Picks Of The Week (19.10.24

1. Eluun - SOULCHILD [Blackout Music]

Recommended if you like: Buunshin, Sleepnet, Circumference

It's not often I'm talking about the same artist this many times in a time span this short. If it's this good, and accompanied by this much creative ingenuinity, however, I simply cannot refuse the call to action any longer. Or should I say, ingeluunity? Because, well, we're back to talking about Mona Lisa'Huillier's most incredible output under the Eluun artist monaker once again!

In case you don't know what or who I'm referring to here, I'd advise you catch up on our pieces about her contribution to Blackout's third edition of their massive Adaptations series earlier this year and her triple-threat terrificness on DIVIDID shortly after. Now, she's returned to the place I've first heard of her, legendary Dutch Neurofunk forge and legit best meme account in the whole scene Blackout Music, with not one, not three, but five whole soul-chillingly incroyable new tunes, strung together into her debut EP, SOULCHILD!

Before we even get to the actual music, I just want to quickly redirect the spotlight to the artistry surrounding the release. Not only are the artworks for both the EP and its preceding single, created by Paris-based artist Jonathan Plesel, absolutely marvellous and unique, we even got an accompanying story video to go along with the music, created by nomadic abstract-bone-loving teeth whitening tattoo artist unvoleurdedents. While her Instagram and the job description I tried to assemble from it might have confused me a little, the cinematic, with voice-over (mo-)narration from Mona herself, does a great job of introducing us to the world. I urge anyone even only slightly interested in creative world building to just watch it, but in short: A civilisation as nomadic as its video creator, capable of flight, is just minding their business, until one day, their sun, the Glassy Star, goes kaboom on itself, turning into the ominous, maddening Dead Star. Those especially maddened by this development, the Deika, started worshipping the new celestial development, which in turn started rotting their bodies in a fun, contagious way. Right when the now wing-less non-freaks lost all hope, however, a new wing-having shimmering glimmer of exactly that blessed their world - the Soulchild!

As an avid creative writing enjoyer, this alone of course already earned a lot of bonus points in my books, but trust me, the music is somehow even better. We open into the auditory side of this wonderfully crafted world with Mona's very own spoken word intro on title track SOULCHILD. Wasting no time at all, we're quickly thrown into a catchily chaotic yet sparsely arranged drum rhythm that's slowly but surely added only the strangest of ear candy fuel to. Fluttery synths make way for harrowingly beautiful strings, which in turn get replaced by a combination of vocal chops and choirs, until larger-than-life vibration of pure beauty take over everything in earshot. Even the ticking clock outro is filled to the brim with details! On Deika, we get a glimpse into what the madness these mind-disease-spreading people endure might feel like. After an analog radio chatter filled intro reminiscent of an atmospheric Horror game, Mona launches into uniquely intricate triplet-based rhythmic action paired with quivering basses, but as we've come to know and love from her, things progress rather rapidly from there. Bright vocal chops, breaks going haywire, crazy synths - then, we swerve right into more straight-forward, harder-hitting wildness with extremely cool vocal modulation bits firing off everywhere. So many things happen in those 3 minutes of runtime!

Next up, we've got Shade, featuring fellow N87 founder and Nancy-resident Emile Gaillot, also known as Elyem, making an amazingly eerie entrance with some haunting background vocals. Unlike some of its predecessors, Shade goes straight into the action once we get to the drop, with an ever-evolving back and forth between melodic hits stumbling over themselves in rhythmically unique ways and an all-consuming, destructively pulsating wave of synth beauty, that's tickling my brain in all new ways each phrase. We even get a Hip-Hop-y outro on this one!

On the final stretch of this ExPerience we are tackling the rise and fall of the one and only Glassy Star, with Neurofunk's finest, Julien The Clamps Carbou, returning the collaborative favour after the excellent teamwork effort on his recent album. Mona seems to be working extremely well with other people in general, but her work with Julien is on a whole 'nother level. A bang sets off a chain reaction of floaty synths growing and growing and growing, until it all erupts into a ball of pure energy. An already huge back and forth between roaring basses and colourful, mind-bending synth work, progresses into outright chaos, as funky guitars, syncopated vocal chops and quick-fire glockenspiel hits play tennis with your brain, before settling into a supercharged version of the first iteration. A straight-up brain-altering tune. After all this excitement, though, we are left with the flip-side of this two-part finale, the Dead Star. Across various Breakbeat, heavy as hell Dubstep and even breakbeat-infused Dubstep sections, Eluun lets out her most weighty sound design shenanigans yet, making you feel the despair of the people upon seeing the blacked-out star. Get it, because of Blackout.

She was already pretty much a frontrunner before, but this outstanding EP cements Eluun as the most exciting newcomer 2024, or perhaps even the 2020s in general, has brought forth. A straight-up L'Huillimpressive feat of French Eluungineering.

2. Deezave - Phasemoda EP 💎 [Dialect Audio]

Recommended if you like: Noise Parfumerie, Ethera, Power Shift

While things will remain technical and wonderfully weird, we're now actually entering uncharted territory, artist and label wise, with the newest EP by this week's Hidden Gem Of The Week, Deezave!

Straight outta Pennsylvania, valiant vagabond Volodymyr Vlasenko has been vitalizing the underground with all sorts of verifiably versatile, verociously volcanic audio vibrations across various genre ventures since at least 2018. I might have gotten carried a bit away there. Anyway: What started as an exploration of all things Trap and Bass, with various selfreleased originals and bootlegs of the likes of Woqlz and Eliminate, soon took a musical turn by replacing the Trap in Trap and Bass with our beloved ol' Drum during the pandemic, with his entry to Teddy Killerz' remix competition for Shine being the first proof of that I could find. Around 2022, the drums and the basses became the majority in the still vibrantly-varied multi-genre coalition, through both selfreleased work and a series of outings on Dialect Audio - which is also where this lovely collection of madness is released on! So, what even is a Dialect Audio?

Well, the "Home Of Underground Revolution", for one! Founded by Estonian producer Dialective a mere year ago, it basically speedran the usual new label process. After finding their initial footing through a series of guest mixes by underground gems like Pac D, Hideout, Skorpion and Drum Pusher, mister Kullerkupp dialed (get it) his efforts all the way up, and shaped the brand into a platform for all sorts of up-and-coming artistry. And when I say all sorts, I mean all sorts! Over the course of the short yet prolific label journey, Dialect has become the host for better-known names across the underground spectrum like Kevala, Ninive, Dunk, Nemy and Transforma, while also providing a platform for very underrated artists that I did not, or just barely, had on my radar, like Wintour, Hypotax, Katto, Okee, Massent, It's Tricky, CPTR and Akuma. Their wide assortment of artists across liquid, deep, neuro and techy madness did not go unnoticed either, with regular support on Skankandbass, Ledge Sounds, Data Transmission, and even VISION Radio!

Time to check some of the music on there out then, eh? More specifically, let's talk about Dialect Audio regular Deezave's brand new four-tracker, the Phasemoda EP! After flying right into the uniqueness storm with the pulsating basses laden, mood-setting EP opener Morpheus, Volodymyr decimates the Dancefloor with the snappy snares, ticking clock type rhythms and continously increasing bass design craziness of Can't Resist. With the deeper ends of the sound design spectrum now thoroughly explored, we jump up a few octaves with the lovely vocal sample, massive otherworldly shimmer waves and futuristic stabby stabs of It's Fine, before plunging back down to the clicky explorations of ridiculous basses, each more screw-face-inducing than the other, on closer and title track Phasemoda.

Safe to say, I want Volodymore of deez adventurous productions!