For those who’re feeling kind of low at the moment, and a lot of us are, we’ve come across just the thing to bring momentary chaotic joy into your life. It comes in the form of Harlecore, London producer legend Danny L Harle’s new album turned immersive digital club experience built around collaborations with DJ Mayhem (Hudson Mohawke’s gabber alter), DJ Ocean (ambient chill-out room vibes with Caroline Polachek) and MC Boing (the furiously-paced rap of PC Music’s Lil Data). Lead single “On A Mountain” by DJ Danny himself is heaven; how going out again post-pandemic will feel. This week’s playlist opener however is “Take My Heart Away”, another DJ Danny banger that sits somewhere between euphoria in the club and feeling sick on the Waltzers, in a good way. Nightlife might be on pause but rave is eternal when it’s Harlecore.
Also out this week is Cosima’s well named EP, The Fun Is Here? We’ve stuck its relatable single “Backseat Drivers” in today’s playlist: a addictive story of life stuck on loop, with all the car metaphors and soaring strings you could ever want. Copenhagen duo Smerz have a new project out today too. Believer sees them splice classical music, R&B and trance into a whole new world of dark, cinematic beauty set across 16 tracks. “There’s this hierarchy between different styles and what is expected of different genres, but we wanted to keep them all together in this flat hierarchy to show their different potentials and abilities,” Henriette says, with Catharina adding: “You won’t end up in the same place as a symphony, where everything sounds alive, but you’ll end up in this new place in between.” And at this point in time, any kind of ‘new place’ sounds good to us.
Rapper and book club founder Noname is back with a new track called “Rainforest”, which she referred to as a “letter from me to me, with love” on Instagram. UK band Wolf Alice are back too! Along with the announcement of their new album Blue Weekend, due 11 June on Dirty Hit, they shared “The Last Man On Earth” which sees them drop their guitars and gather round the piano where Ellie reflects on the arrogance of humans. It comes with a very good kaleidoscopic Jordan Hemingway-directed black-and-white music video that gets increasingly heated. Literally, with fire.
Then of course there’s Kam-Bu’s “Black on Black”, which the young SW London rapper told us all about here; Madison Beer’s first album Life Support; Digga D’s incendiary debut Made In the Pyrex; Manila producer LONER with another melodic house banger; LD’s Who’s Watching; Tequisha’s “Something” and so much more.