Review: It's notoriously difficult to make albums of emotive, musically complex, club-friendly music, but Felix Clary Weatherall achieved it with his 2018 full-length debut as Ross From Friends, Family Portrait. This belated sequel hits all the right notes, too, skipping between heart-aching post-two-step deepness ('The Daisy'), lilting breakbeat-house warmth ('Revellers'), spaced-out, sample-heavy downtempo soul ('A Brand New Start'), tipsy, fuzz-fuelled outsider house oddness (the swelling 'Grub'), sunrise-ready ambient ('Morning Sun in a Dusty Room') and classic 1990s IDM-inspired electronica sweetness ('Thresho 1.0'). In other words, it's that rarest of beasts: a second album that's genuinely superior to its predecessor.
Review: Ahead of Ross From Friends Tread LP due for release on Brainfeeder this year comes the album's first single, and opening track, "The Daisy''. It sees Ross From Friends pick up on post-dubstep percussion and sweetly soulful R&B vocals in an ambient tinged, progressive pop number that experiments with house and dubbed-out electronics. More to come!
Review: Hiatus Kaiyote is a four piece group out of Melbourne that have slowly but surely seen their music picked up by the likes of BBE and now Brainfeeder. Combining a bunch of soul notes and cool jazz with electro-acoustic beats, R&B vocals and other virtuosic instrumentation, the twice grammy nominated band deliver their most acclaimed release yet. Described by Rolling Stone as 'a stunning step', a true LA Beat scene sound can be heard clear as day in the summery synth waves and keys of "Chivalry Is Not Dead". With downtempo beats and complex arrangements colliding with found sound and ambient melodies in other numbers like "Blood & Marrow" and "Sparkle Tape Break Up", there's extra piano sessions in "Red Room" alongside the twinkling keys of "Sip Into Something Soft". A fully fledged album of deep influences channeling a new age in blues, it's safe to say after six years: Hiatus Kaiyote have arrived.
Review: An intriguing artist for the Brainfeeder label since 2018 - Little Snake presents its debut album: A Fragmented Love Story, Written By The Infinite Helix Architect. The Canadian producer - real name Gino Serpentini - has been deconstructing dancefloor norms, subverting traditional structures and refining his utterly inimitable sonic signature since 2017, spearheading a new wave of experimental producers hell bent on breaking new ground. Presenting an overtly deconstructed aesthetic full of mind bending sound design and a unique way of crafting vocals and MPC-styled melodies, this very explorable album takes in collaborations with Amon Tobin and Flying Lotus alongside fellow upstarts SABROI, Tutara Peak and Shrimpnose. Fantasmic listening.
Review: A fully rounded decade ago Brainfeeder released what's gone down over time as one of the label's best long players from a most trusted artist, Teebs. Ardour presented Teebs with a debut on Brainfeeder with its longevity now being celebrated with a re-release that features six previously unreleased bonus tracks! Full of warm and luscious post-jazz, instrumental hip hop productions, its rhythms are cut out by high noise floors, simulated rain and hazy atmospheres that jingle and swing in tracks like "Felt Tip" and "Arthur's Birds" to whimsically tripping through the dream scenes of LA in "Everyone Alive Wants Answers" and "King Bathtub". With woozy numbers like "Why Like This?" and "SPCD" adding to its nostalgic fanfare alongside others like the percussive numbers like "Autumn Antique" and "While You Doooo" this album is ready to be discovered by a new generation of tea leaf dancers.
Review: Familiar to labels like Smalltown Supersound and Ninja Tune, legendary Norwegian eight-piece Jaga Jazzist arrive on Brainfeeder with a deep dive into post-rock, jazz and psychedelic themes and synth wave influences. Presenting their first studio album since 2015's Starfire, Pyramid is the result of a reclusive two week recording session deep in the Swedish woodlands, resulting in the group's first ever self-produced record. With the 14-minute-long and classically jazz "Tomita" the crowning track on Pyramid, find some pumping night drives in "Apex" to the retro-active yet futuristic jazz-electro-funk of "The Shrine" or the spacey, new age synth and cosmic jazz in "Spiral Era".
Review: All time Brainfeeder great and LA beat scene legend Thundercat surfaces once again in dramatic fashion for Flying Lotus' flag bearing US imprint. It's stoic title, It Is What It Is, hints at how many of us might be feeling right now - isolated but managing - with Thundercat's album said to be something of a sombre record that treads a darker path, as described in a New York Times interview. Presenting his fifth studio album and first since 2017's Drunk, Thundercat delivers 15 tracks (and skits) all clocking in at around three minutes with a huge cast of feature collaborators including Ty Dolla Sign, Lil B and Childish Gambino to Kamasi Washington and comedian Zack Frost with the sensual "Overseas". Our highlights include the royal grooves and slap bass of "Black Qualls", the floating rhode solos in "King Of The Hill" and frenetic funk of "How Sway".
Review: Two years on from the release of their fine - if slightly overlooked - debut album on Comedy Dynamics, Reggie Watts and John Tejada once again join forces as Wajatta, this time on Fly-Lo's Brainfeeder imprint. Predictably they've once again hit the spot, confidently combining deep house musicality, the far-sighted synthesizer motifs of sci-fi techno, African style percussion, dewy-eyed and often soulful vocals, and occasional forays into drowsy downtempo beats and fizzing electro rhythms. The results are naturally impressive, offering an imaginative and colourful sound palette befitting of both men's talents. Highlights include the sparse electronic soul of "Depth Has a Focus", the body-popping beats and low-end weight of "Little Man" and the futuristic soulful house brilliance of "Tonight".
Review: Bringing a new dialogue to the Los Angeles beat scene is Little Snake, a digital augmenter of future bass making and cut up sounds, telling stories of simulation and deconstruction through fascinating arrays of fragmented sound that feels as though it's being pulled apart by the forces of an unknown cosmos. Like a little snake the artist's sounds dives deep down the rabbit hole; tracks like "III. 4.62287ARMED" make you feel as though you're caught in the alternative universe of a ballerina's box, next to the ever changing time signatures and spatial arrangements of "II. ETH2.22". Find rhythmic, classical and alien ambience in "I. OYU3.33REA" and high-pitched, high-grade sound design in "IV. REACTOR0.93713". Cutting edge future music from where the fuck?
