voice. But for all this (welcome) intricacy, the most striking feature of the album remains its disarming rawness. Strewn with dissonant chords and guitar squeaks, it is – by Roth’s own admission – “not pristine” in the traditional sense, but the sincerity that radiates through its seven songs is precisely what makes it so haunting and, quite simply, perfect.

Thanks for reading :) See you again soon!

In this edition: new developments in South African gqom, UK rap, some frantic electronic music, and more.

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South Africa is doing it again

While the combination of gqom and rap is not new, the former’s unstable, thumping kicks seem to have recently sparked the interest of a young generation of South African artists heavily influenced by Atlanta rap.

One of the earliest signs of this crossover came in early 2024 with a pair of songs by rapper HiroSamii that paid tribute to the skhothane culture of the 2010s – a kind of extreme flexing culture in which dancers battle each other by showing off expensive possessions before destroying them, often set to gqom. But it was when Johannesburg’s Brotherkupa dropped his “GQOM FREESTYLE” that things really took off.

Released in November 2024, the track immediately became a hit among trap fans, and inspired other artists, such as Jaykatana or Carlos, to hop on gqom beats. The song’s success also helped to bring the spotlight on producer Osl1nn, whose mastery of both Mzansi and trap rhythms eventually caught the attention of UK rappers Lancey Foux and TeeboFG (more on the latter below).

However, no one has embraced the sound quite like MfanaTouchLine. Hailing from Pretoria, TouchLine had produced rap beats under the name Ugly Tremaine since 2017 before introducing his new moniker at the start of 2025.

His skilful sampling of ‘old school’ South African dance music quickly cemented his reputation as an effortless hitmaker. His debut track, “Ngomso Freestyle”, layers DJ Clock and Shisaboy’s 2010 house hit with heavy gqom trap saturation, while his breakout single “Di’kota Tsa Swervo” takes its infectious hook from a classic bacardi track by DJ Jemas.

Following three great EPs and a bunch of singles, TouchLine released his debut album, Ntjaka, last month. Packed with catchy, high-energy anthems from start to finish, it already feels like the defining work of a new chapter in the long, rich and influential history of South African electronic music. And putting all such considerations aside, it’s simply one of the most fun listens of the year. Don’t sleep!

Fav track on Ntjaka: Ra Di Busa, CARROT, Rent Is Due, Hai Khona, Plaka.

Mark Fell - Nite Closures

The tireless Mark Fell wasted no time after Psychic Resynthesis, his astounding album with London’s Explore Ensemble, and immediately followed it up with (i) a new label and (ii) a new EP.

He is on his own this time, though, with his first solo electronic release since 2013. Out on the freshly minted National Centre for Mark Fell Studies, Nite Closures sees the Rotherham artist further showcase the bare-bones, asymmetrical beats that have become his trademark over his 25 years of recording and producing. Mind-boggling through and through.

Fav tracks: Nite Closures (extended dub); auchterhouse (reprise). Buy Nite Closures here.

ABADIR - Kitbashing

Revealed in 2022 by his mix of traditional Egyptian maqsoum drums and contemporary bass styles on the incredible Mutate, ABADIR has since established himself as one of the most interesting figures in the international club scene, with crazy releases such as last year’s Marchadair EP with Canadian producer Nahash.

On his latest album, the Cairo-born, Berlin-based artist takes a left turn from his previous material, however. Released in mid-October on the ever-reliable SVBKVLT imprint, Kitbashing draws inspiration from the “extensive amount of time” people spend “watching, scrolling, liking, commenting on and sharing content” on social media.

While that sounds like a lot to unpack, it translates into fairly straightforward and, well, exciting musical ideas: hard-hitting kicks accelerating and decelerating frenetically, mimicking how never-ending feeds move at the slide of a thumb; audio snippets of reels and sponsored ads cut up and reassembled in disorienting ways; foggy ambient soundscapes evoking post-information overload numb-headedness…

Kitbashing—originally conceived as part of an audiovisual show with Italian artist Nicolò Cervello—slaps even without this ‘conceptual’ lens, though. The clubbier tracks are the most exhilarating, with deluges of kicks briefly morphing into familiar rhythms (jungle, garage, etc.) before stretching or contracting or dissolving altogether, like on opener “Kicks and Clickbaits” or the 10-minute long “Malign Velocities”.

Despite its intricacy, Kitbashing never feels cluttered or overdone, retaining a sort of digital expansiveness that easily places it among the best electronic records of this year.

Fav tracks: Kitbashed & Platformed; One More Boundary Pusher.

TeeboFG - “Ah Yeah” / “Pain Is a Virtue”

TeeboFG ventures away from his usual rage-inflected drill sound with a pair of freestyles that hark back to the golden age of UK road rap. Released at the end of October, “Ah Yeah” sees him take on WIZE The Producer’s iconic Rihanna-sampling instrumental of the same name, used by countless rappers over the years.

His latest effort, titled “Pain Is a Virtue”, pays clear homage to Giggs and Dubz’s “Pain Is the Essence”, a classic cut off their 2008 mixtape Ard Bodied. The beat, originally a Sid Roams production for Prodigy’s “In the Smash”, has lost none of its smoothness and serves as the perfect backdrop to Teebo’s cold bravado. We won’t be saying no to more of this from the London rapper.

Check out also:

Mohammad Adam - United We Stand Divided We Fall

The Leicester artist’s third album this year is a gripping, sample-heavy blend of ambient, grime and South Asian music, imbued with expressions of British Muslim resistance to Islamophobia.

Fav tracks: Soulja; MDL; Representing Peace (DJ PK MIX); One Blood!; United We Stand.

BERNARD ROCKS - BERNARD ROCKS vol 2

Mica Levi’s latest outfit offers a short and fuzzy follow-up to their July debut.

Duppy Gun - Meteorite

MCs from the Portmore, Jamaica Duppy Gun crew hop on a sick collection of dancehall riddims by Swiss producer Bony Fly.

Fav tracks: Body Good; Boozie; Rolling.

Betty Hammerschlag - fake girl

Lovely mini-album that sits somewhere between ambient, folk and dream pop.

Fav tracks: circlesss; low; fake girl.

DJ P7 - Funk Deluxe 5

Seven funk bullets from the restless São Paulo artist.

Fav tracks: Pega Chacolha e Balança; Sarra na Ponta do Meu Revolve; Todo Dia Aparece, Ninguém Vai Ver.

S5 - Jugg or Jerk

UK jerk is the gift that keeps on giving.

Fav tracks: Preacher, Contraband, Yes.

Debit - Desaceleradas

A haunting reimagining of cumbia rebajada pioneer Sonido Dueñez’s first two tapes.

Fav tracks: Desplazos; La Ronda y el Sonidero; Sonido Dueñez; El Puenta del Papa; Desaceleradas.

Thanks for reading :) See you again soon!

In this edition: An interview with rising baile funk producer xavisphone, and some great music from September 2025.

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An interview with xavisphone

Brazilian-American producer xavisphone has been making waves on SoundCloud and beyond since he started pumping out tracks and tracks of crazy, frantic, hyperactive baile funk earlier this year. We caught up with him for a quick interview during a recent visit to Paris and discussed his love of funk, his experience with the mainstream music industry, and his upcoming record on Andy Stott’s Modern Love label.

How are you? What brings you to Paris?

I’m good! I’m not going to lie, it’s a bit cold out here. I just moved to Marseille and the weather is much nicer there. I’m in Paris for a few days, meeting with some friends and a few people, just chilling really.

Nice. So, you just moved to France. Where were you before that? I gathered you’re originally from São Paulo…

No, so my dad is Dominican, my mom is Brazilian. They came over to the U.S. and met in Boston, which is where I was born. We moved around a lot, and I ended up spending the most time in Hawaii.

I see! So, around what time did you start making music?

When I was in Hawaii, actually. I started producing seriously after I broke my leg in a car accident. I was on the cross country team, so running was my thing but I couldn’t run anymore. I was going crazy, I got really depressed and gained, like, 40 pounds. Music eventually helped me go through that.

Listening to music, I was always, like, “I can make this shit.” Music isn’t that hard, you know? You just have to do it. Then I got really blessed. Some people found my stuff on YouTube. Long story short, I got flown out to Los Angeles, signed to Universal and made music for Ariana Grande, Megan Thee Stallion, and a bunch of people. I lived out the producer dream, really.

I hated the industry, though. It really made me super depressed. It got to a point where I had the number one song in the country, that I wrote and produced. I had been chasing that fulfillment, but it just wasn’t what I thought it would be.

How so?

Part of it is, I’m Latino American and Afro. I grew up on rap, listening to artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli or D’Angelo. Seeing what is going on in the industry now, who runs the labels, what they’re doing with rap music, what they’re promoting… (sighs) Of course, there are still artists like that, but they’re not getting any popularity to the level that these people had. It just doesn’t push the narrative that certain people in certain positions want. And I don’t want to participate in that.

My very last rap placement was for Vince Staples, on “Freeman”, so it was nice to at least gracefully bow out of doing mainstream rap, because this guy is saying it how it is. Other than that, no shade to anyone, but I just can’t be in my 30s trying to make beats for NBA YoungBoy, you know? (laughs)

Luckily, I could afford to take some time off, so I just chilled, read, spent time with my dogs. I applied for different jobs, just to see what else I could do, didn’t get hired for shit… But at the end of the day, I really love music. And one thing I’ve always loved is baile funk. Funk was actually the first thing I started making, but it wasn’t really helping me pay the bills back then.

Anyway, after all of this, I was like “Funk is what I want to do.” I went to São Paulo and stayed there for a few months. When I got back in January this year, I just started running it.

I actually wanted to ask you about that. You’re probably one of the most prolific artists I know, with over 350 tracks on SoundCloud, even though you started releasing only in January.

I just have all these ideas, and one of the things I learned in the industry, is that there is so much music — and I mean crazy bangers — that will never come out, because it’s all stuck somewhere. That pisses me off. So I just drop everything. Everything on my SoundCloud is just stuff that I’ve been making in my headphones.

Earlier this year, I was trying to figure out my sound. On January 11th, I made three songs and I just decided to drop them. I really think of my SoundCloud page as an “evolutionary playlist”, where you can see where it all started and where I’m at. Everything is up for free download, I’m not making any money from it.

So you’re now fully into funk?

Yeah. I just love funk. If you listen to the lyrics of funk, it’s fucked up in many ways. But at the end of the day, it’s always been a form of protest. Funk is actually art at its purest form, because people are just talking about what’s actually happening. People who make funk in Brazil are from the favelas and the periferias. They are all very neglected, but at the same time they’re some of the most musically inclined people in the world; and as you see, they’re starting to shake everything worldwide. There are different sections of Brazil, however, that don’t appreciate that, because it’s not how they want Brazil to be seen. It’s the same story with rap in the U.S., really.

Another thing is that, in São Paulo especially, there are these big funk artists that are basically playboys — just privileged, white-passing Brazilians, pretending to be MCs and taking funk out of its original context. And I’m saying this from a huge place of privilege myself: I was raised in the U.S. and can only be a stepping stone into the bigger picture.

Sonically, funk can be a bit jarring, because it makes no sense without cultural context. It’s just taking different metallic percs and distorting them. To a lot of people, it’s not even music. I’m trying to bridge that gap. Everyone I work with is from the source. I tap in with all these young producers and MCs and try to figure out how we can make music together. At the end of the day, it’s a team thing.

What would you say has influenced your sound? Your music is quite dense and frenzied and dissonant, there is always so much going on at the same time — I mean this in a good way (laughs)…

Yeah, it’s a little jarring. To be honest, I think I’m just nuts (laughs). I don’t really have an idea when I sit down. I just make shit. Obviously, it’s party music, so I don’t want to make it boring. You just have to try things.

The SoundCloud community is quite beautiful in making that happen. I will usually find some cool MCs’ a cappellas, put them in a song I made, and tag them, put their name on it, poke them. And if they like it, they’ll reach out and send some more a cappellas, maybe exclusive ones, or I’ll ask them if they have more. Then you end up working together. That’s how it works. Everyone is working with everyone.

Did you connect with some people in São Paulo?

I connected with tons of people in São Paulo. I’m tapped in with a bunch of young producers from there now: DJ Granette, DJ Leal Original, DJ Isaaczin da ZN... They’re all so tough.

I also went to Rio a few times and worked with a bunch of people there. I lived in Bahia for a few years as well, and even though I wasn’t making music then, I got familiar with the scene. But what you see is that everyone is down to work.

Obviously, it’s not free from the politics that usually come with entertainment, but it’s definitely more open. And if you’re tough, you’re tough. If you’re not, you just have to practice and get better, and then people will fuck with you.

You went on a mini-European tour with the Jijei crew and played a couple shows in Marseille this summer. Was that your first time DJing?

I had DJ’d a little bit in college, but besides that I’ve mostly just been producing and releasing stuff. Zac, who is now a good friend of mine, found me on SoundCloud. He told me they were throwing this tour and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. Honestly, I hadn’t DJ’d in ages and wasn’t really doing it anymore, but I said yes anyway (laughs). So, I kind of learned how to DJ properly while on the European club circuit. I wouldn’t consider myself a DJ, though. I’m fine with people calling me that, but you know, there are actual DJs out there. I can fake it though. I did some radio shows, and I was just winging it (laughs).

It’s going to take me wherever it takes me. Every single song, by nature of funk, has to be a collab, and I’m just grateful for opportunities to showcase me and my friends’ music. Getting played on these small radio stations in Brussels or London is already crazy. Brazil is far as fuck. And it’s so different, it can feel like an echo chamber sometimes. Kids there don’t have a lot of opportunities, especially when they’re born into these certain situations or are not plugged in. So having this music reach that far, that’s unheard of.

It was amazing to be out here, in all these places, with Vitor (MC ZKW). We met on this tour and became good friends. He is killing it right now. He has a huge fan base in Paris as well. He did Fête de la musique two years in a row!

You said you recently moved to Marseille. What are your plans from now on? Do you have any exciting stuff coming up?

I have a record coming out soon on Modern Love, Andy Stott’s label. We just finalised the tracklist and the cover art. It’s called Balança e Paixão and it’s going to be a collection of tracks from my SoundCloud along with some new stuff. The A-side is just crazy, distorted baile shit, and there will be some dub versions by DJ Gomes on the B-side as well. It’ll be cool to have baile funk on vinyl. I know DJ Ramon Sucesso, from Rio, had a vinyl record like two years ago.

I hope the album will open doors for me to tour a little bit. Other than that, I’d really like to produce a whole record with an MC. But really, I’m just going to keep working. I don’t have a plan. I feel like everything is unfolding. There is no clear direction yet, but it’s kind of exciting.

Album of the month

Sir Richard Bishop - Hillbilly Ragas

Although he dislikes the label, it’s easy to see why Richard Bishop is often grouped with “American Primitive” musicians. The term was coined in the 1950s by guitarist John Fahey to describe his instrumental, fingerpicked blend of Appalachian folk, Delta blues and more modern influences like free jazz, Indian, Middle Eastern and minimalist classical music.

Bishop followed a similar approach throughout his 26 years with the seminal experimental rock band Sun City Girls — which he co-founded with his brother Alan and Charles Gocher —, although this is most evident in his solo work. Take his debut album, 1998’s Salvador Kali, or the highlight of his discography, Polytheistic Fragments (2007), for instance: hypnotic guitar workouts that draw from North Indian ragas or Andalusian flamenco that sound like they’re aiming to uncover some immemorial truth.

These influences have been a staple of Bishop’s work, but they do come less obviously to the fore on his new album, Hillbilly Ragas. The music, however, remains as gripping as ever. Here, Bishop applies his mastery of the acoustic guitar to a more instinctive, less melody-driven style that brings him closer to primitivism in the strictest sense of the word. Playing spontaneously, he never lets up, switching things up constantly to deliver nine frenetic, disorientating tracks that stand as some of the rawest music in his catalogue.

Catch Sir Richard Bishop on tour

Five cool (and coincidentally clubby) tracks from September

Abu AMA - “MOCBA ALIEN”

Sick tribal dubbed-out, gqom-adjacent workout from the German underground enigma.

jaijiu - “FINGE QUE TA NA GARUPA”

Argentinian wizard Jaijiu puts Brazilian funk artists DJ Guina and Puccatsunami’s “FINGE QUE TA NA GARUPA” through the grinder and rearranges the pieces into a banger that conjures pre-Columbian latin rhythms to devastating effect.

ASTMA - “S.O.S.N.A.”

A weird but amazing industrial music-inflected techno track from former Intruder Alert-affiliate, Polish producer ASTMA.

ltfll - “Chasm”

ltfll’s “Nested Skins” was already a standout track in last month’s edition of Three Fourteen, but we would be remiss not to mention “Chasm”, the opening track of the Egyptian producer’s new EP. Imagine a hundred blades slicing through the air to a kuduro rhythm, and you’ll have some idea of what it sounds like.

DJWT7 - “ELAS QUER ELAS PEDE”

Some more Brazilian funk madness, this time courtesy of DJWT7, a young producer from São Paulo’s Zona Norte.

Thanks for reading :) See you again soon!

In this edition: The best music of August 2025, including Brazilian funk, Swedish electronic pop, Mexican reguéton, Egyptian bass, a strange Hungarian band from the 1980s, and much more.

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Album of the month

Trabant – Trabant II

Trabant is so good that it will make you wish you could speak Hungarian. Active in the Magyar underground music scene in the 1980s, the band was made up of a fluid line-up that counted Mihály Víg, the composer behind the soundtracks of genius filmmaker Béla Tarr, as one of its mainstays.

Together, they recorded odd yet captivating art rock songs infused with elements of folk, new wave and chamber pop, brought to sublime heights by the magnetic voice of singer Marietta Méhes.

Only a handful of these songs were officially released, however, due to severely restrictive Soviet laws, and were instead distributed informally on homemade cassette tapes. What can be considered as Trabant’s debut album, a self-titled compilation put together by “anti-record label” purge.xxx, landed only in 2024—forty years after their sole known release at the time.

Trabant II, its sequel, was released last month and expands the band’s catalogue with nine rare songs of extraordinary beauty.

Fav tracks: “Kanáan”, “Ott Torony Volt”, “Délután”.

Track of the month

Klein – “rich dad poor dad”

It’s been a busy year for Klein. The London artist already released a great album in February, started a mysterious collaboration with someone that sure sounds a lot like Mica Levi under the name BERNARD ROCKS, and even lent her talents to Justin Bieber’s latest one (!?).

As if all this were not enough, she has now announced a new mixtape, sleep with a cane, due out on 1 October. “rich dad poor dad”, the first single, is a poignant ambient poem and undoubtedly one of the most beautiful songs Klein has ever made. Of course, she also directed the stunning video that accompanies it.

Highlights

Morenica Donna & off.blizze – “PROHIBIDO 🚫”

Morenica Donna has only been around for a couple of years, but the dozen maketas on her SoundCloud page could easily be mistaken for full-fledged hits. With her slow, sentimental brand of reguéton and penchant for electronic takes on the genre's signature dembow rhythm, the CDMX artist is proving to be one of the most promising newcomers in an exciting, slightly emo nueva era of perreo music.

It’s undoubtedly with producer off.blizze that Donna has made her best tracks to date, and the pair’s latest effort “PROHIBIDO 🚫”, with its restrained sensuality and heady synth progression, is no exception.

Peep: “recuérdame MKT”, “GATAS 🐈vs🧛🏻VAMPIROS”.

Oli XL – Lick The Lens / Pt.1

Six years and what looks like one dispute with his label later, Oli XL *finally* unveiled the follow-up to his debut album Rogue Intruder, Soul Enhancer, which many electronic music fans already regard as a modern classic.

On Lick The Lens / Pt.1, the Swedish producer takes his glitchy, ambient-tinged breaks further into quirky pop territory, with the help of illustrious guests such as Ecco2k, James K and Ouri. Seemingly eager to make up for lost time, XL has already announced part 2 of Lick The Lens, which is expected to come out by the end of the year.

Fav tracks: “NOSEBLEED MELODY”, “LOVE & POP”.

DJ Granette – LERO - LERO

Over the last decade, the São Paulo area has come to be recognised as a hotspot for crazy Brazilian funk subgenres. While Franca municipality producer DJ Granette’s music may sound almost relaxing compared to the intense cacophonies the paulista scene has to offer (it’s not), his strident ritmado fits perfectly into the local canon.

After churning out tracks for his SoundCloud page for a year, Granette just released his first EP, a six-tracker titled LERO - LERO that sees him put his own weird, hypnotic spin on vocals from both high-profile and lesser-known, local MCs.

Fav tracks: “VEM COM A XOXOTA”, “NA CARA DELA”.

ltfll – “Nested Skins”

ltfll’s compositions were among the highlights of Egyptian collective irsh’s great two-volume do you mean: irish compilation series. On “Nested Skins”, his first original material in three years and the title track of his forthcoming EP, the Alexandrian producer unleashes an intricate machinery of kicks and clangs, with bass so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Those lucky enough to be attending Kraków’s Unsound Festival next month would be doing themselves a huge disservice by missing his set.

See also

Jemima – Even The Dog Knows

The debut album from the London band is an eerie, quiet folk gem.

Carrier feat. Gavsborg – “The Fan Dance”

Brooding, minimalist dub number by Carrier, with Gavsborg from Jamaican dancehall collective Equiknoxx on vocals.

Kelman Duran – “1804” / “One Million Haitians and Africans”

New pair of singles by the Dominican producer: ghostly, jazzy ambient vs. clubby, bassy material featuring Tanzanian singeli duo Bamba Pana and Makaveli. Both are great and taken from Scorpio Falling, his new album out next week.

Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – Guest Mix for Temporal Cove (NTS)

A one-hour mix of psychedelic blown-out madness by one of the architects of the album of the year. Originally aired on NTS Radio back in June.

Lukid – “Underhand Brokery” / “The Secret of Bell Making”

Two loopy tunes from Lukid’s upcoming album, covering similar ground to his lo-fi/industrial/techno-not-techno duo Rezzett with Jackson Bailey.

RenzNiro, Dunamis, GRIM & Wudini – “Married To The Money”

Manchester rapper RenzNiro links up with citymates Dunamis, GRIM and Wudini for a cold, no-nonsense underground anthem.

Len – “wassap”

The London rising star’s newest banger, “wassap”, is taken from his latest EP MAKE BRITAIN S3XY AGAIN.

DJ Narciso – QUANDO EU PEGO NO MIC

The Lisbon batida artist follows up his already stacked year with a punchy three-tracker.

Conjunto Media Luna – “No Es Moda” / “Kumbia Dos Pasitos”

A giddy 7" from the Colombian cumbia musician, joined here by compatriot La Terrorista del Sabor and Californian producer Turbo Sonidero.

Thanks for reading :) See you again soon!