I originally compiled two weeks worth of mixtapes at once here, filtering out one mix of only conventionally listenable songs (to be posted last week) and one mix of only experimental electronica/idm (to be posted this week). And then… something happened, and they got sorta mixed together. If you want the "all IDM" version of this mix, swap tracks 1 and 3 of this week's mixtape with tracks 1 and three of last week's.
- "CHOMPI Ambient #1", Syncopator One
The CHOMPI is a digital sampler inspired by tape-music workflows and basically custom targeted to appeal to Kickstarter, with buttons made of keyboard keycaps, a toylike/"play"-oriented UX and a pink variant (yesss…).
This track shows the device off making highly effective infinite-reverb ambient. I've never thought "Music for Airports" felt like an airport but this feels like an airport. Like early in the morning, when it's mostly empty and the dawn light is giving everything a kind of unreal air.
- "Soyut", DJ Strawberry
Very good, driving electronic music with frenetic, skittering beats, moving so fast by the time you understand what they're doing they're already past you. (Is this "Footwork"?) Has this emotionally ambiguous mood I can't quite describe except it's really intense. Someone on Mastodon named Eric Stein described this as "sense of unease (asmr jam)".
The musician recorded this album while processing his personal experiences of the devastating February 2023 earthquakes in Turkey; the title appears to be Turkish for "Abstract".
- "I'd Chill For Your Sins", WINFIELD
Yamaha's 1983 DX7 synth was the sound of the 80s, the basis of Michael Jackson and so much else. The Yamaha PSR-11, meanwhile, is an almost-entirely-forgotten budget keyboard from 1986, discontinued after a year and based on a cut-down variant of the DX7's chip that was later used in AdLib and Soundblaster PC cards in the US. The PSR-11 has only two FM operators (compare six in the DX7, or even four in the Sega Genesis), and so while it vaguely suggests that classic FM sound it's just too primitive to deliver it. Its voices sound uncanny, like a demake of the 1980s.
This musician uses this primitive, demake-y feel to amazing effect, making every sound in this song on a PSR-11 (even the drums) as you watch. Result: The most evocative song that 1986 forgot to record.
- "untitled", The Bleeple Syndicate
As far as I can tell from their YouTube, the "Syndicate" are 2 or 3 dudes who periodically meet in a basement and film themselves noodling with musical instruments. They don't seem to care who's listening.
Here, a big messy pile of electronics bumps out a chill vibey pattern while the Dudes play electric guitar and flute (regular flute) into echo pedals. This video has 42 views on YouTube and I really like it.
- "Ghost Obelisks", Space Town
This musician uses two Dirtywave M8 handheld trackers laid out like DJ turntables, and controls the mixing on the tracks from a 16-knob MIDI controller in the center. There is a picture of a Chihuahua. This setup guides us through ambient shining sounds into effective 90s dark electronica with thumping beats and acid groans and yelps. Makes me think of Prodigy or Juno Reactor or MTV at 2 AM after midnight on a Sunday in 1999.
A 40-minute, continuously-changing live set with good "production values".
⬇️ Click below for some dub/ambient ⬇️
- "Kaleidoscope", Nicholas Lem
This is a single-device track made on Elektron's old-but-versatile MonoMachine. It's thumping dub techno that constantly feels like it's trying to escape across the border from dub into actual reggae, and has some mind-expanding MonoMachine-powered sound design; each individual sound is finely sculpted to be just a little weird. Then there's the visuals. The visuals in this video are doing something really fun.
- "maphis", epow6oow
This person has a series of live-performance electronic music recorded on their back porch among the drying laundry. Here's the "focus" form of their idiom, by which I mean they moved the camera so the laundry isn't visible. It's beatless and consists of wave after wave of retro synth lines washing over you, layered on top of each other until the whole feels enormous and fractaline. What I think of as "space music".