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I revived an old music blog from the early 2000s?

Maybe it’s been a foolish endeavor, and maybe I’m the only one who misses the blog ol’ days, but I’ve been giving it a shot. I’ve been working on restoring some of the old content, though much of it was lost. I’ve slowly been rebuilding the old remix sunday archives, and even posting the occasional new edition. And I’ve been writing again.

You can find all the label’s releases here, on bandcamp, or most anywhere you listen to music these days. I’ve still got copies of some of the old vinyl releases, and I recently released the first in a set of charitable cassette compilations to raise awareness about the continued [mis]use of broken windows policing methods.

Plus, I put together a playlists section with a handful of spotify lists that hopefully start to capture a [slightly] updated version of the moods we used to peddle. Give those a listen and a ❤ if you would be so kind. If you want to get in touch, just give me a holler. Oh, and if you prefer to just start playing all the music on this page before reading any further, go ahead and click ▶︎

– Haldan/Boody

  • From the Mailbox 36

    Pelzman – Ember

    Trancey breakbeat euphoria from Copenhagen-based, Parisian-born producer Pelzman. As the central element around which to base the composition, Pelzman used a prayer call he recorded in a mosque while traveling in Kyrgyzstan. Historically, I’ve been a little easy to win over with microtonal and traditional eastern scales–and also a bit of a pushover for sentimental breakbeat tracks. But no real reason for shame here; Pelzman’a track is solid, utilitarian, emotive stuff. Nothing wrong with easy on the ears. This is out now as part of the Invisible Forces EP, which you can grab on bandcamp, or find for streaming wherever.

    Pelzman – “Ember” (bc)

    CHEAP LOVE HOTEL – EASY ESCAPE

    I covered Japanese producer CHEAP LOVE HOTEL a few years ago when I was on a kick writing about this type of breakcore-adjacent, internet-culture-inspired music I kept getting in my inbox that I hastily termed online jungle. At that point, CHEAP LOVE HOTEL was current with a debut album, sexting with my besty, now they’ve got two new albums in a sort of double release: XOE MY TRUE LOVE and XOE NO MORE. The artist explained to me that their music is directly inspired by their love for gaming, so it tracks that these new albums would both continue to explore soundscapes that vacillate between whimsy and tranquility, all within the realm of the perpetually online. No bandcamp for these, but the artist was kind enough to share with me the mp3 of a track from each of the new albums–both of which are available to stream now.

    CHEAP LOVE HOTEL – “EASY ESCAPE” (mp3)
    CHEAP LOVE HOTEL – “FALLEN KIND” (mp3)

    Onie Jackson – Wings of Desire

    Last but not least this evening is a lovely track from Orléans-born producer Onie Jackson. Jackson describes the song’s genre as “micro-bap” which I read as a reference to minimalist boom bap, but it’s maybe a bit reductive. This track is just a sublimely melodic bit of downtempo; whatever subgenre you want to place it in, it’s romantic and relaxed, and at a blissful 2:32, it’s too short. There’s a sample that shouts the refrain “let it out” periodically throughout, and I’d say the song effectively inspires a few good exhales. No bandcamp for this one either, unfortunately, but Jackson was generous enough to let me post the mp3 here, and it’s available for streaming all over.

    Onie Jackson – “Wings of Desire” (mp3)

  • Mailbox: Cheap Love Hotel – sexting w my besty

    If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity over the past 6 months, you’ve probably encountered one of my references to this breed of quasi-breakcore jungle-inspired internet music that I’ve hastily been describing as online jungle (as distinct from internetcore/webcore which seems much too broad a term to adequately capture this stuff). The breakcore-adjacent gaming-influenced microgenre seems to be proliferating quickly, not least because of the growth of the dreamstation discord, which also maintains dreamstation.fm and its live radio feed. To be fair, folks on dreamstation just seem to call this breakcore, without qualification, but I’m old and come from a time when breakcore was a lot more abrasive than most of the stuff I’m hearing coming from the dreamstation users. Plus, the dreamstation radio feed goes as far as playing house music sometimes, which isn’t a knock, but does detract from its authority re: the term breakcore.

    One artist pursuing this style (though I’m not actually sure they’re active on dreamstation) is Cheap Love Hotel, based in Japan. Ripe with plenty of discord-friendly gaming humor and detail (again I’m old, but this still reminds me a lot of IRC channels or AOL chatrooms), and based in-principle on hollow bass stabs, and jungle-style breakbeat and sample manipulation, Cheap Love Hotel’s debut album sexting w my besty is real fun. The album fits in with the work of other artists in the genre, for sure, but is also generally more whimsical and idiosyncratic, often favoring hiphop sampling techniques and chopped jazz riffs instead of more serious melancholia and giant pads. This may partly be attributable to Japan’s rich raregroove and acid jazz scenes, but I can’t confirm that. In any case, the record is still squarely in online jungle territory, as far as I’m concerned, including because it embraces the shortform—of its sixteen songs, only one is over three minutes.

    sexting with my besty is out now on all the streamers, or you can grab it on bandcamp. Cheap Love Hotel has also been generous enough to let me share with you the mp3s of three tracks from the album, including the title track, which is definitely my favorite from the record.

    Cheap Love Hotel – “sexting w my besty” (mp3)

    Cheap Love Hotel – “HYPERFIX SUPER7” (mp3)

    Cheap Love Hotel – “RETENTION” (mp3)

  • From the Mailbox

    I’ve got so much good stuff coming in all the time, and I don’t always have the bandwidth to cover as much as I’d like. So, in the interest of not letting too many gems fall through the cracks, I’ll occasionally be collecting a handful of recent contributions into a new From the Mailbox feature.

    Nikolas Thompson – On The Sure (Waiting For Me)

    Wonderfully idiosyncratic club music from Perth’s Nikolas Thompson. I love when a song feels totally built for purpose, like it was produced by a DJ just to fill a specific hole in their set. Grab the mp3 so it can serve that purpose for you too. Thompson seems full of personality, zeal, and good ideas, so I’d keep an ear out for more from him.

    Nikolas Thompson – “On The Sure (Waiting For Me)” (mp3)

    Dr. Sepi – IceDrop

    Next, it’s more dancefloor frenzy from Norway’s Dr. Sepi. This time it’s breakneck triplet carioca syncopation meets 170bpm breakbeat fury. DJ’s: grab the mp3 for free below (and don’t miss that last one I posted too).

    Dr. Sepi – “IceDrop” (mp3)

    ERRx – breaking down

    Finally, another slice of ambient breakcore / online jungle vibes from ERRx, who I’ve covered in the past. Two pristine minutes of flow state music.

    ERRx – “breaking down” (sc)

  • Mailbox: miiinty – playing spyro on a ps2 emulator gave me a hit of dopamine!!!

    More of that internetcore-adjacent online jungle I was on about a couple of months ago. This time it’s this very playstation roller from miiinty, who I know nothing about except that they’re [maybe] from the UK. Besides the song’s bloodshot title, the only indication of miiinty’s inspiration is the following statement: “born to uwu forced to thug it out tbh.” Like any good loading screen song, this song’s appeal is immediate and it remains engaging throughout, in a way that could probably go on forever before you’d notice the game had frozen.

    Not on bandcamp, but you can find it for streaming anywhere you’d think to look.

    miiinty – “playing spyro on a ps2 emulator gave me a hit of dopamine!!!” (sc)

  • Mailbox: shiro12 – Afterimage / 残像

    More of that dreamy online jungle/y2k breakcore I’ve written about a few times previously. This time from producer shiro12, who I don’t know much about except that they describe themselves as “home-bound.” I assume they’re located in Japan, but I’m not actually sure about that either. Again, as is the case with this strain of revivalism, what’s probably most important is that they’re online, and their music is too.

    No bandcamp, so stream away.

    shiro12 – “Afterimage / 残像” (sc)

    shiro12 – “カレイドスコープ” (sc)

  • Mailbox: ERRx – i miss having LAN parties

    Is there a microgenre name for these sorts of shortform breakbeat-driven quasi-jungle tracks, usually with heavy reference to internet culture, anime, and gaming? I’m not slighting the stuff, some of it is great, but it really feels like it’s definitely a thing, and I don’t have a name for it. I guess this is sort of what I imagine kids who would have been making breakcore 15 years ago are doing instead (some of them are definitely still incorporating breakcore). And I’d also guess this is kind of close to the world that gave birth to legit stars like PinkPantheress. Calling this internetcore feels too broad, since my experience is that encompasses much more than what I’m trying to describe.

    I really like these three tracks I got in the mailbox from ERRx. All three short and sweet slices of this genre I don’t have a name for, none longer than two minutes. I know nothing about this artist — their twitter location is listed as ‘not here’, and their bio on all socials is:

    c r i t i c a l ERRx d e t e c t e d @ criticalxerrorx E̶̪̺̖̗͍̠̖̲̭̲̜̘̊͝R̶̨̜͍̳̙̪̭̽̎̀͠R̸̛̝̤̬͓̻̫̩̣̳̀͒͒̌͂̓̾͂͊̐͝͠x̷̛̰̲͛̿̾̈́̐̎̄̓̕͜͝͝͠ ̸̣͍͚͍̭̙̝̬̀̔͐̓̒̋̚

    I even tried to do some sleuthing by seeing where their spotify listeners are concentrated. Almost evenly distributed between London, Santiago, LA, Melbourne, and Paris. You can’t get much more worldwide than that. Or I guess the operative word is online. Maybe we can just call this microgenre ‘online jungle’?

    No bandcamp for ERRx, so follow their soundcloud, or stream them all over.

    ERRx – “I miss having LAN parties” (sc)

    ERRx – “I made an error” (sc)

    ERRx – “who are you” (remix) ft. Brooke Elise (sc)

  • From the Mailbox 37

    Arky Waters – UGETME?

    True to the track’s title, Sydney-based Arky Waters comes correct with this huge chunk of high-adrenaline jungle. If you’re playing at or around 160bpm, I can’t imagine this wouldn’t work a charm on your floor. Big big energy here from the jump, and on both sides of an appropriately celestial breakdown to allow folks to rest their hearts for a few seconds. This is from Arky Waters’ forthcoming debut long player. No bandcamp, I’m afraid, but he sent over the mp3 for me to share here, and you can find this for streaming all over.

    Arky Waters – “UGETME?” (mp3)

    64e2 – Cybernetics

    Keeping the tempo high comes a nice slice of frenetic 170bpm IDM-breakcore-electro crossover from Sheffield-based 64e2, who I can’t find any more information about online. This track is mostly instrumental, but includes a synthetic vocal sample that periodically repeats the refrain–new ideas in cybernetics–the kind of phrase that’s almost obligatory in a lot of electro music, a genre that has long been obsessed with tech-noir, biopunk, and sci-fi futures that imagine continued competition and collaboration between man and machine. Sometimes these sorts of references can feel a little retro, but given the current state of technology, it seems to me there has never been an historical moment that more urgently calls for remaining focused on the specter of–and risk inherent with–combining or replacing humanity with machinery. This is available for streaming, or pay-what-you-wish on bandcamp as part of the Forensic Pathology EP. The artist was also kind enough to let me share with you the mp3 below.

    64e2 – “Cybernetics” (mp3)

    S79r3n7 – 732A5729

    Moving further into the frenetic, a bit of transcendent breakcore from another cryptically named artist, Denver-based S79r3n7. I’m not always a fan of straight breakcore tracks, but when an artist manages to balance the chaos and intensity of the breakbeat programming with the serenity of big cloudy pads, I can definitely be won over. Here, S79r3n7’s sample-based pad design is gorgeous, and they succeed in taking the breakbeat chops just to the brink of incoherence without ever quite crossing the line. No bandcamp here, unfortunately, and seemingly no streaming either–except via soundcloud.

    S79r3n7 – “732A5729” (sc)