Picks Of The Week (30.12.23

And we're back! While the amount of actually new, original tunes being released during this post-Christmas time is always a little on the smaller side, there's still a lot of gold to be found. Let me share two of my favourites!

1. Maykors - Orchid EP [Celsius Recordings]

Recommended if you like: Rezilient, Sub:liminal, Heymac

May may still be a couple months off, but we need to finally talk about, to my dismay, maybe the most mayorly underrated liquid artist around. Of kors, I'm talking about none other than Russian may-estro Stas Maykors! After getting his foot into the scene's door with his debut release on Occulti Music's 2019 compilation, he kicked off a rather impressive run of incredibly consistent, straight-up lovely tunes and EPs all across the scene. While the extended Fokuz family of labels is probably where you'll see his wonderful creations, like this newest one, the most, Maykors has also set kors to the lands of Impact, Warm Ears, Engage, Druid, Four Corners, High Resistance and Tea, Demand, SINE, Parallel Depth and Live History. A real who's who of underrated labels, right there!

So, what has he cooked up for us today then? A most lovely four-pierce bouquet, the Orchid EP on Fokuz' sister label Celsius! After starting off with the centre piece of it all, the title track Orchid in collaboration with Pharelia, a piano-driven journey through breathtaking atmosphere and loungy sax solos, we drift off into the Amazing Nearby shores, full of guitar strumming, faraway singing and chills-inducing digital bleeps, bloops and flurries. Next, we experience a rather beautiful performance from London-based vocalist ANiMA, atop some cuddly warm basses and a steady stream of rolling drums, on Falling, before the sublimely piano chords, continuously shuffling drums, fantastically arranged flourishes and subtly blooping bleeps round it all off on Archangel Radio.

If you're looking for some lushness to start the year off with, your wisest kors of action may be to listen to this wonderful EP!

Other Liquid from this week:

Need For Mirrors - The Chills EP
Nelver - Teatró
pyxis - Into The Light
Animoi - Albia 💎
bd:j - Faded 💎
L.A.O.S - Further

2. More Plastic, Halvorsen - Sunrise [NCS]

Recommended if you like: Sophon, Andromedik, hayve

You know what this world really needs right now? More Plastic!

... I can see how this might not be a popular sentiment out of context. Allow me to explain. What I want more of is More Plastic, the electronic music project from Half-Greek, Half-Danish brothers Marco & Mathias Vasiliadis! Having grown up in a rather musical family, with their dad actually being a professional DJ himself, it didn't take long for the musical apple to fall onto the Vasiliabros' head, or however the expression goes. Virtual DJ was being fiddled with, first DJ equipment was being purchased, and soon enough, FL Studio was being installed - and all that already happened between the ages of 10 and 16! Of course, they needed sick DJ names to go along with their teenage creations. With Mathias, the older brother, going by Amateus and Marco channelling their heritage into his alias El Greko, the electronic music world was now their collective oyster. Early anthems like Pen15, Flyve Over (of course) and other explorations into the worlds of Electro House, Trap and Melbourne Bounce already earned them some admiration among their peers, but the ampersanded name was still too clunky for them. They needed something sleeker. Something more long-lasting. Something non-biodegradable.

Enter: More Plastic! Founded in 2013, but only officially debuted in 2014 with their first single Phobia, this new project set out to refine their initially maybe still quite rough EDM ideas into enchantingly deadly masterpieces! Spread across the whole heavy spectrum, with a few more uplifting outliers like their Tropical House experiment and their bootleg of Country Roads, of all things, they soon garnered support from all over the scene, from legends like Sidney Samson (the Riverside guy!) and Jewelz & Sparks to Hedegaard, whose Make You Proud remix competition they won. Around 2016, they got more and more into Dubstep, eventually culminating into all sorts of career milestones in 2018: A collaboration with Pegboard Nerds on Disciple, their first release on Riotville, and an infernal guest mix for Annie Nightingale on BBC Radio 1! Over the next few years, the Ma's, both -rco and -thias, expanded the list of imprints releasing their Futuristic Dubstep-Electro Bass with the additions of EDM behemoths Monstercat and NoCopyrightSounds.

You might have realised I have not mentioned DnB at all yet. That's because it took until 2021 for their first DnB tune to finally arrive on the scene: Feel Alive, a collaboration with fellow Monstercat alumni hayve. My personal head canon is that they needed the Finnish-Israeli duo to push them to try it out first and that's why I thoroughly thank them for their service, because that was just the very tip of the DnB plasticberg! Sure, we've still got some Electro House, Dubstep and House going on, but alongside all of that we've also got almost (Vasilia)disturbingly good drums and basses on Monstercat, NCS, Pegboard Nerds' Nerd Nation and even Riotville from them. What a time to be alive! Now, roughly 12 years after having started their copyright-free journey, with their 2012 release on "NonCopyrightedMedia", they kick off the new year with another royalty-free DnBanger on NoCopyrightSounds - Sunrise!

For this newest gem of a tune, they reached out to notorious Norwegian NCS non-novice, the Netrum-nurturing, novel-singing Halvorsen. If you're reading this Jakob, yes, I did actually read that bio of yours to the end. Anyway. In a rather creative take on the usual uplifting message of "everything will be alright", Mr. Halvorsen leads us through a conversation between the left and right brain halves being disappointed in each other's respective negative nelly views, until they can both agree on one thing: that the sun will rise again. Similarly, the Plastic advocates inject this all-too-common theme with a healthy mix of everything you need for it to become a proper banger: cheeky synths turning straight-up anthemic on the drop, punchy drums going at least 174 miles per hour and some rather gnarly guitars. They even dip their toes into Halftime in the second drop!

I sure hope this ain't the end of More Plastic bangers! Absolutely wonderful.

Other Dancefloor from this week:

Cartoon, Ewert Sundja - Oblivion
LMNOP, Alfred Nomad - Keep It Down
Jenske - Protect Your Energy 💎
Various Artists - Annual 2024 (Viper Presents) LP
Clank & Maider - Every Night 💎