Five Track Friday #3

Or the Friday after as it turns out

Lo and behold, I missed a week, whoops.

I’m blaming me moving out of my flat. However, I’m back to it and have got a few things to share today.

Out And About

Firstly, Jackmaster passed away two weeks ago. His name was one of the first I came across as I ventured into the world of electronic music over 10 years ago and he was overwhelmingly popular amongst my peers. DJs all over my socials have been posting their heartfelt messages. The Resident Advisor obituary by Gabriel Szatan is an excellently written cover of his tumultuous history and I would do it a disservice by saying too much. I highly recommend giving it a read.

Chal Ravens has written an intriguing piece for The Quietus about “The Academisation of Rave” where she talks about the rise in people talking about nightlife in a world where nightlife is dying. There’s an irony in there somewhere about me, an amateur blogger, writing about how another writer has written about other people writing about raving.

I personally don’t see the issue with this academisation, if you ask me, I would say raving is an art form in its own right and art history is fascinating. The scene has been around for 40+ years now and in that time trends have emerged and died only to be replaced by new ones. I think it’s exciting to go back in time and see how things have changed in a scene I am so passionate about. Also, the pioneers of the scene are still alive! Let’s document what we can now so that we can preserve its roots and history for our children.

Anyway, onto the music.

Five Tracks

Jersey are a French pair I first came across on Tiktok a while back (an annoyingly good place to find new music) and I really enjoy their energetic take on the “stutter house” genre that’s become so popular recently. This, combined with their addictive mastery of social media, make them pioneers in the modern electronic music scene.

This next artist was a Reddit find of all places. Von GDK is a delightfully house-y artist that oozes groove and Catalystic Neon Funk is a fun little saucey number by the French producer.

private browsing is an intriguing find this week who, according to his Spotify page, released six albums in six weeks which is an impressive feat. Each album differs from the next with some closer to rock and others definitely more electronic. I can’t seem to make heads or tails of the artist and I love it. aura debt is my highlight track from him and it’s a gorgeously low key house-y track.

Bandcamp is quickly becoming my go to place to find music and I look forward to every Bandcamp Friday. In their latest Bandcamp Friday they talked about Glass Beams, an Australian trio that infuses Eastern elements into a rather jazzy style.

I’ve recently become a big fan of what I like to call “mysterious techno” which I loosely define as techno with a bit of tension in it and Djembuka by Sepbtt fits this description perfectly. There’s a certain pleasurable anxiety to the track that would send a dance floor into a spin.

Bonus Content

This weekend I’m off to see Todd Terje! The Norwegian artist has been a long time love of mine and I’ve even managed to get my dad addicted to him. Ever since I got my ears round Inspector Norse all those years ago I couldn’t stop listening to him so to say I’m excited is an understatement.

However, I have no idea what to expect. In my research I couldn’t really find any live sets from him that aren’t at least 10 years old. But I did come across this set from Oya Festival 2014 which made for a perfect afternoon’s listening.

Until Next Time

November is going to be a good month, I think I have 8 gigs planned so I’m hoping for some good finds. I’ll try not to miss another week in the mean time though.

See you next Friday.