From Bath, now based in Glasgow
Recommended if you like Porter Ricks, Basic Channel, Robert Hood
Up next Manchester and Glasgow DJ sets this weekend, a China and Japan tour in November, and new collaborative project Department releasing an album in November
As autumn paints the British air, skies and seas grey-white, it’s time to colour-match your soundtrack accordingly. Dub techno is something I always reach for at this time of year, cold but with a crackle of heat at its heart. Pioneered in the early 90s and blending stern techno with kindlier ambient and the sagely nodding offbeat of dub, it has been a deep, slow current in dance culture ever since and still has excellent new proponents such as Purelink, Cousin and the Glasgow producer Conna Haraway (who also heads up the labels co:clear and Index:Records).
Following his debut album Lusidiq in 2023, Haraway has released two superb EPs this year. Spatial Fix is an unhurried 35 minutes, opener Freon riding a tropical trip-hop take on usually frigid dub techno, before a grayscale veil of static drifts on to the rest, closing out with the gorgeous dancehall of Patent.
The three-track Shifted, meanwhile, is released on Short Span, a new label from Matthew Kent (much admired for his 2010s mixtape label Blowing Up the Workshop) that has been pushing dub techno forward this year, releasing outstanding LPs from Mammo and Sa Pa. Haraway’s entry in their discography opens with Redirect (a collab with fellow ambient-tech traveller Xenia Reaper), which feels like running your hand over the cool, subtly textured surface of slate tiling. Then it’s into Detach, a gripping four-four track that’s the most club-ready of those mentioned here, followed by Duration, in which trippy phasing effects are kept in orbit by a nimble syncopated beat. The subtle swing to Haraway’s beats, and the tactility to his sound design, build deep layers into this misty, majestic music. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
This week’s best new tracks
Peaches – Not in Your Mouth None of Your Business
“I cannot be squashed or minimised!” As they prepare their first album in a decade, out next year, Peaches declaims an awesome manifesto for queer resistance over a fist-raising electroclash beat. BBT
This Is Lorelei – Name the Band
Another perfectly turned pop gem from one half of Water from Her Eyes: a crunchy, 90-second bedroom anthem about the hurt of hurting someone by accident, brimming with boyish feeling. LS
Dexter in the Newsagent – I Told Ya
London pop-R&B artist Charmaine Ayoku has a spring in her step over this cute, bumping beat, as she realises she’s dating someone she doesn’t even really like and shrugs them off with breezy self-determination. BBT
Lala Lala – Does This Go Faster?
“Hell is the day after the party,” sings Lillie West on the kind of wistful, bumping indie-pop dreamer that feels like the kind of moment that should last for ever. LS
Armand Hammer and the Alchemist – Super Nintendo
Over a beautifully noodling synth melody Alchemist has sampled from God knows where, Billy Woods reflects on time’s passing and Elucid delivers a stunning verse of surrealist poetry, his flow summed up by his closing line: “Grew peculiar and wild, style cast shadow like sundial: ta-dow!” BBT
Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore – Melted Moon
Anchor yourself with something heavy before listening: the combined beauty of two of modern composition’s most celestial-sounding musicians may induce transcendence. LS
Steve Hauschildt – Dividua
Once a member of esteemed kosmische band Emeralds, Hauschildt extends his solo career with a beautiful new album, Aeropsia. Dividua is like an extended trance breakdown, a cloud of glittering sound with thunder menacing its edges. BBT
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