Valfi – elsi.Hasht
More micro-tonal perfection from Berlin’s Valfi, who describes his music as crafted for three settings: on the metro, in the club, or while ignoring texts. Built around darbuka drums, Arabic maqamat, and samples from pre-revolutionary Iranian commercials, my impression of this brilliant new one is that it might well work in any of the three aforementioned settings. As crisp as the drums are here, though, it would probably take a special club night to lend itself well to the intricacy of Valfi’s programming on this, so I’d probably lean toward enjoying this in headphones. But that’s just me; I get the sense that Valfi’s label out of Istanbul, Bounce, puts on some really fun nights there that might be perfect settings to dance to this properly. “elsi.Hasht” is out now on bandcamp or for streaming.
Valfi – “elsi.Hasht”
Chase.:R – Be Here Now
Next up is a succinct bit of IDM from Seattle’s Chase.:R (Chase Richman). “Be Here Now” is playful, personal, and full of ear candy (including the intermittent and fun use of a camera flash charge sample); this is just the kind of thing that I enjoy listening to these days. It comes from Richman’s latest long player, Crushed Orchid, which is out on Leipzig’s 110100100.global label. The whole album is full of concise ideas that nicely balance healthy doses of stuttering glitch with simple and accessible melody; I’ve included a couple of other good examples below as well. Grab the album on bandcamp, or find it for streaming at all the usual outlets.
Chase.:R – “Be Here Now”
Chase.:R – “Terra Firma”
Chase.:R – “Dreamscape”
Diverse – Haunted
Soothing in its overloaded qualities, this is a lovely cut of emotive, bassy 2-step from Swiss producer Diverse (Gabriel Barta); probably the most club-focused track today. Though still a teenager, Barta has been prolific in recent years, already releasing dozens of songs since he started putting his stuff out in 2022. This is the latest release on androids dungeon radio, which released that fabulous Starkey record a couple of months ago, and has become a real hidden gem worthy of more attention. Grab “Haunted” on bandcamp or for streaming.
Diverse – “Haunted”