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I've only recently got into Sampha via his work with Sbtrkt and Drake, but love the fact he could sing his shopping list and make it sound emotional. This edit of Can't Get Close, originally on Sampha's Dual EP, is a lush combination of layered vocals and laid back house beats. It reminds me of Armand Van Helden and Roland Clark's Flowerz, which is no bad thing.
Check out Sampha's Dual EP on Spotify:
Iceland's Ólafur Arnalds turns his hand to techno here having previously focused on new classical sounds. Kiasmos is a collaboration with Bloodgroup's Janus Rasmussen and this track is taken from the forthcoming album.
Says Arnalds: "This song, like most of our songs, was made late on a Friday night while enjoying a glass or two of a nice Scotch. It’s one of our personal favourites of the upcoming album and is usually the point in our live set where things change from ‘slight head-bobbing chill’ to ‘all right, let’s party!'. We want to release this song ahead of the album to get ourselves as well as you all excited for a much more Kiasmos-active 2014!"
There's a real Jon Hopkins vibe to this, in the way it blends piano and techno… So it is perhaps unsurprising that you can them both at Sonar Reykjavík later this month.
Strong and bold electronic soul courtesy of BlackPlastic favourites Debian Blak and Joshua Idehen of Benin City.
Forgive Me is the new single from Austra and it comes out through Domino on 25 November. There is a stark emotionality running through this track that is really brought to life through the slightly Kate Bush-esque vocals of Katie Stelmanis, but it is the brooding electronic slinky minimalism that makes it shine, like something from an eighties flick.
The video is directed by Claire Edmondson and is both sinister and sexually charged, capturing the events of a park at night.
Forgive Me is taken from the album Olympia, out now on Domino. Get the album from Amazon.co.uk on CD or MP3 [affiliate links] or stream in full on Spotify:
There's something a little Pavement about snatches of the chorus of this new track from from New York four-piece Big Ups, but most of all it wreaks of Fugazi, hardcore and attitude. In comparison to preceding release Go Back, Wool is a slab of brooding discontent blues that should see in Monday the way it deserves.
Daylight savings and pencil shavings indeed. Fuck the fall.
Wool is taken from Big Ups' debut album, Eighteen Hours Of Static, due on Tough Love Records on 13 January 2014.