Euglossine is Florida multi-instrumentalist Tristan Whitehill, who produces what he describes as "tropical electronic exotica with jazzy flare and floral groove." To accompany a new release entitled Lustrous, which can be purchased digitally here, Euglossine put forth a lo-fi psychedelic video for the track "Phase Stone to Love," which can be viewed below. The video's primitive sci-fi theme captures the retro, ambient jazz atmosphere of the tune, in which the chord changes, along with the combination of electronic and organic components, create a vibe reminiscent of Thundercat's more relaxed compositions.

The description of the video, created by Adrian Pijoan, is: a space egg populates a planet with ethereal metallic goo, a fluxing garden of pure information, a sphere expands endlessly with life.

Monomorph consists of Italian twin brothers Fabrizio and Marco D'Arcangelo, who normally operate under the eponymous D'Arcangelo moniker. D'Arcangelo has been active since 1996, having released a number of albums and EPs on various labels, including Aphex Twin's Rephlex Records. Recently, the brothers decided to revert to an older, abandoned pseudonym Monomorph (under which they previously released material in the 90s) for the release of the Four EP, which is available from Bandcamp by donation. Check it out below.

Canadian electronic music pioneer Aaron Funk, better known as Venetian Snares, will be releasing a full-length on June 16th called My Love Is A Bulldozer on Planet Mu. By my count, this will be Funk's 18th release under the Venetian Snares moniker since emerging in the late 90s (not counting his staggering amounts of self-released material, EPs, and singles), although it has been about 4 years since his previous full-length effort My So-Called Life.

Preview the track "Dear Poet" below, which is a classic Venetian Snares production combining dramatic string melodies and exploding, chopped Amen break drums. You can also preview a couple minutes of each track off the whole album at Planet Mu, many of which feature vocals by Funk, which is unusual territory for a Venetian Snares record.

From Brainfeeder: Taylor's musical style is equally influenced by the legends of 60s/70s Soul, the kings of the Modern Beat Generation, Golden Era hip hop, free form jazz and electronic music. By playing all of the instruments on his productions, while also relying heavily on sampling and chopping up his live takes, he has found a sound that seamlessly bridges myriad musical worlds and draws the listener into a constantly shifting audio soundscape.

The experimental Canadian trio Badbadnotgood released their debut full-length III last week on Innovative Leisure. Honestly, every track is solid, but perhaps the ones to check out are "Triangle, "Can't Leave the Night," (below) and "CS60." The album is available in digital, vinyl, CD, and cassette formats on Bandcamp.

From Innovative Leisure: BADBADNOTGOOD is a young supremely talented trio of musicians made up of Matthew Tavares on keys, Chester Hansen on bass, and Alex Sowinski on drums. Since their inception at Humber College’s Music Performance program in 2011, the three have challenged the rule book on improvised instrumental music and taken jazz tradition into the future.

Eli Colburn is a talented producer out of Tennessee that I happened upon some time ago via Soundcloud, and he recently put out a killer EP of vibey, eclectic (and fish-themed) hip hop beats. One of the standout tracks is the mellow and off-kilter "Angler" (below), on which Colburn makes great use of ambient space, allowing different elements to sit comfortably in their own dimension. The whole EP can be streamed on Soundcloud. CDs and T-shirts can be purchased through Bandcamp, where the EP is also available for digital download.

On May 6, Baths will be releasing the Ocean Death EP on Anticon records, and recently posted the title track to SoundCloud as a preview (below). The accompanying info says these tracks have been in existence since even before his 2010 debut LP Cerulean, which perhaps gives us a bit of a glimpse of a producer searching for a signature style. In the song "Ocean Death," one hears both the usual Bath-isms (thick textures, vocal layering) as well as some more atypical elements (somewhat minimalist, Four Tet-esque beat).

Brainbheats has put out a remix collection of tunes from the Fragile Science EP, with help from an eclectic combination of electronic artists. There's the glitchy, heavily textured work of Introvert on the "The Three Jewels," the dreamy, head-nodding version of "Simplehuman" by Montego (Brey McCoy of Nerves Junior), a retro-future-funk take on "Night Driver" by Blazing Star, and Brainbheats' own improv-laden transformation of "Bang Jazz."

The remix collection is available for free download from Soundcloud (below) or from Bandcamp.

In the heyday of MTV, when the music video was almost as important as the song itself, the marriage of visuals and music reached new heights of innovation. A number of directors raised the artistic level of the medium, many of whom either came from or went on to the world of feature-length motion pictures, among them Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, and Mark Romanek. These pioneers of the art form showed the world how to create an iconic visual identity for a piece of music, and perhaps no director has been more important to the electronic music aesthetic than Chris Cunningham.

Start with Cunningham's first video for "Second Bad Vilbel" by Autechre, which provides a rough sense for both the abstract, surrealist vibe that he would bring to his work and his collaborative approach, making the visuals a true extension of the sound.


Cunningham frequently worked with Aphex Twin, including the slightly ridiculous--in a good way--video for "Windowlicker" (featuring the superimposed Aphex Twin faces previously used in his nightmarish "Come to Daddy" video) and a piece called "Monkey Drummer," which was originally a video installation using Aphex Twin's track "Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount."


Stanley Kubrick hired Cunningham for design and animatronic testing on his film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (a project that would ultimately be directed by Steven Spielberg), and that work was clearly an influence on his video for Bjork's "All is Full of Love."


Cunningham captured Portishead's floating, dream-like sound in his video for their song "Only You."


Finally, one of my favorite videos of all time is for "Come On My Selector" by Squarepusher, where all of Cunningham's idiosyncrasies come together for a more narrative-oriented piece.

Okay, so it was back at the end of February that vaporwave stand-out Saint Pepsi released his latest effort Gin City. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to always stay ahead of the game, so sometimes you have to rewind the clock a bit, just like the vaporwave movement looks back to find inspiration, somewhat ironically, from otherwise forgettable vintage sources: 80s video games, smooth jazz, corporate imagery, etc.

On Gin City, though, Saint Pepsi is less "vapor" and more bounce. Check out the track "Disappearing" below, streamed from SounCloud. There are breezy West Coast synths, melodic hooks, and a downright Dirty South-esque 808 beat.

Disappearing by SAINT PEPSI

Squarepusher collaborated with Z-MACHINES, an all robot "band" of sorts, for a release coming out April 7th on Warp Records. Take a guitarist with 78 fingers, a 22-armed drummer, whatever else there is going on, and combine it with the composition skills of a guy like Squarepusher, and you know the results will be interesting to say the least. Check out the promotional video below for the track "Sad Robot Goes Funny." The tune actually seems a bit reserved at times, considering Squarepusher and the tools he's given to work with, but nevertheless it's an intriguing piece of music that evolves nicely over the course of 5 minutes.

LA-based producer Mast (Tim Conley) put out this track "The Waters" a couple months ago, back before his full-length Omni was released by Alpha Pup at the tail end of January. Featuring rapper/producer Jeremiah Jae, "The Waters" is one of those tracks that just might change your perspective on shit. I've spent the past 20 minutes listening to it back-to-back several times. Check it out:

Mast - The Waters (feat. Jeremiah Jae) by ALPHA PUP

More from Alpha Pup:

The multiverse of MAST is strikingly similar to physical life here on earth. Philadelphia raised, L.A. residing Tim Conley presents us with the everlasting unchanging everything of "OMNI", a debut musical sphere of bliss and structure, of chaos and destruction. MAST communicates to the core with a contemporary, electronic review of song-writing through a jazz composer's lens of unorthodox transcendence. Invoking the spirit of monumental Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai, Conley pronounces an aesthetic theme to the surrounding emotive course of the album at-large bound by the serene and magical landscapes sometimes confusing, always intriguing. --- The Los Angeles electronic forefront of Alpha Pup Records speaks to every walk of life on the "OMNI" vibration plane, and it is not alone that the MAST vessel sets sail the maiden voyage. Assists from soul-navigating vocal gestures of Anna Wise (Sonnymoon, Kendrick Lamar), way-out raps from Brainfeeder/Warp's Jeremiah Jae, lullaby serenades from Low Leaf, and the long time partner / tourmate RYAT (Brainfeeder) attribute to the intricate album weaving of all things. All companions considered, it is Conley's solo sense of devotion to experimental process that guides us through the perfect flux that is MAST.

A while back, I heard about a duo collaboration between Brad Mehldau, probably the most exciting pianist (jazz or otherwise) to emerge in the past 20 years or so, and drummer Mark Guiliana. For the project, Mehldau abandoned the piano (for the most part) in favor of Fender Rhodes and synths. They toured in this format, but until recently an album wasn't available. The album, called Taming the Dragon, is out February 25th, with vinyl and CDs now available for pre-order from Nonesuch.

Listen to the track "Hungry Ghost" on Soundcloud.




Mehldau and Guiliana performing "Just Call Me Nige" live:

Tycho has released the track "Montana" (below) ahead of his first full-length release since 2011's Dive. The new LP Awake is slated for release on March 18 from Ghostly International.

For nearly a decade, Tycho has been known as the musical alias of Scott Hansen, but with the release of Awake – his second LP for Ghostly International – the solo project has evolved into a three-piece band. Relating closer to post-rock than ambient soundscapes, the record is situated in the present, sounding more like Hansen than drawing from his influences. “This is, in many ways, the first true Tycho record.”

Now that 2014 is here, it seems the thing to do is reflect on the extraordinary happenings of the past year. There are no rankings of any kind here, just a sampling of AC's favorite jams from 2013 across a variety of genres. The only note to accompany these selections probably goes without saying: all of these albums and artists are (obviously) well worth checking out. If you discover something new, it's more interesting to go into it without expectations set by any description of the music. Some of these selections have been featured here on the blog at some point, and some haven't, but if you've been following this blog for the past year and generally like the music that is presented, your chances of disappointment are probably quite slim. Enjoy!