We start with two masters of reflective chamber modernism. Over more than 15 years, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Carsten Nicolai (Sep 21 / Oct 21 / Aug 22 / Nov 22 mixtapes) have struck a powerful and complementary partnership. ‘Monomom’ is a studio-refined and slightly shorter version of the live rendition featured on their 2019 album Two (Live at the Sydney Opera House). With heartbeat kicks, morose keys and what appears like a lone satellite blinking in darkness, this could be the score of a space opera.
Canadian drone composer Tim Hecker builds oceans of ambient noise that submerge listeners into serenity and melancholy. There is always a certain sense of scale that comes across his compositions. On ‘Borderlands’ (taken from his 2009 album An Imaginary Country) organic noise drifts above twinkling piano-like synths. Simple yet grandiose, this is a song that ruminates on the nature of existence and brims with unblemished beauty.
Bringing together 12 years of archival material that didn’t make it onto his previous albums, Nils Frahm (Nov 20 / Sept 21 / Jun 22 / Oct 22 mixtapes) released earlier this month 23 solo piano tracks on Old Friends New Friends. The album was put together during the pandemic as Frahm used the time to organize his archives, aware of the big number of recordings he’d accumulated so far. Compared to his recent electronic releases, these recordings are closer to his other piano-focused albums. The Berlin composer explores some of his quietest, most intimate material, homing in on every tiny detail, relishing the pauses as much as the simple melodies.
London musician, DJ and producer Bradley Miller leverages poignant instrumentals to convey warm intimacy through sparse but potent arrangements of piano, saxophone and clarinet. He is joined by Detroit-based harpist Ahya Simone on ‘mazes’, a track about “loving out loud as well as the complexities of loving someone; the twists and turns are like a maze. Sweet sensations in treacherous places.”
Melanie De Biasio is a Belgian jazz singer, flutist and composer. Singing with a lot of class and delicacy, her haunting voice conveys an emotive and sensuous presence that is hard to match. ‘Your Freedom Is The End of Me’ is a mysterious and bewitching song that is taken from her third album Lilies - noir glamour and melancholy without being depressing or intensely dramatic.
From lo-fi sounds (with Mole House) to abstract post-punk (Fingers Pty Ltd), passing by experimental territories (Tarcar), Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Carla dal Forno’s gothic sensibilities surely stand out. She inhabits the gloom of her arrangements like a ghost, and the opening song of her 2017 4-track EP, The Garden, is a direct expression of that. A forceful, void-chasing drone-rock led by a stalking bass line that will satisfy your dark wave palate.
We continue along the same mood with L.A.-based singer and synth player Camella Lobo. Stop Suffering, which she recorded and self-produced, is a 3-song EP about heartache and grief. By tinkering with microscopic musical changes, she generates an enormous emotional effect on this dense song that comes from a heavy heart looking for new beginnings. Drenched in melancholy, the track examines love's collateral damage and the fragility of human emotions.
Next is a gorgeous slice of goth by Chicago-based musician Haley Fohr. Haunted by the death of a loved one, and memories of the pandemic that were all twisted up inside of her, she attempted to relieve herself of some of that darkness via -io, her sixth studio album about an entirely imaginary world. With its hypnotically pulsating surf rock, ‘Dogma’ is the type of gauzy mood music that leaves you yearning for more. "Tell me how to feel real", she sings in that beguiling baritone.
Allow me to make an exception and include a track that wasn't discovered in December. As I finalized the mixtape selection this month, after noticing its sorrowful mood, I couldn't help but add the song that introduced me to Melanie de Biasio a couple of years ago. She blew my mind when I came across her spellbinding 24-min ‘Blackened Cities’ back in 2018, and the song went on to become one of my favorite long-play singles ever. I'll stop here and let you savor it without saying more.
We end our dark wave stretch with a thrilling song by the Turkish duo She Past Away. Representing the distilled essence of what goth music tries to make people feel, this is the kind of song I would love to hear on a massive sound system in a goth club. With a spooky baritone singing in Turkish, a clean and dark guitar tone, a quick tempo and a catchy drum beat, the result is a striking gloomy atmosphere that transports.
Composed for choreographer Alexander Whitley’s contemporary dance production Overflow, Rival Console (Ryan Lee West) returns with an album of the same title that explores the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by data. With more droning and expansive qualities than his previous albums, his 7th is his most ambitious to date. Crafter around rhythmic structures, chopped vocal samples and nuanced shifts in composition, the album spans a plethora of musical topographies that feel intricately layered and deftly considered.
Welsh artist, composer and producer Lewis Roberts employs brain-bending editing techniques to create synthetic sonic textures. He puts a lot of effort in the details and can you witness his pure, frictionless precision on ‘Frozen’. With antiquated harpsichord sounds and an abrupt genius ending that feels like a punch in the gut, this is a song from an exemplary sci-fi sound designer with a sharp vision for an alien future.
We continue with psychedelic blues gloomers Ignatz & De Stervende Honden. With an hypnotic aura, undulating motion of guitars and a rippling twilight groove, this feels like the output of musicians trying to experiment with bending around the arc of time to slow things down.
Featured on the August 2021 mixtape, the Montreal four-piece art-rock band are back with a defying song rolling in on an ominous bass rumble, snarling guitars and a lyrical chant out of a cult. With warped and disfigured sounds, the end result is an unnerving breathless race that tastes like a mental breakdown.
Arguably Low’s finest and most clever album of the last decade, HEY WHAT features melodies delivered through double vocals that are exquisitely melded with grinding electronics. A great aural experience contrasting pristine forefront angelical vocals with harsh walls of noise. After their 2018 album Double Negative (which was already a great creative leap forward with its scorched digital manipulations), the band continues their arresting, shapeshifting intrusion into the contemporary alternative rock landscape.
We end with Montreal-based Kìzis, an Indigenous, two-spirit artist who challenges conformity with her artistic expressions. On her three-and-a-half-hour album Tidibàbide / Turn, she invites a dozen of collaborators to study the process of securing trans safety and joy within the self. The result is a joyful and euphoric piece of work that forges a feeling of tender togetherness and a charm against inhospitable surroundings.
