SCRIPT KID – SKSI

SKSI is a five-track EP from anonymous Philadelphia producer Script Kid, which follows his dizzyingly accomplished debut album, Music For A Deprecated Dataset (2021). Intended as a metaphorical sonic bridge between his debut and a future new album, SKSI is a hot mess of crunchy beats, wispy synths and fragmented samples. ‘Nunya’ flinches and twitches with a nervous euphoria, a swirl of soft ambient textures fluttering around a suppressed rhythm. ‘The Groove’ hitches similarly ephemeral synth samples to a resolute breakbeat, giving me warm and fuzzy Mo’ Wax memories, while the curt ‘$Beatz’ highlights Script Kid’s minimalist flair with 90 seconds of scratched-up chat about ‘money-beats’ that had me tapping my toes on the train home in the rush hour.

SKSI by Script Kid was released July 28 2023 by Music Is The Devil.

WITCH ON HORSEBACK – Jumand

This is purportedly an unearthed suite of four recordings from The Witch On Horseback Institute For Cognitive Salubrity, founded by the narrator of these pieces, Dr. Noving Jumand, in New York State in the 1970s. The story goes that the new age performance space and education centre was founded by some ex-Moog employees, which would explain the deep drones, pulses and half-melodies that frame Jumand’s delivery. It’s all completely made up, of course. There was no Institute, there was no Jumand, and these pieces of strange and abstracted fiction – each delivered by the Jumand character in a flat voice reminiscent of guided meditations – are each one part-Welcome To Night Vale and one part David Lynch. The thirty-minute ‘Unusual Restaurant’ is wry and harrowing, putting you in a dreamlike story that concludes with you tucking into a dish of wafer-thin objects made from the body of a creepy childhood neighbour. You may think twice before listening to that next supposedly relaxing podcast on the Calm app after hearing this.

Jumand by Witch On Horseback was released August 25 2023 by Difficult Art And Music.

ANDREW WEATHERS – A Cardinal With A Sign Of Blood

A Cardinal With A Sign Of Blood is Texan sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Weathers’ eulogy to his late father and aunt. Their passing prompted this collection of discovered quarter-inch tapes that his father had made, field recordings, guitars, horns and electronics. Ghostly and haunting, the opening piece ‘28 Feb 1975’ features Weathers delivering a sparse, hesitant guitar melody loaded with plaintive contemplation over a murky bed of impenetrable voices and delicate keyboard tones. The 10-minute centrepiece, ‘The Cardinal, The Bike, The Stars’ features taped reportage about and from childhood and thoughts of aliens, Weathers manipulating an unintended cough in one of the recordings into a vague and unpredictable rhythm that ushers in an increasingly complex series of minimalistic layers. Reverential and absorbing, Weathers’ grief has produced a sonic adventure of great and mesmerising power.

A Cardinal With A Sign Of Blood by Andrew Weathers was released September 1 2023 by Full Spectrum Records.

XINGU HILL – Grigri Pavilion

The latest album from John Sellekaers’ Xingu Hill project contains eight tracks of enquiring electronics, and key moments like ‘Hi-Fi Simulant’ and ‘Moving Mirrors’ fizz with a palpable energy. Fragile, hooky synth melodies rest on top of complex beats that nod to minimal techno, electro and splintered drum ‘n’ bass. And yet, despite the components all feeling like they might have a place in a 1990s warehouse rave somewhere outside Amsterdam, something about Sellekaers’ presentation of these pieces feels vaguely… detached. The euphoria that should exist here is suppressed, in its place a sort of ephemeral, almost New Age-y introspection. That sleight of hand – used liberally on each of these pieces – creates beautiful shades of texture and nuance. An enriching auditory experience from start to finish.

Grigri Pavilion by Xingu Hill was released September 15 2023 by Subexotic Records.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2023 Further.