Shinra Knives

Those Kinds of Friends EP

The style of YUKU is undefined, but its aesthetic is clear: experimental electronic music of the next level, somewhat aggressive, somewhat unhinged. Take a listen to the onslaught of post-breakcore three-track EP from Shinra Knives, titled Those Kinds of Friends. Slabs of bass, smeared percussion, and deranged echoes of samples dominate the cinematic stage, meticulously crafted and destroyed. This is the production of Ian Jones from St. Louis, and though I have not heard his music before, I know that I’ll follow along. This is not for the fainthearted, but neither is the rest on here.

Hidden Element

UNITY

Now, we have this heavy bass monster pounding through the viscous swamp of the jungle, with a nod to deconstructed dubstep and decomposed Metalheadz, skeletons and all. This three-track EP is courtesy of Kyiv-based electronic musician Igor Kirilenko, recording under his Hidden Element alias. It’s as much of a d’n’b release as it is not, so if you’re tired of the same old formula churned out for the dancefloor monkeys, you will enjoy some twists and turns found in this dark corner of forward-thinking bass music. Fans of classic sci-fi films may pick up on some of the elements and samples incorporated in the tracks.

flywheel

Writ Large

Then there is the 4-track EP from a London-based artist called flywheel. I’m not even sure I understand what’s going on here. Leftfield syncopated beats hold the structure of the kaleidoscopic elements that swirl on the peripheral field of hearing, zooming in and out with their hallucinogenic proto-acoustic din. It is immensely interesting to listen to, and even if it ends up not being your cup of tea, it’s guaranteed to clean out the insides of your inner cranium if it’s been smudged with ambient for long. It may not be as surgically precise as the antiseptic treatments on raster, but that is the beauty of these cut-up techno beats.

yunis

Reverie

For brevity of this column, I’ll wrap things up with this 5-track EP from Berlin-based electronic musician Jonas Grambach, recording under his yunis moniker. Less furious and more musical but still bass-heavy and highly textured, the pieces on Reverie showcase the ethereal beauty of daydreaming wrapped with darker halftime beat rich with a “rhythmic pulse of boom bap”. We’re back in the dystopian sci-fi crawl here, and even some lo-fi trip-hop from the good ‘ol days, pitched-up vocals and all. So, let’s pause for now, but I think you get the gist here. And these are just a few of the releases from last month! I’ll leave the rest for you to dig through in the archives. And if you like this kind of finds in music, let me know – I have a few more gems I could share!