Listen to our favourite new music of the past month
Burl
Bristol-based producer Burl (AKA Joanna Pucci) recalls the sounds of the past to imagine a more enchanting present. Organs, chimes, and disembodied voices are layered to create palpable visions of misty moors, twilit skies, and last rites cast over a bubbling cauldron, and the live show adds even more sorcery. Shrouded in veils and clad in black, Pucci lets her vaporous productions (sometimes presented with help from the talents of vocal sound artist Ellen Southern) diffuse under the sound of live bells, rung as if by an unseen force. Pucci’s choice of artwork is also significant: figures are tossed upside-down, medieval villagers dance, and her face is always abstracted, as if hiding. Burl’s work is a meditative seance for increasingly dark times.
Ploy
Bristol’s Batu has been lighting up the city’s electronic music scene with his thoroughly focused label and event series Timedance. Through these outlets, the Livity Sound affiliate explores current movements in bass- heavy, syncopated UK techno, Bristol’s new school, and beyond. The latest release fixes its futuristic gaze on Ploy, the producer previously known as Samuel. Timedance 005 follows Ploy’s Hessle Audio debut last year, expanding on a gripping, simmering sound that slinks and contorts across the EP’s three tracks and shows the producer shining a light on the ethos of Timedance – constantly moving in a new direction.
Salute
Channeling the glowing productional tropes of UK forefathers like Rustie and HudMo with a knack for universal pop melodies, young ascendant Brighton producer salute looks perfectly poised to flourish into headline status across the coming months. Having already clocked in studio time with recent Crack cover star Abra, salute’s My Heart mini-album drops on 19 August and features a guest spot from hopelessly charming Hampton rapper D.R.A.M. He’s clearly moving in the right circles and teaming up with the right vocalists to fit his liminal, bassy sound. With the skill set of a hitmaker and the objectives of a genre-shunning experimentalist, salute is only just getting started.
Pigs Blood
Pigs Blood are your new favourite extreme metal band from the great state of Wisconsin, USA. All we really know about them is that they feature two members of Midwest hardcore mainstays Enabler and that they’re poised to make punishing, unlistenable death metal very, very cool. Well maybe very, very cool is a bit of a stretch but their first demo, Command More Blood, is possibly the genre’s most promising debut since Cannibal Corpse ground out Eaten Back to Life in 1990. Command More Blood was first released by Impious Cassettes on tape back in March to applause from those in the know, and the band are slowly starting to pick up some momentum around the web. With a debut this strong it’s hard to imagine where Pigs Blood will go next but we’re willing to bet it’s going to be pretty flipping gory.
