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2 days ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
Drew Lustman is feeling energized. It wasn’t always thus; there was a moment, around 2017—exactly a decade after his first EPs—that he was considering walking away from music. He’d finished his contract with Ninja Tune and was tiring of the touring grind.
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1 week ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
I rarely run themed issues, but by great coincidence, sifting through my virtual promo pile this week revealed an unexpected bounty of ambient music from Latin America. New albums from Concepción Huerta, Colombian Drone Mafia + Gibrana Cervantes, Matt Emen, and Ezmeralda all tackle an overlapping set of sounds, ideas, and moods, yet the results are fascinatingly diverse.
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2 weeks ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
This Friday, Kompakt marks a significant milestone: the 500th release in the Cologne label’s catalog. Few imprints ever make it that far into the triple digits, and Kompakt is celebrating the occasion with all the pomp you’d expect: Kompakt 500 takes the form of a 5xLP release accompanied by a bonus 10-inch and a book documenting the label’s visual side (the release is also available as a 3xCD). An accompanying exhibition at the Kölnisher Kunstverein will be on view through July 20.
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3 weeks ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
With all the interviews of the past month—critic Ben Ratliff on his new book Run the Song, composer Rebekka Karijord on climate grief, Muscut’s Nikolaienko on boycotting U.S. platforms and closing down his label, Anthony Naples on the creative reset behind his new album Scanners, and Facta & K-LONE on the Widsom Teeth label’s pivot to minimal house—I’ve fallen behind in reviewing new releases, so today I’m playing catch-up.
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3 weeks ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
When I recently reviewedJorg Kuning’s excellent new mini-album Elvers Pass for Pitchfork, I had an intense moment of deja vu—followed by an equally intense feeling of self-doubt. As I had gotten to know the album, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the minimal house of the late ’90s and early ’00s. Kuning’s record has a similarly fine-tuned sense of sound design, with lithe, blippy tones tracing curlicues against a backdrop of empty space.
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1 month ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
What is a mix for? Usually, I suppose, the answer’s pretty simple: for dancing, for clubbing, for cutting loose, for getting lost. Some of the world’s greatest mixes—some recorded, many experienced in the moment and never heard again—fall into that category. But other mixes have other aims. They might trace an idea, or advance an argument, or pose a theory of a possible music that perhaps doesn’t exist in any one song, but comes fleetingly into focus in that particular constellation of tracks.
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1 month ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
Anthony Naples’ new album, Scanners, marks a subtle but important stylistic shift: Where the New York producer’s last two albums have largely avoided the dancefloor in favor of zoned-out strains of downtempo, Scanners represents some of the most club-centric house and techno he’s produced in years—but with a twist. When I first heard the album, my immediate impression was that it seemed to hark back to key sounds from the minimal house and techno of the late ’90s and early 2000s.
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1 month ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
I've run a bumper crop of interviews on the newsletter over the past month—ambient lifer Stephen Vitiello on his new Balmat collab with Fugazi's Brendan Canty and Hugo Largo's Hahn Rowe; former NYT critic Ben Ratliff on his phenomenal book Run the Song, about running and listening; Norwegian composer Rebekka Karijord discussing her new album about climate grief for Simon Raymonde's Bella Union label; and, just this week, Ukrainian producer Nikolaienko on his decision to shutter his Muscut...
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1 month ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
Early in March, Dima Nikolaienko, the founder of Ukraine’s Muscut label, announced that the imprint was shifting to “archive mode.” They will continue to sell back catalog until it’s gone, and there remains the possibility of occasional reissues of back-catalog titles, should funding permit. But unless something changes, there will be no new releases from the label, which was founded in 2012 and is run out of Estonia, where Nikolaienko has lived since 2018. I was disappointed by the news.
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1 month ago | 
futurismrestated.substack.com | Philip Sherburne
Of the musical experiences I feel most fortunate to have experienced in person, Janet Cardiff’s Forty Part Motet is near the top of the list. It’s a sound-art installation whose magic lies, in part, in its simplicity: Cardiff recorded Thomas Tallis’ 16th-century choral piece Spem in alium nunquam habui (In no other is my hope) as a 40-part multi-track and arranged 40 speakers in a circle, one voice per speaker.