Spring is finally here, and many of us are finally experiencing those invigorating sunrays on our skin — always wearing +50SPF, of course. As March comes to a close, it means that the first trimester of the year is past behind us, which might be a good time to do some self-reflection. Because, let’s face it, life is stressful and we don’t have enough time to catch up with all the new releases. In order to keep up to date, we’ve rounded up five electronic music records that you may have missed, including Brutalismus 3000, Darkside, Ela Minus, Marie Davidson, and Wata Igarashi.
City of Clowns by Marie Davidson
The Canadian DJ and producer kicked off the year with this jaw-dropping ten-track album that we have been listening to on repeat. It’s dark, high-energy, and somewhat claustrophobic — the best place to dance it would be a Berlin-style bunker club. However, humour also plays an important role in songs like Push Me Fuckhead or Sexy Clown. Inspired by the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Shoshana Zuboff, Marie Davidson puts sound to her concerns and worries, including human exploitation, loss of privacy, and authoritarianism.
Nothing by Darkside
They’re baaack! The band originally formed by Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington, which has added drummer and instrument designer Tlacael Esparza to the team, first made us fall in love with them in 2011. But they’ve been kind of… irregular — their debut album, Psychic, came out in 2011, and the second one, Spiral, in 2021. Anyway, Darkside published their third studio album, Nothing, at the end of February, and are currently on a US tour. In their own words, this nine-track LP reflects “a search for form borne out of spontaneous elliptical jams, acoustic riffing, and digital levitations.”
Día by Ela Minus
“It's an album of ascent, of trying to grasp the darkness, to find a way through and strength to keep going,” Ela Minus commented on an Instagram post the day she published Día, her sophomore LP. Throughout ten songs, the Colombian artist reflects on fame and idolatry, the end of times, nihilism, and alienation. Alarming lyrics that reflect her feeling of unrest due to the catastrophic era we’re living in blend perfectly with top-notch production and incredibly layered basslines.
Goodbye Salò The Remixes by Brutalismus 3000
In today’s world, having over a million monthly streams on Spotify is equal to a successful career. But numbers and figures, as FKA Twigs argues in her latest music video, are pointless; what really matters is the art. If Berlin-based duo Brutalismus 3000 can enroll giants as Underworld and Amnesia Scanner, as well as acclaimed newer artists like DJ Gigola, The Dare, Bazzazian, and Victoria into their EP of remixes for 20204 record Goodbye Salò, then that means they truly are successful. Whether you’re a fan of the original or not, you’re in for a treat; get ready to sweat and dance tirelessly till the sun rises.
Kaleidoscopic EP by Wata Igarashi
Right off the bat, Wata Igarashi’s record gives you the confidence to get loose. In his new four-track EP, the Japanese producer crafts a world of layers and sounds that range from acid techno to samples of his natural environment (crashing waves, swooshes of wind, etc.). Put together masterfully, Igarashi is able to give listeners a rich listening experience, asking us to get lost in all the little details that make up this complex EP.