Fall, as it turns out, has been really good for music. Here at WKNC, we’ve been scouring those releases for what’s been the best, and then adding it because we know and understand that you, the masses, want nothing more than the best niche music. Here’s what we’ve found in the electronic sphere lately.
Galactic Hole – “Piracies Menu”
Genre: Plunderphonics.
Sampling in music is awesome. Galactic Hole understands this essential fact more than any other artist, so he made a whole album out of 2,711 of them across 13 tracks.
Each track is built out of samples of a shared theme – for example, “Goofball Activity” is made out of songs with some variation of “friend” in the title – and the result is absolutely not just a gimmick. “Manly Body and the Infinite Soreness” is a welcome addition to any DJ mix, and is probably the best example of the club banger skill here.
Most impressively, the album has a complete spreadsheet of every sample used in it. I personally recommend following along with it, if just to desperately search for where your favorite song was sampled for 0.1 seconds.
EVABOY – “BEEF”
Genre: Like every genre of EDM, experimental hip-hop.
Miya Lowe hasn’t done anything with the Evaboy name since 2021, and in the world of online artists with fast-paced releases, that means that this is basically a comeback album. The tone matches this, too – while using just as many stupid meme samples as the previous Evaboy releases, “BEEF” is slower, more vocals-heavy, and definitely lives up to its title.
Another thing the album does well in its immense 95 minutes is hit nearly every genre big in the online electronic scene. “LISTEN 2 DIS INSTEAD OF ACIDGVRL” is one of the highlights of the album, and best showcases this blend of genres. Somehow, it is simultaneously drum and bass with the amen break in it (as requested by the opening Tony Zarin sample), hip-hop, and Jersey club.
“PAIGONS (COME AND GET SUM)” was one of the singles, and it absolutely deserves it. Lowe rapping is a welcome addition to the Evaboy repertoire, and the whole song is just as danceable as the more instrumental tracks on the album. It’s probably my favorite on the album for it, and if Lowe does more stuff like this in the future, I’m absolutely going to be paying attention.
Oneohtrix Point Never – “Again”
Genre: Progressive electronic.
Outside of the realm of the more niche electronic albums here, Oneohtrix Point Never, real name Daniel Lopatin, released, and to be honest, this might be my favorite yet from him.
“Again” is much more cinematic than his previous albums, which might not be to the taste of everyone, but I personally enjoy. It feels like Lopatin’s building on his soundtrack work on movies like “Uncut Gems,” and creating something that only he could do. There’s use of AI filters and instruments specifically to get their unique sound, and it works incredibly well to get an uncanny effect.
There’s a general feeling of using electronic music to build on non-electronic genres, and some tracks show Lopatin’s skill at this. “Plastic Antique” has classical instruments alongside the synths to get a song that feels like its title. In the more modern music sphere, “Memories of Music” takes the genre name “progressive electronic” a little more literally, and has a distinct prog rock feeling while not really being rock at all, even with its guitar use.
Conclusion
To be honest, there weren’t that many releases that stood out to me until this fall, and now there are so many. I hope you like these albums, and even if you didn’t, I hope your mind was expanded to the current state of electronic music.
-chalcopyrite
