Innehållsförteckning för March 2022 från Future Music

Filter | Classic Album LIKE IT? TRY THESE… Krust The Edge of Everything Staggering 2020 long player, and his first new album in 14 years, soundtracking the depths of a metaphysical netherworld. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Hegel Dialect’, ‘Negative Returns’, ‘Space Oddity’ Krust The Edge Of Everything (Remixed) Re-staggering 2021 reconstruction of the above LP, re-imagined by the great and good of the electronic music biz. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: ‘Hegel Dialect (UNKLE Reconstruction)’, ‘Negative Returns (Four Tet Remix)’, ‘Space Oddity (Batu Remix)’ Krust Through The Eyes DJ mix comp from the millennium, full of Full Cycle goodies and phat tracks from Krust compadres like Suv, Size, and Die. ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Roni Size – ‘On Point’, Suv – ‘Parklands’, Die – ‘Jitta Bug’ Roni Size…

Albums | Reviews Pan American The Patience Fader Kranky Known for his role in US post-rock outfit, Labraford, Mark Nelson has been experimenting as Pan American since 1997. His latest release, on long-time home Kranky, is a highly atmospheric and deeply intimate collection of experimental, instrumental solo guitar compositions. The guitar sketches are elegant, stretched out pieces that conjure up a wistful, melancholic feel throughout the record. The pieces are then augmented by lap steel, harmonica motifs and a clutch of fuzzy, hazy atmospheric electronics. The stripped back and bare aesthetics of the album and the smudged atmospherics and smeared strings immediately transport you to a barren, winter landscape in the American rust belt. But such is Nelson’s skill, that beacons of warmth and light creak through the heavy fog…

30 Day EP Workshop | Feature 30 DAY EP WORKSHOP Shake up your workflow, generate new ideas, and create a three-track electronic EP in under a month. Our workshop is here to show you how Creativity is hard sometimes. For music makers there are no shortage of potential roadblocks on the way to finishing a new project. For some people that might come at the start, as a paralysis of choice sets in when confronted with an empty DAW and a wealth of potential tools and influences. For others, the hardest part comes later, when it’s time to turn those initial ideas into a fully realised arrangement. Whether you can relate to either of these situations or not, it’s a rare thing to find a producer or musician who has…

Feature | 30 Day EP Workshop STREAMING SERVICES Getting your music up on streaming services is called digital music distribution. This used to be the domain of big, multi-national record labels, but those days are long gone. Now, you can get your music in the hands (and ears) of fans using streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music with relative ease, and very little investment. Every distribution service is unique: some will charge you up front, some will take a cut of any earnings you make, but some are entirely free. Here’s our pick of the bunch… BANDCAMP We love Bandcamp. In comparison to other music giants like Spotify and Apple Music, they’re a pretty decent bunch, who seem committed to helping artists make money from their music, rather than…

Ploy | Produce like… PRODUCE LIKE… Ploy As he launches his own label, one of the UK’s finest leftfield producers talks workflow secrets © Sam Neill Over the course of the past decade, Ploy – real name Sam Smith – has carved out a reputation for himself as one of the most innovative artists in the UK underground. His club-centric sound, which combines elements of dark British techno with numerous global percussive diversions has seen him land on lauded labels like Hessle Audio, Hemlock, Timedance and L.I.E.S. Following the Covid period, he’s recently returned with a new label and party series, both named Deaf Test. The label launched late last year with Ploy’s own Bollywoodsampling Rayhana EP. To mark the occasion, we visited his South London studio… Why did you…

Hinako Omori | In The Studio With HINAKO OMORI Omori’s new album, a journey…, was created at Real World Studios using binaural and 3D spatial tech. Danny Turner decodes its therapeutic frequencies Born in Yokohama, Japan, Hinako Omori arrived on British soil aged just three years old. Possessing a seemingly innate interest in sound recording, she studied piano and later enrolled at the University of Surrey on a Music and Sound Recording course. This led to Omori working as a pianist, keyboard player and programmer for numerous high-profile artists including Kate Tempest, KT Tunstall, James Bay and Ellie Goulding. Debuting with the sonically explorative EP Auraelia in 2019, Omori was invited to record sessions for WOMAD at Home’s immersive audio series at Real World Studios the following year. Combining field…

Reviews | PreSonus R80 V2 PreSonus R80 V2 £666 per pair Lusting after some 8” monitors? Simon Fellows cocks an inquisitive ear at the revised R80 V2 CONTACT WHO: PreSonus WEB: presonus.com KEY FEATURES 8” Woven composite LF Driver; 6.8 in2 (4400 mm2) AMT HF Driver; LF AMPLIFIER: Class A/B, 75W; HF AMPLIFIER: Class A/B, 65W, Peak SPL at 1m: 107 dB. Frequency response: 40 Hz – 22 kHz. DIMENSIONS: 241 x 379 x 309mm WEIGHT: 9kg per unit PreSonus’ original R80 near-field active monitor was hardly long in the tooth, but the Baton Rouge-based brand (now owned by Fender) obviously thought it was high time for an update. Not that we’re complaining, their engineers have made some very welcome changes. The R80 originally caught our attention because of its unusual,…

Reviews | Erica Synths Black K-Phaser Erica Synths Black K-Phaser £190 Rob Redman gives Erica Synths a round of applause for reminding us what’s great about phasers CONTACT WHO: Erica Synths WEB: ericasynths.lv KEY FEATURES I/O: 8 all pass filters, Built in LFO, Resonance control, Detune/spread The phaser is one of those modules that gets less attention than it deserves but Erica Synths have decided to give it some love, in the form of the Black K-Phaser. This latest addition to the Black series modules packs a lot of tone into its 10hp and shares the same design ethos, with a black fascia with jellyfish graphics. Unlike some modules out there with graphics, the Erica Synths designs are always subtle, leaving the control labels clearer to see. The panel is dominated…

IN THE ARCHIVE – UPDATED! FM’s Sample Archive gives you over 18GB of carefully-curated, royalty-free sounds to use in your music. Here’s what’s inside… AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.1 > ’90s Ambient (562 samples) > Ambient Dawn (490 samples) AMBIENT SOUNDS PT.2 > Majestic Bells & Mallets (444 samples) > Spring Reverb & Tape Delay (533 samples) ATMOSPHERES & BACKGROUNDS > Atmospheric Beds (369 samples) > Noise, Crackle & Hiss (512 samples) > Sounds of the City (371 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.1 > Analogue Polys (625 samples) > SH Collection (500 samples) CLASSIC SYNTHS PT.2 > Analogue Poly Chord Hits (342 samples) > Classic Synths: ’80s, ’90s, ’00s (678 samples) > Hardware Arps (511 samples) CREATIVE DRUMS > Cyborg Beats (514 samples) > Lo-Fi Sampling (555 samples) > Obscure Drum Machines (517…

Talking Shop | Villager TALKING SHOP Villager “GREAT ELECTRONIC MUSIC NEEDS PATIENCE… THE REWARD IS SO MUCH GREATER FOR IT” Alex Young threw himself into producing and performing electronic music earlier than most: after opening up his first DAW at 12, he was playing live at EDC Vegas at only 15 and sharing stages with the likes of Skrillex, Kaytranada and Cashmere Cat. After a heavy touring schedule threatened to burn him out, Villager retreated from the live circuit and focused on developing his voice as an artist, releasing his debut Aura EP on Boys Noize’s label in 2019. Three years on and he’s further refined his style and approach to production, resulting in a new album, Frontier. The record takes cues from the richly textured electronica of artists like Four…

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Concret & Chelsea Hines Symptoms Of La Vida Discos Symptoms Of is the superbly atmospheric debut collaborative album between Concret and Chelsea Hines. Drawing on elements of minimal synth, new wave synth, industrial, dub, post-punk, dark disco and left-of-centre electronica, the duo submerge us into a dark underbelly of atmospheres. Italo-Mexican, post-punk influenced drummer, Diego Angelico Escobar, aka Concret, provides the album’s driving momentum and immersive rhythms that pull us along for the ride. US singer, guitarist and violinist, Chelsea Hines’ softer, spellbinding vocals lift us out of that heaviness and into the more gothic clouds of fog that envelops and disorientates us. And it’s that sense of exploring extremities where the beauty of this album lays. Spiralling fuzzy guitars, angular synths and alluring vocals pull you away, but the…

Sally Shapiro | In The Studio With SALLY SHAPIRO After disbanding in 2016, Swedish italo-disco/synthpop duo Sally Shapiro returns with a fourth album. Danny Turner discusses synths, pseudonyms and the making ofSad Cities ©Freda Klingberg Influenced by Swedish pop and Italo disco artists such as Valerie Dore, Lili & Susie and Katy Gray, work colleagues Sally Shapiro and Johan Agebjörn joined forces to release their heralded debut album Disco Romance in 2006. Further albums, My Guilty Pleasure (2009) and Somewhere Else (2013), sustained interest in their elegant, melancholy synthpop sound despite Shapiro’s low-key public persona and choice to eschew playing live. By 2016, Shapiro and Agebjörn’s musical tastes had begun to drift and the project was seemingly over. However, the last five years has seen them working in seclusion with…

Ploy | Produce like… GET THAT SOUND… Achieving Garys’ tension-building Shepard tones 01 > The seemingly ever-rising tones in Ploy’s track Garys provide masses of energy, which works great on the dancefloor. Although effective, it’s a fairly simple technique. “It’s quite easy really,” he tells us. 02 > “I use the PhasedMistress plugin which is part of the Soundtoys pack,” he explains. “But you can do this with anything that lets you play with resonance and the frequency of that resonance, which is what’s being automated to make the pitch shift.” 03 > Sam turns the resonance up to full, to create a self-oscillating feedback tone, and removes any modulation. “You can trigger the sound with anything,” he explains, “but I tend to use a kick drum.” 04 > This creates…

Reviews | Boss RC-505 MkII Boss RC-505 MkII Loop Station £554 The Boss of tabletop loopers receives an upgrade after eight years at the top. Robbie Stamp explores the latest station CONTACT WHO: Boss (Roland Corp) WEB: boss.info KEY FEATURES I/O: AUDIO INPUTS: 2x XLR (Mic), 4x ¼” jacks (line/inst) AUDIO OUTPUTS: 6x ¼” TS (Main and Sub 1 & 2), 1x ¼” TRS (Phones) Other I/O: 2x 5-pin DIN for MIDI, USB-B socket, 2x ¼” TRS jack for expression/control footswitches MAX RECORDING TIME: approx 13 hours total MEMORY SLOTS: 99 DIMENSIONS: 420x 234x 67mm WEIGHT: 1.8kg The RC-505 MkII is an expanded and enhanced update of the original desktop Loop Station, one of Boss’s many great original designs that has held its own as (digital) audio electronics has charged onwards.…

Reviews | Boss SY-200 Boss SY-200 £299 Boss’ latest compact synth pedal promises a plug-and-play ethos, Simon Arblaster whips out the ol’ six-string to see if it can deliver CONTACT WHO: Boss WEB: boss.info KEY FEATURES Two-button synthesiser effects pedal, featuring an effects loop, 3.5mm MIDI and USB connectivity with assignable external control Boss have never shied away from crossing the great synth/guitar divide. For decades, their parent company, Roland, have tinkered with the guitar as an expressive tool for synths by providing an ever-evolving roster of pedals and pickups to help guitar folk tap into the wizardry of synthesis. And while Boss’ own history may not be as vast, they launched the SYB-3 Bass Synthesiser a whole 25 years ago. Now Boss have launched the SY-200, the latest pedal in…

Reviews | Austrian Audio OD505 Austrian Audio OD505 £229 Jon Musgrave gets up close with this new handheld vocal microphone from Austrian Audio CONTACT WHO: Austrian Audio WEB: austrian.audio KEY FEATURES CAPSULE: Dynamic POLAR PATTERN: Supercardioid POWER: 48V phantom FREQUENCY RANGE: 35Hz to 16kHz SENSITIVITY: 4.4mV/Pa IMPEDANCE: 275ohms MAX SPL: 154 dB SPL LOW-CUT FILTER: 120Hz, 12dB/octave DIMENSIONS: 194 x 53mm WEIGHT: 340g Over the past couple of years Austrian Audio has impressed me with some great products and consistent attention to detail. For their latest venture they’ve turned their attention to the humble handheld dynamic vocal mic. As we know, handheld vocal mics combine low handling noise with robust construction and are ideal for stage use. However, selfnoise and low sensitivity can hamper their overall fidelity. Austrian Audio’s solution…

The Future Of Music | Filter Erica Synths’ new DIY kits are part modular synth, part educational tool Learn to build your own analogue instrument with Erica Synths and Moritz Klein > If you’ve ever been tempted by the DIY side of the modular scene, but never taken the plunge, Erica Synths and Moritz Klein’s new DIY Kits might be the perfect introduction you’ve been waiting for. As pairings go, it’s a tantalising offering. For the uninitiated, Moritz Klein is one of DIY modular’s most popular personalities, known for their thorough but easy-to-follow tutorial videos. Latvian brand Erica Synths, meanwhile, have made some of our favourite gear of recent years, including the excellent Black Series and Pico Eurorack modules. Designed to teach people with little or no experience how to…

Classic Album | Filter Krust Coded Language Talkin’ Loud, 1999 Words by Roy Spencer As the 50-strong string orchestra started to play, Krust welled up. Until then this music had been trapped inside him. He knew what it was that he had wanted to say with this album – the pain, the joy, the struggle he’d been through in getting to this moment. It was like everything that he’d ever wanted to express effortlessly filled the air, and it was beautiful. “It was like a movie!” says the famed junglist. “The stress that we’ve been through, and all this effort. All of that stuff that we’d put out, these guys started to play back. It was a magical moment. I just burst into tears. It was such a relief.” This…

ALBUM REVIEWS ALBUM OF THE MONTH Carmen Villain Only Love From Now On Smalltown Supersound This is the dreamy, enigmatic and alluring fourth studio album from US-born, Norwegian-Mexican artist Carmen Villain. Although the transition has been gradual, this new record signals the complete detachment from the singer-songwriter traditions of her early career and the anchoring down in the ethereal ambience of her more recent work. Any anchors in this album could be made of bracken though, such are the airy, cloudy, and amorphous structures that meander peacefully throughout the record. Subtle and manipulated wind instrumentation blends with natural field recordings and nuanced synth backdrops. The result is an easily flowing soundscape that feels as tranquil and healing as it is interesting. It somehow feels abstract and unfamiliar, yet at the…

RECOMMENDED Pierre Kwenders José Louis and Paradox of Love Arts & Crafts Productions Congolese-born, Montreal-based musician, songwriter, and DJ Pierre Kwenders’ music is full of energy, life and colour. His third LP, José Louis and Paradox of Love takes an all-encompassing approach to capturing the joy across the world in a wonderfully eclectic collection. The record straddles multiple genres, uses an array of instruments, includes multiple collaborators and was recorded in multiple cities, including Montreal, Lisbon, Seattle, New York City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Kwenders sings and raps in several languages, including Lingala, French, English, Tshiluba, and Kikongo. The result is an album that feels completely free and unrestrained. Moving between pop, electronic music, rumba, hip-hop, rap, Afrobeat and subtle elements of jazz, this is an ever-shifting soundscape that blends…

30 Day EP Workshop | Feature Make a ‘shopping list’ > Based on the exercises on the previous page, we should now have a few things: reference tracks for each of the three songs we’re going to create, a list of the qualities we’d like to capture for each track, and a rough arrangement template. From these, we can now create a ‘shopping list’ of the elements we’ll need for our track. List everything you think each track will need, from drum elements to melodic parts – eg 8-bar chord progression, bassline 1, bassline 2 – to one-off stabs, hooks or FX. You don’t have to match the parts in your reference track like-forlike, but if you decide to ditch something, consider what role it was filling and whether you…

In The Studio With | Sally Shapiro JOHAN’S GO-TO GEAR Roland JD-800 “Digital synth from the early ’90s used a lot by ambient artists like Pete Namlook and Klaus Schulze. It’s wonderful for pads, such as those on our track Fading Away.” Daichi Laboratory Synth1 “Free software synthesiser with great possibilities for brass and bass sounds with an ’80s feel.” Pioneer TORAIZ AS-1 “An affordable synthesiser with analogue synthesis and great possibilities; it can sound very Kraftwerk, for example. Basically, it’s a monophonic version of the polyphonic Sequential Circuits Prophet-6.” Yamaha PSR-3500 “My first keyboard, which I still use because it has some nice bass and percussion sounds with an ’80s feel, but very nostalgic. Our newly-released 1994 instrumental version of Forget About You was made 100% with this keyboard.”…

Produce like… | Ploy PLOY TRACK BUILDER… Reshaping a Bollywood sample into a leftfield club banger RESAMPLING “Usually I start with a sample I’ve found. I like to use that as a jumping off point, because I’m not strong on melody. It makes a nice basis to build a tune around, which I can refine during the process. Sometimes I’ll keep the original sample and sometimes not. “Take Dark Lavis, the B-side to my Rayhana EP, as an example. The original sample comes from a Bollywood film soundtrack. I dragged it into Logic, then imported it into iZotope Iris. That’s quite an easy plugin to get ideas going with. “I’ll use Radius RT mode, which means the original tempo of the sample is kept. That one was pretty easy to work…

Hard house | Retrospective Hard house legends: DJs, producers and labels Tony De Vit – Are You All Ready? (1996, Jump Wax Records) The undisputed godfather of hard house, De Vit was an accomplished producer as well as a world-class DJ. The hardbag crossover hit Burning Up and breathless, trancey To The Limit showcase slightly more subtle sides of a genre not known for subtlety, but Are You All Ready? is pure balls-to-the-wall silliness, a late-night hoover-bassline stormer which catalysed hard house moving even faster and even harder. De Vit tragically passed away from HIV-related illness in 1998, aged just 40. Tidy Girls – Tidy Girls EP (1999, Tidy Trax) Hard house was an inclusive scene compared to other dance subgenres. From its roots in London gay clubs, the sound…

Reviews | Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X £219 They may be pitched as cans for content creators but, as Simon Fellows discovers, that these headphones are far more capable than that CONTACT WHO: Beyerdynamic WEB: europe.beyerdynamic.com KEY FEATURES Wired, closedback circumaural headphones. NOMINAL IMPEDANCE: 48 ohms. FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 5 – 40,000 Hz. NOMINAL SOUND PRESSURE LEVEL: 100 dB SPL (1mW/500Hz). WEIGHT: 350g Plenty of brands – Shure, Røde, Roland to name just a few – have been quick to create product lines that feature less expensive, more user–friendly versions of their pro gear for use by pros and newbies alike in the new “content creator” age. Now, it’s Beyerdynamic’s turn to buck the trend with its brand new Pro X range. Currently, it comprises two mics…

Reviews | Sennheiser HD400 Pro Sennheiser HD 400 Pro £219 Open-back cans developed for long mixing sessions in the studio. Simon Fellows goes Pro CONTACT WHO: Sennheiser WEB: en-uk.sennheiser.com KEY FEATURES High-end, open-back headphones with a transparency ideal for critical listening situations If Special Forces operatives were issued with headphones we’d like to imagine they’d look just like these HD 400 Pros. Silky black from bottom of cup to top of headband, there’s zero bling on show here – no chrome surrounds, no shiny plastic panels or brushed stainless steel inserts to catch the eye. Even the small Sennheiser script on the headband and tiny logos on the grilles are black on black. So, in the unlikely event you find yourself in a tactical mix operation, way behind enemy lines, you’ll…

Trentemøller | A Career in Gear A CAREER IN GEAR Trentemøller The Dane rummages through his full-to-bursting arsenal and tells us what gets used most © Karen Rosetzsky Equally comfortable dialling enchanting techno rhythms into a drum machine as he is summoning intricate melodies from a reverb-soaked guitar, Anders Trentemøller has spent most of his career exploring the darker corners of synthwave, electronica, shoegaze and post-rock, as he continues to reinvent himself as an artist. His latest album, Memoria, sees the Danish producer and multi-instrumentalist digging deeper into the sound that he perfected on 2019’s Obverse – broody guitar lines, shadowy synth tones, and cascading arpeggios – while honing his skills as a songwriter and lyricist. For our Career in Gear feature, Trentemøller selected five pieces of studio equipment that have…