Recently I returned for the first time in quite awhile to the leafy area in which I grew up, a place that of course helped formulate who I am today and my general existence.

As you do I took a lengthy walk around old neighbourhoods and previously well-travelled countryside, with my head swimming in nostalgia and foggy memories stirred by the sights and ever-circling train of thought, past events merging and separating into one another like in a non-sequitur dream state. Lubomyr Melnyk soundtracked this experience and it could not have been a better introduction to his stunning work.

The classically-trained Ukrainian composer plays what he calls “continuous music” that he has been developing since the 1970′s – a wholly sui generis piano-playing technique producing an immersive, flowing feel amid a very contemporary style. Complex note patterns are played at such a rapid level reaching a mind-blowing 19 notes per second and for a long-period of time, that the resulting sound achieves an almost zen-like quality.

Anyways back to the walk. Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive so the old adage goes and this is true for a bucolic aimless walk – the journey is where it’s at, fuck your destination. This is all mirrored in latest album Corollaries that nestled firmly in my headspace – the repetitive, hypnotic note-playing producing a sense that time is but an irrelevance, collapsing deeper into a freefall of trenchant thought. It’s tempting to categorise the sound in Max Richter territory as it’s evocative of a similar feeling, but does not have the ‘blockbuster’ payoff that Richter often utilises, whose work tends to build towards something. Here the pilgrimage is enough in itself for Melnyk. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. And again. Once again. Walking without thinking as you ever do, the body using an independent mind of it’s own. At times I didn’t know if three minutes had passed or 30, and it didn’t even matter. A fragment of memory has been captured by ‘Nightrail From The Sun’ for eternity I’d think due to the unique vernacular of his creation. The only breaks in this cycle occurring upon seeing what used to be a previously tranquil, untouched field haw now transformed into a sterile new-build housing development, snapping the mind into action in an atavistic plunge of brain activity. “It’s not a house anymore” Deerhunter once sang, deep in a yearning kind of sentiment. The opposite was true here.

Melnyk produces an introspective euphoria that cuts right through to the soul in an indeterminable fashion, thus it’s of no surprise to see the 64 year-old on the wonderful Erased Tapes and fits in comfortably with their avant-garde romanticist ethos – with the album recorded and produced by Peter Broderick plus additional help from Nils Frahm. Why can’t all classical music be like this? Do check out his enthralling “kung-fu” approach to the piano (as he states in this video piece for the BBC) in Corollaries if you haven’t done so yet; and the man himself is to play a special double-show at The Village Underground on 20th May alongside American contemporary artist Gregory Euclide, who will be “live painting” to Melnyk’s music.

Head here for more info and to get your tickets. Buy the LP on CD and/or vinyl from Erased Tapes.

Kicking things off in dedicated fashion, front man Ben Brown sings an acoustic cake-related 405 birthday song: “I thought it would be sweet, to buy the 405 a treat, I thought it would be nice, we all could have a slice.”

The camera then pans down to show the cake in question, which is actually a Homer Simpson-style doughnut, and then chaos ensues. Thanks, Dingus Khan.

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”

For many people, and particularly for those possessing a certain character type, life in the epoch of your 20s is one of a surprising transition. Gone is the safety net of childhood, the more carefree later teenage years (as savage as they can be) have lost their novelty, and in comes a barrage of gaudy life lessons to take in your nomadic, aimless stride. Daniel Woodhouse knows this and creates purifying music under the name of Deptford Goth that reflects some of these introspective strands of thought, as seen in the recently-released and powerfully emotive Life After Defo LP – one of the outstanding releases from Quarter one in 2013.

“Everything that comes together

Everything that falls apart in here

In every single living thing.”

In my mid-20s living in various pre-gentrified South London boroughs, I would stumble my way through life undecided whether to live in the now and say ‘yes’ to all, or train my mind for what tomorrow could hold, and probably did neither in the end successfully. I hold a specific dichotomous memory that’s intensely vivid but wholly abstract and vague after indulging in some euphoric substances one opprobrious summers night, the kind of night with a luxuriant urban energy, where you can almost kiss the air. At 5am having departed from whoever (and wherever) I was with I found myself sitting on a patch of undulated dry grass on my lonesome surrounded by the rich, ambient light of high-rise council flats and warm street lights in a sort of midsize courtyard, as a dark now-navy-blue sky hugged me and kept me safe, enclosed in an equilibrium of happy thoughts and a tinge of impending doom (known as tomorrow). And I stayed there for an hour. Literally an hour in my solitary state yet surrounded by these rampant electric memories. Wholly absorbed by all these intense-yet-cottony emotions ruptured by an acute nostalgia, a nostalgia for anything. Even the bad times. Where are you friends tonight? Clarity in thought, inarticulate in semantics. I and my emaciated face was well aware that it was a peculiar thing to be doing, everything was fucked, but it was all okay. (Hang in there, a tenuous link for this semi-bout of narcissism is coming up…)

And this ladies and gents is exactly the feeling that Mr Goth nails; sure, an overt melancholic vibe is present but there’s hope, there’s a trenchant acceptance of what’s gone before. And it’s fine. There’s beauty in the breakdown. It expresses emotion concisely and slices through the fibre of your being, but never explicit in content. Much like my mangled celestial thoughts – oh yeah and the above happened in Deptford for those segue fans out there. “I’m losing my perspicacity” Lisa Simpson once screamed – and this knowing nod to the human condition sums it all up.

Seeing him live stirred these doughy memories in what are still embryonic stages of the Deptford Goth live experience. The tousled dingy interior of Electrowerkz in Angel suits the lo-fi electronica of his sound, and he takes to the stage with a cello player (Rhosyn from the Blessing Force label) – a facet that adds a very welcome organic dimension to proceedings as opposed to the synth strings as heard on record.

Woodhouse has said his album is “kind of a way of transmitting those feelings without having to look someone in the eye” and that’s apparent somewhat tonight, indulging in very minimal stage chat despite natural silences between tracks and hiding behind his luscious beard, sad eyes and keyboard – very much focussed on his music throughout. And he seems equally as vulnerable as his work. The intensity of Life After Defo is luminous in many parts – taught paper-thin entities such as ‘Lions’ are particularly devastating live, the stripped-back nature of the track allows the resplendent tones do the talking.

Track of the Year (well for me) ‘Union’ falls short somewhat however, as it’s more reliant on laptop effects and loops; on the album this works stupendously as the raw, fragile vocals from Woodhouse play against the digitised drum patterns/synths, and it’s a beautiful thing. Wicker and steel. Anyways live it sounds a tad flat somehow and less immersive.

This is to be expected for someone finding their footing in a live setting, and that’s the beauty of tonight in many ways to see this process unfurling, imperfections included – and the positives do far outweigh the niggling negatives. ‘Feel Real’ gets a remarkable series of whoops from the packed crowd from that very first synth, I had no idea the track had taken off (I have no awareness of popular culture) – it’s an earworm that goes beyond and burrows directly into your soul. His delivery is always earnest as you’d expect and never narcissistic, if it sounds like I’m being an East Dulwich Emo about the whole package.

Shout out to ‘Bloody Lip’ for finding a new lease of life that sums up the remarkable clarity in feeling and emotion – despite the amorphous sound and non-explicit lyrical content/subject matter that he adheres to. An odd, highly intriguing duality going on embedded in a calm of mellifluous catharsis.

It’s music for music fans to make love to. His next London show is at the Union Chapel in Setember and you can’t help but feel that it will be something a little special. Make sure to digest a wholly natural wave of melancholic-euphoria then.

On the playlist this week is new tracks from Gold Panda, oOoOO, Lapalux (ft. Shadowbox) and East India Youth. Enjoy.

Playlist for my Washed Out Weds on 405Radio show featuring new Ifan Dafydd, old Deptford Goth and lots of other nonsense.

It’s been over five years since Benga released a full length album under his own name, and much has changed in the musical landscape during this period – none more so than in the genre of dubstep.

The charismatic man from Croydon is credited as one of the co-founders of this movement in the early 00′s and inevitably his own style has evolved since then – wanting to become “a Dre or Timbaland” kind of producer, as he discusses in a loquacious interview with us. Third album Chapter II has now finally got a release date after a myriad of minor delays; six singles of his were released in 2012, though only one is to feature on this upcoming LP (‘To Hell And Back’). He gives us the full story as to why, and how other projects he was involved in also lead to the delay – such as how he contributed a raft of songs (or “gave away”) for Katy B’s pop-smash On A Mission, describing that it “felt like that I had been robbed.”

For a full-lowdown of what to expect from Chapter II in terms of individual songs, multiple collaborations, and the feel of the album, watch below. The third single taken from it is the Kano-featured ‘Forefather/Stuck’ that got a Record Store Day release as a white label pressing; and Chapter II is out May 6th on Sony Music. Preorder now.

You can watch the interview below, or via our TV Section. It’s also available via our Youtube page (please watch in HD when possible).

Created by Stephen Bevan & Tim Boddy

Gabriel Bruce has something of a star-status about him. It could be his buccaneering, dashing looks coupled with flowing yet unkempt locks, it could be his remarkable baritone vocals that penetrate directly into your soul, or it could be his cocksure delivery, charming debonaire-facade, and earnest confidence that the Londoner oozes.

All this is very good and well, but means little without some decent music and songwriting ability to back it all up – something that Mr Bruce fortunately very much possesses. He was kind enough to perform a new/old track titled ‘Sermon on The Mount’, new in that it is to feature on Bruce’s upcoming debut album and old in that it has been around for a bit now. This crashing waltz-y number can be found on Love In Arms that is out 6th May via Luv Luv Records, and can be preordered on iTunes.

You can watch the session below, or via our TV Section. It’s also available via our Youtube page (please watch in HD when possible).

Created by Stephen Bevan & Tim Boddy

Sound mix by Ed Blow

In late 2012 we named ‘Stasis’ by Montreal producer Window Track Of The Day, as it was a bit of a belter.

Recently the 90s lovin’ seapunk-type streamed all the tracks from the forthcoming EP of the same name, that feaures more of the same good-time rave-tinged vibes with the result sounding a bit like the ‘fuck you I’m having more fun that you’ TEETH sound via a jar of haribo laced with happy substances. Or as Window says:

“Opiated breakbeats combination vitamin-c-punk, please mix and drink daily. Step into freedom, Hood Virtual 2.0, under pink slime not blue water”

Stasis is out 5 April 2013 via Interscape Records Limited.

Ifan Dafydd is a hellish clumsy murderer; in that the ‘hot’, precocious young producer is once again ‘killing it’ having ‘dropped’ a mighty fine new track.

You may remember his first break surfaced around two years ago with the release of ‘No Good’, a very James Blake-esque track featuring sampled Amy Winehouse vocals, but executed with a tidy and slightly disturbing aplomb.

After a quiet 2012 the boy from Wales has returned with two mighty fine cuts; ‘Celwydd’ that hit the Internet earlier this year and now with ‘Llonydd’ (roughly translated as ‘still’). Both are to feature on a vinyl compilation collated by Recordiau Lliwgar, with both of Dafydd’s tracks using vocals by Alys Williams where he effectively treats the vox as an instrument as is the trend du jour these days (see Lapalux for a further masterclass in this area). On the basis of these two hugely exciting turns coupled with past form in terms of original tracks and remixes, the young Welsh producer is one of the most promising talents in the electronic scene in UK right now.

The compilation that includes songs by some of Wales’ leading artists is out now in double 10″ form. Get it from Recordiau Lliwgar.

Last year Tokyo-based artist Cuushe released gorgeous EP Girl/You Know That I am Here/But the Dream, an almost concept series of tracks centred around the idea of dream states. Literally putting the dream in dream-pop.

Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi is now returning with new work that follows a similar hypnagogic strand as seen in ‘I Love You’, a track of mellifluous whimsy that immerses itself in various genres, all cotton-shoegaze and ambient-pop, with the result a warm fragile fantasy clasped in the palm of your hand. Most likely to soundtrack The Science of Sleep if played through Super 8 projected onto a cloud. Or it may just replicate the feeling of being stoned surrounded by monged-out bears (well based on the album artwork). It comes from a forthcoming as yet to be named album that is set for a release on July 8th via Japanese-label Flau.