Hello! I’m Rory O’Callaghan, and welcome to Love Tempo, a monthly newsletter that collects my thoughts and findings from the world of independent and electronic music. If you enjoy what you find, please consider subscribing by using the button below.
Hot Off The Press
Five new releases you should wrap your ears around this month…
On their latest release, West Country outfit Tara Clerkin Trio take the minimal, dislocated jazz of their self-titled debut and refine it further still. Tracing a line through Bristol’s rich musical heritage, their sound often defies convention: off-kilter and fragmented, yet frequently beautiful and intimate, like a collage of half-remembered dreams.
In Spring opens with the delicate ballad ‘Done Before’, the eponymous Tara singing over gliding strings and a gently tumbling piano line that sounds like a lullaby stuck in a tape loop. The keys trickle their way into ‘Night Steps’, the record’s next track, but are soon scratched and smudged by strokes of dub and electronica—nocturnal timbres over which crunchy drums strike with little precision. It’s the EP’s darkest moment, an outlier in a set otherwise marked out by cosy atmospheres and warm, supple instrumentation. This is particularly evident on the record’s final two songs, both tender odes to the passage of time. On the title-track, Tara heralds the arrival of spring over an swirling instrumental that recalls the trip-hop of fellow Bristolians Portishead, only much brighter. ‘Memory’ is quiet by comparison, its cello and woodwinds slowly blossoming into something more fully-formed.
Back in 2018 Breaka released one of the best club records of the year. Sitting somewhere between electro and breakbeat, ‘Rory’s Theme’ dazzled with its combination of welting 808 hits and bright, quivering synths that hovered like UFOs high above the dance-floor. In the years since, the London-based producer has quietly built a loyal following, dropping a series of killer tracks via his own imprint.
Appearing just a week ago, ‘Solaria’ marks the latest of these self-released gems. The record’s title is lifted from the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, specifically the name of a planet whose inhabitants interact only via holographic projections of themselves. The music itself feels suitably synthetic, with glassy textures fogged by heavy reverb and intricate drum breaks that seem to flicker in and out of focus. It’s fast—160 BPM—but save a distorted reese bassline which appears around the three minute mark, it doesn’t knock you out, instead preferring to roll along at a gentle cadence.
K-Lone has to be one of the most in-form producers in the UK right now. After winning over fans and critics alike with the hypnotic, soft-focus house of his debut album Cape Circa, the Wisdom Teeth boss has gone from strength to strength, from soundtracking dazzling art installations to producing some of the hottest club tracks around. It’s in this latter mode that he’s teamed up with Wilfy D for the latest instalment of the Bristol producer’s Vitamin D series.
In keeping with the label’s output, the duo serve up four cuts of bubbling, vocal-led UK garage. ‘Strawberries’ sets the tone with warm chords and sultry RnB voices packaged into a sleek, mid-tempo groove. It’s a strong start, but ‘STR8 UP’ (which first surfaced in K-Lone’s excellent Garage Hour mix from last year) is my pick of the bunch. Strapping a chipmunked Chante Moore sample to a bumpy 2-step beat and Wilfy D’s now trademark keyboard licks, the pair craft an irresistibly catchy number bound to receive significant airplay on the underground radio circuit. Elsewhere, ‘Moodswings’ and ‘Getting Late’ are more tracky cuts, the former a swinging slice of garage-house that could’ve been imported straight from New York in 1994.
The veteran DJ and radio host Gilles Peterson has been a longstanding champion of emerging talent. The Future Bubblers compilation series, released through his own label Brownswood Recordings is testament to that. These varied albums bear the fruits of a scheme co-funded by Arts Council England to scour the country for new, under-the-radar artists and aid in their development as they take the first steps in their respective careers. Ahead of the fifth edition of Future Bubblers, Brownswood released ‘Nose Dive’ by Wolverhampton rapper NEONE the Wonderer. A jazz/hip-hop hybrid, the song features James Dickinson on flugelhorn and meaty, rolling bassline that reminds me of Q-Tip’s work on The Low End Theory. NEONE the Wonderer proves himself a versatile MC, crafting a sing-song hook and frequently switching up his flow over the course of four heady minutes.
Nick Sigsworth, aka Klaus, has always struck me as a somewhat enigmatic figure. With just a handful of releases to his name, he’s been active in music for around a decade now, first appearing on my radar when I caught him DJing as part of James Blake’s 1-800 Dinosaur crew many moons ago. He’s behind the traveling sound-system ‘Tanum Sound’ and also a label of the same name, whose fifth (and possibly final) release arrives this month.
Although the two sides of this 12" single are largely beatless affairs, they aren't content with lying down. Hovering at around 140 BPM ‘Sabz’ is deep and rumbling, nimbly using space and heavy vibrations of low-end pressure to evoke the feel of classic-era dubstep. By contrast, ‘Qua’ is more dynamic: a curious, fidgety thing that spits and hisses like water thrown over hot coals.
Klaus, a member of the wrongfully convicted Stanstead 15, has also given these tracks an ulterior purpose. If you choose to purchase them digitally, any profits will go to the National Mikey Powell Memorial Family Fund, a charity supporting the families of people killed by police, in prison, or in psychiatric custody in the UK.
On Rotation
A handful of older records I’ve been enjoying of late…
First written for the stage musical and then popularised by the all-conquering 1965 film adaptation ‘My Favorite Things’ is a song taken from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound Of Music. For many, it’s synonymous with the image of Julie Andrews comforting the seven von Trapp children as a thunderous storm rages outside their bedroom window. In the decades since, it’s been covered in many guises by a slew of different musicians. By my reckoning, the best version is by the late American jazz vocalist Al Jarreau, who featured the song on his sophomore album 1965. Jarreau’s rendition is warm and smoky, an unpolished live take where his voice scats and stretches over a quick-stepping instrumental of brushed snares and runaway keys. As with the original, it’s intimate and cosy, like a soft quilt on a cold winter’s day.
With Bandcamp’s rise to prominence in recent years, an increasing number of veteran dance producers are making use of the platform’s DIY ease and direct-to-consumer model to effectively flog their back-catalogues wholesale. (The influential UKG artist Jeremy Sylvester is one such example; Baltimore club mainstay DJ Technics another.) Wading through these comprehensive collections, which often bundle together rare records and previously unreleased tracks, can be exciting and overwhelming in equal measure.
The latest compilation I’ve been sinking my teeth into is that of Vancouver native Jay Tripwire. His Jay Tripwire Vintage Catalog consists of 37 tracks which, in his own words, constitute “a fairly definitive collection of all my early works that were mostly vinyl only”. Largely produced and released across the late 1990s and early 2000s, these are rough and ready house and tech-house bombs which aim straight for the dance-floor. Tripwire’s aesthetic is decidedly noir, with some of his strongest material featuring titles such as ‘Rollin in the Gutter’ and ‘What Kind Of Voodoo Do You Do?’. The latter track, with its shadowy bassline and haunted vocal refrain is particularly menacing. It’s ‘tech-house’ but at its most twisted.
We’ve not heard from Kelela for a little while now. The LA-based singer has tended to keep a low profile since her acclaimed debut album Take Me Apart arrived via Warp Records back in 2017. She resurfaced briefly in 2019, delivering a spellbinding mix as part of an NTS radio marathon to celebrate Warp’s 30th birthday. Dubbed AQUAPHORIA, the 51-minute session saw her vocalising over vaporous clouds of ambient music, deftly stitched together by the DJ and producer Asmara.
If AQUAPHORIA showcased the beauty of Kelela’s voice—its dexterity and its ability to sit over shifting musical accompaniment—then another impressive project highlighted her keen ear for cutting-edge dance music. Arriving in late-2018, TAKE ME A_PART, THE REMIXES is a 20-track reimagining of her debut record, featuring a roll call of some of underground music’s most exciting producers: Kaytranada, LSDXOXO, DJ Lag to name a few. As might be expected with such a lengthy list of contributors, the collection is stylistically broad: covering everything from slo-mo dembows and swaggering dancehall to colourful house and a 150BPM peak-time workout. Still, the mixes that work best are those that leave Kelela’s vocals largely undiminished, allowing her gilded tones to shine through, even as hectic club sounds crash all around her.
That’s all for this month’s edition, thanks for reading!
As always, a Spotify playlist featuring a selection of the music featured in this issue can be found here. A handy list of purchase links can be also found in this month’s Buy Music Club rundown.
N.B. This issue will be the last of 2021, as the newsletter takes a little hiatus over the next month or so. Love Tempo will return with plenty more music in early 2022.
In the meantime, please feel free to get in touch via lovetemponews@gmail.com and if you haven’t already, you can subscribe via the button below…
See you next year!
Rory