Electric Feels: Your Weekly Electronic Music Recap

EP / ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Kilter - Through The Distortion

In the electronic music world, recording your debut album is a major hurdle for many. It's incredibly easy to lose focus and direction over the album's 40-60 minutes, a simplistic fault that has seen so many electronic musicians miss the mark in their debuts. However, Australian artists seem to be immune, with acts like RÜFÜS and Flume putting up spectacular debut albums in the past five years. Whether Australian percussion king Kilter joins these names is yet to be known, and won't be known until the dust on his debut album settles and we can give the album a couple more listens, but at first glance, it definitely seems like it. Kilter battles this directionless jump by making his debut one of the most varied electronic albums of the year thus far, incorporating a range of sub-genres and species guests across Through The Distortion's 13 songs.

Leading singles such as Count On Me, Waste Time and They Don't Know Us are radio-friendly electro-pop anthems, enlisting LANKS and Woodes for the former two singles respectively. It would've been easy - and safe - for Kilter to continue this sound across the album's entirety, but instead, we get something a little different. The album-opening Ritmo and interluding Shatter are Flume-like blends of saturated synth lines and hip-hop percussion, giving the album a heavy, hip-hop-leaning touch which is further solidified with No Games (featuring Gill Bates) and Shut It Down, a tribal, upbeat dance tune and personal album highlight that features Yaw Faso's addictive vocal bounce.

Through its versatility, Through The Distortion showcases something I feel Kilter has been hinting at for ages. Kilter's no longer just another young bedroom producer with a fancy drum-kit, instead, he's one of Australia's biggest electronic exports and force to be reckoned with both nationally and internationally.

SINGLES / REMIXES OF THE WEEK

Eilish Gilligan - The Feeling

I've got a lot of things to say about this single, but oddly enough, it's a struggle to write them down. Eilish Gilligan is an emerging name to Australia's indie-electronic scene, but she's quickly becoming one of the country's most exciting. Her new single The Feeling packs this incredible emotive punch, which forces its way through Gilligan's impactful vocals which powerfully, yet somewhat delicately, however above the single's glistening, shimmery production. The Feeling is almost a maximalist pop ballad and stripped-back, acoustic indie track rolled into one, a bizarre combination that Gilligan has not attempted on The Feeling, but respectfully, has fucking nailed.

Golden Vessel - Shoulders feat. Elkkle & Mallrat

Two of Australia's most promising, emerging electronic names and a young, hip-hop prodigy enter a bar (or an all-ages festival maybe, sorry Mallrat) and what do we get? No crappy punchline, but one of this year's most creative and exciting songs. Shoulders sees Brisbane production king Golden Vessel link up with two good friends for his new single, locking in one of Melbourne's most unique talents (I cannot stress the word talent enough here) in Elkkle and young, hip-hop dynamo Mallrat for the single. Following on from his forthcoming EP's leading teaser Tell The-Girl, one of my favourite songs of the year thus far, Golden Vessel has perfectly encaptured his unique, boundary-pushing sound on Shoulders, with Elkkle and Mallrat using their perfectly-placed and perfectly-executed guest features to give the single that little push it needed to take it from great to remarkable.

Jordan Rakei - Sorceress

So here's a thing which has happened in the past week that we Australians should feel incredibly proud of - London-via-Brisbane production powerhouse Jordan Rakei has signed to the infamous Ninja Tune, one of electronic's most consistent and forward-thinking labels in the game. His new single Sorceress is his first on the label, with the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist giving it his all on the single, which perfectly demonstrates his unique, electro-R&B sound for those yet to be acquainted. It's the first single from his forthcoming album too, by the way, and judging from Sorceress (and the amazingness of his Clock - his last record), we're darn excited.

Bonobo - Samurai

Speaking of Ninja Tune and its greatness as an electronic label, look no further than Bonobo. After releasing his incredible album Migration earlier in the year, the LA-based producer has taken one of album's shining highlights and has transformed it into a new, three-track EP. Samurai is a previously-unreleased cut which closes out the three-track Bambro Koyo Gana release - which also includes the original single and an analog version of the track - and it continues this addictive, care-free sound the producer so beautifully perfected on Migration. Edging with a driving bass line and layers on layers of clunking percussion and melodies, Samurai rounds up an incredible past few months for the producer, a time which is only set to continue with the producer bringing his full live show down under later this year for Splendour and a bunch of quickly-selling sideshows.

Lunice - Maserati

This is a bizarre shift in pace but honestly, Lunice is so worth it. Unlike the four artists before him, Lunice - one-half of trap pioneers and Kanye collaborators TNGHT - is a king when it comes to the more heavier side of electronic music, something he's perfectly demonstrated both in TNGHT mode and solo mode over the years. Maserati - the first teaser of his forthcoming, debut solo album - is an action-packed, hip-hop-infused instrumental which is both energetic and cinematic, bringing together crisp percussion, vocal samples and spiralling melodies for a brooding, fast-paced single which comes accompanied by a video clip following Lunice's now well-known dance moves, something he never fails to hold back on in his infamously energetic live shows.

Tour Announcements

London Grammar

Cut Copy