Tag Archives: This Thing

New Music

Listen: Kane Ikin – Warehouses

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Here’s the title track from Kane Ikin’s forthcoming cassette EP, which is due to release through This Thing on March 26. Judging by the sound of ‘Warehouses’ I’d hazard a guess that it was recorded in one, and if it wasn’t then Ikin is very good at simulating the barren production line motions you’d associate with one.

I like this track because it seems to reverse the hauntological aspects of mid ’00s UK garage and dubstep, and the sensation of hearing a pumping underground warehouse rave from several blocks away, or on the way to the night bus. On ‘Warehouses’ it’s the opposite: you’re inside and the party is everywhere else, obscured by the functions within.

The tape’s mastered by Mikey Young and is available now.

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New Music

Listen: Crescent remixes Kanye West’s ‘Mercy’

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Didn’t think an opportunity to cover Kanye West on Crawlspace would ever present itself, but here we are: Melbourne producer Leon Crescent has remixed West’s ‘Mercy’ for his forthcoming IRL cassette, which is due to release through This Thing on April 16. There’s some pretty obvious juke influences here, but I’m not certain how far they extend beyond this initial remix, because the other three tracks on IRL are still shrouded in mystery.

According to whoever wrote up Crescent’s press release, this producer’s style is exemplary of a more stream-of-consciousness strand of footwork called ‘housework’, a mutant strain which I know nothing about and is impossible to Google. Have a listen and call it what you want.

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New Music

Listen: Baba-X – Hold You Tight

babaxHere’s a strident new track by Baba-X, the Melbourne producer who also works with Zanzibar Chanel and Pink Notes. He delivered something a bit more sedate last year in the form of ‘Deeper Than Night’, but the track at hand pillages old trance tropes – rising, modulating stabs that reach for explosive climaxes –  and combines them with gridlocked, though neatly detailed 4/4s. The track’s wholehearted embrace of its trance elements reminds me of last year’s severely underrated Fostercare LP. Whatever the case, this isn’t really representative of Baba-X’s sound as a whole, but then, none of his tracks are.

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New Music

Listen: Galapagoose remixes Wooshie

wooshieRemember Wooshie’s Boyfriend Material EP from last year? It was a limited run cassette through This Thing, the label/collective that Dylan Michel (that’s Wooshie fyi) founded a couple of years ago. You can still download Boyfriend Material for a couple of bucks here, but the subject at hand is a remix of ‘Song For My Father’ by fellow Melbourne producer Galapagoose. The remix captures the tranquil urban mood of the original, but renders it even more tranquil and probably a bit less urban. Whatever the case, it’s very nice. It’s also very cheap, at $0.00.

Wooshie is playing the launch of Electric Sea Spider’s debut LP Supercash later this month. We’ll be talking more about Electric Sea Spider in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, look at the event and say you’ll be going to it. It’s good to be organised.

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New Music

Listen: Baba-X – Deeper Than Night

This is some very luxurious but faintly ominous deep house by Melbourne producer Baba-X. He has a new digital and cassette release called Sounds of the Concrete Forest Vol. 3, which runs the gamut between that ubiquitous variety of post-Dilla instrumental hip-hop and tracks like ‘Deeper Than Night’, which is embedded below. I prefer the latter, with its faint purplene glow and city-at-dusk smog haze. Don a pair of headphones and watch Akira with the sound down while listening to this.

Baba-X is the project of Luis Cran-Lawrence, who also performs/produces under the titles Pink Notes and Zanzibar Chanel. He’s part of that //This Thing// cabal, which also boasts Wooshie, Andras Fox and Thomas William among plenty of others. If you want the tape get cracking, because it’s limited to 50 copies.

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