Plutonic Rainbows

SK U KNO

Suzanne Kraft beautifully paints outside the lines on ‘SK U Kno’, offering studio-rendered snapshots of material that gradually evolved into the pieces in front of you, drawing woozy connections between wistful ambient contours and more vaporous, hypnagogic loops, into unstable House and abstracted midnight Blues. One of the loveliest/smudged listens this year, huge recommendation.

On the A-side Kraft seduces with eight minutes of wilting chords and percolated synth voices in ‘Gaze’, before ‘Vast Mute’ breezes close to the kind of DJ Screw-style magick found in 0PN’s ‘Chuck Person’s Eccojams’, but to more abstracted, hazy effect.

His B-side follows with the beautifully mellow strums of ‘To Make A Stone Weep’ probing a Jim O’Rourke-like transition from acoustic balm to digital saltiness, and then we finally get to hear the full version of ‘Accelerate Me Wildly’, which now comes with an extra 12 minutes of astral synth-scaping and GRM-like electro-acoustics before it drops into killer, airborne funk trills and levitating chords with a proper West Coast US steez.

Available now on vinyl. Digitals coming in November.

Phono Ghosts - Photons In Fashion

Phono Ghosts returns with ‘Photons in Fashion’ featuring eight new tracks of intricately spliced tape samples, continuing the psychedelic eclectic sound that marked out his previous releases on Fonolith (Solar Dream Reel) and Skam (Chrome Position).

Over 30 minutes, ‘Photons in Fashion’ careers between the forceful ‘80s digi-funk blast of ‘Cassential’, space-lounge groove of ‘Binary Dynamics’ and hypnotic disco of the title track; progressing through to the brooding ‘Dramakai’ and slinky fretless bass of ‘Observatory of the Soul’, interspersed with dream-like fragmentary interludes, before closing out with the idiosyncratic synth bleeping of ‘Hear Me Read My Genetic Chirpy Chip’.

Vinyl, Cassette & Digital are available here.

Apple Event Tomorrow

Tomorrow we'll likely see new iPhones and Watches. Should be interesting. Maybe the AirPower charging mat will also make an appearance. There may be other surprises too.

What to expect:

  • iPhone XS 6.1 inch LCD display
  • iPhone XS 5.8 inch OLED display
  • iPhone XS 6.5 inch OLED display
  • Apple Watch Series 4
  • AirPower
  • AirPods

The announcements begin at 10am in Cupertino, California. There are a variety of places you can stream the event.

Claude Speeed - Sun Czar Temple

An EP from 2015 that you may have missed.

Boomkat:

Second EP by Berlin-based Scotsman, Claude Speeed. Steeped in all sorts of mannered loveliness, from classic American minimalism to cinematic post-rock and retro-futurist electronica, its intent is matched by its reach over five succinct pieces fanning out from the distorted dream sequence of 'Traumzeuge' to soaring synth scape 'R U Sorry?' via the curling chimes and zinging digital harmonics and binary cream of 'Dr. Liz Wilson', ascending to the crashing MIDI drums and longing vocal glossolalia of 'Fret'. RIYL Oneohtrix Point Never, Kuedo, Mogwai.

Available here.

Apple Invites Media to September 12th Event

Apple today sent out media invites for its annual iPhone-centric event that will be held on Wednesday, September 12 at 10:00 a.m. at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park Campus in Cupertino, California.

The media invites released today give a first look at the theme of the event and feature the tagline "Gather Round," likely referencing the main ring-shaped building at Apple Park.